‘Ah! Then someone will call upon you there sometime tomorrow morning, to conduct you to Mistress Shore’s house in the Strand. She is the best person to tell you anything you need to know.’ A faint spasm of distaste contorted his features. ‘I will make all the necessary arrangements tonight.’ He rose to his feet and I rose with him. He held out a hand once again, but when I would have kissed it, he stopped me and gripped one of mine instead, as if I were a friend. ‘Do your best for me, Roger. As you’ve guessed, I need Mistress Shore’s help in. . in a certain matter.’
Mistress Shore lived in one of the magnificent houses that border both sides of the Strand, hers being one of those whose gardens run down to the river. The young man, dressed in the Duke of Gloucester’s blue and murrey livery, who had presented himself at the Voyager soon after dinner that morning, was obviously expected, and had no difficulty in gaining entry for the pair of us.
When I had returned to the inn the previous evening and told Adela all that had passed between the Duke and myself at Crosby Place, she had made no difficulties and uttered far fewer recriminations than I felt I merited. For this, two reasons were, I think, responsible. Firstly, in her condition, she was finding London noisier, busier and more tiring than she had expected; secondly, she had become close friends with Jeanne Lamprey, who was proving a restful and sympathetic companion, solicitous, as only another woman can be, for Adela’s welfare. A very early morning visit by myself to their old clothes shop in Cornhill had put both Jeanne and Philip in full possession of the facts, and provoked the latter into lecturing me on the folly of not heeding good advice when it was offered.
‘I warned you, Roger, not to attend the Duke of Clarence’s trial! You’d already been spotted once by my lord of Gloucester at the wedding. To risk bringing yourself to his notice for a second time was the purest folly. You’ve got no more than you deserve.’
Jeanne told him to hold his tongue and promised to take care of Adela during those hours that I should necessarily be forced to spend in West Cheap. And I had a suspicion that both she and my wife continued to relish this glimpse into the lives of those normally so far above them, and were not altogether displeased by the turn of events.
The Duke of Gloucester’s envoy and I were shown into a lofty hall where, surprisingly, a homely spinning wheel stood close to the hearth on which a bright fire burned, welcome on such a cold and cheerless winter’s morning. An embroidery frame and coloured silks lay scattered over the central table of carved and polished oak, while an ancient, moth-eaten dog was ensconced in one of the hall’s three armchairs, dribbling contentedly into a red satin cushion. My companion, to my amusement, eyed it askance. Like me, he had no doubt expected the King’s favourite mistress to own an elegant little greyhound, bedecked in a jewelled collar and velvet coat.
My heart began to warm towards Mistress Shore, even before she put in an appearance. But when she finally arrived, hot, somewhat flustered and full of apologies for her tardiness in receiving me, I knew that whatever the Duke of Gloucester felt about this woman, I liked her, and was willing to serve her for her own sake, as well as his.
The young man who had brought me to the house made me known to Mistress Shore and then, with a bow and a flourish, took his leave. When he had departed, she gave me a conspiratorial smile.
‘Now we can be comfortable.’ She looked me up and down. ‘You’re very good looking,’ she said, but without any hint of invitation or coquettishness in her tone. ‘You remind me of the King when he was younger.’
I could feel the hot blood rising in my cheeks. ‘Y-you’re very kind,’ I stammered.
She only smiled and shook her head. ‘Shall we have some ale? I prefer ale to wine. His Highness says that that’s because I have low tastes, and of course, he’s perfectly right.’ She giggled.
I thought her enchanting, and could see why most men — with one very notable exception — would find her so. Jane Shore had a happy disposition.
After she had called a servant and given orders for the ale to be brought, she grew serious, settling herself in one of the two unoccupied armchairs and inviting me to sit in the other. She patted the ancient dog’s head as she passed, and he briefly opened a bleary eye and twitched his ragged stump of a tail before going back to sleep again.
‘His Grace of Gloucester tells me that you are a solver of mysteries,’ she said. ‘He has told you a little, has he not, about my kinswoman, Isolda Bonifant?’
‘A very, very little,’ I replied earnestly. ‘That is why I am here this morning, to learn, I hope, a great deal more from you.’
The ale arrived and she poured it into two pewter beakers, wishing me good health before she drank. ‘It was fate,’ she said, ‘that brought you here; fate that the King should have discussed my cousin’s plight with his brother. I hope that you will be able to help Isolda, Master Chapman, for it’s no pleasant thing for her to have neighbours, and even friends, whispering about her behind her back. Which she knows they must do by the way they grow embarrassed in her company, or avoid her altogether if they can.’
‘That I can well imagine. Now then, if you please, will you tell me the background to the story?’
It was a straightforward enough tale. As Duke Richard had said, a cousin of Mistress Shore’s father, one Susannah Lambert, had married a goldsmith, Miles Babcary of West Cheap. The couple had had only one child, Isolda, born in June, 1448, the year after their marriage. This girl, according to my companion’s account, had never been pretty, even as a child, and had grown plainer as she grew older, a fact which had made it difficult to find her a husband. She was also, it appeared, fiercely independent, the mother having died when her daughter was only thirteen, and Isolda having assumed the role of woman of the house from that day forward.
Two weeks after her twenty-fourth birthday, she had finally married. Her husband, Gideon Bonifant, was ten years older than his bride and of inferior status, having been no more than assistant to an apothecary in Bucklersbury before the wedding. But Miles Babcary had been so relieved to see his only child settled and happy at last that he had, as well as welcoming Gideon into his home, also taken him on as a partner, patiently teaching his new son-in-law the business of goldsmithing from the lowliest task to the most complex. Master Bonifant had proved himself to be an apt pupil and the business throve, the one sadness being that after five years of marriage there was no sign of a grandchild for Miles; no immediate heir after Isolda to inherit his shop and his money.
The Babcary household, as well as an apprentice and maid-of-all-work, also consisted of Miles’s niece and nephew, his younger brother Edward’s orphaned children. Edward Babcary had died at the battle of Tewkesbury fighting for King Edward in the spring of 1471, and his wife had died of plague two months later. At that time, Christopher Babcary had been thirteen years of age, his sister only eleven, and with typical generosity, Miles had offered them the shelter of his roof. His nephew he had taken on as a pupil in the shop, while Eleanor Babcary had proved a useful assistant to Isolda in the running of the house. Even after Isolda’s marriage the following year, no serious changes were deemed to be necessary, and the domestic and business arrangements of the Babcary household had carried on in much the same way as before, except that with both his son-in-law and his nephew learning the trade, Miles had needed only one apprentice.
And so matters had continued for the next five years, until the autumn of 1477.
‘I have to admit,’ Mistress Shore said, her colour slightly heightened, ‘that although I used to be a frequent guest of my father’s cousin and his daughter, I have lost touch with them of late, for the past three years in fact, since. . since I came to live here, in this house,’ she finished.
I nodded understandingly: she had had less to do with the Babcarys since becoming the King’s mistress. But she was not a woman who would ever consider herself of so elevated a status that she would ignore her kinsfolk completely. Some contact had been maintained with the family, and when Isolda Bonifant had been suspected of murdering her husband, Mistress Shore had brought all her considerable influence to bear upon the King in order to ensure that no charge was brought against her cousin.