Two
I laughed shortly. ‘Now there’s a surprise!’
Timothy nodded gloomily. ‘A predictable ending to a predictable tale. But not an unprecedented one. Strange things seem to happen to women of Judith St Clair’s age, particularly if they’re childless. Suddenly faced with a handsome young man, her twin sister’s son, and deeply affected, I suppose, by the unexpected news of that sister’s death, she adopted him almost immediately as her own. Her former affection for her stepchildren was overwhelmed by the love she felt for her nephew.’
‘So why does Duke Richard need me to solve the crime?’ I snorted. ‘It seems to me any fool could work out the answer given time and patience. You already have four suspects with very strong motives for wanting the young man dead: Judith’s present husband, his son, her stepdaughter by her second marriage and the — er — cousin, was it? of her first husband, who runs the embroidery workshops for her, and who, in the fullness of time, might well have expected some acknowledgement of the fact in Judith’s will. It was generally known, I take it, that she had made this Fulk Quantrell her sole heir?’
‘She may not have said anything about it, but it appears he openly boasted of the fact.’
‘Well then!’
‘It mightn’t be quite as simple as that,’ Timothy demurred. ‘I’m not in possession of all the facts — God knows, I’m just the messenger — but I gather friends of Godfrey St Clair, a certain Roland and Lydia something-or-other, may also be involved. Don’t ask me how! Besides, no one else has the leisure to spend on the matter.’ His chest swelled importantly. ‘By the time we get to London, the Dowager Duchess will already be at sea, and the Earl of Lincoln must set out again almost at once for Gravesend in order to escort his aunt into the capital. I, of course, will be in attendance on My Lord of Gloucester and must be constantly on the alert for any outside forces, any foreign agents, who might pose a threat to the friendly outcome of this visit and England’s renewed ties with Burgundy.’
‘The French, you mean,’ I said drily. ‘Such cunning, devious, little bastards — they’re everywhere. I wonder you could be spared to come chasing after me.’
Timothy gave me a narrow look. ‘You watch that sarcastic tongue of yours, Roger! I volunteered to fetch you because I knew I had the power to make you acquiesce in Duke Richard’s request.’
‘Not a command, then?’
The spy turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘The Duke is sympathetic — unnecessarily so, in my opinion — to the demands of a wife and children. And given your present recalcitrant mood, it would appear to be a good thing that I did come.’
I was not prepared to allow Timothy that much satisfaction. ‘As it happens, I was already preparing to leave Bristol and go on my travels for a week or two. So’ — it was my turn to shrug — ‘I might as well be in London as anywhere.’
I was delighted to note his look of disappointment. But he made no comment apart from asking me where I would choose to stay. ‘I daresay a room can be found for you in Baynard’s Castle. You’ve lodged there once before.’
I had indeed; which was how I knew the servants’ dormitories to be cramped and overcrowded, some poor fellows sleeping three or four to a bed, others having no bed at all but forced to spend their nights on the draughty floor. Since becoming a house owner I had grown soft and used to my comfort.
‘I’ll find a room at St Brendan the Voyager in Bucklersbury,’ I said. ‘I know the landlord, Reynold Makepeace: an honest man, who won’t take advantage of a country cousin like me by charging outrageous prices.’
Timothy’s face brightened. ‘I know the Voyager: it’s tucked in among all those grocers’ and apothecaries’ shops. I also have a nodding acquaintance with Innkeeper Makepeace. But what’s even better is that Needlers Lane is a turning off Bucklersbury, about halfway along on the opposite side of the road to the inn. You’ll be a mere stone’s throw from the Broderer workshops.’ He rose and clapped me on the back, the same shoulder favoured by the Earl of Lincoln. I winced. ‘And now, if we’re not to keep the King’s nephew waiting — and I wouldn’t advise it, in spite of all his good humour and friendly ways — you’d better make your farewells. We must be at the castle by noon.’
We spent three nights on the road (the young Earl refusing to travel on the Sabbath) and entered London around midday on the sixteenth day of May, which, by coincidence, was the Feast of Saint Brendan the Voyager. Timothy, the least superstitious of men, nevertheless took this as a good augury for my success.
‘It’s going to prove an easy case for you to solve, Roger. Come and find me at Baynard’s Castle this afternoon, when we’ve both had a chance to settle in. Duke Richard and his Duchess are staying there. They decided against Crosby’s Place so that His Grace could be more in the company of his sister. If he’s not too busy, he’ll be pleased to see you. But he won’t be able to afford you much time.’
I didn’t take this amiss. I knew from what Timothy had told me during our journey that this rare visit to London by the Duke of Gloucester was not simply to greet his youngest sister, but also to hold urgent talks with his brother concerning Scotland’s violation of her truce with England. Egged on, I learned, by the wily French King — who, typically, was also sheltering James III’s rebellious brother, the Duke of Albany, at his court — there had been almost daily raids across the Border throughout the past autumn and winter. Four days earlier, the Duke of Gloucester had been appointed the King’s Lieutenant-General in the North, authorized, so the Earl of Lincoln had informed us, to levy the men of the Scottish marches, ready for war.
It said much for the Duke’s family feeling that, in the midst of all this turmoil and uncertainty, he could find time to worry about Duchess Margaret’s probable grief at the death of her favourite’s son, and to want to have something done about solving the murder. I could understand why Timothy was so anxious not to let him down, and secretly determined that I would do my utmost to discover the culprit — although I naturally had no intention of telling Timothy this. Let him think me still resentfuclass="underline" it would keep him on his toes.
The Earl of Lincoln left us even before we entered London, making his way to Westminster where the King and Queen and most of the court were lodged. Timothy and I parted company outside St Paul’s, he riding south to Baynard’s Castle, between Thames Street and the river, I jogging along West Cheap to the Great Conduit, where I took the right-hand fork to Bucklersbury. And here, nestling, as Timothy had said, among the sweet-smelling grocers’ and apothecaries’ shops, I found the inn of St Brendan the Voyager still with its sign of the saint and his disciples in their skin-covered coracle, being kept afloat by the good offices of a sea monster.
I thought Reynold Makepeace might have forgotten me after more than two years, but he greeted me as though I were his long-lost brother, enquired solicitously after Adela and the children, and generally made me so welcome that I even began to enjoy this unsought and begrudged visit to the capital.
‘As luck would have it,’ he said, ‘you can have the same chamber that you shared with your wife. It was vacated only this morning by a merchant from Nottingham who had business in the city. And when I talk about luck, I mean it. London’s seething at the moment with people pouring in to catch a glimpse of Duchess Margaret. Many of the larger, more important inns have been commandeered for members of her retinue. Your guardian angel must be watching over you, guiding your footsteps here.’