Kate Sedley - The Midsummer Crown

The housekeeper cocked her head on one side, absent-mindedly jingling the keys at her belt.

‘To my surprise, she quite liked the idea. I’d expected her to complain that Gideon was too delicate — she was always dosing him with some concoction or another, poor child — and shouldn’t be exposed to the foul London air. But she didn’t. In the end, she was as eager to be off as he was. Although, she wouldn’t have been, of course, if she could have foreseen what was going to happen almost as soon as he got there.’

Neither Timothy nor I volunteering any opinion on the matter, she finally took herself off with a parting instruction to present ourselves in the servants’ hall for supper in about an hour.

‘Anyone will tell you where it is. Meantime, I’ll send one of the girls with hot water for you. You’ll no doubt be in need of a wash after your journey.’

She was as good as her word, a young kitchen-maid arriving shortly afterwards, staggering under the weight of a heavy pail full of gently steaming water. A little later, having washed and changed my yellow tunic for the green one with silver-gilt buttons, I knocked on Timothy’s door and suggested that we spend the intervening time until supper by a turn in the fresh air.

‘I need to stretch my legs. They feel cramped from all that riding.’

Minster Lovell proved to be even bigger than I had at first imagined.. While the bakery, buttery, laundry, pantry and kitchens were all housed in the east wing, the stables, kennels and a handsome pigeon loft were located outside the main gateway. And it was while Timothy and I were idly watching the birds fly in and out of the loft, happy for five minutes or so to let our overcharged minds go blank, that young Piers Daubenay found us.

‘I saw you go out of the gate,’ he said, ‘and I knew you wanted to speak to me, Master Chapman.’

I bowed to the inevitable. ‘Let’s sit over here,’ I suggested, moving towards a stone bench set against a wall of the outer compound. And once we were settled, I commanded, ‘Now, tell me everything you know.’

Piers grimaced. ‘It’s not very much,’ he admitted and then fell silent.

‘You spent one night at Crosby’s Place,’ I encouraged him, ‘before visiting Baynard’s Castle?’

‘Yes. Master Gideon, Tutor Machin, Dame Copley and myself joined Her Grace of Gloucester’s entourage earlier in the week, when she stopped here on her journey south, and we reached London and Crosby’s Place late last Thursday. But the day was too advanced for us to do more than tumble into bed wherever we could find one.’

‘You didn’t share Master Fitzalan’s?’

‘No. Mind you, he offered. He’s a kindly lad. But I don’t like sharing beds with people.’ Piers gave a mischievous grin. ‘They either snore or their feet smell.’

Timothy snorted. ‘A bit particular, aren’t you, my lad? There aren’t many who’d pass up the chance of sleeping in a soft bed instead of making shift in some corner or other.’

The boy grimaced. ‘Perhaps not. But I prefer my own company whatever the discomfort. I’ve told you. I’m like that.’

I broke in impatiently on this exchange.

‘So next day, you and the tutor and nurse accompanied your young master to Baynard’s Castle so that the boy could meet his uncle — er. .’

‘Godfrey,’ Timothy supplied.

Piers nodded agreement. ‘And also two of his brothers, Blaise and Bevis, who are in attendance on their uncle.’

‘There seem to be a lot of these Fitzalans,’ I commented drily.

‘Oh, there are. A lot of them,’ my younger companion commented happily.

‘And did Master Gideon meet his kinsmen?’

‘I think so. I wasn’t present, of course. Well, he wouldn’t need me to say hello to his uncle and brothers, now would he?’

‘And then what happened?’

‘Sir Francis informed Gideon that he was to join the king in the royal apartments in the Tower the following day, but that we would be spending that night, Friday night, at the castle. But — ’ he shrugged — ‘we never did get to the Tower. The next morning, Tutor Machin was found dead in his room — his locked room — and Master Gideon had disappeared.’ He was silent for a moment, biting a thumbnail, then added, ‘It must be magic. I reckon it was Mother Copley. I’ve always said she was a witch.’

Timothy glanced up sharply.

‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ I reprimanded Piers, ‘not even in jest. Particularly not in jest. You know very well that witchcraft is a hanging offence. Burning at the stake for a woman.’

The boy looked frightened. ‘I–I didn’t mean it,’ he stammered. In — in Yorkshire, where I come from, “witch” can be a term applied to any old woman.’

I didn’t believe him. Neither did Timothy.

‘You also mentioned the word “magic”,’ he pointed out sternly.

‘It was a joke,’ was the desperate reply.

I turned the conversation. ‘Dame Copley is an old woman, then?’ Piers hesitated. I surmised that the nurse was most probably somewhere in her late forties or perhaps early fifties. Such an age, though old, would doubtless seem ancient to a lad in the first flush of youth. ‘Older than Mistress Blancheflower?’ I suggested.

‘Maybe, a little,’ he admitted, adding defensively, ‘Well, she’s old.’

‘Not when you’re my age or Master Plummer’s.’ I saw the spymaster shoot me a look and grinned to myself. I was never quite sure how old Timothy really was. Older than he was prepared to acknowledge was my guess. I went on: ‘You say you spent Friday night at Baynard’s Castle. Where did you all sleep?’

Piers scratched his curly head. ‘I know Tutor Machin had a room of his own. If,’ he added derisively, ‘you can call it that. Have you ever slept in the castle, masters?’

‘I have,’ I said feelingly, before Timothy had a chance to explain to this ignoramus that he knew the place like the back of his hand. ‘Some of those so-called rooms are smaller than a monk’s cell. And, believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I was once a novice at Glastonbury Abbey.’ Piers’s face lit with interest at this piece of information, so before he could start asking irrelevant questions, I hurried on: ‘You’re certain, are you, that the tutor had a separate room?’

The boy gave me a withering stare. ‘Naturally I’m fucking sure,’ he answered, using the swear word coldly and deliberately as though to impress me with his manhood. ‘That was where his body was found, Saturday morning — stabbed through the heart and the door bolted on the inside.’

Of course! I could have kicked myself for forgetting such an important fact. I must be more fatigued than I had realized. The long, hard ride yesterday and most of today, with very little sleep in between, had taken its toll,

‘Right!’ I said briskly, trying to sound like a man in full command of his wits. ‘Where did young Fitzalan sleep? With Dame Copley?’

‘When we were at home in Yorkshire, he did. But since we came here, to Minster Lovell, he had a chamber of his own. Sir Francis’s instructions. He said if Master Gideon was in training for knighthood, he couldn’t still be sharing a room with his nurse. Lord! What a squawk she set up! Said Master Gideon wasn’t strong, that she’d been entrusted with his welfare by Lady Fitzalan, that if anything happened to him she’d hold Sir Francis personally responsible. In the end, she wore the poor man down until he let her have the adjoining room. But at Baynard’s Castle, I don’t know where he slept, sir. Not with her, that’s for certain, because it was she raised the alarm the following morning when she discovered he was missing.’