A Burnable Book: A Novel Part 30

FORTY-SIX.

Winchester Palace Luke Hodge had served William Wykeham as chief steward for nearly twenty years, rising to a position of quiet prominence in the official life of Southwark. Our early acquaintance had involved a sensitive matter regarding Hodge's daughter that had left him breathless with grat.i.tude. Despite the pre-feast frenzy, the bishop's steward was glad to invite me within the palace's service gate to observe the final preparations.

As the first arrivals streamed through the gates the inner gardens and hall were abustle, the large staff garlanding shrubs and trees, setting tables with servingware and gla.s.s, arranging chairs. On the lawn a large tent was being raised, and in the hall, where the wide doors sat open to the inner court, I noted tables set up in the northeast corner for games and amus.e.m.e.nts. On the dais the bishop's high table beneath the baldachin was arrayed with serving dishes and a s.h.i.+p of salt-pot and cutlery. A dozen ewers stood in a line along the south wall.

I found an inconspicuous spot by the outer pa.s.sage to the bishop's kitchens, ma.s.sive chambers filled with smoke, yells, the clatter of roasting pans and utensils. A company of butchers arrived with spitted lambs, which they flung on boards and proceeded to carve with a determined energy, flas.h.i.+ng knives glistening with grease, competing with the bishop's own cooks as they loaded the results on to large platters held by the servers. As I watched them at their work I started to notice several of the men trading peculiar looks, as if sharing an unspoken secret among themselves. Others were pale in the face as they carved, and I wondered for a moment if they might be ill. Then one of the butchers, a large, beefy man who seemed to be the leader, started to move among the others, patting their backs, speaking softly into their ears, getting grim nods in return, though one young man, perhaps his apprentice, received a hard smack to the ear, and an order to get to it.

By bank of a bishop shall butchers abide.

The line came to me with the force of a hard sneeze. Butchers. A metaphor, I had thought, signifying a clutch of armed men primed to attack the king during the feast. Yet what more efficient, more sinister plan could one hatch than to enlist a company of butchers, already armed to the teeth, in the slaying of a royal? The lower trades of Southwark had acted notoriously during the rising, none more so than the butchers. What if the butchers named in the prophecy as Richard's killers were not soldiers or knights after all but ... just butchers?

I moved quickly out to the kitchen yard, where Hodge stood on a tree stump and addressed a crowd of servants. 'The hour before the king's arrival there will be games and amus.e.m.e.nts in the hall,' he called out. 'Beers, wines, bird tarts. Aim here is to refresh the ladies' cups as often as possible.'

A few gruff laughs.

'Upon the arrival of His Highness the company will proceed to the gardens. Then Ma.s.s for St Dunstan, with the bishop presiding. Craddock, the ma.s.s pavilion?'

A man to the steward's left visibly winced. 'Cracked post, sir.' He held up his axe. 'But we felled us that small elm before the gates at sunrise-'

'Yes, I heard you at it as did the lord bishop.'

'Ah!' the man said to scattered chuckles. 'So his wors.h.i.+p'll know we got it down, then. Tent'll be upright sooner than a c.o.c.k at a maud's mouth.'

'Glad to hear it. The bishop's pulpit?'

'Already in place, carted out last night.'

This went on until the steward had ticked most of the way through his list, then he clapped his hands. 'A word more.' Hodge straightened himself, spreading a wise smile to all corners. 'We are to have an additional guest or twenty at our feast this day. With the bishop's consent, His Most Indisputably Charming, His Most Esteemed, Generous, and His Most Faultless and Unimpeachable, His Most Excessively Irreproachable Excellency the Duke of Lancaster will be present for the festivities.'

A low murmur from the servants, some calls of scorn. Wykeham and Lancaster despised each other, a sentiment shared throughout the factions of the two magnates, from the lowliest stableboy to the uppermost baron. The domestic servants gathered here would be especially keen in their bitterness toward Gaunt, whose notorious contempt for the commons flavoured every mention of the duke among the city's servingmen.

'I'm told that His Highness King Richard wishes to put an end to the enduring hostilities between our households,' Hodge continued. 'His esteemed uncle, his most trusted bishop these men should be allies, not enemies. And for today, at least, they shall.'

'Bah!' came a call from the crowd's edges. Hodge shrugged.

'Look to your work. It's not your pounds paying for the puddings.'

'Just our backs,' someone muttered.

Hodge dismissed them all after a few words with the head cook. I followed him into the hall, where he wiped out a silver soup basin as I approached him. 'Gower!' he said, looking up. 'Settling in for a long day?'

I hesitated. 'Keep a hard eye on those butchers, Hodge.'

He looked at me strangely. 'Why's that?'

Challenging me, as if he knew already what to expect. Taken aback, I stumbled a bit, then said, 'Keep an eye on them, will you?'

A thin smile. 'Already am, Gower. Already am.' He left me there, feeling rather foolish, and only slightly rea.s.sured.

In the lower lawn the accoutrements of the bishop's Ma.s.s had been arranged at the east end of the pavilion. Most notable was Winchester's moveable pulpit, an ornately crafted thing of polished wood with ivory inlays that had been carted out to elevate the bishop above the congregation for his St Dunstan's sermon. I stopped in front of it. In addition to Wykeham's arms, two chevrons sable between three roses gules, the front panel had been carved with the same pearl-and-oyster pattern visible on the stonework above the hall. In palace of prelate with pearls all appointed. I stared at the woodwork. Even here, at the site of the bishop's holy Ma.s.s for St Dunstan, the signs of King Richard's death.

FORTY-SEVEN.

Pepper Alley, Southwark Millicent waited in the noontime shadows not far from the southern end of the bridge. Southwark was too small a town by far, and though she hadn't swyved on this side of the river in years, there were still men about who knew her face. She edged a slight way down the lane to get a better view up the high street. The alley met the broad thoroughfare at a fork, where a knot of hucksters peddled to pa.s.sers-by going in both directions.

She soon spotted a grand company coming smartly up from the Thames, their jennets colourfully flounced for the occasion, the commoners parting at their approach. The younger of them ran alongside the horses, shouting for pennies. There were both lords and ladies but mostly ladies, perhaps twenty of them, veiled and bound for the palace and the Dunstan's Day feast. As the company pa.s.sed the mouth of Pepper Alley two of the horses split off, with several guards falling in behind them. The guards wheeled round and allowed the two ladies to proceed up the alley about fifty feet, where they reined in their horses and pulled up their veils.

The powdered tip of a fine nose, then the face of Katherine Swynford. Millicent had seen this nose only once before, during a mayor's show on Cat Street when she had stood proudly at Sir Humphrey ap-Roger's side, her knight pointing out the array of gentry in the crowd, though Millicent would have recognized it anywhere. Swynford wore a dress of silk brocade in white and blue, trimmed in furs of pured miniver dusting her fine neck.

'You're the prioress's girl?' Swynford said, her voice hard. Her companion gazed up at the tenements. The women looked strikingly alike.

'Yes, my lady,' Millicent said.

'My daughter tells me to trust the Reverend Mother.'

'Yes, my lady.'

'I agree,' said the other lady.

With a gloved finger, Swynford flicked a fly off her knee. 'Lancaster won't do a thing, of course,' she said to her companion. 'He doesn't credit for a minute that Richard would actually fall for this this prophecy. Believe me, I considered telling him everything. But what would be the point?' She raised her chin. 'King Richard. Ugh! Staring off into s.p.a.ce, making up little fantasies to amuse himself. As I've told John a hundred times, if that brat once gets it into his head that you're out to depose him, why that's the end of the game, and we're all quartered for our troubles.'

'Surely, though,' said Millicent, hesitantly, 'the duke will not suspect your involvement, my lady. Won't you be handing the cloth off to the Countess of Kent before the feast?' This had been John Gower's suggestion, which the prioress had approved during his visit.

'It is more complicated than that, I'm afraid,' Swynford sighed. 'I have been asked for a round of Prince of Plums. By the Earl of Oxford himself.'

At Prince of Plums shall prelate oppose. The first line of the prophecy rang in Millicent's ears.

'Prince of Plums?' said Swynford's companion.

'Cards, Philippa,' said Swynford. 'It's a game of cards.'

The second woman was Philippa Chaucer, Millicent realized as the prophecy's words continued to echo in her mind. Swynford's sister, and the wife of a minor official in customs, though everyone knew the man was a long-time favourite with Gaunt. 'Why would you possibly front yourself in such a way?' she asked her sister. 'And at Oxford's bidding? What are you thinking, Katherine?'

'He approached me last week, all charm and baby fat. You know how the earl can be.'

Philippa turned away, her eyes closed.

'Everyone is speaking of this feast as a chance to make peace between Oxford and Lancaster, and Lancaster and the king,' she said, pleading her case. 'A moment of reconciliation, as the bishop is casting it, to unite us all before the renewal of the inevitable hostilities with France. Oxford believes the gesture will mean something to Duke John. That showing the duke's mistress in a favourable light may be met in kind, perhaps with a preferment by King Richard, or, I don't know-'

'Garter robes?' said Philippa.

Swynford ignored the jab. 'The chancellor has asked me to arrange the cards so that the game ends a certain way. In any case, the prioress a.s.sures me all is in hand. But if my duke suspects I'm part of this what will he do with me?'

'What Lancaster always does with you,' said Philippa, with a sad smile. 'Ignore you during the feast, make you leave by yourself, then order you to his bed once he's returned to the Savoy. He won't let a little prophecy get in the way of his p.r.i.c.k.'

'This is different, Philippa. If there's to be an attempt on the king's life today-'

'Don't be indecisive, Katherine,' said Philippa. 'John is the great lover of your life, you have nothing to fear from him. It's Oxford who should terrify you.'

Swynford's thin brows knit in a deep frown. 'The earl is the king's favourite, and the king is the king. I just hope Prioress Isabel hasn't gone weak in the head.'

Philippa waved away a fly. Swynford looked down at Millicent, then extended a hand. 'Give it to me.'

Millicent handed up the cloth, folded into a neat roll and bound with a thong. As Swynford wordlessly turned her horse the animal's tail thwacked Millicent's cheeks. She stepped back right into a stopped gutter. Lifting her shoe out of the muck, she watched as the small company moved back up the alley, the guards falling in before and behind the mounted women. Soon they were gone.

Until a few weeks ago she would have given a painted fingernail for an audience with Katherine Swynford, even in such a miserable spot as Pepper Alley. Yet now she found herself longing instead for the simplicity of St Leonard's Bromley, where the food was plain and the dress plainer, the sisters quiet and, for the most part, kind. She shook her head, thinking of Agnes. What is happening to me? she wondered, not for the last time.

FORTY-EIGHT.

Winchester Palace The Bishop of London and the Duke of Lancaster sat on the dais, deep in discussion, both looking uncomfortably tense. The hall's long central tables were already set for the feast to follow Ma.s.s, the plate and gla.s.s filling the great chamber with a l.u.s.trous glow. At the west end the company had arranged itself around several trestle tables angled out to make room for games. Four men played dice off in the far corner, two went at Nine Men's Morris on a specially carved bench, and the remainder toyed at chess or engaged in idle conversation nearby.

There was a loud clap. Oxford had mounted a table. His hood, lined with ermine, was caught back from his hair in a way that framed a bashful smile. 'Good friends,' he called out to the company, 'I give you Lady Katherine Swynford.'

Oxford held out a hand. With a light step that I could only admire given the circ.u.mstances, Swynford joined the earl on the table. A smile as modest as she could manage warmed her face.

'Your ears, if you please.' Her voice was steady, though to me she seemed ill at ease.

On the dais Lancaster and Winchester had stopped talking, the bishop aghast at the sight of the duke's mistress calling for attention in his own hall. Gaunt wore that embarra.s.sed but carnal smile he tended to show whenever he and Swynford appeared together in public. Oxford, I realized, had made a shrewd calculation: by recognizing Lancaster's mistress in this way he was granting her a certain unspoken status among the higher aristocracy, mimicking Lancaster's own habit of leading Swynford's horse on occasion. A friendly gesture on its face, in the conciliatory spirit of the day.

'For our amus.e.m.e.nt before the Ma.s.s,' Swynford said, 'we will have a game.'

'What game, Lady Katherine?' someone called from a bench.

'Prince of Plums.'

There were whispers as the guests decided whether to go along or turn away with courtly indifference.

'And the rules of this game, Lady Katherine?' the same voice inquired. It was Thomas Pinchbeak, the serjeant-at-law, lending his respectability to Swynford's provocation. It worked: she now had everyone's attention.

'There are seventy-four unique cards in this deck. Seventy-four guests will each take one card, and only one,' she said, her voice buoyed by Pinchbeak's approval arranged, I felt certain, by Oxford. 'He must keep it with him all through our day, from the king's arrival through the feast after Ma.s.s. The single rule of the game is this: you may not look at your card, nor will I as I hand them out. Only at the departure of our king will each guest's card be revealed.'

'Let me take the first card, Lady Katherine,' said Pinchbeak, rising from the Morris bench and hobbling over. She handed him down a card, gave the second to Oxford, then the other guests formed a line, none of them wanting to be left out now that the serjeant-at-law and the earl were in. I secured a place in the line and watched the distribution. Once the cards were nearly gone Swynford, with a brazen disregard for propriety, approached the dais. In the silence she handed a card up to the bishop, who took it from her as if it were a live river rat to be held by the tail. Lancaster was more gracious, actually standing, bowing to his consort, and taking the card from her hand.

I looked from the dais to the far wall, across a sea of two hundred eager faces. One of the men in this great chamber carried the Five of Hawks, the fateful card named in the prophecy, though how Swynford's game would turn out was anyone's guess. With a studied indifference, I strolled out the b.u.t.tery door and into the foreyard, where I stopped below a high wall that separated this small plot of gra.s.s from the kitchen gardens beyond. After a glance back over my shoulder, I discreetly removed my card, my eyes closed as I held it at my waist. Holding my breath, I looked.

Seven of Thistles.

I tucked the card away, strangely relieved. When I turned again, my aim to make my way back into the hall, a peculiar sight froze me in place. Through a long aperture formed by a rose arbour and the forked branches of a pear tree, I saw Ralph Strode, standing at the b.u.t.tery door. From a distance of nearly eighty yards he was watching me across the lawn, dark pouches framing his sunken eyes, his hair lifted by the May breeze, his mouth a rigid line set in the great plane of his face. I raised a half smile, gave the common serjeant a nod. Yet Strode simply stared, a look of cold appraisal that I took as a silent intimation of my own blindness.

Grimes's shop and yard on Cutter Lane were empty, as she knew they would be. Eleanor peered over the streetside fence, spying exactly what she had hoped to find: a row of clothes drying on the line. She vaulted the fence, took what she needed, and stripped off her dress, bunching it into her bag for later. She pulled on a pair of breeches and a one-piece s.h.i.+rt of the sort favoured by the butchers. An old pair of slaughter boots, found in the corner of the first barn, completed the outfit, though as Edgar left the yard he grabbed a stained ap.r.o.n from a hook and wrapped it around his middle. He roughed up his hair, put on a cap, smeared a bit of ash on his cheeks and brow, then left the butcher's precinct the way he had come, heading for the palace, and Gerald's fate.

FORTY-NINE.

Winchester Palace The thickening crowd flowed toward the gate facing New Rents. The palace yards were festooned with banners showing innumerable colours, England's heraldry on full display for the coming of King Richard. Winchester's gateyard was normally ankle-deep in muck and dung from the bishop's stables, and often it could be difficult to tell that the area was paved. Now the stones at my feet practically glistened, as if Wykeham had sent his entire household out for a week with brushes and vinegar. Even the scent was invigorating, with fresh juniper and rosemary underfoot. Over it all loomed Mark Blythe's pearl-and-oyster reliefs, tracing a pattern that summoned one of the clearest lines in the prophecy. In palace of prelate with pearls appointed. By the next bell, I brooded, King Richard could be dead.

I fell in place beside Thomas Pinchbeak, who was speaking earnestly to Sir Howard Payne. I listened in for a while, an interested smile fixed on my face, then moved to a spot off the gateyard's pavement to await the king's arrival from the hunting lodges at Easthampstead, feeling alone. The sky had darkened, hints of another May shower in the air. The moist breeze deadened voices, casting a clammy pall over the hushed conversations preceding the royal entrance.

Katherine Swynford, with Philippa at her side, took a position in the rearmost echelon of ladies; no cruel whispers that day, as the d.u.c.h.ess was absent. In the faces of those closest to the gate Wykeham, Gaunt, Oxford, Joan of Kent I read a dark foreboding, as all seemed to be exchanging glances of secret knowledge and hidden intent. To my mind the entire a.s.semblage felt taut, as if a bowstring had been pulled back to its limit, the archer's fingers on the verge of release.

If an attack on the king came, it would take place soon after his arrival. The bishop and his company were to greet the king and his court inside the palace's great gate. Together the two companies, the episcopal and the royal, would make their way to the pavilion to hear Ma.s.s. The singing of the processional hymn would begin upon the commingling of the companies, and conclude before the introit.

From outside the walls came the loud blasts of trumpets, the call of the chief herald, the roar of the Southwark commons. Hinges groaned, heads turned. Through the wide opening on to New Rents the royals appeared on foot, having dismounted before the gate. The king's guard had already cl.u.s.tered around Richard in a tight circle. Wykeham's own guards formed a solid line marching forward. The gate closed behind them.

The greeting was swift and simple. King Richard entered the palace grounds and came to a stop before Wykeham. The two exchanged bows, then the king took the bishop's hand and kissed his ring. Palm in palm, the two turned for the gardens as their retinues fell in behind them. With that the processional to St Dunstan began, the first stanza intoned by the Austin canons of St Mary Overey as the melody filled the courtyard.

Ave Dunstane, praesulum Sidus decusque splendidum, Lux vera gentis Anglicae, Et ad Deum dux praevie.

The singing continued as the two companies turned to process to Ma.s.s. Those who knew the tune or words joined in with singing or humming, though in those agonizing moments I forced myself to keep my attention solely on the king.

Now the second stanza. My mind Englished the lines as I followed the king's progress. In you do we place our trust, in your sight do we lift up our hands ... The crowd of guests started filling in behind as the magnates processed past the foreyard. I mouthed the next line, appropriate to the occasion: Mucrone gentis barbarae, 'the sword of a barbarous race'. I thought of Dunstan's famed role in prophesying the Danish invasions, of King Richard's present role in the holding off of France. As in the De Mortibus itself, past and present here collided with the force of a hurled stone on a palace wall.

I positioned myself at the front right edge of the crowd. Here my view of the central group was now somewhat obstructed. Looking around, I saw behind me the lip of an old, disused well, long since filled in. I stepped up on the stones. The extra height gave me a clear view of the king.

Richard and Wykeham had reached the entrance to the hall, which was standing open. The uppermost members of the company positioned themselves in a wide arc around the two magnates. Oxford stood just steps from the king. Behind him walked Sir Stephen Weldon, his palm on his swordhilt.

They turned at the pa.s.sage to the kitchens, heading for the pavilion and Ma.s.s. All appeared well. No attack seemed to be forming, no apparent threats to the king that I could see. Would all this worry, all the trouble of these last months, be for nothing? I realized I had been holding my breath since the song's previous stanza. I started to exhale- A flash of metal, in the darkened pa.s.sage. The butchers. I looked around, but no one else seemed to have noticed the movement. I realized why: thanks to the well's stone lip, I alone stood at that particular angle to that corner of the pa.s.sage.