Kate Sedley: The Green Man

‘You!’ I exclaimed, recoiling.

‘Me, indeed!’ he returned, arranging his narrow features in a smile as false as a woman’s promise to obey her husband. He added reproachfully, ‘You might sound pleased to see me.’

‘Well, I’m not!’ My reply was uncompromising.

He sniffed the air suggestively. ‘You’ll note I’ve brought my welcome with me.’

I pointed out that that in itself was unusual enough to make me suspicious.

He tried to look hurt, but gave up the attempt after a short struggle and grinned instead. Before he could say anything else, however, Adela appeared from the kitchen clutching a large ladle with which she had been basting the roast.

‘What does he want, Roger?’ she demanded truculently. ‘Whatever it is, don’t agree to it.’

Timothy clicked his tongue reprovingly, but offered no comment; a fact that made me uneasier than ever. This was his cue to wheedle, ‘It’s for Duke Richard, Roger. He needs your services. You can’t refuse him.’ But he didn’t. He merely stared hard at me and said nothing, although with such an air of authority in both look and silence that my heart began to beat uncomfortably fast.

‘Is he staying to supper?’ my wife asked ungraciously, ignoring our unwanted guest by the simple expedient of turning her shoulder to him and addressing me.

I shrugged. ‘I suppose he’ll have to. He provided it, after all.’

Timothy bowed ironically.

‘You’d better come and have it then. It’s ready,’ Adela snapped, and marched ahead of us into the kitchen.

The three children — my daughter, Elizabeth, my stepson, Nicholas, and Adela’s and my son, Adam — were already seated around the table. The latter, who would be four the following month, was now considered old enough to sit on his little chair without the necessity of being tied to it; although the way in which he was wriggling around suggested that a few falls were in store for him before he mastered the art of behaving properly.

Adela had already removed the pork from the spit and put it on a plate which she placed in front of me. She handed me a knife as I took my seat at the head of the table, at the same time waving Timothy Plummer to a vacant stool between herself and Adam. She had boiled some vegetables to accompany the meat — cabbage and root vegetables and those little water parsnips known as skirretts — and she spooned a portion on to each plate as I handed them round, a proceeding accomplished in complete silence. Even our normally ebullient brood seemed cowed, as though aware that something unusual was going on. Finally, when everyone had been served, I said grace and picked up my knife, spearing a mouth-wateringly large chunk of pork on its tip; enough to preclude conversation for several minutes.

At last, however, I had emptied my mouth sufficiently to ask, ‘So, why are you here, Master Plummer? What do you want with me?’

If he noticed the formality of my approach, he ignored it. He put down his knife, sucked his greasy fingers and beamed.

‘Roger, my lad, this is your lucky day!’ I knew at once that I was in serious trouble.

‘You’re going to Scotland.’

Scotland? Scotland! As well be invited to go on a trip to find the elusive Isle of Brazil or the lands of Prester John.

‘No,’ I said flatly.

‘No!’ echoed Adela with even greater emphasis.

‘No!’ yelled Adam at the top of his powerful lungs, giving us, for once, his unstinted support, even if he didn’t understand why.

I paused in the act of chewing and took a deep breath.

‘Tell the Duke,’ I said, ‘that much as I regret having to refuse any request of his, on this occasion I must decline. Scotland is too far afield. It’s a journey that is bound to take months and I cannot abandon my wife and children to fend for themselves for so long. God in heaven, man! You must know what conditions have been like these past months. I haven’t enough money to leave Adela safely provided for, for such a length of time.’ I added bitterly, ‘It’s not like His Grace to be so unreasonable — unless, of course, he isn’t aware of what’s been going on in the country at large?’

‘Of course Duke Richard’s aware!’ Timothy bit back, dropping all pretence at amiability. ‘Especially living in the north, where matters are a great deal worse than they are down here, in the south, I can assure you. But that’s beside the point. Mistress Chapman and your family will be provided for — well provided for, I promise you — during your absence.’

‘No,’ I said again, shaking my head slowly from side to side to make certain that he understood. ‘I am not going to Scotland for any consideration whatsoever, and that is my final word. What? That heathenish country, where the barbarians can’t even speak English like civilized human beings! No, I thank you. And you may tell His Grace of Gloucester so with my blessing.’

Timothy regarded me pityingly while he removed shreds of meat from between his teeth with the point of his knife. Then he heaved a dramatic sigh. (He really should have tried his hand as Judas Iscariot in one of the Easter Passion plays.)

‘I’m afraid you don’t quite understand, Roger.’ He smiled gently. ‘This isn’t a request or an appeal to your friendship or better nature. This is a royal command, not just by the Duke, but by the King himself.’

I refused to believe it. ‘You won’t coerce me into whatever it is you want me to do by telling lies. I will not go to Scotland.’

For answer, Timothy reached into the pouch at his waist and, with his free hand, withdrew a folded parchment with an important looking wax disc attached.

‘The king’s personal seal,’ he said. ‘This is my authority to take you back to London with me, when I return, and from there on to Northamptonshire, to the king’s castle at Fotheringay. Do you want to read it? I believe you can read.’

He knew perfectly well that I could read, and write, too. Brother Hilarion had taught me to do both, and many other things besides, during my novitiate at Glastonbury Abbey. It was not that good old man’s fault that I had rejected the cloistered life and decided on the freedom of the open road. But now that freedom was being eroded. I put up a fight, even though I knew in my heart it was useless.

‘Northamptonshire? Make up your mind. I thought I was going to Scotland.’

Timothy pushed aside his empty plate. Adela had also stopped eating, but that, I could tell, was due to a sudden lack of appetite. I made a pretence of continuing my supper, but I, too, had ceased to be hungry. Only the children continued to mop up the meat and vegetable juices on their plates with hunks of barley bread.

‘Fotheringay first, then on to Berwick and, finally, Scotland,’ Timothy explained.

There was an even more pregnant pause before I said in a taut voice that didn’t seem to be my own, ‘Someone told me that Berwick is under siege.’

‘So it is,’ he answered crisply. ‘It’s all right, Roger. Don’t look like that. You’re not going to be asked to do any fighting.’

I laid my knife down very slowly and deliberately in order to disguise the fact that my hand was shaking. Adela stood up and began pouring ale for us all: some of it was spilled on the table. Timothy smiled understandingly. It was as much as I could do to stop myself from leaping up and rearranging those smugly sympathetic features.

‘Perhaps,’ I said carefully, ‘you might like to explain what this is all about, before we go any further.’

The Spymaster General lifted his horn beaker to his lips. I could tell that he was savouring not just the ale, but the moment, as well.

‘I’m very much afraid, Roger, that this is a predicament for which you have only yourself to blame; a situation which has arisen — as far as you are concerned — because of your inability to keep that nose of yours out of affairs that aren’t your business.’