'However, Sir Robert, on my return from Kelso I came back along the Great North Road and revisited Nottingham. Once again the Constable of the Castle confirmed the date of your arrival but, when I asked him to describe Captain Melford, the appearance of the man he depicted hardly fitted that of your now dead servant. So, I concluded Melford went to Coldstream, waited for Irvine and, with the cooperation or connivance of that bitch of a prioress, cut the poor fellow's throat before riding to join you at Nottingham Castle. No one would pay particular attention to how many servants you had or which one accompanied you when you first arrived there.'
'A chilling story,' Catesby sarcastically replied.
'You are not so clever, Catesby!' I accused. 'You should really watch your tongue. On our return from France you actually pondered the possibility that Moodie might have killed Irvine. You claimed the priest might have gone to Coldstream, but how would you know that?'
Catesby stared back, genuinely perplexed. I leaned forward.
'No one told you,' I explained in a mock whisper, 'that Irvine had been killed at Coldstream. We suspected it but the only person who would know for sure would be the murderer himself!'
'So many deaths,' Benjamin murmured. 'Such terrible murders. There were others, weren't there, Sir Robert? Like the man we met in Nottingham, Oswald the mosstrooper? Whom did you send after us there? Was it Melford or one of these hired killers?' Benjamin nodded at the two Highlanders. Catesby gnawed at his lip, his face a white mask of fury.
[Now in my travels, I have talked to several learned physicians - a rarity indeed! Nevertheless, these were wise men who had studied Avicenna, Hippocrates and Galen. I discussed with them the mind of the true murderer and all the physicians agreed some people have a fatal sickness, an evil humour in the mind which makes them kill. Indeed, such men rejoice in the murder of others and relish the death throes of their victim. They plot their crimes with great cunning, showing no remorse afterward, only a terrible anger at being discovered. In public life they act normal, appearing sane, well-educated people, but in reality they are devils incarnate. Catesby was one of these.]
He seemed to have forgotten why he was there but saw our conversation only as a game of wits which he was about to lose.
'You forget one thing,' he snapped, 'the White Rose, the conspiracy of Les Blancs Sangliers?’
'Nonsense!' Benjamin retorted. 'When Ruthven and Selkirk died it would have been easy for you or Melford to drop a white rose in their chamber. Who would notice it amidst all the confusion? You may even have placed them there before your victim died.' Benjamin stared at his would-be killer. 'Oh, I concede,' he continued, 'there are secret Yorkist covens, deluded men and women who pine for past glories, but you used their cause to mask your own evil intentions. Don't you remember our journey to Leicester?' Catesby glared at him.
'Well, Sir Robert,' Benjamin mocked, 'you really should have read your history.' He turned to me. 'Shouldn't he, Roger?'
I studied my master's face and felt the first stirrings of despair. Despite his bantering tone, I saw the fear in Benjamin's eyes and the beads of sweat rolling down the now marble-white face. I understood his glance. He was begging for more time, though God knew for what reason.
'Yes, yes, Sir Robert,' I spoke up. 'If you had read Fabyan's Chronicles you would know that after the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III's body was tossed into the horse trough outside the Blue Boar in Leicester and left there for public viewing and taunts. Later it was buried in the Lady Chapel at Greyfriars Church. Now a true Yorkist, any member of Les Blancs Sangliers, would have treated both places as shrines yet all members of the Queen's household allowed their horses to drink from that trough. Moreover, during our short stay in Leicester not one member of Queen Margaret's retinue visited Richard's tomb in Greyfriars Church. So,' I concluded, 'we began to suspect that the White Rose murders were only pawns to cover a more subtle, evil design.'
Catesby's mood changed: he stamped his spurred boot on the floor until it jingled and clapped his hands as if we had staged some enjoyable masque or a recitation of a favourite poem. He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.
'Dear Benjamin, dear Roger,' he leaned forward, 'I thought you such fools - my only mistake. I will not make it again.'
'But we have not finished,' Benjamin spoke up. 'We have told you how these men died but not why.'
Catesby's face stiffened. 'What do you mean?'
' "Three less than twelve should it be," ' I chanted. 'Don't you want to know, Sir Robert? Surely the Queen, your mistress, will demand a report.'
'Her Grace has nothing to do with this!' Catesby retorted.
Benjamin smiled and shook his head. 'In these murders, Master Catesby, there were the victims, and these we have now described. There was the murderer, and we are now looking at the man responsible.'
'And what else?' Catesby snapped.
'There were those who cooperated with the murderer or provided the very reason the murders took place.'
Catesby sprang up and, bringing back his hand, slapped Benjamin across the face. My master gazed back at him.
'If I have told a lie,' Benjamin retorted, 'then prove it is a lie. But if I have spoken the truth, why did you hit me?'
'You insult the Queen!' Catesby mumbled. As he went back to his seat, the two Highlanders relaxed, their hands going away from the long stabbing knives stuck in their belts. I watched Catesby's face and knew the truth: Queen Margaret was as guilty as he. Benjamin, the left side of his face smarting red from Catesby's blow, leaned forward. I gazed around that darkened church. I felt stiff and the freezing night air was beginning to penetrate my clothes with a chill damp which made me shiver. I wondered how long this travesty could continue.
'Surely, Sir Robert,' I spoke up, 'you want to know the truth?'
Catesby's humour changed again and he smiled. 'Of course!' He picked up a wineskin from the ground beside him and offered it to Benjamin who shook his head. 'Oh, it's not poisoned!' the murderer quipped and, unstopping the neck, lifted it until the red wine poured into his mouth, spilling thin red rivers down his chin. He reseated it and tossed it to me. I needed no second bidding. A little wine can comfort the stomach; I half-emptied it in one gulp as my master began to decipher the riddle of Selkirk's poem.
Chapter 12
'The roots of this tragedy,' Benjamin began, 'go back ten years when Queen Margaret, a lusty young princess, was first married to James IV of Scotland - a prince who loved the joys of the bed chamber and had a string of mistresses to prove it; indeed, he had bastard children by at least two of his paramours.'
Catesby nodded, a faraway look in his eyes.
'Now, Margaret,' Benjamin continued, 'was joined in Scotland by yourself, the young squire Robert Catesby. You were devoted to your Queen and watched with her as James moved from one amorous exploit to another. A deep hatred was kindled in Margaret's heart, made all the more rancorous by James's open support for the Yorkist Pretenders. Margaret retaliated, or so my uncle the Lord Cardinal told me privily, by sending information to James's main rival and opponent, King Henry of England.'
'You speak the truth, Master Daunbey!'
'He does, Sir Robert!' I said, taking up the story. 'Matters came to a head when King James planned his invasion of England which culminated in the tragedy at Flodden Field. Queen Margaret and, I suspect, yourself played upon King James's fertile imagination. You plotted a number of stratagems to create unease in him and his principal commanders: the famous vision of St John where James was rebuked for his love of harlotry; the death-bearing voice, prophesying at Edinburgh Market Cross on the stroke of midnight that James and all his commanders would go down to Hades. These were planned by you, weren't they?'
Catesby smiled and stroked the side of his cheek with his hand.
'You succeeded brilliantly,' Benjamin spoke up. 'James became uneasy, indeed he may have begun to suspect that malcontents in his kingdom might use the Flodden campaign to stage his murder. Accordingly, durin
g the campaign as well as the actual battle, James dressed a number of soldiers in royal livery so as to deflect any assassination attempt. Now, the battle was a disaster. A number of the royal look-alikes were killed - I suspect a few by assassins as well as by the English. Surrey found one of these corpses, proclaimed it was James's body and sent it south to his master, King Henry.'
Catesby glowered at Benjamin.
'That is why,' I added, 'the corpse did not have the penitential chain James wore round his waist. Or why Margaret never asked for the corpse to be returned for burial. Was she frightened,' I jibed, 'that someone in Scotland might discover it was not the King's body?'
Catesby beat his hand upon his thigh. 'And I suppose,' he guffawed, 'you will tell me that King James himself escaped?'
'You know he did!' Benjamin snapped. 'He was dressed in ordinary armour. He and a knight of the royal household, Sir John Harrington, together with Selkirk, fled to Kelso Abbey. There, King James dictated a short letter which he sealed with his signet ring and despatched via Selkirk to his wife, begging for aid and sustenance. The physician took this message to the Queen sheltering at Linlithgow but, instead of sending help, she sent assassins to kill her husband and Harrington.'
Catesby's face now assumed a haunted, gaunt look.
'The perfect murder,' Benjamin whispered. 'How can you be accused of killing a prince whom the world already reckons is dead? God knows what happened to the body but, when Selkirk returned to Kelso, his master was gone and the monks were too frightened to speak. Selkirk escaped from your clutches to France where his mind, tortured by the horror of these events, slipped into madness. Of course, you searched him out but it was too late - the Lord Cardinal's men had already found him. Naturally, you were relieved to discover that Selkirk, due to the passage of time and his own insanity, jabbered his secrets only in obscure verse.'
'James was an adulterer,' Catesby muttered as if to himself. 'He was like Ahab of Israel, not fit to rule, and so God struck him down!'
Benjamin shook his head. 'If James was Ahab,' he replied, 'then Margaret was Jezebel. She murdered James, not because she hated him but because she, too, had been a faithless spouse. She had to hide her own infidelities with Gavin Douglas, Earl of Angus.'
'That's a lie!' Catesby rasped.
'Oh, no, it isn't!' I answered. 'Margaret's second son, Alexander, Duke of Ross, was born on the thirtieth of April 1514. He was born, so I have discovered, two months early, in which case it should have been June 1514. If we go back nine months, or the thirty-eight weeks of a natural pregnancy, that would place the time of conception at the end of September, no less than a fortnight after James was killed.'
I licked my lips, watching the two clansmen who were becoming restless, as if bored by this chatter of strange tongues.
'Oh,' I murmured, 'we can play with the dates. James left Edinburgh with his army in August. The records of the household will prove the last time he and Margaret were together as man and wife was in the previous July. I am correct?'
Catesby just glared.
'Indeed,' I continued, 'we know Margaret was playing the two-backed beast with Gavin Douglas some time before Flodden.'
'You insult the Queen!' Catesby raged. He glared at us and I realised that Catesby loved Margaret and couldn't accept his golden Princess being proved a lecherous adulteress.
'We have proof,' I sang out, my voice ringing clear as a bell through that ghostly church. 'Selkirk claimed that after Flodden he, together with James and Harrington, discussed what they should do. In his confession Selkirk mentioned the King being uneasy about the malicious gossip which had reached his ears concerning Margaret. No wonder James lost his army at Flodden: visions, voices of doom, rumours about his wife, possible threats against his life!'
'I wonder,' Benjamin interrupted, 'if the King ever put the two things together: the rumours about an assassin on the loose and the gossip about his wife?'
'Mere fancies!' Catesby snapped.
'No, they're not,' I replied. 'Selkirk rode through the night to Linlithgow yet, as soon as he met the Queen, he became uneasy. Your mistress was hardly the grieving widow. Selkirk became suspicious and hurried back to Kelso but the King and Harrington were gone.'
'And I suppose this Harrington,' Catesby queried, 'just allowed his King to be murdered?'
I glanced at Benjamin and noticed his eyes flicker, always an indication that my master, an honest man, was about to tell some half-truth.
'Harrington,' he replied, 'was only one man, exhausted after the battle. He would be little protection for James. Harrington, too, was probably murdered. Do you know,' he continued, 'when I was in Scotland I saw a Book of the Dead in the royal chapel of St Margaret's in Edinburgh, a list of those who had fallen at Flodden. I can't recollect seeing the name Harrington.' My master looked quickly at me and I knew he was lying. He didn't find out about Harrington until after we had met in Paris.
'So,' I taunted quickly, 'Margaret and Douglas were lovers before Flodden.'
'That's why they married so hastily,' Benjamin added. 'To provide Ross with some legitimacy. Who knows, even the present Scottish heir may be a Douglas! Is this, together with King James's murder, the bond which still binds Margaret to the Earl?'
Catesby leaned forward, his face white and skull-like as if quietly relishing the death he planned for us.
'So,' Benjamin continued, trying to distract his attention, 'Selkirk's verses are now explained: the lamb is Angus, who rested in the falcon's nest, namely James's bed. The Scottish King is also the Lion who cried even though he died, and the phrase "Three less than twelve should it be", together with Selkirk's mutterings about how he could "count the days", is a reference to the secret and adulterous conception of Alexander, Duke of Ross. Selkirk, a physician, suspected that Alexander was not King James's son.'
" 'What proof do you have of this?' Catesby jibed, standing up.
'Oh,' I replied, 'as it says in the last verses of Selkirk's poem: he wrote his confession in a secret cipher and left it with the monks at St Denis outside Paris.'
'Mere jabberings!' Catesby accused. 'Of a feckless fool!'
Benjamin shook his head. 'Ah, no, Selkirk left proof. He'd kept all the warrants issued to him by King James during his reign. At first, I thought they meant nothing, after all there were scores of them, but then I found one dated the twelfth of September 1513, dated and sealed three days after James was supposed to have died at Flodden!'
Catesby just stared, dumbstruck.
'Of course,' Benjamin continued quietly, 'after James's death Margaret soon tired of Angus. She quarrelled with him, tried to seize control of the children and, when baulked of that, fled south to her brother in England.'
Catesby pursed his lips. 'Lies!' he muttered as if talking to himself. 'All lies!'
'No, they're not,' I answered tartly. 'Margaret was frightened lest her secret be discovered. Who knows, perhaps she suspected King James might still be alive, lurking in some dark wood or lonely moor. She had to be sure that Angus, who had been party to her husband's death, would also keep silent, which is why we were sent to Nottingham. We found Angus sulky,' I glanced at the two Highlanders who glared back malevolently, and Lord d'Aubigny suspicious, but no hint of scandal. Queen Margaret,' I concluded bitterly, 'now knows she is safe and has planned her return to Scotland.'
Catesby cradled his hands in his lap. 'Do you know,' he observed as if we were a group of friends gathered in a cosy tavern, 'I considered you buffoons, two idiots who would blunder about in the dark and go before us to seek out any dangers. I was so wrong.'
'Yes, you were,' Benjamin answered. 'You grew alarmed when Selkirk began to talk to me, so he had to die, though you probably planned his death before Roger and I joined this murderous dance. Nevertheless, Selkirk did talk and Ruthven began to reflect on his own suspicions so he, too, had to die.'
One of the clansmen suddenly stepped forward, like a hunting dog sensing danger. Catesby snapped his fingers. The fell
ow drew his dagger while his master stood peering into the darkness.
Catesby listened for a moment. 'Nothing,' he murmured. 'Only the dark.' He looked down and smiled. 'And the soft brush of Death's dark dream.'
'You are going to kill us?' I spoke up, desperately looking around for some route of escape.
'Of course,' he whispered. 'I cannot let you live. Now everything will end well. The Queen will return to Scotland, and I shall look after her whilst young James grows to manhood.'
'You forget Selkirk's manuscripts.'
'They can disappear!' Catesby snarled.
‘And us?'
Catesby nodded to the wild heathland outside the church. 'Such thick copses and deep marshes; other bodies he buried there, why not yours?' He looked down at
Benjamin. 'Goodbye,' he whispered, and turned to the clansmen. 'Yes, yes, you had better kill them now!'
I stood up but Corin knocked me to the floor. I glimpsed Alleyn grasp my master by the shoulder as he drew his hand back for the killing blow. Suddenly a voice called out: 'Catesby, stop!'
The murderer ran down the steps, gazing into the darkness.
'Catesby, on the orders of the King, desist!'
I looked up, the Highlander grinned, and the long, pointed dagger began its descent. I heard the rasp of something through the air. I opened my eyes. The clansman was still standing but his face was now crushed into a bloody pulp by the crossbow bolt buried there. I flung myself to one side. The other clansman was still standing above Benjamin but his back was arched, his hands out as he stared down in disbelief at the crossbow quarrel embedded deeply in his chest. He opened his mouth, whimpered like a child and crashed to the sanctuary floor.
Both Benjamin and I turned; Catesby was about to draw his own sword but Doctor Agrippa and soldiers wearing the Cardinal's livery were already sweeping up the darkened nave. The doctor threw us a glance, snapped his fingers and, before Catesby could proceed any further, both sword and dagger were plucked from his belt.
The White Rose Page 22