‘What do you think caused my lord’s horse to bolt yesterday?’ I asked them. ‘Master Plummer thinks the animal was frightened by a whistle from someone in the crowd, it being highly strung and therefore volatile.’
The man called Alfred snorted. ‘I’ll tell thee this for nowt,’ he said, in an accent so thick that to my West Country ears it sounded almost like a foreign language. ‘Great Hal’s nay s’ highly strung as that Master Plummer, flittin’ in and out, hoppin’ around like a flea on a griddle, askin’ a hundred bludy questions and nay list’nin’ to the answers. Here!’ He led me to one of the stalls and opened the door, indicating by a jerk of his head that I should follow him inside, where the bay, Great Hal, was peacefully foraging in his manger. In spite of this I approached the hindquarters of the spirited beast with caution.
The groom named Wat now joined us and it was he, pushing his obviously younger colleague aside, who ran an experienced hand across the beast’s left buttock, close to the tail.
‘See here,’ he urged. ‘If you look carefully where my finger’s pointing you c’n just make out a smear o’ dried blood.’ I peered closely and sure enough a tiny scab, no bigger than a pinhead, was visible among the short, stiff hairs of the glossy coat. ‘That’s what made him bolt, isn’t it, old fellow?’ And Wat caressed the horse’s neck with a loving hand. The animal paused briefly in its feeding and whickered a soft greeting through its nostrils.
There was silence. Then I said slowly, ‘You’re telling me that someone deliberately goaded Great Hal into bolting? Well, it’s no more than I expected. That shrill whistle alone is unlikely to have unsettled him, but a sharp jab in his rump would almost certainly have upset a mettlesome animal such as this. Did you inform Master Plummer of your find?’
‘We would’ve, reet willingly, if he’d only stayed to inquire. But he were off, like a hare when t’dogs are after it, once he’d satisfied hisself that girth’d been tampered with. Seemingly that were all he needed to know. We hadn’t properly examined Great Hal by then. And Master Plummer’s not returned here since for any further answers.’
I thanked them and left, deep in thought. I was convinced in my own mind, although it would be a difficult thing to prove, that the whistle had been a signal. From Ralph Boyse perhaps? He had been amongst those who had lined the causeway and I was growing increasingly mistrustful of this son of a French mother who most surely had not been where he said he was during Duke Richard’s sojourn at Northampton.
My mind went back to Berys Hogan and Lionel Arrowsmith. I recalled how everyone had warned Lionel of impending trouble, of Ralph’s jealousy, if he persisted in paying court to her. Yet those warnings had proved false and Berys herself, who must know the temper of her betrothed as well as anyone, had seemed unconcerned by the threat of Ralph’s anger. There was something about their actions that worried me, but it was like trying to see to the bottom of a pond through muddy water.
My thoughts harked back to the events of yesterday, coupled with what I had just learned. If the whistle had been a signal, then for whom had it been intended? Only someone close to the Duke, someone in his immediate retinue, could have pricked the horse’s rump and made it bolt. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized that this presented me, and of course Timothy Plummer, with an entirely unexpected problem, for neither Jocelin d’Hiver, Humphrey Nanfan nor Stephen Hudelin had been amongst those riding behind Duke Richard.
As I approached, I could see that the market square was still full of people, the sweating soldiers still waiting for Duchess Margaret to emerge from the Hotel de Ville. Red-faced Sergeants-at-arms, as weary and uncomfortable as their men, bawled conflicting orders, the horses neighed and stamped their feet, while the townsfolk irritably tried to get on with everyday living. High above, the sun shone down relentlessly, making this the one truly hot day we had had since our arrival in Calais. To my right a flag-paved courtyard was sliced in two by shadow thrown by the transverse section of a roof. A bench ran along one wall of the houses which surrounded this little haven of peace and silence and I noticed that the building facing me was a tavern. I became conscious of an overpowering thirst. Within minutes I was seated on the bench, out of the sun’s glare, swallowing the contents of a mazer.
When I had drunk to the dregs, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, leaned my head against the wall behind me and gave myself up to despair. I was no nearer an explanation of events than I had been when first approached, more than two weeks ago, by Timothy Plummer. It was now the sixth day of July and the Eve of Saint Hyacinth was more than five weeks distant. Long enough for desperate men to make a further, and perhaps this time successful, attempt on Duke Richard’s life. Two had been made already and I was as far as ever from solving the all-important question – why? I stretched my legs out in front of me and, having assured myself that no one was watching, I began muttering to myself as I ticked off on my fingers such fragments of the puzzle as I possessed.
Of all the five suspects presented for my consideration, and known by Timothy and Lionel Arrowsmith to be working for other masters, one had been cleared by my own observation, while of the remaining four Ralph Boyse appeared to me to be the most definitely implicated. His whereabouts during the first attempt on the Duke’s life had never been established and, although this could also be said of the other three, it was only Ralph whom I had so far detected in a blatant falsehood. Why had he begged leave of absence from the Duke in order to visit a sick kinsman in Devon when he had obviously never visited the county? No one who had ever seen that rich, red earth would agree with the suggestion that it was chalky. Yet even if Ralph were indeed in the pay of France, as Timothy, Lionel and now I myself all thought him, what possible reason could the French have for wanting Richard of Gloucester killed? From the beginning, Timothy had been at pains to point out the unlikelihood of any such wish. King Edward, perhaps, as the sole instigator of this projected invasion; but Duke Richard’s death, like that of his brother Clarence, could surely avail them nothing.
I shifted my position on the bench, let my hands drop into my lap and closed my eyes. A ragged cheer from the market-place, followed by the renewed barking of orders, indicated that Duchess Margaret and her brothers had at last come out from the Hotel de Ville, and that she was now ready to be conducted to her lodgings. I stayed where I was however. Tomorrow I should be one of those accompanying her back to St Omer. I should see all I wanted to see of the lady then. Meantime, there were other matters needing my consideration.
Chapter Seventeen
They were small things, really, not mentioned to Timothy Plummer because, on the face of it, unconnected with the threat to Duke Richard’s life. Nevertheless, they bothered me. The lack of any real enthusiasm for the forthcoming war displayed by King Edward at last Saturday’s banquet in Baynard’s Castle; the fleeting yet significant glance that I had intercepted between him and John Morton, his Master of the Rolls; his reported indifference to the fact that his brother-in-law and chief ally, the Duke of Burgundy, instead of coming to greet him and join in a council of war, had dashed off to besiege the little town of Neuss; all these things, for some reason, made me uneasy.
Added to them was the memory of that furtive party of cloaked and hooded men leaving King Edward’s Calais lodgings the night before last. Who were they? And what had been their mission? Above all, was there a connection between them and the Frenchman whose voice I had heard through the crack in the courtyard wall, imparting a message which, I was fully convinced, had been intended for Ralph Boyse…?