Wheel of Fate (30 page)

Adela shivered in spite of the cloak which she had wrapped around her, or perhaps because she was suddenly conscious of the fact that it belonged to Celia.

‘Let's go in,' she said.

That night, I was barely asleep – or so it seemed – before I started to dream. I was at once back in the house next door to Roderick Jeavons's, trying to get out of the cellar, but the door was locked fast. I kept hammering on the wood until I could see that my hands were bleeding. No one came although I could hear a voice speaking on the other side of it. I could feel the desperation rising inside of me because I knew that what this voice was saying was important. I knew it had a message for me if only I could make out the words . . .

Then, as happens in dreams, I was standing on the other side of the door in the long passage that ran from front to back of the house, and standing beside me were Hastings and the lawyer Catesby. They were both looking straight at me, but didn't seem to notice I was there.

Hastings was saying, ‘I said eight of us, Will, eight! Eight children! Eight of them! You can imagine the noise! And what's more, I don't like that blue cloak you're wearing. The colour doesn't suit you and it belongs to somebody else. You'd better get wine for eight. The archbishop's going to bring the Great Seal.'

‘You can't do that,' I said, stepping forward, and Catesby caught me by the shoulders, shaking me hard . . .

‘Wake up, Roger! Wake up! You're having a bad dream!' It was Adela's voice and her face that was bending over me, a pale oval in the darkness. I was bathed in sweat.

It took me a moment or two to get my bearings, then I gave an uncertain laugh and stroked her cheek.

‘It's all right, sweetheart. I was riding the night mare, that's all.'

‘It felt like it,' she said. ‘You were tossing and turning and moaning to yourself so much I thought you'd fall out of bed. Are you all right now?'

‘Yes, of course. It's Arbella's cooking. It lies heavily on my stomach sometimes. Go back to sleep. You have a long day's journey ahead of you tomorrow.'

Satisfied, she snuggled into my side and was soon gently snoring. I, on the other hand, lay wide awake, staring into the darkness trying to interpret my dream.

SEVENTEEN

I
t was still barely light the following morning when I said goodbye to Adela and the children (and of course Hercules) in the courtyard of Blossom's Inn. St Laurence the Deacon, in his flowery border, looked down benevolently upon us from his sign which swung gently to and fro in a faint, barely perceptible breeze. Jack, anxious to get started, contained his soul in patience while we took our fond farewells.

‘I give you four weeks,' Adela said as she held me tightly and kissed my cheek. ‘Do you hear me, Roger? If you are no nearer solving this mystery in a month's time, you are to make your excuses to Oswald and Clemency and Sybilla and start for home. Promise me. I won't leave unless you do.'

‘Four weeks,' I agreed, returning her embrace. ‘As near as possible,' I added as a sop to those uneasy reservations which always plagued me.

She flashed me a suspicious look as, with Jack's help, she stepped into the back of the empty cart. A basket of food and drink had been supplied by Arbella and I handed over a purseful of money to meet her immediate needs. (I had spent very little in the past three weeks since leaving Bristol thanks to the generosity of the Godsloves – yet another reason why I felt unable to abandon them.) Jack climbed on to the driver's seat and was about to give the command ‘Gee up!' when Adam suddenly scrambled towards me, standing up in the tail of the cart.

‘Remembered,' he announced cryptically, ignoring his mother's reprimand and leaning over to put his arms around my neck. ‘Woman,' he said, adding impatiently as he encountered my uncomprehending stare, ‘Woman talking to Celia in the garden. Remembered!'

I took a deep breath. ‘You mean that the day you overheard Celia speaking to someone in the garden at the Arbour it was another woman's voice you heard? You're sure of that? Think carefully, Adam. It's important.'

He nodded. ‘Sure,' he said.

‘You haven't been up until now.'

He gave a weary sigh: adults were such a trial. ‘Told you. Just remembered. Didn't remember before. Do now.'

I kissed him soundly. ‘You're a very clever boy.' He shot me the same sort of leery look that his mother had given me (he was unnervingly like her on occasions). He knew when he was being patronized. ‘I mean it,' I assured him and kissed him again.

Then they were off. I stood waving until they were out of sight, lost among all the early-morning traffic of the streets, before entering the ale-room of the inn and ordering myself a large pot of the very best brew. The place was fairly deserted at such an early hour of the morning and I was able to sit quietly at a corner table without being disturbed by garrulous neighbours, all longing to share their life histories with me.

I was thankful that I had things to think about or parting with my family would have been less bearable. We seemed to have grown exceptionally close during the twelve days I had spent at the Arbour in spite of the doom and gloom surrounding us, and for a brief while I worried that I was losing my taste for freedom. But by the time I was halfway through my second pot of ale, the feeling of being unencumbered, and therefore at liberty to please myself without any restraint being placed upon me, had returned in full force. I was my own man again.

I considered my dream of the previous night, and not only that. In the hour just before dawn, that hour when there is a sudden shift in the light, I had jerked wide awake with the words of Margaret Walker ringing loud and clear in my head: ‘I recollect my poor father going to see them once, on his own. He came back absolutely appalled. I can remember him exclaiming, “Eight children! Eight of them! You can imagine the noise! All of them talking and shouting together!” I think it made him thankful that he only had the one.' William Woodward had been talking about the Godsloves.

The dream and subsequent memory had plainly been evoked by Lord Hastings's mention of eight conspirators (and yet again I added the qualification ‘if that's what they are') but I was still unsure of the number's significance. I knew I was being obtuse and that God was prompting me towards a solution of this mystery concerning Oswald and his siblings, but for the moment all was still dark. And why had I dreamed about Celia's blue cloak? This explanation was also hovering just out of reach, like the butterflies I used to try to catch as a boy in the countryside around Wells, but which always eluded my destructive, grasping fingers. Furthermore, my walk with Adela the previous afternoon kept obtruding on my thoughts just as though it, too, ought to have some special importance for me.

I pushed away my by now empty pot and stretched my long legs out in front of me under the table, closing my eyes and trying hard to concentrate on all the facts I had gathered about the Godslove family, the chief of which was that they had some terrible secret hidden in their past – provided, that was, that my little kitchen maid had not misinterpreted what she had overheard. If this were indeed the case, then it was more than possible that they had an enemy out there somewhere; an implacable foe ready to do them harm and bent on vengeance. But vengeance for what? And how long had they – or he or she – been biding their time? I decided that the moment had come, Adela no longer being present to be embarrassed by my behaviour, to tackle the remaining three family members on the subject.

I suddenly realized that Oswald had never provided me with the names of any former clients who might possibly hold a grudge against him, in spite of his having promised to do so. Did this mean that he knew of somebody who hated him; somebody whom he had wronged or failed or allowed to be condemned when he knew the person to be innocent? Oddly enough, I didn't think so. I felt convinced that he was genuinely unaware of anyone connected with his calling as a lawyer who would go to such lengths as murder – or paying others to do murder for him – simply for the sake of revenge. And yet I felt certain that, deep down, Oswald was afraid of something to which he refused to admit. The terrible secret? Most probably. That is, if there really was one . . .

I stood up abruptly, knocking over my empty pot. This was getting me nowhere. I was going round in circles, the trouble being that I wasn't sure what to do next. I remembered Adam's parting words that it was a woman he had heard talking to Celia just before the latter disappeared, so if Roderick Jeavons was involved, could it have been his sister, Mistress Ireby, delivering a false message to lure Celia away? And then it occurred to me to wonder why Celia had not returned briefly to the kitchen, to inform Arbella or one of the maids that she was going out and where she was bound. She must have stepped indoors, into the passageway, for a second or two to fetch a cloak, because Father Berowne had seen her wearing one. And it would have been only the work of a moment to put her head around the door to speak to the housekeeper. But then again, had it really been Celia that the priest had seen or had he been mistaken . . . ?

Of course he had been mistaken! He had said the woman had been wearing a blue cloak, and Celia's blue cloak was still hanging in the kitchen passageway. Adela had put it on the previous evening when we had gone for our farewell stroll in the garden. That was what my dream had been trying to tell me. But even so, I still had no clue as to what had happened to Celia or where on earth she might be.

I sat down again and called for a third pot of ale while yet again I tried to figure out what to do next. It seemed to me that I was getting in a muddle. This was one problem which I seemed unable to solve and I hated to be defeated. It was an affront to my pride.

‘Drowning your sorrows, Roger?' asked a familiar voice.

I turned my head and saw Timothy Plummer sitting alongside me. He gave a lugubrious smile and whistled for the pot boy.

‘You don't look any too happy yourself,' I retorted, my conscience pricking me as I wondered if I should tell him what I knew – or thought I knew – about the Lord Chamberlain. But self-interest won and I kept silent. ‘Is anything the matter?'

‘
Anything the matter?
' he spluttered. ‘With the duke's life in danger every hour of the day! And you ask if anything's the matter!'

‘Is his life in danger?' I enquired uneasily. ‘I thought the Woodville bid for power had been scotched. Someone told me that Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey and Sir Thomas Vaughan have been imprisoned up north where they can't do any further harm.'

‘And the Queen Dowager is still in Westminster Sanctuary,' he snapped back, ‘at liberty to plot and scheme. Edward Woodville is at sea with half the royal treasure and her other brother, our precious Bishop of Salisbury, is spreading sedition and lies wherever he can.' He took a swig of the ale which the pot boy had just set before him. ‘I tell you, Roger, the duke is a worried man. His whole way of life is like to come crashing down about his ears if the Woodvilles have any say in the matter. For years now he's been sovereign in all but name in the north. The late king let him have his way in everything, and rightly so. Duke Richard has been the most effective and just administrator that part of the country has ever known. Yorkshiremen adore him, and that's no exaggeration. Of course, it ain't endeared him to the Percy family who've grown used to having it all their own way for centuries past. They'll do him an ill turn if they can. And then there's the little king himself. A Woodville to his fingertips if all I hear is true, and none too happy with his Uncle Richard. Not, I suppose, that you can blame him, poor little bugger. But you can't help remembering the late King Henry and Humphrey of Gloucester. I overheard our own duke mention it to Buckingham only the other day, how Good Duke Humphrey died in very mysterious circumstances as soon as his nephew was old enough to rule for himself.'

‘Worrying,' I agreed, but half-heartedly. I had worries of my own to concern me.

‘How long are you staying in London?' Timothy asked, draining his cup. His tone of voice put me instinctively on my guard.

‘Not long,' I answered quickly. ‘In fact Adela and the children and Hercules have already left for Bristol. That's why I'm here. A friend of ours, a carter who's been disappointed of a load, is able to take them all the way home. I shall follow them as soon as I can.'

‘Hercules?' Timothy queried with a puckered brow.

‘My dog.'

‘Dear sweet virgin! You mean that mangy cur you dignify with the name of dog?' He moved closer to me on the bench and lowered his voice. ‘Listen, Roger. Don't be in too much of a hurry to leave the capital. The duke may need your services before all's done. I don't know what's in the wind – in fact I don't know for certain that anything is in the wind – but I do know I'm feeling damned uneasy. A sixth sense is telling me that all's not well. It's no good asking me why, but I'll say this. Ever since you got back from France last year, Duke Richard has been unsettled. Even up north, where he's usually at his happiest and most carefree, he's been preoccupied. And after news reached us of King Edward's death, well . . . He was upset naturally. Grief-stricken. He was devoted to his brother, as you know better than most people. But there was more to it than that. Of course he assembled all the magnates of the region, had a solemn Mass sung for the repose of the late king's soul and then, himself included, made everyone swear an oath of allegiance to the new young king. And yet . . .'

‘And yet?' I prompted, my attention caught in spite of myself.

The spymaster shrugged. ‘There's something about him I can't quite define. An edginess, a withdrawal into himself, an unhappiness almost, as though he's constantly wrestling with some knotty problem that the rest of us can't be allowed to share.' He called for a second pot of ale before continuing. ‘And the business at Northampton shook him to his very foundations. I don't think he imagined that the queen and her family would move against him so swiftly and with such malice. If it hadn't been for Henry of Buckingham being privy to the Woodvilles' intentions and then deciding to throw in his lot with his cousin instead of his in-laws, it's more than probable that by now Prince Richard would either be a prisoner at Grafton Regis or – even more likely – he would be dead. Murdered like the previous Duke of Gloucester, poor old Humphrey.'