He waited a beat, but Henry’s eyes remained blank and guileless. For an instant, Derry believed he saw something like compassion, though he could equally have imagined it.
‘Your Grace?’ he said again. ‘I fear this is a plot aimed at the royal line itself. If they force Lord Suffolk to reveal the details of the truce in France, he will say the truth, that it was by royal order. After the losses there, such an admission will aid their cause, Your Grace.’ He took a slow breath, forcing himself to ask a question that shamed him. ‘Do you understand, Your Grace?’
For a time, he thought the king would not respond, but then Henry sighed and spoke, his voice slurred.
‘William would not betray me, Master Brewer. If the charge is false, he should be released. Is that the truth?’
‘It is, Your Grace! They seek to blame and kill Lord Suffolk, to placate the mobs of London. Please. You know William cannot be put to trial.’
‘No trial? Very well, Master Brewer. I know …’
The king’s voice faded and he stared with dull eyes. Derry cleared his throat, but the face remained utterly still and slack, as if its guiding spirit had been snuffed.
‘Your Grace?’ Derry said, glancing up at Margaret in confusion.
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes so that they shone.
The moment passed and Henry seemed to return, blinking and smiling as if nothing had happened.
‘I am weary now, Master Brewer. I would like to sleep. The learned doctor says I must sleep if I am to be well again.’
Derry looked at Margaret and saw her anguish as she gazed down on her husband. It was a moment of shocking intimacy and it surprised him to see something like love there as well. For a moment, their eyes met.
‘What do you need from your king, Master Brewer?’ Margaret asked softly. ‘Can he order William’s release?’
‘He could, if they would honour it,’ Derry said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I don’t doubt the order will be delayed, or William taken to some dark place where I can’t reach him. In Westminster, Tresham and Beaufort have a great deal of power, if only because Parliament pays the guards. Please, my lady, let me think for a moment. It is not enough to send a written order to free him.’
He hated to speak of Henry while the man himself sat there and watched him like a trusting child, but there was no help for it.
‘Is His Royal Highness well enough to travel? If the king took a barge to Westminster, he could walk into the cells and no one would dare to stop him. We could free William today, before they have done too much harm.’
To his sorrow, Margaret shook her head, reaching down to touch Derry’s shoulder, then drawing him aside. Henry’s head turned to watch them, smiling innocently.
‘He has … suffered this … vagueness for days now. He is as well as I have seen him, at this moment,’ Margaret whispered. ‘There has to be some other way to get William out of their clutches. What about Lord Somerset? Is he not in London? He and William are friends. Somerset would not allow William to be tortured, no matter what charges they have brought.’
‘I wish it were that simple. They have him, Your Grace! I can hardly believe he was such a fool as to give himself up to them, but you know William. You know his sense of honour and his pride. I gave him the chance to run, but instead he came meekly, trusting that his captors were men of honour themselves. They are not, my lady. They will either bring down a powerful lord who supports the king, or … the king himself. I don’t know yet exactly what they intend, but William …’
His voice trailed off as a fresh thought struck him.
‘There is a way to avoid a trial, I think! Wait … yes. They cannot put him to the question if he admits guilt immediately, to all the charges.’
Margaret’s brow furrowed as she listened.
‘But does that not play into their hands, Master Brewer? That is surely what this Tresham and Cardinal Beaufort want!’
To her confusion, she saw Derry smile, his eyes glittering. It was not a pleasant expression.
‘It will do for now. It will give me a little more time and that is what I lack most. I have to find where they have put him. I have to reach him. Your Highness, thank you. I will fetch Lord Somerset from his home. I know he will help me and he has his own men-at-arms. Only pray that William has not been tortured already, for his honour and his damned pride.’
He knelt again at the bedside of his sovereign, bowing his head to address Henry once more.
‘Your Grace? Your palace at Westminster is but a short boat’s journey away. It would help William if you were there. It would help me.’
Henry blinked at him.
‘No beer from you, Brewer! Eh? Doctor Allworthy says I must sleep.’
Derry closed his eyes in frustration.
‘As you say, Your Grace. If it pleases you, I will leave now.’
King Henry waved a hand and Margaret saw Derry’s face had grown pale and strained as he bowed slowly to her and then clattered out of the room at a run.
In the Jewel Tower, across the road from the Palace of Westminster, William paced the room, making the thick oak boards creak with every step. The room was cold and bare beyond a table and chair placed for the light to fall across it. Some perverse part of him felt it was only right that he should be confined in such a way. He had been unable to stop the French army. Though his men had butchered or maimed thousands of them, they’d still been forced back to Calais, step by bloody step. Before he’d left, he’d seen his men winching up the Calais gates, closing the ancient portcullis and lining the walls with archers. William smiled wearily to himself. At least he’d saved the archers. The rest fell on his head. He had not resisted when Tresham’s men came to arrest him. His guards had touched their swords in question but he’d shaken his head and gone quietly. A duke had protections from the king himself and William knew he would have the chance to deny the charges against him.
Staring out of the window, he could see both the king’s palace and the ancient abbey, with its octagonal Chapter House. The Commons met there, or in the Painted Chamber in the palace. William had heard talk of giving them some permanent place for their debates, but there were always more pressing issues than warm seats for men from the shires. He rubbed his temples, feeling tension and not a little fear. Only a blind man would have missed the anger and threat of violence he’d seen ever since touching the land of his birth. He’d ridden fast through Kent, at times in the same tracks as large bodies of soldiers. When he’d stopped for the night at a crossroads inn, he’d heard nothing but stories of Jack Cade and his army. The owners had thrown hostile glances William’s way all evening, but whether he’d been recognized or not, no one had dared to interrupt his progress back to the capital.
Turning away from the view, William resumed his pacing, clasping his hands tightly behind his back. The charges were a farce to anyone who knew what had truly gone on that year and the one before. He was certain they would not stand, not once the king was informed. William wondered if Derry Brewer had heard of his confinement. After the warning he’d sent, it amused William to think of Derry’s disgust at his decision to come home anyway, but there had been no real choice. William straightened his back. He was the commander of English soldiers in France and a duke of the Crown. For all the disasters he’d witnessed, nothing changed that. He found himself thinking of his wife, Alice. She would know nothing except the worst rumours. He wondered if his captors would let him write to her as well as to his son, John. He did not want them to worry.
William paused in his slow tread as he heard men’s voices on the floors below. His mouth firmed into a hard line and the knuckles showed white on his clasped hands. He stood waiting at the top of the stairs, almost as if he were guarding the room. Without conscious thought, his right hand moved to clutch at the empty space where his sword would usually sit.