There was a slight pause before the final entertainment, which, I gathered, was to be the masque, and I took the opportunity to glance around the hall searching for Murdo MacGregor and Donald Seton. But I was unable to locate them; hardly surprising considering the crush of people standing along the walls behind the row of benches. What was surprising, however, was the discovery, on looking over my shoulder, that Davey Gray had disappeared. He had been dancing the most assiduous attendance on his master all evening, only stepping a few paces from Albany’s side when he needed to relieve himself behind one of the wall-hangings. But now there was no sign of him. I presumed that, at long last, he had been given permission to go and eat.
The Master of the Revels, who had been fussing about, instructing the lackeys where to place various candelabra and a number of artificial trees — whose leaves glowed with the green fire of emeralds — now approached the high table to announce the start of the masque. This, it seemed, was to take the form of a forest glade, where animals, nymphs and wood sprites cavorted and sang hymns to the great mother goddess, Earth, and her consort, the Green Man. And the moment that latter name was mentioned, I knew at once what mask it was that my assailant had been wearing. The glimpse had been fleeting, but I could see again in my mind’s eye the sprouting foliage from the mouth and the leafy eyebrows and hair.
I waited impatiently for the masque to progress while the mummers in the animal heads leaped around pretending to be rabbits and foxes, hares and stags. Then the nymphs and wood sprites, naiads and fauns added their bit to the general jollification, harping and singing until it fairly set my teeth on edge. But finally — and not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned — Mother Earth arrived in the form of a buxom, large-bosomed lady, trailing blue, brown and green draperies and attended by her consort, the Green Man.
I had not been mistaken. The mask was the same as the one that had loomed over me as I lay sprawled on the steps. Fleeting as the moment had been, I was ready to swear to it had anyone asked me. But there was something wrong. The mummer playing the part was a big, well-fleshed man, half a head taller than his equally robust dame, whilst the impression I had gained of the person who had knocked me down was of a short man, of no more than middling height, if that. After mulling the problem over for a minute or so, I reached the conclusion that there were either two players of the part in the mummers’ troupe or that the mask had been borrowed. A few more seconds of cogitation led me to discard the former theory: with a Mother Earth of such generous proportions, it was unlikely that a small man would have been chosen to act as her partner. So someone else had borrowed the mask, but to what end?
The masque drew to its inevitable close. The pagan revellers, suddenly confronted by a woodland hermit were brought to acknowledge a greater force in nature than themselves and bowed down before the simple wooden cross which he took from around his neck and held up for them to worship. Then they advanced to the high table and made their obeisance to the king as representing God’s Anointed on earth, after which, they skipped off to the loudest applause of the evening and carrying by far the heaviest purse. Without asking Albany’s permission, I made my way to the corner of the dais, jumped down and followed them into an ante-room of the great hall.
Here, the chaos was very much as the kitchener had described it to me; shrill voices of self-congratulation drowning out others’ less complimentary remarks; actors and mummers, in various states of undress, preening themselves on a job well done; the master of the troupe sitting quietly apart, counting out the contents of the king’s purse into little piles of coins on top of a clothes’ chest; several people posing and posturing in front of a mirror of polished steel that had been set up in one corner of the room for their use.
In spite of the press of bodies, it didn’t take me long to locate my quarry. The ‘Green Man’, mask discarded, was struggling out of the leafy hose and tunic which had formed the rest of his costume. I wriggled my way through to his side.
He looked at me enquiringly.
‘I come from His Grace, the Duke of Albany,’ I lied. ‘He wishes me to congratulate you on a part well performed.’
The man straightened himself to his full height. Ignoring the fact that he might appear ridiculous in nothing but his under-shift, he made a magnificent bow.
‘His Grace is a man of taste and discernment,’ he announced in a deep, sonorous voice, which attracted a few covert sniggers from his fellow players.
‘For my own part,’ I went on, braving his wrath, ‘I thought you were a little late on your first entrance. Oh, not by much,’ I hastened to add, as his chest swelled with indignation. ‘But just by the merest fraction.’
‘And what would a mean fellow like yourself know about it?’
‘Mother Earth’, now attired in a sober grey woollen gown, who had been listening jealously to our exchange, interrupted us to say, ‘You were late, Clement. I noticed it myself. I was well into the centre of the floor before you condescended to make an appearance. You should have been beside me when we left this room and accompanied me all the way to the “glade”. It wasn’t good enough on such an important occasion.’
The man called Clement turned on her furiously. ‘Well if you know who’s stolen my best mask, you can save your reproaches for him.’ He picked up the one he had been wearing and dangled it by its strings. ‘This is only my second best. I was still hunting for the other right up to the moment of our entrance, and even so I had to go on without it. And it’s still missing.’
The woman was immediately all concern.
‘Oh, that’s too bad!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a beauty, that other one. I thought something didn’t look right about you. “Not enough foliage,” I remember thinking to myself at one point, but there was so much else to be worrying about, I didn’t give it more’n a passing thought. Come and speak to Matthew,’ she added, nodding towards the man counting the money. ‘If someone’s playing a stupid prank, he’ll soon give ’em short shrift.’
They went off together, arm in arm, animosity and professional jealousy forgotten. I went back to my post behind Albany’s chair.
By the greatest of good luck, he and Lord Hastings had been so deep in a ribald assessment of ‘Mother Earth’s’ physical charms that he had failed to notice my absence. Not so the page, who whispered in my ear, ‘And where’ve you been?’
I spun round. ‘So you’re back, are you? And suddenly you can speak English. Well, understandable English.’
‘Oh, I’ve always been able to speak English,’ Davey replied in that cool, light tone of his. ‘It’s just that I don’t always choose to. Where have you been?’
‘I might ask you the same question.’
He smiled his sweet, effeminate smile. ‘There’s no mystery about that. His Grace sent me to the kitchens to get something to eat. Unlike yourself, I don’t go wandering off on my own, but wait until I’m bidden. It’s easy to see that you’ve never been in service to the nobility. Which raises the question why exactly are you here?’
There was a slightly contemptuous note in the young voice that flicked me on the raw. I longed to tell him the truth, but managed to bite my tongue. Instead, I retorted with equal contempt, ‘You ought to listen more carefully, Davey, when your royal master speaks. He told you, I heard him, when I first joined the household in London, that I’m his personal bodyguard. It’s my job to protect him from harm. He fears his brother’s assassins.’
‘He has good reason,’ the page nodded, adding, ‘Well, mind you do protect him, or it will be the worse for you.’
Before I could take exception to this threat, the king rose from his seat, announcing it was time for bed, and everyone else rose with him. Albany turned and beckoned to me at the same moment that his two squires emerged from a doorway at the back of the dais. Davey fetched a couple of torchbearers to light us all back to the royal chambers where James Petrie was waiting to assist his master to undress, while I took the opportunity to divest myself of the hated yellow shoes, hose and amber tunic, stripping down to my shirt and climbing in beside Albany in the massive four-poster bed. The page dragged his own truckle-bed from underneath it, assured himself that the ‘all-night’ of bread and ale had been placed on the table next to his master, pulled the curtains around us and bade us goodnight. Donald Seton and Murdo MacGregor likewise made themselves scarce, leaving the bedchamber for the ante-room where they both slept.