Finally our weeks in Bruges came to a close and we prepared to retrace our steps back towards the coast and London.
I had had little leisure to think of what might be happening back in England, with all my tasks during the day and singing and playing for Master Ashley in the evenings. Nor had I received a letter from any of my friends, despite sending at least one myself to each of them with Master Ashley’s post. I told myself that it would take a very long time for my letters to arrive in London and then be sent far north to Middleham. But still I was disappointed.
The crossing back over the sea to England was calmer than the outward journey and I passed much of the time on deck, marvelling at the sailors’ agility in the rigging and gazing at the English coast as it came ever nearer. The sun had set on another day and lights had bloomed in the gathering dusk before we docked. Our party spent that night in a habourside tavern before starting out at first light on the road to London.
After my weeks in foreign parts, the city seemed very strange when we finally arrived, although little of substance had changed in my absence. The river still flowed in its usual course, the main buildings were no different – although they appeared odd to my eyes, now used to the steep roofs and stepped gables of Flemish towns – and the same stench rose from the streets. But as we rode towards Master Ashley’s house, I became aware of a whispering in the streets, knots of people talking on corners, a buzz of expectation.
On our arrival, almost before I had passed Bess to a groom to be unsaddled, fed and watered, a servant thrust a small note into my hand. Recognizing the handwriting, I hurried off to my attic room, there slitting open the folded paper, eager to discover its contents.
To my disappointment the letter contained nothing beyond a single sentence in our code:
‘Wigy ni myy om un Wlimvs Jfuwx um miih um sio wuh – Ufsm.’
I checked when it had been written – a Monday more than a week before. Then I could translate it using our cipher for that day. Revealed were the words ‘Come to see us at Crosby Place as soon as you can – Alys.’
Despite the shortness of her message, seeing Alys’s name again, and knowing that she was in London too, drove away my momentary unhappiness. No matter now that she hadn’t written before. She had clearly been too busy with preparations for her journey and then settling in to her new lodgings in the city.
It was just supper time and I already knew Master Ashley did not require me to sing that evening. So I resolved to take advantage of the long hours of daylight remaining to visit Alys that day if I could.
The atmosphere at supper was subdued. All the party must have been as tired as I was following our long day’s journey, and after more than a month away it was no surprise that our master rose early from the table with his wife, steward and secretary and retired to his private chamber. At that, I also rose, declining Simon’s offer of an evening spent playing dice. Soon I was treading the familiar streets towards Duke Richard’s townhouse, Murrey sticking close to my heels.
Those streets were busier than I recalled from earlier in the year, but I put that down to the better weather and the lighter evening. It was less easy to explain why the stout iron gates of Crosby Place were barred against me when I arrived, with double the number of men at arms on guard. Given the events of the Duke’s journey to London, however, perhaps I should not have been surprised that greater security was required. As I stated my name and business, and showed the guards the Duke’s little silver boar badge that I now wore proudly on my doublet at all times, Master Ashley’s remark about the ‘bag of snakes’ at Westminster wormed unprompted into my mind. What had unfolded while I had been away?
I was ushered into the courtyard to wait while a servant went to announce me. Before long Elen, Alys’s companion, emerged from a side door. Her dark eyes brightened at the sight of me standing there, Murrey perched neat and upright by my feet, and with a smile she beckoned me forward.
‘It’s so nice to see you, Matthew,’ she said, as she led me through passages and up staircases into the heart of the house that, not long ago, had briefly been my home too. ‘We have been stuck so long in London now with so little to do. Your tales of your new life will be a welcome distraction.’
Her words surprised me, not only because it was rare for Elen to speak so openly, but also her complaint about lack of amusements. Surely the capital was full of entertainments for two young girls?
As I murmured something about hoping to be of service, we reached a small door towards the topmost part of the house. Elen opened it, drawing her full skirts aside to let me past, and there, in a small parlour, with her embroidery untouched on her lap, sat Alys.
She rose to greet me, and she at least had not changed. As ever her unruly reddish curls were escaping from her linen cap and, standing with her hands upon her hips, she raised one eyebrow as her sharp green eyes looked me up and down.
‘Quite a man about town now, I see,’ she said with a curl to her lip.
I had of course swapped the Duke’s murrey and blue livery for that of Master Ashley, an altogether more elaborate uniform with a touch of lace at the collar and cuffs. And my boots were of smart black leather, no longer the battered pair of our rides together at Middleham.
Where once perhaps my cheeks would have glowed at her words, now I simply lowered myself on to one knee and pressed my lips to her offered hand.
‘But still not fit to woo the lady of my dreams, alas. I must continue to wander the world until I have found my fortune.’
To my relief, she laughed as she pushed me away.
‘Fool! But did you not find it in faraway Flanders?’
‘Thank you for your letters, Matt,’ Elen broke in from where she was now seated on a stool to one side. ‘Bruges sounds a beautiful city.’
‘It is,’ I said, and at her prompting, launched into a description of some of the delights I had met with on my travels. Before long, however, her questions tailed off and my own chatter dwindled away in its turn. Uncertain what to say next, I leaned forward to fondle Murrey’s ears.
After some moments of silence, Alys burst out,
‘So while we’ve been kicking our heels here, under siege, you’ve been out and about enjoying yourself!’
I almost laughed at the drama of her words.
‘Under siege? Whatever do you mean?’
Elen’s dark hands plucked at her arm, but Alys threw them off.
‘Well, it seems like it. We’re not allowed to go out unless three or four guards are there to protect us. More than a fortnight we’ve been here and we’ve seen almost nothing. With the Queen in sanctuary, there’s no court to speak of. And now the coronation’s been postponed there are hardly any ladies in the city at all. My first visit to London in six years – it was meant to be glorious. I didn’t expect it to be like this!’
What she said stunned me.
‘What do you mean, the coronation’s been postponed?’
‘Don’t you know what’s happened? Have you heard nothing while you’ve been away?’
‘I – we were so busy. And – and I had no letters.’
It wasn’t meant as a rebuke, but her face was suddenly aflame.
‘Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry. Everything was in an uproar after we received the Duke’s news from Northampton – then we were travelling – then more uproar when we arrived here. Your letters did reach us – but we didn’t know when you would be returning...’
Her voice trailed away, before rallying again.
‘Not that I should make excuses. Ed managed to write to you.’
‘Ed?’ I asked, casting my eyes around the chamber. Was my little friend hiding in some dark corner as when I had first met him in his father’s library? ‘Where is he?’
‘He stayed behind at home. The Duchess was worried he might become ill in the heat and smoke of London. At least that’s what she told him. Although with everything that’s happened to the Duke... He wasn’t happy. We kept his letters for you, as we weren’
t sure where to send them. I suppose he’ll have told you himself.’
Elen was on her feet, searching in a small trunk on a side table. Turning back, she passed me four or five folded and sealed papers.
I broke with a snap the wax seal on the uppermost, into which was cut a primitive ‘E’. Within was a densely packed page of Ed’s childish writing.
‘He’s written it in code, hasn’t he?’ said Alys, pale once more, her lips curved in a faint smile.
‘Every word.’
‘I knew it. He always uses the code now, whenever he can. Even just for the briefest notes. He says, “What would Matt say if I didn’t use it?”’
‘And tells us how much he misses you,’ Elen put in.
And I him. But I didn’t say the words. That was a different life. When I had been the friend of a Duke’s son.
Folding the letter up again to save for later, when I had my cipher to hand, I dragged my thoughts back to the present.
‘But what were you saying about the coronation? And the Queen – she’s still in sanctuary? Why?’
‘I can’t believe you don’t know anything. Surely Master Ashley did?’
On several days my new master had been agitated when he received his letters and had taken himself off with his secretary Master Hardyng to his study overlooking the quiet canal. But he had never shared news with us lowly boys.
‘Perhaps. But don’t forget, I’m just an apprentice now – not party to great events.’
‘All of London knows it,’ she cried in exasperation. ‘Lord Hastings has been executed!’
6 St Paul’s Cross
I was too shocked to speak at first.
The old King’s closest friend, Lord Chamberlain of England, the huge bear-like man I had seen laughing and riding and drinking with the King and Duke at Christmas? Executed?
‘How?’ I stammered. Then thought – stupid question. I knew. A sharp axe to the neck, of course. Rather – ‘I mean, why?’
‘They say he’d been plotting with the Queen and the Marquess of Dorset,’ said Alys, her eyes alight, though agitated, at the story she had to tell. ‘That they were aiming to seize back power along with the King. That he didn’t like Duke Richard being Protector and favouring the Duke of Buckingham when he – Lord Hastings – thought he should be in charge of the Council. The Bishop of Ely too, and the old Chancellor, Rotherham – oh, and Lord Thomas Stanley – they’ve all been arrested as well.’
‘Arrested? But you said executed?’
‘Well, Lord Hastings – they say that when he was accused – at a Council meeting in the Tower – they found a hidden weapon on him. Master Kendall says his lordship called for the men at arms to support him, but they overpowered him instead. So he was tried at once and executed almost straight away. Master Kendall thinks the Duke acted on the spur of the moment – decided that removing Lord Hastings would take away the main focus for the plot.’
‘And has it?’
‘Maybe. A couple of days later the Queen allowed the King’s little brother, Richard, to leave sanctuary. He’s joined Edward in his apartment in the Tower to prepare for the coronation. Perhaps that means she thinks the game’s up.’
Edward’s last words to me before his glorious entry into London came back to me – about my visiting the menagerie of exotic beasts near his lodgings at the Tower. How close had the boy King been to the place of execution? Had he heard the commotion or the dread sound as the axe fell?
Alys was watching me, as though awaiting my reaction. As I pondered, her earlier words came back to me.
‘But you said the coronation’s been postponed.’
‘Well, yes. There had been a rumour that it would be before all this happened. I think something else is afoot.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, Master Kendall knows something, but he’s keeping tight-lipped about it for once. The Duchess looks worried all the time – at least whenever we see her, which isn’t often. She and the Duke are staying at Baynard’s Castle with his mother as often as here. And anyway, I daren’t ask her. When all’s said and done, we’re just children.’
‘So’s the King,’ I said, ‘even younger than us. Do you think he knows what’s happening?’
She shrugged.
My mind went back to my talks with Edward on the road to and from Northampton, his confusion and questions about his family, his uncertainty about Duke Richard, his worry about being a good king. I recalled also the Duke kneeling to him, unprotected, on the cobbled yard of the manor house, his kiss of the ring, the oath he had led in York Minster, his words to me about being brought up in violent times. His smile when I had pledged him my loyalty. The flash of his sword when threatened by Lord Grey.
‘I’m sure the Duke’s doing right by him – by us all. He’s an important man. He has to make big decisions, he’s always had to. And the old King trusted him to make the right ones or he wouldn’t have made him Lord Protector.’
‘But it’s all so far away from our life at Middleham. And I wonder what will happen next. Sometimes it seems as though everyone is holding their breath, waiting to see. It’s all so frustrating. And we have no distractions from it here.’
She bit her lip.
‘I suppose that sounds terrible, to complain about being bored when a man has just lost his life. But I truly wish there was more for us to do. It might take our minds off all this. Even if we could just ride more often.’
I was glad to think about something other than the bewildering news.
‘Perhaps we could ride out together. I have no duties on Sunday.’
Alys clapped her hands together at my words. Elen’s eyes were shining too as she said quietly,
‘Are you sure, Matthew – that you wish to give up your holiday?’
I bowed to both of them.
‘It will be my pleasure. Duke Richard let me take Bess to Master Ashley’s, but I’ve hardly have a chance to ride her since, except for the journey to the coast. And he gave permission for me to see you if you came to London.’
Alys screwed her mouth into a pout.
‘Despite Lord Soulsby?’
The reason for my being sent away from Middleham swam back into my head.
‘The Duke said we must give his lordship no cause for complaint. But what suspicions can we attract just riding out in the city – two girls and a boy in full view of the whole populace? Nothing, surely, to upset the marriage plans for his son.’
A shadow seeped into Alys’s eyes, like a cloud shielding the sun from view. Aware of my mistake in reminding her of her betrothal, I gabbled on.
‘We could see some of the most famous sights hereabouts – the Guildhall, maybe, the great bridge, St Paul’s. It really is a most wondrous church – almost as fine as the Minster.’
Elen helped me out in my discomfort. She stood and gave me her hand, saying with her gentle humour,
‘That’s very kind of you, Matthew, to think of us and our entertainment. And if you’re escorting us, perhaps we’ll need only three men at arms this time.’
Indeed, when I called again at Crosby Place on Sunday morning, the girls were attended by no more than two of the Duke’s soldiers, already astride their horses, halberds hefted in their gauntleted fists. Perhaps, as the city had remained calm in the days since Lord Hastings’s death, there was little risk in ladies venturing forth. For me, the shock was still fresh – that this man I had met and who had seemed Duke Richard’s ally should have met such a brutal end. And on the Duke’s orders.
Like Alys I suspected there must be more to the story. Everywhere in Master Ashley’s household and throughout the streets of the city, people appeared to be waiting, watching, whispering in shadows.
Bess’s coat had been brushed until it shone and Murrey’s royal collar also polished for the occasion. Alys was once more atop her pretty chestnut pony and Elen had borrowed an old palfrey from the household steward. He said that, though large, it was sweet-tempered and would be ideal for
carrying a lady safely about the bustling streets. As we set off for St Paul’s, we soon appreciated the value of horses not readily disturbed by crowds.
Sunday was of course a holiday for all the citizens of London, whether master, journeyman or apprentice, and the streets were always thronged after morning service. But today, as we approached the great cathedral, it was more difficult than usual to force a path through the seething hordes of people. The soldiers had at first trailed in our wake, chatting and little resembling the bodyguard Alys had lamented. But now they pushed their way to the front. At sight of their dark red and blue livery, the townsfolk melted away to either side.
I thought nothing of it and was just telling Alys and Elen something of the first of Ed’s letters that I had painstakingly deciphered, when we rode out on to the square about St Paul’s Cross.
This roofed stone pulpit I knew to be a place for meetings and preaching to the populace. So it was scarcely surprising to glimpse a tall man clad in a brown habit standing upon it, the morning sun glinting off the dome of his tonsured head. Around him clustered an enormous crowd, as though half the population of the city had collected there.
What I did not expect was a sizeable gathering of horsemen on the far side of the square, ranged before the soaring walls of the cathedral itself. The swathes of velvets, silks, lace and fur trimmings they displayed, and the rich trappings of their horses, marked those at the front as among the wealthiest men in the land. All lords had been summoned to a special sitting of Parliament due to begin in a few days, but I wondered to see so many here.
Beside me, Alys murmured, ‘Look. Duke Richard.’
Running my eyes along their ranks a second time, in their midst I spied my old master’s slight form upon Storm. Both man and horse were arrayed in deepest purple cloth. In previous weeks I had become so accustomed to seeing the Duke in his sombre black mourning clothes that I had not observed him before.
The King's Man (The Order of the White Boar Book 2) Page 6