The Traitor's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  "And there's an on-going trouble," Frevisse said. "Because that man is still somewhere and knows you. Knows you're here, if you're right about seeing him yesterday."

  "I'm right."

  The fountain played quietly beside them, the garden's only sound for a moment, before she said, "You killed a man yesterday."

  "I did."

  "You've killed other men."

  "I have."

  She did not know how to ask her next question; but with his disconcerting way of sometimes seeming to know her too well, he said, "But only when they've intended my death or someone else's." He paused, then added, "And I've prayed for their souls afterward. As I hope someone prays for mine."

  "You're prayed for," Frevisse said, and added somewhat more crisply, "Besides, I've done more for you than that. I've asked Vaughn to accompany Sister Margrett and me back to St. Frideswide's, four men being better than only two for guard in these times."

  Joliffe smiled widely. "To make sure he doesn't follow me about my business? Don't you trust him, my lady?"

  "St. Frideswide's is on his way to Lady Alice at Kenilworth," Frevisse said with feigned austerity. "There need be nothing more to it than that."

  "Nonetheless, I thank you for your—shall we call it 'discretion'?"

  "Then you don't trust him either?"

  "When all is said and done, my lady," Joliffe said lightly, "I find I trust surprisingly few people."

  But she was among them and he did not have to say so for her to know it, and before the little silence then could draw out too long between them, she said, back to where they had begun, "So we've found out much, proved too little, and solved nothing. Will his grace of York use Suffolk's accusation against the king?"

  "I think not openly. It would be inviting open war. There will be lords who will back the king, no matter what, and those too outraged by the wrong to bear it. What York will do is be far less trusting in his dealings with King Henry, far more willing than he has been to push matters where he thinks he's in the right. And he will join in the growing demands that Somerset be brought to trial for his treasonous betrayals in Normandy."

  "But if King Henry protects Somerset, which he may well do to protect himself from anything Somerset might say against him ..."

  "Then maybe we'll have war anyway."

  And what was there to be said to that? Nothing that Frevisse could think of. Nor Joliffe either, it seemed. All was said and nothing settled, and without more to be said, they left the fountain and its greensward and walked slowly toward the door in the wall. Sister Margrett rose and joined them, but Joliffe stopped, took from inside his doublet a small leather pouch, and held it out to her.

  "This is from his grace the duke of York. For St. Frideswide's in thanks for the good help the priory gave in this matter."

  Beginning to thank him, Sister Margrett took the pouch but broke off, looking startled.

  "Not many coins," Joliffe said. "But gold ones, I think."

  Sister Margrett immediately started to hand the pouch away to Frevisse, but Joliffe put out a hand, stopping her, saying, "I think Dame Frevisse has had enough of burden-bearing for a time." He smiled his smile that had surely warmed more than one woman's heart. "I doubt she'll grudge you the pleasure of bearing this one."

  Sister Margrett smiled back at him, briefly distracted, while Frevisse assured her, "Bear it and be welcome."

  Finishing her thanks, Sister Margrett tucked the pouch away. Joliffe went to open the door ahead of them. Frevisse, thinking he would part from them there, was readying her farewell when, with thanks to the guard, he continued with them, back toward the guestyard. As they reached it, he said, "I'll make my farewell now, my ladies, by your leave." He nodded toward the stables. A stableman was standing, holding Joliffe's red-roan horse. "I'm setting out while the day is young."

  The stableman had seen Joliffe, was coming toward them. They stopped where they were, Frevisse gathering her mind back from the dreariment of thoughts she had brought with her from the garden. As suddenly as this it was all going to be done. The man reached them. Joliffe took the reins and gave him a coin and thanks. The man went back toward the stables, Joliffe swung up into his saddle, and she found the farewell words she wanted, saying, "Then now is when I must wish God be with you, Joliffe."

  He smiled down at her. "And with you, my lady. May all be well at St. Frideswide's, and no one and nothing come to disturb your peace again."

  "Where do you go?" Frevisse could not hold back from asking.

  "My lord of York has bid me have that rest you told him I should have." He gathered up his reins. "I'm going home."

  "Home?" Frevisse's surprise was naked in her voice. Somehow she had never thought of Joliffe with a home.

  Smiling as if he had full well intended that surprise, Joliffe said, "I have a home, yes." He started to swing his horse toward the abbey gateway. "And a wife," he added.

  Unable to stop herself, Frevisse started to smile, too, as she called after him, "And children, too, I suppose?"

  He looked over his shoulder at her, smiled more widely, which was no clear answer at all, and kept on riding. And watching him go, Frevisse gave way and laughed aloud, because thought of Joliffe with a home and wife to go to was better by far than thought of him riding out alone into a world empty of anyone waiting for him.

  Authors Note

  The plot of this book is solidly imbedded in actual events of 1450. William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk was indeed killed on his way into exile, and within a few months of his death his steward was murdered at Flint, his household priest beheaded by his parishioners, and his secretary arrested. It was a year of violence all over England, with numerous uprisings and murders, but the cluster of deaths associated with Suffolk caught my interest, and when I found reference to another priest being beheaded by parishioners not very far from the other one and soon afterward, plots and possibilities began to spin in my mind.

  I already had questions about events of that year. I've dealt with the possibility that the loss of Normandy was a deliberate act in an earlier book of this series. Again, the duke of Somerset's behavior in the course of the French reconquest of Normandy is strange in the extreme, giving grounds for speculation that easily range beyond assumption of plain incompetence. But the duke of Suffolk's murder raises questions all of its own. No one was ever punished for it, despite the name of the ship that intercepted him was known. Actually, soon after Suffolk's death King Henry wrote to the master of the Nicholas of the Tower, saying that since the master had not agreed to Suffolk's death and did not allow it to be done aboard ship, if he would run some information to and from besieged Cherbourg, the king would take him and his fellowship "to our grace." A mild response to a brutal murder. Added to that, on 3 April 1450 Gervase Clyfton of the royal household was ordered, by letters patent, to seize for royal use the ship Nicholas of the Tower and the masters and mariners of it, and arm them to resist the king's enemies. That gave me pause, linking as it did the royal household to the ship that, a month later, was used for Suffolk's murder. It might also be of significance that two days before that order the king granted Gervase Clyfton 400 marks as a gift for his past good work at sea. And to his work to come? I wonder.

  As for other historical deaths taking place or mentioned in the story, Matthew Gough, a veteran of the Hundred Years War, was actually killed while fighting Jack Cade's rebels in a night battle on London Bridge; William Tresham did die in an ambush on his way to meet the duke of York; the bishops of Chichester and Salisbury were murdered by mobs; and so were Lord Saye and William Crowmer during Cade's hold on London. No reason is known how Crowmer came to be moved out of the Tower of London at such a dangerous time. The fact simply sits there as another curious anomaly, like the Nicholas of the Tower.

  Sir William Oldhall is among the historical personages in this book but is not known to have been York's spymaster, even supposing such a personage existed; but given the venom with which the crown pursued him over
the following years, he must have done something beyond usual to anger those in power. Why not this?

  Richard, duke of York's situation in 1450 was exactly as shown in the story; and when he was warned of an effort to indict him for treason and he returned from Ireland to protest this and defend himself, royal officers of North Wales were actually ordered—it's not known by whom—to imprison York in Conwy Castle, seize and execute Sir William Oldhall, and put under lock and key his councilors Sir Walter Devereux and Sir Edmund Mulso during the king's pleasure. Where Suffolk's murder brought nearly no reaction from the crown, York's justified return from Ireland caused what seems a nearly hysterical response. And whatever the reason for those orders, no following charges were made that explains them.

  York's exchange of letters with King Henry through the autumn of 1450, and speculation on them, can be found in The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England: John Vale's Book, edited by Margaret L. Kekewich and others. The letters do seem to become progressively more aggressive and demanding and the king's responses were evasive in the extreme. In the months to come, York accepted a place in the government and was among those demanding that the duke of Somerset be brought to trial for treason. Somerset never was. Instead, he took the duke of Suffolk's place in the government and ran things even more bitterly to the wrong.

  As you can see, I had an embarrassment of riches in the way of violence, mysterious deaths, and inadequately explained events around which to build my plot. Unfortunately, Suffolk's deadly letter is entirely fictional. Nor is there any documentary support for the conclusions I have drawn about Henry VI, only circumstantial evidence—both that discussed in the story and other events in his life. His reputation remains that of a simplistic, pious, weak-natured man, but there are indications of a possible passive-aggressive side to him that I addressed in the short story "Neither Pity, Love, Nor Fear" in Royal Whodunits, edited by Mike Ashley. No historian is guilty of encouraging me in this line of speculation.

  This time in English history is of course covered in numerous books—subject headings would be "Henry VI,” “Wars of the Roses,” “Lancaster and York," and "The Hundred Years War" for those wishing to read further. Of specific and invaluable use to me was Jack Cade's Rebellion of 1450 by I. M. W. Harvey, covering a far wider range of events than Cade's rebellion alone.

  Suffolk's letter to his son can be found most readily in editions of the ubiquitous Paston letters.

  At St. Albans, Hertfordshire, the remains of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester's tomb and the saint's shrine are still to be seen in the cathedral, though the monastery is long since gone, of course. Five years after this story the first battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought in the town's marketplace outside the monastery walls, with Richard, duke of York on one side and Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset on the other.