The Burgundian's tale

Once again, however, the sight of Brandon Jolliffe touched that elusive chord of memory within my brain. What was it I was trying to remember? Or perhaps remember was not quite the right word. Maybe I was trying to make a connection with some other fact lying dormant somewhere in the farthest recesses of my mind. I struggled to find the missing link, unaware that I was standing stock-still in the roadway until I found myself being jostled and pushed aside by various irate passers-by, who made uncomplimentary comments on the irritating habits of country bumpkins not used to the capital’s busy ways. As I had been priding myself on how well I blended into the London scene, I found this particularly galling, and I was willing to bandy words with anyone spoiling for a fight. But Londoners appeared to have no time even for a quarrel, so I gave up and went back to the Voyager, where I went to my room and stretched out on the bed, promising myself an hour of quiet reflection. But no sooner had I started to review all that had happened in the four days since my arrival in London than, lulled by the warmth of the sun coming in at the open shutters and the comfort of the goose-feather mattress, I inevitably fell deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

It was nearly dusk when I finally awoke. The May twilight glimmered fitfully before the approaching dark. Beyond the window the sky was rinsed to a thin, fragile blue above the last flushed clouds of the sunset. Shadows muffled the outline of roofs on the opposite side of the Voyager’s courtyard and, in the heavens, a single star shone, dimly as yet, the colour of unpolished steel.

My first thought was that I was famished: I had missed my supper. The second was that there was someone banging at my chamber door. The third was that the someone had to be Bertram. No one else would hammer and kick at the wood with such abandoned familiarity, and, a moment later, my suspicions were confirmed when his by now instantly recognizable voice called impatiently, ‘Roger! Master Chapman! Let me in!’

With a groan, I slid off the bed and drew back the bolt near the top of the door. Bertram tripped over his own feet as he literally tumbled inside.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ I demanded crossly, my hunger making me irritable. ‘What’s so urgent that you must make all this racket? Don’t tell me!’ I added waspishly. ‘You’ve discovered who killed Fulk Quantrell?’

‘No.’ He smirked. ‘But I fancy it’s a question the Dowager Duchess wants to put to you. I’ve been sent to bring you to Baynard’s Castle.’

I ground my teeth in fury (not something that’s easy to do, let me tell you).

‘What does the bloody woman want now?’ I fairly shouted. ‘What does she expect? Miracles?’

Bertram giggled in exactly the same way as my children did when I lost my temper. Why was it, I wondered resentfully, that I was unable to terrify the younger generation with a display of righteous wrath?

‘I think,’ he offered, ‘that His Grace of Gloucester so sang your praises to the Duchess and My Lord of Lincoln that they expected you to arrive at an immediate conclusion once you’d heard the story.’

I sighed. Duke Richard’s touching faith in my powers of deduction could sometimes have disastrous consequences. I asked, ‘Is there any way in which I can avoid this meeting?’

Bertram shook his head. ‘I’ve been instructed to bring you back with me to Baynard’s Castle immediately.’

‘You could tell Her Grace you couldn’t find me.’

He shook his head. ‘She’s not the woman to take no for an answer, chapman. I’d only be sent out to scour the city for you until I did. And I don’t fancy spending half the night on the streets, pretending to search for someone who’s really asleep, in bed.’

‘We could find a cosy nook in the ale room,’ I tempted him, but he regretfully declined this offer.

‘I’ve two of Her Grace’s gentlemen-at-arms waiting for us downstairs.’

I cursed long and fluently, to Bertram’s unstinted admiration. It was obvious that some of the phrases and expressions were new to him, and I could see him storing them away in his memory for future use, in order to impress his friends.

There was no help for it, then. When royalty requests one’s presence, there’s no option but to obey. I didn’t even dare to stop to eat.

The two Burgundian gentlemen awaiting us in the ale room were looking around them with a superior air, palpably disgusted at the antics of the swinish English. (All foreigners know, of course, that we are the spawn of the Devil, with tails concealed in our breeches.) They barely glanced our way as Bertram reappeared with me trailing reluctantly in his wake, but nodded curtly to Reynold Makepeace, ignored the goggling (and, if they’d only known, sniggering) drinkers at the scattered tables, and preceded us out of the inn, magnificent in their black-and-gold livery.