Murder Most Medieval

by Martin Greenburg

  “How?”

  “There’s been a meeting of the king’s council.” Bishop Pecock amended that. “Of some of the king’s council.” Then amended again. “Not really of the council but of those my lord of Suffolk thought would be of most use in dealing with the matters raised by the letter, as well as a few others of us to make the matter more credible, we being not suspect of being on one side more than another but expected to follow what we were told concerning conclusions to be drawn from the letter, you understand…”

  With the suspicion that time would run out long before Bishop Pecock did, York interrupted, “What did it say?” Then more formally, to soften that rudeness, “I pray you, what was in it?”

  Not seeming bothered to be interrupted, probably used to it, Bishop Pecock promptly shut his eyes and quoted, frowning at the words to make sure he had them, “ ‘Moleyns has the answers he sought. All is known. Do what you can.” “

  The chill that had come on York beside Davydd’s body deepened. A warning to him that “all is known” left far too many directions from which he might be attacked, beginning surely with whatever “answers” Moleyns had been seeking. Bishop Adam Moleyns of Chichester, Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal, was Suffolk’s creature first and last and always, and whatever he had been seeking would not be to York’s good. Now, with this letter in hand, Moleyns could charge anything against him, and Suffolk would claim the letter as proof that the charges, whatever they were, were true.

  “Is it signed?” York asked, annoyed to hear that his voice was trying to twist along with his stomach.

  Bishop Pecock looked at him reproachfully. “Of course it’s not signed. Put name to it of someone who could be asked and would not only deny it but maybe be able to prove the falsehood? Best to leave it with only your name and your denials to be dealt with.”

  The shape of the trap was becoming clearer by the moment and as yet York saw no way out of it. Who had been fool enough to send him such a letter?

  “Except, of course, that everything about the letter is false,” Bishop Pecock said as if stating an openly obvious truth.

  York stared at him, then said, sharp with disbelief, “Why do you say that? How do you know? You have proof?”

  “Assuredly.” Bishop Pecock sounded surprised even to be asked.

  “What?”

  With the open pleasure of a scholar only too happy to present his thoughts, Bishop Pecock said readily, “To begin. I came to pray over your man because I heard Bishop Ayscough say as the household was coming out of morning mass that there was a murdered Welshman behind the Exchequer. Afterward, with thought upon that, it seems to me a strange thing for my lord bishop of Salisbury to know and be commenting upon there and at that hour. You see, even though it was something known, obviously, it was not widely known, the hour being still very early, or others would have been talking of it, too, and no one was, only my lord bishop, and why would he know of it before anyone else since, on the face of it, it was no matter that should come to him at all, let alone be first thing in the day, before even mass, yes?”

  “Yes,” York granted, having kept pace with that fairly well.

  Bishop Pecock nodded, happy they were still together in it, and went on, “Now, if the premise is accepted that Reason governs all that happens—and we can surely accept that it does— then if a thing seems without Reason, there is nonetheless surely Reason behind it, and if one follows by Reason from what is presently known toward what is presently unknown, if, in other words, one follows with Logic the way that Reason leads, we can come to the understanding of anything, even of God, who surely gave us the gift of Reason for exactly that purpose.”

  Afraid there was little time left before Suffolk moved openly against him and remembering that one of the few things he had heard of Bishop Pecock was that he talked a great deal about things no one wanted to listen to, York cut short the explanation—if that was what it was—with, “Bishop Pecock…”

  “Raynold,” he said absently, his mind still mainly elsewhere. “Pecock‘ is a rather unlikely name, on the whole, don’t you think? I like it better that my friends call me Raynold.”

  Letting it go by that he was disconcerted to be thought a friend, York asked, “How does Reason reckon in this?”

  “Ah. Yes.” Bishop Pecock veered easily back to where he had been. “Given the premise that it was unreasonable for Bishop Ayscough to take interest in this dead Welshman—or rather, that it seemed unreasonable but must not have been—I took closer look than I might otherwise have at this whole matter of your man being dead and the letter and found that there are certain things to be noted about both, but to begin with the letter…”

  York held up a hand, stopping him because across the room Master Babthorpe had appeared in the doorway and was asking the servant there for leave to enter. York nodded permission and Master Babthorpe crossed the room and made a bow that included them both but with a curious look at Bishop Pecock, so that York said smoothly, unwilling for him to know anything he need not, “My lord of Saint Asaph’s has just come to tell me what disposition is being made for my man’s body And you’re here… ?”

  He left the question hanging, bringing Master Babthorpe to answer, “My lord of Suffolk asks that you come to him in the lesser council chamber, if you would be so good, your grace. And you also, my lord,” he added to Bishop Pecock.

  “Only my lord of Suffolk?” York demanded.

  “And a few others. They’re presently there, so if you would come as soon as may be…”

  “You mean now,” York said bluntly.

  Master Babthorpe agreed with another slight bow. “If you would be so good.”

  Be so good as to come and not so foolish as to refuse, York thought, but aloud said evenly, letting himself show nothing but confidence, “I pray you tell my lord of Suffolk and the others that I’m on my way.”

  THE LESSER COUNCIL CHAMBER was a room meant to impress, not large but well-proportioned, with a mullioned window looking out on the king’s garden and the walls hung with painted tapestries showing the Judgment of Paris over the Golden Apple—perhaps not the best of choices for somewhere wise decisions were supposed to be made, York always thought—and the ceiling beams painted with patterns and mottoes concerning Justice and Truth—neither of which, York suspected, would have much place here today.

  As expected, Suffolk, Bishop Ayscough, and Bishop Moleyns were there: Suffolk at the head of the council table, facing the door, the other two on the sides immediately to his right and left. It was who else was there that mattered, and York was not displeased to find, ranged down Bishop Ayscough’s side of the table, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Cromwell, and Lord Stourton. They were men who could, as Bishop Pecock had said, be expected to follow what conclusions they were led to about the letter, but they were also men who would be swayed by facts rather than partisanship with Suffolk, and that gave York at least a hope of fairness. It was a small hope but illogically somewhat grown because of Bishop Pecock, who had probably been included as a make-weight. Three bishops and three lords to judge between York and whatever Suffolk came up with against him.

  Now, as York crossed toward the table, one of Suffolk’s men pulled out the chair set by itself across from Buckingham, Cromwell, and Stourton. To sit there would leave York facing them much like a felon before a jury, with Suffolk, Ayscough, and Moleyns as his “judges” at the table’s head. Making no haste and allowing no sign of unease, York made a small bow of his head to his peers, then went deliberately to the high-backed chair at the near end of the table, pulled it out for himself, and sat down to face Suffolk along the table’s length.

  Coming in behind him, Bishop Pecock went to sit in the pulled-out chair, thanked the man for it, and settled himself comfortably, resting his clasped hands on the tabletop in front of him.

  Suffolk gave the briefest of frowns, then quickly smoothed it away, returned to his usual gloss of good manners and ingrained satisfaction with himself. He was a well-feat
ured man and knew it and used it and had charm enough and a sufficient degree of wit to keep the king pleased with him and work other lords around to seeing things his way. He would have willingly worked York around, too, but York could not get past his own belief that Suffolk, regardless of charm and excellent good manners, was dangerously shortsighted concerning the long-term consequences of what he did.

  In return Suffolk chose to consider him an enemy, to be shoved and kept from power as far as possible, and said at him now, “Well, York, we’ve a problem on our hands, it seems,” without bothering to hide it was a problem that pleased him.

  “Indeed?” York returned evenly. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Suffolk waited for more but was forced to go on without it, saying somewhat tersely, “It seems a man of yours has been found murdered…”

  “Seems?” York cut in with mild surprise. “I thought it certain that he’s found and equally certain that he was murdered.”

  Thrown out of his course, Suffolk fumbled, “Yes. Well. Be that as it may…” and lost track of where he was, and Bishop Ayscough put in sharply, “The point is that there was a letter on your man addressed to you with matter in it that raises troublesome questions.”

  York turned a cool look his way. The Bishop of Salisbury was a gray-featured, thrusting man, said to be more bane than blessing to his bishopric, and with no reason to expect his good will in any case, York said at him peremptorily, holding out a hand, “Let me see this letter I keep hearing about.”

  As quick looks and hesitation passed between Suffolk and Ayscough, Buckingham reached to take a paper lying open in front of Suffolk, saying, “Show it to him. It won’t change anything,” and shoved it down the table.

  York took his time reading it despite there was only what Bishop Pecock had quoted: Moleyns has the answers he sought. All is known. Do what you can.

  “Read the superscription, too,” Bishop Ayscough said, and York turned the paper over to what had been the outside when the page had been thrice folded on itself and sealed. There, in dark ink and a firm hand, was written, For the Duke of York, from Normandy, to he read in all haste.

  York looked at Suffolk, said, “Well?” and shoved the letter back along the table.

  It was Bishop Pecock who put out a hand and took it. No one objected, probably no one heeded because, as Buckingham had said, it said what it said, no matter who had it.

  “You see the difficulty?” Suffolk said, his course recovered. “Someone has seen fit to send you a strong warning that ‘all is known.” Now, as to the answers Bishop Moleyns has been seeking…

  York shifted his look coldly to the Bishop of Chichester. “We all know what he’s been seeking. We all know he had his nose in places last year when he was in Normandy. And didn’t find anything.” But that had been when York first understood how deep Suffolk’s distrust of him ran. No sooner had he come back to England, than Moleyns had been off to Normandy, seeking some evidence of York’s ill-doing in either his governing or his finances or preferably in both, to the point of offering to pay the travel-price of anyone willing to come to England and give evidence. No one had come.

  “Questions have continued,” Moleyns said with high-nosed dignity. Small-built, he carried himself large and was beginning to be the same around his middle, too, from deeply indulged rich living. “Just of late we’ve had answers and not ones you’ll like.”

  “Such as?” York asked.

  “Such as testimony…”

  “Suborned,” York said.

  “… and witnesses…”

  “Bought.”

  “… and documents…”

  “Forged.”

  Moleyns’s voice rose a little. “… of your abuse of the moneys entrusted to you, your favoring of some men—Scales, Oldhall, Ogaard, to be precise—over others in the matter of payments for no reason but your whim, your mishandling of both men and funds to the point where presently Normandy is in danger of being destroyed and lost by your doing!”

  York could have told them exactly why Normandy was in danger of being lost, and it had more to do with malfeasance here than anything he had or had not done there. First and foremost was the council’s failure to send him promised funds to pay anybody anything, followed by the support Suffolk and the others had given to John of Somerset’s harebrained, useless campaign into Anjou when it was all English troops could do to hold the frontier as it was and forcing York to hold the Normandy garrisons from revolt by draining his own coffers to pay them at least something now and again…

  “All this against you has been laid before the king,” Suffolk said.

  Damn, thought York, careful that his face showed nothing. He had hoped it wasn’t gone that far yet.

  “… with promise that Bishop Moleyns’ evidence to your wrongdoing will shortly be in his hands,” Suffolk went on.

  “Not that much in the way of evidence will be needed, what with this letter out of Normandy warning you of your danger,” Bishop Ayscough said, arching a finger in disdainful point across the table to the paper lying under Bishop Pecock’s hand. “What greater condemnation could there be than a secretly sent warning that all is known, do what you can?”

  Especially when what they wanted to find out was not the truth but his supposed guilt, and a brief look at Buckingham, Cromwell, and Stourton’s accusing looks back at him was enough to show how other men, even those more interested in fairness, would as easily believe what the letter “proved.”

  “Yes,” Bishop Pecock sighed, paused, and then said, sounding regretful, “But then there’s the trouble that this letter never came from Normandy, did it?”

  Silence sharp as across a hawk-shadowed meadow fell the length of the table, and York doubted it was Bishop Pecock’s poor eyesight that made him seem unaware that everyone was looking at him as he went on, holding the letter up, “It can’t have. You see? There’s no sign to it having been anywhere very long, in Davydd ap Rhys’s belt-pouch or anywhere else. Though it’s a little crumpled, the folds are fresh, nor is it marred as if long carried in bag or pouch or however, such as it must needs have been if it had indeed come from Normandy as it purports to. You see?” He turned the letter this way and that for everyone to view but seemed not to notice Suffolk thrusting out a demanding hand for it but instead laid it down again, his own hand firmly on it, and went on, “Therefore it follows that the paper was neither long-folded nor long-carried and therefore could not have been brought from Normandy, not by Davydd ap Rhys or anyone else. Yes?”

  He asked the question generally. It was Buckingham, leaning forward over the table who answered, “Yes, but…”

  “By your leave, my lord, if I might continue?” Bishop Pecock asked mildly and did so without pause for Buckingham’s reply. “Therefore the letter must be from here, in England, not Normandy at all, and therefore at the very least the superscription is a lie.”

  “To mislead us,” Bishop Ayscough said sharply, “into not realizing York has a secret ally here who passes word to him received from Normandy some other way.”

  “That’s a little more complicated than need be, don’t you think, my lord?” Bishop Pecock asked. “Though possible, I suppose,” he granted. “But still, why shouldn’t this ally simply speak to him directly rather than commit the matter to paper?”

  “Because, whoever he is, he couldn’t come to Westminster himself,” Bishop Ayscough said. “The letter was his only way…”

  “But the letter was written here in Westminster,” Bishop Pecock said.

  “That’s a guess,” said Suffolk.

  “But it’s not, my lord.” Bishop Pecock sounded faintly scandalized by the thought. “It’s a fact, proven by the fact that the paper bears a mark on its edge showing it came from the privy seal office, here in the palace.”

  York did not move but all his attention was sharply at alert now as Bishop Pecock held the paper edge on to them, turned it from Buckingham to Cromwell to Stourton to Bishop Ayscough to Suffolk to Moleyns and fi
nally to him, saying, “You see here. That black mark on its edge. The privy seal office uses a great deal of paper which, while not so costly as parchment of course, nonetheless is costly enough not to be wasted or lost, which happens when people in need of paper sometimes take it for their own uses. To keep from such wastage, when paper is new-delivered to the privy seal’s use, there is a black ink line drawn down the side of the stack, leaving a small black mark on the edge of every sheet, if you see what I mean.”