‘He needs more rest,’ I finished for her. ‘I understand.’ I pulled up a stool and sat down beside her. I was more than a little ashamed of what I was about to do, but it was too good an opportunity to miss. ‘Try not to think about your brother for a minute or two. It will give your mind a rest and make your trouble seem less.’ Oh, the lies we tell when self-interest is at stake! ‘Do you remember saying that your grandmother was one of the Duchess of York’s seamstresses, forty years or so ago, in Rouen, when the duke was governor of France and Normandy?’ She looked at me dazedly, as though I were talking a foreign language, but then, after a second or two, nodded. ‘Did your grandmother,’ I went on hurriedly, aware that I probably had very little time before one of the others put in an appearance, ‘ever mention any scandal concerning Duchess Cicely? In connection, maybe, with one of her bodyguard? With one of her archers?’
There was no reply. Jane Armiger simply sat there, twisting a lock of hair round and round one finger. I wondered if she had even heard me, or comprehended what I was asking. I wanted to shake her and demand an answer. I could hear voices and the clop of horses’ hooves in the inn yard and hurried footsteps overhead, making for the stairs. But at the same moment, I was seized by the conviction that I had made another of my unthinking blunders. I was not supposed to ask this question of anyone but the unknown Robin Gaunt and his wife. Supposing either Robert Armiger or William Lackpenny should really be a Woodville spy and already suspicious of me — if Jane told them of my interest, it would at once alert whichever one of them it was to the reality of my mission in France.
The parlour door burst open and John Bradshaw came in, an irritated frown wrinkling his brow. ‘I thought I told you-’ he was beginning, then broke off abruptly as he became aware of Mistress Armiger’s presence. ‘I apologize for disturbing you, sir,’ he continued smoothly, ‘but I was under the impression you wanted an early start. We’re ready and waiting for you. The mistress, too.’ He glanced at Jane, who still sat at the table, staring, empty-eyed, in front of her. He raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s no news of Master Cook, I take it?’
‘No, none.’ I got up and raised one of Jane’s limp hands to my lips. ‘I must be going, mistress. Please give my adieus to your husband and Master Lackpenny.’
She made no response. John jerked his head imperatively towards the door, while standing deferentially to one side for me to precede him from the room. I was halfway through the doorway when Jane Armiger turned her head in my direction and said clearly, ‘Yes.’
I paused, looking back at her. ‘Yes?’ I queried.
She had stopped playing with her hair and was looking straight at me. ‘The answer to your question,’ she said, ‘is “Yes.”’
That was all, after which she seemed to lose interest in me, hunching further into her chair, her knuckles white as she clenched its arms, looking deep into the heart of the fire that had been kindled on the hearth. I waited a moment to see if she would say anything else, but when it became obvious that she was not going to, I went out into the frosty morning and mounted, not without a great deal of misgiving, the mettlesome-looking grey that John had hired for me.
And so we set off through the Calais streets, heading for the Pale and the beginning of our journey into France.
We were a silent bunch as we put the weary miles between ourselves and Calais, first as we crossed the Pale and then as we headed south into France itself.
Philip, of course, was always silent nowadays, resisting all my efforts to draw him out or involve him in any sort of conversation, efforts that had grown more half-hearted with every passing day as he failed to respond. My exasperation had increased as my sympathy ebbed until I found myself content to ignore him and treat him like the servant he was pretending to be.
John Bradshaw also seemed wrapped in his own thoughts during that first day’s ride, only raising his voice to urge us all to greater efforts and to chivvy us into moving again each time we stopped — which wasn’t often — for refreshment. Paris was now his goal and he would only be happy when we got there. In a burst of confidence during one of these rests, he did repeat how glad he was to be freed from the company of the Armigers and Master Lackpenny, and even went so far as to consider the disappearance of Oliver Cook as a blessing in disguise.
‘I wouldn’t wish death by drowning on any man — a nasty, protracted business, I should imagine — but I have to say that I found the fellow extremely offensive. I had known of his reputation in Baynard’s Castle, although we had never actually met face to face, and his removal has meant the freedom to be ourselves for at least that part of each day when we are not in the company of fellow travellers.’
I understood this. For a man used to directing others, playing the role of a servant must have been irksome in the extreme, especially when it meant deferring to someone as new to, and as ignorant of, the spying game as myself.
Eloise’s silences, answering only when I addressed her directly, and then with the minimum of words, I had no difficulty in interpreting. She was still angry about my treatment of her that morning, and was beginning to experience the frustration of playing a part most hours of the day and night. At first it had probably seemed like a game to her, a chance to goad and needle me with impunity. She had known that I didn’t trust her, and with good reason, but as the days, and then a week passed, the game palled. I liked to think that she felt my attraction as I felt hers, and that being thrust into the most intimate of situations with me without being able to relieve the emotional strain was making her short-tempered. To make matters worse, she was at liberty to give full rein to her natural instincts: I was the stumbling block with my marriage and my children and my much vaunted determination to remain faithful (or at least not to stray again, as I had done with Juliette Gerrish in Gloucester — not that Eloise knew about that).
As for myself, I was preoccupied with my own stupidity in having spoken to Jane Armiger about the Dowager Duchess of York in that unguarded fashion without first thinking of the possible consequences. At least I derived some comfort from the knowledge that I would never make a good spy. I was too impetuous, too careless of orders, too unthinking for the devious, double-dealing world of Timothy Plummer and his ilk. I was glad of that.
But what exactly had that ‘Yes’ of Jane Armiger’s been intended to convey? Yes, her grandmother had once mentioned rumours of a love affair between Cicely Neville — as so many people, even now, still thought of her — and one of the archers of her Rouen bodyguard? Or had Jane, in her dazed and bereft state, merely been answering some question of her own poor, exhausted mind and which had nothing to do with what I had been saying to her? Yet she had looked at me as she spoke, a direct, steady gaze that seemed to indicate she had heard me and was offering a response. But how could I be certain in the state that she was in, grieving for her brother, even if no one else considered him much of a loss? And perhaps grieving even more because others appeared so indifferent to his fate.
John Bradshaw had of course been curious to know the meaning of that ‘Yes’, but had accepted, without much persuasion, the explanation that Mistress Armiger was distraught and that it had been nothing more than an expression of her own distress of mind.
And so the first day passed more or less in silence, with three of us, at least — Eloise, Philip and myself — oblivious for much of the time to anything but our own glum thoughts, and saying as little as possible to one another. John Bradshaw was apparently content to have it so until we racked up for the night at some wayside inn — auberge, as I suppose I should call them from now on — when, as we dismounted in the yard, he snapped at us in English, and without bothering to lower his voice, that he was tired of our childish behaviour. This, of course, was meant for Eloise and me. Philip he continued to ignore except to ply him with orders about stabling the horses and making sure they were rubbed down and properly fed before he turned in for the night.