The Traitor's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Joliffe was aware of Vaughn watching him while he said that and chose to look interested rather than blank. Blank too easily gave away you were trying to show nothing. With outward easiness he asked, "What about him?"

  "It was being said among Sir Thomas' men that he's the one took whatever word it was that's set York to coming back on the sudden."

  "Damnable spies," Joliffe said lightly.

  "What are we, then, if not 'damnable spies'?" Vaughn asked.

  "Oh, we're spies, surely. Just not damnable."

  "You hope."

  "And we're not Sir Thomas Stanley."

  "He's no spy," Vaughn scoffed.

  "No. He's a cur-dog who thinks he's a wolf, but that won't make his bite much the less if he takes a snap at someone."

  "Oldhall," said Vaughn. "Do you have any thought on what he would have told York to set him on coming back to England?"

  "Probably what I told Lady Alice at Wingfield. That men on at least one of those commissions of oyer and terminer against rebels have been told to find York was behind at least Cade's uprising."

  "Was it someone on one of the commissions?" Vaughn asked, watching him, probably as interested in judging whether Joliffe was going to tell him the truth as Joliffe was interested in seeing how far they could go before they began lying to each other.

  For now, rather than lying, Joliffe settled for looking at him wordlessly, admitting nothing.

  "Someone in the royal household?" Vaughn tried. Joliffe still said nothing, and Vaughn shrugged and said, "Well enough. Let it be your secret. Just swear to me there's nothing to Lady Alice's harm in what you're not telling me."

  "Nothing that I know of," Joliffe said readily. "I swear it on my hope of heaven." And tucked away the thought that yet again Nicholas Vaughn gave every sign of being, first of everything, the duchess of Suffolk's man. There was always the chance he was playing some double game of his own, in someone else's service more deeply than he was in Lady Alice's, but without some sign that he was, Joliffe would take him as he seemed—and tell him no more than need be. Just as Vaughn was likely doing with him.

  "It's pity, though, your nun didn't win her way closer to the queen," Vaughn said.

  Forebearing to say Dame Frevisse was not "his nun," Joliffe simply asked, "Why?"

  "From what I heard, for what it's worth, it seems that the queen, in her own rooms after supper, when she heard what Sir Thomas had to tell her, went into a . . ." Vaughn gave half a smile. ". . . royal rage."

  "When he told her that York was coming back from Ireland?"

  "At that, yes. One of Sir Thomas' men who was there was laughing at it this morning, saying she had Sir Thomas backed against a wall and was yelling in his face that York had to be stopped, that Sir Thomas had to see he was stopped."

  Leaving aside pleasure at thought of Sir Thomas Stanley backed against a wall with a woman yelling at him, Joliffe asked, "Did he have any answer to that besides, 'Yes, your grace'?"

  "He did. He said he had orders that way already. That she Needn't worry. That it would be seen to. He had his orders."

  "He kept saying he had his orders?"

  "The fellow telling it in the stableyard this morning fancies himself a player, I think. He was miming Sir Thomas against a wall and blustering. How much he was over-playing I don't know, but he had Sir Thomas saying he 'had his orders' more than once."

  "Already had orders to stop York if he came back from Ireland. You're right, it was pity Dame Frevisse wasn't there." It would have been interesting to know what she made of it all.

  Still watching him, Vaughn went on, "The queen seems also to have said she wants 'this traitor Oldhall dead'." Vaughn mimicked a French, shrill woman's voice. " 'I want him dead. See him dead and do the same for York if he gives you chance.'"

  "She said that?" Joliffe demanded. "She told him to kill the both of them?"

  "So this fellow was saying. Nor does it sound like something anyone like him would make up from whole cloth and stale wit."

  Joliffe shook his head. "No, it doesn't." And it made a believable parcel with what else was going on against York. For one moment his anger flared past his carefulness. "Damn them! York hasn't done anything. Nothing that deserves death. Even coming back from Ireland is within his rights."

  "He's too royal-blooded."

  "And those who have found how fat they can live with a weak king don't like the chance there might be a strong one, yes," Joliffe agreed, impatient with what was all too plain. "But King Henry looks to be a long way from dead . . ."

  "Unless there's something about his health we don't know."

  Joliffe stopped short over that thought, then shook his head. "No. He's spent a fairly vigorous few months of late, what with riding against the rebels and all."

  "What with riding toward them, then riding away from them even faster," Vaughn said, rightly enough.

  "And now he's riding against them again," Joliffe said mockingly. "Now that Cade is dead and the rebels scattered.

  But be all that as it may, King Henry has been too much seen of late to think his health is poorly."

  "It's the rebels' demands that York be finally, openly, fully named King Henry's heir that's done it. That's frighted those who want him nowhere near the king or in the government at all."

  "Which doesn't change the fact that, by right of blood, he is King Henry's heir."

  "And that if someone wanted to," Vaughn said very quietly, "they could say York is more than only 'heir'."

  The last golden light had gone from the cross, and the twilight in the yard was deepening toward darkness, but it was for more than the creep of the evening chill that Joliffe shivered before—as quietly as Vaughn—he said, "They could say it. But better they don't say it aloud. York has never pushed any claim that way at all, ever, that I've heard. All he's ever done or asked for is what any prince of the royal blood could rightly expect. And far less than some have demanded."

  "He's surely thought about it, though," Vaughn said, making it sound half-way to an accusation.

  "He'd better," Joliffe returned tartly, "since men are willing to kill him because of it."

  "True," Vaughn granted. "My guess, for what it's worth, is that Sir Thomas Stanley and whoever else is in this against York are judging him by how they would be if they were him."

  That was a thought Joliffe had had before now. He had had other thoughts, too, and asked, "Was that how it was with the duke of Suffolk?"

  "Suffolk?" Vaughn put neither liking nor respect into the name. "Suffolk loved himself too much to think much about anyone else. No. His distrust of York came, I think, from knowing, somewhere in himself where he likely never looked straight at it, that York was by far the better at governing the French war than Suffolk had been when he'd had the chance, and that York would surely have done better at governing England, too. Better than Suffolk ever did or ever wanted to. And remember," he added as if Joliffe had accused him of something, "it's the Lady Alice I serve, have always served. Never Suffolk."

  That must have sometimes been a narrow distinction and maybe hard to keep when Suffolk was alive to give orders; but Joliffe understood too well how narrow the distinction could sometimes be between respect of self and humiliation, and he chose not to argue Vaughn's, just as he would have wanted no one to argue his.

  "About yesterday," Vaughn said. "There's this you'd best know, too, about what was being said. According to this fellow doing all the talking, when Queen Margaret said she wanted York dead, Sir Thomas answered that once he'd been seized ..."

  "Seized?" Joliffe interrupted with disbelief. "For what?"

  "I thought it would be for leaving Ireland without the king's leave but if what you say about his indenture is true ..."

  "It is."

  "Then I don't know."

  Moving his mind backward through what else Vaughn had told him, Joliffe asked, "He never said who had given that order?"

  "The fellow in the stableyard? No. And since he seemed to be
saying everything else Sir Thomas said, he would probably have said that, too, if Sir Thomas had."

  "But Sir Thomas didn't. Even faced with the queens rage, he didn't say it. So I wonder who . . ." He let the question trail off. He was back again to asking who—with Suffolk dead—now had that kind of power? "The king?" he said doubtfully.

  But at the undeniable root of all the realm's present troubles was King Henry's willingness to leave every choice and decision in his government to someone else. To the duke of Suffolk for most the past ten years. But with Suffolk dead . . .

  "Somerset," said Vaughn. "Our fine Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset. Back from France with his royal blood and seemingly into King Henry's favor in spite of all."

  "He's royal-blooded through a bastard line," Joliffe pointed out. "And from a younger line than York's." Then added, "Which are two good reasons to want York dead, I suppose."

  There was still light enough to show Vaughn frowning as he said doubtfully, "It would make Somerset an over-busy man at present. It would have him losing Normandy, returning to England, re-establishing his place with the king, taking Suffolk's place at court, and setting up to destroy York, all in one grand rush."

  "He's already done the first three. Why not go for the fourth? Though the timing seems not so good as . . ."

  "He ought to be under arrest for treason, not into favor with the king!" Vaughn burst out.

  "He ought to be," Joliffe agreed. "But it doesn't look like happening. Which leaves only York for him to worry on. Hence the forethought to give orders against his coming back from Ireland."

  Slowly, unwillingly, Vaughn granted, "It all holds together."

  It did, but he didn't sound easy about it. Nor was Joliffe. Despite it held together, something about it sat uneasily in his mind. Uneasily but not quite in reach, and he knew better than to nag after it, whatever it was. He could only trust it would come to him if he left it alone and so he said, "It would help to know how old this order against York is. Was it given before Somerset came back from Normandy, for instance. But all we can presently do is decide what to do next with what we know."

  “Lay hands on this letter that Master Burgate has hidden with his cousin in Sible Hedingham. Judging by what he said and wouldn't say about it, it's black-dangerous."

  "It's surely that, and we should go together to get it, for safety's sake all around." And to make sure the game was played fair, he didn't say. "The trouble is that I need to see word gets to my lord of York in Ireland of the welcome-home planned for him."

  "There's this, too," Vaughn said. "We were followed from Kenilworth."

  Joliffe paused, then asked, "Why do you think that?"

  "Because I'm no more trusting than you are. I had Symond, the man with me, fall back five times during our ride, starting not long after we left Kenilworth, to see what other riders were on the road behind us."

  "It's a well-used high-road south from Kenilworth."

  "It is that, so it wasn't easy to sort out and be sure of any of them. But there were two that were still behind us after we left Warwick, all the way to Banbury. They never got nearer. They never fell farther behind. Any of the times Symond rode aside to look back along the road, there they were. When we stopped at an inn at midday and afterward went on, they were behind us again, a little nearer but keeping the same distance all the afternoon. When we briefly stopped at an inn in Banbury in the afternoon, the nuns talked openly about being to St. Frideswide's by nightfall. Symond saw one of the men watching us from down the street and saw them both behind us just after we left Banbury. Not again, though, but they wouldn't have needed to follow us closely then, if they'd found out at the inn where we were going." Vaughn tipped his head toward the gateway. "I'd take money in wager they're somewhere close out there, waiting to see where I go next."

  Joliffe made a disgusted sound. "If they're so far gone at court they don't even trust a nun, the duchess of Suffolk's cousin ..."

  "I'm not mistaken about we were followed," Vaughn said stiffly.

  "No," Joliffe quickly assured him. "They don't seem to have been much good at it, but I'd wager that's what they were at." And even if they weren't, someone else, better skilled, might have been. It was not a risk he cared to ignore. "What I'm saying is that someone at court seems to be more suspicious than I wish he was."

  Or more than one someone. Under King Henry's weakness the court had become a nest of greed and wrongs. Lords and men bold in a lord's favor did not even need to be overly well-witted at what they did or how much they grabbed for themselves. It was all become grab as grab can, leave lesser folk to the devil, and be damned to the law. But such men never saw their own foulness of heart. They turned it outward into distrust of others, and hence Dame Frevisse had brought a spy in her wake. Damn it.

  "Do you think Dame Frevisse was let in to see Burgate in deliberate hope he'd tell her what he hasn't told them?" he asked.

  "I've wondered that," Vaughn said broodingly. "But it was too much a thing of the moment, her asking and the queen sending her off to see him. I'd guess the queen was innocent in it, didn't know it mattered."

  "But when someone found out what she'd done, they decided to do what they could to recover her error," Joliffe said.

  "And had us followed," Vaughn agreed. "They probably reared he'd told this nun what they want to know and that she'd go back to Lady Alice with it."

  "They might take that she didn't go back to Lady Alice as proof he told her nothing," Joliffe said for the sake of argument, though he already knew the answer to that.

  Vaughn promptly gave it. "She doesn't have to go back to Lady Alice, and likely she's safe enough if she keeps in her cloister. It's me they'll be watching now. As soon as I leave here ..." He made a sharp, angry gesture.

  "You'll likely be no more than followed," Joliffe said. "In hope you'll lead them to this letter. Or, at worst, you'll end up like Burgate."

  "Or dead. That would be their surest way of being sure I pass on nothing I might have learned. I'm only hoping the man I sent off from Kenilworth back to Wingfield keeps ahead of whatever trouble they might send after him. But I gave him his orders while there were half a dozen men standing around, and he set off within the hour, and they could report, if anyone asked, that I neither told nor gave him anything beyond the message that Burgate was there."

  "And he was likely well away before whoever has Burgate in keeping knew anything about it."

  "Or never knew I sent Ned away at all."

  "Also possible." The trouble was that there were too many possibles, too many ways to guess at things in all of this. "The one certain thing seems to be that you were followed. Or Dame Frevisse was, which came to the same thing today, but tomorrow when you ride out and she of course doesn't, it will be you they follow. They're not likely to kill you, though. They want this letter. They have to hope you'll lead them to it and they'll want you unharmed until you do. I suppose you could always lie in wait and kill them," he added helpfully.

  "Thereby showing whoever has set them on that, one, I'm suspicious enough to note that I was followed, and two, that I must have something to hide."

  "Not if the bodies are never found."

  "They only have to disappear for my innocence to come under question."

  True enough; but it was good to know Vaughn did not see murder as his quickest way to solving problems, Joliffe thought; and said, "Where is this Sible Hedingham anyway?"

  "A northern part of Essex. There's two Hedinghams, close together and both not far from your duke of York's castle at Clare."

  "Back eastward from here," Joliffe said. Somewhere beyond Hunsdon.

  "East and somewhat south, yes."

  "You could go back to Lady Alice at Wingfield first, rather than straight there."

  "I may have to, but the longer this thing is in this priest's keeping, the better is the chance we'll lose it. All it will take is someone asking enough questions at Ipswich to find out Burgate entrusted a package to some fellow there,
then find the fellow and ask him questions he won't see any reason not to answer."

  "It might not be that easy. Haven't you already asked questions in Ipswich and heard nothing about this package?"

  "It was Burgate we wanted. We thought we'd have all our answers once we found him. I didn't ask the right questions," Vaughn said bitterly.

  "You asked the right questions. Just not enough of them. I know well enough how that goes." Knew it too well and that there was small help for it when it happened. You didn't look for the key to a lock on a door when you didn't know the door was there. "But our package-carrier might not be all that easily found, even with the right questions. London is large. Or then again ..." Joliffe liked to see as many sides as possible, as much for the sake of making trouble as to solve it. ". . . maybe he's already tired of London and gone home and is even now sitting in an Ipswich tavern complaining of the package he delivered for the duke of Suffolk's man to some priest in . . ."