Wheel of Fate (31 page)

‘And you think that Buckingham was telling the truth? About the plot, I mean. Not just trying to curry favour with the man who will undoubtedly be nominated as Protector by the council?'

Timothy was indignant. ‘Why would he need to curry favour? As husband of the Queen Dowager's sister he'd have done as well, if not better, to have stayed with the Woodvilles. It's a serious threat, Roger. As Spymaster General I know for a fact that men have already been despatched to man the fortifications on the Isle of Wight and at Portsmouth. Furthermore, Sir Thomas Fulford and Sir Edward Brampton have both been ordered to sea to intercept Edward Woodville and his merry band of pirates who are apparently trying to join up with some French privateers, at present threatening the southern coast.'

I grimaced. ‘As bad as that, eh?'

‘If not worse.' He shook my arm. ‘So keep your ear to the ground, my friend, and if you see or hear anything – anything at all – let me know at once. And, as I say, don't be in too much of a hurry to leave London. You may be needed. It's a great piece of good fortune you being here just at this time.'

If he hadn't added those last two sentences, I would have told him what I knew there and then. Indeed, I had drawn a breath ready to speak. But at his words, I expelled it again and sat silent, staring into my empty beaker. I realized that if I was not to be inveigled into Duke Richard's affairs by Timothy Plummer I had best keep quiet about the house in Old Dean's Lane and what I had overheard. I also had to apply my mind to this business of the Godsloves and either come to a conclusion as quickly as was humanly possible, or express my regrets and shake the dust of the capital from my boots as rapidly as I could.

I rose to my feet. ‘I'll-er-let you know if I hear anything, Timothy,' I said, lying through my teeth. ‘I shall be resident in Bishop's Gate Street Without for a while yet, I daresay.' I crossed my fingers behind my back.

He nodded. ‘See that you do. By the way, what do you know about the Bishop of Bath and Wells?'

‘Robert Stillington? Nothing much, Why do you ask?'

Timothy swallowed his ale. ‘No reason, except that he's from your part of the world. And he's turned up at Crosby's Place a couple of times lately and been closeted with the duke.'

‘Has he now?' I sucked my teeth thoughtfully. ‘In case you've forgotten,' I said, ‘let me remind you that the bishop was very close to the Duke of Clarence. In fact he was imprisoned for a while round about the time of Clarence's trial and execution. It might have been a coincidence, of course. And then again it might not.'

Timothy looked sick. ‘You're right. It had slipped my mind. I must be losing my grip on things.' He also stood up and straightened his tunic. ‘I'm unhappy about the way things are going, Roger, and that's a fact.'

‘And where are they going?' I asked.

The spymaster sighed. ‘I don't honestly know, and that's the problem.' He squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height (which was a little below my own shoulders). ‘But just remember what I've said to you. If you hear or see anything, anything at all in the least suspicious or that you think I ought to know about, get in touch with me at once. If I'm not there, a message left at Crosby's Place will bring me up to this house you're staying at as soon as possible.'

Once again, I nearly spoke, but once again self-interest held me silent. We walked together down St Lawrence's Lane into Cheapside, but there we parted, he striding off in the direction of the Strand and Westminster and I loitering on the corner. Various cries of ‘Hot sheep's feet!', ‘Pies!', ‘Ribs of beef!' reminded me that I had breakfasted very early with Adela and the children, and that my belly was now rumbling with hunger. I approached the beef vendor.

‘How many ribs for a farthing?' I asked.

‘Eight. Got yer bowl with you, sunshine?'

‘No . . . No, I haven't,' I said slowly. There it was again. What was it about the number eight that bothered me so much? I became aware that the street-seller was speaking. ‘I'm sorry, what did you say?'

He cast his eyes up to heaven (or what we could see of it between the overhanging eaves of the houses). ‘I said, dozy, I'll lend you a bowl.' He took one from a pile on the edge of the tray strapped around his neck. ‘And that'll be another farthing until I get it back.' He ladled eight ribs into the bowl, adding, ‘I'll be around here fer a bit yet awhile.'

I thanked him and retreated to lean against the nearest wall, out of the path of the constant stream of traffic that screeched and rumbled its way along this busiest of thoroughfares, while I sucked the ribs clean of meat and upended the bowl to drink the gravy. I had just finished and was looking around for the vendor in order to return my empty basin, when I was pounced on by a vaguely familiar figure who shouted, ‘It's you again, is it?'

Adrian Jollifant! By sheer ill-luck I had chosen to prop myself against the wall of the silversmith's shop. I gave an elaborate sigh. ‘What do you want with me now, sir?'

He looked me up and down. ‘Damn me if I can make out who or what you are,' he complained peevishly. ‘One time you're dressed up as fine as five pence, mounted on a decent horse, another time you're playing the country bumpkin but buying a ring for your wife, and now you look like a servant, but talk like an educated man.' Without giving me a chance to reply, he continued, ‘Where's that thieving rapscallion Oswald Godslove? Is the old sod going to sell my house back to me or is he not? I warn you, he'll be sorry if he doesn't.'

I turned to face him. ‘And if he won't agree, which I can tell you here and now is the case, what will you do to him, Master Jollifant? What
can
you do?'

I must have looked and sounded fiercer than I intended because he backed away, stuttering, ‘D-don't you dare hit me again or I'll have the law on you, whoever you are. And being a friend of that cursed robber won't help you!'

I calmed down a little. ‘I have no desire to hit you,' I said, ‘and only did so before because you attacked me first.' I put two or three paces between us to demonstrate that I meant him no harm, and as I did so, caught a flicker of movement at the second-floor window which bellied out over the street. ‘Who's that upstairs?' I demanded sharply.

The silversmith stared at me for a moment or two as if I had taken leave of my senses before his anger got the better of him again. ‘What in the devil's name has it got to do with you?' he asked furiously. ‘It's my old father if you want to know.'

I could see that he had left the shop door open. To distract his attention, I stooped and put the beef-seller's bowl carefully on the ground; then, before he could divine my intention, I straightened up and made a dash for it, through the shop, vaguely aware of the gaping mouths of the apprentices, to the flight of stairs beyond. At the top of this was a narrow landing and, because of my familiarity, five years earlier, with the old Babcary shop, I knew exactly where to find the steps leading to the upper floor. Once there, I could see a door partially open and, without any hesitation, pushed it wide and went in.

The pathetic occupant, a white-haired, rheumy-eyed old man, sat trembling on his bed, the frayed end of the rope which normally tethered him to the bedpost held limply on one hand.

‘I-it snapped,' he whimpered. ‘It-it wasn't my fault, Adrian. I-it just snapped. I only had a peep out o' the window. No one s-saw me. I-I promise.' He was terrified, and, I guessed, with some reason. A stick stood in one corner of the room, a nasty thin cane which could wreak havoc with the flesh. And as my eyes grew accustomed to gloom, I noticed raised wheals on the backs of the old man's hands and on one of his cheeks.

As I moved into the light filtering through the grime of the windows, he stammered, ‘Wh-who are you? Y-you're not my son.'

‘No, I'm not,' I answered grimly and swung round furiously as Adrian Jollifant puffed and panted his way into the room.

‘Get out of here!' he shrieked. ‘Get out! You're trespassing!'

‘And you're trying to murder your father!' I accused him. ‘You're mistreating him, and starving him, too, by the look of it. Mistress Napier told me that there were rumours you'd done away with him, but she thought he was just ill and confined to bed. Well, he is confined to bed, isn't he? He's tied to it, and until the rope snapped he couldn't even reach the window. Just helping him on his way, are you? And no doubt you'll give him a splendid funeral once he is dead so that all the neighbours can come and pay their respects. And, of course, they will all accept that you really are the master of the shop at last.'

‘It's none of your business,' Adrian Jollifant screamed. ‘He's a meddling, stupid old fool who thinks he knows better than anyone else. I hate him! I've always hated him! Now get out!'

‘Oh, I'll get out,' I said, advancing and towering over him. ‘And the first thing I'm going to do is to inform all your neighbours what's going on here. I'd be prepared for some very angry visitors if I were you. Not to mention representatives of the law you're so fond of invoking.'

He blenched. ‘You-you wouldn't do that,' he faltered.

‘Just watch me,' I snarled, and seized hold of the cane. ‘But before I do, I've a good mind to give you a thrashing.' He shrank back. ‘Oh, don't worry,' I sneered, suddenly sickened by him, ‘I won't touch you. But I shall carry out my promise to tell your neighbours about your father's plight unless I get your solemn word that your treatment of him will alter. I'll tell you something else,' I added. ‘Again according to Mistress Napier, there's been talk that you might have murdered your first wife in order to marry your second. And if people realize that you and she have been trying to murder your father, there may be more than just talk. There may be accusations brought.'

The silversmith looked so terrified now that I felt almost certain that the rumours concerning him and the first Mistress Jollifant were true. I pressed home my advantage.

‘And there's another condition for my silence.' I seized him by the shoulders, pinning him back against the bedchamber wall. ‘You'll leave my friends, the Godsloves, alone. You'll give up this insane pretence that somehow the Arbour belongs to you. Now!' I let him go and wiped my hands down the side of my breeches. ‘I'll be back in three days to see that you've amended your ways. If not, or if I'm denied entrance, I shall carry out my threat. But before I go, you are going to give me permission to search the whole of this house, attic to cellar, just to make sure that you're not holding Celia Godslove a prisoner.'

I could tell by the blank expression on his face that he neither remembered Oswald's accusation of Sunday nor understood what I was talking about. Nevertheless, he made no effort to stop me, even following me downstairs to detail one of the apprentices to show me round the cellar. If looks could have killed I would have been a dead man, and I experienced a few qualms about descending into the depths, but he made no attempt to follow me, a circumstance for which I was truly grateful.

By the time I had finished my search, I was convinced that, whatever else he was or was not guilty of, Adrian Jollifant was not Celia's abductor. I had looked under every bed, in every cupboard, in every place, however absurd, where there was even the remotest chance that she could be hidden. If nothing else had convinced me, the return to the shop of the second Mistress Jollifant would have made up my mind for me. She might have dimpled cheeks and a sweet little turned-up nose, but she had a gimlet eye and a mouth that shut like a trap when, as now, she was displeased. Her husband would have had no chance to conceal another woman in the house while she was around. I gave her a brief bow and left the silversmith to explain my presence as best he could. Had he been a different sort of man, I would have wished him luck. As it was, I hoped he would get all that was coming to him.

As I left the shop, I said, ‘Remember! Three days.'

Then I was gone, walking eastwards along Cheapside.

So that was that. Adrian Jollifant was no longer a suspect as far as I was concerned. And I felt as reasonably certain as it was possible to be that Roderick Jeavons was not the culprit, either. So who was this implacable enemy of the Godsloves, determined to eliminate them all one by one? And what, if any, significance did the number eight have? God was doing his best to enlighten me, but I was proving to be singularly obtuse, probably because there was another, greater distraction nagging away at the back of my mind. Did I tell Timothy Plummer what I knew? Was the duke's life truly in danger? Were the Woodvilles really plotting his downfall? Did this strange uneasiness which seemed to have the city in its grip have any foundation in fact?

I didn't know. And I doubted, at that point, if anyone else did either.

EIGHTEEN

A
s I walked eastwards along Westcheap towards the Poultry and the Great Conduit, I realized that I had never reclaimed my farthing from the seller of hot beef ribs, and had carelessly left my bowl somewhere outside the silversmith's shop for any fool to stumble over. I also realized, with a certain amount of unease, that I was growing adept in the dubious art of housebreaking, even though I had committed no other crime. Indeed, one might argue that on both occasions I had been trying to uncover a crime, and in the case of Master Jollifant's father had actually prevented one. (It was my avowed intention either to return to the shop in a few days' time or to apprise Ginèvre Napier of my discovery and leave that redoubtable dame to deal with matters in her own fashion. Either way, I felt that the old man would now be safe.)