Kate Sedley - Wheel of Fate

I have heard it said that when you are first apprised of some great, earth-shaking event, ever afterwards you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time. And I suppose it says something about the general bathos of my life that when I received the first intimations of the death of King Edward IV, I was coming out of the public latrine on Bristol Bridge.

I had spent the previous weeks happily peddling my goods among the villages and hamlets of north Somerset, revelling in the periods of solitude, enjoying the gossip of cottage and hall and the exchange of views with fellow travellers whom I met on the road. I had seen sunsets and sunrises, meadows knee-high in early morning mist, felt the rain on my face, the sun on my back, and watched the gradual greening of trees and hedgerows as March slid into April. And, above all, especially after the restrictions and restraints imposed on me during the previous year, I had known the bliss of being my own man again and the unfettered pleasures of perfect freedom. Now, I was on my way home, refreshed in mind and body, to Adela and the children. I imagined how their faces would light up at the sight of me, and could hear their welcoming, ecstatic cries of ‘What have you brought us?’.

I had entered the city by the Redcliffe Gate early that morning, and it was as I was crossing Bristol Bridge that the call of nature became too pressing to be ignored any longer. I headed for the public latrine with an injunction to Hercules to ‘Stay there!’. Of course, he followed me in (that dog has no sense of propriety), cocking his leg against the wooden structure in a gesture of male solidarity.

It was as we emerged, a few minutes later, that I was suddenly conscious of people rushing out of the shops and houses on either side of the bridge and running towards the town. And in the distance, I could just make out the clamour of the town crier’s bell and the old Norman-French imperative of ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ (‘Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!’) being shouted at the City Cross, at the junction of High Street, Wine Street, Corn Street and Broad Street. I picked up Hercules and began to follow the crowds; but these had grown in such numbers as we crossed the quayside, that even with my height and girth I was unable to make good progress. My arrival at the top of High Street, dishevelled and out of breath, coincided with the crier’s closing words.

‘The king is dead! Long live our Sovereign Lord, King Edward the Fifth!’

For a moment, I felt winded, but not just from running. I felt stupefied, as though someone had punched me in the guts, and my heart was pounding. More than anyone else in that crowd, I had been preparing myself for this news throughout the past five months, ever since my return from France and the secret mission I had carried out for the Duke of Gloucester. I had known, far better than the anxious people around me, that the king’s health was precarious, but I had secretly been hoping for some miracle that would preserve his life for at least several years to come. But God had not granted the miracle. The future was suddenly dark and insecure.

I realized that the crowds were dispersing. A not unfriendly voice in my ear said, ‘Oi! Move you great dumb ox! Let an honest man get by.’

A man, a brewer to judge by his pungent smell, was shaking my arm and trying to squeeze between me and the Cross. He glanced at my dumbfounded expression and grimaced sympathetically.

‘It’s a bugger, eh? I must get home and tell my goody. She weren’t able to leave the little ’uns when the bell started ringing. She’ll be dying o’ curiosity by now. What is it they say? Woe unto the land when her king is a child? Summat like that. Now if you’ll excuse me, master!’

I grabbed the brewer’s arm. ‘Did you see where the crier went?’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, aye! Heading straight for The Green Lattis, he was. Understandable after all that shouting.’

I thanked him and, ignoring Hercules’s protests — he was all for going straight home now that his nose told him we were so close — I made my way to my own favourite drinking place and pushed my way in.

The main room was full to capacity, the majority of people clustered around the stocky figure of the town crier who was seated in one corner like a king upon his throne, holding court as he was begged for more information than he could possibly impart. And no one was asking the right questions, I could hear that. Most of them — mainly from women — were concerning the ‘poor queen’, the ‘sweet princesses’ and the ‘dear little king’. This time, using my bodily strength to good effect, I shouldered a path through the crowd, turfed an apprentice off the stool next to master crier and dropped an indignant Hercules on the floor beside me.

There was a sudden lull in the vociferous questioning and the crier turned towards me, displaying a furious frown.

I ignored this and asked abruptly, ‘Is the royal messenger still with the mayor?’

‘Of course not,’ was the truculent reply. ‘He was off to Wells as soon as he’d given us the news.’ I noted the ‘us’ and the slight swelling of the chest that accompanied it. ‘He has the whole of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall to cover before the end of the week.’

‘But he must have given you and the mayor and council — ’ I was careful to put them in that order, with a slight emphasis on the ‘you’ — ‘some information. For instance, when did King Edward die?’

The crier was mollified, even pleased now by my interruption. Here was his chance to stress his importance.

‘Last Wednesday. April the ninth. They’ll be moving his body to Windsor sometime this week, for burial in St George’s Chapel.’

‘Where’s the Duke of Gloucester?’

‘Way up north apparently. At one of his castles in Yorkshire. So goodness knows when they’ll be seeing him in London. He may even send for confirmation of the news. Seemingly he’d received a false report about his brother’s death at the end of March, so he mightn’t believe this one to begin with.’

‘And where’s the Prince of W-? I mean the king?’ How strange it was to be calling that twelve-year-old child by his father’s title. Edward IV had reigned over us for so long.

The crier shrugged. ‘As far as anyone knows at present, still at Ludlow with his uncle, Earl Rivers, and the rest of his household. But he’s bound to be setting out for the capital soon. So the messenger supposed. Well, I mean, stands to reason.’

I nodded and pushed an importunate Hercules aside as he tried to climb into my lap, just to remind me of his presence. He was extremely annoyed, and he had a nasty habit of peeing down my leg when displeased.

I turned again to my informant. The crowd around us had gone very quiet, hanging on his every word.

‘Did the royal messenger happen to say what was happening in London? Is all peaceful there?’

The crier gave a gruff laugh. ‘Far from it, I gather. Rumour has it that the late king, as he was dying, forced Lord Hastings and the Marquis of Dorset — that’s the queen’s elder son from her first marriage-’

‘I know who the Marquis of Dorset is,’ I said irritably.

He gave me a look, but proceeded affably enough. ‘Well, the king insisted on their reconciliation. Seems there’s always been bad blood between them, particularly of late, over some woman. One of the king’s — the late king, that is — mistresses.’ He added on a note of lugubrious satisfaction, ‘If there’s trouble between men, you can wager your last groat it’ll be about a woman.’

I guessed that this lady was Elizabeth (although she was always known as Jane, presumably to distinguish her from the queen) Shore, Edward IV’s favourite mistress, long coveted by both his friend and his elder stepson. I wondered which of them she would choose as her protector now that the king was dead. But such idle speculation was for another occasion. There were more important questions to be answered.