14 - The Burgundian's Tale (7 page)

In West Cheap, two arches of marguerites, each beaten gold flower-head trembling on its fine wire stalk, had been raised. A choir of ‘angels’ – local boys, reluctantly recruited, whose mothers humiliated them by constantly shouting advice and instructions from the crowd – waited to greet the illustrious guest. A little further on, the more professional choristers of St Paul’s jostled for position, each one hoping, I presumed, that the beauty of his singing might recommend him to the Duchess and earn him a place at the Burgundian court. The Lud Gate was decorated with shields of stiffened paper displaying the red cross of Saint George and the white rose of York. People were dressed in their Sunday clothes, and everywhere there was a general atmosphere of carnival and holiday.

Bertram and I were not the only two making for Westminster, in the belief that it offered a better vantage point for viewing the Duchess than the overcrowded roadway of West Cheap. The thoroughfare out of London was packed with citizens sweating in a burst of sudden warmth. Typically, May had decided to stop imitating January and was pretending to be July instead; in short, the weather was showing all the usual vagaries of an English spring.

As we walked, or rather pushed our way, along Fleet Street, I glanced in the direction of Faitour Lane, but there was, of course, nothing to be seen. The beggars congregated in the alley’s mouth were rattling their tin cups, baring their sores and trusting that a suitable display of enthusiasm for the Londoners’ princess would loosen their fellow citizens’ purse strings.

We at last managed to move on into the Strand. The going was easier here, where the road was wider and the smell of the open countryside counteracted the stench of the city. The gardens of the great houses on either side were also beginning to bloom in earnest, and the faint breeze blowing inland off the river brought a hint of summer trailing in its wake.

Bertram indicated the three smaller dwellings to our left, just beyond the Fleet Sreet bridge. ‘I was right. The middle one does belong to Godfrey and Judith St Clair. I asked Master Plummer last night. The one on its left, as we face them, is Master Joliffe’s house.’

‘And to its right?’

My companion shook his head. ‘I didn’t ask, and Master Plummer didn’t say. No one of importance, I daresay. At least, nothing to do with the murder.’

I stared long and curiously at Godfrey St Clair’s house, being roundly cursed by the people whose progress I was impeding, but there was no sign of life. Master, wife and servants were all abroad, waiting for the Duchess’s arrival. And at that moment, the faint and distant sound of cheering suggested that she had at last made an appearance at the Ald Gate.

‘We’d better hurry,’ Bertram urged, tugging at my elbow.

Quite a few people now stayed where they were, lining both sides of the Strand, but we battled on to Westminster.

‘Watch out for pickpockets,’ Bertram said as we passed through its gate.

But I had no need of his advice. I knew this place of old. The London thieves and cutpurses, fast and nimble-fingered though they might be, were mere novices compared with those who frequented Westminster. The latter would take anything that was portable and in such quick time that the unwary stranger found himself stripped almost naked before he had been five minutes inside the walls. The Flemish merchants who thronged its streets were little better, picking on the small and weak and forcing sales of their wares at knife-point.

Today, however, unlike its larger neighbour, the city of Westminster was quieter than usual, an air of enforced calm pervading its streets. For this, the presence of a substantial number of armed men was responsible. Officers of the King’s household were patrolling every alley and byway, and had been doing so since dawn judging by the bleary-eyed look of them. The cookshop stalls that normally proliferated around Westminster Gate had been moved elsewhere, much to the annoyance of owners and customers alike.

Before we had been there many minutes, a royal messenger arrived in a flurry of sweat and horse’s hooves, disappearing inside the palace, presumably to announce that the Duchess was on her way. The crowd buzzed with anticipation, and Bertram dragged me round into Westminster Yard and thence into the great hall where the royal family was beginning to assemble.

The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, Lincoln’s parents, had already taken their places – he an aggressive-looking, bull-necked man, totally unlike his eldest son, she a proud Plantagenet with something of the appearance of her late brother, the Duke of Clarence, about her. The King’s two stepsons, the Marquis of Dorset and his younger brother, Lord Richard Grey, were glancing about them and occasionally whispering together behind their hands. (I don’t know that I should have recognized them if Bertram hadn’t reminded me who they were.)

After that, the hall began to fill up faster than I could take note of who was and was not present. Nobility and clergy, the great and the not so great, the good and the definitely not so good, crowded around the empty thrones at the far end of the hall. Bertram, as he had promised, had managed to squash me in among the lowliest ranks of the Gloucester retainers to the left of the door. My ribs felt as though they might crack beneath the pressure of other bodies. My bad mood was returning.

Foreign dignitaries and their attendants arrived just before the bulk of the royal party, by which time I had given up even trying to guess or remember who was who. I had just decided that there were far too many high and mighty pomposities in this world who served no useful function, when a louder fanfare than normal assaulted my already protesting ears. This, however, finally heralded the entrance of the King and his immediate entourage.

Duchess Cicely, matriarchal in royal purple and stiff-necked with Neville pride, preceded the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, both of them resplendent in cloth of gold and silver, the Duchess looking so fragile that it seemed a puff of wind could blow her away. The six-year-old Duke of York walked with his slightly older duchess and was followed by four of his sisters, Elizabeth, now a lovely young woman of fourteen, Mary, Cicely and Anne. The baby, Katherine, born the previous year, was carried in the arms of her nurse. And then, finally, King Edward, wearing the insignia of the Golden Fleece, and Queen Elizabeth entered the hall.

I was shocked on two counts – well, perhaps not shocked, but certainly surprised, to see that the Queen was pregnant yet again; not far gone as yet, but showing enough belly to leave little room for doubt. Elizabeth Woodville – Lady Grey, as she had been when the King married her all those years ago – must, I reckoned, be well over forty, her two first-marriage sons being themselves married men. But it was really King Edward who commanded my attention, and, in his case, shock at his appearance was too mild a word to describe my emotions.

When young, this magnificent, golden-haired giant had been dubbed ‘the handsomest man in Europe’. Even when I had first set eyes on him five years earlier, it had still been possible to understand why, although the effects of drink and dissipation were already beginning to make themselves apparent. But now his features had coarsened and thickened out of all recognition. His height (much the same as mine) was of course the same, but his girth weighed him down and made him round-shouldered. His jaw hung slack and heavy and his complexion was moist and pale, like uncooked dough. But then he smiled at someone in the crowd, and I could see that the old charm and humour still wove their magic. My instincts warned me that here was a sick man; but I was unwilling to accept the evidence of my eyes and dismissed the thought.

After the King and Queen were seated on their thrones, there was a delay while we all awaited the arrival of the Duchess, whose progress had no doubt been hindered by the cheering crowds. I caught a glimpse of Timothy, standing not far behind Duke Richard’s chair and, from time to time, signalling vigorously to other men stationed at various strategic points around the hall. I wondered what they thought would happen. Did they seriously expect the French ambassador to leap forward and attack Duchess Margaret with his poignard? Or was it, as I suspected with my usual cynicism, self-importance for its own sake?

Suddenly I found Timothy directly behind me, panting heavily after having forced his way through the press to my side of the hall. He dug me painfully in the ribs. Before I could protest, he hissed in my ear, ‘Directly in front of us. Front row. Black gown, heavily embroidered. Judith St Clair. The man on her left is Godfrey.’

I craned my neck, trying to get a better view across the intervening two ranks, but the women’s hennins with their floating scarves made it impossible to see anything from where I was standing. It was like peering through a forest of flags all flying from the tops of steeples. (And it confirmed me in my belief that the current crop of women’s fashions were being designed by madmen.)

‘I can’t see—’ I was beginning, but just at that moment the trumpeters went wild with a fanfare that made even my teeth hurt. Timothy gave a strangled cry and set off to fight his way back to his official position, while I suppressed a desire to burst out laughing. All the same, I had managed to catch a glimpse of a heavily embroidered black sarcenet sleeve and a white hand resting on a wrist cuffed in black velvet. At least I knew roughly where to look for my quarry once the present ceremony was over. Moreover, two people in deepest mourning stand out in a crowd of popinjays.

My travelling companion of the last three days, the young Earl of Lincoln, resplendent in white and gold, proudly led his aunt towards the thrones at the far end of the hall. As she passed, I saw enough of the Dowager Duchess to realize that the slender, vibrant, twenty-two-year-old girl, who had set sail for Sluys twelve years previously to become the third wife of Charles of Burgundy, was now a matronly woman in her mid-thirties with a thickening waistline. But she was still attractive enough, with her pale skin and Plantagenet red-gold hair, to send the waiting crowds into a frenzy of adoration. Their cheers rolled in through the open doorway, and probably drowned out the King’s initial greeting to his sister. (I saw her lean closer to him, as though she had difficulty hearing.)

Edward had risen at the Duchess’s approach and embraced her lovingly. Then, after greeting the Queen and making suitable obeisance to her mother, Margaret was passed from one sibling to another, one in-law to another, rather, I reflected irreverently, like a bolster full of feathers.

I touched Bertram on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get out now,’ I whispered, ‘before everyone has the same idea.’

We weren’t far from the door, and managed to inch our way outside without attracting too much notice. Once in the fresh air, we took deep breaths and stretched our cramped muscles. I drew Bertram into the shelter of the Abbey.

‘When the crowds begin to disperse,’ I said, ‘look for a couple in mourning. That’ll be Judith and Godfrey St Clair.’

My companion nodded. ‘I wondered what Master Plummer was whispering to you about.’

It was a lengthy wait. It was not until the good and the great, led by King Edward and the Dowager Duchess Margaret, had processed from the hall into the palace – ‘Banquet,’ Bertram informed me tersely – that the less important guests who had been invited to the welcome ceremony were permitted to leave. Even then, there was an order of departure to be observed. But, at last, among the many-hued silks and velvets emerging into the uncertain May sunshine, I saw two sable-clad figures walking decorously side by side.

Judith St Clair was a woman of around the same age as Mistress Broderer; perhaps, to be fair, a few years younger. She was good-looking and knew it: that was obvious in the upright stance and the proud carriage of her head. At some time in her life she had been taught to set a value on herself, probably by the woman I had so recently been watching, Margaret of York, when Judith and her twin had been in the Duchess’s employ. She had no one distinguishing feature that made her instantly recognizable, and yet, oddly, I felt that I would know her again if I had to pick her out in a crowd.

Her husband was considerably older, painfully thin and already beginning to stoop. He had once been dark-headed, but was now going grey and would soon be greyer, a fact to which the abundance of white hairs among the black could testify. There could not have been a greater contrast between husband and wife: the one frail and shambling, the other vigorous and purposeful, even in grief.

I was just about to accost them, when a man wearing the Gloucester livery stepped into my path.

‘Serifaber,’ he said, addressing Bertram, ‘is this the pedlar?’ He jerked his head in my direction.

‘I’m Roger the Chapman,’ I answered with dignity. ‘Who wants to know?’ Although, of course, I could guess.

The man shifted his gaze to me and stared for a moment, much as he might have considered something rather unpleasant that had just crawled out from under a stone. ‘His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester,’ he condescended to say at last. ‘He commands your presence at Baynard’s Castle again this evening. After supper. You’ – he flicked an equally disdainful glance at Bertram – ‘will accompany him.’

O
f course, by the time the Duke’s messenger had taken himself off, with a flourish that would have done justice to a preening peacock, Judith and Godfrey St Clair had disappeared; and although I immediately set out in search of them, they had vanished. In all that vast multitude I could see no one dressed in black. Bertram was no wiser as to where they had gone, and was more concerned with the fact that he was to conduct me to Baynard’s Castle that evening.

‘We’d better set out as soon as we’ve finished supper,’ he decided. ‘We don’t want to keep the Duke waiting.’

‘I don’t suppose he’ll return from Westminster that early,’ I argued grumpily. ‘These state banquets can go on for hours. And afterwards, people need a chance to recover.’

‘Not the Duke,’ Bertram disagreed. ‘Eats and drinks very sparingly. An abstemious man.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I snapped, annoyed that he should think himself better acquainted with Duke Richard than I was. I had known the man on and off – more off than on, admittedly, but well enough – for years. ‘All the same,’ I added, ‘he won’t be able to leave the banquet until the King does.’