The subject of her thoughts broke in on them at that moment, clambering up to the highest point of the walls and smiling as he saw her.
‘Your Royal Highness!’ he cried. ‘I heard you were up here. I tell you my heart’s in my mouth at the thought of you falling to your death. I think it would mean war within the year, all from a loose stone or a single slip. I’d be happier if you’d accompany me back to the ground. I think the guards would be as well.’
He came up to her and took her arm gently, trying to steer her back to the closest set of steps heading down. Margaret felt a spike of irritation and refused to move.
‘My lady?’ Derry asked, looking wounded.
‘I won’t fall, Master Brewer. And I’m not a child to be shepherded to safety.’
‘I don’t think the king would be happy at the thought of his new wife on these walls, my lady.’
‘Really? I think he would be perfectly happy. I think he would say “If Margaret wishes it, Derry, I am content,” don’t you think?’
For a moment, they both glared at each other, then Derry dropped his hand from her arm with a shrug.
‘As you say, then. We are all in God’s hands, my lady. I did see your husband this morning, to discuss matters of state that cannot be ignored. I hesitate to suggest he misunderstood something you said to him, but he told me to seek you out. Is there something you would like to say to me?’
Margaret looked at the man, wishing William were there and wondering how far she could trust Derry Brewer.
‘I am pleased he remembered, Master Brewer. It gives me hope.’
‘I have documents that he must seal, my lady, today if possible. I cannot answer for the consequences if there is another delay.’
Margaret controlled her anger with some difficulty.
‘Master Brewer, I want you to listen. Do you understand? I want you to stop talking and just hear me.’
Derry’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Of course, my lady. I understand. I just …’
She held up a hand and he fell silent.
‘I have sat with my husband as he met noble lords and men from his council, this Parliament of yours. I have watched them present their petitions and discuss his finances in great detail. I have seen you come and go, Master Brewer, with your armfuls of documents. I have witnessed you guiding Henry’s hand to place the wax and the royal seal.’
‘I don’t understand, my lady. I was there when we arranged to send a fortune to your mother. Is that the source of your concern? The king and I …’ Once more Derry halted the torrent of words as she raised her hand.
‘Yes, Master Brewer. I too have called on the king’s purse. You do not need to bring it up. He is my husband, after all.’
‘And he is my king,’ Derry replied, his voice hardening subtly. ‘I have dealt with him and aided him for as long as you have lived.’
Margaret felt her nerve begin to fail under the cold stare. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat and her heart pounded. Yet it was too important to let go.
‘Henry is a good man,’ she said. ‘He has no suspicions, no evil in him. Will you deny it? He does not read the petitions, or the laws he must sign, or if he does, he only glances at them. He trusts, Master Brewer. He wants to please those who come to him with their tales of woe or terrible urgency. Men like you.’
The words had been said and for the first time Derry looked embarrassed, breaking her gaze and staring across the walls and moat to the Thames meandering past. Beyond the water gate under St Thomas’s Tower, there were boats out there, dredging the bottom with long hooked poles. Derry knew that another pregnant girl had drowned herself off London Bridge the night before. A crowd had seen her holding a swollen belly as she climbed over the edge. They’d cheered her on, of course, until she dropped and was swallowed by the dark waters. The boatmen were looking out for her corpse, so they could sell it to the Guild of Surgeons. Those men paid particularly well for the pregnant ones.
‘Your Highness, there is some truth in what you’ve said. The king is a trusting man, which is all the more reason to have good men around him! Believe me when I say I am a careful judge of those who are allowed into his presence.’
‘A guardian, then? Is that how you see yourself, Master Brewer?’ Margaret found her nervousness disappearing and her voice strengthened. ‘If that is the case, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Do you know your Latin, Master Brewer? Who guards the guards?’
Derry closed his eyes for a moment, letting the breeze dry the sweat that had broken out on his forehead.
‘I didn’t hear much Latin round my way, my lady, not when I was a boy. Your Highness, you are just fifteen years old, whereas I have kept the kingdom safe for more than a decade. Do you not think I have proved my honour by now?’
‘Perhaps,’ Margaret said, refusing to give way. ‘Though it would be a rare man who took no advantage from a king who trusts him so completely.’
‘I am that man, my lady, on my honour I am. I have not sought titles or wealth. I have given all my strength to him, for his glory and the glory of his father.’
The words seemed to have been dragged out of Derry as he stood with his hands splayed, resting on the stone wall. Margaret felt suddenly ashamed, though there was still a whisper of suspicion that Derry Brewer was not above manipulating her as easily as he did the king. She gathered her resolve.
‘If what you say is true, you will not object to my reading the documents that come before Henry, will you, Master Brewer? If you have the honour you claim, there can be no harm in that. I asked Henry for his permission and he granted it to me.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course he did,’ Derry said sourly. ‘You’ll read it all? You’ll submit the fate of a kingdom to the judgement of a fifteen-year-old girl with no training in the law and no experience of ruling more than a single castle, if even that? Do you understand what you are asking and the certain consequences of it?’
‘I did not say I was asking, Master Brewer!’ Margaret snapped. ‘I told you what the king of England said. Now you may disobey his command or not, depending on whether you wish to continue in your role — or not! Either way, yes, I will read it all. I will see every document, every law that comes for my husband to seal in wax. I will read them all.’
Derry turned to her and she saw fury in his eyes. He had been reeling ever since King Henry had refused his request that morning. Refused! He had asked the king to look over a sheaf of documents and the man had shaken his head in what seemed like genuine regret, directing him to ask his wife. Derry could still hardly believe it. It seemed there had been no mistake, he thought grimly.
Margaret stared back, daring him to refuse her. After a time, Derry bowed his head.
‘Very well, my lady. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you what this means.’
They went down the steps together to the main grounds, as busy with soldiers and staff as a market day in any large town. Derry led the way across the crowded sward and Margaret followed, determined not to give up the least part of what she had won, whatever it turned out to be.
The White Tower was the oldest part of the fortress, built in pale Caen stone from France by William the Conqueror almost four centuries before. It loomed above them as Derry waved her up the wooden stairs that led to the only entrance. In time of war, the stairs could be removed, making the tower practically impregnable to assault. Inside the massive outer walls, she and Derry passed sentries and went up more stairs and through a dozen chambers and corridors before he halted at a thick oak door and turned the handle.
The room beyond was filled with scribes. High above the rest of the fortress, under the beams of a pitched roof marked in centuries of soot, they sat and scratched on vellum or bound scrolls in ribbons of different colours, passing them onwards and downwards to their superiors. Margaret’s eyes widened as she saw piles of parchment stacked to the ceiling in a few places, or waiting to be moved on upright wooden trolleys.