Although the June day had been mild, a fire had nevertheless been lit on the hearth in our bedchamber, and now one of the logs gave a dying spurt of flame as if caught by a sudden draught of air. I remembered the other small draught I had experienced earlier, but which I had attributed to my imagination. I stepped quickly around the bed, but the stout oaken door was firmly shut. I lifted the latch and pulled it open, expecting to see Davey or one of the squires sleeping across the threshold, but saw only a blanket in an abandoned heap.
I became aware of the duke at my elbow.
‘What’s wrong?’ His voice sounded shrill. ‘And where’s Davey? He was supposed to be on watch tonight.’
At that moment, the page appeared round a bend in the narrow passageway that led to the main door of the guest-house.
‘Where have you been?’ the duke demanded angrily.
‘Your grace … my lord …’ Davey stammered. ‘I’m sorry, but I had to use the privy in the yard. It’s my belly, my lord. I was feeling sick.’
Albany was grudingly sympathetic.
‘You, too? Roger here will tell you that I’ve been suffering likewise.’
‘And were you sick?’ I asked the page. ‘And how long have you been out there?’
He shook his head, as though dazed.
‘I don’t know. Some little while. And yes, I was sick,’ he added resentfully. ‘Why? Has something happened?’
Albany, still clutching his belly, turned to look at me with raised eyebrows.
I was forced to admit that, as far as I knew, nothing actually had. ‘I just thought that perhaps someone had entered the bedchamber,’ I explained. ‘Draughts,’ I muttered not very intelligibly.
‘Draughts?’
‘Yes, my lord. I was just being careful.’
Albany shrugged, wished Davey goodnight and turned back towards the bed.
‘We’d best get some sleep if we’re to be up at dawn,’ he advised, pulling back the hangings on his side of the bed, which had so far remained undisturbed.
I heard, almost with incredulity, the long, shuddering intake of breath that became a half-strangled cry of terror, and moved swiftly to his side.
‘My lord? What is it? What’s the matter?’
Albany, bereft of speech, could only point with a shaking finger. Sticking out of the bedclothes, its blade invisible, was the haft of a black-handled knife.
We fell into an uneasy slumber eventually, but not before we had both partaken liberally of the wine in our ‘all-night’ jugs and sat, huddled in conference, around the dying embers of the fire.
‘You see!’ the duke accused me in trembling accents. ‘I have not been imagining the danger that I’m in. Someone has made an attempt on my life and only by the greatest of good fortune — my feeling sick and needing the night-stool — have I avoided being done to death while I slept. And you have been trying to persuade me that I don’t need your protection.’
I was too shaken myself to think of pointing out that I, too, could have been asleep and therefore unable to avert the tragedy. My only thought was that Davey’s absence from his post had been all too opportune. I said nothing, but the same idea shortly occurred to Albany, who promptly stormed into the passageway, kicking his dozing page awake with a violence that made the poor boy jerk upright, shivering and whimpering with fright.
‘My-my lord?’ He blinked in astonishment at his master, but was still more horrified when confronted by an accusation of having deliberately deserted his post in order to leave the way clear.
‘No! No, my lord! I was sick. I told you! Something I ate at supper.’
His tearful protestations sounded sincere enough, and his white face gave credence to his claim of feeling ill, corroborated as it was by the duke’s own bout of nausea. But it would have taken a shrewder man than myself to say for certain whether Davey’s tale were true or merely a skilful piece of play-acting. The fact remained, however, that whoever had made this attempt on the duke’s life could have had no foreknowledge of the page’s possible absence from outside the door unless he were in league with Davey himself …
Then I recollected that the boy normally slept on a truckle-bed or pallet inside the bedchamber, and only lack of a bolt on the door had, on this occasion, banished him to the passage. Davey’s absence might therefore have led the killer to suppose that such was the case tonight, and he had stolen in to accomplish the fell deed as quickly and quietly as possible.
Yet surely, I thought, as I tossed and turned sleeplessly beside the duke when we had finally decided that nothing further could be gained by continuing our deliberations until morning (and having decided, also, that our assassin was unlikely to chance his luck a second time that night) the man must have heard the noise of Albany’s suffering as he retched and strained at the stool. There had been no candle burning: the light of the dying fire had been sufficient for our needs, but the hangings had been drawn back on my side of the bed and it could easily have been seen by the killer. On the other hand, a man intent on murder might well not have noticed the glow until too late. He would, of necessity, only have pulled back the bed-curtains as little possible before plunging his knife into what he imagined was the duke’s sleeping form. Realizing his mistake, and that the occupants of the room were both wide awake, he would have withdrawn with all speed to try again another day.
I rolled on to my back and stared sightlessly at the canopy above me. Something was bothering me and would not let me rest, but in the end, I fell into an uneasy slumber without resolving what it was that troubled me. And the next thing I knew, it was morning.
A careful study of the knife in daylight gave no clues as to its owner. Indeed, it was plainly a kitchen knife — one of those sharp, broad-bladed implements used primarily for cutting up meat — and could have been procured by anyone who had access to the friary’s kitchens. And who was to say that it necessarily belonged to the friary? It could have been stolen at Fotheringay, Leicester, Nottingham or at any other of the stops we had made during the past week on our journey northwards. No, there was nothing to be learned from the intended murder weapon. Nor was there any certainty that the murderer himself was one of Albany’s servants, for the Austin friars had offered hospitality to the retainers of many other lords who could not be accommodated under the same roofs as their masters; and upon enquiry I discovered that there had been very few spare corners anywhere in the buildings that night.
The duke himself seemed to have recovered the tone of his mind with surprising speed. He was almost inclined to make light of the incident except for his insistence that I was necessary to his safety and must never again consider leaving him until we reached Scotland and he was crowned king. My suggestion that last night’s happening should be reported to the Duke of Gloucester, so that extra measures might be put in place for his protection, was brushed aside.
‘And lay myself — in whom the honour of Scotland is invested — open to the ridicule of Sassenachs?’ Albany demanded indignantly. ‘Never!’
‘It was a determined, a genuine, attempt on your life, my lord,’ I argued, amazed at his attitude. ‘Neither Prince Richard nor any other English noble will think you ridiculous for making a fuss over such a matter. Do you really believe that if such a thing had happened to any one of them the whole city would not now be in an uproar in an attempt to find the would-be assassin?’
But Albany remained adamant, even going so far as to swear both Davey and myself to silence on the subject.
‘We’ll never catch this murdering bastard if we put him too much on his guard,’ he said, as we once more rode northwards just after dawn, leaving the rose-tinted walls of York behind us.
I considered him to be over-sanguine if he thought the page would keep a still tongue in his head. I wondered if Albany were truly unaware of the close bond of comradeship that existed between the late Earl of Mar’s former servants, or if he simply ignored it as an inconvenient fact. For my own part, I had no doubt whatsoever that both the squires, James Petrie and John Tullo would be in full possession of the story before many hours had passed. Indeed, it seemed to me, glancing at the faces of Donald Seton and Murdo MacGregor, as they rode alongside me, immediately behind their master, that they already knew. There was a sly expression in the former’s green-flecked eyes, and a wry twist to the latter’s usually stern-set mouth that convinced me Davey had wasted very little time in informing his fellows of the night’s events.