The Burgundian's tale

He punched me on the shoulder (I did wish people would stop doing that!) and said, ‘Of course you are. Just as I’m delighted to be able to call you friend.’ He paused, awaiting my reaction to this signal honour. When none came, he looked disappointed before producing the winning card from his sleeve. ‘But think how far more honoured you will be when it’s the King of Scotland who invites you to his court.’

I had, indeed, guessed which way the wind was blowing as soon as I’d clapped eyes on him. He might have been well received at the French court, but Louis XI, that reportedly shrewd and wily monarch, would do nothing that might upset his Scottish ally, King James, who, with his constant harrying of the northern shires, was distracting English attention from its ties with Burgundy. It made sense, therefore, that there should be some devious scheme afoot, hatched by Albany and King Edward, to replace James III with his renegade brother.

I bowed. ‘I wish Your Grace every success in your enterprise, whenever it may be.’

The Duke beamed, but the eyes above the smile were hard and calculating.

‘A year perhaps,’ he said. ‘Maybe a little more, maybe less. ‘But rest assured that I shall remember you, Master Chapman, when the time comes for me to ascend the Scottish throne, as I shall remember certain of your friends across the Irish Sea.’

I hurriedly disclaimed any such friends and silently suppressed a shudder: the Duke’s promise sounded more like a threat to me, but naturally I couldn’t expect him to see it that way. So like the craven that I was, I thanked him profusely for his interest and, sensing that the interview was at an end, backed out of the ante-chamber just as the trumpets began sounding for the start of the feast. In fact, I backed straight into the Earl of Lincoln, who had arrived to escort Albany to his place at the high table among the rest of the honoured guests.

‘Roger!’ Luckily, I divined the Earl’s intention just in time and moved before he could slap me on the back. ‘Have you discovered our murderer yet?’

‘Not yet, Your Highness. But I’m getting closer,’ I assured him, lying through my teeth.

‘Good! Good! My uncle is relying on you. My Lord,’ he went on, turning to the Duke, ‘let me conduct you to your seat in the great hall.’

The two men swept past me, the candlelight gleaming on their satins and velvets, glinting on their jewelled buttons and rings. My moment of glory — if you care to call it that — was past. I was forgotten as easily as I had been recalled to mind. I had been the object of Albany’s graciousness and gratitude just long enough to make him feel that he had repaid a debt (or so I devoutly hoped), and now I was free to go.

I rescued my horse from the royal stables and rode back along the Strand, my one object now to hear what Martin Threadgold had to say, and hoping against hope that he had not, in the meantime, changed his mind.

The late promise of the day had been fulfilled. The clouds were banked high in the evening sky and the dying sun made paths of ghostly radiance across the quiet gardens. It caught the tops of the shadowed trees, lighting them, like lamps from within.

As I reached the Fleet Street end of the Strand, I could see a cluster of anxious people outside the first of the last three houses, all trying to calm the figure in their midst. And that figure was a small woman in floods of noisy tears.

My heart and stomach both plummeted as I recognized Martin Threadgold’s housekeeper.

Twelve

I hurriedly dismounted and, leading the horse, approached the group. Apart from Martin Threadgold’s housekeeper, this turned out to consist of Lydia and Roland Jolliffe, the St Clairs, Paulina Graygoss and, somewhat surprisingly, Lionel Broderer. Of William Morgan and the younger members of both families there was no sign.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

No one seemed to find my sudden appearance remarkable. (I think they had come to regard me rather like the Devil in a morality play, always popping up when least wanted or expected.) Judith St Clair gave me a resigned look and said, in an even more resigned voice, ‘Master Threadgold is dead.’ She finally managed to hush the little housekeeper’s noisy sobbing with a curt word or two, which she palliated with an arm about the woman’s shoulders. ‘My dear Mistress Pettigrew, you have had a shock, but you must pull yourself together. Many people die in their sleep, you know. It’s not uncommon, and your master was not a young man.’