The White Rose

by Michael Clynes

  'What does Queen Margaret say?' asked Benjamin.

  Catesby shrugged. 'She mourns Moodie's death and has her own explanation of it.' He paused to gather his thoughts. 'Her late husband, James IV, at one time supported the cause of the White Rose and then deserted it. She believes James was not killed at Flodden.' He coughed, the sound shattering the eerie silence of the chamber. 'Queen Margaret believes,' he continued, 'that her husband was murdered at Flodden by a member of Les Blancs Sangliers who have since waged continuous war against those who advised her late husband, such as Selkirk and Ruthven.'

  I sat back, surprised because what Catesby said made sense. Agrippa toyed with the tassels on his robes whilst Benjamin just stared into the middle distance, lost in his own thoughts.

  'But why,' he asked eventually, 'would Moodie now kill himself?'

  'Because,' Doctor Agrippa intervened, 'he probably thought that you or Shallot would have discovered something during your travels in Scotland and France to trap him.'

  Again, Agrippa's conclusions were logical; after all, Moodie had arranged the deadly attack on me in Paris.

  'How was your mission?' Catesby queried.

  I shrugged. Benjamin just laughed.

  'Let me put it this way, Sir Robert, if Moodie dreaded our return then he had very little to fear.'

  Agrippa sighed noisily, I don't know whether from relief or disappointment.

  'Ah, well!' Catesby rose. 'Soon this matter will be finished and Her Grace will leave for Scotland. She is very busy.' His boyish face lit with a smile. 'But I know she wishes to see you.'

  Agrippa excused himself whilst Catesby took Benjamin and me across to the Queen's spacious chamber on the second floor of the Tower just next to St Stephen's Chapel. [Or was it St John's? I forget now.] Well, the fat bitch had made herself comfortable! She had a beautiful room, painted red and decorated with golden moons and silver stars. Tapestries hung on the walls and Turkey rugs covered the polished floor. Margaret herself was dressed in a tight-fitting, damson-coloured gown which emphasised her full, rounded figure whilst her golden hair was unbraided and hung down to her shoulders. She looked warm and comely but her eyes were still black as night and her face spoilt by that false, simpering smile. The Careys were also in attendance: Lady Carey glowered whilst her husband busied himself at the far end of the room, totally ignoring our existence. Melford the killer was there, lounging like an alley cat on a bench against the wall, whilst the bastard Scawsby was mulling a glass of wine for his mistress. He turned away as we entered, shoulders shaking as if relishing some private joke. Queen Margaret took us both by the hand, welcoming us back and handing Benjamin a small purse of silver coins.

  'Your work on my behalf is much appreciated, Master Daunbey,' she simpered. 'I would ask you to stay longer, but His Majesty the King has invited me to a masque at Richmond.' She waved a hand to indicate the dresses scattered around the room; some of taffeta, others of damask or cloth of gold. The false smile spread. 'Time is passing and I must go.'

  We bowed and left, Catesby showing us to the door. We wandered back into the freezing bailey. Benjamin leaned against a wall watching a butcher at the far end of the yard hack a haunch of beef into huge, steaming slabs, the blood pouring like red streams over the rough-hewn carving block.

  'Roger, Roger,' he murmured, 'what is going on here? One minute we are involved in matters of state, murder, Yorkist conspiracies, and the next we are dismissed because Her Grace wishes to attend a masque!'

  Catesby had told us we had our old chamber in one of the towers but Benjamin insisted that, before we retire, we should examine Moodie's corpse which had been placed in the death house, no more than a wooden shed built against the walls of the Tower Church, St Peter ad Vincula.

  Well, believe me, I have seen corpses enough, bodies piled six, seven feet high, left to steam and rot on battle fields as far flung as France and North Africa. I have seen heads hacked off and stacked high in baskets, and more bodies hanging from the branches of trees than I have apples in an orchard. Nothing, however, is more pathetic than a solitary corpse lying on a cold slab in a disused shed.

  Moodie may have been a priest but in death his body had been laid out like some broken toy to he on a shelf, the grimacing features half-hidden by a dirty cloth; the eyes still open, sightless and empty. Some attempt had been made to straighten the limbs and that was all. Apparently, he was to be interred in the clothes he died in, wrapped in some canvas sheet and either buried in the cemetery of a nearby church or the small graveyard on the other side of the Tower church. Two days dead, the body was beginning to putrefy and the stench made both Benjamin and myself gag. Benjamin muttered the Requiem, stared at the mottled-hued face and carefully examined the wrists of the dead man. The left was unmarked but the right bore a huge, deep gash which must have drained the blood.

  'A painful way to die, Master.'

  Benjamin shook his head. 'Not really, Roger,' he said, his voice muffled by the hem of his cloak which he held up to cover his nose. 'The wrist is cut and placed in warm water. They say death comes like sleep, a painless way to oblivion. The senators of ancient Rome often used it.'

  I took his word for it and we left, glad to be free of the ghastly place. Outside Benjamin stared up at the darkening sky.

  'The game is not over yet, Roger,' he murmured. 'Believe me, Moodie did not die in vain.'

  He would say no more. We retired to our chamber, made ourselves as comfortable as our bleak quarters would allow, and later joined the rest of the household when they gathered to dine in the small hall. Queen Margaret had already left in a blaze of colour, escorted by Catesby and Agrippa, riding along Ropery, then Vintry Street into Thames Street, where she would meet a troop of her brother's royal Serjeants at Castle Baynard.

  Catesby, if he had stayed, might have put a restraining hand upon the petty malice of his comrades. Previously they had ignored us: now they let their malice show. Carey (his wife had gone with Queen Margaret), Melford, Scawsby and the two killers from Clan Chattan, Corin and Alleyn, swaggered into the hall. To be truthful, I had forgotten about Earl Angus's gift to his estranged wife but the two Highlanders still remembered us. They smiled, displaying wicked-edged teeth, and once again I was reminded of hunting dogs studying their intended quarry. Benjamin and I sat at one end of the trestle board, they sat at the other, grouped together like stupid boys immersed in their own private jokes. The garrison had already eaten so we were alone. The servants brought platters of over-cooked, rather rancid meat, garnished with herbs, and once they withdrew and the wine circulated, Melford began talking at the top of his voice about sending boys to do men's work. The two Highlanders grinned as if they understood every word, Carey smirked whilst Scawsby gave that neighing laugh which made the blood beat in my temples. Coward or not, I could have plunged a dagger straight into his black treacherous heart. Benjamin ignored them, lost in his own thoughts, but at last Scawsby, his sallow face flushed with wine, rose and came to stand over me.

  'So glad to see you, Shallot,' he purred. 'Another errand, another failure, eh?'

  Benjamin nudged me with his knee so I looked away. Scawsby leaned closer and I wrinkled my nose at his sour breath.

  'You are a base-born rogue, Shallot!' he hissed. 'If I had my way you would be buried like your mother in a pauper's grave!'

  Benjamin seized my wrist before I could grasp my knife.

  'Come, Roger!' he murmured. 'We have eaten our fill.'

  He dragged me away for I could have killed Scawsby on the spot and anyone else who tried to interfere. Outside the hall, I turned to Benjamin.

  'You should have let me kill him!' I accused.

  'No, no, Roger, they are full of wine and their own importance. They think the game is over and we are to be whipped off like hounds, back to Uncle.'

  'If you could prove Scawsby was the murderer!' I hissed. 'After all, he knows poisons.'

  Benjamin looked away. 'Scawsby,' he murmured, 'is he the murderer or just a spit
eful man who rejoices in the humiliation of others? But I tell you this, Roger, Moodie was innocent of any crime. He no more committed suicide than Selkirk or Ruthven!'

  Chapter 11

  My master still refused to share his thoughts. He spent the next day closeted in our chamber studying the manuscripts we had brought from Paris. I grew restless and said I would leave, so Benjamin warned me to be careful and stay well away from Queen Margaret's household. I left the Tower and went to the area known as Petty Wales, a maze of alleyways and streets which stretches down towards the Wool Quay. It was a cold day, late in February; a troupe of gypsies, Egyptians or 'Moon People', as the country folk call them, were holding one of their fairs. Of course, they had attracted every villain in London, including myself: cut-throats, palliards, pickpockets or foists, professional beggars, and all the scum of the underworld. I felt at home and wandered around the tawdry booths and stalls, seeing if I could catch the eye of some pretty wench or buy some trinket for one I had not yet met.

  Now, as you know, I am a keen student of history and believe that chance and luck play a great part in the tapestry of life. If Harold had not been drunk before the battle of Hastings perhaps he would have won; or if Richard Ill's horse had not become stuck in the mud, the Yorkist royal line might well have continued. So it is with our petty lives. A fickle change of fortune can bring about the most momentous events. There I was wandering the alleys of Petty Wales whilst the hucksters and pedlars screamed for trade and the cookshops were busy serving hot eel pies and jugs of mulled wine. There were sideshows: the stuffed mummy of a Mameluke fresh from Egypt; a unicorn's horn; a dog with two heads and a lady with a long, flowing beard. What caught my fancy was a young boy screaming that, behind a tattered cloth, stood a giant from the far north.

  'Almost three yards high!' he screamed. 'And a yard across! Tuppence and you can touch!'

  Of course, it would be the usual trick, a very tall man standing on small stilts. The urchin plucked my sleeve, his eyes rounded in amazement, skeletal face alive with false excitement.

  'Come, Lord,' he said, 'see this Cyclops. A veritable wonder!'

  I smiled, tossed the lad a penny and asked: 'How come he's so big?'

  The boy's master, sensing money, stepped forward.

  'Because,' he lied, 'this giant was not nine months in the womb, as you or I, but eighteen!'

  My jaw dropped and I turned away in amazement. Nine! Of course, every man born of woman lies nine months or thirty-eight weeks in his mother's womb. I remembered Selkirk's verse: 'Three less than twelve should it be', and his mutterings about how he could 'count the days'. I spun round and ran like a whippet, sliding, slipping and cursing on the wet cobbles back to the Tower. Benjamin, however, was missing and I suspected he had gone along the river bank to the convent at Syon. I had to curb my excitement and kept to my own chamber. I did not want Margaret or any of her household to sense any change in me. Early in the afternoon Benjamin returned, withdrawn and sombre-faced.

  'Johanna?' I asked.

  'She is well, Roger, as well as can be expected. Stretched,' he murmured, 'like a cobweb in the sun.' He scrutinised my face. 'But you have something to tell me?'

  I told him what I had learnt in the fairground that morning and asked him to recall our conversation with Lord d'Aubigny in Nottingham Castle. Benjamin's gloom immediately lifted.

  'And I have something for you, Roger!' he exclaimed and went across to his saddle bag. He pulled out the strange manuscript found in Selkirk's casket and picked up a small piece of polished steel which served as a mirror.

  'What do the first words say?'

  'We know that, Master Benjamin, a quotation from St Paul: "Through a glass darkly".'

  He smiled. 'And you remember your Latin, Roger?' He passed the manuscript over to me. 'Hold this up, facing the mirror.'

  I did so.

  'Now, read the words in the mirror!'

  Oh, Lord, it took a few minutes and I marvelled at Selkirk's ingenuity. He had written his confession in Latin but taken great pains to write each word backwards. I made out the first three words. 'Ego Confiteor Deo' -'I confess to God.' The rest was easy. In that cold, dark chamber of the Tower Benjamin and I plumbed the mysteries of Selkirk's poem and the terrible truths it contained.

  'You see, Roger!' Benjamin exclaimed. 'In the end all things break down in the face of truth.' 'And the murders?'

  Benjamin leaned back. 'Listen to this riddle, Roger!' He closed his eyes and chanted. 'Two legs sat upon three legs with one leg in his lap. In comes four legs, takes away one leg. Up jumps two legs, leaves three legs and chases four legs to get one leg back.' He opened his eyes and grinned. 'Solve the riddle!'

  I shook my head angrily.

  'Roger, it's a child's game yet only logic can solve it. So it is with these murders. We can resolve them by evidence but that is strangely lacking. We can reveal the truth by close questioning and subtle interrogation but that is impossible. Take Irvine's death: we could spend years asking who was where and what they were doing. Or,' he added, 'we can apply pure logic, meditation, speculation, and finally deduction.'

  'Like the riddle you just told me?'

  'Yes, Roger. Logically it can only have one meaning. Two legs is a man sitting on a three-legged stool with a leg of pork in his lap.'

  'And four legs is a dog?'

  'Of course, the only logical deduction. Now,' Benjamin leaned closer, 'let's apply logic to these murders.'

  Well, it was dark by the time we finished and when we looked through the shutters, the Tower Bailey below was clouded in a thick, cloying river mist. I felt elated yet exhausted. Benjamin and I had not only demonstrated what Selkirk had hidden in his lines but how that poor Scottish doctor had died, along with Ruthven, Irvine and Moodie.

  [There goes my little chaplain again, leaping up and down, shouting like a child, 'Tell me! Tell me!' Why should I? All things in due season. Will he reveal what Mistress Burton said in confession? Or would Master Shakespeare interrupt Twelfth Night to tell his audience what's going to happen to Malvolio? Of course not! As I have said, all things in due season.]

  Benjamin did all the work, translating Selkirk's secret message. After he had finished I studied the transcript carefully whilst Benjamin watched me. I should have interrogated my master for I noticed that enigmatic look which used to flicker across his face whenever he has told the truth but kept something back for his own purposes. [Oh, don't worry, I'll tell you about that later.] However, in that dark, freezing chamber all that concerned me was that we knew who the murderer may be and the true nature of the dark secrets contained in Selkirk's poem.

  I pointed to the manuscript. 'This confession mentions one new name?'

  Benjamin nodded. 'Yes, yes, my dear Roger, the knight Harrington but he is not important. Like poor Irvine or Ruthven, Harrington was just another victim of our murderer's great malice.'

  I studied Benjamin closely. 'Master, is there anything else?'

  Benjamin made a face. 'For the moment, Roger, I have shown you all you need to know.' He rose and stretched. 'We have the evidence, what we need to do now is trap the murderer.'

  'How can we do that?'

  Benjamin shrugged. 'Reveal a little of what we know and choose a place, lonely and deserted, where the murderer, wanting to silence us, will make his presence felt.' Benjamin walked and leaned against the wall staring out through one of the arrow slits. 'It can't be here,' he murmured. 'Or in London.'

  I rose and stood beside him. 'I know a place nearby, Master, where we could set our trap and watch the murderer fall into it.'

  Benjamin gazed around as if the very walls had ears. 'It could be dangerous, Roger.'

  I shrugged. 'Master, we suspect who the murderer may be. We have proof but we must make him show his hand.

  [I see the clerk sniggering, he thinks my courage was bravado, perhaps it was.]

  However, my master took me at my word and gently patted my shoulder.

  'Then so be it, Rog
er.' He murmured. 'So be it.'

  We did not go down to the hall for dinner that evening but had a servant bring us cold meats and a jug of watered wine from the garrison kitchen. We spent the night like two artificers planning a subtle masque or Twelfth Night game but at last we were agreed. The next morning we left the Tower and went past St Mary Grace's Church to the fields which stretched north from Hog Street to Aldgate, a deserted barren area like the blasted heath in one of Will Shakespeare's plays. Now, in the middle of these wild moorlands was an old, derelict church, once dedicated to St Theodore of Tarsus.

  In more prosperous times there had been a village there but, since the Great Plague, all had decayed. The village had gone and the church was in disrepair. The roof had been stripped, the nave stood open to the elements, the chancel screen was long gone to some builder's yard whilst the sanctuary was only discernible by the steps and stone plinth on which the altar had once rested. To the right of the nave, in one of the aisles, were steps leading down to a darkened crypt. Benjamin and I went down these. Surprisingly, the door was still there. We pushed it open on its creaking, rusty hinges and found the crypt dark and deserted except for the squeaking of mice and the rustling wings of some bird nesting on the sill of the open window high in the wall. A rank, fetid place, sombre and cold, I sensed it was full of ghosts. In the far corner were decaying tombs with effigies on top, knights clasping their swords, now crumbling to a white powdered dust. I looked around and shivered. 'This will do, Master?'

  Benjamin smiled thinly. 'Yes, Roger, it will. Not for tonight but certainly tomorrow!'

  We stayed away from the Tower for most of the day. Benjamin visited a distant relative in Axe Street near the Priory of St Helen but we made sure we were back in the Tower for the evening meal. Queen Margaret and all her retinue were there: Catesby, full of his own importance, issuing orders, loudly declaring how they would be on the road north before the Feast of the Annunciation. Agrippa looked quiet and withdrawn. Melford and the rest chose to ignore us but Benjamin and I, like good actors, had learnt our lines and so waited. Of course, Scawsby, as expected, rose to the bait.