A Parliament of Spies

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘About hunting?’

  ‘About Scarborough Castle. You must have been there when Sir Ralph Standish was constable?’

  ‘We were, as a matter of fact.’ Summers looked bewildered but evidently believing there was no harm in it answered in a straightforward manner. ‘His Grace thought he’d better have a look at this new placeman of Gaunt’s, so we went over there after a good day out. They spent the evening in discussions up in Standish’s solar. It was at the top of a tower looking out over the sea one way and the moors the other. Amazing place. You could hear the sea booming on the rocks way below.’

  Hildegard heard Medford sigh but he allowed Summers to continue.

  He was saying, ‘I have good cause to remember those steps leading up to the top.’ He grinned. ‘Standish had a flaming temper, even worse than Neville’s. He threw me down them and I had a bump on my head for a week.’

  ‘What made him do that?’ asked Hildegard while everybody stared at Summers as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  ‘He thought I’d been listening in. I was astonished that anybody should harbour such suspicions about an archbishop’s clerk. It’s outrageous. But here I am, going up the stairs to give His Grace a message, when the door at the top suddenly flies open. It’s Standish. He’s shouting something over his shoulder like: “I’m owed! Get it? It’s not my fault things went arse over teat. They owe me!” And a voice comes from inside: “And if they don’t pay their debt?” Standish again: “I shall take the truth to where it will do most harm!” Then the archbishop: “And where is that?” And then Standish mentions you, Mr Secretary. He says, “Ask Medford!” And then he comes flying out, knocks me over, picks me up and gives me a great shove sending me back down the stairs. I was never so astonished in my life.’

  ‘And, apart from Archbishop Neville, do you know who was inside the chamber at this time?’ asked Medford.

  On the way back they had to ride down Ludgate Hill. Hildegard found her cheeks were wet as if a shower of rain had passed over without being noticed.

  ‘So did Standish have something to tell you?’ Slake asked Medford.

  ‘Don’t you think I would have informed the King?’ Medford stared straight ahead.

  ‘It’s to do with the rebellion,’ announced Slake, continuing, ‘we know Standish was one of the traitors at Smithfield.’

  Hildegard wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. ‘The Abbot of Meaux heard a rumour along those lines.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Medford.

  ‘Apparently Standish was paid to get rid of Tyler. He was also instructed to assassinate Richard in the confusion they expected to follow. Standish was rewarded with Scarborough Castle by his master—’

  ‘Lancaster,’ put in Slake.

  ‘And,’ she continued, ‘maybe he thought he had a right to the rest of his payment, whatever it was, despite the fact that he failed in the final detail. Maybe that’s what he was so furious about when Summers was there. Neville must know.’

  Medford looked furious.

  Slake gave Medford a glance. ‘If Standish had come to you with a story like that, names and so on, and you’d told the King, then all hell would have broken loose. There might even have been a second rising.’

  ‘It would have been a clear case of treason and would have led to civil war. Richard would not have wanted that.’

  Hildegard stared at Medford.

  His tone was clipped as, avoiding her glance, he added, ‘Not after the vengeance brought down on his people after the rebellion with those endless executions. He would not want to be the cause of more bloodshed.’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ agreed Ulf, not having observed the expressions on the faces of the two men. ‘Good Queen Anne earned her name by stopping the executions. It was her first request to Parliament after being crowned. Obviously Richard would be behind it, knowing what we do about his distress at seeing the rebels hang without trial.’

  ‘Just think, if you’d known about Standish’s role,’ observed Slake to Medford, ‘you could have quietly got rid of him. Events up there filter down to London at a snail’s pace. Luckily for us the bloody flux did it instead.’

  ‘How is little Turnbull getting on?’ Hildegard asked Edwin as he was about to leave them outside York Place. Ulf had already had to peel off at the de Hutton house but Haskin and the rest of the group, including the bodyguards from the Signet Office, had remained. Now they came to a halt.

  Edwin gave a half smile at her mention of the boy. ‘I hear he’s doing well. Apparently Swynford taught him nothing. But they’ve started from scratch and feel they’ll make something of him even yet. He has the will, they say.’

  ‘I’ve neglected him. Maybe I can take him out so he can see something of London.’ Medford moved his horse on impatiently at what was nothing to do with affairs of state. Hildegard leant forward with a quick glance over her shoulder. ‘We could visit that herb garden at Stepney His Grace mentioned?’

  Poison. Back to that.

  Before she went on to her guest lodgings at the abbey to pick up her things to take them over to Roger de Hutton’s place, she asked for a private word with Medford. Slake was in attendance, of course.

  ‘It’s this, Mr Medford. I’d forgotten it until now. He told me the trail leads to the Queen.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘So is that all?’ His brooding glance sent spiders up and down her spine.

  ‘That’s all. I thought it might make sense to you. Maybe I’m missing something?’

  ‘I would imagine that’s a rare occurrence.’ His dark glance followed her to the door as she took her leave.

  From Standish to the Queen. He knows I’m getting close, she thought without any feeling. Am I in danger?

  No time to ponder the issue. It was of no interest one way or the other. The purpose of life is death. That’s what he believed. She remembered his little chamber. The wind rattling the casement. The street singer with his melancholy lament. And firelight. The way his mouth curved when he smiled. Wolfish, she had once thought. I am being devoured.

  They set out next day shortly after prime to get the best of the morning, little Turnbull on a pony, Haskin on a tough old warhorse, Hildegard riding astride a palfrey, and a couple of silent men-at-arms from Medford’s Signet Office. Keeping an eye on me, she guessed. But when the secretary had offered them he said, ‘We don’t want you to come to harm, do we, Domina?’

  The old friar who ran the gardens was a spry eighty-year-old with a shock of white hair. Once a successful merchant, he had made a fortune in his retirement for his adopted Order by importing and selling herbs and medicinal plants. He was said to possess the widest variety in the kingdom. They were sent from all over the world, more than one hundred and forty-two different kinds, all named and described together with their virtues in a book he had just written.

  When he noticed Hildegard and her escort outside the lodge he walked up towards them with a hoe over one shoulder, a smiling figure at home between his sparkling beds of plants. After a formal greeting he offered her bodyguards some refreshment with his own servants in the lodge, then turned to little Turnbull. ‘Now, young master, do you know your plants?’

  ‘Not all, magister,’ the boy admitted with beguiling honesty.

  ‘Well, take this trowel,’ he fished one from his pouch, ‘and go and find some mint, parsley and chives. Dig up a little root of each to take back to York Place with you. Your gardener there can make use of them and you can watch them grow.’

  After he ran off the old man turned to Hildegard. ‘So, Domina. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I crave a remedy for grief, magister.’

  ‘I can see that. Have you tried a warm fireside, a glass of honey in wine and some friendly conversation?’

  ‘I fear I need stronger treatment.’

  ‘Follow me.’

  He led her to a lean-to at the side of the lodge. Inside it was perfumed with bunches
of sweet-smelling herbs hanging from the rafters. Along the back wall were rows of tinctures and other cures in blue and white pots, sealed and stoppered to maintain the potency of the contents. He took one down, uncorked it and poured a quantity into a phial and put it into her hand.

  ‘For the torments of the body brought on by despair. Best applied by a loving friend but failing that it will still work its magic if you give it time. And this,’ he continued, taking down a glass flagon filled with a dark liquid.

  After pouring some into a clean bottle he turned his kindly scrutiny on her as she tucked both physicks into her bag. His kindness made it easy to ask him the question that had been puzzling her.

  ‘It’s this plant,’ she explained, pulling the stems she had picked in the bishop’s garden in Lincoln from the container in her scrip. ‘I cannot identify it nor work out what its virtue is.’

  He took the now-dried leaves, sniffed them, crumpled one between his fingers, then gave her a shrewd glance.

  Just then little Turnbull bounded up, calling, ‘I have them, magister. All correct.’ He was about to show them his gatherings when he saw the leaves in the magister’s hands.

  ‘Ah, you’ve got some of that as well.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’ the old man asked him.

  ‘I do. It’s hart’s tongue.’

  ‘It is indeed, young fellow. At least, that’s what some call it. How do you know it?’

  ‘My previous master had some in Lincoln. It’s like gold, he said, paving our way to fame and fortune.’

  ‘He said that, did he?’

  ‘And he called it “white hart physick”.’

  The white hart. King Richard’s emblem.

  ‘Right,’ said Medford after Hildegard told him what she suspected. ‘We’ll bring him in. See to it, Dean.’

  Hildegard put out a hand. ‘Will you grant me a request?’

  Medford raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Allow me to speak to him first?’

  ‘I’m looking for Jarrold of Kyme.’

  ‘Try the buttery, Domina.’

  It was the quiet time, after the first sitting of the day and before the second and the kitchens were empty, floors swept clean, the pots and pans in gleaming rows, the knives, ladles and other utensils hanging from hooks. Shadows and silence. A cat sidled round a door. Rats defeated. Hildegard walked through the labyrinth of passages until she found him.

  He appeared to be busy, stuffing things into a hempen bag.

  ‘Leaving?’ she asked.

  He looked up. ‘What if I am?’

  ‘Going anywhere interesting?’

  ‘I am, Domina, as it happens. For what it’s got to do with you,’ he added.

  She waited to see if he would expand on his boast.

  He did.

  ‘I’ve been commanded by the Great Council to attend the King in his kitchens as master herberer.’ He smirked.

  She reached forward. ‘And is this one of the herbs you’ll be using?’

  He snatched it back. ‘Plenty more where that came from if you want some.’ The idea made him snigger but he said no more, merely tightening the strap on his bag and offering her a challenging look.

  ‘Do you plan on ever going back to York?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve wiped the dust of that bloody hole from my boots. Me, I’m staying put.’ He made as if to push past her. He smelt of sweat and decaying leaves.

  She stood her ground. ‘It’s a pity about Martin.’

  He jerked to a stop. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Being dead.’

  Neither of them made a move to cross themselves.

  ‘He had it coming.’

  ‘Why so?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m saying nothing against him. He wasn’t a bad lad, just misguided.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Leave it.’

  ‘I don’t feel like leaving it. I feel I owe it him to find out why he died.’

  ‘Why ask me?’ he sneered. ‘I’d think it was bloody obvious to a halfwit. You’d die if you were hit on the back of the head and chucked in a vat of ale.’

  ‘Is that what happened?’

  ‘I can think of worse ways to go.’ He began to laugh then stopped when he saw her expression. ‘What?’

  She continued to stare at him.

  ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’

  ‘What did you hit him with?’

  Jarrold looked astonished for a moment then gave a snarl. ‘Don’t think you can pin it on me.’

  ‘Only His Grace, his clerk, the bailiff in Bishopthorpe and myself know he was hit on the back of the head. And you.’

  ‘Piss off out of my way, you bloody nun.’

  She barred his way as he tried to barrel past her from out of the buttery and there was a brief struggle in the doorway when she thought he was going to hit her but she clung onto him and said fiercely, ‘You could not know he was hit over the head unless you did it, Jarrold! You could not know!’

  ‘So, who’s going to listen to you?’

  ‘Why did you have to kill him? Was he about to announce what he knew about Standish?’

  ‘What about Standish?’

  ‘What did you use to get rid of him? Hemlock?’

  ‘So obvious! I’m a master of my trade. Credit me with some skill! I’d use something more subtle.’

  ‘Such as?’

  He considered her for a moment but was unable to resist the temptation to tell. ‘What Martin saw me feeding to the rats. He guessed I’d used it on Standish as well.’

  He took out his knife.

  ‘That Scarborough lot were glad Standish was dead – being rebels as they were. I knew they wouldn’t let on. On the contrary,’ he smirked, ‘they were cheering me, just like they were the other day at York Place when I killed some more rats. It was only bloody Martin, sanctimonious sot wit. Then when he saw me turn up at Bishopthorpe he was scared shitless …’

  ‘So who paid you?’

  ‘Paid? What makes you think I was paid?’

  ‘You surely didn’t do it for nothing? Who paid you?’ she insisted. ‘Was it Swynford?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. He didn’t want Standish dead, why would he?’

  ‘So who was it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He gave a derisory laugh. ‘You mad bitch – I’ll tell you who it was. Then this! See it? What is it?’

  ‘It’s a knife …’

  He waved it in her face. ‘The mastermind who set it—’ ‘Hey, that’s no way to treat a lady!’ It was Dean Slake, jaunty as ever, suddenly materialising as if from nowhere.

  Hildegard turned in astonishment to see Medford as well, strolling in from the storeroom next door. The storage spaces were divided by wooden partitions with bars up to the ceiling to allow air to circulate but to prevent theft. Every word must have been audible on the other side.

  Slake had picked up a cleaver from the kitchens at some point and was beating it against the palm of one hand as he approached. ‘Now then, Jarrold of Kyme,’ he said affably. ‘Why don’t you come with us?’

  Before Jarrold could move Slake went right up to him, put him in a headlock and, before their eyes, slicked the cleaver down Jarrold’s front from ribs to belly. It made no sound but left a red trail under the ripped fabric of his shirt. Jarrold’s expression was one of astonishment. Hildegard saw him stare down as Slake twisted the cleaver and his guts began to spill out into his hands. When Slake let go he staggered forward a pace or two, reaching for the wall opposite, leaving streaks of blood down the white lime wash as he clutched for support. He began to slide slowly, slowly, to the ground.

  Medford stood over him when he was still. ‘Dean Slake. I’ve said it before, you’re a hasty fellow. Now we’ll never know what he wanted to tell Hildegard.’

  ‘Slake has blocked off the trail that leads from Scarborough by way of Bishopthorpe and Lincoln.’

&nb
sp; Edwin and Thomas were gaping at her as she told them what had happened. She began to believe they thought, as Jarrold had, that she was mad, but then Edwin got up to pace about Thomas’s chamber and he was firm. ‘I didn’t tell anybody how Martin was murdered. And of course His Grace would not do so.’

  ‘It sounds as if Jarrold has got his just desserts.’ Thomas made the sign of the cross. They had told him about their meeting with Harry Summers and now he asked, ‘Jarrold seemed about to tell you he was acting on instructions from someone you know, Hildegard. So who was it? Someone who was at Scarborough Castle the same time he was working there?’

  ‘Was it the unnamed guest in the chamber with His Grace when Standish had his outburst and pushed Harry down the stairs?’

  ‘Can we find out?’ Thomas looked from Edwin to Hildegard and back.

  ‘By necromancy probably.’ Edwin got up hurriedly and went to the window. ‘I can’t see me going up to His Grace and asking outright.’

  ‘Best to leave it for now,’ Thomas suggested. ‘Maybe we’re not meant to know.’ He looked troubled.

  Hildegard persisted. It was no time for avoiding the truth. ‘Jarrold was adamant he was not acting on Swynford’s instructions. He took pleasure in hinting that it was someone else. It was his big secret. But who was it? Things happened too quickly. I’d no idea Medford and Slake were listening in. It was stupid of me. I should have expected that.’

  ‘Only someone as devious as they are would think along those lines,’ Thomas assured her. ‘Did Medford give any excuse for what Slake did?’

  ‘He tried to suggest that he acted on impulse. To protect me. Impetuous Slake.’

  Edwin gave a snort. ‘Like hell he is. I hope Harry’s going to be safe. He didn’t say anything that would make him seem dangerous, did he?’

  Hildegard shook her head. ‘Medford thinks he’s a fool. Slake said, “I do believe I could beat that fellow at chess,” and Medford replied, “I’m sure you could. And so could a babe in arms.” He’s safe, Edwin.’