by Paul Doherty
Bray was a street fighter, a man who found it hard to keep still, and now the steward just wished he shared some of his companion’s calm composure. Indeed, Bray was deeply agitated and had been so since they first arrived. They had been despatched to greet the four men in the approaching bum-boat, here on this desolate wind-swept beach well away from the busy ports of Harwich and Orwell. The Essex coastline was a place of darkness and the stretch of beach below them was a truly lonely haunt. Nevertheless Bray, who had fought as a secret assassin in France, believed his own apprehension was justified. Despite the darkness, the rolling crash of the sea and the occasional shriek of some bird, Bray just felt that they were not alone. Some danger threatened. Some terror was closing fast. He had sniffed the sea-salted breeze. He was sure he caught other smells: horseflesh, leather, dung and the waft of unwashed bodies. Bray prided himself on his keen sense of smell and his sharp eyes. They were not alone! He had hoarsely whispered his suspicions to Urswicke but the young clerk just shook his head. In reply Bray had quoted his own experience. He was thirty-five years old to Urswicke’s twenty-six. He had, as he reminded his companion, fought on land and sea across Europe. He had served on the carracks of the knights hospitallers. He was a skilled seaman as well as a soldier, a dagger man and a spy. In reply Urswicke had just given that lovely smile, patted his companion on the arm and said they must wait and see.
They now crouched, staring into the darkness. The bum-boat had breasted the waves, the rowers resting on their oars as the boat entered the shallows, its keel crunching through the pebbled sand. Urswicke stared out at sea. He could make out the faint outlines of Oxford’s cog waiting for its boat to return. Urswicke abruptly tensed. A thin mist rolled across the water yet he was sure he had glimpsed, just for a few heartbeats, flickering lights to the right and left of Oxford’s cog. Was that an illusion? A deceit of the eyes? A trick of the mind, or were those lights from Yorkist warships closing in on Oxford’s cog? Had they been standing off the coast waiting for this moment? Urswicke glanced down at the shoreline. The bum-boat was now beached, its passengers climbing out, all four of them staggering across the sand whilst the rowers pushed their boat back into the water. Urswicke sensed that they too were alarmed by those lights out at sea which now glowed more constantly. The men left on shore also paused. The light of a full moon in a cloud-free sky bathed the beach clearly enough for Urswicke to see what was happening. There was danger out at sea but the four men who had just landed were now looking to their left. Bray cursed, clutching Urswicke’s arm with one hand as he pointed up the beach with the other.
‘Horsemen, Christopher!’ he hissed.
Urswicke, heart in mouth, stared into the darkness on his right. At first he hoped, he prayed that it was all an illusion. The mist cleared. Urswicke heard the rumble of iron-shod hooves and the clink of steel. Then he glimpsed them. A cohort of fast-moving horsemen pounding along the beach. Even as Urswicke stared, the cavalcade broke up, fanning out on each flank.
‘Stay.’ Bray pressed his arm. ‘Stay, Christopher, there is nothing we can do.’
Urswicke watched despairingly as the four men fled, desperate to leave the open beach and lose themselves in the gorse land overlooking the coast. The horsemen closed, garbed in battle harness, weapons gleaming; they spread out in an arc, a cohort of death’s dark messengers. Some of the riders carried crossbows, these turned into the waves, loosing bolt after bolt at the sailors manning the bum-boat. All four were struck, collapsing into the water, their boat twirling pathetically, a plaything of the tide. Urswicke stared out at sea: those lights now glowed stronger. Urswicke realised that Oxford’s cog would be desperate to break free of the closing trap and lose itself before daylight. Onshore, meanwhile, the horsemen had caught up and surrounded the four men. Urswicke and Bray could only watch and weep at the cruelty shown. Some of the riders had dismounted, punching and kicking their prisoners. Men and horses swirled. Abruptly two of the prisoners broke free, fleeing swift as hares with crossbow bolts whirling above them. They reached the sand hills, scrambling up to hide themselves in the sea of sharp gorse. So easy for them on foot, whilst the horsemen who had set off in pursuit found it almost impossible to spur their mounts up the shifting, sand-strewn slide. The three who managed to, had to turn back from the forest of thick, sharp bramble.
The pursuers returned to the beach and joined the circle of horsemen surrounding the remaining two prisoners. The view was clear enough. Urswicke could only stare in horror at the collapse of their plan and, more importantly, that of his mistress, the diminutive, manipulative Margaret Beaufort. The melee below was a disaster for them. Four of her most valued agents had been trapped, two taken and the others fleeing for their lives. These men were strong links, clasps in a secret chain which bound the countess to her beloved son, Henry, as well his protector and Margaret’s close kinsman, Jasper Tudor, now sheltering in the Breton court. Urswicke, distracted and agitated, half rose, staring down at the beach watching the two prisoners being roped. One rider broke free from the rest, urging his mount closer to the two prisoners. Urswicke, Bray clutching his arm and begging him to be careful, moaned as the lead rider pushed back his cowl and pulled down the bottom half of his woollen coif.
‘Father!’ Christopher hissed. ‘My father Sir Thomas Urswicke, Recorder of London!’
‘And at this moment our most mortal enemy,’ Bray whispered hoarsely. ‘For the love of God and his angels, Christopher, compose yourself or we,’ he pointed to the beach, ‘will be as trapped as they are. Please!’
Urswicke crouched and watched what was happening below. Sir Thomas was now shouting at the prisoners but the wind carried his words away. Urswicke glanced up, the salt-laden sea breeze was strengthening, dark clouds sweeping in. A flock of gulls appeared, white slivers of white circling above the bum-boat now at the mercy of the surging tide, its rowers floating nearby, legs and arms splayed out, all caught and killed by the arrow storm from the riders on the beach. Out at sea the lights had disappeared. Urswicke could only pray that Oxford’s cog had given the enemy the slip, using his vessel’s speed to go deeper into the northern seas and lose itself in the rolling banks of fog which constantly hung over those freezing waters. Oxford had escaped, but two of the men he had sent ashore were doomed. Sir Thomas Urswicke, standing high in the stirrups, was now gesturing further down the coastline. Bray followed his direction.
‘The gallows, Christopher,’ Bray declared, ‘they are going to hang their prisoners out of hand.’
Urswicke turned and glimpsed the outline of a soaring three-branched gibbet, built on a rocky outcrop just below the summit of the sand hills. The two prisoners were dragged towards this. Some of the horsemen dismounted, pushing and shoving their captives towards the scaffold. The prisoners fiercely resisted, kicking and screaming. Sir Thomas Urswicke replied with a litany of curses but the prisoners just yelled back. Christopher’s father dismounted, drew his sword and, without a moment’s hesitation, drove its two-edged blade into one prisoner’s chest and then the other. Both men collapsed, their spraying blood greedily swallowed by the sand. The grim pageant then continued. The corpses were inspected, their belts, pouches and other items removed before being dragged to the foot of the gibbet. Two of the Recorder’s retainers climbed up using the step spikes driven into the main post of the gallows. Ropes were fastened and the two bloodied corpses hoisted to dangle by their necks. Urswicke groaned and sank deeper into the protective gorse.
‘We will wait,’ Bray whispered. ‘We will wait, then we will be gone.’
Jacob Cromart, mailed clerk in the service of the Countess Margaret and Jasper Tudor, squatted in the sanctuary enclave behind the high altar of the ancient church of St Michael, which stood within arrow-shot of the Thames. Cromart closed his eyes, trying to ignore the disquiet in his belly. He sat, legs stretched out, his back against the cold stone wall as he listened to the different eerie sounds of that truly ancient place. St Michael’s was a simple, stark building, standi
ng in its own stretch of land surrounded by an overgrown, weed-choked cemetery – God’s Acre, though it looked as if neither God nor man cared a whit about it. St Michael’s certainly held no mystery: it consisted of a nave with two transepts added on. The floor was mildewed paving stones, which stretched up to the roughly hewn rood screen carved decades ago, its wood and paint slowly crumbling. The narrow door through the rood screen led into the sanctuary which contained the high altar with a pyx chain hanging beside it. Behind the altar stretched the apse which housed the sanctuary enclave. Cromart had fled here, a place of safety in London where he could invoke some protection. Cromart now knew every inch of the church. He had arrived two days previously, grasping the horn of the high altar as he gasped out his desire for sanctuary.
The parish priest, Parson Austin Richards, had come bustling down to read the petition of acceptance. Once he had finished gabbling through the words as he stood next to the high altar, the priest turned on Cromart and delivered a short, sharp homily on what sanctuary entailed. Cromart was now protected by the church against summary arrest by any royal official or law officer in the kingdom. Violation of that right would incur the most serious sanctions the church could impose: excommunication by bell, book and candle, which decreed that the violator of sanctuary was cursed for life and damned for eternity. He or she would burn in hell and suffer the full consequences of his heinous sin against Holy Mother Church. In return, Cromart could stay in the church for up to forty days. He must carry no weapons or take any sustenance from anyone except the parish priest, who would serve him a simple meal three times a day. The parson would also provide water and a napkin to wash and, when Cromart left, some clothing, sturdy boots and a penny. The sanctuary man could use the jake’s hole which stood outside the sacristy door in a makeshift garderobe built into an enclave of the church above a sewer. Parson Austin declared that he didn’t care why Cromart was in sanctuary or what would happen to him in the future. St Michael’s was an ancient church which enjoyed the right of sanctuary and that was enough.
Cromart crossed himself, his belly now truly agitated. He scrambled to his feet and wondered about the cause. Earlier in the day he had eaten nothing except what the good parson had brought and he had shared the bread, water and wine with the other sanctuary man, a city pick-lock, hotly pursued by Guildhall bailiffs. Ratstail, as the felon called himself, certainly showed no sign of any belly upset as he lay sprawled in the sanctuary enclave with a bundle for a pillow and his ragged cloak wrapped tightly around him. Ratstail now slept like a babe, impervious to the world or to the misty, clammy dampness of St Michael’s. Cromart, rubbing his belly, inspected the hour cradle, crossed the sanctuary and entered the sacristy. It was almost time. He opened the door leading out to the jake’s hole, undid his points and squatted down in relief above the reeking sewer. The pain subsided. Cromart drew himself up, made sure he was comfortable and walked back into the sacristy. He heard a sound behind him and turned as a shape emerged from the murk.
‘Ratstail?’ he demanded. ‘Or is it …’
The dark figure swept towards him. Cromart saw the crossbow levelled. He stopped gaping as the hand-held arbalest was pushed closer towards him. Cromart heard the click of the cord and gagged as the barbed bolt smashed into the left side of his chest …
Parson Austin Richards rolled over in his cotbed and then pulled himself up. He thought he had been dreaming of a clanging bell echoing through the darkness. It was no dream! No trick of the mind! Someone was ringing the church bell, sounding the tocsin at some danger pressing close. But what could that be? Parson Austin sat on the edge of the bed and groaned. He realised something like this might happen ever since he became involved, once again, with Master Pembroke. ‘The past never leaves you alone,’ he murmured, ‘it simply reaches out to catch you when you least expect it.’
Parson Austin closed his eyes. He momentarily recalled those hurling days when he served as a chaplain in the Yorkist array; those were sterling times and he had been rewarded with this small yet fairly wealthy parish close to the Thames. St Michael’s was well-endowed with legacies from merchants who plied their trade in the nearby quaysides. Life had been sweet and serene, but now this! Groaning and moaning, the parson pushed back the coverlets, slipped his feet into sturdy sandals, wrapped a hooded cloak about him and went down out of the priest house. The night was very cold, the breeze sharp and cutting. Yet it was one of those strange English autumn days with clear skies but hard morning frosts. Parson Austin crossed himself as he stumbled up the corpse path to the main door of the church. The bell was still tolling, its metal tongue a constant peal warning of impending danger, then it abruptly stopped. Parson Austin dug into the pocket of his robe, drew out the cumbersome keyring and thrust the longest into the lock, turning it fully. He paused, drew a deep breath and pushed the door open. He expected to see some light, some indication of who might be pulling at the belfry ropes but there was none. The bell now being quiet. An eerie silence reigned. Parson Austin stared into the darkness of his church. The only break in the blackness was the flickering sanctuary lamp burning beside the pyx hanging on its chain. He could glimpse this through the open door of the rood screen. Parson Austin stared around. All the candles and tapers before the different statues and shrines had long fluttered out leaving nothing but a deep stillness broken only by the squeak and scrabbling of vermin.
‘Is there anyone here?’ he called out, his voice echoing along the nave. The priest tried to curb his growing fear. He turned to the left and hurried across to the door leading into the bell tower. He pushed this open and went into the musty stairwell. Again, no light. No sign of who had been there to pull so strenuously on the belfry ropes. Parson Austin walked further in, stumbling over different items stored there. He crouched down, his hand going out until he felt the huge lanternhorn with a tinder kept in the tray next to it. Quietly cursing the cold and his own chilling fear, Parson Austin struck the tinder until he had a flame to light the thick, squat tallow candle fixed in the centre of the lanternhorn. He sighed with relief as the flame burned greedily on the oily wick. He fastened the shutter and, lifting the lanternhorn, made his way up the stairwell which housed the long bell ropes. There was no one there. The ropes dangled with no sign of who had pulled at them so vigorously.
Parson Austin, now truly alarmed, left the bell tower. He locked the main door and walked up the nave holding the lanternhorn before him. The dancing light illuminated the garish paintings on the pillars which divided the nave from the narrow, shadow-filled transepts. Pictures and images which he usually ignored now caught his eye. Frightful scenes depicted in garish paint by long dead artists who had laid out a nightmare landscape thronged with bellowing, venomous demons, fiery-haired devils, great-jawed lions, plunging hawks, roaring dragons, all the denizens of Hell, that place of everlasting fire.
Parson Austin paused, closed his eyes, blessed himself and continued on. He walked through the open door of the rood screen and into the sanctuary. He heard a moan, a stifled cry, and edged around the altar into the apse which housed the sanctuary enclave. Ratstail the pick-lock cowered against the wall, his unshaven, unwashed face lit by the single candle he held on its pewter spigot.
‘In God’s name!’ the priest exclaimed.
Ratstail, his face all wet with tears, simply pointed across to the sacristy. Parson Austin walked across into the room which reeked of incense and charcoal. He lifted the lantern and glimpsed what looked like a bundle of clothing strewn on the floor. At the same time, he abruptly recalled that Cromart was not to be seen. The priest, now drenched with sweat, resisted the urge to flee. He walked forward, lifted the lantern again and breathed a prayer. Cromart lay sprawled in a thick puddle of his own blood. Parson Austin crouched down, placing the lantern beside him as he fought to control the fear seething within him. He muttered prayer after prayer, gabbling the words, begging for divine help. He sketched a blessing in the direction of the corpse, clambered to his feet and staggered
back out across the sanctuary. Hobbling and stumbling, he hastened down the nave, desperate to reach the bell tower and ring his own tocsin, a plea for help against the abomination his church now housed.
PART ONE
‘See What Fear Man’s Bosom Rendeth’
Guido Vavasour crouched before the meagre fire he had lit in the gloomy, dank cellar of The Hanging Tree, a derelict tavern standing on the corner of Dung Alleyway, a narrow runnel which wound down to Queenhithe quayside. Vavasour warmed his mittened fingers over the flames and wondered what to do next. It was so strange to be back in London. Now a different city. King Edward had stamped his seal on every aspect of civic life. Men-at-arms and archers wearing the different Yorkist insignia swaggered through the streets. The gallows and gibbets were decorated with those who tried to protest. Street warriors, hired by the great ones, also made their presence felt. Guido hailed from Pembrokeshire. He always found the streets and alleyways of London a truly sinister world, yet this was where the countess kept a sharp eye on all proceedings. He wondered how she would execute the plan she had devised to get as many of the Red Dragon Battle Group safely out of the kingdom to join her son in Brittany. Guido had landed at Walton for that purpose. He and Pembroke were to give the countess every assistance whilst the other two …
Guido just shook his head. He was still shocked, even terrified, at what had happened. He was desperate to contact his brother Robert hiding somewhere deep in the crowded slums of Whitefriars. Guido, however, realised it would be very foolish to show himself on the streets. York’s searchers swarmed everywhere; the street swallows, the informants, the spies, the Judas men, and all the myriad of what Guido described as ‘the secret people’, sharp of eye and keen of wit. Many of them were King’s approvers who searched for any face, description or name of anyone the Yorkist lords at the Guildhall wished to take up and question. During the sea voyage from Brittany, Pembroke, the Lord Jasper’s constant and faithful courier, had warned his comrades how London had changed. He had advised them to keep a keen eye on Sir Thomas Urswicke in particular, as he nourished a special hatred for the countess and the entire House of Tudor. On board The Glory of Lancaster, Guido openly wondered how the countess could possibly cherish Christopher Urswicke, Sir Thomas’s only son, who also happened to be Margaret’s principal chancery clerk. Suspicions about Christopher Urswicke’s true allegiance was a constant bone of contention amongst the countess’s retainers. Pembroke agreed that the young clerk might well be a traitor but, as yet, the countess’s confidence in Christopher could not be shaken.