Kate Sedley - The Plymouth Cloak

'Where the hell is she7' Philip demanded through clenched teeth. 'The Duke assured me that the Master had his orders and would be here on Saturday with the tide.'

I had no words of consolation to offer, and was busy reconciling myself to another evening and night in Philip Underdown's unwelcome company. I was quite as distressed by the turn of events as he was, and moved away abruptly before I showed my feelings too plainly. As I did so, I thought I saw a figure withdraw furtively into one of the alleys which ran between the houses lining the quay. But although I moved swiftly, when I peered into the noisome little street, its gutter thick with the rotting detritus of everyday life, I could see no one. At that time of day, with everyone at supper, all was as quiet as the grave.

Neither of us slept well that night. To begin with, we were not tired. A day spent lazing in our room, with nothing to do but eat and doze, had left us wide awake and full of energy.

Both of us were men used to hard work and constant activity, and such a state of idleness did not agree with our constitution.

Over and above that, however, the Falcon's failure to arrive on time was an irritating delay which we could well have done without, disliking as we did each other' s company. But even that we might have endured with stoicism — for there are many reasons why a ship can be detained at sea — had it not been for my growing conviction that someone had been spying on us at the quayside.

My first inclination had been to blame an overheated imagination, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had indeed seen a man loitering in the mouth of the alleyway.

'Then where did he go?" Philip demanded, with all the truculence of one willing himself not to believe. 'You say that when you looked, there was no one there.'

'There were plenty of houses for him to step inside, on both sides of the street.'

Philip Underdown snorted. 'Hovels, all of them. A finical man like our friend from the Abbey would be disinclined to trust himself inside one of those.' He laughed mockingly. 'He might dirty his fine clothes.'

But he was talking to convince himself. He knew as well as I did that if the man were a hired assassin, or a Woodville retainer, the fine clothes and delicate deportment were nothing more than a blind to mislead us. Such a man would not be put off by the consideration of muddying his dress.

These thoughts continued to haunt us throughout the evening, and proved the basis for a spasmodic, but acrimonious, discussion as we sat in our bedchamber, listening to the shouts and noisy laughter drifting up from the aleroom downstairs. And although these grated on our overstretched nerves, the comparative silence which followed the curfew bell was even worse. We finished the ale which the obliging Moll had brought us, and decided that it was time to sleep, neither of us anticipating much success.

Strangely enough, I was asleep almost before my head touched the pillow, but immediately I began to dream. It was the same dream! had had a month or so earlier, in the Hospital of St Cross, in Winchester. I could again feel the wind on my face as I walked slowly forward beneath the interlacing trees, see the crescent moon above the clouds, feel the rough, stony path beneath my feet. And I was seized by the same all-pervading fear as I stumbled over the body…

I awoke once more in a state of sweat and panic, unsure for the moment of my surroundings. Then I heaved myself out of bed and crossed the room to open the shutters, which gave on to the yard at the back of the inn, taking in great gulps of salt sea air.

'What is it? What's the matter?'

I turned my head to make out Philip Underdown, his feet already out of bed, his dagger clasped in his right hand.

'Nothing,' I said, feeling rather foolish. 'A nightmare, that's all. I've suffered from them since childhood.' My description was not strictly accurate, but I felt that to tell the truth, that my dreams were often like glimpses into the future, would be to lay myself open to even more of his contempt and scorn. As it was, he laughed derisively before lying down again.

'An uneasy conscience, perhaps,' he suggested, not without malice.

'Perhaps.' I was in no mood to argue. I leaned out to reclose the shutters, when I noticed, for the first time, the slip of crescent moon hanging above the chimney-pots of the town. The sense of foreboding gripped me yet again and I shivered. A breeze had sprung up, blowing in from the harbour, and as I reached for the second shutter, the noise of creaking wood sounded from somewhere below me. Glancing down, I saw that the shutters of the room immediately under ours were swinging wide on their hinges. Someone had prised them open in order to enter the inn.

'He's here!' I hissed at Philip. 'He's in the house! There's no time to get help or try to trap him. Push one of the beds across the door.'

He needed no second bidding; and even as we manoeuvred his bed into position, there was a tell-tale groan from one of the stairs. It was a tread somewhere in the middle of the flight, and I had noticed its board was loose as we returned to our room yesterday afternoon. Moments later, the latch of the bedchamber door was quietly lifted and the door eased inwards, only to come up against the unyielding barrier of the bed. There was a second's pause before it was tried again; then, to the accompaniment of a faint, muffled curse, we heard footsteps retreating hurriedly down the stairs. I moved rapidly to the window and leaned out, hoping to catch a glimpse of-the intruder, but he used the front door, as we discovered when we went in search of assistance, leaving it unbolted and standing open.

John Penryn, roused from sleep, was grimly apologetic, particularly when it was found that the downstairs shutter had been left unbarred, an oversight of which our enemy had taken full advantage. He must have been prowling round the inn, trying all the doors and windows; and had I not been awake yet again, we would have had a repetition of the incident at Buckfast, this time, perhaps, with fatal results.

After we had returned to our room, Philip to sleep in my bed and I in his, where he had replaced it across the doorway, I lay awake for a long time, thinking. Was tonight's intruder Silas Bywater, who had managed to return to Plymouth well ahead of the time expected by getting a ride from a passing carter? Alternatively, was he our assailant of the Abbey, and if so, who was he and what was he after? Was he an agent of the Woodvilles? In which case, he was more concerned with taking Philip's life than with the letter he was carrying. Or was he working for the Lancastrian dissidents, whose main aim must be to prevent Duke Francis of Brittany withdrawing his support from Henry Tudor? And to that end, King Edward's conciliatory missive had to be prevented from arriving.

There was, of course, a third possibility; that tonight's interloper had been neither Silas nor the gentleman of Buckfast, but a different assailant altogether, who, in his turn, might be either a Woodville or a Lancastrian agent…

My head began to spin, and in spite of myself, I slept.

I awoke feeling neither refreshed nor rested, to find Philip Underdown already up and dressed. The girl, Moll, was tapping at the door, calling out that she had our shaving water and breakfast outside, but could not get in. Quickly I pulled on my boots and jacket and helped my companion move the bed back to its normal place.

We shaved first, before the water cooled, but my blackhandled knife needed sharpening and I was left with almost as much stubble as I had started with. Philip cut himself twice. We ate little, our appetites diminished by worry and the uncertainties of another day. It was, moreover, Sunday, and the church bells were already summoning people to Mass.