But this was the least of my worries. My first concern was to work out the identity of the Green Man and the second to try to fathom his intentions. There had surely been something familiar in his voice, some intonation I had heard before, but although I went over and over his words in my mind, I could not pin it down. One moment I thought I had it, the next it had eluded me and, like a will-o’-the-wisp, was gone. And what was the purpose of his warning? Was he right? Was I really in danger, or was he, for some unknown reason, attempting to unsettle me and so make me less on my guard where Albany was concerned? And should I tell the duke what had happened, or did this unknown danger emanate from him? Yet why should he wish me ill? To listen to his protestations, I was his only friend, the one person he could trust. On the other hand, could I trust him?
It struck me suddenly that perhaps this was what the Green Man wanted; to sow seeds of discord between Albany and myself. My discontent with my present lot was probably no secret in general, and was most certainly known to each one of the five Scots. If I could be frightened into actually carrying out my threat to desert and make my way back home, relying on the Duke of Gloucester’s eventual clemency towards one who had rendered him several important services, then Albany would be deprived of a vital protection and left vulnerable to whatever mischief was being hatched against him.
As I tried desperately to calm my tumultuous thoughts, I recalled that only recently I had doubted if the duke was in any actual danger and had suspected him of some ulterior motive in keeping me by his side. Had I been right? Now, I didn’t think so. The more I went over my conversation — if you could call it that — with the Green Man, the more I was persuaded that someone was trying to scare me off, which seemed to imply that Albany really was in peril of his life. Whoever it was, would discover that I was not so easily intimidated.
The morning found me in the same frame of mind. Indeed, the first moment I was alone with Albany, I confided in him the details of my previous night’s encounter with the Green Man. We had made our way to the grassy knoll from where I had observed yesterday’s debacle and the spectacular failure of the English to take the citadel when offered a heaven-sent opportunity to do so. Below us lay the war-torn town; above, the bowl of the summer sky hung newly scoured and shining. The distant hills were burnished by the morning sun, and on their lower slopes I could just make out cattle and a few thin goats quietly cropping the grass. A little stream, possibly a tributary of the Tweed, washed the glittering mosses and gurgled over sun-bleached stones, fringed by crumpled, gently waving fronds of bracken. A lovely day; too lovely for the sights and sounds of war and the discussion of death and destruction.
Albany listened to me in silence before letting rip with a string of oaths that could only command my respect and admiration.
‘Who is this bastard creeping about in a damned Green Man mask?’ he finished on a quieter note, but his handsome face still suffused with colour. He was shaking, too, and not altogether from anger. He was frightened. ‘Someone’s trying to scare you away from me, Roger.’
‘That had occurred to me, my lord,’ I admitted. ‘Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have told you.’
‘Why not?’ he sounded alarmed. ‘You can’t possibly imagine that I mean you harm? What reason do I have? Well? Tell me! I asked to have you with me. This fellow, whoever he is, is trying to make you jumpy. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. While you’re worrying about yourself, your attention is not on me.’ His voice had become shrill. He heard it and took himself in hand. ‘If the scoundrel bothers you again, I shall complain to Duke Richard,’ he added on a calmer note. ‘He’ll soon root the fellow out and have him whipped at the cart’s tail.’ He glanced at me curiously. ‘You have no idea, yourself, who it might be?’
‘None at all, my lord.’ True enough; with the coming of the light I could no longer recapture that faint inflection of the voice that had brought momentary recognition.
Albany hesitated. ‘I meant … You have the sight, have you not?’
I was reminded of the discussion with the squires and Davey and wondered at this constant harping on my ability to ‘see’.
‘No, my lord, I do not,’ I answered firmly, determined to put this mistaken notion to rest once and for all. ‘It was my mother who had the “sight”, not me. All I have ever experienced are certain dreams that come to me occasionally and help me interpret things that I already know, but have failed to connect to one another in the proper and necessary way. Sometimes they may even jog my memory about things I have forgotten. But this is not “sight” as you mean it.’
‘Nevertheless, your mother had it. You have inherited your powers through the female line.’
‘I repeat, my lord, I have no powers. I cannot see into the future. If you imagine that I can foretell your destiny, you are mistaken and I am of no use to you.’
It had suddenly occurred to me that perhaps this was the reason Albany had insisted on my company and kept me by him, expecting some revelation concerning his ultimate fate — a revelation that would never come.
He read my thoughts and laughed. ‘I keep you with me for my protection, Roger. Because you are big and strong and, at the risk of repeating myself yet again, I trust you. I genuinely believe myself to be in mortal danger, either from one or more of Mars’s servants, who travelled to France after his death specifically to seek me out, or from someone within the English camp who thinks that King Edward’s attempt to put me on the Scottish throne is a mistake.’
‘Do you think it a mistake?’ I asked bluntly, risking his displeasure, or perhaps his scorn.
But he made no immediate answer. Overhead, a lark soared away eastwards towards the distant shimmer of a line of hills. Albany followed the bird’s progress until it flew out of sight.
‘I know my countrymen,’ he answered at last. ‘They won’t readily accept a king foisted on them by the Sassenachs, who have tried that game more than once in the past, and been thwarted. It will take more than my brother’s unpopularity and King Edward’s will to place the Scottish crown upon my head and keep it there.’
I was surprised by this sudden pessimism from one whom I had previously considered too confident for his own good, and said so.
Once again, Albany laughed.
‘Oh, I intend to take my own precautions for securing the crown, Roger.’ He slapped me on the back, unexpectedly jovial. ‘Don’t ask me what they are — ’ the question had indeed been on the tip of my tongue — ‘because I shan’t tell you.’ He raised his arms above his head and stretched until his bones cracked. ‘This damn siege!’ He was petulant again. ‘We stay here like so many sitting ducks while James and his army get closer and closer, when the sensible thing to do is to abandon this God-benighted town — when I’m king I shall hand it back to the English, anyway — and march to meet him.’
We descended the knoll and walked back towards Berwick, across the scorched and blackened earth, to the encampment outside its walls. Here, Murdo met us with the intelligence that the Duke of Gloucester was holding yet another council of war in his tent and desired his dear cousin of Scotland’s immediate attendance.
Albany swore.
‘More damn talking. Why don’t we get on and do something?’ he roared and strode off in the direction of the royal pavilion, the squire at his heels.
I knew what Albany meant and had a sneaking sympathy with his impatience. The continuing siege of the citadel was under the direction of Lord Stanley and Earl Rivers who, with a handful of gunners, kept up a desultory bombardment of its battlements without producing any result other than occasional abuse and defiance hurled from its walls. Occasionally, women would appear and start emptying their chamber-pots on the besiegers’ heads; or they would throw rotting meat and cabbage stalks at their tormentors along with some pretty foul language that men, in their innocence, always like to believe the female sex could not possibly know. (My experience is that women are less easily shocked, and have more fortitude of mind, than husbands, fathers and brothers give them credit for.) But these latter occasions were growing less frequent as food supplies dwindled inside the citadel and starvation began to take its toll.