by Paul Doherty
'Tell them about the White Queen,' Wolsey interrupted testily.
Doctor Agrippa licked his lips and smirked. 'Queen Margaret always objected to her late husband's involvement with Les Blancs Sangliers and eventually persuaded him to withdraw his support for them but not his enmity against England. Then came Flodden.' Doctor Agrippa shrugged. 'James was killed. Queen Margaret, desolate, was left alone with her baby son and pregnant with another. She was distressed and vulnerable. She looked for friends and found one in Gavin Douglas, Earl of Angus. The Scottish Council was furious and, led by the Duke of Albany, attacked Margaret who fled into England.'
[God's teeth, looking back it's a wonder the fellow didn't choke on his words! Never have I heard such a farrago of lies!]
'Naturally,' Wolsey intervened, 'King Henry protected his beloved sister, who now repents of her hasty marriage and wishes to be restored to Scotland.' He paused and stared at his nephew.
'Dearest Uncle,' Benjamin began, 'what has that to do with me? How can I help Her Grace the Queen of Scotland?'
Wolsey turned to the young man who had been sitting silently beside him.
'May I introduce Sir Robert Catesby, clerk to Queen Margaret's privy chamber? He, together with the Queen's personal retinue, now resides in the royal apartments in the Tower.' Wolsey stopped and sipped from a goblet.
(Here it comes, I thought.)
'In a different part of the Tower,' Wolsey continued slowly, 'held fast in a prison cell, is Alexander Selkirk, formerly physician to the late King James. The fellow was brought there by my agents in Paris.' Wolsey smiled sourly. 'Yes, dear nephew, the same man I sent you across to find and whom you let slip so easily between your fingers. Anyway, Selkirk is captured. He holds information which could assist Queen Margaret's return to Scotland. We also think he is a member of Les Blancs Sangliers and could give us information about other members of that secret coven.'
' [My chaplain mutters, 'What was Benjamin doing in Dieppe?' I rap him across the knuckles, I'll come to that!] 'Selkirk is not a well man,' Sir Robert continued. His voice was cultured but tinged with a slight accent. 'He is weak in both mind and body. We make no sense of him. He writes doggerel poetry and stares blankly at the walls of his cell, demanding cups of claret and alternating between fits of drunkenness and bouts of weeping.'
'How can I help?' Benjamin replied. 'I am no physician.'
'You are, Benjamin,' Wolsey answered, his voice warm with genuine kindness, 'a singular young man. You have a natural charm, a skill in unlocking the hearts of others.' The cardinal suddenly grinned. 'Moreover, Selkirk has fond memories of you, even though his wits do wander. He said you treated him most courteously in Dieppe and regrets any inconvenience he may have caused.'
Oh, I thought, that was rich, but I let it pass. The hairs pricking on the nape of my neck were alerting me to danger. There was something else, a subtle, cloying menace beneath the Cardinal's banal remarks. Why was "Selkirk so important? He apparently knew something which the Cardinal and his bluff royal master wanted to share. Benjamin and I were on the edge of a calm, clear pool but, no doubt, its depths were deep, murky and tangled with dangerous weeds. I would have run like a hare from that chamber but, of course, dear Benjamin, as was his wont, took his uncle at face value.
'I will do all I can to assist,' he answered.
The Cardinal smiled whilst his two companions visibly relaxed. Oh, yes, I thought, here we go again, head first into the mire. Wolsey waved a hand.
'Sir Robert, inform my nephew.'
'Queen Margaret and her retinue, as the Lord Cardinal has already stated, are now in residence in the Tower. Queen Margaret wishes to be close to Selkirk, who holds information valuable to her. Her household is as follows: I am her secretary and chamberlain; Sir William Carey is her treasurer; Simon Moodie is her almoner and chaplain; John Ruthven is her steward; Matthew Melford is sergeant-at-arms and her personal bodyguard, whilst Lady Eleanor Carey is her lady-in-waiting. The rest are servitors.'
'All of these,' Doctor Agrippa interrupted, 'including
Sir Robert, served Queen Margaret when she was in Scotland. I will also join her household. Now, Sir Robert's loyalty can be guaranteed though it is possible – and Sir Robert must take no offence at this – that any of the exiled Queen's household could be allies to her opponents in Scotland and any one of them could be a member of Les Blancs Sangliers.' Agrippa frowned and looked at me. 'There is one further person whom I believe, Master Shallot, you know well. His Majesty has been pleased to appoint a new physician to his sister's retinue – a Hugh Scawsby, burgess of this good town.'
Wolsey smirked, Catesby looked puzzled, whilst my master rubbed his jaw.
'I am sure,' Doctor Agrippa continued, 'Master Scawsby will be delighted to renew his acquaintance with you.'
I looked away. I don't like sarcastic bastards and I didn't relish the prospect of having old Scawsby peering over my shoulder. None the less, I nodded wisely like the merry fellow I pretended to be.
'Nephew,' Wolsey extended his hand as a sign that the meeting was over, 'prepare yourself – and you too, Master Shallot. On the day after Michaelmas, Sir Robert and Doctor Agrippa will meet you here at noon and escort you to the Tower.'
Wolsey straightened up, a silver bell tinkled and behind us the door was flung open. Both Benjamin and I backed out, heads bobbing, although Wolsey had already forgotten us and was now talking to Catesby in deep hushed tones. Outside the chamber, I noticed Benjamin's face was flushed, his eyes glittering. He spoke never a word until we cleared the Guildhall and entered the musty darkness of a nearby tavern.
'So, Roger, we are to be gone from here in two days.' He looked anxiously at me. 'I know there's more to my uncle's business than meets the eye.'
He sighed. 'Yet it's the best I can do. We are finished here, there's nothing for us in Ipswich.'
'What was this business about Dieppe?' I asked.
Benjamin drained his cup. 'Before your appearance at the Sessions House, Uncle sent me on a mission to arrest Selkirk. I captured him just outside Paris and took him to Dieppe. The seas were rough so we sheltered in a tavern.' He sighed. 'To cut a long story short, the fellow's a half-wit. I became sorry for him and released him from his chains. One morning I rose late, Selkirk was gone, and all I had to show were a set of rusty manacles.' He smiled at me. 'Now Uncle wishes me to finish the task. We have no choice, Roger, we have to go.'
I stared around the tavern, now full of farmers and stall holders making merry and drinking the profits of their day. Yes, we were finished here. Still, I shivered as if some invisible terror, a cold hand from the grave, had rubbed its clawlike fingers down my back. The real terrors were about to begin. The ghosts of Flodden had finally caught up with me.
Chapter 2
Two days later we packed and, as arranged, found Sir Robert and Doctor Agrippa waiting for us outside the Ipswich Guildhall. They greeted us merrily enough, insisting that, before we leave, we should dine at the Golden Lion, the costliest eating house in Ipswich. I am proud to say I made a complete pig of myself on succulent capon, gold-encrusted pastries, roast plover garnished in a rich egg sauce, crackling pork and cheese tarts covered in cream. I drank generously from deep-bowled cups full of wine from the black grapes of Auvergne. After that Doctor Agrippa did not seem so menacing although I kept an eye on him: sometimes I caught him making strange signs and gestures in the air as if he was speaking to someone we could not see. Young Catesby, however, proved to be the most amiable of companions. He diverted us with the gossip of the court about the masques and mummers' plays, the dancing and the revelry, as well as the new wench in the King's bed, Bessie Blount, with her corn-coloured hair, saucy eyes and luscious body.
I suppose you take things as they appear. Catesby seemed a good man, albeit a dark pool with shadowy currents. A good fighting man who showed himself adept with sword and dirk when some mountebanks attacked us on the London Road, Catesby was left-handed, a subtle device, for what the fool
s thought was his blind side proved to be the place they died, choking on their blood as his sword rose and fell in a hissing arc of silver steel. For the rest, our journey was uneventful and on the morning of 2 October, the Feast of Christ's Holy Angels, we passed St Mary of Bethlehem Church and entered London along Bishopsgate Street.
We found the city in the final, lingering embrace of a terrible plague which caused a great sweating and stinking, redness of the face, a continual thirst and a crushing headache. At the last, pimply rashes would appear on the skin, small pricks of blood. After this the only consolation was that death followed swiftly. People fell ill on the streets, at work, during Mass, and went home to collapse and die. Some perished opening their windows, some playing with their children; men who were merry at dinner were dead by supper time. I saw people massed as thick as flies rushing through the streets away from the presence of an infected person. Fortunately, I remained in good health but Catesby, whilst at our inn, the Red Tongue on Gracechurch Street, fell ill. Doctor Agrippa bought mercury and nightshade mixed with swine's blood, infusing in it a concoction of dragon water with half a nutshell of crushed unicorn horn. He forced Catesby to drink this as he made strange signs in the air. Despite all this mummery, Catesby recovered and Doctor Agrippa announced it was now safe to proceed towards the Tower.
We travelled down through Eastcheap and into Petty Wales, the area around the Tower. God save us, London is a dirty place, but after that infection it was reeking filthy: fleas and lice swarmed everywhere, and the unpaved streets were coated with leavings of every kind. Mounds of refuse were piled high, full of the rushes thrown out of houses and taverns, thick with dirt and stinking of spit, vomit and dog turds. The Tower had been effectively sealed off against this miasma of filth and we were only allowed through its great darkened archways after Doctor Agrippa gave Wolsey's name and showed the necessary letters and warrants.
It was the first time I entered that bloody fortress with its soaring curtain walls, huge towers, drawbridges and moats, embrasures, sally ports and fortified gateways.
Once you were through these concentric rings of defences, the broad expanse of Tower Green, the half-timbered royal apartments and the sheer beauty of the great White Tower, caught the eye and pleased the mind with the cunning of their architecture. You see, in my youth the Tower was still a palace, old Bluff King Hal had not yet turned it into his own private killing ground where all his opponents would meet a grisly death: Sir Thomas More, joking with the executioner; John Fisher, too old to climb the gallows steps; Anne Boleyn, who died at the hands of a special executioner hired from Calais after she spent the evening before her death talking to me and practising how to lay her head on the block; Catherine Howard, a little figure in black who tripped through Traitor's Gate and bravely met her end on the scaffold in the half-light of a winter's morning. Yet, even then, I suppose the Tower had its secrets: deep, dark dungeons, ill-lit passageways and torture chambers full of grisly mechanisms such as the rack, the strappado and the thumbscrew, all of which would break a man's body and shatter his soul. A narrow, evil place, I did not relish staying in it for long.
Benjamin and I were given a small, musty chamber high in Bayward Tower which overlooked the north bastion and the deep, green-slimed moat. The narrow arrow-slit window was boarded up, with peep-holes pushed through to give some view out as well as to let the air circulate. We each had a pallet bed, a chest with its locks broken, bowls of water and a peg driven into the wall on which to hang our clothes. I felt as if we were prisoners and constantly checked the door to ensure it had not been bolted and locked.
We arrived late in the afternoon as the sun set and a damp mist swirled in from the river, so Benjamin insisted on a heated brazier and logs for the fire. The burly, thickset Constable, John Farringdon, surlily agreed and stamped off, muttering that he was not a taverner and had too many guests in the Tower. That same evening we met these, the retainers of Queen Margaret's household, as they gathered in the huge hall for supper. A cold, benighted place with bare walls and dirty rushes on the floor, its only consolations were a roaring fire in the great hearth and the food which, though simple, was plentiful and hot.
Doctor Agrippa introduced us to Queen Margaret and I groaned inwardly when I met her. She looked what she was: trouble to any man who came within a mile of her. She sat behind her separate table staring at us as she sipped a little too quickly from a huge goblet of wine. Her blonde hair was covered by a fine veil of white gossamer, and she had a strong Tudor likeness with her fleshy nose and gimlet eyes. Her face was broad and fleshy, the lips full and sensual, and despite the heavy jewel-encrusted dress, her podgy body exuded a hungry sexuality. Oh, a lewd one, Margaret. She gave many a man a good time but they always paid for it. She was hot as a poker and liked the pleasures of the boudoir beyond all others. Her husband had scarcely been killed at Flodden and she enceinte with his child, when she raised her skirts to please the Earl of Angus. The Queen frightened me by the way she was studying Benjamin, her mouth half-open, the tip of her tongue slightly moistening her lips as if she was looking at some Twelfth Night gift and was eager to shed the wrapping.
'Master Benjamin,' she said softly, her voice sweet and cultured.
'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 chee
k. 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!'