A Play of Treachery (5 page)

“’ Tis. The rest get loaded right?”

“Long since.” The man nodded his head sidewise at Joliffe. “Who’s that?”

The carter shrugged. “He was told to get on back at the palace. That’s all I know of it.”

Joliffe went forward as the other man said at him, “You supposed to be here?”

“I’m bound for France with the bishop of Therouanne’s household,” Joliffe said, with a shrug to show none of it was his fault at all.

“This is where you should be, then,” the man said. “Get aboard and keep out of the way.”

Joliffe got. He did not much like the plank he had to cross, but was ready when the man on watch at its other end demanded, “What’re you doing here?” and answered lightly, “I came with the baggage.”

“Then stand yourself over there and stay out of the way.”

The man pointed, and Joliffe went, into a corner beside a steep stair up to the raised rear of the ship. From there, he watched the final readying of the ship and the bishop’s arrival among his rather scant household of hardly more than a score of men. In Joliffe’s experience over the years, lords too often made fluster beyond reason at whatever they did, as if their dignity required making other men’s lives difficult, but the bishop of Therouanne, dressed simply and plainly for travel, made no trouble whatsoever about dismounting, giving a coin to the man who took his horse, then coming onto the ship, his men gathering to follow him. On board, he paused long enough to give his blessing with raised hand over the ship’s master and crew as they all knelt to him, caps in hand—Joliffe matching them—before moving toward the forepart of the ship, as well out of the way as Joliffe was.

His men, too, cleared out of the sailors’ way; orders were shouted; sailors scurried; ropes were pulled in and wound up; the ship was shoved from the quay with poles, away into the river, and began to gather speed as the tide took it and a sail was raised. The most that Joliffe had ever had to do with boats was sometimes crossing a river by ferry. He knew this was a ship and never to be called a boat. Beyond that, all was surprise, beginning with how fast the quay slid away behind them, and then the buildings lining the shore. In barely more than moments he was further from land than he had ever been. A light wind began to shove at the sail; the ship swung further out into the river. Forgetting to stay where he was, he stepped to the railing. The ship was steady enough underfoot, but with his hands on the railing, he could feel the tremble of it, like a live thing, and now the land was gliding past faster than a horse could gallop, faster than Joliffe had ever gone in his life.

Held by seeing the world in a way he never had before, he stayed there at the railing, forgetting all else, until after the day was fully come and distracted then only because a man came to fetch him to the bishop, seated in the forepart of the ship on a curved and cushioned wooden chair.

Last night Joliffe had summoned to mind everything he could remember having heard about Louys de Luxembourg, bishop of Therouanne. His family was Burgundian nobility of some sort. There was a brother—Sir Jean de Luxembourg—famous for his victories on the English side against the Dauphin and his claims of French kingship, and another brother who held the family’s lordship, whatever it was named. The bishop himself was presently chancellor for the English government in Normandy and had been in England these past months because of the angry break between the English and the duke of Burgundy, their erstwhile ally. Last autumn, when Joliffe and the other players had been in London, rumor had been running that the bishop had come at his brothers’ urging, to see if some manner of agreement and peace might after all be made between Burgundy and England despite Burgundy’s treacherous desertion to the Dauphin. So far as Joliffe had heard—but how likely was he to hear if agreement had been made behind surely very closed doors? he thought dryly—the English government was just as furious with the duke of Burgundy as they had been last autumn, and that meant the bishop was going back to Normandy in failure.

If he was, it did not show on his wide-boned face as he held out his gloved hand for Joliffe, kneeling, to kiss. Rather, he regarded Joliffe with cool, stern interest for a long moment, not bidding him rise but saying in French, “You are in disgrace with my lord of Winchester, yes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You have been given into my household, to go into France, for chance to redeem yourself.”

At a guess, the bishop was somewhere in his forties, maybe twice Joliffe’s age, and beyond doubt a man both certain and comfortable in his power and place. Under his heavy gaze, Joliffe had no trouble bowing his head and saying again, very humbly, “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. I will ask no more of you at this time, merely bid you keep from trouble now you are in my household.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The bishop sketched a cross in the air between them. “Go with God, my son.”

Joliffe went. If not with God, at least back to his corner by the railing and to watching the land flow past the widening river.

When night came, they were still in sight of land, but it was altogether gone when Joliffe uncurled from his cloak the next dawn, stiff and unrested from a night of barely sleeping on the hard deck. No one had offered him anywhere else or even a thin straw pallet between him and the plank flooring, but he had joined the line for the supper of stew and bread, and this morning he shuffled to have a share of the bread and cheese being given out. No one objected.

But his stomach did. During the night he had felt the ship change under him, taking on a lift and dip and sway it had not had before then. There had been a busyness among the sailors, an opening of more sails to a stronger wind, and Joliffe had understood they must be leaving the Thames and going out into the Channel. He also gathered from overheard talk and the way all lantern-light was kept low and shielded that there was worry over being seen by enemy ships. French. Breton. Burgundian. Any of those, let alone plain pirates, would have at any English ship they happened on. He also gathered from someone’s half-whispered talk—mixed with oaths—to someone else not far from him that Bishop Louys had been waiting nearly a month for a chance to return to Normandy and that this was the first favorable weather. There being no certainty how long it would hold, the captain was set on making a straight run for Honfleur.

“Why not Calais?” his fellow had protested. “It’s nearer. Nearer his bishopric, too. We wouldn’t have so long to worry about being seen at sea.”

“Because there’s a whole swathe of double-damned Burgundy’s territory to ride across between Calais and Normandy, and wouldn’t the cursed, mighty duke love to get his hands on the bishop, eh?”

“Saint Andrew cramp Burgundy’s guts,” the other man had muttered as they moved off, leaving Joliffe to drag himself down into another shallow doze for a little more of the night.

He had thought to go on picking up bits of talk like that today, to understand as much as might be of what he was going toward, but found all his interest held by his uneasy stomach. Not until he saw a green-hued man in the bishop’s livery stagger to the railing, lean well over it, and vomit into the sea did he realize what he was feeling himself was sea-sickness. Except it was not quite sickness with him yet, he thought, studying the feeling. It was more as if his stomach was surprised. And his head. That was gone slightly giddy, too, as it sometimes had when Rose had tried to teach him tumbling tricks in his early days in the company, before everyone decided he was too bad to go on bothering.

So rather than eating, he took his bread and cheese back to his corner and sat down, still holding his food but settling to loosen his body to the rise and fall and sway of the ship, to the sway of the masts against the low sky of gray clouds, to persuading himself to accept it all instead of resist it.

He was succeeding when a man in the bishop’s livery colors came to stand over him and say, “If you’re going to be sick, want I should take your breakfast off your hands?”

Joliffe looked up and grinned. “No, I think I’ll keep it for myself.” He stood up. “My thanks for the kind offer, though.”

“This is your first time crossing the Channel?” Somewhere in years between Joliffe’s and the bishop’s, he seemed simply friendly, and glad for the chance to talk, Joliffe said, friendly in return, “First time, yes.”

“You are not going to be ill?”

Joliffe leaned back against the railing and tore off a piece of the bread. “I don’t think so.”

The man nodded as if pleased for him. “That is good.” He leaned beside Joliffe but facing outward. “If you are fortunate, this weather and wind will hold. We purposed to be back in Rouen well before Christmas but winds were against us. It has been hard to have news come from France but be unable to send any back, or any of the aid that’s needed.”

Joliffe paused in his eating to ask, “What
is
the news from France?”

The man gave him a curious look. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing of note. The duke of Burgundy is angry and there is fighting.” At the man’s surprise-widened eyes, he added, defending his ignorance, “I’ve been out and away from London for weeks. If there’s more to know, it’s missed me.”

The man’s laugh was short and bitter. “There’s more to know, but likely it hasn’t spread far yet. To begin, the Armagnacs are north of the Seine now and have taken most of Caux. Do you know what that means?” He changed the question. “Do you know
where
that is?”

“No.”

“Somewhat roughly, the Caux is the part of Normandy between Rouen and the sea and also a goodly way north toward Burgundy’s Flemish lands. It means,” he said grimly, “that for now the Armagnacs are on—”

“Armagnacs?” Joliffe asked.

The man paused, then said slowly, “You know there are those who claim the Dauphin is king of France, instead of King Henry, yes? That the war these thirteen years and more has been for that? Those are the Armagnacs.”

“Ah!” said Joliffe. “Dauphinists.”

“That I have not heard them called, but yes. So now they are swarming where they should not be, because the duke of Burgundy is letting them, and meanwhile that same Philippe, duke of Burgundy is complaining of how the English have wronged him.”

Joliffe choked on a last bite of bread, swallowed, and said, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, “How the English have wronged
him
?”

The man shrugged again. “Well, it could not be that his most Christian grace and mighty lord the duke of Burgundy did anything amiss. Nor his shining new friend, the Dauphin Charles against whom he had sworn eternal vengeance.”

“Having now chosen,” said Joliffe, “to measure eternity in a hands-count of years, rather than as ‘forever.’ ”

The man tched his tongue and said mockingly, “A hands-count of years? But no. It has been at least fifteen years, even sixteen, since the Dauphin saw to the murder of Burgundy’s father. Surely that suffices for eternity?”

Matching the man’s mockery, Joliffe granted, “It must. At least with Burgundy. I’m John Ripon by the way.”

“I am Guillaume Cauvet. ”

“You’re French, then,” Joliffe said as if taken by surprise. He was not, but he supposed it was time “John Ripon” came into being, and he had decided that “John Ripon” was not deep-witted. He did not think he could sustain playing stupid for the weeks—for the months?—this might last. Nor would a stupid man be of sufficient worth that Bishop Beaufort would have taken this much trouble to give him chance to redeem himself. So John Ripon would be sharp-witted and competent but not deep: one of those men who have not yet learned they are not as forceful of wit as they think they are, and—being John Ripon—Joliffe went on, “Your English is very good. Better than my French, that’s certain.”

“I am my lord bishop’s English secretary,” Cauvet said. Meaning that any correspondence or other matters in English that came to or went from the bishop were in his charge.

Now leaning on his elbows beside Cauvet, watching the white-capped waves stretching into the gray distance, Joliffe feigned hesitancy. “Well . . . my French is none so good.” Which was true enough. “Could we talk in French, to help mine along? It will help to know French in Rouen?”

“
Oui. Bien sûr
,” Cauvet assured him, and went on, still in French, “You will find there are a great many French in Rouen.”

Joliffe pretended not to hear the mockery in that but merely said earnestly, “I suppose there are. Yes.” He paused, then tried, slowly, “
Je pense
.”

“
Bon
,” Cauvet said, and went on in French, slowly enough for Joliffe to keep up, “What is taking you to Rouen?”

Joliffe allowed himself to grimace. A John Ripon grimace at the world that was not behaving toward him as it should. “I, um, fell out of favor with the bishop of Winchester. I was a clerk in his household.” Trying to say it in French became too much. He went back to English. “Instead of casting me off entirely, he’s given me over to your bishop, to be a clerk in his household. I gather that if I can keep from disgracing myself, maybe I’ll be moved on to the lord governor’s household. If ever a lord governor is decided on.”

“Oh!” Cauvet said with surprise and certainty. “It is the duke of York who will be governor.”

“York?” Joliffe echoed in plain surprise. Since the duke of Bedford’s death almost four months ago, the governing of Normandy and whatever of France the English held had been in the hands of the Normandy council in Rouen while the royal council in England had stayed undecided on his successor among the various possible lords. The last Joliffe had heard—admittedly two months and more ago—the duke of York had been thought too young and too inexperienced to be seriously considered. “When did York get into the running?”

“When no one was willing to anger either my lord bishop of Winchester or my lord the duke of Gloucester by choosing one or the other of the lords they preferred.”