The Assassin's Wife (30 page)

From out the eerie twilight a giant loomed. He rode a monstrous horse and wielded a battle-axe. Nothing could withstand him. Like a human battering ram, he trampled down his enemies. Through his visor I saw the spark of green bale-fire, and knew I was trapped among the damned.

Nearby, a soldier fell. Blood gurgled in his throat. A hand reached out.
 

“Alys—”

Robin Arrowsmith’s tortured face looked up at me. “The Earl of Warwick will be destroyed by witchcraft,” he whispered, as if imparting a great secret. “On Easter Sunday the world moves toward destruction. Find Miles—Find Miles—”

* * * * *

That night I woke the household with my shouts. Margaret Mercer drove the others back to their beds and brought me a soothing drink.

“One of your bad dreams?” She hugged her heavy, brocade night-robe about her, sitting close by me on the bed.

Exhausted by my vision, I struggled to speak. “There was a battle. I felt I was in it—lost in fog—and then I saw someone I knew—”

Her face pinched with anxiety, she leaned over me. “What did you see?”
 

“A great battle at Easter and a hard reckoning—the standard of the bear and ragged staff lying in the mud.”
 

“Warwick.” She crossed herself and shivered, her frown growing deeper.
 

“Events are spinning fast towards an end that will bring a new beginning—” I struggled to remember the things I’d seen, pressing my palms against my eyelids to recapture the ugly pictures. “When green buds burst men will wade in blood. And many flowers must fall. Where men look for sanctuary they’ll find none, and the last hope of a great house will be trampled into dust. Two battles in two months and the petals of the red rose scattered on the wind—”
 

“The badge of Lancaster.”
 

“The battles
will
happen. It’ll mark a change in all our fortunes.” I looked into her face.

Her own gaze hardened but I knew she believed me. “You’ve a fine way of telling these visions.”
 

“I met an old wise woman as I travelled from Norfolk.” Mara’s wrinkled brown face flashed into my mind. I heard her husky laughter. “She taught me how to see clearer, and to interpret the symbols.”

“Did she give you the cards?”

Too shocked to speak, I could only stare at her.

“Nancy found them. We were playing a game. She hid her doll in the oak chest where you keep your clothes. She found the cards hidden among your garments. The pictures fascinated her—Don’t worry, I wrapped them up and put them back. I told her they weren’t playthings.”

“The wise woman taught me how to use them to tell fortunes. They were her last gift.”

“Fortune-telling’s a dangerous pastime.” These warning words set me shuddering.

“You’re cold,” she said, tucking the coverlet about me. “Put these terrible things out of your mind. Such dreams can do no good to anyone.”

Heaving herself to her feet, she picked up her taper and shuffled towards the door. Stifling a yawn, she asked, “Tell me, who’s Miles? You were calling his name.”

* * * * *

“Miles—” a sleep-starved Harry sighed, when I told him next morning on deliveries. “Well, it’s a start, I suppose.” He’d recently struck up an acquaintanceship with one of the duchess’s men in a tavern by Fish Lane. “I’ll see what I can find out from Edgar.”

I fumed and fretted all day.
 

“I stopped to see a friend at the The Waterman’s Tavern,” he said, arriving late for supper. Kissing Nancy, his eyes signalled success.

“Ed says there
was
a Miles Forrest answering your description, but he left to follow Warwick.” While Meg put Nancy to bed, Harry joined me in the bake-house, cutting the last of the loaves to divide among the beggars in the morning. “This Forrest’s a mercenary of some kind—soldiered in the Low Countries from being a lad—and has a name for being something of a brawler—”

“And?” I knew Harry was keeping something back.

“It seems he has a reputation amongst the ladies too—Ed asked if it was some lass wanting to know his whereabouts—”

“Where’s Warwick now?”

“That’s a question I can’t answer.” Harry gave me a rueful grin. “Warwick’s quarrelled with King Edward and left London—He’s probably gone back north to Middleham.”

“Middleham.” I rolled the word around, savouring the strange familiarity of the name. “Where’s that?”

“Yorkshire.” Harry laughed then, stifling his yawns. “I’m not likely to be going there in a hurry, Nan, and nor are you. You’ll have to wait until Warwick returns!”

Chapter-Thirty-Eight

Under Margaret Mercer’s watchful scrutiny, my days fell into a regular pattern, but tension kept me on edge. Once or twice she mentioned Stillington or asked questions about Eleanor that tripped me up. Though she made no reference to the extraordinary dream I’d shared with her or to the fortune-telling cards, I sensed her anxiety. Only out in the streets when I was free of her vigilance, could I speak openly to Harry about my quest, but even he cautioned secrecy.
 

“The city’s not safe these days,” he said, as we passed a knot of rogues arguing outside a tavern in Newgate. “You never know who’s listening.”

On the first day of October, it seemed his warning would prove true. A flood of excited people choked the streets surrounding the Chepe, and several men accosted us with tales of treachery, bloodshed and disaster.
 

Alarmed, we hurried back to Bread Street, forcing our way into a shop full of rowdy, gesticulating customers.
 

“What on earth’s happening?” Mistress Mercer shouted over their heads. “It’s been like this all morning—What’s all this about Warwick putting King Henry back on the throne?”

Surrounded by impatient tradesmen, Harry tried to catch his breath. “Well, news in the city has King Edward fleeing to Burgundy yesterday without a penny on him—”

Sudden as a falling axe, the racket ceased. Every face turned on us.

“Maud Attemore’s telling a tale of how he had to pay his passage with a marten-fur cloak.” I said, breaking the shocked silence. A memory of the handsome king flinging this very cloak about his shoulders brought a vivid image of Eleanor into my mind.

When a wealthy looking man began pestering Harry for information about threatened trade, the babble restarted with increased vigour.

“The French are already dancing in the streets, they say—celebrating the Lancastrian victory.”

“Aye, and no doubt King Edward will drag us into a war with them.” A florid Big Hal hefted a sack of flour through the door.

“Well, Burgundy’s certain to help him get his throne back!” Harry’s thoughtless remark to his father roused further consternation.

“But what about the queen? She expects another child at the end of the year. Surely the king didn’t leave her behind?”

A tradesman’s lewd reply set the men-folk sniggering.

“I blame that Wydeville wench and her greedy family for this trouble,” he said. “Ever since the king married her she’s had her fingers in his purse!”

“Aye,” said a straggle-haired wench, “and what use is that? Nothing but daughters she’s whelped, in spite of her French mother using witchcraft to lure him into her bed.”

Wincing at the mention of witchcraft, I pushed my way towards the living-quarters.

“No, it’s Warwick who’s too ambitious.” said a richly dressed burgher. “There’s been dissent ever since he married his daughter to the king’s brother, George.”
 

“Aye, the king forbade that marriage but they went ahead with it—”

“I blame George of Clarence for stirring up this quarrel—”

“There’ll be more bloodshed yet—”

The cacophony of male voices followed me up the stairs.

* * * * *

For days news about Warwick raised feverish commotion throughout the city.

“I can’t believe he’s joined Queen Margaret,” said Harry, arriving home one evening. “Why, he called the woman a “she-wolf”! But I just heard there’s a public reception for King Henry and a grand parade through the streets to St Paul’s tomorrow.”

Big Hal shook his head. “I can’t see that poor, feeble-minded soul rousing much sympathy.”

“Never mind that,” said Mistress Mercer. “Supper’ll be on the table in a moment. Is there no bread left?”

While she and Meg fussed over food, I followed Harry down to the bake-house.

“So Warwick’s back in London.”

Startled, he looked up from the trestle. “You made me jump.” Then, handing me a misshapen loaf, he gave me an impish look. “I suppose you want to see the parade?”

“I’m sure Nancy would love to see the king,” I answered with a smirk.

* * * * *

Big Hal proved wrong about King Henry. Plainly determined to impress, Warwick soon had the gullible citizens eating out of his hand with a cunning spectacle. For once the old king abandoned his monkish dress to wear robes of state and a crown, but even in this finery, he made a pitiful figure when compared to his golden predecessor.

At the cathedral, where we joined a restless, heaving crowd, the Kingmaker himself carried the royal train, and people shouted, “God save King Henry!”
 

Recognizing Warwick’s clever piece of strategy, I fretted at their disloyalty. “Not so long ago, these same people cheered for King Edward.”
 

“But King Henry has a son, Nan.”
 

Harry lifted Nancy from his shoulders and we wandered through the streets thronged with merrymakers. “If Edward had married a French princess as Warwick wanted, things might have been very different. Elizabeth Wydeville and that secret marriage provoked this disaster. Warwick detests her and all her family.”

The mention of secret marriage brought Eleanor into mind again, and I wondered if I dared tell Harry about it. Perhaps it was well that Nancy interrupted.
 

Tilting her chin in a manner reminiscent of her grandmother, she said, “I love that story.”

“What story?”
 

Shaking her russet curls, she opened her blue eyes wide as if exasperated by my ignorance. “Why, about how the king met the queen in Whittlebury Forest. Tell Nan, papa.”

Obligingly, Harry recounted the amazing tale with its moonlit, forest meeting, the beauteous widow and her witch mother, reminding me of the time I’d first heard it from the Duchess of Norfolk. Harry’s version sounded far more magical, but when he described Elizabeth Wydeville standing beneath the oak tree holding her two little boys by the hand, waiting for King Edward to return from hunting, my heart missed a beat. Two little boys!
 

“Are you alright, Nan?” asked Harry. “You’ve gone very pale.”

“I was thinking,” I said, lowering my voice. “Suppose Queen Elizabeth’s boys are the ones I must save?”

“Well, there’s no sign of your mysterious man among the soldiers,” began Harry. He frowned. “Perhaps—”

“What will happen if Queen Elizabeth’s new baby’s a prince, papa?” Nancy tugged Harry’s sleeve, her smile revealing enchanting dimples in her cheeks.
 

“I don’t know.” Harry grimaced at me. “She’s living in the Sanctuary at Westminster—”

“Why did the king run away?” Nancy looked cross. “Jack Green ran away and left us, didn’t he, papa? Grandma Mercer says he went off with knaves. I shan’t ever run away. I shall work in the bake-house when I’m grown.”

With a tinge of sadness I smiled at this childish assurance. Margaret Mercer’s news about Alison and Jack had proved a sorry piece of business. Alison’s cough worsened and she died during that first winter with the Mercers, and not long after Jack vanished into the secret corners of the city.
 

But the day’s merry mood so delighted Nancy, we lingered in the streets bustling with peddlers and entertainers. Outside a busy inn, we stopped to listen to a minstrel with a lute and Harry plied us with sweetmeats.

“They’ve caught the Butcher! They’re taking him to Temple Bar!”

This infectious cry passed swiftly among the spectators. Victims to the whim of a mob who’d shortly cheered King Henry, we found ourselves swept along like so much flotsam.

“Where are we going?” Nancy squealed in alarm when I shouted to her to hold fast to her father’s hand. “I don’t like this. I want to go home.”

A laughing, wild-haired woman threw back her head revealing the blackened stumps of her teeth. “No man who loves his country will go home today,” she said. “The best is yet to come! Tiptoft’s arrested! You’ll see the Butcher of England’s head taken off!”

“Why are we going to the butcher’s?” The stricken child cried out amidst guffaws of mirth.