Kate Sedley - Wheel of Fate

‘Most likely.’ Oswald nodded in agreement. ‘There has never been any love lost between the Lord Chamberlain and the queen’s family. Matters can only get worse now that the king is no longer present to arbitrate and keep them all in order.’ He sighed. ‘I shall be relieved, I confess, when my Lord of Gloucester gets here.’

‘No word of his imminent arrival?’ I asked. ‘I noticed that they were making ready at Crosby’s Place when I passed this morning.’

At this point, Arbella Rokeswood intervened to remark acidly that dinner was on the parlour table and that unless we all came at once the food would be cold.

The parlour was at the back of the house, a large room overlooking a wild tangle of garden; a stretch of unkempt grass dotted with shrubs and trees and shadowed here and there by odd slopes and hollows. It was a children’s paradise, and I could hear my stepson’s excited whispers as he pointed out to Elizabeth the various hiding places it contained and the opportunity it presented for any number of games. Adam eyed them both thoughtfully but said nothing except to insist on sitting next to me at table, from time to time stroking any part of my anatomy that was available to him and smiling at me whenever I happened to glance his way.

‘He’s missed you,’ Adela remarked quietly, as she took her place on his other side.

I realized she must be right, the more so because he was an independent child, not given to overt displays of affection. I felt a sudden surge of guilt. I left my family alone far too much. But I had to earn our daily bread at my chosen calling and furthermore, although in the past I had resolutely refused all offer of financial help from the Duke of Gloucester, of late I had accepted his assistance to a considerable degree, a fact which made all our lives a good deal more tolerable. Affluent, even. But the extra money was not a simple gift. There were always strings attached. And of late that had meant being away from home long periods at a time. More money in my pocket or more time spent with my wife and children, that seemed to be the choice. It was not an easy one.

The dinner was excellent, and it was with relief that I realized that whatever other economies the Godsloves practised, they did not stint on food and drink. A thick cabbage broth was followed by a pair of plump fowls served with a dressing of sage and wild garlic and stuffed with onions and hard boiled eggs, everything washed down with home-brewed ale. A dish of stewed apples and figs completed a meal with which even I could find no fault.

The talk at table was at first desultory, all the women, with the exception of Adela, anxiously concerned with Oswald’s well-being. Did he approve of the new sauce for the fowls? Was that particular chair comfortable enough for him? Was he tired after his morning’s work? How had such-and-such a case gone? Had it been as difficult as he feared? These questions were succeeded by extolling his achievements, both sisters and the housekeeper vying with one another in the extravagance of her praise, all of which the recipient appeared to take as no more than his due. Such adulation was obviously commonplace, and I reflected that I had never before come across so tightly knit and so self-regarding a family. I felt sorry for Arbella and for anyone else who tried to infiltrate their ranks.

After a while, however, there inevitably came a lull in the conversation, so I took advantage of the sudden silence to demand more details concerning the deaths, illnesses and accidents that seemed to be dogging their lives.

‘Do you truly believe that someone is trying to kill you all?’ I asked, allowing a note of scepticism to creep into my voice.

No one answered for a moment or two, the sisters and Arbella looking at Oswald as though waiting for permission to speak. But when he merely shrugged, Celia said firmly, ‘Yes.’

Clemency added, ‘It certainly seems a possibility. First, our elder stepbrother was killed in a tavern brawl. A common enough occurrence you might say, but when added to a sickness that almost claimed my life, to my sister Charity’s death, to my half-brother Martin’s death and now to Sybilla’s near fatal accident, it seems too much to be mere coincidence.’

‘What was your illness, Mistress Godslove?’ I enquired, as two young kitchen maids appeared to clear the board of our dirty plates and to place dishes of nuts and raisins in the centre of the table along with a jug of dark, very sweet wine.

Clemency smiled. ‘If you are to stay and help us,’ she said, ‘you may as well address us by our Christian names or there will be confusion between my two sisters and myself. As for my sickness, it was a fever with a headache so severe that I could not bear light anywhere near my eyes, vomiting and a rash. Roderick Jeavons, who has been our physician for many years now, declared at the time that it was a form of brain fever and that I would die. Indeed, they tell me — ’ she nodded towards her brother and half-sister — ‘that I was delirious for days, and that when my mind finally cleared I was so weak, they were convinced I had not long to live. So while I was lucid, they sent for Father Berowne, our parish priest, who confessed me and administered extreme unction. But in the end, the Lord spared me and I recovered.’

‘When was this?’ I asked.

It was Celia who answered. ‘The year before last, towards Christmas.’

I looked at Clemency. ‘And at the time, did you accept the diagnosis that it was brain fever?’

She nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Certainly. None of us made any connection then between our stepbrother’s death and my illness. It was only last spring when Charity died after eating mushrooms, and when, the following autumn, my half-brother, Martin, was set upon by a gang of youths near Cheapside and killed, that we began to question whether my sickness really had been brain fever or some form of poisoning; when we began to wonder if someone is taking some sort of revenge against us.’ She returned my gaze steadily. ‘You’re sceptical. I can see it in your face. You think, like Oswald — or as Oswald says he thinks — that these events, occurring one after the other, are nothing more than coincidence. But I would remind you that now Sybilla has almost been killed by a block of stone falling from the scaffolding around the Bishop’s Gate. It bruised her right shoulder very badly. An inch or two more to the left and she would undoubtedly have been crushed to death.’

There was silence while I pondered my hostess’s words. Out of the corner of one eye, I could see Adela regarding me anxiously, afraid that I was going to refuse to help her cousins. And it was on the tip of my tongue to do so. I had no wish to linger in the capital. I wanted to go home and take my family with me. I felt no interest in any of these people and had not the slightest desire to get embroiled in their affairs. It would be easy enough to convince myself that these disasters had nothing to do with one another; that they were simply isolated incidents which, although they might appear sinister when taken all together, were really unconnected. And indeed I had no need to convince myself. I was almost sure that that was the case. But it was the ‘almost’ that bothered me.

Even so, I was just about to declare my opinion in no uncertain terms when Celia said, ‘Of course, it really started, not with your sickness, Clem, but with Reynold being knifed to death in that fight in the Voyager.’

‘I did mention that,’ her half-sister excused herself.

‘Wait a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘Reynold? The Voyager?’ A memory stirred. I suddenly recollected Margaret Walker mentioning the fact that Morgan Godslove’s second wife had been the Widow Makepeace, whom he had met in London. ‘Are you telling me that your stepbrother was Reynold Makepeace, the landlord of St Brendan the Voyager in Bucklersbury?’