She was going, moving towards the Lud Gate, saying something over her shoulder to Amphillis who nodded and walked off in the opposite direction without, fortunately, once glancing my way. The crowds had thinned to almost nothing and I was highly visible. I turned quickly to find a place of shelter, tripped and was caught by someone’s steadying hands.
Piers Daubenay and I stared at one another.
‘Roger?’ he queried uncertainly. ‘Wh-where have you been? I haven’t had sight nor sound of you for nearly three days. Not since you left the Boar’s Head.’
He was very pale, and the bruising down the left-hand side of his face, although it was beginning to fade, was still prominent, making him look as if he were wearing a half-mask. I remembered the cockerel’s mask of my assailant and once again knew a niggle of doubt. Whether or not Piers saw it, I don’t know, but he suddenly embraced me, saying with genuine warmth, ‘It’s so good to see you again. But, I repeat, where have you been?’
I didn’t answer, instead asking abruptly, ‘Where’s your aunt?’
‘Rosina?’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t know. Still with Sir Pomfret and Lady Fitzalan I presume. Why?’
Once more, I avoided the question and countered with one of my own. ‘Do you recollect once saying to Master Plummer and me that you reckoned she was a witch? Were you serious?’
He stared at me for a long moment before bursting out laughing. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘There’s always been something a bit odd about her. .’ His voice tailed away and the laughter faded. He regarded me doubtfully. ‘What’s wrong, Roger? Something’s happened. What is it? Perhaps I can help with what’s troubling you.’
But I wasn’t really listening; at least only with half an ear. Enlightenment had suddenly dawned, breaking over me in a great, crashing wave. I seized Piers by the shoulders, opening and shutting my mouth like a stranded fish. He stared at me as though I had taken leave of my senses, and who could blame him.
He pushed my hands away and backed against the nearest wall. ‘Roger, what’s the matter? Are you ill? Shall I fetch help? There must be a physician hereabouts.’
‘No, no!’ I managed to get out. ‘I’m quite all right. It’s just. . It’s just that suddenly I know who that woman is, where I’ve seen her before. I know where Gideon is being held! Sweet lord! What a fool I’ve been!’
I dragged Piers with me to Crosby’s Place, but there was no getting in to see the duke. He had other, far more important matters to concern him now than the fate of one young boy. Moreover, the place was crammed as sycophants and time-servers flocked to swear their allegiance to the future king. For who could any longer doubt that it would be Richard III, not Edward V who would go to his coronation in Westminster Abbey before many more weeks had passed?
I was unable to find either William Catesby or Francis Lovell, either of whom might have taken a message for me to His Grace. I didn’t doubt but that they were there somewhere, but all my requests for someone to convey a message to them fell on deaf ears. I was equally frustrated in my attempts to locate Timothy Plummer. No one knew where he was or what he was about, only that he couldn’t be found and that no one could be persuaded to seek him out.
‘Take yourself off, you great oaf,’ one of the stewards snapped. ‘Can’t you see that you and your petty concerns are of no importance here?’
‘This is a child’s life I’m talking about,’ I yelled, losing my temper, but the man had already gone, bustling away through the press of bodies in answer to a summons demanding his immediate attention.
Piers grabbed my arm and pulled me outside into the equal chaos of Bishop’s Gate Street Within. All the world and his wife seemed to be congregated in the roadway, and, finally, in desperation, I allowed him to steer me free of the crowds into the comparative Sabbath calm of the Poultry, where he forced me to sit down on the edge of a water trough.
‘Now,’ he begged, ‘for God’s sake, will you tell me what this is all about? Because not another step do I stir until you do! You’ve already dragged me halfway across London, running me off my feet till I’m so out of breath that my heart feels near to bursting, and with nothing more than a few garbled words and phrases I can’t make head nor tail of.’
I stood up, pushing aside his restraining hands. ‘Where can we hire a couple of horses?’
He choked with exasperation. ‘Will you answer? Oh, never mind! We don’t need to hire horses, you fool! Our own — the ones we came to London on — are in the stables at Baynard’s Castle. Eating their heads off most likely.’
Of course! Dolt that I was, I had forgotten them. My brain simply wasn’t functioning properly, so filled was it with my momentous discovery. For it was as though God had suddenly taken pity on me and, tired of trying to jog my memory, had hit me over the head with a truncheon.
Amphillis Hill’s companion was none other than the woman I had encountered at the homestead west of London, on my way home to Bristol all those weeks ago; the woman with the young daughter and the unprepossessing husband. And the vicious dog so like the dead Beelzebub. Was she a member of the Sisterhood? I had no proof, but I was willing to wager a considerable sum of money that she was. I was also willing to wager that the homestead was where Gideon Fitzalan was being held prisoner.
I had hoped to convince Timothy of my reasoning and persuade him to raise a posse to go with me to the farmhouse, but more momentous events had intervened. I should have to go alone unless Piers would accompany me. But first I should have to tell him all that I had discovered, and time was running short. Tomorrow was Midsummer Eve and if what I feared were true, Gideon would have to be moved to the capital before nightfall. I could hardly ask Piers for his help on so dangerous a mission without putting him in full possession of the facts.
I sat down again on the edge of the water trough and indicated that Piers should do the same.
When he had done so, his face alight with curiosity, I patted his hand and said, ‘What I’m going to tell you, lad, you will probably find hard to believe. Indeed, you may refuse to believe it as both your aunts are involved.’ I hesitated for a second or two, then went on, ‘The reason you haven’t seen me for the past three days is because someone tried to murder me.’ He gasped and half rose from his seat, but I pulled him down again. ‘We don’t have a lot of time, so just sit still and listen. And however much you want to, don’t interrupt me until I’ve finished.’
It was growing dusk before we finally sighted the homestead in its sheltering dell. For this, several factors were responsible. Firstly, Piers, understandably, but infuriatingly, had required a great deal of convincing that I wasn’t making the whole thing up; that I hadn’t accidentally fallen into the river after drinking too much ale at the Boar’s Head on Thursday, and that my mind hadn’t suffered as a consequence. Secondly, by the time he was at last persuaded of the truth, it was well past dinner time and he insisted on eating, declaring that no one could be expected to face danger on an empty belly. Thirdly, getting free of London was a nightmare, the normal traffic being engorged with troops of mounted men who suddenly seemed to have sprung from nowhere and who were themselves constantly hampered by groups of agitated and excited citizens discussing the morning’s events in the middle of the roadway. And fourthly, it had taken me a considerable while to locate the house again, being unable to recall exactly where I had originally turned off the main track and taken to the bypaths. Moreover, the bright June day had grown overcast and the light had faded early.
And then, suddenly, just as I was desperately wondering if I should ever find the place again, there we were standing on the tree-lined ridge, looking down at its daub-and-wattle walls and roof of twigs and brushwood. This evening, there were no hens scratching for food in the courtyard, but I could hear the pig snorting and snuffling in its sty. I dismounted, indicating that Piers should do the same, and we tethered the horses to a tree a few yards further back and out of sight of the house.