Still he said nothing, only continued staring at me. I had had a strange notion that when I confronted him Giles’s face would change, take on some monstrous aspect, but it was still my friend’s lined strong old face that looked back at me; only more watchful and somehow more vulnerable than I had ever seen it before.
‘That day you rescued Barak and me from the mob outside Oldroyd’s house, had you come to fetch the box?’ I laughed bitterly. ‘It must have been a shock when it fell out from under my robe. You hid that well, as you have hidden so much since.’
He spoke then. ‘I did rescue you. Do not forget that as you judge me.’
‘And meanwhile, Mistress Jennet Marlin was on a mission of her own, from Bernard Locke, that you had not known about. So when you found that out at Howlme beacon, you killed her before she could reveal that it was not she who had taken the papers.’
‘I saved you from her too.’
‘For your own ends. You always had the papers she sought, no doubt you have them still. In my house.’
Giles sighed then, a sigh that seemed to shake his big body from head to toe. ‘I always saw you as a friend, Matthew,’ he said quietly. ‘It grieved me to lie to you and I would never have hurt you. I never intended to kill you at King’s Manor, only knock you out, and I never harmed you afterwards, though I could have, many times. I took a gamble that you spoke true when you said you had not read the papers. I – it wasn’t –’
‘It wasn’t personal, is that it? The using me, all the lies. Not personal, just political, as you said the King’s mockery of me was?’
‘I have hated it all, I hated killing that woman.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘I spoke true when I said I never killed anyone in my life.’
‘And Broderick, what about him?’
‘I helped Sir Edward Broderick kill himself because he wanted to die. He would have died a far worse death in the Tower, as we both know. No, that I do not regret. I knew him from the conspiracy, of which I was an important part. Do you remember when he was led out to the wharf in Hull, in chains? He looked towards us and nodded. You thought he was nodding at you, but it was me he recognized. That nod was enough. I knew he had tried to kill himself at York and I decided then I would help him. I waited night after night for an opportunity on that ship, and when it came I took it. I knocked Radwinter out, took his keys and helped Broderick hang himself. It was a terrible thing to do, but he was resolute.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘He was a fine man, a brave man.’
‘Yes, he was,’ I said, then frowned. ‘But you were ill on the boat, all the time.’
He smiled sadly. ‘You know my condition comes and goes. I pretended to appear frailer than I actually felt on the journey.’
‘Jesu, how you have deceived me,’ I said quietly.
‘I owed Sir Edward my help. He held out under terrible torture, to keep secret certain matters that affected me.’
‘So he knew all along.’ I paused. ‘The secret of your true identity.’
There was silence for a long moment. The rain drove violently against the window. Come on, Barak, I thought.
‘So what do you know about me, Matthew?’ Giles asked at length.
‘What I managed to work out this afternoon, as I tried to puzzle out what made you lie to me, assault me and betray me. The key to everything has always been Edward Blaybourne’s confession. Did you meet old Brother Swann, in the library in Hull? He told me of the old legend that Blaybourne was the real father of King Edward IV.’
His eyes widened. ‘I thought all who remembered the old rumours must be dead by now.’
‘He was very old indeed. I did not tell you, for I feared it would be dangerous for you to know.’ I laughed bitterly. ‘But of course you knew already, better than anyone.’
Giles sat up, and now I saw something fierce spark in his blue eyes. ‘The truth is dangerous for you to know, Matthew. Believe me, and ask no more questions. Stop while you can. Let me walk out of your house, now. You will never see me again.’
‘It is too late for that.’
He sat back, his mouth tightening as I went on.
‘I remembered Howlme, your parents’ grave. I am blessed with a good memory, Giles, blessed or cursed. The name of your father, whom you told me you resemble, was Edward. Born in 1421, from his gravestone. Near fifty when you were born, you said you were the child of his old age. He would have been old enough to sire a son in 1442, when King Edward IV was born. I think Edward Blaybourne was your father.’
Giles answered simply. ‘Yes, he was. King Edward IV was my much older half-brother. Henry VIII is my great-nephew. When I saw him at Fulford, saw the evil in his face, smelt his foul smell, I knew he was the Mouldwarp and it made me sick to think that creature was of my blood. This false King, whose grandsire was the son of an archer.’
‘When did you first know?’
‘I will tell you, Matthew.’ He still spoke quietly, though his eyes burned. ‘Perhaps then you will understand and forgive my abuse of your friendship. Understand that what I have done was right.’
‘Tell me, then.’ My voice came cold and sharp.
‘My childhood was happy, as I told you that evening by Howlme church. I knew my father had come to the district many years before I was born. I imagine then he was a man much like young Leacon. Tall and strong, fair and comely. He would never say where he came from, only that it was far beyond Yorkshire. I never gave thought to the possibility that our name, Wrenne, might have been assumed.’
‘That is easy to do, take a new name in a new place.’
‘Shortly after he came to Howlme and bought the farm, my father married a local woman. They were childless and when they were in their forties she died of consumption. There is much of it in those marshes. A year later he married my mother. I was their only child.’ He took a bread roll and began kneading it between his big fingers. ‘When I was sixteen I went to London to study law. At Christmas of the following year I came home to visit. That was in 1485. Four months previously the future father of King Henry VIII had beaten Richard III at Bosworth and taken the throne as Henry VII.
‘I found my father on his deathbed.’ For a second his voice faltered. ‘He told me he had first felt a lump in his side the year before, and had gradually become iller and weaker.’ His hand went, unconsciously, to his own side. ‘He had been to a physician who told him there was nothing to do but prepare for death. I wished he had told me earlier but I think, like your father, he did not want to disturb my new life far away in London.
‘I remember the night he called me to his sickbed. He was near the end then, his big strong body half melted away. The road I am following him down now.’ He looked at the remains of the little loaf, almost crumbled away. ‘It was a still night, snow thick on the ground, everything silent. He told me he had a secret, a secret he had kept hidden over forty years. He wanted to dictate a confession. Shall I tell you what it says?’ As he spoke Wrenne’s hand went to his doublet, touching his pocket. I made out something there. He saw my glance and his expression hardened.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’
‘It relates he was born Edward Blaybourne, the son of a poor family of Braybourne in Kent. Like many such boys he went into the King’s service as an archer. Those were the last years of the French wars, Joan of Arc had been burned and all France had risen against us. My father was sent to garrison duty in the town of Rouen in the year 1441. The Duke of York, who was leading the campaign, was away fighting, and my father joined the guard in attendance upon the duchess.’