The Green Man (8 page)

They went off together, arm in arm, animosity and professional jealousy forgotten. I went back to my post behind Albany's chair.

By the greatest of good luck, he and Lord Hastings had been so deep in a ribald assessment of ‘Mother Earth's' physical charms that he had failed to notice my absence. Not so the page, who whispered in my ear, ‘And where've you been?'

I spun round. ‘So you're back, are you? And suddenly you can speak English. Well, understandable English.'

‘Oh, I've always been able to speak English,' Davey replied in that cool, light tone of his. ‘It's just that I don't always choose to. Where have you been?'

‘I might ask you the same question.'

He smiled his sweet, effeminate smile. ‘There's no mystery about that. His Grace sent me to the kitchens to get something to eat. Unlike yourself, I don't go wandering off on my own, but wait until I'm bidden. It's easy to see that you've never been in service to the nobility. Which raises the question why exactly are you here?'

There was a slightly contemptuous note in the young voice that flicked me on the raw. I longed to tell him the truth, but managed to bite my tongue. Instead, I retorted with equal contempt, ‘You ought to listen more carefully, Davey, when your royal master speaks. He told you, I heard him, when I first joined the household in London, that I'm his personal bodyguard. It's my job to protect him from harm. He fears his brother's assassins.'

‘He has good reason,' the page nodded, adding, ‘Well, mind you do protect him, or it will be the worse for you.'

Before I could take exception to this threat, the king rose from his seat, announcing it was time for bed, and everyone else rose with him. Albany turned and beckoned to me at the same moment that his two squires emerged from a doorway at the back of the dais. Davey fetched a couple of torchbearers to light us all back to the royal chambers where James Petrie was waiting to assist his master to undress, while I took the opportunity to divest myself of the hated yellow shoes, hose and amber tunic, stripping down to my shirt and climbing in beside Albany in the massive four-poster bed. The page dragged his own truckle-bed from underneath it, assured himself that the ‘all-night' of bread and ale had been placed on the table next to his master, pulled the curtains around us and bade us goodnight. Donald Seton and Murdo MacGregor likewise made themselves scarce, leaving the bedchamber for the ante-room where they both slept.

Albany was in buoyant mood and disposed to talk. He was delighted with his reception by the English nobles and by the way in which King Edward had embraced him before the feast, hailing him with all the familiarity of a fellow monarch. I think that for a moment even his natural cynicism had evaporated, and he was allowing himself to believe that he would indeed be crowned as King Alexander IV.

‘I've come to the conclusion, Roger,' he said, linking his hands behind his head and staring up at the canopy above us, ‘that maybe I've nothing to fear from the English, after all.' This was the wine talking, and I had no doubt that he would sing a different song in the morning. ‘No,' he went on, ‘the danger lies, as I always thought it did, with my dear brother.' He turned his head on the pillow. ‘You've not discovered anything yet?'

I hesitated, then answered slowly, ‘I'm not sure.'

He was alert on the instant, heaving himself up onto one elbow and peering anxiously at me through the darkness.

‘Out with it, man! What is it?'

‘A silly incident, Your Grace. Nothing more.'

‘Tell me!'

So, somewhat reluctantly, fearing what I felt would be his quite justifiable ridicule, I told him about the man in the Green Man mask.

‘I thought it would prove to be one of the mummers late for his entrance,' I said. ‘But that turned out not to be the case.' And I proceeded to describe my meeting with ‘Mother Earth' and her ‘consort'. ‘So Your Grace can see,' I concluded, ‘that I was right to call it a silly incident and not to wish to worry you with it. It's nothing, in my opinion, but a stupid jest being played by one of the mummers' troupe on another of their number. Your Highness has nothing to fear. You may sleep easily in your bed.'

T
o my surprise, Albany seemed to be genuinely concerned by my story and interrogated me closely regarding the details. Did I think the attack had been deliberate? Where had I been standing exactly when the man had pushed past me? From which direction in the castle had he come? Was I sure that I had had no glimpse of his face? Was it certain that he had not been one of the mummers' troupe?

I did my best to answer these and other questions, but my knowledge of the castle was as limited as his, never having set foot in it – never, indeed, having set foot anywhere north of Hereford – before the previous day. I had to admit to myself that repetition of the incident had convinced me how very trivial it had really been, and that I had built a mountain out of a molehill. What did it really amount to, when all was said and done? A man wearing a mummer's mask – at a time when mummers' masks abounded in the castle – had given me an ill-natured shove because I was in his way. That was all there was to it.

Or was it?

Later, when my bedfellow had fallen into what appeared to be an uneasy slumber, judging, at any rate, by his tossing and turnings, I found myself lying wakeful in the darkness. The mummer playing the Green Man had either mislaid or had his best mask stolen. But why? For what reason? Was there a sinister motive? And, if so, what was it? Did it really have anything to do with me? On reflection, wasn't it far more likely to have been taken as a prank by another member of the group who had a grudge against the leading player? That was a much more plausible explanation. Clement, as ‘Mother Earth' had named him, had struck me at once as a man with a large opinion of himself, and therefore one who had probably made many enemies amongst the troupe's younger generation. Moreover, it was just the sort of silly trick a boy would play, and there was no doubt that the figure I had seen so briefly had been shortish and lacking in bulk.

With this finally settled in my mind, I heaved a sigh of relief and turned over, presenting my backside to my unquiet companion. Beyond the drawn bed-curtains, Davey gave the occasional gurgle and snort as he wriggled around on his truckle-bed, but other than that all was quiet except for the occasional shout of ‘All's well!' from the watchmen guarding the castle walls. The closed chamber door shut out all sounds from the ante-room where the two squires were presumably sleeping the sleep of the just.

I was slipping across the borderline of sleep, having lain awake for quite some time, when something roused me. I had no idea what it was, but it brought me sitting upright in the bed, every faculty alert, my ears straining, my eyes trying desperately to pierce the stuffy, all-embracing gloom. Then I was on my feet, the flagstones striking chill on my bare soles, and out into the room at large, where the page still slept peacefully at the foot of the four-poster, his young limbs sprawled anyhow, his mouth open, saliva dribbling down his chin.

I had grabbed my cudgel from the floor and now gripped it firmly as I stared around the chamber. I thought something moved behind me and whirled about, but no one was there, only a corner of the room, thick with shadows. I suddenly realized that I could hear Murdo and Donald snoring, where before all had been quiet, and I glanced in the direction of the chamber door. A line of less dense blackness showed that it must be standing slightly ajar. My heart beating unpleasantly fast, I tiptoed towards it, swinging the weighted end of my cudgel backwards and forwards, ready to strike whoever was lurking behind it …

It was abruptly pushed wide open and Donald Seton stood yawning and stretching in the doorway, his eyes still clogged with sleep.

‘Is something amiss?' he muttered. ‘I thought I heard someone moving.'

‘You must have the hearing of a rabbit, then,' I snapped, but keeping my voice as low as possible. ‘What are you doing up and about at this dead hour of the morning?'

‘I needed the piss-pot,' he answered shortly. ‘What's your excuse?'

I hesitated, not being at all sure what had roused me. I countered with another question.

‘Why was the door to the ante-room open?'

He frowned, puzzled.

‘I just opened it. You saw me. I thought I heard a noise.'

I shook my head. ‘It was ajar before you appeared. I was just coming to investigate.'

The squire glanced over his shoulder to where his companion was still snoring peacefully.

‘Couldn't have been,' he whispered positively. ‘No one's been through here, I'm ready to swear. And the other door into the passageway is closed. You can see for yourself.' Gently he pushed the inner door yet wider.

I crossed the ante-chamber, soft-footed, to verify the truth of this statement. The door was indeed closed and latched, but it wasn't bolted, an omission I hastened to point out.

Donald Seton shrugged.

‘Why bolt it?' he asked. His lips twitched in a small, mocking grin which I could see with eyes now grown accustomed to the darkness. ‘We're amongst friends, after all. Or aren't we? Perhaps His Grace is right to fear the Sassenachs.'

I bit back the retort hovering on the tip of my tongue; that the duke seemed more fearful of his late brother's servants than he did of his English hosts. That would have been to put one of them on his guard – always provided, of course, that Albany's suspicions had any sort of foundation.

Our voices, although pitched low, had finally aroused Murdo, who struggled up on his pallet to demand what, in the name of Saint Mungo, was going on.

‘I needed the piss-pot, only to find our friend the pedlar up and prowling about.'

‘Why?'

‘Ask him!'

‘Before I answer any of your questions,' I hissed angrily, ‘what I want to know is why, ever since we left London and before, you two and Davey have pretended that you couldn't speak anything but the raw Scots' tongue, when all the time you can speak English perfectly well.' I considered this statement. ‘Well enough, at least, for me to understand you,' I amended.

‘We've had nothing to say to you before,' was Murdo's laconic answer; which I supposed, in its own way, was true. I had hardly sought their company. But their deception irked me, nonetheless.

‘So what's the answer to my question?' Murdo insisted.

‘Something woke me – I don't know what – and then I discovered that the door between the main bedchamber and this one was ajar. Master Seton will vouch for that.'

‘Donald?'

‘It's true. It was open, but I didn't open it. And I'll swear nobody could have come through here without rousing one of us.'

‘Impossible,' his fellow squire agreed.

But it wasn't impossible, not the way those two had been snoring. I reckoned more than one assassin could have walked into my lord's chamber without disturbing either of his guardians in the room without. I wondered uneasily about that unbolted outer door. Was it just carelessness, an ingenuous belief that their master was indeed safe amongst his English friends? Or was it an alibi to cover their own tracks if they really did intend Albany harm?

Murdo rapped out something unintelligible and lay down again, pulling the blanket over his head.

Donald nodded. ‘He said let's get back to bed before we catch our deaths of cold.' He seized the chamber-pot and unrinated into it, a long, steaming, healthy-looking stream. ‘That's better. Now, get back to sleep, chapman, and settle down. You've been dreaming. Your belly's overfull and you've been riding the night mare.'

Copying his friend's example he, too, lay down and pulled the blankets up around his ears. As he did so, something floated to the ground. Unnoticed, I stooped and picked it up, carrying it back with me into the main chamber where the object of my concern was peacefully sleeping, oblivious to the whisperings and shufflings in the ante-room. His earlier restlessness had abated, and Albany now lay quietly, one cheek pillowed in his hand, like an innocent child. Cautiously, I found the tinder-box and lit a candle, well away from where its light could shine on the bed, and held my prize towards the flame.

What lay in my palm was a silken leaf, green and veined with golden thread. A leaf come loose from a mummer's costume – or a mummer's mask.

The Green Man!

It was long before I slept. Dawn was rimming the shutters before I finally closed my eyes.

The night's events had convinced me that Albany's suspicions concerning his Scottish servants, however nebulous, were nevertheless founded on reason. They were not the figment of his overripe imagination that I had at first thought them. The explanation given to his immediate retainers for my constant presence – for my presence at all – had been that he feared treachery by the English. Yet his two squires were unimpressed enough by this threat to leave unlocked a door that, if they took their royal master's fear even half-seriously, should have been carefully bolted. Moreover, while they had pretended to an ignorance of English, except as it was spoken in Scotland, I had presumed, as I was meant to presume, that their understanding of the tongue was equally feeble. I wondered what unguarded remarks I had made to Albany, and he to me, that the squires and Davey Gray, at least, had found perfectly intelligible.

But was the duke so ignorant of these men that he did not know this? Perhaps. When he addressed any of them it was in broad Scots, and they answered him in the same language. I had noticed that he kept them all at a distance, having no more converse with them than he was bound to. He certainly did not treat them with the camaraderie that he used towards me. And yet …

And yet the five of them had joined him during his exile in France, fleeing the wrath of King James after the Earl of Mar's murder. If it had been murder …