She whispered back, keeping her head down. “But surely Adrian won’t be standing at the docks just waiting for us?”
“That,” grinned Nicolas, “depends on whether this is simply an innocent desire to meet with me, or a complicated trap. He may not wait at all, since I sent no message in return to his invitation.”
“Or there’ll be some respectable gentleman tapping his foot impatiently – the real Sir Berendon Baker.”
“In which case,” Nicholas nodded, “I shall tip the wretch into the Thames for having dragged me out in the rain for no reason whatsoever.”
It was the great blanketing shadow of the Tower beyond the loading bays that blocked out the sunshine and turned the river cold. Ships too tall to pass beneath the Bridge, stopped before it, and at Bilyns Gate three cargo ships, high masted carvels, were tight roped to the quay. The two wooden cranes cranked, unloading crates and bales. A swarm of traders pushed forwards, shouting, waving, each man concerned for his business and the cargo he had come to inspect. Their carts waited and the sumpters, heads patiently bowed, flicked their tails in the drizzle.
There was no immediate sign of Adrian, nor of his henchmen.
The noise hemmed in the dockside, one wall of busy warehouses behind, ropes thrown, streaming seawater, caught, and tied. Calls from deck to shore, calls from crane drivers to those carters waiting, calls from customs officials to ships’ captains and from captains to wherrymen. The smells, sweet to some, were of brine and ocean weed caught on barnacles, cargos of fresh fish, dyed and treated hides and barrels of wine. The customs’ wherry dodged the bow waves, heading out to those cogs waiting in line, a queue of three mid river, more ships hoping for space alongside the bay once their cargo had been cleared, their ballast dumped, their dues paid, and bribes carefully passed below deck.
Nicholas raised his voice over the bump and thud of one wooden hull to another and the complaints of those fearing damage to their gunwales. The crack of wet sail to mast, quickly lowered, the whine of sudden wind in the halyards and the thump of the boom. “The Cock Inn first,” Nicholas called. “Steaming hippocras, and a dry place to wait without being too quickly seen.”
The small alehouse was set back, a busy place for traders celebrating deals and for others waiting for ships overdue. Leaving their horses in the small stable barn at the back, Nicholas edged through and found a tiny table in an annexe, half private, seated his wife on the low bench and pulled up a stool for himself. The noise was larger than the space. Alan leaned back, elbow to the wall. David strolled off to order light ale, strong beer, and hippocras, if they had any, for the lady.
It was some time later when they realised that David had not returned. Emeline and Nicholas had been discussing their return to Chatwyn Castle. Not Adrian, not Henry Tudor, not the possible threat to national security, nor even the problem of what to do with Sysabel. It was dreams of an orderly future that seemed attractive now. “Whatever happens,” Nicholas said, “and whatever my wretched cousin decides to do, I’ll not stay much longer in Westminster. The king’s in Coventry anyway, before heading up to Nottingham Castle.”
Emeline was breathing in the sweat and stale beer from an alehouse overflowing around them. “Will we be able to move into the Keep again then, and will you have your own bedchamber back, Nicholas?”
“Not even fire can turn my childhood home to ruin.” He shook his head, smiling again. “It’s stood for five hundred years through war and pestilence and storm, protecting our family as well as it might. My forefathers and their forefathers have always lived there. Continuity, a sense of the land and the people, farming and hunting. Home. The castle will protect you too, and you’ll be the mistress of it all.”
She watched the animation sparkle in his eyes. “Yet so many of your memories there are – sad.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t enter the nursery tower for years afterwards… But it’s not just memories. There’s a sense of belonging. And it’s more now. The inheritance for our sons.”
“All ten of them?”
He hadn’t heard her. “The castle gleams like polished brass under the summer sun. The battlements rise stark against a blue sky, the gatehouse walls drop sheer to the moat, golden stone reflected in the water, ripples as the swans dip, tails up, fishing. The calling of the frogs in the long evenings, the cries of the kestrels in the mornings. The banners fluttering like little wings in the breezes, the glass mullions echoing the dawn blinking dewy over the hills, the creak of those huge iron hinges as the outer doors open, welcoming me home.”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered, “you loved it that much. It must hurt, then, to remember the fire and the ruin.”
But at that moment, interrupting very quietly, Alan said, “My lord, ’tis some time, I reckon. Too long. Is Witton brewing the ale himself, then?”
Nicholas stood at once, his stool scraping back. “Watch the lady. Whatever happens, Alan, stay with her. If it’s dangerous, take her to St. Magnus and then join me.”
“Are you armed, my lord?” Nicholas wore no sword and no obvious weapon.
“Don’t be a fool,” Nicholas said, and strode out into the larger chamber. Within a breath, he had gone.
Emeline stared at Alan Venter. “I’m all right,” she said quickly. “You should follow his lordship.”
Alan shook his head. “Not yet, my lady. I’ll obey orders as always.”
Nicholas did not waste time searching the crowded alehouse. David would not have stood patiently waiting to catch the landlord’s eye nor a waiter’s attention. Outside the drizzle had turned to a fine veil of scattered silver for the sun had dulled, breaking through the clouds only in fragments. Those glimpses steamed the damp shoulders of his cape. Nicholas skirted the edges of the Bilyns Gate harbour where the warehouses towered and the alleys between lay in constant shadow. He crossed to the steps leading down to the water where the wherries bumped, unloading travellers, collecting those aiming for the Southwark side, and taking those both buying and selling upriver.
A thickset man was standing at the foot of the steps, looking across at a fishing cog rolling in from the estuary and the Narrow Sea beyond. Nicholas recognised the man’s back, his hunched belligerence and his dark red cape over solid soled boots.
Nicholas stood above on the quayside, looking down. He called, “Not planning on buying fresh fish for your supper I’d warrant, Mister Prophet.” The man turned in a hurry, scowling up. Nicholas nodded, smiling. “Awaiting the arrival of some messenger from France, I presume? Or perhaps even scouting out a vessel suitable to carry your master into Henry Tudor’s welcoming embrace?”
“My lord?” The man shifted uncomfortably, half an eye up to the dockside, the other across to the fishing cog.
“And your master’s friend, Sir Berendon,” asked Nicholas, “where might I find him?”
Francis Prophet flushed beneath his hood. “Not for me to say, my lord. Nor have I heard of any such gentleman. I’m here – to meet someone, sir, and must ask you to excuse me. I’m on business which cannot wait.”
“Codfish?” Nicholas smiled, staying where he was. “Sole? Or simply herrings, Mister Prophet? Or perhaps – just perhaps – a cargo of secret information?”
Hearing footsteps behind him, Nicholas expected the voice. “Can’t leave well alone, even now, cousin?” Adrian demanded. “What brings you here, of all places?”
Nicholas turned slowly, “Why, you, my dear, who else? I received your message, after all. Was it not intended to bring me here?”