There had been rumours. There were always rumours. About this or that. Master Ashley said they were sent around to confuse people, demoralize them, stir them up against the King, as in the late rebellion, or against this noble or that alderman, to thwart his ambition, or –
But this – about Ed – this –
‘Matt,’ Roger swallowed, forced himself to go on. ‘Ed – Ed’s dead.’
It was as though my heart, my very core, had been torn from my chest.
‘Dead? But... but he can’t be. I had a letter from him, only last —’
When was it? Last week? Last month?
This spring had been so busy. A trip to Friesland early in the year, the return delayed by storms in the channel, the need to catch up on work. The letter had been waiting for me on our return. Before I heard tell of any rumour...
In it he had written of... of longing to see his father and mother when they rode north again in the spring... of training his new pup with Roger, and... of having caught a chill, when out riding.
But it was nothing, he’d said. And he’d begged me not to tell his mother – as he always did if he’d done something amiss. As if I would now have the chance! She was worried about his health, he said, had given instructions that he was not to ride in the wintry weather.
And yet he had. Behind his tutor’s back. And delighted in it. In cantering through the snowy water meadows, up on to the moor, overlooking the patchwork of strip fields in the valley, edged with drifts of snow and dark stone walls and the skeletons of thorn trees.
‘He had been ill,’ Roger said, his voice cracking. ‘Not so serious. A chill. But it lingered.’
Yes, I knew.
‘But then he would go riding again. Too soon. Although Doctor Frees had told him he shouldn’t. And his mother in her letters. Though we all told him...’
Yes, yes, of course. That was Ed. Impatient to be well, to do what everyone else did.
‘It was a cold day. And when we were on the moor, he... We didn’t know what to do... Perhaps if you had been there...’
Haltingly, Roger told me all that had happened. And as he told it, I could see, hear, feel, as though I had been there.
A cold, sharp spring day. The knifing of the breeze in the nostrils. Plumes of breath rising from boys, ponies, grooms as they hurried about making all ready.
The clang of shod hooves on cobbles, the dull thud across the water meadows. The musty smell of last year’s heather brushed by horses’ legs up on the moor tops.
Black points of mud. Leaden sky above.
Boys laughing gaily, the snorting of their mounts, the sounds carrying across the still moor.
Then a gasp. And another.
Ed’s breath rasping in his throat.
Boys clustering in concern. Leaden grey of his skin, bluish lips, eyes wide.
The rising scent of panic in the chill air.
A page remounts, dashes for the castle, the physician. A cloak, another, bundling Ed. Somehow, somehow, get him back to safety.
The thunder of hooves across the water meadows, up on to the moor. Adults’ cries.
Master Fleete passing the small bundle, racked with coughs, struggling breaths, up to Master Gygges. Gentle hands, holding, supporting, before him on his mount.
The straggle of pages watching, the riders picking their way down and across the final fields. Following more slowly, dread weighing heavy inside them.
Back within the cold stone walls. Gloom cast by drawn curtains, paling only in the smokiness of lighted tallow.
Hushed, whispering.
Waiting on the steps, outside Ed’s tower room.
The tang of herbs burning, warding off bad humours.
Nurse bustling, in, out, fetching, carrying. Bowls of steaming liquid, trays of this and that.
Master physician... closing the door behind him. Head shaking, eyes moist.
Small white pup whimpering, scratching at the wood.
Tap, tap, tap.
Then – silence.
Darkness.
Candles quenched.
The pungent fumes of incense, drifting.
Muttered words in Latin. The wails of women.
Men with trails of tears upon their cheeks.
The sad tolling of a single bell at the parish church.
Wetness upon my cheeks too. I buried my face in Murrey’s fur. Her warm tongue licked the hand that clutched her.
‘It was so quick.’
Roger’s voice seeped into my sorrow.
‘Too quick to summon the King and Queen. They were far away, still journeying north. Nothing could be done. It was days before they came. Alys was distraught. And Belle...’
The shivering white pup. Curled up against the cold, grey, still little boy.
Gently lifted away, crying to go back. Whimpering, scratching at the door.
‘We nearly lost Belle too. She didn’t want to leave him, wouldn’t eat for days. Shadow had to care for her, almost like a mother. But she kept going back to Ed’s chamber, trying to get in.’
Tap, tap, tap.
Roger’s words faltered to a halt. He had no more to say.
His face glum, he stared out of the window as I wiped away my tears with my cuff.
Silence.
Save for the birds trilling their lilting spring songs among the fruit trees beyond the splintered glass.
A soft knock.
Mistress Ashley’s lace-framed face peered around the door.
Roger started. He swung back to me, his eyes not meeting mine.
‘I must go. My mother...’
I nodded, unable to trust my own voice.
‘I will write,’ he said. ‘I promise. When I – when I go back. I’m to join the household at Sheriff Hutton, with the Earl of Lincoln. Now Ed – now there will be no household at Middleham.’
And he was gone. No farewell, not a backward glance.
Mistress Ashley guided me to a chair, sat me down, patted my shoulder again.
‘Stay as long as you wish. I have told Master de Vries. If you need anything, just send the servant for me.’
Her tone was pitying. As she left the room, her last words to herself reached me.
‘Poor little lad. And the Queen’s only child...’
And I recollected that she herself had no children of her own, despite long years of prayers to the Virgin and St Anne.
I heard no more from Roger – I did not expect to, in truth, though all year I had hoped – but in a day or two a letter arrived from Alys. In it she told of the moment when the King and Queen had received the news of their son.
I’ve never seen such grief before. The Queen was overcome. The King could do nothing to comfort her, though they clung to one another as though they would never let go.
The royal party had journeyed sadly up to Middleham instead of the joyous spring progress it was to have been. A quiet funeral for Ed, then it was back to business for the King. For word had reached him that Henry Tudor had not given up his ambition, despite his flight after the failed revolt. In a ceremony in Brittany on Christmas day he had sworn an oath to marry Princess Elizabeth – old King Edward’s eldest daughter.
He says it is to unite the houses of York and Lancaster, to stop the rivalry once and for all – though most Lancastrian supporters gave that up long ago, under King Edward. But it’s said that the French King is helping him plan for an invasion of England, to challenge King Richard for the throne. I don’t think he’d dare to land here in the north – no one would give him their support, their loyalty to the King and Queen is too strong. But there is talk of the King travelling round the north country to check the defences anyway. I think perhaps he doesn’t want to go far from Ed too soon – or at least the place where he now lies.
I’m not sure whether the Queen will return to Westminster as planned – maybe she won’t want to be apart from the King. She has been so distracted with grief. After the funeral, she walked for hours alone on the moor – she wouldn’t let a
ny ladies join her. The King was so worried when he heard – he had been in important meetings all day. And when she returned her gown was all torn and muddy, and she had lost her favourite jewel – do you remember, the beautiful necklace the King gave her after you returned from Christmas in London? The servants searched everywhere, but the Queen couldn’t recall where she’d wandered and they never found it.
I did remember it – the vivid blue stone clasped in gold that I’d seen about the Queen’s neck in happier days, when she was still Duchess. And when I had still been servant to her and her husband – and friend to their only son.
13 Paths Cross
Spring turned into summer, and summer passed slowly.
My grief remained raw, and now I had only one regular correspondent whose letters lit up the ordinary days of my apprenticeship. And even that source of enjoyment appeared under threat following a long-awaited event.
After almost a year, the old Queen – now to be called Dame Grey after her first, legitimate husband – had finally emerged from sanctuary, together with her daughters. And on her return to Westminster from the north, Alys was warned that her fate might soon be decided.
She tried to look on the bright side in her letters, despite her lingering sadness at Edward’s death. As she told me straight away, this change didn’t mean she was to marry Ralph Soulsby just yet. Nor was she to be made to join the household of Dame Grey, who had taken up residence in the countryside. Instead she was to attend her guardian’s daughter, the lady Elizabeth, who had remained at court.
Elizabeth has been very friendly to me since she came out of sanctuary. She’s only a few years older than me, but she says she remembers well when my mother was lady-in-waiting to her mother. She’s even said I may keep Shadow with me now I’ve brought her back from Middleham. She loves hunting and hounds too – she used to hunt with her father as often as she was allowed. I’m sure I’ll be very happy with her.
And who knows where I might end up? Lady Tyrell says the King must surely find Elizabeth a husband soon – if only to ruin Henry Tudor’s plan to marry her himself. But the Queen pointed out that the King promised good husbands for Elizabeth and each of her sisters before their mother agreed to leave sanctuary, and he says there’s no hurry. He wants to find the right match for her – a royal husband, if he can, though she is no longer seen as a true daughter of a King of England – and Tudor’s threats don’t worry him. So maybe I will get to travel abroad as you have!
Yet, for all Alys’s cheerfulness and hope for the future, her regret at leaving the Queen and King after so many years was clear. And especially only months after their loss of Ed.
‘They send their respects to you,’ she wrote, ‘and their thanks for your prayers when Ed died. They’re still grieving, despite the show they must put on for courtiers and diplomats. I see the sadness in their faces at quiet moments.’
Although the King had said Alys could continue to write to me, as Dame Elizabeth had not forbidden it, perhaps the pleasures of a young princess’s household distracted her, as her letters became less frequent. Then, as my second summer in the city drew to a close, they ceased altogether.
I continued to write – how could I not? Alys, and Elen who had accompanied her to Elizabeth’s new house, were my last link to the chapter of my life that meant so much to me, the last link in a chain that was falling to pieces. Yet our lives had drifted so far apart now that I did not wonder at the change. I was after all only a merchant’s son, and now a lowly apprentice. Our paths had brushed against one another for a brief time, like the closing of a butterfly’s wings as it alights on a beautiful flower, then fluttered apart, perhaps to touch again no more. I dutifully wrote of the humdrum events of my existence, of the bright interlude of our late-summer visit to Bruges. But though I had on my return enclosed a kerchief of web-like lace as a gift for each of them from my travels, I no longer expected any reply.
Yet reply, of a sort, I did receive, unlooked-for though it was.
Autumn was gathering pace, and the early evening mists were rolling off the river into the embrace of the smoke rising from the city’s coal fires, when one evening I was returning through the dusk from an errand. I was almost safe back at my master’s house, when rounding a corner out of an alley, I all but bumped into a couple strolling together, as it seemed, along the street outside his gates.
The lady uttered a cry. The gentleman took a step backwards with a curse, lifting up the lantern he carried.
I bowed my apology swiftly. As I straightened up, a familiar voice spoke my name.
‘Matthew? Is it you?’ A gentle laugh. ‘I see it is, for here also is Murrey. I hope she has not forgotten me.’
The lady was in fact a girl. It was Elen.
The light cast by the lantern slanted through the strands of mist on to her dark cheek as she leant to pet my hound. Beyond her, a mounted groom led two horses, one the palfrey I remembered from Crosby Place, the other a dark brown colt, tricked out in the murrey and blue of the royal household.
Her companion laughed too.
‘Ah! So it is. Well, perhaps it is not unexpected. One must be ready to meet the rat if one ventures near its lair.’
The words were spoken lightly, but with a mocking undertone. For Elen’s companion was also known to me. Hugh Soulsby.
My delight at Elen’s appearance after so long was matched by my distaste at seeing him. I returned his slight bow of greeting, hooking a finger through Murrey’s collar in case I needed to restrain her.
‘So, Master Wansford, this is where you’ve been hiding from us all this time.’ He threw a glance about him, holding his lantern aloft though the darkness was not yet pressing in upon us. ‘I can understand why Mistress Elen has not ventured here herself before today.’
Elen stared at him, her lips parting, then closing as though she was uncertain what to say. But I brushed his words aside, not even looking at him. Master Ashley’s townhouse was one of many fine merchants’ residences hereabouts, for all they were hedged around by workaday artisans’ dwellings and shops.
‘I’m very pleased to see you, Elen. Do you wish to come and meet my master? I’m sure he will welcome you warmly.’
‘No doubt,’ said Hugh, before Elen could utter a word. ‘I’m sure he’d welcome anything that brings him closer to a royal household.’
I could not ignore that – not after his many insinuations against myself in the past.
I turned to face him.
‘Why do you say that, Master Soulsby? Do you not know my master has long been a friend of the King?’ For Master Lyndsey often spoke of their lengthy friendship, as well as of the many deals they had conducted together.
Had Hugh grown even taller since our last meeting? He stared at me as though scrutinizing an insect on the ground before him.
‘Of the King, indeed? Oh, of course, the King. From when he was just a Duke, I suppose. His royal brother’s dog of all works.’
My skin crawled at these words and the stress he laid upon them, and Elen plucked at her skirts as though in discomfort. Murrey’s ears pricked up and her snout lifted, alive to the rising emotions. My hand tightened on her collar.
Hugh carried on regardless, his all-too-familiar sneer now unfurling across his handsome face.
‘And these jumped-up merchants – of course, they’ll do anything, with anyone – so long as they gain a profit by it.’
That was more than I could bear. Not only a slur on the King and Master Ashley, but also on my father.
But as I let go of Murrey’s collar and thrust myself at Hugh with my fists upraised, Elen threw herself between us, both hands flung up to grasp mine.
‘No, Matt, no!’ she gasped out, clutching at my balled fists.
Behind her, the lantern light flared on Hugh’s face. A spasm clenched his jaws together, before they relaxed in a smirk and he tossed back his head with a bellow of laughter.
‘Ha! And you – a jumped-up merchant’s son yourself – having to
be defended by a girl!’
Her sudden release and the sudden movements and the sudden noise were too much now for Murrey. She wriggled free from between Elen’s skirts and my legs and exploded in a fury of barking and snarling and snapping.
His guffaw cut short, Hugh backed away abruptly, swinging the lantern down like a scythe in front of his legs to ward her off, while he groped for his knife. Murrey in turn shied away, but then lunged forward again, still barking ferociously at him as he tried to draw the dagger. As I made a grab for her collar, and missed, Hugh swiped at her again with the heavy iron lantern, this time catching her a glancing blow on the shoulder that sent her tumbling over across the cobbles, yelping. But she twisted back up and leapt forward once more, throwing herself back towards him, while I flung myself at her and Elen snatched at the flailing lantern, shouting at Hugh to stop.
In all the commotion I hardly noticed the click and creak of the opening gate, before a voice thundered above the tumult,
‘What is all this? Why this uproar?’
At last I managed to catch Murrey by the scruff of her neck and drag her away, but not before Hugh, unable to use his other weapons, lashed out with his boot, clouting her in the ribs as she wriggled helpless in my grasp. Murrey squealed, then squirmed around and snarled as I hauled her with me towards the courtyard wall. A moment later, realizing she was in my grip, she calmed down and stood quivering while I ran my hands over her back and side, checking for any wounds. Though she winced and grumbled in her throat, I was soon satisfied she was no more than bruised.
Stroking her still-bristling head, I looked back to see Hugh resheathing his knife and lowering his lantern, while Elen smoothed down her skirts and tucked away the wisps of hair that had been dislodged from her cap.
Before them stood Master Ashley and a companion, a tall man clad in a travelling cloak and hood, both their backs towards me.
Hugh bowed with something of his usual swagger, though his face was pale at the shock of the attack. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, my master cut in.
The King's Man (The Order of the White Boar Book 2) Page 12