‘I know that,’ he said testily.
‘Perhaps … the queen’s chamber? I can go—’
‘We will go.’
Crispin smiled. Like the old days.
As they moved through the apartments toward Lady Katherine’s lodgings, Crispin said quietly, ‘Do you know of a bishop from Yorkshire – a Bishop Edmund Becke?’
Lancaster paused at the door. ‘I have heard the name.’
‘And do you know his cause?’
‘He has many causes.’
‘His main cause is to root out heresies, be they Jew or Christian … or Lollard.’
Lancaster angled his head and smiled. ‘I know.’
‘He is … after me.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yes. I am in possession of a book—’
‘Crispin, Crispin. How many times must I tell you …’
‘As many times as I must tell you that I am caught in these webs for good or ill. A book came into my hands. Whether heresy or not, I leave that to theologians … if it can get that far. He wants it destroyed. I am loath to do so.’
‘These are the troubles that put you so untimely in my carriage?’
‘They are. Three men are dead because of it. Because of me.’
‘Because you sought knowledge. I know I taught you years ago not to be afraid of that search, no matter the cost.’
‘The cost, this time, was not mine to spend.’
‘You see it that way, but it is not so.’
Crispin’s anger bubbled over. ‘I led that man to them. They did die because of me.’
‘Be that as it may, what is your course of action?’
It was that same tone Crispin knew well from some twenty years ago, that Socratic mien that so annoyed a younger Crispin. ‘I haven’t yet decided. I’m supposed to meet an “important personage”, the reason the book was spared. Who that may turn out to be is anyone’s guess.’
‘And here I have stolen you to do this minor task.’
‘Minor? Shall we seek out Lady Katherine?’
‘Yes.’ He knocked on the door and a servant answered. The man said nothing as he led them forth into an inner chamber where Lady Katherine received them.
‘I’ve been waiting.’
‘Crispin – I mean Sir Jack – wishes to speak with the queen’s ladies. Are they in her apartments?’
‘Or very near them. Shall we go and see … Sir Jack?’
TEN
Crispin acted as he had years before as their household knight, leading them through the corridors to the queen’s chambers, not very far from Lancaster’s. A guard stood at the arch and came to attention when he noticed the duke.
‘We are looking for the queen’s ladies,’ asked Crispin. ‘Are they still lodged here?’
‘They have been given no orders contrary and so remain,’ said the guard, trying to see into Crispin’s shadowy hood.
Crispin gestured toward their female companion. ‘Lady Katherine wishes to … consult with them.’
‘They are in mourning.’
‘As are we all.’ Crispin waited. The guard could plainly see the duke and Lady Katherine and knew he couldn’t stop them.
‘The king does not wish for visitors,’ said the guard half-heartedly.
‘We are not “visitors”,’ said the duke in his most imperious manner.
The guard said nothing but turned, knocked, and then opened the door. ‘Enter,’ he said and then stepped aside.
Crispin entered first, looked around, and saw no one in the antechamber. When he approached the door to the queen’s inner chamber he found it locked. He turned to Lady Katherine.
‘Madam, will you …?’
Her gown was as rich as any duchess’s, a deep blue of a soft material, tight on her arms and buttoned up to the elbow with silver buttons. The fur trimming it was black sable, and she wore the horned headdress and veil that the queen had caused to be fashionable. She looked every inch a queen herself. It sparked that stab of regret at how the wheel of life had turned, how Lancaster had not been king, how Crispin had not enjoyed a life with him. But it was more pinprick these days than dagger point.
‘My ladies,’ she said, her face close to the door. ‘It is Lady Katherine Swynford. I have come to talk to you.’
There was a rustling within. A chair scraped. A whispered word. Then, ‘We are in prayer,’ said a heavily accented voice. The same accent as the queen’s.
‘It is very important. And it would be a service to our dear queen.’
The woman behind the door sobbed and spoke in that foreign tongue. But after a pause, the key turned in the lock, and she opened the door.
A plump woman, older than the queen by several years, with a tight starched headdress, peeked around the door. When she spied Lancaster, she threw her hand over her mouth. Lady Katherine reached out and grabbed her hand before she could disappear behind the door again. ‘We wish to ask questions regarding the queen’s last days. Dear Markéta, can you and your ladies speak of it?’
‘But the king …’ she muttered behind her hand.
‘This is the king’s uncle, as you know. And this,’ she gestured toward Crispin, ‘is the master of the queen’s Goat.’
Puzzled at first at such a distinction, Crispin soon remembered that this is what the queen had called Jack when he was a prisoner of the palace and had stumbled upon Queen Anne in distress. She had called him ‘Goat’ because she had discovered him climbing over the garden wall. He had done her a great service, and in return she had saved his life.
By the look on Markéta’s face, she well remembered the incident from some six years ago.
Lady Markéta scoured Crispin’s face – as much as she could see under the shadowing hood – and stopped her sniffling. She pressed a cloth to her reddened eyes and nose. ‘You are Goat’s master?’ She lifted her eyes to Lancaster, took in the august company, and remembered at last to curtsey. She opened wide the door. A little shrine had been set up to St Anne – the queen’s patron saint – with candles and flowers. The other ladies – some seven of them – had been kneeling and rose, straightening out their gowns. They each clutched ornate rosaries.
Lady Markéta gestured toward Crispin. ‘This is Goat’s master. He wishes to speak with us.’
They leaned their heads together and whispered, snatching glimpses at Crispin. He heard the word ‘Goat’ several times. Finally, they broke apart, and with reddened eyes with dark circles around them, they stared at him like frightened birds.
‘My ladies,’ he said with a bow. ‘I wish to enquire about Her Majesty’s illness. Was there … anything unusual about it in your reckoning?’
A young woman who looked very like the queen with her small chin, creamy skin, and pale blue eyes, closed her hands in prayer. She spoke softly in accented English. ‘It came on her suddenly. So very suddenly.’
‘My lady …’
‘Alžběta,’ she said.
‘Lady Alžběta, was this unusual?’
‘Yes. Had it been the sweating sickness as one of her physicians said, surely we should be ailing as well.’
‘And are any of you ailing?’
They all shook their heads.
‘Now, think carefully. Did any of you eat or drink the same as Her Majesty? Off the same plate, out of the same cup or flagon?’
Again, they exchanged glances. An English woman shook her head. ‘We never did that, sir. My lady, my poor lady, she had her own plates and cups.’
‘And the food. How does it come? A servant brings it from the kitchens, no? Does she have tasters?’
It suddenly became evident where Crispin was heading with his questions. Some of the ladies threw hands over their mouths. Others began to weep again.
‘But that cannot be!’ cried Alžběta. ‘You are saying that our precious Lady Queen was … poisoned!’
‘It is a possibility.’
‘No,’ said Markéta. ‘No, it was an illness. She was a frail creature. And we all took
such very good care of her.’
Crispin pulled the folded parchment from his pouch and opened it. ‘Have any of you seen this before?’
The English lady stepped forward. ‘Yes. It was I who found it. I sent it to Lady Katherine.’
‘And just where exactly was it?’
‘It was in her chamber at Sheen. It was on the coffer beside the bed.’
‘Had she seen it?’
The lady shook her head. She was gowned in rich velvets. Her veil was black. ‘When I saw it, I immediately took it and hid it.’
‘What do you suppose it means, demoiselle?’
The other women didn’t appear to know the contents of the parchment and looked on curiously.
‘It seemed to be a Lollard threat. But of its nature I couldn’t make it out.’
The English lady seemed to want to say more, but Markéta put a hand to her shoulder and she lowered her face and said nothing.
‘If any of you should think of anything that might be pertinent,’ said Crispin, ‘please do not hesitate – whatever the hour – to come to me in the duke’s apartments.’ He bowed to them and led the way out of the chamber, where the ladies locked it again.
They returned to Lancaster’s rooms and settled into the antechamber. There, Lady Katherine attended the duke as if she were already a wife. It was pointless to think otherwise of her, for this she was for all intents and purposes.
‘It is late and I’ve kept you from your supper,’ said Crispin, pushing the hood back off his face.
‘But you must be hungry, too,’ said Lady Katherine. ‘Come. Sit with us and sup.’
‘I am feeling somewhat … hollow,’ he conceded.
Servants brought food, and Crispin broke bread with his longtime lord, something he hadn’t done in over seventeen years.
‘I was grateful to be in your household,’ he said between bites. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to share his innermost thoughts, but now seemed as good a time as any. There were likely fewer times for him to actually be in Lancaster’s company as the years tolled on. ‘I felt it was my home, more so than my own manor in Sheen.’
‘And you were very like a son to me,’ John admitted. He smiled and then pushed at Crispin, nearly knocking him from his chair. ‘You were my practice son, at any rate.’
‘I’m certain Henry appreciated it.’
‘He did. But more than once, he tried to blame you for something he had done.’
‘God’s blood! The knave.’
‘Oh, but Katherine saw it all, didn’t you, sweeting?’
She kept her eyes downcast and nibbled on a piece of bread smeared with softened cheese. ‘I refuse to say,’ she said. When she raised her eyes, there was a distinct twinkle there.
Crispin sighed. ‘I miss it. But it’s not all tears. Jack and his are my family now. I do not regret keeping him in my life. And I have a son. A son I cannot acknowledge, but a son nonetheless.’
By Katherine’s unsurprised expression, he surmised that John had told her. She leaned in toward the table. ‘I think it a good thing that you are in contact with him. A man must know his sons.’
‘It is vanity that makes me want to tell him …’
‘Vanity. Perhaps. But you loved his mother.’
‘I love her still.’
‘A chaste love from afar, then. A man who grows up to know he was born of love, not of duty …’ Her voice choked and she brought a hand to her mouth. John looked fondly on her but with a bit of chiding, too. Most men couldn’t afford to marry for love. An arrangement was always necessary. Even Jack weighed his prospects, even though he was taken by Isabel at first sight.
It was only now that John could marry for love … in his fiftieth year.
Even Katherine could see the foolishness of her statement. She waved her hand before her face, but not before Crispin saw the tears rimming her eyes.
She put her hand on John’s. ‘A mother must never say that she favors one child over another, but here, in the confidence of this company, I can say that the Beaufort children are my pride and joy.’
John looked at her with such tenderness that Crispin had to turn away. Crispin was nearly forty. Maybe there was still time for him with another woman. If only he could open his heart. Maybe …
Katherine wiped at her eyes and laughed. ‘Emotions have run high this day. And it has been a very long one. Forgive me, Crispin. But I’ve always thought of you as family, as my lost son.’ She wiped at her eyes with trembling fingers. ‘I think it time I retire. You must think on it, too, John.’
‘I may have more to do this night.’
She rose and leaned forward, kissing his forehead.
John of Gaunt, the great warrior and lord of Lancaster, blushed.
She said her goodnights and disappeared beyond a door.
Crispin and John looked at one another before the duke stretched. ‘I almost forgot we fled for our lives today. The court is still in disarray.’
Crispin sobered. ‘I still need to see the queen’s body.’
‘God’s teeth, Crispin. Is there no sacrilege you will not perform?’
‘You know I must.’
‘I doubt the king has left her.’
‘Perhaps he can be lured away. Perhaps his confessor …’
‘If I can get that damned Dominican Alexander Bache to do my bidding.’
‘Can you?’
John sighed. It had been a long day. So much had happened to both of them. It would be good to put it to bed. Crispin was weary as well, but he couldn’t afford to lay his head down just yet.
‘I will do my damnedest. I’ll return anon.’ He rose – joints audibly cracking – and left the apartments.
Crispin had little to do but tidy up. After a time, a young page entered and nearly pushed Crispin out of the way to clean up after the supper. Crispin stepped back and allowed him. After all, this was the boy’s household. It wasn’t Crispin’s any more.
He walked to the window as the page piled high the dishes on a tray and, rattling all the while, left the room. Crispin looked out through the diamond-panes. Night had fallen, and thistle-sharp stars twinkled above the rooftops of Westminster. He hoped, perhaps even prayed, that the queen’s death was not by misadventure. God knows what Richard would do if it were so. But more than that, over the years Crispin had seen firsthand what murder did to the families. These weren’t faceless strangers and a mere puzzle to solve. Those who were nearest to the victims suffered greatly, especially when the murderer was a family member, as was so in Philippa’s case. There was nothing akin to that sorrow. He would not wish it on anyone. Even Richard.
It might have been an hour. It might have been longer. Crispin spent his time between the window and pacing across the floor. At last, the door opened and revealed Lancaster.
‘Richard’s confessor was able to lure him away to his chamber. We have very little time before he returns. Make haste.’
Crispin threw his hood up over his head again and followed his mentor out into the corridor once more.
Quiet had descended on the palace. Not the earlier quiet of people murmuring as they mourned and wondered about the future. But the quietude of courtiers who had gone to their beds, as Crispin longed to do. And as John, no doubt, desired to do as well. He noted their shadows cast by lamps in the corridor niches; John’s taller to Crispin’s slightly shorter. Was it a sin to enjoy this as much as he did? He and Lancaster … he and John were together again, doing the important work they used to do. But he dared not prolong it. He had a course to follow and a job to accomplish.
They made their way through archway after archway and finally to the chapel. Knights guarded the portal but, on recognizing the duke, they let them pass. When Crispin lived in the duke’s household, he never realized how much the duke’s presence or name literally opened doors that otherwise would have remained shut. How well he learned that over the years.
The chapel was dark except for the candle sconces at each corner of her b
ier. Shadows of the canons of St Stephen’s College paced up in the watching loft above the rood screen. The painted walls and statues were now muted by shadows and gloom. It seemed no longer a place of celebration, but of death and fear.
He looked upon the queen laid out in the finest samite, with a long white silken veil covering her face and head and draped all along her body, ending over her slippered feet. She looked tranquil, as if in sleep, as she should have been, not taken so young while the blush of youth still tinted her cheeks. Now it did not. She was as pale as alabaster with all life gone from her. Entombed as she surely soon would be, she would diminish in size even more, shrinking away from light and health and all that was life itself.
He felt John at his shoulder and, without speaking, he gently lifted the veil. Her face was still peaceful, though wore that waxy, relaxed look of the dead, where drooping muscles no longer kept the face supple. If she had died of plague, there was no sign of it. Could she have died of the sweating sickness? He had no way of knowing. But had she ingested poison? There were signs that could tell him.
He leaned over and smelled her mouth. Of course, she had been prepared for burial and so any signs of foam or poison on the mouth might have been washed away. Otherwise, her face showed no sign of poison from enlarged and darkened veins. He reached and gently pushed open an eyelid. He knew that sometimes poisons colored the whites or caused the veins to darken or freckle the eye. But her eye showed no signs of any of that. Instead, they were pale and milky, and saw no more.
He glanced once more at the doorway before he took her hand. The joints were stiffening. She had barely been dead some six or so hours and the stiffening rigor had begun. As best he could in the dark, he examined her fingers for signs of poisoning. Some poisons could darken the fingers … but there was no sign of it here.
Gently laying her hand back on her chest, he set the veil back in place. There was nothing here that he could see. Her ladies would have known if there were any other signs of assault, a knife wound or a bruise on the head. They had been the ones to prepare her, no doubt.
Crispin turned to John and shook his head. Lancaster nodded and turned to the door. Until he was stopped by a commotion there.
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