16 The Traitor's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Unexpected tears came into Alice’s eyes and she reached out and grabbed hold on one of Frevisse’s hands, saying, “Oh, Frevisse, then you know. I’m so frightened I don’t know anymore if what I do and decide is driven by fear or reason. That’s why I need your help. We have to decide how much more to trust to this Joliffe, and I don’t know, I simply and just don’t know …”

  Chapter 11

  The afternoon was clouding over. The parlor had been warm with light a little while ago but was gathering gray shadows now, and Joliffe, standing at the window, said without turning his head, “It’s likely coming on to rain.”

  Vaughn, still seated at the low table behind him, shuffling the cards with which they’d mostly passed their time, made a meaningless sound, and the heavy silence fell again between them.

  They had tried through the past hours to find a way around their several days of distrust into a semblance of ease between them. They had tried talk, Joliffe asking if Vaughn had been long in Suffolk’s service, to which Vaughn said tersely, “I grew up in her grace’s service and have never wanted other.”

  Joliffe noted he had made plain he had served Lady Alice, not the duke. Was that a new distinction, meant to distance himself from Suffolk, or something he held to out of a long dislike of the man?

  “What of you?” Vaughn had returned. “Have you been York’s man for long?”

  “Only a few years.” If he stretched a point.

  Vaughn had cocked a curious look at him. “These few years haven’t been the best of times to take service with someone like York.”

  “No,” Joliffe had agreed. These past few years were in fact a very foolish time to have taken service with a man so openly fallen from royal favor as York; but he had added nothing to his single word, and their talk had mostly ended there, neither of them ready to give away more or trust each other further.

  They had tried chess next, because Vaughn knew where a battered board with plain wooden pieces was kept in an aumbry built into one wall of the room—“Not good enough to pack up and take whenever the household moves on,” he said as he brought it out—but they were neither of them much good at the game. After one game, that Vaughn stumbled into winning with neither of them quite sure how, they turned to cards with a battered pack from the same aumbry. They had laid the cards out to be sure none were missing, found they were all there, and settled to the least challenging games they both knew, where the shuffling, sorting, and slapping down of cards occupied the mind without need for much actual thought about it.

  Getting drunk would have served the same purpose but taken longer and been less quickly recovered from. Besides, they had only the weak ale that Vaughn had brought from the kitchen when he fetched their midday meal.

  The little cautious talk they tried between games had gone nowhere, and now late afternoon was come and the weather was turning and restlessness was creeping up on Joliffe. He could put up a seeming of patience if he had to but never fooled himself for very long, and he was relieved to hear a light footfall in the neighboring room where no one had been all day. He turned toward the door with what might have been betraying quickness except Vaughn was rising from the table just as quickly. But they had done no more than that when Lady Alice came in without troubling to knock—she being lady here, and everything hers, she went where she wanted, when she wanted—and both men bowed, Vaughn saying, “My lady.”

  “Nicholas,” she answered. And stiffly, “Master Noreys.”

  Joliffe had already noted how “Master” came and went with her opinion of him. That he was “Master Noreys” again was probably a sign to the good.

  It was surely to the good, too, that Dame Frevisse was with her, closing the door behind them. With her plain black Benedictine habit and quiet manner she was like a shadow to her cousin’s more richly garbed widowhood and bold readiness to make use of her own high place in the world. But Joliffe knew better than to take those outward seemings at their outward value. Just as Dame Frevisse knew him better than he wished she did, he knew that behind her downcast eyes a sharp mind kept busy. That sometimes had been to his good, sometimes to his discomfort but never to his ill, he reminded himself.

  As for Lady Alice … With the quickness that had served him well when he was altogether a player and had helped to keep him alive a few other times, he took in what Lady Alice’s face and body told him about her. She was frightened, and meant to hide it behind her graceful bearing but her voice was taut behind her words as she said to him and Vaughn together, “There’s another matter I’ve decided you should know. I’ve come to the end of what I can do about it and hope maybe one or the other of you has some useful thought.”

  “If we may, my lady,” Vaughn said with a bow that Joliffe slightly echoed.

  Crisp with an anger she did not trouble to hide, maybe hoping it would serve to hide her fear, she told how and why she thought her husband, at the end, had written out an accusation in damnable detail against those who had agreed together to lose Normandy.

  Joliffe’s first thought, as he grasped what she was telling him, was disbelief that any man could be so great a fool. Had Suffolk ever seen further than the reach of his own narrow feelings, to want that kind of revenge on his fellows at the cost of what it would bring down upon his son and wife? Plainly his wife believed him capable of such a fool’s play, and that well-accounted for her fear.

  For Richard of York, though, this thing would be a godsend. It could be the weapon he needed against whatever men around the king were trying to bring him down; and as Lady Alice finished, he asked, to be sure, “You think, then, there were more men agreed to the business than Suffolk and Somerset?”

  “Yes.” She said the word as if she hated it. Or merely her husband? “Almost surely.”

  “But you don’t know where this accusation is, or even if it was ever written.”

  “Nothing like it has shown up among any of my lord husband’s things that were returned to me. But neither has his secretary returned either, and he’s the man most likely to know whether or not this thing ever was.”

  “You’re certain he’s someone his grace of Suffolk would have trusted that far?” Joliffe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Even with something like that?” he persisted.

  Curtly Lady Alice said again, “Yes. One has to trust someone, sometimes. My lord husband trusted Edward Burgate.”

  And presently she hated having to trust Joliffe and he was scarcely happier trusting her, but he hid that and said, “As it stands, then, there may or may not be an accusation that this secretary may or may not have either written or at least known about, and presently you know neither where this secretary is or if he’s alive or dead.”

  “I pray to God he still lives,” Lady Alice said curtly.

  “What you want, then, my lady, is to find this secretary and to learn what he knows. Want us to find him,” he corrected, including Vaughn.

  “Yes.

  “Because if there is an accusation all written out and signed and sealed by your late husband,” said Joliffe—and did not add aloud, God rot him, “then it would serve both you and my lord of York to have it. Because whoever was in this business with Suffolk—Somerset for certain and whoever else there might have been—they’re surely among my lord of York’s enemies around the king and are someone, or someones, likely to prove equally your foe if they’re free to lay all the blame for Normandy on Suffolk, should things come to that.”

  “Yes.”

  “What crosses my mind is what guarantee have I that, should your man and I find this secretary, I won’t end up dead and my lord of York out of luck in the matter? Since you’ve assuredly considered that he could use this accusation against your interests as well as against whoever else was part of it.”

  “A point well put,” Lady Alice granted crisply, “and one you’d do well to keep in mind if you were dealing with my late husband in anything. But he was a treacherous cur and I pray to all the saints that I am not.�
��

  Her blunt bitterness startled Joliffe and, by their faces, Dame Frevisse and Vaughn, as well; but Lady Alice went on, to only him and still bitterly, “Listen, Master Noreys. There are too many people glad to have Suffolk out of their way. If Somerset doesn’t grab his place next to the king, others will be trying to. My son is too young for anything but to be shoved aside, and in myself I have very little power. The most I really hope for is to be given control of his wardship and marriage, but I’ve no guarantee of those. They could as easily be given to someone else and my son taken completely away from me. Your duke of York is neither my rival nor my enemy. I’d keep him that way. Even more, I think he and I would be best served, the both of us, in making common cause together, and this—through you—looks my best way to that.”

  “How do you know my lord of York won’t betray you, use whatever this is to bring on Suffolk’s attainder and ruin your son anyway?”

  That was possibly a fool’s challenge to make, but better to have it in the open than lurking, since it had to be something she had already thought of; and she asked straight back at him, “Do you think York is that sort of man? To ruin a child for revenge on its father?”

  “No.” Joliffe’s answer came on the instant and without need for thought. “I think my lord of York has more honor in his little finger than Somerset in his whole body.”

  Bitter humour flickered up in Lady Alice’s eyes. “I think that, too. That’s York’s weakness in dealing with those around the king.” She paused, perhaps bracing herself for the next before she went on, “You spoke about the use of a marriage alliance. If this matter ends well, I will indeed be more than willing to a marriage between one of his daughters and John.”

  Since they seemed to be dealing so openly, Joliffe asked, What if my lord of York uses this supposed accusation to bring down Somerset, and Suffolk’s part in it becomes known?”

  “We can hope it will not come to that. I doubt it would serve the government well to have everything made known.

  Let York show it to the king and to the chancellor. That should be enough to shift Somerset, and whoever else was part of it, out of royal favor and keep them there.”

  It should be, yes, Joliffe inwardly granted. It should likewise put paid to whoever around the king was trying to build a case of treason against York, which was an even more immediate need; and he said, “Well enough. Do you have any thought how I should go about searching for this Bur-gate? Or learning what’s happened to him?”

  “Master Vaughn can tell you what he’s learned thus far toward finding him,” Lady Alice said, with a look at Vaughn that gave him leave to speak.

  He promptly did, saying, “Unhappily, it’s mostly what has not been learned. He was set ashore at Dover with the rest of my lord of Suffolk’s household. That’s the last we know of him.”

  “Nothing else?” Joliffe asked. Somehow he had not expected them to know less than he did.

  “Everything was in disorder. Some of the men were keeping watch over my lord of Suffolk’s body on the beach, waiting for the crowner and sheriff to come. Some left to take word to my lady and elsewhere. Some just left, wanting to get away from the business altogether. Burgate did neither of the first two things, and I’ve failed to find that he did the last.”

  “No,” said Joliffe. “But there’s report he was taken into custody at Dover, maybe by a royal officer, maybe not.”

  “Arrested you mean?” Lady Alice said, as Vaughn demanded, “How do you know that?”

  Joliffe answered Vaughn first, with a smile that probably made Vaughn like him none the better. “Because we have someone there better at learning things than you have?” Before Vaughn could make answer to that, he turned to Lady Alice and went on, “No, not outright arrested, it seems, of there would be some record of it. It’s more as if he was taken hand and hasn’t been seen since. He seems gone from Dover, though.”

  “So it’s not that he’s willfully disappeared,” Lady Alice said.

  “Why would he want to disappear anyway?” Dame Frevisse asked. “Presumably taking this supposed accusation with him”

  “To make the accusation disappear with him?” Joliffe suggested.

  “If there’s such a thing exists at all,” Dame Frevisse reminded them.

  “Can you think of another reason why he should disappear—by choice or otherwise—other than that he knows or has, or had, something worth disappearing for?” Joliffe asked.

  “No, that wouldn’t be Burgate’s way,” Lady Alice said unhappily. ” Someone has to have … disposed of him.”

  “Or the man that reported him being taken was wrong,” said Vaughn with a hard look at Joliffe. “It seems an uncertain enough report at best.”

  “What have your questions turned up about him?” Joliffe returned, not in challenge but simply to know.

  “That no man of his description hired a horse in Dover,” Vaughn answered stiffly. “On the chance he had walked away, I had questions asked after him at ports along the coast in both directions and at the nearby inland towns. There’s no word that he hired passage overseas or bought or hired a horse or stopped at any inn or tavern or was seen by anyone at all.”

  “So however he left Dover, it wasn’t by any reasonable means,” Joliffe said. “We want unreasonable, then.”

  “Secretly carried off and held somewhere,” Vaughn said. As your report suggests.”

  Or simply killed,” said Dame Frevisse, “and his body unfound.”

  And all hope gone of learning what he knew, one way or the other,” Lady Alice said, “until I learn the hard way, when someone uses the accusation against me.” Her words hardened. “I need to know for certain whether this thing is or is not, and if it is, whether it’s safe or in someone else’s hands.”

  “You’re presuming Burgate wouldn’t make use of it for his own gain,” Joliffe said. “Sell it to the highest bidder for money or favor.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Lady Alice said with flat refusal of the thought.

  Quickly, as if to cut off any protest Joliffe might make to that, Vaughn said, “I judge the only place we have much hope of finding out anything is among people near the king, since questions elsewhere have gone nowhere.”

  “What of family or friends he might have?” Joliffe asked.

  “None,” Vaughn answered; then added, “None I know of.”

  “Nor I,” Lady Alice said. “It’s why he was free to go abroad with my lord husband.”

  The man might have been specially made to disappear without track or trace, Joliffe thought disgustedly; but aloud he agreed with Vaughn, saying, “Then people around the king it will have to be. That’s where we’re most likely to find anyone who could be threatened by whatever Suffolk knew.” He looked to Lady Alice. “You’ve surely a spy or two in your service in the royal household keeping an ear out for any talk that way.”

  “My ‘privy friends’ in the king’s household,” she said, using the more courteous term but with a mocking edge, “have reported nothing. They’ve heard nothing that might be about him or in particular against me. Or at least not at last report from them.”

  “What about the queen’s household?” Dame Frevisse said.

  “The queen’s household?” Lady Alice was surprised. “She’d have no part in Burgate having vanished. She’s not even with King Henry now. The last I heard the king was at Westminster with I don’t know which lords, while she’s still at Kenilworth, safely away from the worst that’s been going in the south and around London.”

  “She doesn’t have to have anything to do with Burgate vanishing,” Dame Frevisse said. “Her household is simply one more place someone of your spies might have heard something.”

  No courteous “privy friends” for her, Joliffe noted.

  “Yes,” Lady Alice granted slowly. “Among her women, maybe. Women talk.”

  “And women have lovers who talk,” said Joliffe. “Maybe about Burgate.”

  “Word could pass that way from the king�
�s household to hers, yes,” Lady Alice said.

  “Could you go there, to the queen?” Dame Frevisse asked her. “You’re fairly much her friend, and you’d be best placed to ask questions about your own man.”

  Lady Alice shook her head. “That would be the simplest way, but I’ve been given widow’s leave from court, to gather up my life and spend my grieving. It would look very odd for me to suddenly return. I’d be very wondered about and there would be too much heed taken of any questions I asked.”

  “Send Dame Frevisse, then,” said Joliffe.

  Dame Frevisse said harshly, “No,” as Lady Alice said, “That’s possible. Yes.”

  “No,” Dame Frevisse repeated with an angry look at Joliffe. “It wouldn’t. I’ve no reason to be there.”

  “To take my greetings to her grace and give her my hope that she’s doing well,” Lady Alice said. “You can say you came to tell her that I’m well enough and that I’m praying for her and King Henry in all these troubles. I’ll write her a letter for you to put into her hand. That will serve to get you into the heart of the household, and once you’re there …”

  “Alice,” Dame Frevisse said, warning in her voice.

  “… you can ask questions without making much of them. And besides and more than anything, you see things differently than others do. You hear more than people say and see things others of us don’t.”

  “And you’re a nun,” Vaughn said. “Who will suspect a nun?”

  Joliffe held back from saying he would, if it was this nun; instead he said as if it were settled, “I’ll be part of her escort to Kenilworth. I can ask questions of my own there.”

  “Better you keep your distance from my lady’s business,” Vaughn said. “There’s too much chance someone will know you for York’s man.”

  “A point well taken,” Joliffe granted with a slight, agreeing bow.

  “Nicholas will go,” Lady Alice said. “He’s known as mine. He’ll be able to ask questions and make talk among the lesser people around the queen with no one likely to think twice about it.”