The Midsummer Crown (8 page)

The housekeeper turned to me, looking bewildered. ‘There's nothing to tell, sir. There were no unusual happenings, nothing out of the ordinary until the sudden summons for Master Gideon to go to London to wait upon the new young king. That was a surprise, I admit. None of us had foreseen such a request, as indeed why should we? If we'd thought about it at all, we'd assumed that His Highness would have his own attendants, brought with him from Ludlow; boys who'd grown up with him and been his playmates and fellow scholars for most of his life.'

I glanced at Timothy and raised my eyebrows, but he at once gave a discreet shake of his head. There was no need, his look implied, to say more than necessity demanded.

Mistress Blancheflower meantime rattled on, ‘He didn't want to go at first. Master Gideon, I mean. And Gregory – Tutor Machin – was even more put out than he was. Carried on something dreadful about the lad falling behind with his lessons and growing up a dunderhead with his noddle stuffed full of nothing but pleasure and fine food and new clothes. That was when I saw the boy's attitude begin to change. He suddenly decided that going to London might not be such a bad thing after all as long as Mother Copley and Piers were allowed to accompany him to attend to his well-being. He wasn't best pleased, though, when he discovered that Gregory was also going with him.'

‘And Dame Copley?' I enquired. ‘How did she feel about London?'

The housekeeper cocked her head on one side, absent-mindedly jingling the keys at her belt.

‘To my surprise, she quite liked the idea. I'd expected her to complain that Gideon was too delicate – she was always dosing him with some concoction or another, poor child – and shouldn't be exposed to the foul London air. But she didn't. In the end, she was as eager to be off as he was. Although, she wouldn't have been, of course, if she could have foreseen what was going to happen almost as soon as he got there.'

Neither Timothy nor I volunteering any opinion on the matter, she finally took herself off with a parting instruction to present ourselves in the servants' hall for supper in about an hour.

‘Anyone will tell you where it is. Meantime, I'll send one of the girls with hot water for you. You'll no doubt be in need of a wash after your journey.'

She was as good as her word, a young kitchen-maid arriving shortly afterwards, staggering under the weight of a heavy pail full of gently steaming water. A little later, having washed and changed my yellow tunic for the green one with silver-gilt buttons, I knocked on Timothy's door and suggested that we spend the intervening time until supper by a turn in the fresh air.

‘I need to stretch my legs. They feel cramped from all that riding.'

Minster Lovell proved to be even bigger than I had at first imagined.. While the bakery, buttery, laundry, pantry and kitchens were all housed in the east wing, the stables, kennels and a handsome pigeon loft were located outside the main gateway. And it was while Timothy and I were idly watching the birds fly in and out of the loft, happy for five minutes or so to let our overcharged minds go blank, that young Piers Daubenay found us.

‘I saw you go out of the gate,' he said, ‘and I knew you wanted to speak to me, Master Chapman.'

I bowed to the inevitable. ‘Let's sit over here,' I suggested, moving towards a stone bench set against a wall of the outer compound. And once we were settled, I commanded, ‘Now, tell me everything you know.'

Piers grimaced. ‘It's not very much,' he admitted and then fell silent.

‘You spent one night at Crosby's Place,' I encouraged him, ‘before visiting Baynard's Castle?'

‘Yes. Master Gideon, Tutor Machin, Dame Copley and myself joined Her Grace of Gloucester's entourage earlier in the week, when she stopped here on her journey south, and we reached London and Crosby's Place late last Thursday. But the day was too advanced for us to do more than tumble into bed wherever we could find one.'

‘You didn't share Master Fitzalan's?'

‘No. Mind you, he offered. He's a kindly lad. But I don't like sharing beds with people.' Piers gave a mischievous grin. ‘They either snore or their feet smell.'

Timothy snorted. ‘A bit particular, aren't you, my lad? There aren't many who'd pass up the chance of sleeping in a soft bed instead of making shift in some corner or other.'

The boy grimaced. ‘Perhaps not. But I prefer my own company whatever the discomfort. I've told you. I'm like that.'

I broke in impatiently on this exchange.

‘So next day, you and the tutor and nurse accompanied your young master to Baynard's Castle so that the boy could meet his uncle – er . . .'

‘Godfrey,' Timothy supplied.

Piers nodded agreement. ‘And also two of his brothers, Blaise and Bevis, who are in attendance on their uncle.'

‘There seem to be a lot of these Fitzalans,' I commented drily.

‘Oh, there are. A lot of them,' my younger companion commented happily.

‘And did Master Gideon meet his kinsmen?'

‘I think so. I wasn't present, of course. Well, he wouldn't need me to say hello to his uncle and brothers, now would he?'

‘And then what happened?'

‘Sir Francis informed Gideon that he was to join the king in the royal apartments in the Tower the following day, but that we would be spending that night, Friday night, at the castle. But –' he shrugged – ‘we never did get to the Tower. The next morning, Tutor Machin was found dead in his room – his locked room – and Master Gideon had disappeared.' He was silent for a moment, biting a thumbnail, then added, ‘It must be magic. I reckon it was Mother Copley. I've always said she was a witch.'

FIVE

Timothy glanced up sharply.

‘You shouldn't say things like that,' I reprimanded Piers, ‘not even in jest. Particularly not in jest. You know very well that witchcraft is a hanging offence. Burning at the stake for a woman.'

The boy looked frightened. ‘I – I didn't mean it,' he stammered. In – in Yorkshire, where I come from, “witch” can be a term applied to any old woman.'

I didn't believe him. Neither did Timothy.

‘You also mentioned the word “magic”,' he pointed out sternly.

‘It was a joke,' was the desperate reply.

I turned the conversation. ‘Dame Copley is an old woman, then?' Piers hesitated. I surmised that the nurse was most probably somewhere in her late forties or perhaps early fifties. Such an age, though old, would doubtless seem ancient to a lad in the first flush of youth. ‘Older than Mistress Blancheflower?' I suggested.

‘Maybe, a little,' he admitted, adding defensively, ‘Well,
she's
old.'

‘Not when you're my age or Master Plummer's.' I saw the spymaster shoot me a look and grinned to myself. I was never quite sure how old Timothy really was. Older than he was prepared to acknowledge was my guess. I went on: ‘You say you spent Friday night at Baynard's Castle. Where did you all sleep?'

Piers scratched his curly head. ‘I know Tutor Machin had a room of his own. If,' he added derisively, ‘you can call it that. Have you ever slept in the castle, masters?'

‘I have,' I said feelingly, before Timothy had a chance to explain to this ignoramus that he knew the place like the back of his hand. ‘Some of those so-called rooms are smaller than a monk's cell. And, believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I was once a novice at Glastonbury Abbey.' Piers's face lit with interest at this piece of information, so before he could start asking irrelevant questions, I hurried on: ‘You're certain, are you, that the tutor had a separate room?'

The boy gave me a withering stare. ‘Naturally I'm fucking sure,' he answered, using the swear word coldly and deliberately as though to impress me with his manhood. ‘That was where his body was found, Saturday morning – stabbed through the heart and the door bolted on the inside.'

Of course! I could have kicked myself for forgetting such an important fact. I must be more fatigued than I had realized. The long, hard ride yesterday and most of today, with very little sleep in between, had taken its toll,

‘Right!' I said briskly, trying to sound like a man in full command of his wits. ‘Where did young Fitzalan sleep? With Dame Copley?'

‘When we were at home in Yorkshire, he did. But since we came here, to Minster Lovell, he had a chamber of his own. Sir Francis's instructions. He said if Master Gideon was in training for knighthood, he couldn't still be sharing a room with his nurse. Lord! What a squawk she set up! Said Master Gideon wasn't strong, that she'd been entrusted with his welfare by Lady Fitzalan, that if anything happened to him she'd hold Sir Francis personally responsible. In the end, she wore the poor man down until he let her have the adjoining room. But at Baynard's Castle, I don't know where he slept, sir. Not with her, that's for certain, because it was she raised the alarm the following morning when she discovered he was missing.'

‘Does anyone know where he spent the night? Or where he had intended to spend the night?'

Piers shook his head. ‘I don't know. No one said anything to me. And after Tutor Machin's body was found, the door of his room being locked and all, everything was confusion.' He nodded at Timothy. ‘I expect Master Plummer can confirm that, sir, if he was there. Everyone was running about like chickens about to get the chop. Even my lord Gloucester put in an appearance, and someone told me they heard him telling Sir Francis it was a matter of the first urgency that the affair be cleared up, and swiftly. Then, the next day, I was sent down here to inform Sir Francis's people what had happened. I suppose someone else must have been despatched to Yorkshire to give Sir Pomfret and his lady the terrible news.'

‘And I,' Timothy cut in bitterly, ‘was sent to Bristol to fetch you. But the lad's right. There was so much panic, so much . . . as he says, so much confusion that I don't think any of us had time to glean any details. I certainly didn't. I left the castle on the Saturday afternoon, by which time, practically nothing was known except that Gregory Machin was dead and the boy missing, unable to be found.'

I turned back to young Master Daubenay. ‘And where did you sleep on Friday night? In the common dormitory with the other male servants?'

‘No, I did not!' He was indignant. ‘Not with that stinking lot! I've explained to you, I don't like sharing a bed with other people. I'd rather put up with a bit of discomfort and find a quiet corner out of other folk's way. There's always somewhere, either in the kitchens or the stables where you can find a little privacy.'

‘So you were on your own,' I murmured thoughtfully.

He eyed me uneasily, as though trying to interpret my words. ‘I was in the stable loft, if you must know. There were a couple of stable boys up there with me. Does it matter?'

‘It might do. Or it might not.' I shrugged. ‘I can't say at this stage what is important and what isn't. Anyway –' I got to my feet – ‘we'd better be getting into supper.'

Timothy rose with alacrity, but Piers hesitated a moment longer. ‘I must return to London,' he said, ‘so will you and Master Plummer take me with you tomorrow?'

‘We'll have to spend tomorrow night on the road, you know.' I laughed. ‘But we won't force you to share a bed with either of us.'

‘We'll most likely be forced to share a bed with one another,' Timothy grunted, obviously none too pleased at the prospect. ‘People are crowding into London from all quarters of the country at present. We'll be lucky if we're not sleeping under a hedgerow or in a barn somewhere.'

‘Oh, not with you in the Protector's livery, surely!' I mocked him. ‘Someone will be kicked out to make room for us.'

What he might have said as a rejoinder, I don't know. What he did say, barely moving his lips, was: ‘Stand perfectly still, Chapman.' He himself, I noted, had gone rigid as had Piers, still seated on the bench.

For a fleeting moment I wondered if they were trying to make a fool of me. But then I heard it: a vicious, blood-curdling growl just behind me.

‘It's Beelzebub,' the lad whispered, his face chalk-white. ‘And he isn't wearing a muzzle.'

I felt the hairs rise on the nape of my neck as an enormous mastiff, a veritable brute of a dog, circled into my line of vision, positioning itself halfway between Timothy and me, its evil, yellow gaze flicking from one to the other of us, saliva dripping from the corners of its mouth. I could smell its breath, stinking of raw meat, from where I was standing. The situation had a strangely familiar feel to it, as though I had experienced something similar, and that very recently – something ‘already seen' as the French would say – but I was too paralysed with fear to remember where and when. Timothy stood like a statue.

There was another growl, followed by a snarl and the sudden snapping of jaws. I saw the spymaster close his eyes, evidently anticipating the worst. Piers gave a choking sob. I sent up an incoherent prayer . . .

‘Here, Beelzebub, here!' yelled a voice, and the animal turned, fangs bared, ready to deal with this latest enemy. While his attention was thus distracted, I allowed myself to swivel slightly to my right to see who was foolhardy enough to risk the creature's anger. William Blancheflower was a few yards away, holding out an enormous hambone which he waved enticingly from side to side, retreating slowly step by step as he engaged the dog's interest. Then, as Beelzebub sprang forward, he dropped the bone and, as it was seized and savagely shaken, moved swiftly behind the animal, jerked its head back with his left hand and clapped on a muzzle with his right. One of the three kennel-boys, trembling with fright, fastened the straps, jumping quickly out of the way as William grappled with the by now enraged beast and forced it back inside its kennel, slamming and bolting the door after it. He then vented his wrath on his trio of subordinates.