The only two who appeared sober and in possession of all their faculties were the King and the Duke of Gloucester; the former, I suspected, because he had a strong head for wine and could sink great quantities without showing serious ill effects; the latter because he was naturally abstemious, eating and drinking very little whilst making the pretence of doing so. As I have said before, Duke Richard, for all his love of show and finery, had a deep-seated puritanical streak to his nature which did not endear him to his robuster fellows.
Suddenly, the steward and the marshal rapped for silence with their staves, and it was seen that King Edward had risen to speak, towering over his still-seated guests. When, finally, the noise had died away, except for the occasional cough or hiccup, he flung wide his arms in an all-embracing gesture.
‘My friends! My loyal friends and subjects!’ Someone raised a ragged cheer which was swiftly hushed. ‘In less than four days we cross the Channel to our stronghold of Calais, from whence we shall mount the greatest invasion of France that Europe has ever seen!’ There was another cheer, unchecked this time. The King continued, ‘We have more men, more cannon, more siege machines, more horses than any previous English ruler has ever before had at his command.’ At this point several people started to bang enthusiastically on the table with their fists. King Edward smiled indulgently and his deep, pleasant voice rose in a crescendo. ‘I say to you that we shall do such deeds as will diminish even those of Monmouth Harry and his beleaguered band!’
The drunken apathy of a few moments before had vanished. Women, as well as men, were on their feet, shouting and cheering and embracing one another in a fervour of English pride. As the King sat down again, the Duke of Clarence reached across the Queen, pinning her in her seat, to clasp his elder brother’s hand.
‘We’ll show ’em,’ he said, with a slight slurring of his words. ‘We’ll show the bloody French! What d’you say, Dickon? We three! ’T’ll be like ol’ times again!’
From where I was standing I had a clear view of King Edward’s face, and although he smiled and nodded, I thought his look was strained and that he returned his brother’s clasp somewhat perfunctorily. He also exchanged a brief glance, so fleeting as to be barely perceptible, with a man seated further down the board who, I later learned, was John Morton, his Master of the Rolls. Meantime, Duke Richard, with a restraint which only served to underline far more effectively than Clarence’s boisterous enthusiasm his eager readiness for the forthcoming fray, was also offering his heartfelt congratulations.
‘If we have the largest invasion force ever gathered, it’s entirely due to your unstinting efforts, Ned. You’ve been tireless in raising both men and money.’
‘Nonsense!’ The King flung himself back in his chair, while his queen continued to look daggers at the Duke of Clarence, angered by his recent affront to her dignity. ‘You’ve worked just as hard as I have. Your Yorkshiremen are an army in themselves. Enough of this!’ He addressed Duchess Cicely, smiling fondly. ‘Madame Mother! Is there to be no entertainment for us?’
‘Of course!’ The Duchess turned to her master of ceremonies. ‘Let the masque begin.’
Everyone relaxed a little. Yeomen of the Chamber, Squires of the Body, servers, stewards and cup-bearers leaned thankfully against walls, wiped the sweat from their eyes and drew a deep breath as the centre of the hall was suddenly filled with a gyrating mass of masked tumblers and dancers. I was too tired to follow the story they were telling, but realized that it had to do with the animal kingdom, for every player wore the head of a beast – fox, sheep, goat and chanticleer. A farmyard piece, I thought sleepily, closing my eyes, with Reynard as the villain, up to his old tricks as usual. Perhaps the retelling of one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales as a compliment to his great-grandson.
My eyelids started to droop and it took an enormous effort of will to force them open. But the heat of the hall, my restless night and lack of the fresh air that I was used to, were taking their toll; my limbs felt dull and heavy. Twice, Stephen Hudelin, who had resumed his place beside me at the sideboard, nudged me, but both times my senses reeled and I again lost consciousness. Then a sudden raucous burst of laughter from the assembled company jerked me awake to stare stupidly about me, not quite certain for the moment where I was or what was happening. Hudelin had vanished and as I peered about through the reddish, smoky haze of spluttering torch- and candlelight, I could see no one immediately recognizable from Duke Richard’s household.
Where was Stephen? Where was Humphrey Nanfan? Jocelin d’Hiver? Ralph Boyse? Geoffrey Whitelock? A sudden sense of urgency seized me that I must locate them. And then, suddenly, I saw Geoffrey, tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed and graceful, standing just behind the King and almost leaning against his chair. His head was thrown back and he was laughing immoderately at the antics of the mummers.
Even as he did so, the King turned to speak to him, laughing also; and the resemblance between them at that particular moment was so marked that I could not help but hit upon the truth. Geoffrey Whitelock was most certainly King Edward’s son; one of his many bastards, watched over and provided for during childhood years and eventually acknowledged and taken into the royal household. No doubt Lady Whitelock, wife of a Kentish knight, had, like so many of her peers, bestowed her favours upon the King, probably with a complaisant husband’s blessing, and Geoffrey had been the result of that liaison. Little doubt, either, that the lad knew the truth about his parentage, judging by the way he dared to lay a familiar hand on King Edward’s shoulder. In all probability, that distinctive height and those handsome, golden features were often to be seen in the royal palaces, amongst the King’s numerous retainers.
In this particular case, however, Geoffrey had been found a place in the Duke of Gloucester’s household, doubtless for the very reason surmised by Timothy Plummer. He was a spy for his royal father who, no matter how much he trusted Duke Richard, nevertheless liked to be apprised of everything that went on in his brother’s household. But that the King would use Geoffrey as an instrument of murder against his own uncle was surely impossible. It had seemed to me from the beginning that King Edward would never prove to be the fountain-head of this particular plot; and now that I had realized the truth of his relationship with Geoffrey, I decided that Timothy Plummer and Lionel Arrowsmith could cease to consider the young man as a potential assassin.
And I was shown to be right almost at once, and in the most dramatic fashion.
One of the many gallants who had been making their way to the Queen’s chair, in order to pay court to her during the course of the evening, was just rising from his knees, at the same time fervently pressing his lips to the back of the white hand graciously extended to him. Such conversation of the Queen’s as I had been able to overhear whilst performing my duties had been liberally sprinkled with French words and phrases; a habit of hers, so Timothy informed me later, in order to stress her maternal family’s connection with the royal House of Luxembourg. Now, as she smiled coyly at her departing admirer, she murmured, ‘A demain! A demain!’
Demain! The realization burst on me like a lightning stroke. Not ‘demon’, not ‘demesne’, but ‘demain’. That was the single word which I had heard with any clarity the previous afternoon; the word I had been struggling to identify. The whisperers had been speaking in French, an added reason why practically nothing of their conversation had made any sense to my English ears. Those two syllables, however, had been uttered with a stressful urgency which, later, I was imperfectly to recall. Demain! Tomorrow …