by Paul Doherty
'Which,' Benjamin continued, 'leads us to this sudden change in the Queen's mood. It seems that she cannot return to Scotland fast enough. I'm sorry. Go on, Roger.'
'I wonder what Margaret was so frightened of? And what secrets she and the Earl of Angus share? Don't forget, Master, there are other mysteries which may be contained in the documents in that casket. What did Selkirk mean by the phrase he could "count the days"? And why has King James's body not been returned to Scotland for burial?'
Benjamin nodded and stared at the dying flames of the fire.
'Which brings us to Selkirk's verses,' he said. 'We know the falcon is James, the lamb is Angus, the Lion also is the King of Scotland. Is Selkirk saying that somehow King James survived Flodden? Something we suspected when we viewed the corpse at Sheen.'
'Perhaps,' I interrupted. 'The verses do say the Lion cried even though it died. Finally, we have discovered who Dionysius was but not the real secret left with him.'
Benjamin picked up the casket and carefully examined the lining, searching for any secret compartment or hidden drawer.
'Nothing,' he murmured.
'Which brings us, Master,' I said, 'to the murders once more. Both Selkirk and Ruthven were found poisoned in chambers locked from the inside. No poisoned cup or dish was found there.'
Benjamin agreed.
'Whilst Irvine,' he remarked, 'could have had his throat cut by any member of Queen Margaret's household except for four; you and I who were at the convent, and Catesby and Melford who were in Nottingham. We also know that the Queen herself did not leave the manor house.'
'Which means,' I concluded wearily, 'that we do not know who the murderer really is, although we suspect Moodie. We do not know Selkirk's secret, even though we hold it in our hands. Above all, we do not know the meaning of the first two lines of his damnable poem, "Three less than twelve should it be, Or the King, no prince engendered he!" '
On that merry note we both retired for the night. Benjamin spent most of the time sitting in a chair staring at the guttering candle flame, whilst my sleep was racked by terrible nightmares of my visit to Montfaucon. The next morning Benjamin dressed my wounds and we began our journey back to Calais. The weather improved and, although the roads were clogged with icy mud, we soon reached the Channel port where Benjamin used his warrants and his status to secure our passage home on a man-o'-war.
A terrible journey, believe me! If Hell exists, it must consist of being eternally sick on a ship which crosses the Narrow Seas but never reaches shore. I disembarked at Dover, cursing Benjamin, the King, the Lord Cardinal, and heartily wishing I was back in Ipswich, free from the baleful influence of the Great Ones of the soil. Matters were not helped when we found Doctor Agrippa waiting for us in a seaside tavern, cheerful and full of life as a well-fed sparrow. The fellow never seemed to age, nothing changed him; no lines of worry on his cherubic face, while those hard, glassy eyes shimmered with a quiet amusement.
He greeted us effusively, clasping Benjamin warmly by the hand. He insisted we join him for dinner where he regaled us with tidbits of gossip from the court and city.
'How did you know we were coming?' I asked crossly.
He smiled as if savouring some secret joke. 'I have my sources,' he quipped. 'The Lord Cardinal told me to come here. Your return was only a matter of time.' His face grew hard. 'You have news?'
'Yes and no!' Benjamin joked back. 'However, the game is not yet over and, if you'll accept my apologies, we still cannot discern friend from foe.'
That enigmatic little magician ignored this possible insult and deftly turned the conversation to other matters. We stayed one night in Dover, then travelled across a frost-hardened countryside back to London. Only God knows how he knew but Agrippa insisted we arm ourselves. He also warned us that, once we were back in London, we were to be careful where we went, to whom we talked and what we ate and drank.
His warnings proved prophetic. We were on a lonely stretch of road just outside London: it was late in the afternoon, darkness was about to fall and we were arguing about whether we should hurry on to the city or stay at some roadside tavern for the night. Our assailants, muffled and cloaked, seemed to rise out of the ground, running swiftly towards us, armed with dagger and sword. Now, in the ladies' romances, such encounters are full of brave oaths and heroic stances. However, I consider myself an expert in the art of assassination and murder and, I tell you this, violent death always comes quietly.
One minute we were riding our horses, the next we were surrounded by five villains intent on murder. Benjamin and Agrippa drew their hangers and set to with a will, the eerie silence of that lonely road shattered by grunts, muttered oaths and the scraping clash of steel. I drew my own sword, shouting defiance and encouragement to the rest. But, oh, Lord, I was frightened! These were not your ordinary footpads, they would never attack three well-armed, mounted travellers. Oh, no, these were assassins, despatched by the arch murderer we were hunting.
'Roger!' Benjamin shouted. 'For God's sake, man!'
Now I had been hanging back, attempting to develop some strategy.
[No, that's a he! My chaplain's right, I was petrified. Now you talk to any coward, a real coward like myself, and he'll tell you there's a point where fear becomes so great it actually turns into courage, not out of anger or fury but that marvellous innate desire to save your own skin. On that London road I reached such a point.]
Two assailants were pressing Agrippa whilst the other three had apparently forgotten me and were intent on bringing my master down. I closed my eyes and spurred my horse forward, my huge sword rising and falling as if I was the Grim Reaper himself. It's a wonder I didn't kill Benjamin but, when I opened my eyes, two of the rogues were dead of huge gashes between shoulder and neck whilst Benjamin was on the point of driving his sword straight through the breast of a third. Agrippa, his fat face covered in sweat, had already despatched one but now had lost his sword and kept turning his horse sharply to counter his final opponent. I waited until the fellow turned his back, charged and felt my sword sink deep into his exposed shoulder. The fellow whirled and, as he did so, Agrippa finished him off, plunging his dagger firmly into the man's back.
Death is so strange: one minute noise, blood, screaming and retching; the next, a terrible silence. You old soldiers who read my memoirs will realise I speak the truth. So it was on that fog-bound, lonely London road. Benjamin and Agrippa, chests heaving, cleaned their weapons. I sat like a Hector until I suddenly remembered my stomach and began noisily to vomit. Nevertheless, both my master and Agrippa were loud in their praise of my martial prowess. Naturally, I can resist anything but flattery and lapped it up like a hungry cat does milk. Of course, I glimpsed the wry amusement in Agrippa's eyes but Benjamin looked at me oddly.
'You're a strange one, Shallot,' he murmured. 'I'll never understand you.'
I dismounted and searched the corpses. I found nothing noteworthy except on one, possibly the leader, who had a considerable amount of silver which I pocketed for distribution to the poor. We then continued our journey, pushing on until we reached the city walls and lodged at one of the fine taverns on the Southwark side of the river. Oh, it was good to be back in London! To see and smell the greasy rags of the poor; the silk-slashed, perfumed doublets, velvet hose and precious buckled shoes of the rich. The pompous little beadles; dark-gowned priests; the lawyers from Westminster Hall with their fur tippets; and, of course, my favourites, the ladies of the night, with their hair piled high, low-cut dresses and heels which clicked along the cobbles. A bear had broken loose amongst the stews; a whore was being whipped outside the gates of St Thomas's Hospital; two butchers who had sold putrid meat were riding back to back on some old nag, their hands tied behind them, the rotten offal they had sold fastened tightly under their noses.
[Ben Jonson is right, London is a wondrous city! Within its walls you can see the whole spectrum of human behaviour: the splendour of the rich moving through the streets on damask-caparisone
d palfreys and the bare-arsed poor who would slit your throat for a crust of bread.]
Strangely, Benjamin did not wish to visit his uncle who was wintering at the Bishop of Ely's inn just north of Holborn. He insisted we went direct to the Tower. We took the route through Cheapside because the Thames was frozen from bank to bank, past the mansions of the rich, the stalls full of fripperies, the mouldering Eleanor Cross and the great Conduit which was supposed to bring fresh water into the city. I say 'supposed to' for it had been frozen over and, beneath the ice, I glimpsed the scrawny corpse of a dead dog. The city was just recovering from one of the usual bouts of plague which come in late winter; its citizens, however, sensed the worst was over and the streets buzzed like an overturned hive. We reached the Tower through Poor Jewry, passing the house of the Crutched Friars and then through a postern gate which stands near Hog Street. Benjamin and Agrippa had fallen strangely silent.
Only as we entered the Tower did Benjamin lean over and whisper, 'Roger, pretend we discovered nothing. Keep your thoughts hidden and your counsel concealed until we find the truth about this party of knaves.'
Benjamin's 'party of knaves' had re-established themselves in the Tower waiting for spring to dry out the roads so they could travel north. Sir Robert Catesby greeted Agrippa warmly, taking him aside for secret consultations whilst ignoring Benjamin and me. At last I grew tired of such rudeness. The grooms had taken away our horses and I did not wish to stand like a servant on the freezing forecourt of the tower.
'Doctor Agrippa!' I called out. 'What is the matter?'
He apologised and walked back to us arm-in-arm with Catesby, who now gracefully bowed to both of us.
'Welcome back, Master Benjamin, Shallot. I apologise for any offence given but there has been another death, though one which may resolve the mysteries which have plagued us.'
'Moodie's dead!' Agrippa flatly announced. 'Not murder this time,' he added quickly. 'He died the Roman way.'
Benjamin cocked his head quizzically.
'He killed himself,' Catesby declared. 'Asked for a bowl of warm water from the kitchen, locked his chamber and slashed his wrist.' 'When was this?' I asked.
'Yester evening. His body was not found until late at night.'
I stared up at the grey sky and the black ravens which circled above the battlements like the souls of men condemned to wander the earth forever.
'You said his death may resolve the mysteries?' Benjamin abruptly asked.
I stamped my feet on the cobbles as a sign that I was freezing. Catesby took my point, smiled, and led us up to his own warm, spacious chamber in the Lion Tower. He served us mulled wine sprinkled with cinnamon and heated with a red hot poker and then emptied the contents of a saddle bag on to the table; it contained a few faded white rose petals and pieces of parchment. The latter were passed around for us to examine. Most were notes, drafts of letters or memoranda concerning secret Yorkist plans as well as proclamations written anonymously to be nailed on the doors of churches up and down the kingdom. They were full of the usual childish nonsense about the Tudors being usurpers and that the crown, by right and divine favour, should go to the House of York – in reality a pathetic bundle of faded dreams and failed aspirations. Agrippa studied them with a smile. Benjamin just dismissed them, tossing the documents back on to the table.
'So Moodie was a supporter of the White Rose,' he said quietly. 'A member of Les Blancs Sangliers. But why should he kill Selkirk and Ruthven?'
Catesby shrugged. 'God knows! Perhaps he saw them as a threat. Perhaps Selkirk's verses contained information which he wished destroyed.'
'Do you really believe that?' I asked.
Catesby shook his head. 'No,' he answered slowly. 'No, I don't. Perhaps it was just an act of revenge.' He sighed. 'There's neither rhyme nor reason to Moodie's suicide.'
He sat down heavily. 'I don't know how Selkirk and Ruthven died,' he murmured, and looked up. 'Do you?' Benjamin shook his head.
'Moodie could have killed Irvine,' Catesby continued. 'He did leave Royston for a while at the same time as you, and a priest would be acceptable within the convent walls at Coldstream.'
'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 an
d 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.