I vaguely recalled the Duke of Albany once saying something similar which, at the time, I had dismissed as spite. But maybe the Scot had known his cousin better than I had thought.
Before I was able to make any rejoinder, however, the door to the ante-room opened and the page ushered in Godfrey and Lewis Fitzalan. Neither appeared to be in a very good humour.
‘What’s all this about?’ the former demanded truculently, addressing me and ignoring Timothy. ‘Lewis and I have told you everything we know concerning our nephew’s disappearance, chapman.’ I noticed wryly that I was no longer worthy of the courtesy of ‘Master’. ‘The Protector has work for us to do. We can ill be spared at this present.’
His twin nodded in agreement.
Timothy rose majestically to his feet. In spite of his lack of inches, he could impose his presence on a room when he was so minded.
‘I think you’ll find, sirs,’ he said, ‘that His Grace regards your nephew’s abduction as a serious matter, and one which he is very anxious to have resolved. He’ll be extremely displeased, take it from me, if you fail to give Master Chapman — ’ was there the faintest emphasis on my title? — ‘all the help he needs.’
Godfrey flushed angrily and Lewis looked resentful, but they nevertheless stood aside respectfully for the spymaster to leave the room, which he did with magnificent aplomb. Fortunately, neither noticed the wink he gave as he passed me.
‘Well, master,’ Godfrey asked impatiently as the door closed behind Timothy, ‘what do you want to know?’
‘I want to ask if either one of you can think of anything — anything at all, however trivial — that might account for Gideon having been taken? Ransom is clearly not the reason, therefore why him? Whoever snatched him was prepared to go to the length of killing the person he was with in order to make certain of his abduction.’
The brothers seemed somewhat taken aback by this request, but after a moment or two, when I thought they were going to laugh it to scorn, they relented and gave it their serious consideration. In other words, they hummed and hawed a lot and screwed up their faces to give the impression that they were doing a deal of thinking, but all without any result. I don’t really know that I had expected any, but there had always been a faint chance that one of them might dredge up something, some little known, half-forgotten fact, from the depths of memory.
It was a forlorn hope.
‘The truth is that neither of us had much to do with Gideon,’ Lewis admitted at last.
‘Better acquainted with his brothers,’ Godfrey added.
‘Although not much,’ his twin amended. ‘Oddly enough, we’ve no children of our own, but our five brothers more than make up for our lack. We’ve a whole flock of nephews, Master Chapman — ’ he was careful to address me formally, but there was a derisive gleam in his eyes — ‘and keeping track of them all is difficult.’
Godfrey nodded his agreement. ‘You’d do much better to talk to Bevis or young Blaise. They’re the two of Pomfret’s brood nearest to Gideon in age.’
‘Unfortunately,’ I said, ‘they are no longer at Baynard’s Castle. They’ve gone to attend upon the king in the royal apartments at the Tower.’
‘Surely there’s no problem with that,’ Lewis protested. ‘You seem to have the ear of the duke, or at least of that pompous little spymaster of his. I’ve no doubt you could obtain the necessary authorization to speak to the boys if you wanted to.’
This had already occurred to me, and as it was obvious that I should get nothing from the twins of any value — indeed, it had been plain from the start that they knew of nothing that could help me — I let them go and went to seek out Timothy. He, however, had vanished to attend to business of his own, and my request to other ducal officials for a word with the Lord Protector was treated with scorn. It was the lawyer, William Catesby, last seen by me (although he did not know it) in a house in Old Dean’s Lane, who came to my rescue. Overhearing yet another of my pleas to an over-officious lackey, he took me in charge.
‘Come with me, Master Chapman. I know who you are and I know that His Grace will wish to see you.’
I was unaware of it at the time, but I later learned that this unassuming man had just been made Chancellor of the Earldom of March, but I should never have guessed it from his demeanour. His quiet friendliness was in stark contrast to the brusque treatment I had suffered at the hands of inferiors. Within a very short space of time, I was being ushered once again into the duke’s presence.
He came forward to greet me, hand outstretched, and as I knelt to kiss it, I was conscious of an air of suppressed excitement about him. Looking up into his face, I noticed a glitter in his eyes that I could not remember ever having seen before. He had lost his usual pallor and seemed suddenly taller. In spite of his lack of height, he dominated the room.
‘Roger! Have you solved this mystery for me? Do you know what has happened to young Gideon Fitzalan?’
‘Not yet, my lord. But,’ I added, thankful to be able to report some progress, ‘I do know how Gregory Machin’s body came to be found in a locked room.’
He waved me to a chair and sat down himself, listening attentively while I explained the details to him. He always had the ability to concentrate on one thing at a time, no matter how many others were vying for his attention. When I had finished, he took a deep breath and nodded.
‘Now you put me in mind of it, I believe I have heard of such cases. Death is not instantaneous even though the wound is fatal. Well, that would appear to be one part of the mystery solved. But where is Gideon Fitzalan? His uncles tell me that no ransom has been demanded of his father.’
‘No, my lord. Why he has been taken is as great a riddle as where he is being held. Which is why I am asking for your authority to question his brothers. They are at present at the Tower, in attendance upon the. . the. .’ For some reason, I was totally unable to pronounce the word ‘king’.
‘The lord Edward,’ he finished for me.
My gaze jerked up to meet his. The eyes glittered more than ever and the thin lips curved into a triumphant smile. And yet it was the same sweet smile that I had always known. I realized then that he truly believed himself to be the rightful king. And in my heart, I agreed with him.
But I knew that there were hundreds who wouldn’t.
FIFTEEN
Ihad never before seen the Tower at close quarters, although it dominated much of the London skyline. As, of course, it was meant to. Like everything that was built on the orders of William of Normandy it stressed Norman domination over the conquered Saxon. Throughout the kingdom, these great castles and fortresses were intended to let us know who was the master and who the serf, and woe betide anyone who ever forgot it. I had said to Etheldreda Simpkins that surely after five hundred years we were all one people, and she had scoffed at this idea. And she was right. The divide, however subtle, was always there, and maybe always would be.
Armed with Duke Richard’s authorization, written at his dictation by his secretary, John Kendall, I obtained easy access to the royal apartments, passed from one guard-post to the next without so much as a raised eyebrow, and was finally left kicking my heels in a small, barely furnished room while an usher went in search of Bevis and Blaise Fitzalan. Staring out of the window at a stretch of sun-washed greensward and a magnificent beech tree in full leaf, I thought back to my recent interview with Duke Richard and realized that events were gathering momentum. It could not be long now until he made his intentions public and claimed the crown. Twelve weeks had elapsed since the death of the late King Edward and the acclamation of his young son as Edward the fifth, and now the lad’s reign seemed to be drawing to a close. What would happen to him and his siblings? In particular to him and his younger brother, the Duke of York? Or should one even call the boy by that title any longer? ‘May you live in exciting times,’ was generally held to be a curse. I was beginning to think that it was true. .