The sun was setting on another day without a decent meal. There had been some monks giving out rounds of hard bread and ladles of water to the crowd. Rowan had blessed them for their kindness, though that had been hours ago. He felt his tongue had thickened in his mouth and his father hadn’t said a word since then. With the sun creeping towards the horizon, they’d joined a queue that bustled and wound through the moving crowds, heading always to a group of burly men guarding the entranceway to a ship. As the light was turning red and gold, Rowan helped his father along the last few steps, knowing they must look like beggars or the damned, even in that company.
One of the men looked up and winced visibly at the two gaunt scarecrows standing and swaying before him.
‘Names?’ he said.
‘Rowan and Thomas Woodchurch,’ Rowan replied. ‘Have you a spot for us?’
‘Do you have coin?’ the man asked. His voice was dull with endlessly asking the same questions.
‘My mother has, in England,’ Rowan said, his heart sinking in him.
His father stirred in his arms, raising his head. The sailor shrugged, already looking beyond them to the next in line.
‘Can’t help you today, son. There’ll be other ships tomorrow or the day after. One of them will take you.’
Thomas Woodchurch leaned forward, almost toppling his son.
‘Derry Brewer,’ he muttered, though it scorched him to use the name. ‘Derry Brewer or John Gilpin. They’ll vouch for me. They’ll vouch for an archer.’
The sailor stopped in the act of waving the next group forward. He looked uncomfortable as he checked his wooden tally board.
‘Right, sir. On you go. There’s space still on the deck. You’ll be all right as long as the wind stays gentle. We’ll be leaving soon.’
As Rowan watched in astonishment, the man used his knife to mark two more souls on the wooden block.
‘Thank you,’ he said as he helped his father up the gangplank. The sailor touched his forelock in brief salute. Rowan shoved and argued his way into a bare spot on the deck near the prow. In relief, he and his father lay down and waited to be taken to England.
20
Derry looked out of the window of the Jewel Tower, rather than face the forbidding expression of Speaker William Tresham. He could see the vast Palace of Westminster across the road, with its clock tower and its famous bell, the Edward. Four parliamentary guards had kept him cooling his heels in the tower for an entire morning, unable to leave until the great man graced him with his presence.
Derry sighed to himself, staring out through thick glass with a green tinge that made the world beyond swim and blur. He knew Westminster Hall would be at its busiest, with all the shops inside doing a roaring trade in wigs, pens, paper: anything and everything that might be required by the Commons or the courts to administer the king’s lands. On the whole, Derry wished he could be out there instead. The Jewel Tower was surrounded by its own walls and moat, originally to protect the personal valuables of King Edward. With just a few guards, it worked equally well to keep a man prisoner.
Having seated himself comfortably at an enormous oak desk, Tresham cleared his throat with deliberate emphasis. Reluctantly, Derry turned from the window to face him and the two men stared at each other with mutual suspicion. The Speaker of the Commons was not yet fifty, though he had served a dozen parliaments since his first election at the age of nineteen. At forty-six, Tresham was said to be at the height of his powers, with a reputation for intelligence that made Derry more than a little wary of him. Tresham looked him over in silence, the cold gaze taking in every detail, from Derry’s mud-spattered boots to the frayed lining of his cloak. It was hard to remain still with those eyes noticing everything.
‘Master Brewer,’ Tresham said after a time. ‘I feel I must apologize for keeping you waiting for so long. Parliament is a harsh mistress, as they say. Still, I will not keep you much longer, now that we are settled. I remind you that your presence is a courtesy to me, for which you have my thanks. I can only hope to impress you with the seriousness of my purpose, so that you do not feel I have wasted the time of a king’s man.’
Tresham smiled as he spoke, knowing full well that Derry had been brought to him by the same armed soldiers who now guarded the door of the tower two floors below. The king’s spymaster had not been given a choice, or a warning, perhaps because Tresham knew very well that he would have quietly disappeared at the first whisper of a summons.
Derry continued to glower at the man seated before him. Before the career in politics, he knew Sir William Tresham had trained first as a lawyer. In the privacy of his own thoughts, Derry told himself to tread carefully around the horse-faced old devil, with his small, square teeth.
‘You have no answer for me, Master Brewer?’ Tresham went on. ‘I have it on good authority that you are not a mute, yet I have not heard a word from you since I arrived. Is there nothing you would say to me?’
Derry smiled, but took refuge in silence rather than give the man anything he could use. It was said Tresham could spin a web thick enough to hang a man from nothing more than a knife and a dropped glove. Derry only watched as Tresham harrumphed to himself and sifted through a pile of papers he had arranged across the desk.
‘Your name appears on none of these papers, Master Brewer. This is not an inquisition, at least as it pertains to you. Instead, I had rather hoped you would be willing to aid the Speaker of the House in his inquiries. The charges that will be laid are in the realm of high treason, after all. I believe a case can be made that it is your duty, sir, to aid me in any way I see fit.’
Tresham paused, raising his enormous eyebrows in the hope of a comment. Derry ground his teeth but kept silent, preferring to let the older man reveal whatever he knew. When Tresham merely stared back at him, Derry felt his patience fray in the most irritating manner.
‘If that is all, Sir William, I must be about the king’s business. I am, as you say, his man. I should not be detained here, not with that greater call.’
‘Master Brewer! You are free to leave here at any moment, of course …’
Derry turned instantly towards the door and Tresham held up a single bony finger in warning.
‘But … ah yes, Master Brewer, there is always a “but”, is there not? I have summoned you here to aid my lawful inquiries. If you choose to leave, I will be forced to assume you are one of the very men I seek! No innocent man would run from me, Master Brewer. Not when I pursue justice in the king’s name.’
Despite himself, Derry’s temper rose and he spoke again, perhaps taking comfort from the doorway so close to hand. It was no more than an illusion of escape, with guardsmen below to stop him. Even so, it freed his tongue against his better judgement.
‘You seek a scapegoat, Sir William. God knows you cannot involve King Henry in these false charges of treason, so you wish to find some lesser man to hang and disembowel for the pleasure of the London crowds. You do not deceive me, Sir William. I know what you are about!’
The older man settled back, confident that Derry would not, or rather could not leave. He rested his clasped hands on the buttons of his tired old coat and looked up at the ceiling.
‘I see I can be candid with you. It does not surprise me, given what I have been led to understand about your influence at court. It is true that your name appears on no papers, though it is certainly spoken by many. I did not lie when I said you were in no danger, Master Brewer. You are but a servant of the king, though your service is wide and astonishingly varied, I believe. However, let me be blunt, as one man to another. The disasters in France must be laid at the feet of whoever is responsible. Maine, Anjou and now Normandy have been lost, no, torn from their rightful owners in murder, fire and blood! Are you so surprised that there is a cost to be paid for such chaos and bad dealing?’