I was not impressed when he did turn up to inspect Bessy. His accent somehow combined Welsh, French, and an anxiety to be rid of both. His clothes hung awkwardly on his scrawny carcass, his red hair was thin and straggly, and he had a tight, mean mouth. You understood why he kept his lips so close when you saw his teeth, which looked as if they’d been picked out in yellow and green paint. He struck me as the sort who’d steal the pennies from the eyes of a corpse.
To make matters worse, he pulled out a harp from behind his back and sang some ghastly song. I almost crawled under the bed, but Bessy smiled, and praised him, and generally made every possible effort to please. She was good at that sort of thing. Not that it made him hasten back for more of her company, because it didn’t. There is an apt, two word description for a man like Tudor. Ignorant is the first part. The expletive of your choice is the second.
My brother Edmund, Bishop of Rochester as he then was, paid me a visit.
‘Well, Sister,’ he sighed, ‘you are in trouble, aren’t you? This is the price you pay for abandoning our family’s traditional loyalty to the House of Lancaster.’
I pushed my embroidery aside and made room for him to sit next to me.
‘Edmund,’ I said, ‘do you by any chance recall that fellow, King Edward, who gave you your bishopric? Did you not notice that he was ever-so-slightly Yorkist in sympathy? Besides, whatever Henry Tudor is, he is certainly not the senior Lancastrian heir. The King of Portugal springs to mind as one of the many with a superior claim. So don’t give me any crap about your love for Lancaster. You’re just going with the flow.’
‘Tudor is the man in possession,’ he grunted. ‘People are not bothered with obscure questions of genealogy. Parliament is certain to acknowledge his title to the throne.’
‘Parliament could vote me to be Queen of Sheba,’ I observed, ‘but it wouldn’t make me so by right. I’d still be plain Alianore Beauchamp in the eyes of any sensible person. What’s your business here? I do hope you haven’t come to gloat. I can’t cope with that. It might just make me regard you as my brother, rather than my spiritual father, and suggest a part of your body into which your mitre could be suitably inserted.’
‘I don’t particularly wish to have a brother-in-law hanged for treason,’ he said. ‘It will not do anything for my career prospects under the new set-up. Believe it or not, I would rather like to help you.’
‘Don’t be absurd!’ I snorted. ‘How can Roger possibly be accused of treason?’
‘You’re obviously unaware that King Henry dates his reign from the day before Bosworth. Therefore, all who fought against him there are liable to be adjudged traitors.’
‘A low trick,’ I said, ‘worthy of the man, and of the company he keeps. And you are actually prepared to work for a crook like that?’
‘I do not think that this line of discussion is particularly profitable. You would do well to adopt a more positive attitude, and consider how you can be of assistance to the new administration in its task of rebuilding our country. You can begin by helping to establish the whereabouts of King Edward’s sons.’
‘Surely that’s common knowledge. King Richard had them murdered.’
He put on his spectacles, and made a point of consulting a paper. ‘That is not what you told Bishop Morton at Brecon Castle.’
I shrugged. ‘I was lying. When you’ve been involved in intelligence work for a week or two, Edmund, you’ll realise that the occasional lie is a necessary tool of the job.’
‘How do I know that you’re not lying now?’
‘You don’t. That’s what makes it interesting.’
‘Alianore,’ he tutted, ‘you have always been impossible. Kindly attempt to bear in mind that your husband faces attainder, the loss of all his lands, and a stretched neck. With all the refinements added in a case of treason. You do understand why this issue of the Princes is important, don’t you?’
I nodded. ‘Tudor must be spending big money having Bessy declared legitimate again. Popes do not come cheap. But if she’s legitimate, her brothers are no less, and it’d comfort his little mind no end to be quite certain that they’re dead. I’d have thought he’d be digging up the Tower staircases by now. That’s where rumour said Richard had them buried. Perhaps Tudor knows better.’
Edmund did not answer that. He just sat there wearing an awkward expression.
‘If it will help Roger’s case, I’ll be delighted to co-operate,’ I said. ‘The fact is that I can’t tell you much that your little pals don’t already know. Morton had young Ned murdered in Flanders, and Dickon ran off into hiding. I’ve no idea where he is now, or whether he’s alive or dead, and I’m ready to swear it on any stack of relics you care to wheel through the door.’
‘I hope you will not repeat your slander against Bishop Morton,’ he warned me, shaking a finger. ‘He is now Chancellor of England.’
‘Look, Edmund,’ I sighed, ‘you have got to tell me whether it’s the truth you want, or a pack of lies that will please friend Tudor. I’ll give you either, or both, if it’ll save Roger. In prose, or in rhyming couplets. Just say the word.’
He went off in a fearful huff. I still can’t understand how I managed to upset him.
I learned many useful things during my time in Yorkist Intelligence. One of them was how to remove a seal from a letter, and put it back without anyone knowing about it. You heat up a thin, sharp knife. (The sort that men use in battle to thrust through the eye of a fallen enemy is just the job.) You slide it under the wax, very, very carefully. Then, when you want to put the seal back, you apply just enough heat to melt the wax again without destroying the impression, and press it into position with your thumb.
Once you’ve learned the trick, it’s easier to do than to describe, and you never forget the art. I’ve just had occasion to undertake the advanced version of the trick, which is to transfer a seal from one letter to another. In this case from a letter which Humphrey Berkeley sent to Roger about some business, to a letter which Berkeley doesn’t know that he’s written. Luckily, his hand is not difficult to imitate.
Now I sit in my solar and wait, the knife close to hand in case my boys are not as subtle or as skilful as I like to think they are.
As I was riding through our park yesterday, I could not help noticing my son, Rick, busy in the long grass. I’m not quite sure who it was that he was swiving – I couldn’t see much of her, apart from her knees – but I suspect it was my young laundress, Matilda. I really must have a serious word with that lad. His sort of behaviour sets a very bad example for the servants, and in any case, he should show more consideration. A good laundress is hard to find, and I don’t want to go wandering around the hiring-fairs looking for another because he’s put mine out of commission.
Nor do I particularly want Matilda’s father hammering on my door. He’s a miller, up by Stroud, a very large and red-faced chap with the sort of voice that carries to Gloucester and back. Of course, I can soon have him thrown off the manor, but not without unpleasantness, and not without Roger getting to hear of it. Rick’s card is already marked in that quarter, and at one point he was sent from home for twelve months until he begged pardon. He can’t really afford to cross his father again, although it’ll be difficult to get this over to him.
When I reached the far north end of the park, I found that the palisade had been broken down, and there was every sign that some of our deer had been driven out, and others killed on the spot. Roger and I have never worried about the odd bit of poaching, especially if it gets a family through a winter, but this was more than that. The work of a gang. A mounted gang at that, which always means that the gentry are involved. Starving folk do not own horses.