Выбрать главу

Intelligence reached me from a source in Lancashire, Sir Thomas Pilkington, that the captured banner had been hung up in Wigan Church. This had to be the ultimate insult. This meant war.

Roger reminded me that that was just what we had to prevent. We were there, after all, to protect the King’s interests, and the King wanted peace in the North. The King, moreover, had made it quite clear that he favoured Stanley, and that he did not want Richard’s power to increase at Stanley’s expense. (This may strike you as a lousy bit of policy, but that’s how it was. Moreover, Edward was neither the first nor the last king to go out of his way to keep Stanley sweet.)

Richard was livid. He wanted that banner back, and he wanted it straightaway. He proposed to gather together the biggest army he could muster, invade Lancashire, and take the place apart. (Or at least, those bits of the county that were owned by Stanley and his chums, a very fair proportion of the whole.)

‘This could lead to some extremely negative vibrations from London, Your Grace,’ I told him.

(In my experience it’s always wise to flash around a few honorifics when royalty has had a bad day.)

Richard had a nervous habit of twisting his rings on his fingers. At this point they were going around so quickly that I thought he was going to screw his hand off.

‘I want that banner,’ he said fiercely. ‘If you’ve any better ideas on how to do the job, Dame Beauchamp, I’m prepared to listen to them.’

Alianore, I thought, you’ve opened your big trap again. What on earth was I supposed to suggest? He stared at me, the lump on his back growing by the second. Anne kicked her embroidery frame over to create a diversion, but he didn’t even glance at her.

‘Roger and I will go over to Wigan and get it,’ I said.

Well, could you have come up with a better idea in the ten seconds allowed? If so, feel free to write your own version of the next chapter.

6

Lancashire is a desolate county, largely made up of moors and mosses. A moss, by the way, is the local name for a peat bog. Wander off into one of those and it’s a four to six shot that you’ll never come out again.

I do, of course, exaggerate a shade. There are some rich pastures and wooded hills, and the people, if you can find any, are marginally more friendly than their fellows in Yorkshire, although their speech is every whit as difficult to understand. People in the North use their words as if each one costs sixpence, and much of their meaning is carried by grunts, nods and significant glances, or by the tone of voice. It takes time for a stranger to get used to this.

We stopped at Pilkington Hall to plan our strategy. Sir Thomas Pilkington was one of Richard’s strongest supporters west of the Pennines, and no friend of the Stanleys. He’d served as Sheriff of Lancashire umpteen times, and I knew from the intelligence reports he sent me from time to time that he was no man’s fool, even if he did wear something of a glazed expression.

Sir Thomas settled us down in his hall, where we could enjoy the smoke from the fire burning in the middle of the room. They hadn’t quite got around to building chimneys in that part of the world. His daughter-in-law fetched us a tray of wine, and I realised that she was an old friend of mine, Alice Savage from Middleham. There was no immediate chance to talk because she was busy with her latest daydream and spilled half the wine down Roger. He was very charming about it, especially when Alice started to rub him down with her skirts.

‘Stanley,’ Sir Thomas said, coughing, ‘has got so many men around Wigan Church that even the priest has a struggle to get in. There’s no way that you’ll sneak that banner out of there. It’d be easier to steal the fluff out of Stanley’s purse. Why not start with something relatively straightforward, like popping over to France and persuading King Lewis to exchange his throne for a pack of lard and a Cumberland sausage? Haw! Haw! Haw!’

When Sir Thomas had stopped laughing, or coughing, or whatever it was that he was doing, Roger asked: ‘Have you some men that we could borrow to help force the issue?’

‘Certainly, my dear boy! As many as you like. Nothing I like better than a bit of Stanleybashing. Not these days, anyway!’ He slapped my thigh and started coughing all over again.

‘The idea was to avoid fighting,’ I pointed out, rubbing myself where Sir Thomas had landed his playful blow. The trouble with knights, even quite old ones, is that they have no idea of their own strength.

‘Hmmm! Devilish tricky!’ objected Sir Thomas. ‘Never understand these subtle policies myself. I was brought up in the old school. Bash the bastards as hard as you can, before they get around to bashing you. My father served Harry the Fifth, you know. Damn fine King. He knew how to bash ’em. Frogs, rebels, anyone who got in his bloody way. Take my word, that’s how to do it.’

‘We have to get the banner back,’ Roger went on, ‘and without starting a civil war in the North. My lady is right. We can’t go storming Wigan Church with an army. But I don’t know what the hell else to do, except go down there and have a look for ourselves. There may be an answer. How far is it to Wigan?’

‘Fifteen miles. Maybe less,’ grunted Pilkington. You could see the disappointment on his face, for all the world like a little boy who’d been promised a sweetmeat and then received only the cat’s share of a mackerel. He had obviously been looking forward to cleaning the rust off his battle-axe.

We borrowed one of Pilkington’s men to guide us, but it still took us the best part of the day to pick our way through the mosses. There was quite a company of us. Guy had come along, of course, and there was Roger’s esquire, Arthur, as well as a couple of yeoman servants, William and Benjamin, or Bill and Ben as we called them. These two were none too bright, but they were built on a similar scale to Roger’s destrier, and added no end to our sense of security. Lastly there was my damosel, Juliana. Juliana had a really nice line in complaining and predicting disaster, and, although she came in handy when I needed my gown lacing up or my hair braided, I could have got along without her. However, when one is the wife of a knight banneret one is expected to maintain certain standards, and one was pushing it a bit by making do with only one woman.

Wigan, I have to say, is not the centre of the universe. In essence it’s a single street, and not much of a street at that. They had a bit of a market in progress, but to be honest I’ve seen more business going on in the solar at Middleham.

The church was surrounded by men wearing the Stanley livery. As nasty a bunch of rogues as I have ever seen, and none too anxious to show strangers around. You’d have though that they had the Holy Grail in there, and the Philosopher’s Stone into the bargain. And the title deeds to France.

We put up at the alehouse nearest the church, the Eagle and Child. This was a crap hole, but it was the best crap hole in town. The place was named after the Stanley cognizance, by the way, the very badge that was worn on the arm of all those affable gentlemen around the church. Apparently some old Stanley persuaded his wife to adopt his bastard child by leaving it for her to find under an eagle’s nest in the garden. The lady, who was barren, and either very clever or very stupid, promptly obliged by taking the baby on board. (I’d have been inclined to shove it up in the nest, if only to see what he did next.)