by Paul Doherty
For a while Colum stood leaning against the wall, gasping for breath. Kathryn went up to him and undid the top lace of his shirt.
‘Well, well, my fighting man!’
Kathryn felt nauseous, and her legs seemed to have lost all strength. Colum kissed her quickly on the forehead and pushed her gently aside. He walked across the room and turned Venables’s corpse over with the toe of his boot. The room now looked like a battlefield. Colum dropped his sword and dagger and slumped down on a stool.
‘He’s dead,’ he whispered throatily. ‘The misbegotten traitor’s dead! Kathryn, you have taken years off my life! Why didn’t you have men-at-arms here?’
Kathryn came and crouched beside him, wiping the sweat from his cheek with the palm of her hand.
‘Colum, I knew he was guilty. He knew he was guilty, and God knows he’s guilty. But if the truth be known, it was a matter of logic rather than evidence. I had little real proof. I had to watch his eyes and face. I wanted to count on his arrogance and, when that failed, the violence seething within him. To be caught by a woman, to have evidence laid against him by the likes of Mathilda Chandler . . .’
Colum grinned. He put an arm round her shoulder, drawing her close.
‘Oh, Kathryn, as they say in Ireland, we have seen the days! You know the hearts of men better than you claim.’
He took his arm away at the thunderous knocking on the door.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke! Mistress Swinbrooke!’
Kathryn got to her feet and pulled back the bolt. A serjeant-at-arms almost struck her with the door as he threw it open. Garbed in the gorgeous hues of the Royal Livery, he swaggered into the room, helmet in the crook of his arm, his other hand on the pommel of his sword. He reminded Kathryn of an angry cockerel as he stared round the room. He glimpsed Venables’s corpse sprawled in its widening pool of blood.
‘By Satan’s tits!’ he breathed. ‘That’s Master Venables! Is this your work, Irishman? Do I have to take you in hand?’
‘He’s a traitor’ – Colum snapped – ‘not to mention an assassin and a thief. And I can prove it. Take his corpse in hand; I will answer to the King.’
The news had spread quickly. In the hallway outside, Prior Anselm, surrounded by the members of his community, stood wringing his hands as if the heavens had fallen and all lay in ruins. Mathilda Chandler sat on a stool in the corner, quiet as a mouse.
‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’ The infirmarian bustled forward.
Colum pushed him gently away. ‘Nothing to trouble you, Brother. Come, Mistress Chandler, we are finished here.’
He led Kathryn and their new-found companion out of the friary, its grounds now packed with men-at-arms and archers. A courier galloped into the courtyard, swinging himself out of the saddle. He wiped the sweat from his face and peered at Kathryn.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke, I come from the Duchess!’
‘Tell the Duchess she has nothing to fear,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Search Master Venables’s corpse. Oh yes,’ she saw the surprise in his face, ‘he lies in his own blood; his soul has gone to judgement. Tell your mistress to have Venables’s possessions carefully searched by her and no one else.’
The messenger made to object.
‘Do as you are told, man!’ Colum snapped.
They left the friary and made their way through the busy street. Mistress Chandler, frightened of the noise, the bustle, and the smell, pushed her way gently between Murtagh and Kathryn.
Once they were back home, Kathryn handed Mathilda over to Thomasina, who gently put an arm round her and took her upstairs to the guest-chamber at the back of the house. Wulf and Agnes were busy in the herb garden. Kathryn told them to stay there. She found it difficult to talk to Colum. No sooner was she in her own chamber than she began to shake. Despite the warmth, her body was racked by shivers. Thomasina came in, took one look at her, bustled out, and returned with a goblet.
‘Some powders to make you sleep.’
Kathryn drank it slowly. She felt tired and slightly nauseous. All she could think of was Venables’s hate-filled face and that abrupt violent struggle in the Prior’s parlour. Colum came in and sat beside her on the bed; he spoke, but she wasn’t aware of what he was saying. He seemed calm enough.
‘Don’t think, Kathryn.’ Colum stroked her hair. ‘Venables was a killer. He would have taken your life and mine without a second thought, even though I still find it hard to believe he was a traitor.’
Kathryn kissed Colum absent-mindedly on the cheek.
‘It’s not over yet,’ she whispered.
She turned to lie down and noticed the small scroll on the table beside the bed. It was tied with a piece of black cord, sealed with blobs of red wax. Kathryn picked it up, undid the cord, and broke the seal.
‘What is it?’ Colum asked.
Kathryn gnawed at her lip, tears in her eyes. She read the message once again and pushed it into Colum’s hand.
‘Read it out loud, Colum!’
‘To Mistress Swinbrooke, physician and apothecary at Ottemelle Lane in the city of Canterbury. Monksbane, her loyal servant, sends cordial greetings. I write this from the Golden Wyvern tavern, which overlooks the market place at Cirencester. For a man skilled as myself, the search was neither long nor arduous. Your husband, Alexander Wyville, is dead and lies buried in a pauper’s grave in St. Dunstan’s Church-Outside-the-Gates.
‘I have not seen his corpse, but I have spoken to Parson Crispin, who buried your husband after he was killed in a tavern brawl in the market place below me. I have it from good testimony that Alexander Wyville joined the Lancastrians in their march to the west, hoping to join up with other traitors in the company of Margaret of Anjou and Beaufort of Somerset. Your husband, however, was more interested in plunder, food, and drink. His death, God assoil him, was without grace or favour. He deserted his companions and, with a few others of his coven, became involved in a game of hazard when the dice were found to be loaded. Harsh words and a drunken brawl led knives to be drawn. Alexander Wyville was slain immediately, his corpse identified by letters and warrants in his wallet. His possessions were sold for a meagre sum, and the money was given to Father Crispin; he was buried the following evening. I shall return to Canterbury with the sworn testimonies that this is God’s own truth. May His blessing be with you. Farewell. Monksbane.’
Colum went to embrace Kathryn, but she pushed him gently away.
‘Not now,’ she whispered. ‘God forgive me, Colum, I feel no grief, only that a shadow has been lifted.’
Kathryn lay down on the bed, and Colum pulled the coverlet over her. She heard him say that he would be out at Kingsmead, and then she drifted into a deep sleep, waking late in the afternoon. Thomasina and Mathilda were in the kitchen, chattering merrily as two sparrows on a rooftop. The change in Mathilda’s appearance was remarkable. She had lost that wan, grey look; colour now bloomed in her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled. Kathryn went into the buttery and brought out a jug and bowl of water which she used to wash her hands and face. She still felt sleepy, and her arms and legs ached, but she pronounced herself better.
‘Where will you go?’ Thomasina asked Mathilda. ‘I mean, you are welcome to stay here.’
‘And you will stay here.’ Kathryn sat down at the table. ‘Until these matters have been cleared up, you are my guest, Mathilda.’
‘I already have plans,’ the woman replied. ‘Thomasina mentioned Father Cuthbert at The Poor Priests’ Hospital. I’ll not marry again, Mistress. If the King is good, I wish to thank God for my deliverance. I would like to work there.’
Kathryn was drawn into their conversation, interrupted now and again by Wulf running in from the garden, the arrival of patients with a list of minor ailments, or customers wishing to buy herbs and spices. Kathryn slipped easily into the ordinary routine of her life. Thomasina took Mathilda out to the garden, still chattering and gossiping. Darkness began to fall. Colum came striding into the house, his face wreathed in smiles.
‘Let me guess,’ Kathryn said. ‘Master Smallbones worked in Oxford, where he drove rats out of the sewers by using fire.’
‘There and elsewhere,’ Colum grinned, taking off his war-belt and straddling the bench. ‘Good Lord, Kathryn, the man is more to be pitied than hated. He’s such a rogue. Apparently he boxed these vermin up, fed them, and brought them down to the ruined village of Luxmoor about a mile from Canterbury.’
‘How many?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Well, Holbech followed him there late this afternoon. He reckons at least a few score.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ Kathryn shook her head.
‘It’s easily done,’ Colum laughed. ‘Rats can be caught and boxed as easily as snails on a path. There’s no infestation of rats in Canterbury. What Smallbones did was bring a few boxes in and release them in Westgate, Southgate, and near the Cathedral. The rest depended on rumor, gossip . . .’
‘And fear,’ Kathryn interrupted.
‘Apparently he has done it elsewhere,’ Colum remarked. ‘Colchester, Oxford, Gloucester. He creates the problem and then offers to solve it.’
‘I hope the City Council remembers Father Cuthbert.’
‘Luberon is hopping with rage,’ Colum said. ‘Imagine a fat pigeon striding up and down the eaves of a roof.’
‘What will happen to Smallbones?’
‘The return of all monies. He’ll probably have to work until mid-summer clearing every rat from the city and pay a large fine. He’s also to be whipped at the tail of a cart and taken, to the sound of bagpipes, to sit in the stocks every day for a week.’ Colum grinned. ‘That’s the least Luberon can think of at the moment.’
‘You must send a message,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Luberon must speak to Father Cuthbert. Ask him to hire the Twelve Apostles.’
Colum promised he would. He got to his feet.
‘And shall we talk about Wyville?’
‘When this is all over, Colum, we will talk about Wyville.’
‘It’s not finished, is it?’ Colum asked. ‘There’s something else?’
‘We have one more visitor coming,’ Kathryn said, getting to her feet. ‘And I must prepare for her.’
She returned to her chamber, where she changed her clothes; then she went downstairs to join the rest for the evening meal. Colum’s joy at the news from Monksbane was ill-concealed. When Thomasina found out, she crossed herself and insisted on going down to the cellar to broach the best cask of Bordeaux. Kathryn still hadn’t made her mind up about what to feel. She ate and drank, listening to the chatter of others. Colum and Wulf were now teasing both Thomasina and Mathilda, only giving them respite when they turned on Agnes. But Agnes gave as good as she received, being an ardent student of Thomasina’s manner of speech. Kathryn felt sadness but no real grief at Alexander’s death. Both of them had closed the door on the past; Alexander had followed his path, and she had taken hers. What was left to do? Grieve? Over what? Why act the hypocrite? Kathryn quietly vowed that she would ensure a cross was set up in that pauper’s churchyard in Cirencester. She would pay Father Cuthbert to sing Requiem Masses for Alexander’s soul. Engrossed in her own thoughts, Kathryn hardly heard the knock on the door. Thomasina came back into the kitchen all a-flutter.
‘Mistress, you have a visitor.’
Kathryn told the rest to stay. Cecily, Duchess of York, waited in the hallway, escorted by a knight banneret, a dark-blue coat covering the Royal Livery. Through the half-open front door, Kathryn glimpsed the rest of the escort. The Duchess murmured instructions to her protector and followed Kathryn into the writing chamber. She closed the doors behind her, pulling across the bolts and turning the key, then handed Kathryn her cloak. The Queen Mother’s face was white and drawn. She was dressed in widows’ weeds, black from neck to toe, except for a gold bracelet round her left wrist and a jewelled cross on a silver chain about her neck.
‘Do you wish wine?’ Kathryn offered.
The Duchess shook her head and took the offered seat.
‘We can’t be heard in here, can we, Mistress Swinbrooke? Kathryn, I will call you Kathryn.’
‘Your Grace is well?’ Kathryn sat on a stool and stared up at the Duchess’s face.
‘When we spoke last night, I did not know it was Venables.’ The Duchess’s face took on a vindictive cast. ‘I trusted him!’
‘Why are you here, Madame?’
‘How much do you know, Mistress Swinbrooke?’
Cecily studied Kathryn, who repressed a shiver at the hard-eyed look. The Duchess was obviously deeply disturbed by what had happened at the friary, and Kathryn wondered how safe she was. Duchess Cecily was a powerful woman, but the secrets of her past could bring her and, perhaps, the House of York into hideous disrepute.
‘Your Grace must trust me,’ Kathryn replied. ‘And you must listen to me. You must only tell me what you want, though I can guess what nightmares haunt your soul.’
‘You tell me, Mistress,’ Cecily whispered.
‘You are of the Neville family,’ Kathryn began, ‘and made a rich and prosperous marriage with Richard, Duke of York. Your late husband went to France some thirty years ago as Keeper of Calais, and you accompanied him.’
‘I told you that last night.’
‘You also said that while your husband was away with the English armies, a certain knight in his retinue plagued you with his attentions.’
‘Again, as I told you, it was fashionable for members of my husband’s retinue to pay honour to their lord’s lady. But as you know, the matter got out of hand. He was a tempestuous, fiery young knight who demanded more than courtesy, etiquette, or the vows of marriage would allow.’
‘He tried to force himself on you?’
‘Yes. In one of the towers of Calais Castle I described how Atworth, who was then in my retinue, apprehended that man and slew him.’
Kathryn nodded, recalling the scrawled, illuminated miniatures she had seen in Atworth’s psalter.
‘Is that the truth, my lady?’
Dame Cecily’s mouth quivered. She blinked to hide her tears.
‘Your Grace, what was that knight’s name?’
‘I cannot tell you,’ came the whispered reply. She glanced quickly at Kathryn. ‘But perhaps you can tell me?’
Kathryn swallowed hard. Could she trust this woman?
‘Whoever that knight was, Your Grace,’ she replied slowly, ‘he was more than just some fervent admirer. He may have had a relationship with you which was improper.’
Dame Cecily sat, hands on her lap, as if carved out of stone.
‘He may have also become threatening,’ Kathryn continued, ‘so Atworth killed him. I have done some reckoning.’ Kathryn looked up at the ceiling. ‘Your eldest son, Edward, was conceived in Calais. Your Grace, I’ll come bluntly to the point. If you had had an affair with this knight, particularly around the time you conceived Edward, some people might claim the present king is not the true offspring of Richard of York. If that is the case, he has no claim to the Throne of England.’
‘Who would be so malicious as to maintain that?’
‘Venables, for a start. The secret between you and Atworth was not just the murder of a knight who had dared to over-reach himself, it also touched on the conception of your eldest son. Atworth was captured by the Vicomte de Sanglier. God knows what happened in that castle where he was imprisoned. Atworth may have been tortured, bribed. Somehow or other de Sanglier suspected that secret. The years passed. De Sanglier, like the rest, grew old, but he never forgot. In 1471, Edward of York sweeps the board clean: the Lancastrians are defeated in two bloody battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury in the West Country. Edward is now King, conqueror, ruler of a united kingdom which, once again, might threaten France. Louis XI is alarmed, and Vicomte de Sanglier whispers
rumours about a possible scandal. Like two dogs with a bone, Louis and his vicomte search about. They want to learn more. They need a traitor high in the Royal Circle.’
‘But Venables wasn’t that!’
‘No, Your Grace, he wasn’t. He was only the instrument of a much more sinister figure, your beautiful-faced, golden-haired, blue-eyed son George of Clarence.’
Dame Cecily’s face crumpled in pain as her body began to shake with sobs.
‘George of Clarence,’ Kathryn declared, ‘is as treacherous as he is beautiful. During the recent civil war, he sided, for a while, with the Lancastrians. George’s mind teems like a box of worms. If Colum is to be believed, he has bounding ambition but not the talent to match. If this story can be proved, George might lay claim to the Crown of England.’
‘He would have to fight Edward,’ Cecily snapped, ‘and fight Edward he would!’
‘Clarence might be prepared to take that risk. He certainly was susceptible to the Vicomte’s treachery. He listened to the story with some delight and recalled other whispers he may have heard.
‘You know your son better than I, Your Grace. He’s attracted to treason as a cat to cream. He cannot spy on his mother, who trusts him no further than the length of her arm. So Clarence turns to your confessor, Roger Atworth, and your henchman, Venables, whom he suborns with gold and silver, the offer of protection, and the hope of preferment. Venables is like many of the men around your sons, killers all, falcons who roam the sky looking for prey. Venables agrees. Disguised and masked, Venables enters the Friary of the Sack. He, in turn, suborns Gervase and obtains Atworth’s psalter.’
‘I have heard of that,’ Dame Cecily replied. ‘Roger was indiscreet, but his paintings prove little.’
‘Clarence realised that, and Venables was sent back. He abducted Atworth – despite the care of Jonquil – and interrogated him, but Atworth’s frail heart gave way. The trickery I described to you last night is no longer a hypothesis; it is the truth.’