Sumerford's Autumn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “I am naturally aware of that, sir,” Ludovic said, frowning down at his father. “I hardly think you sent out three pages to search for me only to inform me of the date.”

  The earl was seated before the fire, legs stretched. He watched the dance of the flames and did not look up at his son as he spoke. “It is relevant, none the less,” he said. “As you are hopefully also aware, my son, politics no longer interest me. I avoid the watchful eye of kings, and of this king in particular since my estates in Somerset aid in keeping a safe distance between my family and royal disapproval. Nor do I not seek approval. I supported Henry Tudor at Exeter against the rebels, since it was in my neighbourhood, in my interests, and impolitic to refuse. Now this Christmas I attend court at his majesty’s command and have fulfilled what was required of me. But tomorrow we leave. There is no further reason to tempt the hand of fortune.”

  Ludovic nodded, still frowning. “I understand, sir. With only one day left, you wish me to be circumspect. It is reasonable advice sir, under the circumstances, but I cannot see why you feel it necessary to warn me. I don’t believe I’ve shown any particular inclination towards wild behaviour, either here at court or previously. In fact, not since leaving the nursery. But I shall keep your words in mind, and trust you will not be disappointed.”

  “You sound remarkably pompous, Ludovic.” The earl sighed. “Your mother’s example, I’m sure. The fact remains that my specific meaning appears to have escaped your notice. Even your small attention span should have alerted you to the principal political hazard of the moment. Yet I have twice seen you speaking to that young man generally known as Peter or Perkin Warbeck. Since his status is that of a palace servant, although admittedly an unusual one, there is absolutely no need for you to address this person at any time. Frankly, it is unwise to do so. You will not do so again.”

  Ludovic lifted an eyebrow. “You clearly suspect more than is strictly accurate, Father. I simply indulge in occasional curiosity, as do most of the court.”

  “Indeed?” The earl turned suddenly to face his son, his eyes narrowed. “I had not previously considered you so frivolous, my boy. However, you will indulge me in this, and refrain from idle curiosity for this final day. I hope you understand me?”

  “Perfectly, sir.” Ludovic smiled. “I shall be glad to leave court tomorrow, as it happens. You know I never wished to come.”

  The earl ignored this remark. “You asked me, shortly after our arrival, if I knew anything of the young Earl of Berkhamstead.” Ludovic nodded. “I seem to remember saying I considered him unimportant,” continued the earl. “I was wrong. I am never wrong, but this time I admit to having been unaware of certain facts. William of Berkhamstead is not unimportant. You will avoid this Perkin Warbeck, and you will avoid the Earl of Berkhamstead. I trust I have made myself sufficiently clear?”

  “Succinctly, sir.” Ludovic bowed slightly, and turned to go.

  “Oh, and Ludovic,” Ludovic turned back reluctantly, “give your brother my regards when you see him later today,” said the earl. “I would ask you to pass on the same warning I have given you, but it would be quite pointless.”

  Ludovic, considerably startled, carefully kept his expression blank. “I am at a loss sir. Which brother do you mean?”

  “Why Gerald, of course,” smiled his father. “Who else?”

  The Epiphany midday dinner was sumptuous but Ludovic left immediately afterwards and rode the short miles to the Swan and Cygnet. Gerald, his squire Roland and the Earl of Berkhamstead were waiting in the small private chamber upstairs. The fire had guttered and Roland was kneeling, resetting the logs. Ludovic closed the door behind him and William marched over quickly to lock it. Ludovic turned to his brother. “He knows,” he said.

  Gerald blanched. “Who knows? The king?”

  Ludovic laughed. “Good God no, I hope not. Our father knows. He asked me to give you his regards.”

  Gerald sank down onto a stool with relief. “That’s a damned predicament, certainly,” he said, “but at least if it’s not Tudor himself or his filthy council –” Gerald sat up again, staring at his younger brother. “But how does he know? Who told him? Did you?”

  Ludovic stared back. “I shan’t dignify that question with an answer, my dear. In fact, Father’s made a few vague allusions to your activities before, but never as obvious as he was this morning. He’s also forbidden me to speak to William, or to the Duke of York again. It never occurred to me he was even watching. He said he’s done what the king asked of him, though was not forthcoming on exactly what that was. Then he asked me to pass you his regards. I’ve no idea how he knew I was coming here today. The man’s abnormal.”

  Gerald nodded. “I shall keep out of his way for a few weeks. Besides, I’ve no intention of coming home just yet. There’s too much to do here.”

  William filled four cups from the jug and then passed around the wine. He spoke to Ludovic. “So you’ve spoken to the duke again, since I introduced you several days ago? I wasn’t aware of it. May I ask what was said?”

  Ludovic drank, and took a chair beside the newly blazing fire. “Not a great deal. We were not private. But he spoke a little of his past, his travels in Portugal with Sir Edward Brampton and others, acting as a page, and learning about life. He has a melancholy about him which I find touching. He said he has never owned his own life, and in that respect these days are little different. Only that in the past, when he was subject to the desires of others, those desires were invariably kind, whereas they are no longer.”

  “Now they are sinister,” William interrupted. “Every order, every passing moment, is designed to humiliate. The duke sleeps on straw, so tight stuffed between his two guards that they barely manage to move an elbow without giving the other a black eye, or scratch a flea bite without causing a major disturbance. The Wardrobes are a cramped and stuffy place of bad smells, the sweat and stains of other men’s clothes, a hundred snoring servants and irritable tempers.”

  “I imagine there are worse things than a night’s sleep interrupted by snoring,” smiled Ludovic. “The entire loss of any future would, I imagine, be the worst of his grace’s present problems. He knows he’ll never be free again, and will probably end his life by execution.”

  “He’s spoken to me of it,” Gerald said. “He has no fear of death, he says, if living means nothing more than this. He misses his son, you know, just a year old and snatched from him. And most of all he misses his wife.”

  “He told me he intends taking up his music again, if permitted,” said Ludovic. “Evidently he was tutored in the lute when he was still a prince and his father was the king. He had some talent for it, he says, and it will help lighten these interminable empty hours, if allowed. But for a man who once led an army, it must be tedious now to beg for everything.”

  “He gets his way in some things,” William nodded. “The king needs him to keep up this ludicrous pretence of being a Flemish boatman’s boy, and the bargain relies on compliance from both sides.”

  “And I believe his sister the queen intercedes occasionally,” Gerald added. “But I presume she must be careful not to take too obvious an interest. She’s never been officially allowed to meet the duke, but messages are passed by the Lady Katherine. Her majesty knows this Perkin Warbeck is in truth her young brother.”

  Ludovic snorted. “She knows? Then she should move herself to have him acknowledged and set free.”

  “Too dangerous,” William sighed. “This is not a powerful queen. Her own mother was virtually imprisoned after supporting the first of the princes to challenge Tudor. The royal mother-in-law was immediately beggared, shut away in a convent without access to friends, family or society. Only her essential board was paid. Now the queen fears the same could happen to her.”

  “So she’ll see her own brother executed instead?”

  “Other queens have suffered the death of their unwanted relatives in the past, and besides, she has no power to alter anything the king decides. T
he only female with power in this land is the king’s own mother. And think, should the queen support a brother who would take the throne not only from her husband – but also from her son?” Gerald looked across sharply at his brother. “But you suddenly take a deal of interest Lu. You refused to join us, yet it seems you’ve changed your mind.”

  Ludovic stood abruptly, shaking his head and placing his empty cup back on the table. “An interest perhaps, but no more than that,” he said. “I like the boy. I pity him. But he’s too nice a man to make a good king, and in any case, I’ve no appetite for conspiracies. I only came to say goodbye. We leave court tomorrow at first light.”

  The squire Roland had returned to the hearth, once again on his knees, sparking the logs with the poker. He looked up as Ludovic crossed towards the door. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said quietly, “but I believe we have more to thank you for than that. Their lordships do not agree with me, but I think I know the truth. You see, a few days ago we came into a very large sum of money, mysteriously donated towards our efforts. There are many who wish us well. Our group of conspirators, as you call us, is not so limited and many others are involved at a distance. It is a – web, you might say – of secret planning. But since all foreign royalty has retired from financing the cause a year back, we have never received such a huge though anonymous donation. I believe we have to thank you, my lord.”

  Ludovic looked down at the square young man, the poker still in his hands. “I won’t insult your intelligence by denying it,” he said. “But it’s not something I want broadcast, and I’ve no idea how you guessed.”

  Gerald grinned. “Roland acts as my squire for convenience,” he said, “but in truth he’s a great deal more than that. We all consider ourselves equal in this matter. In fact, when he insisted it was you who’d sent the money, I told him he was wrong. I said it was nonsense. But how in God’s name did you get such a sum?”

  “A private business.” Ludovic stretched out his hand and began to unlock the door. “But there won’t be any more donations. So don’t waste it.”

  “Forgive me for delaying you, my lord,” said the squire hurriedly, scrambling to his feet, “but there is one more small thing. We happen to have heard, should it be of interest to you my lord, Philip the Fair is now negotiating for the renewal of free trade between his Flemish traders and our English. Since the Duke of York is captured, Duke Philip has abandoned his support. The embargo is about to end, my lord. Regular trade will begin again. I thought – just perhaps – you might wish to know.”

  Ludovic paused, his hand on the door handle. “Indeed? Philip the Unfair, in fact. You are certainly astute, Master Roland.”

  Collecting his horse from the stables, Ludovic pulled down the brim of his hat. No wailing whispers or haunting lights interrupted his ride back to court and he arrived in time for a light supper. The epiphany gifts were exchanged afterwards. Those who had spent large, chose to give in public. Others, including the Sumerford family, kept private. The earl, even when his estate had basked in royal favour under the previous monarchy, had never believed in wasting resources and did not indulge in gift-giving. Ludovic, torn between not wishing to follow his father’s example in anything, and the problem of not exhibiting too much inexplicable wealth, presented his mother with three lengths of silver tissue, and his father with one of the recently printed books, which he was quite sure would never be read. The countess gave her youngest son a small hand scripted Book of Hours, in the hope of his finally absorbing some religious morality, and a silver candle stand to her husband, in the hope of his becoming more generous in the allowance of candlelight permitted at home.

  The journey was accomplished in slow stages, and during the sluggish monotony it was his brother’s wife and that lady’s new green eyed chamber maid who hovered in Ludovic’s mind, haunting his thoughts as surely as the whispering ghost of weeks past. But there were other considerations that troubled him. Ludovic had obeyed his father, and did not again communicate with the unfortunate servant Peter Warbeck before departure. But during one of the many river crossings between Sheen and Sumerford, he drew his horse alongside his father’s as they sat watching the turbulence of an inconveniently swollen ford.

  “You happened to mention yesterday,” said Ludovic, slightly slumped in the saddle, “that you came to court in order to fulfil some particular request of his majesty’s.” When his father did not answer, Ludovic continued. “You did not choose to explain what that requirement was, sir. However, if you’d be so obliging, I should like to know.”

  “I am never obliging,” said the earl.

  “Was it, by any chance,” Ludovic persisted, “to corroborate the impossibility of – the pretender – bearing any resemblance to the late Duke of York? I gather you knew the young prince many years ago. And I understand that his majesty has called on many of the previous Plantagenet court to publicly and loudly denounce the likelihood of the one being the other. I imagine most have complied.”

  The Earl of Sumerford paused, as if deciding not to answer. Then he sighed. “You are, for once, correct Ludovic. But the matter is settled and I see no profit in discussing it further.”

  “I should simply like to know the answer, sir,” Ludovic said softly. The sounds of the rushing water almost drowned out his words. “Not the answer you gave the king, which I can guess. But the real answer. The prince you once knew, and this Peter Warbeck? Could one truly be the other?”

  They were interrupted. The grooms had discovered a better place to ford upstream. The horses turned aside, plodding through the squelch of muddy banks. Ludovic expected his father to use the interruption as an excuse to ignore his question. He was surprised when the earl spoke again. “I knew the young Prince Richard many years ago,” he said, his voice also more quiet than usual. “Edward IV was still alive, and the court was a very different affair to that of this Tudor usurper. But it is difficult to remember one small blonde child with a high pitched laugh and pink cheeks, chasing his puppy down the corridors. I cannot easily liken a child to a grown man.”

  “I have never before heard you refer to the Tudor king as a usurper, sir. You – interest me.”

  Their slow progress through the mud was followed, with a horrendous slurping and squeaking, by six mounted men, two horse drawn litters and three heavily laden carts. The earl sighed again. “I shall say this only once, my boy, and you will then forget what I have told you, for it will not be mentioned again. As a pragmatist, I am a loyal supporter of the new regime. For the sake of diplomacy, having no intention of losing either my title or my lands and with no wish to drag my family name into destitution, I will continue to fight for Tudor if it is required of me. For this reason, I informed the king and his council, as has everyone, that the prisoner Peter Warbeck bears no possible resemblance to the prince he claims to be. The truth is – that I do not know. In almost seventeen years, I cannot recognise a twenty four year old man as the seven year old boy I once knew. Prince Richard was an exceptionally pretty child. This – Warbeck – is sweet faced too, though not as much. But what I will say, is that he greatly resembles the old king Edward. He could even be – let us speculate – his son.”

  Ludovic smiled. “I understand you, sir. Thank you.”

  They had come to the easier crossing. Here the ford’s slabs and rocks were sufficiently high above water to support boards laid for the carts and litters to pass. The baggage cart crossed first, testing safety, led by the chief groom. The earl prepared to follow, gently walking his horse down the slope. He turned once, before fording the river. “But do not leap to erratic or unwise conclusions, Ludovic. And do not assume that I am interested in the truth of this matter. I am neither sure, nor will I permit the question to trouble my nights. I once presumed the prince dead, and the probability did not disturb me then, as his possible resurrection does not disturb me now. He is, in any case, a bastard and never born to rule. His existence and identity has haunted Tudor for six years or more. It will not haunt me.
Direct your mind to other matters, Ludovic. You are not your brother.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  A young woman was waiting in the great castle’s hall. Her looks and her bearing seemed immediately remarkable. Ludovic had never seen her before and was intrigued.

  With the cavalcade bustling from the bailey to the great doors and eager to be back in the warm after a journey of unremitting tedium and discomfort, Ludovic was one of the last to enter. A bluster and flurry of wind slammed the doors behind him, dislodging the snow from the window ledges. His mother, stripping off her gloves and loudly complaining of the unnecessarily freezing weather, the disgusting state of the roads and the appalling discomfort of all travel, was already mounting the main staircase. The Lady Jennine, solicitous, stayed close at her side. Humphrey was speaking to the earl. He was attempting to explain the various complicated and ingenious endeavours at estate management which he had invented and operated during his father’s absence. The earl was attempting, with a faint shudder, not to listen.

  “But nobody’s tending properly to the land, Father. It’s not right. So I sent for the overseer. I ordered him to start ploughing something.”

  “I imagine Famington was – delighted with your remarkable insight, my boy,” murmured his lordship. “But perhaps, since the land is clearly frozen hard at present, ploughing may not be an entirely practical solution.”

  Humphrey frowned. “Do you think so Papa? I don’t see why not. The horses need to be whipped to plough harder, that’s all. And it wasn’t even snowing last week. You said I had to look after everything while you were away, and I’ve worked very hard at it. But it’s not easy. Even the hens have stopped laying enough eggs.”

  His father sighed. “The reproductive habits of domestic fowl have never been my main area of concern, Humphrey. But I believe, in general practise, all hens lay rarely during the winter months. The females of most species, I have noticed, tend to achieve even less during the colder seasons. We must be patient, and wait for spring.”