The missing string on the gittern was repaired that evening, and the same elderly man, deep from the shadows of his little shop, unearthed a long slim flute of polished boxwood. It seemed that the genial Mister Allard was acquainted with widower Switt from the old days. ‘Minstrels together,’ George Switt explained. Reginald Allard was delighted to see his old friend.
‘A shawm, perhaps? Or a sourdine? My dear George, ask whatever you will. The flute – well, I would never dream of charging. After all, this was once your own.’
Now George proudly clasped his flute to his chest, and explained his plan to Tyballis and the others. ‘So Elizabeth will sing, since she has a fine voice, and you, my dear, will act the gypsy, and dance.’
It was once they were back home, the fire lit and the others crowding around, that Tyballis said, ‘Please – no dancing! That’s even worse than singing. I’d probably fall over. And how can I be a gypsy with fair hair?’
Mister Switt was imperturbable. ‘I believe many easterners have blue eyes, and if they don’t, well I doubt anyone else will be aware of it. Mister Lyttle could easily pass for a gypsy. Mister Spiers will also sing, and I will play the flute. Jon must use the tabor to keep the rhythm and Davey shall have the gittern. You, my dear Mistress Blessop, shall dance quite beautifully, I’m sure, and I promise not a man at court will object if your dancing is not exactly flawless. It is you who will ensure our admittance,’ George Switt continued cheerfully. ‘The dance, the temptress, the seduction of the aging baron, and then the whispering of the secret. To impart the knowledge of the traitorous plot – Baron Throckmorton meeting Lord Marrott; the exchange of coin for arsenic, with Hastings the unwitting witness – will be your most difficult task, and the magnificent climax to our plan. It will surely be the end of the wicked Throckmorton – and the saving of our magnanimous friend.’
Since no one knew what a gypsy dance might be like, Tyballis and Davey invented it between them while Felicia, wishing she were younger, sewed the costumes. Elizabeth then quietly confided to Tyballis something of her own past experiences in the rather less subtle arts, in case Tyballis should need to take a more active role in securing the attention of Baron Hastings, and some of Elizabeth’s suggestions horrified Tyballis and sent her early to bed.
They dressed carefully the next day. Davey wore a turban he had designed, a complicated affair incorporating a ream of bandages and two of Felicia’s best napkins. ‘Gypsies don’t wear turbans,’ Ralph objected. ‘That’s them heathen Moors from Spain what winds things around their heads.’
‘Not them, neither,’ Nat shook his head. ‘It’s folk from the Spice Islands looks like that. Gypsies don’t even wear hats.’
‘So maybe I’m a Moorish gypsy from the Spice Islands,’ decided Davey. ‘I shall wear what I please. It’s my gittern-playing is more the problem. The king’s own players will be at court and you can guess they’ll be the very best. Why should they let us in?’
‘Attractive women,’ said Nat. ‘Tybbs in particular.’
It was Elizabeth who, taking the money offered by Tyballis, had previously bought the fabrics and helped Felicia sew their costumes. ‘But there’s not enough material here,’ Tyballis had pointed out. ‘If you think I’m going to court half naked – ’
‘Tits out and skirts up is the only way we’ll get into court,’ snorted Elizabeth. ‘And it’ll be a back door at that. But Hastings chooses the girls for the king’s bed, so he’s on the lookout. We have to be what he looks at.’
‘I think,’ Tyballis said faintly, ‘I’d sooner not go.’
‘All this is down to you,’ Elizabeth told her, ‘so go you will. We’re saving Drew’s miserable life, aren’t we? Besides, there’s no chance without you.’
‘Never fear,’ Mister Switt said, popping in from his own room, already dressed in his old minstrel’s outfit. ‘Shockingly shabby now, of course,’ he said, ‘but at least I can still fit the doublet. Now, what were we talking about? Ah, yes. Mistress Blessop, you need not suppose we will abandon you to the improper advances of any gentleman, not even his highness. But we must gain admittance, you see, and reach Lord Hastings’ private ear. Without that, our whole plan is lost.’
They hired a cart. The last time Tyballis had sat in one was when she had been abducted. This occasion was only slightly less uncomfortable, but walking the entire breadth of London and over the Fleet to Westminster in the wind and sleet was hardly feasible. ‘What, with every burgess and his wife staring, and then maybe arrive too late, soaked and bedraggled? I promise, no one would let us through the gardens, let alone past the gates,’ said Davey.
‘Wherry boat?’ suggested Mister Switt.
Which was when Tyballis quickly suggested the cart and offered to pay for the hire.
Tyballis stood in the Palace of Westminster’s long back corridor and shivered. Great burning torches flared from a hundred iron sconces and the blaze of light seemed bewildering. Behind her, the huge doors had shut fast and no draught threatened the torch flames. Above her head, carved and fluted, the ceiling caught the gold and scarlet, glowing with leaping flame-shadows. Tyballis felt wretched, but she was impressed. She had never in her life imagined entering the hallowed halls of the court. Admittance thus far had been accomplished only with greatest suspicion. ‘Wait there,’ sniffed the page, peering past Mister Switt’s muddy shoes to the women’s exposed ankles.
‘So, we need a go-between to get to Hastings, who is himself a go-between to the king?’ whispered Tyballis as the page retreated.
‘It is no doubt a credit to your beautiful costume, my dear Mistress Blessop,’ widower Switt whispered back, ‘that we are not first shunted to the lower hierarchies. The steward’s assistant, for instance. Or perhaps the steward’s assistant’s assistant. The steward’s assistant’s steward’s page, or even the page’s assistant.’
‘Hush,’ croaked Davey, adjusting his turban. ‘Someone’s coming.’
Many people came. Groups hurried through the great passages, talking, laughing and in general ignoring the small tattered group of minstrels waiting quietly in the shadows. Tyballis and Elizabeth attracted some notice, but disrobement at court was not sufficiently unusual to turn heads. Tyballis, on the other hand, remained embarrassed, and an hour passed ever more slowly. The pages were renewing the torches when finally someone came. ‘Follow me,’ and a curt nod. They followed, their footsteps echoing on the long polished boards. It was an interminable walk, but when a double door was flung open and they were shown into the vast colourful chamber beyond, they were overawed.
The sleet had chilled and turned to hail, hurtling against windows and collecting in crystal mounds in the gutters. The sky closed in behind the black clouds and the wind poured up the Thames. Nat, clutching tight to Ellen’s small hand, made his way to Bradstrete as fast as he could, keeping where possible to the shelter of the overhanging houses. Once past the Austin priory’s open gardens, Nat stopped, finger to his lips. Ellen sidled into the shade of the priory wall while Nat began to explore.
The weather was both sword and shield. Within Throckmorton Hall there was no one prepared to venture outside and anyone acting suspiciously on the perimeter was free to examine every entrance unseen. But Nat, even beneath the borrowed cover of Luke’s hooded cape, was soaked. Ellen, wearing a brand new cape of waxed kersey bought by Tyballis and sewed by her mother, was up to her ankles in icy puddles. She sneezed and clamped her hand over her face to smother it, but there was no one to hear her. After a few moments Nat returned, looming through the storm, his sodden cape billowing in the wind. ‘S’all right,’ he muttered.’ Ellen trotted behind, kept close and kept small. She was as practised as he was.