Spirals of Fate

by Tim Holden

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ cried a voice from behind him.

  Alfred froze.

  ‘You thieving nave!’

  The voice was familiar. Alfred twisted his head and looked over his shoulder. At the foot of the trench stood Lynn. His heart sank. He was too ashamed to go red.

  ‘Alfred. You shit!’ she slurred, swaying on her on feet.

  She stumbled, trying to correct her balance, but she fell.

  She was drunk. Alfred got out from the trench and took a breath of fresh air. Lynn lay on the floor, her cheeks damp with tears.

  ‘Lynn, it’s not how it looks,’ said Alfred. He sounded pathetic, yet he felt somehow relieved; her appearance had spared him the ignominy to which his greed had blinded him.

  ‘Yes it is,’ she slurred. ‘I know what you want, you thieving…’ her words trailed off as she tried to push herself up.

  ‘How much have you had to drink?’

  ‘Piss off,’ she tried to spit at him. Her spittle landed on her chin, where it stayed. Her eyes fell shut.

  ‘I’ve spent it,’ she declared.

  ‘Spent what?’

  ‘What you were looking for. My money.’

  ‘Spent it? How? Not on drink?’ The shame in his own indiscretions faded as he realised what she’d done. ‘Your father died and you…’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded defiant. She rolled over onto her front and wriggled onto all fours, rocking back and forth as she searched for the strength to push herself up.

  ‘All of it?’

  Lynn purred and closed her eyes again. ‘I have some change. But you won’t be getting any.’

  She heaved herself upright and rested on her knees. ‘I beat you to it, Alfred.’

  Alfred winced as he thought of his wife searching her dead father for loot. He was staggered she could be so callous. His heart sank for the prospect of his unborn baby in her belly. What kind of child would they have with a mother like this?

  ‘He was a shit,’ she garbled in the direction of her dead father.

  ‘I pity you, Lynn.’ Alfred shook his head.

  Lynn rolled her eyes.

  ‘You’re a fool, woman. Drinking the money we need to feed our child?’

  ‘Shut up, Carter,’ she hiccupped, ‘there’s no baby.’ She started to giggle.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not pregnant. You’re such a,’ she hiccupped again, ‘such a fool. You didn’t realise.’

  Alfred lurched forward and grabbed her shirt, twisting it in his fist.

  ‘I made it up.’

  Alfred raised his fist. She lolled drunkenly in his grip, refusing to meet his stare.

  He let go, and she dropped to the ground.

  She laughed as she tried to push herself up. ‘You fell for it. You’re nothing but a silly boy. And you married me.’ Lynn laughed.

  Alfred felt tears of disbelief welling in his eyes. How could she? What sort of person made something like that up?

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Nobody would ever marry me,’ she hiccupped.

  ‘You’ll go to hell, you lying cow.’

  ‘I’ve been in hell my whole life.’

  Alfred frowned as the revelation sunk in: he wasn’t going to be a father. He’d been tricked. He felt stupid, and yet this was the best news he could have been given. The past few months made no sense. His life had been bent on a lie. Looking at Lynn in the dirt he longed to put a noose around her neck and hang her from the nearest tree and yet, for all her ills, she had just set him free from a purgatory — an existence that he’d wanted nothing more than to escape from.

  Alfred looked back at Richard, lying face down in the trench. Did he know? Alfred wondered. It didn’t matter now.

  Lynn hiccupped.

  ‘You may not have been dealt the best cards in life, Lynn, but that doesn’t give you the right to deny others of their own destiny. I was tricked into marrying you. As far as I’m concerned our marriage is null and void.’

  ‘Not in the eyes of God,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I’ll let you explain that to the devil when you meet him. I got the cottage back. It’s mine now.’

  Lynn snorted, her head lolled from side to side.

  He took a final look at her. ‘Goodbye, Lynn.’

  Alfred turned his back on her drunken laughter and left her alone to wake up next to her father’s grave. He staggered, light-headed, towards the gulley. He looked back towards Norwich, at the battered gatehouse beyond the bridge: Tiniker’s house and the cathedral spire. There was smoke. In the northern part of the city, a building burned, illuminating the grey evening air, and he saw another house on fire in the background.

  Alfred shook his head. He’d had enough trouble for one day. He needed a drink.

  Today he’d taken lives, and been given back his own. What’s more, he’d come out of it owning his own house.

  He managed twenty yards before he fell to his knees and vomited up the contents of his stomach.

  32

  23rd July – The Palace of Whitehall

  Dudley stood in the corner of the council chamber parleying with Archbishop Cranmer in hushed tones. Seymour was the last member to enter the chamber, his complexion even paler than was customary, his stride uneasy, like a man trying to walk on ice. To Dudley’s eye, the lord protector looked like he’d been awake all night. In his wake came the royal herald and another man who looked familiar. Something must have happened. He glanced at Archbishop Cranmer. Dudley racked his brain to remember where he’d seen the tall, sallow man before.

  ‘Be seated,’ said Seymour, doing his best to sound authoritative.

  The assembled men shuffled to their places, Catholics on one side of the table, Protestants on the other.

  Seymour remained on his feet at the head of the table. His two companions beside him. ‘Kett’s rebels have taken Norwich.’

  There was a collective hush.

  Dudley inwardly smiled. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Edward. That’s two cities we’ve lost now, he thought.

  Only York, Bristol and Newcastle of any consequence were left. How long before the next two were inspired to rise up and the latter fell to the emboldened Scots?

  Seymour introduced the royal herald and Augustine Steward, the deputy mayor of Norwich. ‘Mr Steward, please tell the council what you told me.’

  The council sat whilst Steward recalled how the rebels had overwhelmed the city’s defences. He made great play of the fact that many of the city’s inhabitants had refused to take up arms against their fellow countrymen.

  To Dudley, the deputy mayor’s message was clear: They had not the means with which to defend themselves, and nor did they have the appetite locally to resolve what was clearly now a national issue. The deputy mayor was washing his hands of the entire debacle.

  ‘Did you offer them the lord protector’s pardon?’ Dudley was the first to speak up.

  ‘To Kett, yes, in private, then again to the masses once they occupied Norwich. I think it is fair to report that they had little confidence that anything would change once parliament was recalled from its summer recess,’ replied the herald in his effeminate tone.

  ‘You see, gentlemen,’ said Seymour, ‘because of your behaviour, the word of the lord protector now counts for little. It is because of the way you, and those you command, abuse your powers that people have not the confidence to know that they will be treated fairly.’

  Councillors exchanged looks.

  ‘That’s a touch simple, Seymour,’ said Sir William Paget.

  ‘Is it, Sir William? Am I not the one they call The Good Duke? These people are loyal to their king and their lord protector. If we are to control the angst that grips our kingdom, you all have a duty to reform. Otherwise, these disturbances will go on.’

  Dudley clenched his jaw.

  How could Seymour not see that his actions had encouraged the very thing he was accusing them of?

  ‘How many times must I resort to force ag
ainst those that are afflicted by your actions? I won’t do a thing until I receive a solemn promise from each of you that you will take down your own enclosures. Everyone. You must lead by example. All your enclosures must go. Immediately. The good people of this land must see that I am in command and that you are loyal to the reforms that I have promised.

  ‘Your grace, if I may,’ interrupted Dudley, ‘your reforms are well intended, but we risk losing our kingdom to our own people, if not the French or Scots. Believe me, our perils will not be assuaged by removing enclosures. Now is a time for action.’

  ‘You may not,’ declared Seymour. ‘I’ve heard quite enough from the Earl of Warwick recently.’ His voice trembled as he gripped the back of his chair. ‘My duty is to my people, and they are starving.’

  ‘And yet your grace has managed to appropriate sufficient funds to build yourself a new palace on The Strand?’

  Around the chamber you could hear a pin drop. Dudley had said in public what everyone was only prepared to condemn in private. The protector’s hypocrisy exposed, as plain to see as the building site intended for Somerset House.

  ‘Your council, Mr Dudley, is surplus to my requirements. I request that you leave us.’

  Dudley’s head rocked back, his cheeks red with rage.

  ‘You heard me. Your presence at this table is no longer required.’

  Dudley stood up, took one last look at the faces of the councillors and then, against his better judgement, stalked out of the council chamber.

  He needed a walk.

  Seymour seemed to have made up his mind, but surely the loss of Norwich would create some debate. Dudley inhaled the smell of horses, their manure and bedding straw. Better to wait here in the courtyard, he concluded. Seymour couldn’t let a city fall and do nothing, even he wasn’t that stupid. Dudley cursed himself for speaking out too quickly. He would have been better to bide his time, but it was difficult when the solution was so blindingly obvious.

  He took refuge against a wall opposite the stables and studied the assorted buildings that made up the palace. They were as irregular as those who occupied them, part timber frame, others red brick, then the white stone that gave the palace its name. It had all the hallmarks of a place built up gradually over time, without any cohesive, or strategic vision.

  Not unlike the regency council, thought Dudley, who preferred buildings to be uniform and symmetrical.

  A wolfhound ambled across the yard. It stopped to root through the pile of mucky straw beside the stables, discovered a tasty lump of horse muck and made off.

  Here I am, thought Dudley, the most capable general that Seymour has, thrown out on the muckheap. After a career spent advancing his reputation, winning the favour of those above him, John Dudley knew he would never be content with a life without power, rooting out manure at the bottom of the pile. His rightful place was top of the heap.

  *

  It was three hours before council broke. William Parr, The Marquess of Northampton and brother to old King Henry’s last wife Catherine Parr, was the first to emerge to fetch his horse. Parr wouldn’t have been Dudley’s first choice to confide in but, swallowing his pride, he forced himself to approach the young man. Parr wore his ginger hair short and his beard long. It made his bold features seem bigger.

  He put on his leather gloves while the ostler went to fetch his horse from the stables.

  ‘I’m not sure I should be speaking to you, John,’ said Parr, evidently enjoying Dudley’s fall from favour.

  ‘At the very least put my mind at ease that there is a plan to recover this latest debacle.’

  ‘There is. I’m to leave for Norwich with a force of fifteen hundred soldiers and recapture the city.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes,’ grinned Parr.

  ‘But you’ve no experience commanding men in the field?’

  The ostler arrived with a fine black stallion and gave Parr a leg up. ‘I have generals. Besides they’re nothing but a rabble of farmers, poorly armed. No match for a modern fighting force.’

  ‘You’re outnumbered nearly four to one?’

  ‘Jealous are you, John?’ said Parr, looking down from his horse as it wriggled between his legs.

  The sun shining behind his shoulders blinded Dudley’s view.

  ‘You better get used to being in my shadow once I take back Norwich.’

  Dudley fumed. ‘Why won’t he give you more troops?’

  ‘He wants to keep London, and the king, safe. Besides, fifteen hundred skilled soldiers will be more than enough.’

  ‘Don’t rush straight into the city, William, fight them on open ground.’

  ‘That’s your problem, Dudley, always think you know best, telling everyone what they should and shouldn’t do. Look where it has got you. Skulking around stable yards searching for titbits of information. You overplayed your hand, John. What you fail to see is you’re too powerful for the duke. Seymour’s intimidated by you. You’re a threat to him.’

  ‘I was trying to save him from blundering into an even bigger disaster.’ He shook his head, despondently.

  ‘Well, there’s a new order now, John, things are going to be different in the future, Seymour wants to create a commonwealth where all Englishmen prosper. You’re the old guard. Your time was up when King Henry died.’

  ‘Then you better take back Norwich, Parr, otherwise this commonwealth of Seymour’s will only ever be a dream. Take me at my word. You can’t govern with idealism. Fail, and this government falls. Forget politics. You have to get that city back.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I plan to do. Now if you’ll excuse me, John, I have a name to make for myself.’ Parr kicked his stallion.

  As Dudley watched him trot out of the courtyard, he had to concede that perhaps he was jealous. Politics was a poor substitute for the cut and thrust of battle. He was most at home on a horse at the front of an army or at the helm of a ship bristling with cannon. At those things, there was no one better in the land. Poncing around the council table was for the likes of Parr.

  He shouted at the ostler to fetch his horse.

  ‘May I ride with you?’ It was Augustine Steward, the Deputy Mayor of Norwich.

  ‘Don’t think me rude, sire, but I’d rather not. It’s been a trying day, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’ Dudley didn’t like the look of this fellow. There’s nothing as tiring as a provincial man with ideas above his station.

  ‘Of course. Just one question if I may though?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dudley, distractedly.

  ‘Rumours abound about the health of King Edward, is there any substance to them?’

  Without looking up Dudley answered. ‘He’s a sickly child. It wouldn’t surprise me if God had other intentions for him.’

  Steward nodded. ‘Well, based on the calibre of those I’ve observed here today, it might be better for him if he was to die.’ He kicked his horse and ambled out of the courtyard.

  You cheeky bastard, thought Dudley, that’s nigh on treason. Ride up here and pronounce your judgements.

  As he rode the short distance back to his house at Holborn, he wondered if that was it for him, at forty-six years of age, would he ever get the chance to lead men again?

  The gentle rhythm of his horse rocked his body, dislodging the thoughts that crowded his mind. His wife often said the best thing for the inside of man was the outside of a horse. Dudley turned right onto The Strand and caught sight of Somerset House, Seymour’s folly.

  What would happen if Kind Edward died? In all likelihood, his older half-sister Mary would succeed him. Mary was a devout Catholic, her accession to the throne would throw the Pope’s cat amongst the Protestant pigeons. Seymour would no longer have blood ties to the royals and given the strength of his reformist views, he wouldn’t last an hour.

  Unfortunately for Dudley, he’d thrown in his lot with the Protestants, believing it was their doctrine that would prevail.

  Then it dawned on him: a plan formed in his
mind. He kicked his horse and broke into a canter. If he were to topple Seymour, there was not a moment to lose.

  33

  24th July, Framlingham Castle

  The wooden bridge creaked under the thundering hooves of Dudley’s horse. Behind him the sun cast a warm pink glow over the Suffolk market town. The castle, a large flint structure interrupted by a series of rectangular towers, was functional and old fashioned. The tall, red brick chimneys that protruded inelegantly from each tower were the only sign of modernisation. On first glance he thought the castle a deliberate slight to its resident, an out-of-favour member of the royal family. Dudley’s horse, the third he’d ridden that day, came to a halt at the gate. It snorted, exhausted from the thirty-mile canter from Colchester. Foaming spittle dripped from its bit onto the dusty ground as Dudley patted its neck, equally relieved to be here.

  ‘What’s your business, sir?’ enquired the burly man who emerged from the side entrance.

  ‘The Earl of Warwick, to see Princess Mary.’

  The man offered a quizzical look. ‘Normally your sort has a retinue?’

  ‘This isn’t a normal visit,’ retorted Dudley.

  ‘Is she expecting you?’

  ‘Now be a good fellow tell her John Dudley is here seeking an audience with her on important matters of state.’

  The guard weighed up his options. ‘Very well, wait here, please.’

  A runner was dispatched and soon disappeared into the bailey.

  ‘I’ve ridden ninety miles today, I need to get off this horse, let me through,’ insisted Dudley.

  ‘Of course,’ said the guard recovering his manners, ‘forgive me, sire, we can’t be too careful with all the troubles in these parts.’

  He took the horse’s reins, and Dudley swung his right leg over the horse’s rump and landed on the ground with a thump. His legs were shaky, his old war injury on his right leg ached. Even he had to concede he was getting too old to make such long journeys in one day. As he regained his balance, he let go of the saddle.