The duchess smiled. ‘I never forget the names of our loyal adherents. The House of York has reason to be grateful for your family’s support over the years.’ She turned to Sir Pomfret who had momentarily forgotten his troubles and was goggling at her with admiration quite as open as his brothers’. ‘You, too, I believe, have four other sons besides these two lads here and. . and Master Gideon?’
As the last name was uttered, Lady Fitzalan gave a convulsive sob, and the duchess, without waiting for a reply, took her leave on a somewhat hurried note.
‘God be with you all,’ she said, and swept from the solar as quickly as her rheumatic limbs would allow.
I decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat of my own before the bereaved father could question me further. Fortunately, Lady Fitzalan’s renewed attack of the vapours gave me an opportunity to slip away quietly while her husband’s attention was otherwise engaged. Piers followed me out.
‘A little of that caterwauling goes a long way,’ he remarked callously as he caught up with me and slipped a hand through my arm. ‘Let poor old Sir Pomfret and Mother Copley deal with my lady.’ He looked sideways at me. ‘Did you really mean what you said in there? Have you found out anything?’
I hesitated, tempted to admit the truth, but pride held me silent. ‘Perhaps,’ I said.
‘You know how the murder was committed? What’s happened to Gideon?’
I disengaged myself. ‘You ask too many questions. Listen! There’s the trumpet sounding for dinner. I don’t know about you, but my encounter with Duchess Cicely has left me extremely hungry.’
‘You’re always hungry,’ Piers laughed. And mimicking the duchess’s voice, added, ‘You’ve put on weight.’
I treated this jibe with the disdain it deserved and quickened my step, leaving him to make his way to the servants’ dining hall in his own good time. I heard him laugh as I rounded a corner.
Later that day, in the warmth of the June afternoon and to ward off the somnolence that threatened to overcome me after two large helpings of pottage followed by oatcakes and goat’s milk cheese, I left Baynard’s Castle and went for a walk through the crowded city, pausing every now and then to watch the erection of stands and decorations for the forthcoming coronation. But nowhere did I see the name Edward or any reference to the young king at all. It was almost as though he had ceased to exist. And what of his mother and sisters? They were all still in sanctuary, and I had heard no rumour that they were about to come out.
I wandered on, lost in thought and taking no real heed of where I was going until I suddenly found myself in Bucklersbury, outside the inn of St Brendan the Voyager. I was standing staring at the painted sign over the door of the saint in his cockleshell boat, wondering vaguely how I came to be there, when a hand smote my shoulder and a familiar voice spoke in my ear.
‘Master Chapman! Roger? It is you, isn’t it? I thought you’d gone home to Bristol.’
TWELVE
I turned quickly and found myself looking into a pair of bright hazel eyes beneath thinning brown hair and set in a roundish face whose smile exuded warmth and friendliness. The owner of both eyes and smile was a stocky individual, well past the first flush of youth but giving the impression of being somewhat younger than he actually was because of an irrepressible smile that lurked around the corners of his thin lips and an incongruous dimple that appeared in one cheek whenever he grinned. He wore an apothecary’s apron splashed with various intriguing stains and was bareheaded, having just dashed out from his shop across the street as soon, so he informed me, as he had spotted me through his open doorway.
‘Julian!’ I exclaimed with pleasure. ‘Julian Makepeace!’
He nodded and repeated, ‘I thought you’d gone home to Bristol,’ adding, ‘weeks ago! Indeed,’ he went on in a slightly injured tone, ‘I’d swear that Clemency Godslove told me that you had.’
‘Mistress Godslove was quite right,’ I said. ‘I did go home. And was summoned back again.’
‘By the duke? Or the Lord Protector, as I suppose we should call him now? I know you stand on terms of friendship with him.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t think I’d put it quite like that. He commands and I obey. He’s kind, considerate, but implacable whenever he needs my services. People of his rank never really make friends with folk like me, you know, and it’s a great mistake to believe that they do. They give a good imitation of doing so, but that’s all it is. An imitation.’
Julian clapped me on the back. ‘You sound bitter, my friend, but I’m sure my lord of Gloucester regards you highly.’ He jerked his head towards his shop. ‘Come in and have a stoup of ale with me if you can spare the time. I don’t suggest we go into the Voyager. You know how things are in there these days.’
St Brendan the Voyager had once belonged to Julian’s elder brother, Reynold Makepeace, and a better run inn and sweeter ale could not have been found in the whole of London. But Reynold had been accidentally killed in a brawl between some Genoese sailors, since when the place had gone from bad to worse until nowadays it was little more than a drinking den for some of the roughest denizens in the area, and the ale was calculated to give you gut-rot.
I accepted Julian’s invitation with alacrity, the warmth of the day having given me a thirst, but this was not my only consideration. I was looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with Naomi, the cosy young armful who was so plainly more than just his housekeeper. The situation intrigued me, for the apothecary could not be called a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination while she would have graced the arm of any youth in the city. But Naomi was obviously devoted to her middle-aged lover, ignoring, or perhaps more likely unaware of, the affectionate cynicism with which he regarded her. I think Julian was always conscious of the fact that one morning in the future, probably when he needed her the most, he would wake up and find that Naomi had gone.
She was as buxom as ever, tossing her head coquettishly and peeping at me from beneath her long lashes in a blatant way that made me start to sweat and Julian to grin appreciatively at my discomfort. He patted her buttocks and told her to bring some ale and two beakers to the parlour behind the shop, after which, he said, she could go and prepare some water parsnip seeds for old Master Wilson’s medicine.
‘They’re very good taken in wine,’ he informed me, ‘for relieving the discomfort of a hernia. Also, according to Pliny, for getting rid of freckles on women and scales on horses, although I’ve never tried the latter.’
The little room behind the shop was cool and dim, lit by a faintly subaqueous light on account of some heavy green glass bottles lined up on a shelf against one wall. Julian waved me to a stool on one side of the table and seated himself opposite on the other. I made some desultory enquiries about the Godsloves which he answered in an equally half-hearted fashion, the pair of us just making small talk until Naomi had brought the ale and beakers and flounced out of the room again, obviously annoyed at being excluded from the conversation.
As soon as the parlour door had shut behind her, Julian paused in the act of pouring out the ale to demand, ‘What’s going on, Roger?’
Not quite certain of his meaning, I hedged. ‘What do you mean, what’s going on?’
He gave me a quizzical look as he handed me my beaker. ‘Do you really not know? Or are you sworn to secrecy? The city’s full of rumours that Duke Richard means to depose his nephew and take the crown for himself. I thought if anyone knows the truth, you might.’
I hedged some more. ‘How ever do these stories get about?’
He smiled. ‘From servants in the palaces and great houses who listen at doors, who pick up a word here and a word there from careless masters and mistresses who forget or overlook their presence, or, as often as not, treat them as a part of the furniture. There are whispers everywhere that the forthcoming coronation will be of King Richard III and not King Edward V. I can’t believe that you of all people haven’t heard the talk.’