Sumerford's Autumn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “William of Berkhamstead,” Ludovic muttered, more to himself than to his father. “I saw him after Gerald – saw him running, unsheathing his sword. And this morning I spoke to him and he alluded – clearly he knew about Brice. He said very little since he obviously presumed I knew myself. Yet how would he recognise Brice?”

  “Your brother accompanied me to court several times in the past, Ludovic,” the earl said. “I do not know this Berkhamstead, but it is possible Brice may have. Since I could not take Humphrey to Westminster on the rare occasions I was required to attend, and invariably chose not to take your mother, I sometimes requested your brother’s attendance. And upon acceptance at the palace, I believe he returned alone, and was seen there on occasion. He had his own – motives.”

  Ludovic shook his head. “I saw him there once. I assume his piracy involved others, selling or lending. Collecting ransoms perhaps. Corruption at court is hardly rare and no doubt Brice felt quite at home there. But dammit, I’d like to know what Berkhamstead knows.”

  “You will not, however, attempt to satisfy your curiosity,” the earl continued. “You have been ordered not to return to court by the king himself. He does not like his orders ignored and will not be merciful a second time. I forbid you to return to Westminster to question this person. You have no reason to mourn Brice’s departure. Think on Gerald, and let the matter rest.”

  “Very well. I will not return to Westminster Palace,” said Ludovic softly. “But I shall visit the Marshalsea.”

  The earl stood again and strode back to the window. His face was expressionless, his voice impatient. “You will no doubt do as you wish, as always,” he said, “whatever the consequences. Let us hope this excursion brings less severe consequences than the last.” He turned again, facing Ludovic. “Since you intend taxing your strength to this extent, I can only presume the matter is of some importance to you. I shall therefore not forbid it. But I insist on some things, my son, and I trust you will comply. You will become embroiled in no private vendetta. And in no place, either here or abroad, will you attempt to trace your brother.”

  Ludovic’s eyes narrowed. “A surprising demand, sir. It makes me wonder –”

  “It is quite futile to wonder, my son,” remarked the earl. “Nor do I intend explaining myself further. You will simply strive to remember your duty to your father.”

  Ludovic left the next morning for the Marshalsea, but he did not cross the Thames by the Bridge. He rode down to the Strand quay and called for a showte. He then rode his horse onto the boards of the flat bottomed boat, dismounted carefully, and sat there, holding tight to the reins. The horse snorted, rolling its eyes at the sullen flowing water. Ludovic was ferried across river to the quay at Southwark, paid the fourpenny fare, and rode his horse up onto the far bank. He did not look back. Behind him rose the southern entrance to the Bridge and its massive stone arch. The gate had opened two hours back and traffic was intense. And above the raised portcullis were spiked the heads of traitors executed by the crown, paraded as a warning to every man who passed beneath, or saw from afar, or smelled the decaying flesh of the shameful dead. Ludovic slumped his shoulders, breathed shallow, and rode on.

  At the stables beyond the prison’s rambling two story building he dismounted again, gave his sword from the saddle harness over to the wardens, and asked to see one Baldwin Naseby. A gentleman dressed, in spite of the warm weather, in black and silver damask trimmed in sable, was rarely denied. Ludovic was shown in at once.

  The cage was cramped. A bucket stood in the far corner but its slops had overflowed. Yellow slime and mucus trailed across the flagstones. Six men lounged on the ground, eyes closed in apathy. One of the men was Naseby.

  The warden poked at him through the bars. “A visitor, you worthless lump of shit. Wake up and mind your manners.”

  Naseby opened his eyes, but the disappointment was obvious. He had expected someone else. Ludovic smiled. “I am,” he said, “quite remarkably content to see you here, Naseby. You, on the other hand, seem less elated. Now I wonder, whom did you think your visitor might be?”

  Naseby turned away, not bothering to answer. The warden again reached through the bars with his stick, ramming it hard into Naseby’s chest. “Answer the gentleman, or I’ll have you thrashed.”

  “No need for that.” Ludovic shook his head. “Indeed, I should be obliged if you leave me to talk to the prisoner alone. There’ll be no danger to either of us, I assure you.” He untied his purse, passed over a shilling, and waited until the warden had stomped off before turning back to the cage and its occupants. “So, Naseby,” he said softly, “where exactly is my brother?”

  Naseby looked up and grinned suddenly. His gums were bleeding. Every one of his teeth had been knocked out. His voice was slurred and sibilant. “Worked that one out, have you? Well, I’ll be telling naught to the bugger as betrayed his own, and is the cause of me kept in this hell hole and waiting for the gallows.”

  Ludovic leaned back against the stone wall behind him, regarding the men through the rusted iron of the cage. “It seems my brother also believed this of me,” he said thoughtfully. “But since I also once thought it of him, I can hardly pretend outrage. However, the truth is simply that in spite of all provocation I did not lay information or complaint against my brother, nor even against you, my friend. Nor do I have any idea who did. I was arrested almost immediately after leaving your – protection last year. I spent many months in the Tower and then saw my favourite brother executed. I knew nothing of Brice’s arrest until yesterday. Now I’m aware he’s been officially banished but I suspect he still remains in England. In which case, you will know precisely where he is. And now you will tell me. Otherwise I shall arrange some form of – let us say – inducement.”

  Naseby grinned again. “Not sure I believes those as claims innocence so easy,” he said. “So t’wasn’t you as got us done for piracy, you says? Might be true. Might not. Now, with me, like I told you afore, I’m a man as deals honest, for what I says, I does. If I says I done it then I did it, and if I says I done nothing, then it’s naught but the truth. But with you high and mighty lordships, there’s no telling, is there?” He crawled to his feet, lurching up to the bars to face Ludovic, hands gripping to the irons. In spite of his long incarceration, his boots, old leather bleached with sea water, still held the smell of salt. “But if you wants information o’ me,” he said, keeping his voice low, “well, I reckon t’would be better to bribe than to threaten.”

  “First give me your information,” Ludovic smiled, “and I’ll decide what it’s worth. A nobleman also keeps his word, and I give you mine. If you tell me where my brother is, I shall pay you. If I find him where you tell me he is, I shall return and pay more. If I go where you send me and find no one, I shall also return. And I shall also pay, but in another coin.”

  “I seems to remember you lied plenty when I had you on my ship afore. I can’t trust a man as lies. What pledge does you give?”

  “None,” Ludovic shook his head. “I’m not playing calcio, to chase you through a maze of absurdities. Tell me what you know, and quick.”

  Naseby sighed. “Being as how my funds is getting mighty low,” he muttered, “I’ll tell. You give the warden enough for my keep for a sennight, and extra for ale and a blanket, then when you finds his lordship right enough, come back and pay another month. Lest I’m already dangling on the end of the rope, that is. It’s a bargain?”

  “A bargain. Though I’m surprised your own purse doesn’t cover it.”

  “As it happens,” Naseby leaned very close to the bars, his voice little more than a whisper, “was his lordship as had trust of the money chests. Paid up plenty afore the trial and promised more, but there’s been nothing for nigh on a month, and I’ve been waiting a mighty weary time for his coming. Living on black bread don’t suit me none. If it weren’t for old Pigsnout over there, I’d be bloody hungry by now.”

  Ludovic gazed at the figure Naseby had indicated.
A thin shouldered man in a torn shirt over bare legs lay on the ground in the shadows. If his description fitted the name, it was too dark to tell and remained obscure. “Why would a hungry man choose to share his rations?” Ludovic said. “The creature looks more dead than alive.”

  “Well, that he is,” Naseby nodded more cheerfully. “Bugger’s wife paid a month in advance for his supper, and a hot dinner every day with ale. And me with nothing. Too much for me it were. So I wrung the bastard’s skinny neck like a hen for the pot. And it’s a pot I gets in exchange, for till the warden finds it’s a corpse he’s feeding, I gets the grub. And there’s no stupid shit scared bugger in here will tell on me, not after they seen what I can do when I wants. And I reckon you won’t tell neither, not if you wants to find your so noble brother.”

  Ludovic raised an eyebrow. “Hardly your first murder, and quicker than the gallows perhaps,” he said. “So tell me what I want to know, Naseby, and make sure it’s not only the truth, but sufficient of the truth to lead me to him.”

  Ludovic did not inform the earl. Although directly disobeying his father’s orders, he had known his parent for long enough to assume that the old man knew exactly what would happen and was happening, but preferred not to be told. The preparations for their return to Sumerford had begun but were of necessity, slow. With consideration for Ludovic’s condition, although many weeks of treatment and rest had by now ensured a more than partial recovery, the earl instructed his servants to arrange for a leisurely departure. The sumpters, litters and carts were ordered in advance, the guards and drivers paid ahead. The accompanying Sumerford staff took over from the hired staff at the Strand, and began to scrub out and pack the chests. Clothes were brushed through with Fuller’s Earth, leather polished, fur combed. The doctor was called to perform a final examination, and to give his opinion as to the patient’s condition and his suitability for lengthy and tedious travel. No attempt was made at haste. His health was the principal consideration but Ludovic suspected the pace was also to give him time; sufficient to discover Brice’s hiding place and search him out. That the earl already knew where Brice stayed, Ludovic did not doubt but it remained irrelevant. The Strand house had been hired since late January with six month’s rental paid. Nearly all had passed. It was time to go home.

  July swept in sultry and wearisome. London’s summer stench steamed beneath heaving clouds. Storms rolled up the Thames from the sea, washing the muck of the gutters into the river and saving the raykers their work. The cobbles dried briefly, collecting more excrement for the next downpour.

  Having rested two days after the strain of the Marshalsea visit, Ludovic rebound the bandages which still supported his knees and ankles, and planned a second solitary journey. He left a brief message with his secretary, not to be opened unless he failed to return by the following day. He then buckled on his sword, wedged a short handled knife down the cuff of his left boot and a sheathed kidney dagger tucked into his belt. Then he pulled the oiled hood over his long feathered hat, took up the reins and mounted.

  It was raining as he set off for Piccadilly Lane and the orchards leading past the convent’s garden, before turning north and heading for the heaths and villages. Half a rainbow smeared its pastel colours between sky and grass. Ludovic rode beneath it as though he entered a gateway, seeming a promise of sorts.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The voice was too indistinct at first to hear words. After some moments, Ludovic knew it was a song. Gradually the melody impinged, becoming clear. It was the morning blessing that a nurse might chant to a waking child, with a pretty tune and simple advice to guide him through his stumbling hours until the night’s prayers would take him again to his cot.

  It was unexpected and Ludovic smiled. He listened idly, enjoying a brief nostalgia. It seemed to him a very long time since he had remembered his own past life with any pleasure. He was alone and the lanes were deserted, so he said aloud, “Is it you then? And do you sing to yourself, or to me?”

  The song faded with a soft Amen. “To both of us,” said the disembodied voice, “since we both now face a better future. I see you have discovered your brother. You are on your way to see him. I have discovered myself. And I am waiting to see my brother.”

  Ludovic nodded. “It’s true then. You are Edward.”

  The rain had stopped, the air was shining and fresh, and the rainbow had completed its arc. Ludovic slowed his horse, leaning back in the saddle. The high sun dazzled his eyes, shimmering across the wet grass and dripping diamonds from the oak leaves. The soft voice murmured directly into his ears. “Yes. Edward. It is good at last to know my name. You should have called me by it before.”

  “I did not know it.” Ludovic’s horse ambled, then paused to graze. “At first I believed you were someone else; a child I was searching for. He was the brother of the woman I care for, but his body was never found. I believe he died badly.”

  “I died badly,” said the voice on the breeze. “I died in battle. I remember it clearly now, and the slam of the lance to my shoulder. I fell, blood in my eyes and a sword to my neck. It could have been a hero’s death, but I was buried in an unmarked grave amongst the men who fought for me. No one knew me, no one found me. I had already lost my name. I was taught to hide my identity so often over the years, I accepted any name I was given and they called me everything except who I truly was. I died a stranger to the land of my birth, unknown to the people who should have called me king. But most of all I was a stranger to myself.”

  “You were killed at Stoke?” Ludovic slumped, inert, his spine tired and sore, allowing his horse time to feed, welcoming the sun’s new warmth on his back. He eased his joints, loosening control and the strain of the stirrups. “Had I been older, I’d have fought at Stoke,” he murmured. “But I’d have followed my father’s colours, and fought for Tudor against the Earl of Lincoln.” The gentle heat steamed, drying his velvet and feathers. It was a strangely bright and comfortable moment to talk to ghosts. “I’m glad I was never in the battle since it would have been the wrong side. I ask pardon for that.”

  “The Earl of Lincoln was my cousin. Dear John. As my uncle’s heir, he should have claimed the throne for himself, but he chose to fight for me.” The voice trailed off, lost in memories. “He was a great man and I was honoured,” it continued softly. “He made me proud to be my father’s son. At first he encouraged me to use my own name and rally the country behind a royal Plantagenet. I declared myself in Ireland, but Henry Tudor distorted the truth and put out false documents, saying I claimed to be another. It seemed almost unimportant. I had been so long incognito, it became a habit.” The voice lapsed, then renewed. “Now my brother should be crowned Richard IV. But he will also die under a false name, as I did. A miserable irony.”

  Ludovic sighed, tightened his knees and urged his horse on again. “Irony?” He smiled. “You remember a great deal at last. The first time you came to me, you asked only why.”

  There was another pause, and for some time Ludovic thought his invisible companion gone. He waited at ease in the saddle, enjoying the rest, the gentle sunbeams, and the peculiar satisfaction of speaking to phantoms without either fear of devilry or doubt of his own sanity.

  Then the voice came stronger, echoing across the low grasses, louder than the breeze. “Now I know why. I was still a child and awaiting my coronation when witnesses proved me bastard, and I thought myself lost then. But I have no resentment against my uncle. He took my crown but he did only what was forced upon him, and he continued to treat me well. Entrusted to my aunt abroad, I was sorry to hear of my uncle’s death in battle. I did not expect the same to happen to me just two years later. After I was slain, the living called out to me and their thoughts dragged me back into the mists of life. But when I answered their calls they were frightened and closed their minds. Some thought me already dead years back, killed in the Tower. Some thought I was my cousin, others thought I was still not dead at all. Then they confused me with some simple chi
ld, working in the royal kitchens. I was a warrior and died as a warrior, but confusion surrounded me and my body lay unclaimed. I couldn’t find my way onwards into the golden places of the pardoned dead. I was left drifting, faceless and nameless.”

  Ludovic shook his head. “Do we hold the dead back from their Heaven then, with our memories and our sadness?” But it was not the prince he thought of now. Each night he still saw Gerald’s body leaning forward across the executioner’s block. He sighed. “Must we let our loved ones go?”

  “We can be trapped here if the living need us too desperately,” the voice said. “But for me, the living called me without knowing me. And the great battle which should have placed me on my throne, has now been subverted with Tudor naming some child he found to play the part, though never seen at Stoke. A boy paid to take my place and deceive the English people.”

  “Lambert Simnel,” said Ludovic. “Tudor claimed the child was set up by his enemies, to pretend the part of a prince. But of course he was set up by Tudor himself to hide the truth. So Tudor publicly forgave him and took Simnel into his employ.”