Kate Sedley - The Green Man

I stayed close to Albany, riding behind the two squires, watching carefully for any hostile move on the part of either one of them; or on the part of Davey Gray, James Petrie or the groom. However, as the days went painfully by, nothing happened except that I became ever more weary and saddle-sore, while the conviction grew in me that the threat from his late brother’s retainers was merely a figment of Albany’s over-fertile imagination.

Eventually, I told him so and demanded to be released from his employ.

‘My lord, I beg you to tell Duke Richard that you have been mistaken and no longer have need of my services.’

It was the evening of the 17th day of June, and the entire army was encamped outside the walls of York in readiness for the Duke of Gloucester’s triumphal entry into the city the following morning. This was the heartland of Prince Richard’s vast northern palatinate, and he would have been less than human had he not wanted us all to see how revered and beloved he was by those whom he regarded as his own special people. Albany, already short-tempered at the prospect — realizing, perhaps, that he would never command such devotion — was in no mood to grant my request or even to consider it.

‘Do you think I’m a fool?’ he barked. ‘A hysterical woman who jumps at shadows? Besides, it’s not just these five, one of whom may — all right! I admit it — may have been suborned by my brother, James. But there are those, too, in the English camp who wish me ill and doubt my good intentions once the Scottish crown is set on my head. No! I will not release you, Roger. You are the only person I trust wholeheartedly; the only person who has proved himself my friend — and that at some risk to himself. Now, please don’t raise this subject again, or I shall be forced to advise my cousin Gloucester that you are unwilling to obey his orders.’

Albany had gone very red in the face, and I found myself wondering, in a detached kind of way, if he might not die of an apoplexy and so relieve me of the necessity of looking after him. He was obviously working himself up for another such outburst, accompanied by the further possibility of a seizure, when, just at that moment, James Petrie’s tall, emaciated figure entered the crimson silk pavilion, anxious — or so I gathered from Albany’s reply — to know what clothes his royal master would be wearing on the morrow. His agitation made it plain that Scotland’s honour must be upheld amidst this horde of Sassenachs.

‘The purple velvet and ermine of course,’ Albany snapped. Then, with a shrug of impatience, repeated the words in the broad Scots dialect that I found so hard to follow, in spite of some recognizably English words being embedded in it, like jewels amongst the dross.

James Petrie nodded, apparently satisfied, before adding something else that made Albany yelp in protest.

‘Daybreak?’ He turned to me, aghast. ‘Jamie says we’re entering the city at daybreak! Dear, sweet God in heaven!’

His henchman smiled grimly.

While the duke was still voicing his disgust, in both English and Scots, with some choice French phrases thrown in for good measure, I escaped from the pavilion and went to cool both my head and my temper amongst the other splendid silken tents, topped by their gaily waving pennants. I had strolled some distance, fascinated by all the bustle of a great encampment — the comings and goings, the toing and froing, the many and varied orders shouted and then almost immediately rescinded — when it occurred to me that I had left Albany alone with one of the men he ostensibly distrusted. Yet he had made no move to detain me; just as, four days ago, he had gone hunting in Sherwood Forest, quite content to leave me behind. There was something odd about it all. It was making me very uneasy.

The Aldermen were resplendent in scarlet. There were also dignitaries in crimson, who, someone said, were the Twenty-four — although the twenty-four what I never discovered. Craftsmen and other citizens sweated in their Sunday best as the common folk crammed the narrow alleyways in a wildly cheering throng. Every house was decorated with some token or another; a bunch of flowers, a tapestry hung out of an upper window, knots of ribbon in the duke’s colours of blue and murrey. Women vied to get themselves noticed, flaunting more flesh than was seemly. (Well, not as far as I was concerned. I like the female form, but some, no doubt, objected.)

My lord of Gloucester himself, his face alight with pleasure and happiness, was presented with gifts of a fine milk loaf, ten gallons of wine and a great many very large fish, all of which seemed to be of the extremely pungent varieties. Albany, as guest of honour and future king of Scotland, received a similar offering, but not quite so generous, a fact he acknowledged with a small, ironic quirk of his eyebrow. And afterwards, there were pageants, songs and speeches by the score, and all before the sun had properly gilded the sky above the eastern horizon. For my own part, I groaned inwardly. I could feel in my bones that it was going to be a long, hard day.

Judging by the slightly jaundiced eye that Albany rolled in my direction, he thought so, too. But honour had been satisfied, and vanity appeased, by references to his anticipated kingly status and by the reverence accorded him — although any fool with half a brain would know that these blunt and honest Yorkshiremen were merely buttering him up to please their prince. That Richard of Gloucester was adored — almost worshipped — in these parts was plain to all; the love and warmth radiated towards him everywhere he went was almost palpable. It was doubtful if the king himself, had he been present, could have commanded one tenth of such affection. But not everyone was happy at this demonstration of unbridled loyalty: I noticed my lord of Northumberland, for one, looking as sour as a green apple.

Albany and his immediate entourage, myself included, spent the night at the Augustinian Friary, a favourite lodging, so I was told, of Prince Richard himself when he stayed in York. Tonight, he graciously ceded his place to his guest and withdrew to the Archbishop’s Palace, with orders to his generals that they were to be on the march again at dawn the following day.

‘Such energy,’ Albany complained in that half-mocking tone I was coming to recognize so well.

He was, I reflected, a difficult man to know, who revealed far less of himself than I had thought in the beginning. My original impression of Albany — both during our brief acquaintanceship in Bristol and earlier this year, in London — had been of a shallow man, motivated by vanity and petulance, envy and overweening ambition. He was not the first man, nor, doubtless, would he be the last, to resent having been born a younger son, and to aim at his brother’s crown. But he was less of a George of Clarence than those who so dubbed him (behind his back, it goes without saying) would admit. Over the past weeks, I had come to realize that Albany was not so trivial as popular opinion made him out to be. There was an unfathomable side to his nature that he took great pains to keep hidden; a side of which I had had the barest glimpse just once or twice when his guard had slipped, but so elusive that I could not pin it down. A circumstance that caused me a good deal of apprehension.

‘So, what do you think of the great northern city?’ he asked me as we lay side by side beneath the roof of the friary’s guest-house, on a deeply filled goose-feather mattress in a bed with richly embroidered hangings. ‘This must be your first sight of it, as it is mine.’

‘A very rich city,’ I said. ‘Rich by any standards, north or south. The castle’s a bit of a ruin, but otherwise the buildings are well maintained with plenty of gilding and good paintwork. And the mayoral banquet tonight,’ I added with a certain amount of bitterness, ‘sported enough dishes to feed the five thousand.’