Wolf Wood (Part Two): The Dangerous years (21 page)

The senior dragon was Eleanor Beaufort, wife of the Duke of Somerset. Steven pressed his ear against the cow horn and listened as she ranted on about lapses of security and how everything would fall apart if they didn't keep a tight rein. He could make out most of what she said but the other people were more difficult to understand. He figured that Eleanor must be standing directly in front of the listening tube and the others were off to the side.

There were three of them: Eleanor and two males. One was the spy with the speech defect. Steven had come to think of him as RW from the way he muddled his Rs and Ws. He showed great deference towards Eleanor. The other man was more forthright in the way he spoke. Steven puzzled over his identity. Then RW referred to him as
my lord duke
and everything fell into place.

The second man was Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. He was Eleanor's husband and hugely hated. He had turned traitor in Normandy to save his own skin and would be dead if Margaret hadn't rescued him when he returned to England.

Some said that Somerset was Queen Margaret's lover and father of her unborn child. Steven wondered about that. King Henry was shy with women and someone like Edmund would jump at the chance of becoming the father of a future king of England. At any rate, he was showing great concern for the queen's wellbeing.

'Sister Alice has a calming effect on Margaret,' he said. 'I believe we could benefit from her services as a midwife.'

'Margaret wants more than that,' the dragon bellowed. 'She wants Alice Gascoigne to examine Henry. Have you thought of the disasters that could bring? You admit that the Gascoignes have links with York through that man Robin Perry.'

'Lots of people have links with York, including members of your family,' the duke grunted. 'That's not barred you from having contact with the queen.'

'You know full well that I make no secret of the traitorous behaviour of certain of my cousins,' Eleanor screamed. 'I have helped put their loyalty to the test and they have suffered the consequences.'

'Then we shall test the Gascoigne's loyalty.'

'How?'

'In the usual way.'

'Tell me.'

'We'll have someone approach them,' Somerset said. 'They can say they come from Robin Perry. I'm sure we'll find a way to make it sound genuine. Our people have gathered a lot of information about York and his establishment at Ludlow. We shall see if the Gascoignes respond in the correct way. If they don't, we'll know what to do. They will be made to suffer the consequences like everyone else.'

The last remark was chilling. Steven began to understand his mother's dislike of Westminster. Things got very nasty when the people at the top felt threatened.

***

T
he test came far sooner than Steven expected. Early that afternoon, as he was crossing the courtyard, on his way to archery practice, a hooded figure sidled up to him and whispered in his ear.

'Do you remember me from Bayeux?'

The kid was about twelve and covered in freckles. Steven didn't recognise him from Bayeux but did recognise him from the night before. He was the boy who had been watching them from the shadows when they were going to dinner. There was a man with him. His mother said he spied on them when they went for walks.

The kid had been coaxed in what to say. You could tell from the way he recited the whole lot off with a rush. At one point, he even claimed they had played together in Bayeux. He named places and spoke about them, throwing in the odd word in Norman French, which was how people in the English garrison spoke. Steven was prepared to believe that the kid's family had been with the garrison. So what? Thousands of families had served in France and a lot had ended up in London. There was nothing special in that.

The outcome was predictable. The boy told him about a special friend in Ludlow. He didn't name the friend but said Steven would know who he was talking about. The friend wanted to hear from his parents and there were ways of taking messages. Could he speak to his parents about it and see what they thought? Steven agreed and they arranged to meet again.

There was, of course, no way he was going to speak to his parents about it. His mother would have a fit if she knew what was going on. She would panic and pester his father to leave at once. If he wasn't careful, they would be back at Wolf Wood before he could do anything about it.

Mother was terrified of the people who hung around the queen. She thought they were clever and knew everything that was going on. Truth was, they weren't nearly as smart as she thought. People who left the covers off listening tubes weren't smart. They were stupid and that was just for starters.

They couldn't even set a proper trap. They had dashed in and got some kid to tell him to turn traitor. That might have worked if they had picked the right kid and given him time to get it right. But they hadn't. They had picked a kid who would never get it right no matter how long you gave him. He stood out as phony the moment he opened his mouth. That talk about knowing him in Bayeux and playing games together was ridiculous.

The next step was obvious. He had to get round to the appropriate authorities and tell them that he had just been approached by a suspicious person and, as a loyal subject of the king, he thought they should know about it.

***

T
here was a recognised way to report suspicious people. Steven had been coached in it when he was adopted as palace mascot. They showered him with presents and let it be known that he was expected to repay their generosity with information. It wasn't as if they were bribing him to spy. It was part of the palace culture. As one of the favoured ones, he was expected to show loyalty to the king and fight his enemies wherever they might be found.

The bursar's office was your first port of call. Lots of people went there for lots of different reasons so you wouldn't be suspected of being an informant if you dropped in and asked for some writing ink. The drill was to specify magenta as your preferred colour. That was a strange request and got you shuffled into a neighbouring office where you said you wanted magenta ink and English writing paper. The paper was the clincher because paper was not manufactured in England and had to be imported from overseas.

Steven went through the process and was shown to a back room where he was questioned by a young man in a costume as colourful as his own. The young man said he needed to refer the matter to one his colleagues and went into an adjoining room, shutting the door behind him. The door was padded and the sound coming from the other side was muffled. It was impossible to hear a word. There were bursts of speech then nothing for a while. Steven figured the man was talking down a tube to someone in another part of the palace.

The door opened and he was beckoned inside. Steven wasn't surprised to see a horn, sticking out of the wall at head height. It was like those his father had described and not much different from the cow horn he used.

'Come with me.'

He was led down a maze of narrow passages that ran inside the walls. It was difficult to keep track of where he was going but not impossible. Building stone was scare in the London area and had to be imported. Some came from as far away as Caen in Normandy. It was of a specially high quality and easy to recognise. There wasn't much in the palace and, when you came upon large sections, you had a fair idea of where you were. The passage came to a lengthy section of high-grade masonry and Steven figured they were somewhere near his family's apartment.

They halted before a small doorway and he was shown into a square chamber. It was more like a well than a room. The walls swept up and ended in a flat ceiling with a trap door in the middle. A wooden cubicle stood against one wall.

'Go in there. He will come to you.'

His escort pointed to the cubicle and left.

It was built like a confessional box. Steven recalled that he had not been to confession since they arrived in Westminster. That was a mistake. People who didn't go to confession came under suspicion. They ran the risk of being called “free-thinkers”.

His mother had once been called that and she now made a point of confessing regularly. Only God and the priest knew what she had to confess about. She led such a quiet life it was difficult to think of any naughtiness she might be up to.

He entered the box and sat on the bench provided for that purpose. There was a woven screen in front. He guessed it transmitted sound and you spoke at it. There would be a place behind for the inquisitor. He was probably a top spy and wanted to keep his identity secret.

A bright light shone in his face. He knew how it was done but it still came as a shock. The machines came from Italy and were worked by lenses and mirrors. The light made you squint and could be intimidating. His father used them in Normandy when interrogating suspects. He refused to resort to torture but was prepared to frighten people.

'You have information to weeport?'

The speaker was using a metal tube to disguise his voice but he couldn't hide his speech impediment. Steven did his best not to smile. His interrogator was RW.

'I have been approached by a boy who says he can arrange for letters to be sent to Ludlow Castle,' he said in a hushed voice. 'Ludlow belongs to Duke Richard of York so I think that's very suspicious.'

'This boy you talk about … did he say who will receive these letters?'

'He talked about a special friend.'

'Who might this friend be?'

The questions kept coming. Steven knew the technique. He had sat behind a screen and heard his father interrogating prisoners. The idea was to get you to contradict yourself. It was very difficult to lie consistently. In this case, there was no need to lie. That made it easy. Or, it did until it came to the point where he was required to speak about his parents.

'Why didn't you go to your pawents and tell them about the boy? Surely, that would have been the natural thing to do.'

'If my mother knew what was going on she would throw a fit. That sort of thing frightens her. She got involved with Eleanor Cobham when I was a baby. She was accused of witchcraft. It was ages before people would admit that it was all a bad mistake and they stopped chasing us.'

'So. You want to save your mother from having a fit … is that what you are saying?'

'Yes. That and I don't want to leave here. She would nag at my father and say we must go back to Wolf Wood.'

'You don't like Wolf Wood?'

'I don't want us to leave here. My mother is helping the queen with the baby. She went to see her last night. We were worried that something was wrong but she came back smiling.'

'Did she tell you that Her Majesty's pregnancy was progressing well?'

'That was a loaded question.'

'No … not that.' Steven chose his words carefully. 'She never talks about what she does as a midwife. She never talks about the mothers, no matter who they are. There is no way she would talk about the queen.'

'You mean, she never talks about the queen?'

'No.'

'Then what do you mean?'

'She says she is a nice lady … things like that.'

The questions continued. He was asked about Robin Perry and his family. He was asked about the Battle of London Bridge and admitted he might have fired the arrow that killed his cousin William.

Eventually, it was all over. He agreed to keep his appointment with the boy and hand him a ring. Its purpose wasn't clear but that didn't matter. He had established himself and his parents as loyal supporters of the House of Lancaster.

He was now in a position to gather a heap of sensitive information about the royal court. Steven wondered how he could get it to Robin. He had seen enough of the way the Lancastrians ran the country to know that they had to be turfed out of Westminster and replaced by something better.

***

T
he boy was waiting when Steven arrived. He stared nervously from beneath his hood and looked surprised when Steven handed him the ring. He wanted to know what it was for. Steven said it was to establish his identity. That way the people at Ludlow would know they had made contact with the right person.

The boy seemed to accept that as the correct answer. Steven guessed he didn't have a clue what the whole thing was about. The ring was probably to show that he had completed his task and would be rewarded. He said he would meet him the following day with a letter for Ludlow and the boy seemed pleased.

Unequal Struggle

A
messenger escorted Alice to the royal stables. She thought she was going to visit John Arundel in Bedlam but there was no carriage waiting for her. Instead, she was shown into a small room. It was typical of how things were done at Westminster. No one told you what was going on. Most of the time they didn't know. They just did as they were told.

She sat with her medical bag on her knees and tried to keep warm. The only heat was supplied by the horses and most of them were outside in the park taking rich people for rides.