by Robyn Young
The words stirred up the silt of anger that lay in Richard. He had faced down cannon-fire and sword-blade for this realm, which he had helped Edward secure, long after their other brothers were slain or executed. Whatever offices the king had given him he had taken and made his own. He had been firm – serving the rough justice of the block to those who challenged his brother’s rule – and he had been fair, presiding over the Council of the North, settling disputes and keeping the king’s peace. Now, all he had worked for these past ten years, a full third of his life, was in jeopardy.
‘The queen is a spider under a glass you said,’ continued Catesby, his voice low. ‘What if there was a way to remove her, without the threat of any sting? A way for you to retain the power in our realm?’
‘What are you saying? Speak freely.’
‘If there was a way to remove the Woodvilles – all of them. Would you take it?’
Richard saw the challenge in Catesby’s eyes and knew the man had seen into his heart. His actions in the wake of his brother’s death had been taken to remove his nephew from the influence of his maternal family, but in bringing Edward into his custody he had brought the throne within tantalising reach. In secret chambers of his mind, he had already seen his hand stretch out towards it.
Turning from Catesby, Richard crossed the room. A whisper of breeze coming through the window cooled his clammy skin and carried the scent of lavender on its currents. Now it was getting warmer his breathing would become more laboured. Already he could feel the pressure in his chest where his lungs, constricted by the curve of his spine, tightened in the humid air. As a youth he had lain awake on many summer nights, trying to straighten himself – muscles knotted, face clenched, a prayer on his lips – until he was panting in the darkness, helpless with pain and rage.
He closed his eyes. ‘You know the words that would have greeted my brother’s death. The king is dead. Long live the king. My nephew’s reign is founded. The coming coronation will merely anoint him. I have fought one civil war. I will not start another.’
Catesby’s voice came clear behind him. ‘There may be a way, Lord Protector. A way without war.’
Richard opened his eyes and turned to the lawyer.
Chapter 5
‘You have to leave, Jacob.’ Jack glanced at the old man, who was standing in the doorway of the cramped room watching him stuff his belongings into a bag. ‘If they come for me here . . .’ He shook his head. Estevan and his friends might not have known where he lived, but Diego and others in Triana did. It wouldn’t take Rodrigo long to track him down. The duel had not been authorised and Jack had no doubt the charge against him would be murder.
‘This is my home. I will leave only when they drag me from it.’
‘Jacob—’
‘No!’ The old man stepped into the room, jabbing a finger at Jack. ‘Whatever you have done is on your hands. I will not be punished for your stupidity!’ Jack went to speak, but Jacob wasn’t finished. ‘I took you in, sheltered you here, because I owe your father my life. But you will not force me from my home!’
Jack knew the strength of feeling behind the old man’s words wasn’t purely directed at him, but that didn’t make him feel any better. He had abused the man’s generosity for months and now he’d put his life in danger. ‘I am sorry, Jacob. Truly I am. But it isn’t safe for you here. Go, stay with your brother. Please. Just for a while.’
Jacob launched into a stream of vehement Castilian, so rapid Jack only caught half the words. The old man left the room, still raving.
When he had gone, Jack thumped his fist on the table. The water in the basin, cloudy with blood and dust, rippled uneasily. He had washed most of it from his face. There were a few spots still on his shirt and hose, but the gloves and brigandine, discarded on the floor, had got the worst of it. An image of Estevan – blood bursting from his mouth – filled his mind. His wasn’t the first life Jack had ended, but it felt the most senseless. The others he had taken in battle, in desperation and horror. This was nothing but a foolish feud that had cost two men their lives. Antonio had been a good friend to him – had trusted him.
His jaw tightening, Jack turned to the chest that stood at the end of the narrow bed. Crouching, he pulled the chain from around his neck and twisted the key in the lock. Inside was a cloth pouch engorged with coins: his winnings from the arena, or what was left, anyway, after wine and Elena’s company. He shoved the pouch into the bag with the few clothes he owned and his prayer book, a gift from his mother, then reached into the chest and withdrew the long scroll case that lay at the bottom. He stared at it – the reason for his exile in this sun-savaged city at the boundaries of Christendom, bound up in leather.
Since the day he first discovered Sir Thomas Vaughan was his father all he had wanted was to impress him. Growing up with his mother in Lewes, clouds of rumour hanging over his parentage, a bitter seed had been planted in Jack. That seed had swelled with the torments of local boys; had put down roots. When he knew the truth he thought it destroyed, but it continued to grow, watered by Vaughan’s insistence that their bond remain secret.
For Sarah’s sake you cannot be my son. She has suffered enough in this town. For your mother’s sake. Remember that.
Jack had kept his word, despite the stinging belief that it had little to do with his mother and more the fact that Vaughan – sheriff, ambassador, king’s man – was ashamed of this weed in his perfect garden, grown where it ought not to have.
Still, aged eleven, he had gone on to serve Vaughan under King Edward, a page in his household and, for him, the war had been golden. Among the men of his father’s retinue he found a sense of belonging and, at his side, was shown the glittering world of court; the grand spectacles of banquets and tournament grounds. He hadn’t been able to live as Vaughan’s son, but he had been offered hope of another life, a gilded one, far removed from what he had thought himself destined for – far from the taunts and slights of the boys he had grown up with. He had reached out with both hands to grasp it.
Loyal, obedient, he had done all he could to prove himself worthy of the thing he came to crave: a chance at the ritual that would cleanse his bad blood and allow him entry to that glittering world. The chance at knighthood. But then, the war had ended, his father had been sent to Ludlow as chamberlain to the king’s son and all his hopes were frozen. Vaughan could have taken him with him, but instead he had sent him home to Lewes. He said he feared for Sarah, alone in an unfriendly town; that while he was gone he wanted him there to protect her, but Jack guessed it was for another reason entirely.
Vaughan had always been tight-lipped about his real family and Jack saw no reason to think he was any different with them; no reason at all to think his wife and two children had ever known that a mistress and a half-blood brother were out there, on the other side of the county, his secret tucked away in the woods. Until that day, Jack had barely thought of them, but the moment he returned to Lewes he asked his mother about the brother he had never met. Harry Vaughan, he discovered, would have just turned nine: the age when most boys on the path to knighthood would become a page. He had known, then, that he was being cast aside to make room for the heir apparent. Not the prince in his father’s care, but Vaughan’s true blood son.
Years of frustration followed, his father’s visits becoming more infrequent, the man himself more and more distracted. Despite this, Jack kept up his training, hacking his falchion at the straw man he had set up in the woods, kicking the old hobby Vaughan had gifted to him across the Downs, every strike at the quintain reminding him of his goal. He had been desperate to believe his father’s continued assurances that he would one day see him girded with sword and spurs – his destiny changed with the touch of a blade on his shoulder – but his fear had grown that there was room for only one son on that path and Vaughan would never fulfil that promise. He might deem him worthy enough to carry his bags and whet his sword, but surely he had been a fool to think the man would ever enshrine his mis
take with a knighthood.
When Vaughan had come to him in Lewes, agitated in a way Jack had never seen – handed him the scroll case, told him to take it to Seville and protect it – he had discerned, at last, a chance to prove himself worthy of the accolade. His father said he would come for him; that he would be a few months at most. But those months had passed into a year and that bitter seed in Jack had become a tree, on the branches of which his hope had finally withered and died.
He stowed the scroll case in his bag. If guarding its contents was meant to be an exercise in patience then he had failed, utterly. Afterwards, he stuffed the bloodstained brigandine and gloves inside the chest and locked it, hiding his crime. Jacob could sell the armour if he wanted when the trouble had passed. He tossed the bloody water in the basin out of the window and buckled his sword belt, which crossed his body diagonally then looped around his waist. He had yet to take his father’s sword from Gregory, so for now he sheathed his own in the battered scabbard that hung from the belt.
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he headed along the passage, the floor of which was stacked with books and papers. Jacob was a collector of manuscripts. Jack had once looked through the books to find pages of strange symbols and illustrations of animals and demons. Descending the creaking stairs, he saw no sign of the old man. He paused at the bottom, wanting to say something more, but any words – whether of gratitude or remorse – seemed hollow and he had no time for anything else. Instead, he reached into the bag and pulled out his winnings. Gregory had told him he didn’t need money; that he’d secured them passage back to England. Jack placed the pouch on the table by the door, along with the key to the chest. It wasn’t much by way of compensation, but it was all he had.
He slipped out to rejoin Gregory, waiting in the mouth of a nearby alley. The man had said he would keep watch while Jack retrieved his belongings, although there had been no sign of Rodrigo and the others since they lost them in the crowds on the bridge.
‘Do you have it?’
Jack nodded. ‘Let’s get to the ship.’
Gregory hung back. Taking his eyes from the bag, he looked at Jack. ‘We cannot board yet. This evening, the captain told me.’
Jack stared at him. ‘This evening? Carrillo’s friends will be looking for us.’
‘Carrillo? The man you . . .?’ Gregory shook his head, his brow knotting. ‘There must be somewhere we can hide out for a few hours. An inn?’
‘And allow ourselves to become trapped? What does it matter whether we board now or later?’ When Gregory didn’t answer, Jack started down the alley. ‘Let’s get to the docks at least.’
He led them through the Jewish quarter by way of narrow passages untouched by sunlight, the sky above them a strip of blazing blue. The streets were quiet, most people indoors or in tree-shaded courtyards, sheltering from the heat. Down near the cathedral, the great bulk of which stood between them and the docks, the hush gave way to commotion. The gates of the Real Alcázar were open and outside the palace a large group of men were gathered, some on horseback. Several wore the livery of Queen Isabella’s personal guard.
‘Isn’t he one of your pursuers?’ asked Gregory, as they halted on the edge of the square, keeping out of sight.
Following Gregory’s gaze, Jack saw Rodrigo talking to the queen’s guards. The Spaniard’s doublet was still soaked in blood. He cursed.
‘The man you killed – he was a noble?’
‘Son of one of the queen’s advisers.’
Gregory whistled through his teeth.
‘Come,’ Jack said curtly. ‘I know another way.’
Retracing their steps, they turned down a street fronted by silversmiths and headed for the Plaza de San Francisco. The plaza was crowded with people, gathered to witness the auto-da-fé. They were massed around a dais upon which stood the six men in their conical hats, led here earlier by the Inquisitors. Jack saw that four of them had since been clad in yellow tunics, daubed with red crosses. Those men, he knew, had confessed to the crime of heresy and were penitent. Tomorrow, they would walk to the pyre built for them outside the city walls with ropes around their necks. Those ropes would be used to garrotte them before the fire devoured them. A mercy. The garments of the other two were painted black, decorated with flames and demons. Those men were unrepentant, doomed to suffer the fire alive.
Jack had seen a burning once, shortly after his arrival in the city. He remembered, well, the smell of roasted meat and the sound of flames spitting and bubbling through fat, loud once the inhuman shrieks of those chained in the centre of the pyre had died away. As he stared at the condemned men, arrayed before the black-clad Inquisitors, he thought of Jacob. Should he have forced the old man to leave? Could he have?
Gregory gripped his shoulder. ‘We should keep moving.’
Circling the square, Jack led them to the riverbanks close to the Torre del Oro. But, as they neared the three great galleys moored beside the tower, they saw the docks were crawling with palace guards.
‘They know,’ murmured Jack, watching the guards board one of the vessels. ‘Back in the olive grove you said you had passage back to England. They know where we’re going.’
‘We hide out, as I said. Wait until they’ve moved their search on.’
The Seven Stars was set back from the docks in a rubbish-strewn alley where feral cats slunk in the shade. In the evenings it was crammed with sailors, competing in tales of bravery against pirates or talking darkly of the Turks squatting over the trade routes that had been Christendom’s lifeblood for centuries, blocking those vital arteries. Now, it was quiet, save for a few stalwart drinkers, nursing cups of wine and picking at boards of cured meat. The innkeeper raised an eyebrow at Jack’s request for a room, but shrugged and took the coins Gregory handed to him, pointing them to the top floor.
The room, which contained a narrow bed, table and stool, looked out between the slanting, red-tiled roofs to the docks, offering them a view of the masts of the galleys.
Jack placed his bag on the table. He glanced round at Gregory, who had closed and bolted the door. ‘When are they due to leave?’
‘Tomorrow. First light.’ Gregory crossed to the bed and sat, stretching out his legs and lacing his hands behind his head. On the whitewashed wall behind him someone had carved the word Angel.
Jack leaned against the window frame. There had been little opportunity for an explanation from Gregory of what had occurred in England, although he knew now that the king he had served was dead and his son had taken his place. ‘When did it happen? Sir Thomas’s arrest?’
‘The last day of April. He was escorting King Edward to London.’
‘He was with Earl Rivers?’
‘Yes. The Duke of Gloucester took them on the road.’ Gregory’s voice roughened. ‘The son of a bitch accused them of plotting to kill him and take control of the kingdom.’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘We all were.’
‘No – that Sir Thomas told you about me. He has always been . . . guarded, about our relationship.’ Embarrassed. Ashamed.
‘He was desperate. It all happened very quickly.’
‘And Stephen? His squire? Why didn’t he send him with this message?’
‘He was taken too.’ Gregory had removed his hands from the back of his head and was sitting forward. ‘Why did you change your name?’
Jack faltered at the shift in conversation. ‘What?’
‘Back in the olive grove the Spaniard called you Jack. Not James.’
Jack shrugged. ‘It’s easier for the Castilians to say.’
Gregory rose. ‘If we’re going to be here a while, we may as well eat.’ He smiled. ‘After tonight it’ll be hard biscuits and salt-meat all the way to the port of London.’
Jack realised he hadn’t eaten since the dates he shared with Antonio. His stomach felt hollow. ‘Thank you, yes.’
As Gregory left, closing the door behind him, Jack turned back to the window. Beyond the gold spire of
the Torre del Oro the Guadalquivir widened and looped south towards the Gulf of Cádiz. He had no idea if James was any harder for the Spanish to say, for he had never given them his birth name.
He had been christened James Wynter after his mother’s husband; the man he once believed was his father, who died before he was born. Years later, when he learned the lie, anger made him change his name to Jack. He took it from a young robber sentenced to hang in Lewes, who broke from the justice’s gaol and escaped the gallows. His mother had hated the nickname and Vaughan refused to call him anything other than James. Eventually, he outgrew his rebellion and discarded it, but here in Seville it had seemed appropriate again – like putting on an old cloak that still fitted.
Jack opened the pouch at his belt. He pulled out the silver ring – one of two exchanged in love by his father and mother. He had missed his mother’s sharp laugh and quick wit this past year. Where his father had sometimes been a source of weakness, Sarah had always been his strength, her calm soothing away his anger, her firmness refusing to allow his frustration to take him over. He thought of her in her beloved garden, hands deep in the earth, smells of sage and rue rising around her. Despite the circumstances of his homecoming, Jack felt gladdened by the prospect of seeing her. Stowing the silver band back in the pouch, he withdrew the ring engraved with the serpents. He stared at it, thinking of his father’s last words.
Stay with Jacob, no matter what happens. I will come for you.
As he dropped the ring back into the purse, Jack saw his thumb was stained red. He could smell the faint metallic odour. Touching his forefinger to his thumb, he realised the blood on the ring was tacky. Gregory said it had come from his father’s arrest, but the last day of April was over a month ago. This blood was fresh.