‘I am waiting with Sir John Fakenham,’ Hastings tells March, ‘here to beg the indulgence of a word with your good father.’
March’s eye settles on Sir John and then flicks to Thomas.
‘By God! You again. Thomas Something! Saviour of Newnham and slayer of my lord the Earl of Shrewsbury.’
Thomas bows his head.
‘My lord,’ he says.
‘Our paths seem entwined, and every time you are near me, something beneficial comes my way. I hope to God you bring good luck tonight, for I believe we’ll need it. Is that my cousin I hear coming?’
They turn and see that the disturbance on the steps was the arrival of the Earl of Warwick.
‘Oh, saints above,’ March murmurs. ‘Did you ever see a man so enraged?’
All talk falters and the room seems to draw breath as Warwick stalks into the solar. He pauses, his face pinched. He is looking for someone and everyone knows whom. A path seems to open up between him and the Duke of York, who is leaning against a sideboard with a cup of wine in his hand. He is pretending he has not noticed Warwick, and is talking too animatedly to a youth with long blond hair spilling from under a dark cap.
The Duke of York is a head shorter than his son the Earl of March, and older than Thomas had supposed, about fifty perhaps, with a thin grey beard and a slight and shrunken body. No one is deceived by his show of nonchalance, especially not Warwick, who now strides towards him as if he means to strike him.
‘By what right do you choose now to claim the crown of England?’ Warwick demands. He raises his voice, broadcasting his fury. The Duke of York turns and affects to notice him.
‘My lord of Warwick!’ he says as if pleased to see him. His lips are very red and wet and he licks them, but he does not have the stomach to lean forward and kiss Warwick as he might have in other circumstances.
‘I demand an answer,’ Warwick continues. ‘By what right do you now claim the throne of England?’
The Duke of York hesitates, glances at the blond boy, and then finds his voice.
‘I am Richard, Duke of York,’ he says. ‘I am son to Anne who was daughter of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was son and heir to Philippa, who in her turn was daughter and heir to Lionel, the third but second surviving son of King Edward the Third.’
It is a rehearsed speech that becomes steadily more fluent.
‘Through this line I claim the right, title, royal dignity and estate of the crowns of the realms of England and France and the lordship of Ireland, by right, law and custom before any issue of John of Gaunt, the fourth son of the same King Edward.’
Warwick stares at him.
‘This I know,’ he says. ‘This we all know. What I do not understand is why you make the claim now?’
‘It is my right,’ York replies. ‘I have set it aside till now. But it has not died. It has not rotted away.’
‘Can you not see that we all love our King Henry?’ Warwick goes on, raising his voice again for all to hear. ‘And that none of the lords or the people of this country wish him any harm?’
The Duke’s eyes bulge and glisten like polished glass. The blond boy steps forward and addresses Warwick with a misplaced wave of his hand.
‘Fair cousin,’ he says, ‘don’t be angry. You know that it is our right to have the crown. It belongs to my father here, and he will have it whatever anyone may say.’
Warwick stares at the boy. Thomas thinks he might even kill him.
‘Oh lord. My brother Rutland,’ March breathes. He hurries forward, his large feet making the fresh reeds squeak, and steps between Warwick and Rutland. He puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Brother,’ he says. ‘Don’t say another word.’
Rutland starts, looks up at March, and flushes. He is so young, too young to know what he is doing. March turns and puts an arm across Warwick’s shoulder and guides him away and towards the door.
Warwick is stiff-backed with anger, his face blotched, and March soothes him in a low voice, urging some future plan perhaps, as he guides him back through the throng and out on to the corridor.
The Duke of York turns back to Rutland and continues talking as if nothing has happened, but even Thomas can see his hands are trembling, and his brittle smile reveals two crooked front teeth. After a moment, the Duke and Rutland leave the room, and as they go the murmur of conversation flares behind them.
‘Well,’ Hastings says after a moment, ‘that went as well as anyone could hope.’ He taps his front teeth with his forefinger, and it is hard to know if he is joking or not.
They spend that first week in London at the Bull Inn on Bishopsgate and every morning they hear Mass at a different chapel before taking a barge to Westminster to attempt an audience with the Duke of York. Every evening they return unsuccessful. By the third day Thomas stops bothering with his leg armour and by the fifth they are all bored.
Sir John and Richard may discuss the events of state as they unfold, but Thomas knows they have no power to influence them, and so they too are condemned to sit idle. Nor does he see William Hastings again, though other lords come and go and meet for long hours in Westminster Hall, each bringing with them their retinues of liveried men, who play dice, practise their drills and drink ale to while away the time.
‘It all hinges on whether the right to the crown can pass through a woman,’ Sir John is saying. ‘If it can, then the Duke of York’s claim is superior to the King’s, even though the King’s father and his father’s father sat on the throne before him.’
‘Course it shouldn’t pass through a bloody woman,’ Walter offers.
‘But why not?’ Sir John counters in the spirit of discussion.
‘Why not? Because women are women.’
‘But look at the Earl of Warwick. How did he become the Earl of Warwick? He married Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick. So he got the title and the estates through his wife. Why shouldn’t the crown pass so?’
‘Because it’s the crown,’ Walter says.
‘Well, there you have it,’ Sir John says. ‘I don’t suppose the lords are arguing it any more clearly in there.’ He gestures to the hall. ‘But it is a shame,’ he goes on, ‘because on this question men will lose their lives.’
‘Lost ’em before; ’ll lose ’em still.’
Sir John sighs.
‘Thank you, Walter. Of course that’s true. But this will divide families. Brother against brother, father against son. That sort of thing. I hope it does not, of course, but whether or not a man has the right to call himself King of England raises dangerous passions that can only lead to more blood being shed.’
The discussion rumbles on all morning, until Katherine can stand it no longer.
‘I think I’ll take a walk,’ she says.
Thomas joins her. The others stay in the square where Sir John labours his points again and again.
‘Sir John seems better,’ Thomas says.
‘Only because he is out of the range of Fournier,’ she snorts.
Beyond the abbey walls they find a stationer selling a poor selection of books, some of them unbound. These are of little interest to Thomas, but Katherine likes them.
‘It is as if their author will return at any moment to take up his reed and continue the conversation,’ she says.
Not all the books are religious tracts.
‘What is that one there?’ she asks, pointing. It is a series of folded sheets, roughly hacked at the edges, bound with strips of cloth the colour of shoe soles. Thomas unties the cords and opens it, watched by the stationer. It smells of must.
‘Saints,’ Katherine says.
On the very first spread of pages is a startling picture of a man in robes with his finger inserted in another man’s anus.
‘It’s a treatise on fistulae,’ Thomas reads aloud. ‘By a man named John Arderne. He is a barber surgeon of London, it says.’
They study the picture. There are more besides, each as peculiar and gruesome as the first. Thomas flushes.
>
‘So a fistula can be cured?’ she asks.
‘I think so,’ Thomas says, reading on a little. ‘Though I should not like to see it done.’
Katherine takes the parchment from him. Over her shoulder he sees there are many illustrations, including one of an owl. A shadow of doubt crosses his mind. Whoever has drawn the bird has obviously never seen one in real life, and has drawn a duck with claws and a pointed beak. Elsewhere are pictures of plants that might be used in cures and a picture of a zodiac man, suggesting propitious times to cut into particular parts of the body, and a wounded man, too, showing the sorts of injuries that might occur in war.
‘I wonder if Fournier has seen this?’ Katherine asks. ‘When was it written?’
‘It says in the year of our Lord 1376.’
‘Nearly a hundred years ago. Even Fournier must have had time to hear of it, then. We should buy it. How much is it?’
The stationer names his price and without demur Thomas reaches for his purse. Katherine beats the man down to half. As Thomas pays the stationer, the old man hands her the parcel.
‘You bargain like a Jew,’ he says with a smile. ‘Or a woman.’
She says nothing, but takes the parcel and turns.
‘Thank you, Thomas,’ she says as they walk through the abbey yard.
Thomas is struck with an idea.
‘Perhaps, though, we might use it to start your lessons in reading?’ he asks.
‘Lessons in reading?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘It would help pass the time, I suppose.’
So they sit against a wall, shoulder to shoulder, and he begins to coach her in the art of letters.
‘“A tretis extracte of Maistre Iohn Arden of fistula in ano,”’ he reads aloud, his finger following the line, ‘“and of fistula in other places of the body and of apostemes makyng fistules and of emoraides & tenasmon and of clisteres: of certayn oyntementes, poudres and oils.”’
They look at one another.
‘A difficult text to start with,’ he admits, ‘but it is what we have, so—’
By the end of the second week Katherine is beginning to read, with her finger under each letter of each word, but in the process she has acquired an intellectual grasp not only of the process of John Arderne’s operation for the removal or cure of fistulae, but also his various salves and ointments that make use of hedgerow plants such as hemlock and henbane, and his various theories about cleanliness in the surgery.
For all that time Sir John waits patiently, unsuccessfully, for an audience with the Duke, but it is as Katherine is finishing reading Arderne’s pages for the second time, beginning to enjoy his lively turn of phrase and his light-hearted boasting, that the lords finally reach their decision in the matter of the Duke of York and his claim to the throne of England, France and Ireland.
Over the weeks the question has been passed to and fro between the justices, the serjeants-at-law and the royal attorneys. They are serious men in black fur-lined coats and each has taken his turn to wash his hands of the problem. It is for the lords to determine, they say, and so in the absence of a clear answer, the lords opt for a compromise that serves all in part and none in whole. The King will remain the king, they say, but the Duke of York now becomes his heir.
‘But the Duke is ten years older than the King,’ Sir John says. ‘He is sure to die first. Why ever would he agree?’
‘And why would the King agree to disinherit his own son?’ Richard asks.
‘If indeed he is his own son,’ Sir John counters.
A rumour has been circulating in the Palace Yard that the Queen’s son is not the King’s son, and that the boy was begotten while the King was indisposed. The rumour, swapped once, twice, three times, hardens into fact. The Queen’s son is not the King’s son. Some even say the Duke of Somerset is the real father. Only Katherine asks how the Queen might react to hear of her son disinherited and called a bastard.
‘She will not be best pleased,’ Sir John admits.
‘So this settlement has solved nothing?’ Katherine says.
There is a long pause.
‘No.’
‘So the Queen will come south with her army again?’ she continues.
Again there is a pause.
Finally:
‘Probably.’
22
THOMAS AND KATHERINE follow Sir John and Richard out through Bishopsgate the next morning and they are not alone on the road. The news of the settlement has spread fast and it seems the whole country is taking stock and getting ready for what might come. Armoured men ride in packs, returning to their estates, while friars and messengers hurry in both directions.
Sir John, who has been enlivened by their time in London, now suffers a reverse. He can no longer sit on his trunk, but lies slumped in the hay in the back of the cart as they follow the road up towards Stamford. Near Ancaster there is a turning on the road that leads towards Cornford Castle and as they pass, all look down its hedge-crowded length.
‘I wonder what he’s up to,’ Richard says. ‘I half expected to see him in Westminster.’
Little John Willingham pipes up with the story of his mother selling Edmund Riven ale, of his questions about a girl and how he had been heading north with ten spears. Sir John is asleep at last, but Richard listens.
‘Could mean anything,’ he says, at length. ‘Or nothing.’
When they get to Marton Hall Fournier is still there, still at the table, though his boy and his guard have apparently taken his horses and deserted him. Goodwife Popham says he has been drunk by eleven every morning and asleep in his dinner by midday. Sir John pales when he sees him.
‘Why, Master Fournier, good day to you.’
‘And good day to you, Sir John. You do not look to have flourished since our last meeting. It is as well that I delayed my departure, so that we may cut you once more tomorrow, and restore the balance of your humours.’
Richard and Geoffrey help Sir John up to his room, leaving Thomas and Katherine and the others to their supper.
‘Master Fournier,’ Katherine calls down the length of the table, ‘are you familiar with the name John Arderne?’
The physician, who has picked up his cup, pauses.
‘John Arderne? Why yes. A surgeon. Of the last century, a great talent with the knife, but the possessor of dangerous and ungodly theories concerning the production of the laudable pus.’
‘Was he not an expert at curing fistulae?’ Katherine goes on.
Fournier takes a long drink and stares at her over his cup. He puts it down and dries his lips.
‘He had some small success,’ he allows, ‘but the intervention . . . Well. It is highly dangerous. I would not advise it. And do you know that Arderne ignored the need for cautery or purgatives? He recommended a clean sponge pressed against a wound to stop the flow of blood and thereafter nothing but bandages, changed only when dirty, and the wound kept dry? Madness.’
‘You know of his cure for fistulae then?’
‘Of course. Whatever do you take me for?’
‘I had you as a barber. A cutter of hair.’ She does not add ‘a drunk’. All talk has silenced on the table.
‘You doubt my skill to carry out such an operation?’
Katherine chooses her words carefully. ‘I do not doubt your skill. Only your courage.’
Fournier puts down his cup. He is thinking hard.
‘It is not so serious a fistula,’ he says, as if to himself. ‘And there is only one of them. I have the tools required for the operation in my pack.’
For a moment it seems to Katherine that Fournier will conduct the operation.
‘But no,’ he says. ‘I have none of the notes I need, nor sufficient recall of the details of the procedure.’
He returns to his drink with relief.
‘We have his instructions here,’ Katherine says. She nods to Thomas, who fishes the manuscript out of the pardoner’s pack. He is about to pass them along the ta
ble, then sees the greasy thumbs that might mark the pages, and so he gets up and delivers them to the physician himself. Fournier looks at them, casually at first, but then a frown gathers.
‘Now you have no excuse,’ Katherine says.
Fournier does not look up. He turns a page, folding it carefully. After a long moment he closes it. His gaze flicks around the hall, as if anxious not to settle on one thing too long, before settling on the door.
‘It is a pity,’ he says. ‘I should have done the operation first thing in the morning save that the moon is in Libra, and astrologers agree no operation ought to be undertaken while the moon is in the sign governing the part of the body to be operated upon. The stars are powerful forces in our fates—’
‘Yet you said you would bleed him tomorrow,’ Katherine interrupts. Fournier’s dark eyes deepen in his head.
‘Very well,’ he concedes, ‘I shall conduct the operation tomorrow, first thing in the morning.’
He drains his cup and bangs it down for a refill.
The next morning he is gone.
‘At least he didn’t charge for the bloodletting,’ Geoffrey says, before they discover he has taken a silver cup in lieu.
‘I had a dream in the night,’ Katherine tells Thomas later. ‘I dreamed that it was me who cut Sir John. I cut out his fistula and as a reward he gave me his cushion. For some reason I was pleased with it.’
Thomas narrows his eyes.
‘You don’t mean to do it yourself? Fournier said it is a dangerous operation.’
She shakes her head.
‘It is no more dangerous than any other. No more so than cutting the arrow out of Richard, and I would if I had the instruments. I feel I know it off by heart now.’
Thomas sighs.
‘We should find you something else to read,’ he says.
Katherine laughs, and is about to go out when Goodwife Popham comes down the stairs from Sir John’s chamber. She is carrying a leather bag.
‘Surgeon’s gone and left his instruments,’ she says.
Thomas turns to Katherine. He is staring at her, alarmed.
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims Page 29
