The meal was drawing to an end and the servers were already waiting impatiently to clear the tables (and put away the extra trestles) preparatory to laying them again for the Duke and those people who had been invited to share his supper. As we were hastily swallowing the last morsels of food and gulping down the dregs of our wine, the steward rose and fussily banged on the floor with his wand of office. When he had everyone’s attention he addressed us.
‘Tomorrow night, His Grace the Duke of Gloucester and Her Grace, the Duchess of York, will give a banquet and masquerade in honour of Their Highnesses King Edward and Queen Elizabeth, His Grace the Duke of Clarence and other esteemed guests. All Squires and Yeomen, without exception, will be required on duty and everyone will be expected to give of his best. You will assemble here, in the great hall, tomorrow morning before breakfast, to receive your instructions.’ And with that, the steward nodded majestically and quit the hall with a slow and measured gait.
As soon as he had disappeared from view there was a general groan of dismay.
‘A pre-embarkation feast and entertainment,’ sighed Humphrey Nanfan. ‘We might have guessed. Well, I suppose we did, but hoped that either the King or my lord Clarence would play host instead.’
‘What does it mean?’ I asked in my ignorance.
Stephen Hudelin, rising from his place just across the board from us, spat into the rushes. ‘It means damned hard work, that’s what it means,’ he said.
I glanced at Humphrey, who nodded gloomily. ‘We’ll be run off our feet,’ he confirmed. ‘Meantime, we’d better get on and see that everything’s in order for His Grace’s supper. No good worrying about tomorrow until it arrives.’
The sleeping quarters for the Duke of Gloucester’s Yeomen of the Chamber was a narrow, stuffy room in one of the towers. Here, eleven of us, the ten who had come with His Grace from Middleham and myself, slept close together on straw palliasses and kept our worldly goods – razors, soap, clean shirts and so forth – in linen bags which we stored beneath our pillows. Such spare time as we had was spent, therefore, in close proximity to our fellows, so it was just as well that our duties kept us busy. (Humphrey Nanfan assured me that normal sleeping conditions at Middleham or Sheriff Hutton or any other of the Duke’s seats of residence were better than our temporary lodgings here at Baynard’s Castle; but nothing he said inspired in me the wish to give up my chosen life for the transitory importance of counting myself among the personal servants of a royal household.)
Finding that I had a few free moments between my own supper and that of the Duke, and having drunk too much wine, I went to the privy to answer nature’s call. Then, the dormitory being near at hand, I decided to change my shirt, the day having been hot and sticky and my activities strenuous. I entered the room expecting it to be full of those Yeomen not on duty, but the warm weather had tempted them out of doors to savour the coolness of late afternoon. All but one, that is, and that one was crouched low over the mattress where I slept and was rifling through the contents of my bag. So intent was he upon his task that he did not hear me enter, so I crept up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Stephen Hudelin let out a yelp and sprang clumsily to his feet.
‘I thought,’ I said grimly, ‘that you were still in the great hall, helping Humphrey Nanfan. Instead I discover you here, looking through my things. What was it you were hoping to find?’
‘N-nothing,’ he stuttered. ‘That is… I thought you’d gone to the garderobe. That’s what you said.’
‘So you decided to take the opportunity to search my bag. I repeat, for what reason? What did you think you’d find?’
‘I… I need a shave and I’ve mislaid my razor. There was… no time to ask anyone’s permission and… and so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed yours.’ A little of his confidence returned with what he considered to be a fairly plausible explanation and he added belligerently, ‘You don’t, do you, chapman?’
‘A chapman no longer,’ I answered calmly, ignoring the bait. ‘No, I don’t mind. Here!’ I stooped and picked out the razor from the pile of belongings which had been emptied on to the floor. The last thing I must do was to feed Stephen’s suspicions by even so much as hinting that I disbelieved him. ‘Take it and welcome. You’ll just have time to shave before we’re needed on duty. Do you have soap? I’ve some of the cheap, black, Bristol kind if you want it.’
He shook his head and the eyes beneath the shock of red hair seemed to burn, just for a second, with the same bright colour. I proceeded to strip off my tunic and change my shirt while he stood irresolute, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet, my razor clutched in one hand. He was trying desperately to guess what was going on inside my head, baffled by my apparent acceptance of his story and my good-natured reaction to it. Finally, he threw down the razor with an imprecation and muttered that he had, after all, decided not to shave. He stomped out of the room, flinging over his shoulder, ‘You’d better hurry! It’s almost five o’clock!’
I threaded the last of my shirt laces through the corresponding eyelets in the top of my hose and wondered exactly what Master Hudelin had thought to discover? Proof that I was not really a chapman but an agent of the Duke? (If that were so, then, ironically, he was both wrong and right at one and the same time.) And what else had he hoped to report to his Woodville masters? That somehow, somewhere, someone had got wind of their plot to murder Duke Richard?
But would the Queen’s family be so foolhardy in the first place as to try to arrange the Duke’s death? Would they dare risk forfeiting the King’s bounty and goodwill on which all their prosperity depended? And if so, what reason could be powerful enough to make them do so?
That one question, ‘why?’, haunted me, for its answer held the key to our killer’s identity. The need for the Duke of Gloucester’s death – and his death, moreover, before the Eve of Saint Hyacinth – would unlock the door to the mystery. I replaced my tunic and laced it slowly, but no sudden illumination came to lighten my darkness.
I followed in Stephen Hudelin’s wake and ran down the twisting staircase which led to the minstrels’ gallery above the great hall. On the landing halfway down, I had to flatten myself against the wall in order to allow three men-at-arms to pass me. They ascended leisurely, according me no more than a cursory glance, and indifferent to the fact that they were keeping me waiting. Behind me was a door, giving access to a small chamber which opened off the landing; and it was only when the first man, a huge fellow with broad shoulders, came abreast of me and I was forced back even further, that I realized it was ajar. It creaked inwards a fraction, causing me to stagger and cling on to the latch-handle for support before I could regain my balance. The leading man-at-arms sniggered and the other two grinned, but I was barely conscious of their amusement. I was only aware of the sudden quiet caused by the cessation of urgent, sibilant, conspiratorial whispering, which I must have been listening to for the last few moments without realizing that I was doing so. All sound had stopped abruptly with the movement of the door and I could almost hear the breath-held silence within the room behind me.
Foolishly, as it turned out, I waited for the men-at-arms to disappear around the bend in the stairs, before pushing the door wide and entering the chamber.