The Midsummer Crown (15 page)

I resumed my seat. ‘Your Grace, I only arrived in London this morning. I've hardly had time—'

‘No, no!' he interrupted sympathetically. ‘I appreciate that. But the locked room, do you consider that an insurmountable obstacle?'

With a great effort of will, I forced myself to concentrate on the matter now under discussion, attempting desperately to control my whirling thoughts which were everywhere at once, still trying to assimilate the implications and possible consequences of what I had just been told.

‘My lord, unless you believe in the agency of supernatural beings, there has to be a rational explanation. But exactly what that is, I must confess, for the moment eludes me.' His smile and nod of encouragement began to settle my mind. This was the master and friend I had known for so many years; a man of understanding, intelligence and courtesy. I went on, ‘Sir, do you know the ancient custom of the crown and the bough?'

‘I do,' said the duchess, as her husband hesitated, frowning. ‘It is, as you say, Master Chapman, a very old custom indeed, probably dating from Saxon or pagan times.' (Which, I guessed, to someone of her exalted Norman lineage, would probably amount to much the same thing.) ‘It has to do with Midsummer Eve,' she explained to the duke, ‘when people wear garlands of leaves or a spray pinned over their hearts. Someone is crowned Midsummer king or queen, just as, at the beginning of spring, a girl is selected as Queen of the May.'

‘And you think, Roger, that this custom has some bearing on the case?' As he spoke, Duke Richard's eyes met those of his wife and they both broke into spontaneous laughter. It was the intimate merriment of a couple who had known each other a very long time, the roots of whose friendship went back deep into their childhood; a couple who could read each other's thoughts as easily as if they were their own.

‘An omen,' said the duchess delightedly, and the duke nodded.

I said hastily, ‘My lord, I have no reason – no positive reason – to believe that this custom has any bearing on either the murder of Gregory Machin or on Master Fitzalan's disappearance.'

‘I understand.' Smiling, Duke Richard again rose to his feet and, for the second time, I jumped up with him. ‘You like to keep your own counsel until you suddenly astound us all with the answer. Save your protestations, my friend. You've never failed me yet and you won't now.' I groaned silently under the weight of his confidence. He continued, ‘And concerning that other matter, I know I can trust you to say nothing until it becomes public knowledge.'

‘Not even to Master Plummer?' I couldn't help asking.

‘Oh, Timothy!' The duke gave a sudden mischievous grin. ‘He knows everything. Or thinks he does.'

A beringed hand was extended for me to kiss. This time it really was the end of my audience. I was being dismissed. I knelt once more and pressed his fingers to my lips. The duchess, too, proffered her hand and as I bowed over it, I was rewarded with a glowing smile.

‘I am so happy to have renewed our acquaintance, Roger,' she said, using my Christian name for the first time.

‘And I, Your Grace.'

Timothy was waiting for me in the courtyard with the horses, now rested and fed. He was plainly agog with curiosity.

‘You were gone long enough,' he accused me. And when I didn't answer immediately, he added, ‘You must have spun a good tale, for by my reckoning you can have found out very little as yet.'

I gave him a sharp look as I mounted my brown cob, wondering if he were being disingenuous.

‘The duke realizes that,' I said. ‘It wasn't why he asked to see me.'

The spymaster raised his eyebrows. ‘No?'

'No. He wanted to know if the information I'd gleaned in France last year had convinced me of his right and title to the crown.'

Timothy sucked in his breath. ‘And you answered . . .?'

‘That whatever I thought didn't matter because it wasn't proof. But now . . .' I paused significantly. ‘But now, it seems it isn't important. Bishop Stillington has convinced the duke – and the duchess – that the marriage of the late king and the queen dowager was invalid anyway, and that all the children are therefore bastards.'

Timothy gasped. ‘He told you that?'

‘Under a promise of secrecy, of course. Although it seems it won't remain a secret for very long. If I understood the duke aright, he intends to lay claim to the throne and depose his nephew any day now.'

We clattered down Bishops Gate Street Within, crossed the Poultry and entered Grasschurch Street almost directly opposite. The June evening was edging toward dusk, the sun trailing long fingers of coral and orange and pearl as it sank towards the western horizon. Many of the night-soil workers, who preferred to get their unpalatable task over early, were in and out of the houses, clearing privies and cesspits, loading the unsavoury contents into tarred barrels which were then carted outside the city before the curfew bell shut the gates, ready for disposal the following day. The taverns and alehouses were full and, judging by the noise emanating from every one we passed, doing their usual roaring trade. There would be a good few thick heads come the morning.

Timothy remained silent, wrapped in his own thoughts, until we had crossed Eastcheap and were nearly at the turning into Thames Street. Then he said slowly, ‘He trusts you, Roger.' But then he could not help adding, ‘What made him tell you, I wonder?'

‘Well, my guess would be that he wanted to test my reaction. Duke Richard regards me in the light of his Everyman. What I feel today the world will feel tomorrow.' Even to my own ears, my tone sounded bitter.

Timothy turned his head to consider my profile. ‘And what will the world feel tomorrow?' he asked eventually. ‘Nothing to rejoice my lord's heart if the grim look on your face is anything to go by. Kings have been deposed before – the second Edward, the second Richard, the late King Henry – so why the expression of disapproval?'

I hesitated while I marshalled my turbulent thoughts. ‘They were all grown men,' I said at last. ‘Men who had reigned long enough to prove themselves inept and unfit to rule. Many people were tired of them. They weren't angelic-faced young boys who had antagonized no one. I tell you, Timothy, however much I'm convinced in my own mind that Duke Richard truly is the rightful king – if, that is, you discount Clarence's son because of his father's attainder: an attainder that could be reversed, by the way – I still believe he's making a terrible mistake. And another thing,' I added as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘all three kings you mentioned died in mysterious circumstances. Probably murdered.'

‘You're not suggesting . . .' my companion began hotly.

‘I'm not suggesting anything,' I snapped back. ‘I'm just stating a fact.'

‘I hope you didn't say all this to the duke's face!' The spymaster's anger was palpable.

‘Do you think I'm that sort of a bloody fool?' The bile was rising in my own throat. ‘But maybe I should have done. At least it would have been more honest. And if, as I think was the case, he really did summon me to Crosby's Place to test my opinion as that of the common man, then I've probably left him with a false impression.'

‘You don't understand, Roger,' Timothy said in a low voice, trembling with passion. ‘You just don't comprehend the danger Duke Richard is in, and has been in, ever since his brother died. The Woodville faction will do anything – anything, I tell you! – to get the king in their power. And that means nothing less than my lord's death, and quite probably that of the duchess and their son, also.'

‘Then he should appeal to the people,' I answered, equally low, equally passionately. ‘They don't like the Woodvilles. They never have. But deposing his own nephew and usurping the crown? No! The populace at large won't like it.'

‘Bishop Stillington can prove—'

‘They're not familiar with Stillington! He could be in collusion with the duke for all they know!'

We were both shouting by now and passers-by were turning their heads to stare. I took a deep breath. We were almost at our destination. The towers of Baynard's Castle were visible ahead of us, and it was time to call a truce. Timothy felt so, too, and held out his hand, which I grasped.

But we parted in silence as he turned his horse about to ride back to Bishop's Gate Street.

NINE

The next two days yielded nothing of any worth. By the end of the second, when I retired to my cell-like chamber for such sleep as the long, light evenings, my frustration and the hardness of the mattress would allow, I was almost ready to declare the mystery unsolvable.

On Saturday morning, half my mind still taken up with the duke's revelation of the day before and its possible consequences, I had again closely examined the room where Gregory Machin was killed, but the most minute inspection had failed to reveal anything new. There seemed to be no way the murderer could have entered from either within or without the castle if the chamber door had been bolted; and everyone concerned, plus the evidence of the smashed door, testified to the fact that it had been. I again looked closely at the bolt and its socket, two fine examples of the iron worker's art, which even the shattering of the wood with an axe had not budged; while no wishful thinking or silent prayers could make the window any wider or any easier of access than it had been the previous afternoon. It was impossible that the murderer could have lain in wait inside the chamber and then, having done the deed, escaped by that route. Besides which, the lad who had accompanied me on Friday had sworn that the shutters had been closed. Even a second reconnoitre of the window from the landing-stage offered no sudden enlightenment. No footholds had miraculously appeared on the outside wall during the night. The mystery remained as baffling and bewildering as ever.

Yet, I told myself, there had to be an answer apart from that of some supernatural power at work. And I refused, in this case at least, to believe in demons and ghosts. The reason for this certainty was hard to explain other than my conviction that God's hand was in this, as it usually was in everything I did, and that He would not pit me against unseen forces. This was a human crime and I was here to solve it.

‘All right, Lord,' I said, strolling back indoors, ‘then give me a little help.'

Why had the tutor been murdered? A few moments' reflection suggested that the most probable solution was to enable the boy to be snatched and abducted without interference from the man. But that meant Gideon Fitzalan must also have been inside the room. Had he, too, been killed? But why, therefore, had he been taken away? And why had he not made an outcry? Could it mean that he had gone willingly? Had he been a party to the plot, whatever it was?

By this time, my head was reeling, and I had decided to abandon this aspect of the mystery, going, instead, in search of the uncle, Godfrey Fitzalan, whom I managed at last to run to earth in the tilting-yard, where he was putting in a little practice with the quintain.

‘Stand clear!' he yelled as he galloped up on a showy grey and hit the sand-filled bag an almighty clout with his lance. He then turned on me. ‘Don't you know better than to get too close, you fool?'

‘I was nowhere near the thing,' I retorted angrily, and was about to trade insult for insult when I recollected that I needed the cooperation of this man and that putting up his back was not the most sensible way to go about it. ‘A beautiful hit, sir,' I toadied, despising myself as I did so.

He nodded, accepting such praise as his due, couched his weapon and dismounted, eyeing me up and down.

‘Were you looking for me?'

‘Yes, sir. I'm enquiring into the disappearance of your nephew for the Protector.'

He grunted. ‘Oh, you're this chapman fellow, are you, that I've been hearing about? Quite one of my lord Gloucester's favourites, by all accounts. Sir Francis tells me the duke sets a lot of store by your ability to solve these sorts of mysteries, so what do you want to know? And poor old Gregory Machin dead! A bad business! A bad business!'

He was very like his twin whom I had met the preceding day, with the same shock of curly brown hair and light blue eyes beneath surprisingly dark, almost black, brows. But he was not quite so tall and somewhat broader than his brother.

What did I want to know? ‘Anything you can tell me, sir,' I said after a second's hesitation. ‘Anything you think might have a bearing on Master Gideon's disappearance.'

‘Why in God's name should I have any information?' he demanded irascibly. ‘You'd do better to ask his brothers, young Bevis and Blaise.' He waved an airy hand. ‘They're around somewhere. Half the damn family seems to be here for one reason or another. And Bevis and Blaise are the two boys nearest to Gideon in age. He's the baby of Pomfret's family. You'd never have guessed that that whey-faced creature Pom married would have bred so prolifically. Seven of 'em she's produced as easily as falling off a log.' Godfrey looked glum. ‘And there's my old mare can't get one. Not for lack of trying, mind you,' he added with a lascivious wink.

I ignored this. ‘And you can't think of any reason, sir, why someone might want to abduct your youngest nephew?'

‘Gideon ain't my youngest nephew,' he replied almost gloomily. ‘He was, mind you, until a short time ago. But last month my brother Henry's new wife presented him with a bouncing boy. And Hal's the eldest of all of us, sixty-one if he's a day, and she's a third of his age, if that. My old mare says it's disgusting –' he shrugged – ‘but I don't know! If a man's up to it, well, why not? If he's able to bed a young filly, good luck to him, is my motto. But another boy! Our family runs to boys. Can't seem to get a single girl between us. Shouldn't complain, I suppose. There's many a king and nobleman who'd envy our family, I daresay.'