The Bastard's Tale (18 page)

Why did she distrust him so completely?

Once asked, the question had ready answer.

Because of Henow Heath.

Because of those thousands of men gathered against an army Gloucester wasn’t bringing.

Because, of the several possible reasons Suffolk might have gathered them, none were good. Either he had done it by mistake, having trusted someone who badly misinformed him—deliberately or because they were too stupid to count straight—or else he had been hoping to stir fear and anger against Gloucester, to cut short questions when the accusation and arrest were made. Whichever had been the reason, neither was acceptable in a man said to have more power than anyone else in the realm. If the first, then he used bad sources who corrupted his actions. If the second, he was corrupt himself.

She wished she had better sight of King Henry. He was not likely to show much here with so many eyes to see him, but surely he must be affected somehow, whether he actually believed in this betrayal by a man who had been loyal to him all his life or if he did not.

Above the noise and talk of people, a trumpet called out high and clear from the open gallery above the screens passage. Talk cut off and every head turned toward the trumpeter standing above them there, his horn glinting in the upcast candlelight. At the same moment the servants waiting beside the candlestands along the hall put out all the candles almost as one, sweeping the hall into shadows, so that as the trumpeter flourished to an end, swung down his trumpet, and stepped back out of sight, everyone turned back toward the only light still in the hall, the candles flanking the playing place, and saw, high on Heaven’s throne, Wisdom seated in all his majesty, glowing golden in the candlelight, with Lady Soul kneeling and lovely at the foot of the heavenly stairs.

Clear and fine, Wisdom’s voice rang out in his opening speech. Sweet and strong, Lady Soul answered him. And against all the likelihood everything that had been slack, stumbling, and wrong this afternoon was gone. The play sang with beauty, first between Wisdom and beloved Lady Soul, then between her and her virtuous Mights, before they went away behind the curtains and Lucifer appeared out of a burst of roof-high red sparks.

More often than not, devils were played for laughter but Joliffe had chosen smooth, warm charm, with only gradually his underdarkness breaking through in all its ugliness before the Mights returned and he set to wooing them to sin. When they were corrupted, he unleashed a set of his Devils to them for a lewd and ugly dance complete with stinking smoke from Hell. When Lady Soul returned, corrupted by her Mights’ fall and companioned by two small Demons, Wisdom charged her with her wrongs to him, she and her Mights repented, Devils and Demons fled, and all ended with a prayer, and on Wisdom’s last word, angel voices (of those who had been Devils a few minutes ago) rose from behind Heaven in a joyously sung
Deo gracias,
with Lady Soul and her Mights dancing with glad grace away to out of sight behind the curtains while Wisdom rose with immense dignity from his throne, descended the stairs, and followed after them.

With his going, the hall seemed suddenly far more empty than one man’s leaving should have made it. But then, it was not a man but Wisdom itself that had gone, the illusion powerful enough that silence held for a long-drawn breath after the playing place was empty before well-pleased clapping broke out, led by the king.

Unwillingly released from wonder, Frevisse joined in. Clapping, too, Dame Perpetua leaned to ask in her ear, “The young man we talked with in the library this afternoon, was he Lucifer here?”

‘He was.“

Puzzled, maybe a little worried about it, Dame Perpetua said, “He was more… pleasant then.”

‘He can be,“ Frevisse granted.

A drum’s cheerful roll signaled the players’ return, coming in a line from either side to meet in the middle of the playing place. All the clapping doubled with the pleasure of seeing them again and they bowed or curtsied, depending on their garments, first to the king and queen and Abbot Babington, then to the hall at large. Master Wilde had not returned, a sensible choice, it being hardly seemly for Wisdom to bow to anyone, nor did the players make the error of trying to hold too long to what they had but, while the acclaim was at its height, bowed one more time and disappeared the way they had come, all except John, who ran forward to his parents. Frevisse saw Suffolk scoop him up, laughing and pleased. Servants were relighting the other candles, talk was starting up all over the hall, and the crowd beginning to mill, and when Dame Perpetua asked, “Shouldn’t we go?” Frevisse was willing, abruptly aware of how tired she was and feeling no need to take John off his parents’ hands. Let them see to him for tonight. For tonight at least she simply wanted to be done with any duties or troubles and began to lead their way along the wall toward the door.

They had reached the screens passage and were almost out the door among other people leaving when rising voices and a stir ahead of them warned something had happened. Dame Perpetua, far less used to crowds and beginning to be frightened, gripped her arm and asked, “What? What is it?”

The rush of excited words reached and swept past them from one person to another and into the hall and Frevisse answered Dame Perpetua’s fear quickly with, “Nothing. It’s all right for us,” urging Dame Perpetua onward to the door and out into the cold, torchlit night before adding, “It’s just that some of the duke of Gloucester’s men have been arrested now for treason, too.”

Chapter 14

In the hours since he had been left alone, Arteys had found that the chamber was too small for sufficient pacing to wear out his thoughts, but neither could he sit still nor hold his mind to the book he had tried to read by the gray daylight through the window. Since Bishop Pecock had left him alone, his mind would not hold still, had been squirreling up one thought, scurrying to another, going back to the first or on to others, settling nowhere because he only knew enough to worry and wasn’t likely to know more until Bishop Pecock returned.

When bringing him here to St. Petronilla’s yesterday, Bishop Pecock had explained him in passing to the master as an old friend’s son who needed somewhere to stay until a certain trouble with his father was worked out. “Nor is that a lie,” Bishop Pecock had said when he and Arteys had reached his chamber. “A misdirection of the truth perhaps and to be regretted, but we might presently have regretted outright truth more.”

His chamber was a large room at the top of stairs off the hospital’s cloister walk, with a small fireplace in one wall, thick-woven reed matting on the floor, a plain chair, a single joint stool, a long table untidy with books and papers, the bishop’s traveling chest along one wall, and a large bed with dark red coverlet and curtains. The room’s simplicity and one small window with a slight view of a thatched roof and a lean bit of sky told this was not Petronilla’s best chamber. Or even second best, probably. “Which comes of being so minor a bishop as St. Asaph’s,” Bishop Pecock had said, “but that is all to the better, isn’t it? No one pays much heed to what I do and therefore is unlikely to pay much heed to your being here.”

His explanation to Master Orle, his chaplain, and Run-man, his servant, was simply that Arteys would be spending at least the night and probably tomorrow, possibly longer, and was to be fed but not talked of.

They had both said, “Yes, my lord,” and Runman, whose accent was deeply London, had asked, “You’ll want supper for both of you here, my lord?”

‘If you would, Runman.“

Runman had bowed again, said, “Of course, my lord.”

‘They both my-lord me overmuch,“ Bishop Pecock had said when they were gone. ”They say I tend to forget who I am if I’m not reminded. Take off your cloak. Sit.“

Confused with hunger and the day’s bludgeoning, Arteys had obeyed and, searching for something to say, asked, “You’ve no one else waiting on you?”

‘Not when I can help it. Have you any thought on how tedious it is to have people following you everywhere you go?“

Betrayed by his tiredness, Arteys said, “I know how tedious it is to follow.” And came up short, hearing himself. Was it only this morning, going to meet Gloucester, he’d been thinking that?

‘The same problem from a different side,“ Bishop Pecock answered, pouring wine. ”And it’s not as if I can’t find my own way to places. I was a priest in London for thirteen years and went here and there and everywhere without clerks and servants and other miscellaneous folk at my heels.“ He handed a filled goblet to Arteys. ”If I’m bishop long enough, I’ll likely grow used to it but it’s hardly fair for St. Asaph’s to bear the expense of my hauling servants with me to no good purpose, and since I prefer not to be dogged at the heels by people I don’t need there, I therefore have only Master Orle and Run-man to serve me here, who have heretofore never evidenced desire to betray me or any of my business to anyone else and are unlikely to begin now, and a groom who sleeps in the stables and is probably up to no good since he’s had nothing to do since we arrived.“

Arteys had realized that the flow of words was deliberately meant to distract him and he let it, both then and through supper. Not until Bishop Pecock had sent Run-man out to find if the play was to go on because, “If it is, I’d best go, on the chance I’ll hear something to our purpose,” had Arteys leaned forward on the cleared table and asked, not much hiding his fear and desperation. “What am I going to do?”

‘Nothing for now. At present we know too little, and ignorance is never a good tool to work with. Why don’t you go to bed?“

Exhausted by the ill-turned day and his fears, Arteys did, and had slept most of the time Bishop Pecock was gone, which was as well because after Bishop Pecock had brought back word of the arrests, he had not slept well the rest of the night. Worse, word had been all that Bishop Pecock brought back, no names or certainty of how many or anything about Gloucester at all. He had gone out this morning, taking Master Orle with him, to find out if more was being said, leaving Arteys alone except when Runman brought him a cheese-egg potage and bread for his midday dinner.

Now it was early afternoon and Arteys shoved away from the window, paced the room’s length, paced it back again and, giving up, came back to the window and the useless book. He’d escaped St. Saviour’s but to what good? Shut up here and doing nothing, he was as worthless as if he had stayed. More worthless, because if he had stayed, maybe there would have been something he could have done there. Here, he was doing nothing at all save too much useless thinking.

He leaned his head against the window’s glass, willing the clouds to break. He was so sick of all the grayness both outside himself and in his own thoughts.

Men—several—were coming quickly up the stairs. The sudden sound of their footfall faced Arteys around to the door, hand to his dagger’s hilt. If these were men come to arrest him… He dropped his hand away. If they were come for him, they would have more than only daggers to use against him and what would fighting serve except to make him look guilty?

But it was Bishop Pecock who came in and Joliffe with him and Arteys took a quick step toward them, asking, “Do you have anything? About Gloucester or the others?”

‘Tut,“ said Bishop Pecock. ”You’ve not kept the fire up- You’ll take a chill.“

While he went to the fireplace, Joliffe said, “Nothing has happened beyond the arrests, so far as we know. Gloucester is still at St. Saviour’s, kept under guard in his own rooms, and hasn’t been seen.”

‘Who was arrested? How many?“

‘Only five. Sir Roger Chamberlain. Sir Richard Middelton. Sir John Cheyne. Sir Robert Wer. Master Richard Needham.“

‘Needham!“ Arteys looked sharply to Bishop Pecock, who looked around from laying kindling into the young flames he had roused from the embers to nod confirmation. ”Needham?“ Arteys insisted. ”But he’s in Parliament.“

‘And therefore a voice in favor of Gloucester to be taken out of the way.“ Joliffe pointed to the pitcher on the table and asked, ”May I?“ of Bishop Pecock.

‘By all means. For all of us, please.“

Arteys followed him to the table, a cold hopelessness tightening in his chest. “Has there been any outcry about Gloucester? Any protest?”

Joliffe handed him a filled goblet, though by rights Bishop Pecock should have been served first. “No outcries. No protests. It’s all come too fast. Everyone is crouched and waiting to see what’s going to happen next before they make a move of their own. Drink.”

‘But something…“

Bishop Pecock rose from the fire, saying as he took the goblet Joliffe brought him, “It’s been done in the king’s name, by the king’s men, for the king’s good. That leaves little space for anyone else to do anything without whatever they do being called treason.”

‘Something,“ Arteys repeated, from stubbornness more than hope.

Turning from the table with a filled goblet for himself, Joliffe said, “Not by us, that’s sure. Not yet. I have a way, though, that might give you chance to see Gloucester if you want.”

Bishop Pecock said with surprise, “You never said as much to me.”

‘Why say it twice?“ Joliffe asked. His gaze on Arteys was considering. ”Or even once, if it wasn’t going to work. I wanted to see if Arteys was fallen apart yet with fear or was maybe steady enough to try it.“

‘I’m steady enough and I’m ready,“ Arteys said. His fear was his own business.

‘I’d wait to hear what young Joliffe has planned before waxing wide with eagerness,“ Bishop Pecock murmured.