The Green Man (14 page)

‘Chapman!'

The apparently disembodied voice came out of the darkness, making me jump. I scrambled to my feet, staring wildly about me.

‘Chapman!' The hoarse whisper came again, like the scraping of a fiddle bow across catgut. ‘Chapman, I say!'

‘Who are you? What do you want?'

I had, by this time, located the source of the sound as coming from the opposite side of the cannon, and moved purposefully to round it.

‘Stop!' ordered the voice with such urgency that, against all my natural inclinations, I obeyed. ‘Don't come any closer. Stay where you are on the other side of the gun. You'll regret it if you don't. I have a knife and I shan't hesitate to use it.'

The man, whoever he was, sounded desperate enough to carry out this threat, so I retreated. The nearest fire was nothing now but a carpet of red-hot ashes. It was a clear night, the sky above swimming with stars, but moonless, the distance curtained by the shadowy outline of the town. The cannon stood in a pool of blackness.

I repeated my earlier questions. ‘Who are you? What do you want?'

A head was raised cautiously into view, but not an ordinary head. It was over-large and, as my sight adjusted to the darkness, I could see that it trembled with what seemed to be leaves. From the mouth drooped branches of foliage and where the eyes should have been were two glittering slits. In other words, the fellow was wearing a mask; the mask of the Green Man.

The realization gave me courage.

‘For heaven's sake, take that stupid thing off and let me see your face,' I begged. ‘If you have something to tell me, say it openly like a man.'

‘Hold your tongue,' rasped the voice, ‘and listen to me. It's for your own good and I haven't much time. Watch your back, Chapman. You're in danger.'

‘Danger? In what way?'

‘I don't know exactly. If I did, I'd tell you. But I repeat, watch your back!'

I could feel little worms of fear beginning to crawl over my skin, but I answered jauntily enough, ‘Are you certain you have this right? Surely it's my master, the Duke of Albany, who is threatened, not me. I have been hired to protect him.'

‘Albany?' was the grim retort. ‘Maybe he is in danger. There are plenty of people who'd no doubt like to see him dead, his brother, King James, amongst them. But I do know you're in jeopardy, as well. It's no good asking me how I know this because I'm not allowed to tell. Just do as I say and be on your guard and maybe nothing will come of it.'

‘That's not much use,' I grumbled, adding violently, ‘I wish you'd take that damned Green Man mask off and we could discuss this face to face, man to man. Incidentally, was that you at Fotheringay who threw me against the wall and sent me sprawling to the ground?'

‘Yes. There was someone, I couldn't see who, standing on the stairs above you. Whether or not he meant you harm, I'd no idea, but he could have done.' Suddenly the Green Man flung out an arm. ‘Look behind you, Chapman!'

I whirled round, my right hand flying to the knife stuck in my belt, all my senses straining to meet whatever danger was threatening, and to meet it head on …

But there was nothing and nobody there, just a slight breeze stirring the darkness. The noises of the camp had grown muted; even the cries of the wounded had diminished and I realized it must be later than I thought. Albany would doubtless have returned to his pavilion and be looking for me. I turned back to address my companion …

He had vanished. I walked round the cannon several times, but there was no trace of him. He had deliberately misdirected my attention, and I had fallen into the trap like any green schoolboy. ‘Over there!' we used to shout to unpopular school fellows. And while they were looking ‘over there', the rest of us used to run away and hide.

Angered by my own stupidity, I made my way back to Albany's tent and only just in time. A minute or so later, he walked in.

I lay tossing and turning on my straw mattress, listening to Albany's snores which were loud enough to waken the dead. It was obvious that he had drunk too much of the Duke of Gloucester's best wine, and it had taken the combined efforts of Davey and myself to strip him and get him to bed. If, I reflected sourly, the other commanders were all in the same state of inebriety, a surprise night attack by King James and his army could not only retake the town of Berwick, but drive us back as far as the River Tyne, if not farther. I wondered how distant the Scots' army was.

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.

But although, as I say, I shared Albany's impatience, my faith in the Duke of Gloucester's military ability remained unshaken. Here was a man who, at eleven years old, had been Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine, while I, born on the same day, had still been trying to kick an inflated pig's bladder between two upright sticks stuck in the ground (unsuccessfully, I regret to say). And eight years later, at nineteen, he had helped his brother, Edward, to regain his throne at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, where he had fought with the skill and precision of a man twice his age. My trust was in Prince Richard.

This did not mean, however, that I was not suffering from all the prickles of boredom that afflict those with too little to do and too much time in which to do it. The result was not only bad temper but a fatigue that had more to do with the mind than the body. I would lie down at night on my pallet feeling worn to the bone, only to find sleep elusive. I would doze and wake, doze and wake throughout the night, but at the same time, I had trained myself to lie as still as possible so as not to disturb the duke, who, on his camp bed with its swansdown mattress, passed his nights in comparative comfort and who resented being aroused by my tossing and turning.