‘Hello again,’ John Blount said.
‘I dare wager you are surprised to find me here,’ John Blount said.
I shook my head. A few of the stars popped and were extinguished. I tried to sit up, and three of them appeared to combine and whack me hard on the head, making me wince. I pressed a hand against my brow, where the thundering pain appeared to be worst.
‘I thought you would be. So, can I take it that you tried to put the drop on young Walter here? He’s really rather a vicious little savage, as you will have noticed. How is the head, by the way?’
‘Sore. But so is my whole back, and my shoulder in particular. What is the meaning of this assault?’ I said with as much dignity as I could manage.
‘Never mind that for now,’ he said. ‘We have more important matters to discuss.’
‘You may,’ I said, and this time, with the help of his hand, I managed to get up. There was a stool to one side of a broad table, and I sat at it, resting my head on my hand and peering up at him from narrowed eyes. ‘I have nothing I want to talk about with you.’
‘Oh, I think you do. You see, the bishop is a keen believer in discipline and in the merits of examples. So, since he has no idea what you may or may not know, he will prefer to err on the side of caution. That means that all the while you are here your life is in danger.’
‘I know that already. Especially since Henry Roscard is here as well.’
That shook him, I could see. ‘Roscard is here? Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m damn sure! He’s been hunting me ever since he killed David of Exeter at the tavern!’
‘That could work to your advantage, then,’ Blount said. He waved his bully away and I heard the door close quietly behind him. ‘You need to protect yourself from him.’
‘And how do I do that?’
‘Kill him before he kills you, I would say. You will achieve two things in that way. First, you will make your life that bit safer; but, second, you will have performed a service for the good bishop. He knows Roscard is a danger, because Roscard is a trusted emissary of the Spanish.’
‘But you said he is a friend to Courtenay, Earl of Devon. I thought the bishop trusted him!’
‘Yes. The bishop did trust him until two days ago, when he discovered that Roscard was more determined to serve the Spanish than Mary.’
‘I don’t …’
‘No, I don’t suppose you do,’ Blount said, the patronizing bastard. ‘Let me put it as simply as possible for you: the man Roscard and the Spanish ambassador were working together to try to bring about the queen’s wishes: she wants to marry the Spaniard. However, the bishop is less wedded to that since the rebellion, because he can see that the kingdom is in a ferment about it and he knows that worse may ensue if the marriage goes ahead. Roscard, on the other hand, has taken Spanish gold to push the marriage on. He is determined to see the wedding go ahead, because afterwards he will have more power and money than he could have dreamed of. And if he is shrewd – and Roscard is very shrewd – he will be able to drop in a few words of poison into the queen’s ear, which will deprive Gardiner of his posts in government. Gardiner is working against the queen’s stated ambition.’
‘But I thought he was working to her advantage?’ I said. My head was hurting again.
Blount looked at me and sighed. ‘You have a very small brain, don’t you? No, don’t start moaning again. Whose house was it where Roscard was staying?’
‘I told you, at the house of Peter Carew!’
‘And who, or what, is Carew?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘He is the man who was plotting with the rebels in Kent. Carew worked with Edward Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, to have an uprising in the west at the same time as others would rise in the midlands and Wyatt would foment trouble in the south. All were to work in synchronization to bring about the end of all plans for a Spanish marriage, and, more specifically, to end the reign of Queen Mary. Most of them hoped to remove her and install Lady Jane Grey upon the throne. It is sad.’
‘I know. Your forged note means she will be blamed for the rebellion.’ My mind was whirling now. Carew was with the rebels? And Courtenay?
Blount eyed me with little enthusiasm. ‘Mark has been talking, I see.’
‘He didn’t have to! I would have worked it out for myself!’
‘No, I doubt that.’
‘I don’t know how to kill a man,’ I said, returning to the matter of my assignment.
‘You had best learn, then. I confess, if you find Walter such a difficult man to overcome, you are unlikely to succeed against Roscord unless he is already stupefied or asleep. Even then, I’m not sure I would wager much on your behalf.’
‘I don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘Then prepare to die, man,’ Blount said, and this time his voice lost all its humour. ‘There are men here who will cut your throat without thinking. If you are not prepared to do the same to them, you will not live to see the spring.’
He left me then, and I sat staring bleakly at the walls, wondering what to do for the best. There was one thing I was certain of, and that was that I was not capable of killing a man in cold blood. Especially, I should add, a man who was built like Roscard, and who would have put the fear of God into a Goliath, let alone me. David might have been bold enough to slay his giant, but I had no slingshot. All I possessed were my wits, such as they were, and my looks. I did not think they would serve against a man as capable and fierce as Roscard. After all, he had killed David, Gil and Ann to my knowledge. One more man to him would be more or less irrelevant.
I wandered back to the hall where I had been eating, only to find that my companions were already finished and had left. Now it was the turn of the servants who had brought us our food, and they looked at me in a surly manner, as though I was a greedy thief who, having eaten my fill, now wanted to eat their portions as well.
Leaving them to their food, I went to the chamber where I and the others had been given a room. Bill eyed me up and down as I entered. ‘You look like you’ve been offered a choice between a hanging or the rack.’
‘It feels much the same,’ I muttered as I sank to the floor not far from Rob. I didn’t want to sit too close, because that would have involved inhaling his unwholesome reek, but politeness dictated that I could not sit too far away. Bill eyed me bleakly.
‘What is it, youngster?’ Rob asked.
All right, I admit it. I was tired, I was cold, I was friendless, I was battered and bruised, I had a hole in my shoulder, and I was, basically, lonely. His voice sounded sympathetic, as though he was genuinely interested. It was the sort of voice an older brother might use, or even Bill. Well, Bill before he threw me out, anyway.
I told him of my meeting with Blount, and then I started telling him about the bishop, about Roscard, and even about Atwood. I felt so lonely that I would take any comfort I could.
He listened carefully to all I had to say, and for a long pause afterwards he sat staring at me. Then he slowly puffed out his cheeks and exchanged a look with Bill. ‘You know how to make friends, don’t you, eh?’
That night, the first of the sentries sent up to the walls were our friend the apprentice and two men who smelled like fishmongers. During the second shift, I was due to go up with one of the guards from the palace itself. However, when Bill stood and volunteered to take his duty, the soldier accepted with alacrity. Bill and I walked out to the walls and began our slow pacing across the battlements, occasionally staring out over the moonlit waste towards the north and west.
‘I’ll do him for you, if you want,’ Bill said.
‘Eh?’
‘This man who’s so keen on the Spaniards. I’ll kill him for you.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Why? You pay me, I kill him, all are happy. That’s the way the world works, isn’t it?’
‘But you’d do that for me?’
‘No, I’d do it for the money,’ he said patiently. �
��And since you know what I can do, you will pay me on time, too, won’t you?’
‘Um, yes,’ I said. After all, it would mean that I had time to live a little longer and collect some cash for him. There were more than enough richly filled purses about the palace, I told myself. Getting my hands on a purse or two wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
We were about to talk further, when the bells began to ring out.
THIRTY-THREE
It was ironic that all the while we were trying to plan the murder of Roscard, the rebels were approaching. Later, I heard that they had crossed the Thames the day before, after a hideous slog through mud and mire in that driving rain. Once they reached the other side of the river, their efforts had to be redoubled, for now they were splashing through the marshes of Knightsbridge and making heavy weather of it. It was said that they had poorly built carriages for the guns, and some cannons fell from their moorings and had to be man-handled back, with several men being crushed when the barrels rolled over. It must have been hellish in the freezing cold and the driving rain, with fingers thick and fumbling, heads muzzy with tiredness, legs weary from trudging in the filth and mud. I felt bad enough just walking about on the walls with my fingers locked in an icy rigor mortis grip about my halberd’s shaft. Although I was chilled to the core, at least I had only rain landing on me. The rebels had the full gamut of rain, mud, shit and occasionally a bronze cannon.
Apparently, they were nearly at us when we heard the bells ringing in London. That was a warning signal and gave the alert to the city’s yeomen and guards to gather up their arms and march to meet the enemy at Charing Cross.
Not us, thank God. If we’d been out there, we could have been caught, and I wouldn’t want to be marching along when Wyatt’s savages came upon us. Instead, we had the moderately safer task of protecting the queen here at White Hall. Moderately? Yes, because White Hall was not that well defended. It had grown up with additional buildings and bits and pieces of wall thrown together haphazardly over the years. At several places in the walls a cannon would have been able to batter the stones into submission faster than the sea washing away a sandcastle. It was not a thrilling idea.
‘We’ll talk later,’ Bill said, and slipped away.
I hurried to the corner of the battlement and peered over into the main courtyard. There I saw old Sir John Gage, red-faced and bleary, bellowing at the top of his voice, ‘Damned sword, damn my eyes! Where is it?’ while men bustled and ran to their positions, some buckling on armour as they came, others settling swords and daggers and guns about them. Servants scurried, soldiers marched, and in a short time there were some one thousand men gathered in the courtyard behind the gatehouse. I stared as the men were given their dispositions. A half of them were sent out to the woodyard at the rear with Sir Richard Southwell, a good number of men left at the hall to cover the main defences, and Sir John Gage had the portcullis raised and the gates opened, and he marched out to the front of the Cockpit Gate with two hundred or more. And there he stood with them, all waiting for whatever might come to pass, before he marched back inside.
Me? I stayed up on the wall. I wasn’t going to go down there to engage in hand-to-hand fighting. I’d had a bellyfull of that the other day. There was no hurry in any case. We were then to wait for five hours before anything remotely exciting was to happen.
Mind you, it was more farce than excitement.
The first we knew of it was a screamed warning, and then the bellows and cries of orders. And the worst of it? I was in the middle of it all.
It happened like this.
While the sun was up, the rain continued falling. We were all drenched, and that, together with the cold, made all of us slow, I think. I was hungry, apart from anything else, and would have murdered a score of Roscards for the thought of a hot pie in my belly and a cup of spiced wine.
Be that as it may, I was in the happy position of standing up there on the walls, looking down, and there were orders, and the rest of my companions were all pulled away and shouted at to go to different positions. I was happy enough to be left alone up there on the wall. After all, I had no wish to be hurled into another battle. My bruises were still all too painful a reminder that warfare was a hazardous pastime. So I remained on the walls, and, peering down, I saw the yeomen of Queen Mary’s guard out in the great court, and Sir John with his fellows out at the front, and then I saw the first of the mob coming up the street from Westminster.
You get to appreciate the size of an enemy when you’ve stood in a line to repel their assaults. My experiences were too fresh for me to wish to look at an attacking army again. However, I suddenly discovered an incentive to remove myself from the walls.
There was a clatter and the slam of a door, and I looked up to see Roscard smiling at me, higher up on the roof. He had his sword in his hand, a long-bladed dagger in the other, and his leer told me that he had recovered from his earlier fear of me, when he had run away after murdering poor Ann. On the other hand, my attitude had changed as well. Mainly because Roscard had two men with him, both with weapons. Odds of one against one do not appeal to me; odds of three to one in my favour are much more acceptable; three men against me is not a wager I would ever consider accepting. I stared at Roscard, and then, as he pointed at me, I ran.
It was a good twenty feet to the guardroom door in the tower, but I made it like a champion greyhound, opening the door and flinging myself inside. There was a bolt, and I shoved it over, and then hurtled across the room, and into the doorway at the farther side of the chamber. It gave out on to a winding stair, which I went down, constantly at risk of breaking my neck, until I reached the bottom. This was down in the main gateway itself. I pelted through the last door and found myself surrounded by men.
‘Damme me! What do you want?’ Sir John Gage demanded.
‘The …’ I couldn’t think straight. My eyes were attracted to the door at the other side of the gateway, where Roscard had appeared. He stood nonchalantly, his men at his side, smiling in a very unpleasant fashion. ‘The mob! The rebels are coming up from Westminster, sir!’
His eyes reminded me of poorly poached eggs: large and protruberant. He stared at me, sucked up something from a metal goblet, and then strode out to the roadway. ‘Rebels? Where?’
It was no surprise he couldn’t see them. St James’s Park was walled all about, you see, and there was not a straight line. My view from the tower was over the roofs, but from here, at ground level, there was a slight dog-leg that concealed them.
‘They wouldn’t come here; they’d make their way straight to the city, you halfwit. Are you drunk?’ the old fool demanded.
Later, I heard that when the rebels reached St James’s Park, some went about the top to come at Charing Cross from the north, while more under Sir Thomas Cobham came around the southern tip and marched up King Street towards us. They were split by the narrow roads.
And then I saw them. There were a lot of them. An awful lot. I saw them marching in their ranks, Sir Thomas to the fore, with sodden banners hanging soggily from their poles. For all that they were as wet and as miserable as men could be, they were game enough, because, when they saw the guards before the gate, they gave a loud roar and began to trot.
For their part, the men and Sir John did not at first see their danger. I stood and pointed, but I had all but lost the power of speech. My legs, usually so reliable, seemed to have frozen to the ground, and my bowels felt as though they were about to empty, and all I could do was whimper incoherently as what looked like the entire rebel army descended the street towards us.
They gave a roar as they began to run, and my legs turned to jelly even as my bowels turned to water. I was petrified with terror.
The noise of bellowing rebels even made it through Sir John’s alcoholic daze, and he paused in his drinking, a frown on his face. He was glaring up the road, but not towards Westminster. He was gazing with narrowed eyes towards the city, as though thinking the sound was coming to him from Ch
aring Cross.
Not all the men under his command were so foolish. Someone saw my shaking finger, and shouting, ‘Treachery, treachery!’ he dropped his weapon and bolted for the gate. Others looked around to see what had alarmed him, and fled after him. Almost all his command had disappeared before Sir John’s servant threw down his jug of wine and bawled in his master’s ear, upon which Sir John turned his glowering face in the direction of the enemy. Seeing Sir Thomas riding at him, he stood stupefied. His jaw dropped and, turning ashen, he dropped his cup before himself making a dash for the gate, his servant grasping my shoulder and pulling me with them.
I was nothing loath. The man’s hand on my jerkin seemed to wake me from my stunned nightmare, and I raced along like a hare. Before I had covered more than a few paces, however, there was a clatter as the old fool tripped headlong in the shit and dirt before the gate, right in my path. I had to stop. His servant had paused to help him up, and the two were in my path. To hurry them, I grasped Sir John’s arm and helped him up, spitting and cursing, and between us, his servant and I, we bundled Sir John through the gates even as they slammed and the portcullis was dropped, and then there was a sudden calm for an instant.
Moments later, the first thunderous crashes were heard against the gates. These were answered by a mad panic in the great court, and men pelted across it in their terror, pounding at the door of the great hall of White Hall, which was held against them, rightly, by those of the yeomen who had been commanded to hold it against the queen’s enemies. Meanwhile, I had seen Roscard and his two companions standing at a door to the hall, and I was determined to avoid them. I suggested that I should help Sir John’s servant and the old knight up to a safer chamber. I wanted to be in a place with other men, and nowhere near Roscard and his friends.
I was taken across the courtyard, and the servant dismissed me at the door to another spiral staircase. There would not, he said, be space for him and me to help the old man. I walked behind them, thinking that at least Roscard would not risk following Sir John Gage into his private chambers. As the servant turned off into a brightly lit room, I continued up to the roof once more. Once there, I peered down into the court: Roscard was still there. I had a few moments of peace, I thought.
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