Barbara DENVIL - Blessop's Wife

He shook his head. ‘I doubt it’s more than two of the clock, and still night. You must sleep longer.’

She wriggled up against the pillows, looking back earnestly at him. ‘There’s been something on my mind for some days. If I say it now, then I can dream sweet again. It’s about Jon. So I have to say I’m sorry.’

Andrew smiled, slow to decipher her words. ‘There are only two of us to blame,’ he said. ‘Jon Spiers, and myself.’

Outside, the thunder rolled like the echoes of cannon fire. Inside, the warmth contained them in a cavern of silent shadows. The bed curtains, half-closed, became a secret chamber within the chamber. The high bedposts and their carved intricacies, marked the boundaries. The hanging silks were the containing walls. Above them the tester’s fraying raggedness ballooned, embroidered in dust. Each small movement, each sigh of intimacy, was a whispered promise of pleasure. Engulfed by pillows all in disarray from their previous lovemaking, Tyballis wiped away sleep’s stickiness from the corners of her eyes. ‘But you see,’ she explained, ‘when I was Marrott’s prisoner, I saw Jon at that house. Marrott called him the “usual messenger” but I just thought you’d sent him there – that it was all one of your tricks, that Jon was helping you, spying and taking false messages. But I should have warned you, just in case. So, I was to blame – just a little. And don’t say you’re to blame, when you’re not at all.’

‘What spy worth his salt,’ Andrew smiled, ‘does not recognise the traitor in his own household?’

Tyballis smoothed her hand against his cheek. ‘You didn’t even trust me when you first knew me. Now I understand why.’

‘Trust creates vulnerability. It is not a gift I am usually capable of giving.’

‘I trust people before I think about it. Silly perhaps, when you remember who I was married to.’

‘And yet,’ Andrew smiled, leaning over to trace her body from navel to thigh, ‘neither of us suspected Jon Spiers.’

‘He was always asleep. That’s another way of hiding, isn’t it? Perhaps that’s why he did what he did. To feel more important.’

Andrew leaned back beside her, staring over the bed’s footboard at the dying ashes. ‘Why Spiers did what he did does not interest me. I am more concerned as to why I failed to discover it. He used Luke’s name when selling poison and trading information. I was told this, and it distracted me. But I should have guessed. Jon’s child Ellen was the only one who saw how I opened the chest containing the arsenic. A better lockpick perhaps, than I realised, and being keen to prove her pride, no doubt later showed her father. Tomorrow his wife will take her children back to the farm. She refused my invitation to remain here. I am not surprised.’

Tyballis snuggled to his side and slipped her arm around his waist where his body was smooth and strong and flat. ‘It was always pride, wasn’t it, Felicia sticking up for Jon and pretending he was grand when we all knew he wasn’t. Back on the farm she’ll say Jon died a hero – helping you fight off the attack. She’ll tell her boys that when they grow up. Ellen may remember, but she probably doesn’t understand what really happened. They’ll all grow up admiring their father’s memory.’

‘Does lying ever prove sweeter than the truth?’ Andrew’s words were muffled against her breasts. ‘Perhaps it is, since truth is all such nonsense. My memories of my father – of both of those who claimed fatherhood over me – are not so sweet. But in the end the hero and the traitor are the same man. It depends who judges, and the side on which that judge sits.’

Across the thousand crowded roofs of London, the sunshine blazed. It sparkled on crooked chimney pots and glistened on the wet yellow slime of the cobbles below. The passing clouds reflected across a myriad of mullioned panes. The duke stood against the same clouds, and although he was not a tall man, he appeared as a giant, with his head in the sky. Though considerably taller, Andrew spoke to him as to that giant. They walked together along the battlements of Baynard’s Castle, the busy river way below and the city stretched out beyond.

‘I do not consider it a failure.’ The duke’s voice, blown by the wind, seemed unusually gentle.

‘Yet Geoffrey Marrott’s escape troubles me,’ replied his companion. ‘I cannot even know if his late highness died by Marrott’s hand – or not. The lack of proof, the unknown intentions – these must usually exonerate any suspect. But there is no doubt that Marrott pedalled poisons, wherever those poisons may have finished. Yet he has escaped to Brittany and will never be accused of his crimes.’

‘He will die when his time comes,’ nodded the duke, ‘as shall we all. In the meantime he has lost everything – power, riches, ambition, hope. And vengeance belongs to the Lord, and should not be our concern.’

‘Not vengeance, but justice, your grace. In that I accept failure.’

The duke continued. ‘He will be attainted and lose his title when parliament sits. Meanwhile Throckmorton has no heirs. Take his house if you want it.’

Andrew bowed slightly but shook his head, the feather in his cap flattened by the wind. ‘If it pleases you, your grace, I prefer not. It retains an atmosphere of petty wretchedness and memories of threat.’

‘Something in the Strand, then. Near enough to the city, yet just a stone’s throw from Westminster and the court, should I need you.’

‘Apologies, your grace.’ Andrew smiled. ‘But the palaces of The Strand slope down to the river. Sadly, my intended bride does not care for the Thames.’

The duke’s sables ruffled, but the sun was in his eyes, turning his sudden smile golden. ‘You are difficult to please, Mister Cobham. So, where shall I house you, then?’

‘Indeed, I have no idea, your grace.’

The duke laughed. ‘No doubt you will make up your mind at some time, and then I shall be happy to oblige you. In the meantime you will oblige me by choosing some property, not too modest if you please, and within my reach. I shall continue to need you, my friend. By tradition a crown increases one’s enemies, rather than diminishing them.’

‘You will be a great king, your grace. Of that I have no doubt.’

The duke frowned. ‘A strong leader, sir, that I can promise you.’ He glanced up as a flock of swallows twisted, looping against the bright sky, briefly darkening the sunshine. He appeared to be talking to the sun. ‘The council has now drawn up the official request for parliament to approve. I shall accept the crown in memory of my father,’ he said softly, ‘who would have made a greater king, had God permitted. And for the sake of my son and his sons, and for the absolute exclusion of all those who – perhaps – schemed to murder my brother.’ He turned back to Andrew, smiling suddenly. ‘And principally for the weal of the people, who need the security of the leadership I can bring. I am not loath, nor reluctant, now I have made my decision. All my life has passed in training, and now I see the reason. I enjoy leadership. My birthright. My pleasure.’

‘I believe England will share in that pleasure, your grace.’

‘And your pleasure, Andrew? What is that to be?’ The duke drew his great sable-lined coat around him as the wind sharpened. His black embroidered sleeves, fur-cuffed, trailed a little across the cold stone. ‘You speak of your intended bride. So, you turn respectable at last.’

Andrew Cobham wore his old grey velvets, seams gaping. He did not seem to notice. He said, ‘I will marry Tyballis Blessop, if she accepts me, your grace, once the final banns are called.’