The floating voice turned harsh and angry. “This usurping king treats his people as fools, and they accept it. They believe his ludicrous stories. A little peasant boy? Ten years of age, or thereabouts? Leading armies? A dupe so absurd, yet supposedly fooled my cousin Lincoln into abandoning his own royal claims in order to fight to the death for a common simpleton? Why do such nonsense tales gain credence?”
“It is wise to believe a vindictive and powerful king.”
The voice sank again like an ebbing tide. “My mother was not intimidated. She supported my cause and even though her daughter was queen, she turned away from Tudor and put her faith in me. Would she have done that for a stranger and no relation to herself, a pathetic deceiver and an obvious lie?”
Ludovic shook his head. “And a hundred Irish lords, so foolish they were taken in by an ignorant child bare able to read or speak his name, yet crowned him king in Ireland? Your mother was made to suffer for supporting you. Tudor locked her away in penury. And now we have another supposed peasant boy, this time a foreigner pretending nobility to claim Tudor’s throne. But the English lords know the truth. They know, but choose not to say, for few of them will ever again risk their lives or titles for a hopeless cause. I myself chose not to, though was punished for the little I did. Tudor has made himself too powerful.”
“He hates the Plantagenets.”
“He has reason.”
“But perhaps,” wondered the voice, “it isn’t Tudor who shattered the House of York at all. We undermined our own foundations, like a castle besieged by its own lords. It seems my father was a wilful and indulgent king.”
He had been too young for politics, but Ludovic knew the sorrows of the past, told by his father. “All England knows Edward IV was secretly married before he wed the Woodville queen in yet another secret but bigamous union. I doubt Tudor would ever have dared challenge for power had that not happened.”
“I was angry when Uncle Richard accepted the crown.” The voice wavered a little. “But he saved our lives by sending us to my aunt in Flanders, with money and his friends to keep us safe.”
“And to make sure no one raised a rebellion against him in your names.”
“That too. He protected himself while protecting us. I blamed him then, but not now.”
Ludovic lowered his face over his steed’s neck, running his fingers through the long coppery mane. The ambling horse had stopped once more, sensing the lack of direction, pausing to pull at clover through the tangled grass. When Ludovic spoke again, it was a whisper muffled by the low wind, the bees in the wild flowers and the sounds of satisfied chewing. “Yet you stay?” Ludovic wondered. “You have a rightful place, either in Purgatory or in Paradise. Now you know your name. You remember your life. Your uncle, your cousins, your father, and so many of the countrymen who fought for you, they’re all dead. Don’t they look for you beyond the grave?”
“Yes. And they call to me,” the voice whispered back. “I’m ready to go where they call. I wait only for my brother. What happened to me before, now happens to him. He must not give up his name. He must not lose his identity in fear.”
“Most men fear death,” said Ludovic.
“They should fear life,” murmured the voice, clarity fading a little like a leaf carried high off by the breeze. “Death is so easy. Alive, you have a worldly future. But one day all futures stretch backwards instead of forwards. Everything bright turns into the shadows of the past.”
Ludovic smiled. “What cheerful company.”
“Loving is the only happiness,” whispered the voice. “I never had a woman.”
“So losing love is the greatest misery?” Ludovic’s own words breathed Alysson’s face back into his mind so strongly that for a moment, he gasped, as if he might reach out and touch her. Her memory had endlessly warmed him throughout the wretchedness of his imprisonment, even though he had expected only death for himself at the end. But hope of finding her waiting had since lapsed, knowing the long months he had been gone, and how he might return lame and aged and disillusioned. “I’ve written,” he said, “many times, both to the girl I want, and to others who know her. No message comes back. Only silence. And she was never truly mine.”
“I cannot be your messenger,” sighed the voice. “I know nothing of women. My brother had a wife and he loved her, but she was taken from him. He’s coming over soon. Until then I will stay and comfort him, talking to him in his dreams as I talked to you when you were a prisoner in the same cold place. I will be the first light he sees when his eyes close forever. Then I’ll take his hand and lead him over.”
Ludovic lifted his head. “I believe I’ll miss you. Once I tried to help you, but in the end you helped me far more. I shall be sorry not to hear from you again.”
“You won’t ever hear me,” the words floated back, the voice now trailing like clouds. “But I will hear you sometimes. And maybe I’ll find a way to watch over you as my uncle once watched over me. But your own trials are almost over. There is very little more you need do now to earn happiness. Your doorways are opening. You don’t need me anymore. My little brother needs me now.”
“Then I pray for you both,” said Ludovic. “And I thank you, and wish you all the blessings of Paradise.”
But there was no one there.
For some miles Ludovic rode on without focused thought. The sun was slipping to the west as its warmth spread, replacing the shower with summer’s placid expectations. But his reason for coming had dissipated with the whispered reminders of love, and his anger had burned away in the sunbeams. Bitter determination had dissolved into gentle hope and he discovered his mind rambling, recreating the unencumbered voice in his thoughts, pondering the words and sorrows of a dead prince. He thought of the new prisoner in the Tower and his probable fate, and he thought of how loyalty had been destroyed, and whether these dismal memories should be permitted to die as Gerald had, allowing the soul to move on into the sweet plains of the departed. If death was a warm and wholesome destiny, then danger took a different meaning. Most of all, fondly repeating her details into his mind like tapestry stitches, her almost forgotten words and the vibrant touch of her brought back to life, he remembered Alysson.
By the time he remembered Brice, he no longer cared. But now so close, he did not turn his horse. He continued towards the place he had been told his brother now occupied, and wondered briefly what he would find, or whether an otherwise wasted day had at least been vindicated by the last words of a royal ghost. This had been his only companion when he was kept prisoner himself, and now this ghost had promised him – Edward Plantagenet, eldest son of the late King Edward IV, had promised him – that his trials were nearly over. He did not entirely believe it. But happiness promised from beyond Purgatory would surely be worthy of faith, and hold some hope of truth.
Meandering the open meadows, unhedged and unfenced, he had come to a farm house, long, low and thatched, that stood beside a creek. The horse stopped and bent to drink. Ludovic sat loose in the saddle, half thinking, half dreaming. He leaned down, scratching his horse’s head between its ears. It tossed its mane, acknowledging affection. A gossamer dragonfly uncurled new born from the surface of the water. A cock crowed in the distance, but no farm animals grazed the land and the muddle of outhouses straddling the fields seemed quite abandoned.
The horse stretched its front legs, hooves in the splashing shallows. Ludovic looked down. He saw both his own rippled reflection, and that of one other man. For a moment, he thought it was another ghost, or perhaps simply a dream. He did not even bother to turn around.
The knife blade against his throat was suddenly cold. “So you came. He said you would never come, but I says as how you would. He’s waiting.”
The voice was disappointingly familiar. “Then put away your steel and take me to my brother,” sighed Ludovic.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Brice was sitting beneath the window on the long farmhouse bench, scrubbed wood bleached by age and wear. The window pan
es were broken and the sunshine slanted in across the worn stone pavings, splashing scarlet brilliance over Brice’s hair. His clothes were unclean and he was ungroomed. His shirt was open, torn and grimed with sweat. His legs were spread out before him and the wide flat blade of his sword was laid free of its scabbard across his knees. His metal shone, carefully attended, though the rest of him was not. Chickens pecked at the straw beside him and the trivets and iron chains for pots lay on an empty hearth where a deserted rat’s nest nestled amongst the cold ashes. Once the fine kitchen of a wealthy farmer, the abandoned room was now as slovenly as its occupant.
Brice smiled. “How kind of you to visit, and at such a time, my dear. Yet in such a pitiful condition I see. You are woefully lame, little brother. It seems his majesty’s displeasure proves almost as vengeful as my own.”
Careful not to limp, Ludovic ducked into the sun-striped low ceilinged chamber, Naseby at his back. Avoiding the two broken and splintered benches, he pulled a stool from its corner and sat heavily. He smiled back at his brother. “It seems you’re not enjoying the pleasure barges of Venice after all, my dear. Surely the Doge has had no time to spit you back yet. Is your fine ship run aground on the sandbanks of Kent, then? Or has pirating simply given you a taste for squalor?”
Brice continued smiling. “Naseby is the pirate, in case you forget, my love. I am a representative of England’s noble heritage; the second heir to the earldom of Sumerford, and a knight of the realm.” He tapped the hilt of his sword, as if its gilt inlay proved status. “As for squalor,” he said, “I bought this property a year back, paid for with the death of its owner, a miserable wretch who owed me too much for too long. I’m selling, but with Tudor’s taxes making misers of us all, the present market is beggarly. I’ll take my time looking for a higher price, since I need to draw in funds for a new life abroad. I won’t be forced to run in penury and I won’t be hurried or harried. Which means, little brother, eliminating anyone who might lay information against me, or let the authorities know I’m still in England.” Brice leaned forwards suddenly, fingers slipping around the grip of his sword. “And that means you, my dearest. Though you have your uses too.” He laughed. “Naseby thanks you for financing his release.”
Nasby remained knife in hand in the open doorway. His long shadow filled the room, spreading over the flagstones like spilt ink. The blocked sun filtered its lemon warmth in one thin stripe between his legs.
Ludovic did not bother to turn around. “We choose our friends as we see fit,” he said. “But family comes unchosen. I’d never have picked you for brother, but having accepted you as a condition of my birth, I’ll not turn traitor against you, and never have.” He paused, but Brice said nothing, his eyes narrowing. Ludovic sighed. “I’ve motive, I agree. Piracy disgusts me. A thief is a vile creature unless starvation prompts him. But larceny at sea means cruelty for pleasure, with vicious greed the only other motive, and you’ve proved both. Discovering your secret appalled me, and Naseby repels me even more. If you’d not taken my ship and terrorised my crew, I’d have got Gerald safe away to Flanders. Instead I was imprisoned for months and put to the rack. But Gerald lost everything. It’s a bitter end, execution for treason, and I trust you’ll answer to God for your hand in it.” The stool where Ludovic sat was squat to the ground and his knees had begun to throb. Standing strained him, but sitting too low was worse. He stood very slowly, hiding the pain in his joints as he leaned against the wall, gazing down at his elder brother. “I hold you responsible for Gerald’s death,” he continued. “And I’d do whatever needed if it could bring Gerald back. But I never informed against you, and never considered doing so. Nor would Gerald, since he held loyalty especially dear. So your banishment seems well deserved but I never caused your arrest, nor sought it.”
Eyes narrowed and focused, Brice stared back. “Now, whether to believe you, my dear. I think perhaps not.”
Ludovic shrugged. “You must have made as many enemies as livings you’ve stolen and ruined over the years. Why suspect me in particular?”
“Because those enemies are gone. I killed most and of those who lived on, none knew me by name. I remained free all these years until Naseby and you crossed paths, my dear.”
“Naseby I mean to kill,” Ludovic said. “But I’ll do it myself, not send in the law. And I won’t threaten you unless you force me to it. At least you came to Gerald’s execution when you heard. That’s a form of apology.”
“Came, and was arrested.”
“Not on my word.” Ludovic shook his head. “I’ll give you my pledge to that and I’ll swear my innocence this once, but I’ll not plead my case again. I despise you, my dear, and if you want to fight me over a false suspicion, I might welcome the chance. You know I can out-fight you.”
Brice sneered. “Not as you are, my beloved. In the past, perhaps yes. But racked and lame? I hardly think so.”
“Try me,” said Ludovic.
“I will.” Naseby marched fully into the room, still waving his knife, his hair dusting the unpainted ceiling beams. Toothless now, and thick tongued, his words were slurred. “I don’t give a turd’s squelch whether you speak the truth or a god-damned lie, it’s all the same to me. I want you dead, be it a crippled bastard or a fit one, and you’ll not outfight me neither way. No bugger has. No bugger does.”
Ludovic regarded him with faint amusement. “And I thought you were grateful to me for saving you from the Marshalsea cages.”
“No fucking gift o’ yorn,” Naseby objected, wiping dribbled saliva from his mouth onto his sleeve. “Was me had the sense to take your coin and bribe a guard to look t’other way. So I thank myself, not you. And when I called out as how Pigsnout was lying there dead so they comes to drag out the corpse, then I knocks out the two stupid bastards and were free with an open door and a guard paid to be more interested in his arse than his eyes. And since now you finds what I said about your brother were the truth and he’s here right enough, I reckons you owes me the next instalment.”
Ludovic laughed. “Perhaps I do. Perhaps I’ll pay it in steel.” He needed to sit again but did not do so, balancing himself against the wall and kept his eye on Naseby, judging his strengths and attitude. He remained ready for the sudden attack.
Brice interrupted. “Then if it’s the truth, my beloved brother, that you never stood turncoat against me, will you help me now? I need a full purse or two if I’m to sail for Italy and not live there as a pauper. The Cock’s Crest was commandeered and all her treasure taken by the crown. What coin I had safe in Kent was found by the king’s men, and taken too. That property still legally belongs to Father, but he refuses to sell it or pay me out. He intends disinheriting me. That should please you, little brother.”
“I knew it already. It seems just.”
“With Gerald gone and me too, there’s a damned fine inheritance coming to you one day, my dearest, unless Humphrey grabs it all.” Brice again tapped the blade of his sword. “The misfortune of others is not the misfortune of all, it seems. So pay me now what you’ll gain in the future. You’re rich enough from all your smuggling, and you’ve a guarantee I’ll not crawl whining to the authorities about your own illegal gains since I won’t be here, nor could afford such visibility while I am. And I’ll not return to piracy, if that matters to you. Naseby can take his own risks from now on. There’s adventure of another kind to be found in Italy.”
“Where cruelty and murder are as well practised as the Pope’s prick.”
“Ah, the unholy diversions of our saintly Alexander Borgia,” Brice nodded. “And how typically mundane of you to care, my dear. But I shall study poisons, since the tainted goblet and the poisoned blade are the currency of Venice. Only boredom terrifies me. La Serenissima will suit me very well, but first I need money.”
Ludovic pulled back the stool and sat heavily again with a sigh, suspecting his knees of trembling. Disguising pain, he stretched his legs, then loosened the buckle of his belt, bringing the hilt of the hidden
knife within easy grasp. He murmured, “You think four months in the Tower left me rich?”
“But you have Father doting at your bedside, you have whatever coin you secreted beforehand, and you’ve another ship on your horizons. You always had two craft. With my own contacts at sea, I always knew what you were up to. So are both your ships capsized then, to leave you so bereft?”
Ludovic raised an eyebrow. “You know so much? Yet attacked the Fair Rouncie in ignorance that she was mine?”
“Salvami, salvami,” Brice sighed. “I knew your ship, my dear, but Naseby, in his haste, did not. He can neither read a ship’s name, nor recognise yours, never having seen it before. I would apologise for him, but at present he’s all I have. Now give me your trust, little brother, and I shall give you precisely what I know you want, which at the moment only I can promise.”
Naseby turned in sudden suspicion. He glared at both men. “You’s better not be meaning what I reckons you might be,” he growled. “And just remember I looks after myself, as always have.”
Ludovic, ignoring Naseby, shook his head, still speaking to Brice. “What little I have remaining to me lies in Somerset. As for Father, he can’t be persuaded against his will and you know it. His family pride is turned bitter, and that’s something he’ll never forgive.”
“Family pride? I’m the least of it, my dear. One son executed for high treason, and the other arrested for the same crime. And Father had to swallow his damned pride while kneeling to Tudor anyway, even before the shame of Stoke. And then there’s dearest Humphrey, the glorious heir. The next generation will be a proud one indeed.”
“Father’s already learned to live with Humphrey,” said Ludovic. “He could have chosen to overlook him and put you up as heir from the beginning, but decided not to. As for Gerald and myself, there’s no shame to it in his mind, since he secretly supports our beliefs. It’s only you tastes sour as ashes on his tongue.”
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