'Your Grace.'
Queen Margaret extended a podgy hand for him to kiss. Benjamin approached, leaned over the table and raised her jewelled fingers to his lips. Of course, she ignored me.
'Master Benjamin,' she murmured, 'I am a queen driven from my country, exiled from my child, cut off from my people. I beg you to use all your skill and wit in this matter. If you do, you shall have my heart as well as my gold.'
Of course, the fat royal bitch didn't utter one word about murder, assassination or ambush! Oh, no, the bloody liar! My master, like the chivalrous fool he was, mumbled a solemn promise. I dismissed her as a hypocrite and I wasn't too keen either on her maid-in-waiting, Lady Carey, who sat nearby, her greying hair stuffed under a ridiculous-looking bonnet, her beanpole figure encased in dark heavy velvet. She had the sanctimonious, bitter face of a kill-joy. Oh, a precious pair, Queen Margaret and Lady Carey, believe me, Gog and Magog in petticoats! Anyway, after the introductions, the Queen simpered at Benjamin and snapped her thick white fingers for us to withdraw. Lady Carey bestowed one last sour smile and we walked down the hall to meet the rest of the company.
This merry gang of exiles sat round the wooden table and barely spared a glance for us until Doctor Agrippa, sitting at the head, rose and rapped on the bare boards with his knuckles. The introductions were made: Sir William Carey, the Queen's treasurer, was a tall, sinister-looking man with close-cropped hair and a beetling brow. With one eye covered by a patch, the other glared furiously around as if he was constantly expecting attack. A redoubtable soldier now past his fiftieth summer, Carey had been a friend of the dead King James, one of the few who had managed to survive Flodden and fight his way out of the bloody mess. Mind you, having seen his wife, if I'd been in his shoes, I would either have stayed there or taken ship for foreign parts.
Simon Moodie was next, chaplain and almoner to the Queen. He was small and nervous with mousey hair, a thin pallid face, and the scrawniest beard and moustache I've ever clapped eyes on.
John Ruthven, the steward, was red-haired with a bloated drinker's face. He had ice-blue, goggling eyes and a nose which beaked like a hook over thick, red lips. A man who would know every penny he had and could tell you at a minute's notice what he and everyone else around him was worth. He constantly stroked a black and white cat, feeding it tidbits from the table, even talking to the bloody thing. Where Ruthven went, so did his cat and I privately wondered if he was a secret warlock and his pet a demoniac familiar.
Then there was Captain Melford, a burly individual with hair cropped close to his head, which seemed as round as a cannon ball. Melford's pale blue eyes were milky like those of Ruthven's cat and his tawny-skinned face was made all the more fearsome by a small pointed beard and a scar which ran across one cheek. A man of indeterminate age and questionable morals, Melford wore the royal tabard of Scotland over his shirt; unlike the rest of us he did not wear hose but black, woollen leggings pushed into high-heeled leather riding boots. What caught my attention was his codpiece which jutted out as monstrous as a stallion's.
Melford was lean, sallow, and undoubtedly vicious. He sat at the table with an arrogant slouch. The naked dagger pushed through an iron ring on his belt proclaimed him a mercenary, one of those professional killers who see murder as an everyday occurrence and the anguish it causes as merely an occupational hazard. Like the rest, his reception of Benjamin and myself was cool and distant, hardly looking up when Doctor Agrippa spoke.
Finally, there was Scawsby. At first he didn't recognise me but, when he did, he threw me such a look of loathing. Lord save us, I thought, if I fall ill, I'll call up Satan himself to tend me rather than allow Scawsby near my sick bed. Of course, the doctor greeted Benjamin fondly.
'Benjamin! Benjamin!' he called out once we had taken our seats. 'You were sorely missed at Ipswich.' The smile on the old bastard's face broadened. He rose, pushed back his taffeta cloak and extended his hand. 'It is good to see you returned to your uncle's favour.'
Benjamin clasped the old quack's hand. 'Good Master Scawsby, thank God you are with us! We Ipswich men . . .' Benjamin let the sentence hang in the air.
Scawsby threw another look of contempt at me and turned away.
The rest of the household turned back to their dishes of meat and vegetables.
'In God's name, Master,' I muttered, 'why did the Lord Cardinal appoint Scawsby to be Queen Margaret's physician? His answer to everything is leeches, and more leeches!'
'Master Scawsby has his good points,' Benjamin replied. 'Some people just misunderstand him.'
'Aye,' I whispered, 'including his patients. They can do very little about it because most of them are dead!'
My master smiled faintly, shook his head and began to eat. I looked around our motley crew: a harsh, unwelcoming collection of rogues with their dark, faded doublets and sour faces. They were a small, hostile group bound tightly together by their hankering after former glories. They were all English-born and had travelled to Scotland with Margaret when she had married King James. They spoke of their dead king with respect, even awe. At first I couldn't determine the true nature of their relationship with their exiled Scottish Queen. I thought it was fear tinged with respect, for Margaret kept her distance, but within days I had changed my mind: they were terrified of her, yet still bound to her as their only path to wealth and comfort. Of course, there were exceptions. Melford seemed impassive rather than afraid; he also took his duties seriously. Where the Queen went so did he, and I idly wondered whether he gave her more than just protection. Just after our arrival at the Tower, I confided this thought to Benjamin and he looked surprised. He sat on the edge of his bed in our musty chamber and shook his head.
'Queen Margaret is not sexually satisfied,' he announced to my stupefaction.
'How do you know that, Master?'
'Oh,' he replied airily, 'her face betrays her. Melford may sleep with her but he gives her no satisfaction.'
I gazed back in mock wonderment. I knew Benjamin had his secrets but I did not regard him as an expert on the female kind.
'You see, Roger, men regard women as an instrument of great pleasure.' He cleared his throat. 'Or, at least, some do. Few men see it as part of their devoir to give women pleasure and fully satisfy them.' He wagged a finger at me. 'You remember that, Roger.'
I nodded solemnly, lay down on the bed and, turning my face to the wall, wondered where in the world Benjamin drew his theories from. Of course, I was arrogant. My master proved the old adage: 'Still waters run deep'.
Now, I did say the Queen's household in general was terrified of her, but there were two other exceptions. Doctor Agrippa treated Queen Margaret almost with disdain, capping her remarks, quipping with her, and not showing the least trace of fear, never mind respect. The other person not to show fear was Catesby and I soon discovered he was a deep fellow. His relationship with the Queen was rather mysterious. Sometimes at table he would go up and sit beside her. Lady Carey and Melford would withdraw and the Queen and Catesby would sit, heads together, locked in deep discussion as if they were man and wife or brother and sister, bound by deep bonds of affection. Catesby had already proved himself to be an expert swordsman on our journey from Ipswich, now he demonstrated his skill as a politician. On our first night in the Tower, I asked him why the Queen had chosen the fortress when there were more comfortable places on both sides of the Thames. He smiled.
'The Queen didn't choose it - I did. First, we are near Selkirk. Secondly, we are free from infection. And finally,' he looked slyly at me, 'it's easy to keep an eye on everyone when we are all together in one place!'
A clever, subtle fellow, Catesby!
On our third day in the Tower we were shown up into Selkirk's prison cell, high in Broad Arrow Tower. The room was more comfortable than ours; it boasted two braziers, a faded tapestry on the wall, a desk, chairs, and a comfortable four-poster bed. Nevertheless, it smelt fetid and rank. I noticed with distaste how the chamber pot full of turds was sitting
in the centre of the room where everyone could see and smell it. Selkirk himself was not an attractive man: white-faced and skeletal with tawny, grey-streaked hair which fell in a tangled mess to his shoulders. His eyes were light blue and full of madness. Benjamin hardly recognised him as the fellow he had seized in Dieppe but, strangely enough, he remembered Benjamin and greeted him like a long-lost brother. Catesby, Farringdon the Constable, and Doctor Agrippa showed us up. They treated Selkirk with mock deference and then, once the introductions were completed and " Benjamin and I seated, withdrew, the door being locked firmly behind them.
I studied that poor madman and wondered why he was so important. Ruthven, the only member of the Queen's household who treated us with any friendliness (for the rest regarded Benjamin as the Cardinal's spy), had told us a little about Selkirk: how he had been King James's physician and journeyed with him to Flodden. After the King's death there, Selkirk had fled abroad, first to the Low Countries and then into France.
'God knows what turned the poor fellow's mind,' Ruthven had murmured.
Now I, too, wondered that as Selkirk sat at his desk, his long, bony fingers moving pieces of parchment about. Benjamin talked to him, reminiscing about their meeting in Dieppe. Sometimes the madness would clear and Selkirk would reply in a sensible, lucid fashion but then his mind would wander off. He would jabber in Gaelic, or pick up the scraps of parchment from his desk and start reading them as if we were no longer there. He allowed Benjamin to look at these.
'Scraps of poetry,' Benjamin murmured. He looked up at Selkirk. 'Who wrote these?'
'The King was a bonny poet,' the fellow replied. 'He and Willie Dunbar.' Selkirk smiled slyly. 'Some are composed by me.'
He handed over a few more scraps of paper and I studied them. God forgive me, they were as meaningless as some forgotten language; mere phrases and sentences, some in English, others in Scots, none made any sense. Nevertheless, Benjamin treated the prisoner gently, like a child, talking softly, asking questions, creating a bond of friendship. Every day we returned. Benjamin always brought a huge flagon of wine and a tray of cups. Each time the guards posted on the chamber door inspected the cups and tasted the wine, whilst Farringdon the Constable always escorted us in. Eventually I grew tired of this.
'The poor fellow's mad!' I exclaimed. 'Who would want to hurt him?'
Farringdon frowned, bringing his thick, black brows together. 'God knows.' He scowled. 'But orders are orders, and they come from the highest in the land.'
I also asked Catesby this but he just shrugged and murmured, 'Selkirk is more important than you think.'
So I let the matter rest. I confess I admired Benjamin's skill and wit. Usually he would let Selkirk ramble on but when the man became lucid, Benjamin would quickly pose his questions.
'What do you know that is so important? Who are Les Blancs Sangliers? Why are you in the Tower?'
Selkirk would straighten in his chair and shake his head.
'I have secrets,' he would whisper. 'I can count the days. The walls have eyes and ears.' He would stare around apprehensively, then giggle. 'The walls also have secrets.'
'What do you mean?' Benjamin asked.
And so the questioning would continue. I watched Benjamin and began to understand why his uncle had chosen him for this task. One night as we walked arm in arm around the great White Tower, I put this to him.
'Master Benjamin, you seem most gifted in dealing with that poor madman.'
Benjamin stopped, his body tensed and he looked away into the darkness.
'Yes, yes,' he murmured. 'I have had some experience. Uncle knows that.'
He stared at me and his eyes were full of tears. I let the matter rest.
At length I grew tired of visiting Selkirk so excused myself and spent days wandering the Tower. The royal apartments were eerie and sinister; galleries which ended abruptly at blocked passageways, spiral staircases which led nowhere. I asked one of the guards about this.
'Some people come here,' he muttered, shaking his head, 'and die in their cells, or on the block or at the gibbet. Some arrive and just disappear, not only them but their cells too. The doors are removed, the openings bricked up, and they are immured until death.'
Oh, yes, a dark satanic place the Tower. Sometimes at night I heard strange screams which plagued my dreams and caused nightmares. I wondered if they were the unfortunates in the torture room or the spirits of those bricked up in the walls of that great fortress.
Yet if the buildings were frightening, so were the people who lived there. The shadowy Doctor Agrippa flitted in and out of the Tower like a bat as he scurried around the city on the Lord Cardinal's business. On one occasion Benjamin sent me to see Agrippa in his lodgings which overlooked the chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula. The afternoon if I remember correctly was quite warm, the pale sun breaking through a cloying river mist which seeped over the walls and gateways of the Tower. I tapped on the doctor's door. There was no answer so I opened it. Agrippa was sitting on the floor. He turned to me quickly, his face a mask of rage.
'Get out!' he roared. 'I thought the door was locked!'
I hastily retreated but not before I had caught the whiff of burning as if an empty pan had been left over a roaring fire. And yet the room was cold, as freezing as a wasteland on an icy winter's day. I waited outside the door. After a few minutes Doctor Agrippa opened it, his face wreathed in angelic smiles.
'My dear Shallot,' he beamed, 'I am so sorry. Do come in.'
When I entered, the chamber was warm and Filled with a cloying sweet perfume. I gave him my master's message and left as quickly as I could, now convinced that the good doctor was a perfect practitioner of the Black Arts.
I also decided it was safer to stay in our own chamber. As the days passed, Benjamin began to win Selkirk's confidence.
'He's not as mad as he seems,' my master remarked, his long, dark face lined with tiredness, the deep-set eyes screwed up in concentration.
'Has he told you anything?'
'Yes, he babbles about Paris and a tavern called Le Coq d'Or.'
'And his secrets?'
Benjamin shook his head. 'He said they are contained in a poem but he has only told me the first two lines.' Benjamin closed his eyes. 'How does it go? "Three less than twelve should it be, Or the king no prince engendered he." ' He opened his eyes and looked at me.
'Anything else?'
Benjamin shook his head. 'In time, perhaps.'
Time, however, had run out for Selkirk. About ten days after we had arrived at the Tower, Benjamin came back late in the evening. He described his latest meeting with the prisoner, claimed that the Scotsman was as fond of claret as I and, rolling himself in his blankets, promptly fell asleep. The next morning we were roughly awoken by one of the guards hammering on the door.
'You must come now!' he bawled. 'To Broad Arrow Tower. Selkirk is dead!'
We hastily pulled on our clothes and, wrapping cloaks around us against the early morning mist, hurried across the green, forcing our way through the press of servants, scullions and guardsmen who stood around the doorway of the Tower. We hastened up the stone spiral staircase and into Selkirk's chamber. Most of the Queen's household was there, grouped around the huge four-poster bed where Selkirk's corpse lay shrouded by its sheet.
'What happened?' shouted Benjamin.
Catesby shook his head and looked away. Doctor Agrippa was sitting on a stool, a strange smile on his round, fat face; Carey, Moodie and Ruthven huddled together whilst Farringdon was interrogating the four guards. Benjamin's question created a momentary silence.
'Selkirk's dead!' Agrippa quietly announced. 'Scawsby thinks it's poison.'
Benjamin immediately went across to the tray of goblets and jug of wine he had brought up the previous evening.
'Don't touch that!' barked Scawsby.
The old quack had re-entered the room behind us, a bag in his hand full, I suppose, of the usual rubbish -knives, charts and a cup for blooding.
'What makes you think it's poison?' Benjamin asked.
Scawsby smirked. Going over to the bed, he pulled back the stained sheet. One look was enough. Selkirk had been no beauty in life; now, brutally murdered by poison, he looked ghastly. His hair straggled out across the grimy bolster, his thin white face had turned a strange bluish colour, the mouth sagged, the eyes stared sightlessly up.
'Good God!' my master muttered. 'A terrible death after a terrible life.' He bent down and sniffed the dead man's mouth. 'Have you determined what poison it is?'
Scawsby shrugged. 'Belladonna, digitalis, nightshade or arsenic. The only consolation is that death must have been quick.'
'And you suspect the wine?' I retorted.
Scawsby went over and sniffed both the flagon and cup. The bastard took his time. He knew who had brought them up. So I filled a cup and downed it in one gulp.
'My master is not responsible for the poison!' I shouted.
[Do you know, that's the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.]
'I hope not,' Scawsby sardonically replied, 'otherwise you will be dead within the hour.'
'I look well, Master Scawsby,' I replied, 'and feel well - which is more than can be said for you!'
'No quarrels,' Doctor Agrippa interrupted. 'And no one leaves this room. There is more, is there not?'
Farringdon went to the table, removed a piece of parchment and tossed a faded white rose on to the floor.
'Selkirk was discovered half-lying on the bed. On the desk we found this white rose.'
'The White Rose of York and the mark of Les Blancs Sangliers,' Catesby muttered.
His words stilled the room but Benjamin, a determined look on his face, refused to be overawed.
'We have a problem here,' he announced. 'Selkirk had his evening meal before I joined him last night - yes?'
Farringdon nodded.
'I came up with a flagon of wine. Now, both Selkirk's food and wine were tasted by me and the guards?' 'Yes, that's so,' Farringdon replied. 'After I left, did anyone visit Selkirk?' 'No!' the guards chorused.
The White Rose Page 5