12 The Bastard's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Dame Perpetua, dipping pen into inkpot and bending to her work again, nodded and probably within three words forgot she had been there at all.

  Quiet-footed past empty desks, Frevisse went toward where Bishop Pecock had now retreated from sight. Save for the faint scritch of Dame Perpetua’s pen and the faint crackle of a parchment page being turned by the monk, the library was deep in book-kept silence, no sign that anyone else was there until she came level with the last desk and saw not only Bishop Pecock but, standing behind him, Arteys.

  Chapter 12

  Forgetful of any respectful greeting or curtsy, Frevisse joined them out of sight in the stall, saying in a forceful whisper, “Arteys. What are you doing here?”

  ‘You know who he is?“ Bishop Pecock asked back in lowered voice before Arteys could answer.

  Keeping her guess at who Arteys was, she said, “I know he’s one of the duke of Gloucester’s men. The word running is that Gloucester is arrested but none of his men. That’s true then?”

  ‘He’s arrested. I don’t know the rest,“ Arteys whispered. He had the look of someone who, having taken a hard blow, was trying to hide the afterpain. ”I ran.“

  “One of the knights told him to take the chance to leave while it was happening,” Bishop Pecock said. “Arteys, having common sense, did, since there was no knowing what else was going to be done or to whom.”

  ‘I ran,“ Arteys said bitterly.

  ‘You left where you could do Gloucester no good, on the hope you could do him good elsewhere,“ Bishop Pecock answered.

  ‘I left him. I…“

  Bishop Pecock raised an admonitory hand. “You were ordered to it by one of your father’s knights, a man with the right to give you orders, yes? By obeying, you did your duty as it was at that moment. To twist and turn about it afterwards is a waste of wit and time, neither of which you—or in truth anyone else but you most especially just now—should waste, however plentiful both or either may be.”

  Arteys shook his head, probably as lost as Frevisse was among so many words, but she had managed to hold to one thing and asked, “One of your father’s knights?”

  ‘Sir Roger. He…“ Arteys started to answer, then saw the real point of her question and froze for a moment before lifting his head and saying, in defiance or pride or maybe only with the tired relief of admitting it, ”My father’s knight. I’m the duke of Gloucester’s bastard son.“

  Frevisse would have asked more, beginning with why he had gone to Bishop Pecock for help and why Bishop Pecock had brought her into it when he could have left her out, but there was a soft footfall behind her, both Bishop Pecock’s and Arteys’ heed went past her, and she turned as Joliffe sighed and said, in the same low voice they had been using, “So much for my plan of where to hide you, Arteys.”

  ‘It was a quite reasonable plan,“ Bishop Pecock re-Plied, ”made as it must have been with hardly time to think about it and not intending it to be for long.“ He moved aside and backward to make room for Joliffe to join them in the now crowded shelter the stall’s high walls still gave. ”I came here myself for respite from all the talk and goings-on and happened on him, that’s all. Joliffe, the chair is going to waste, all of us standing here. Make use of it. You look as if you need it.“

  Joliffe did not argue the point but edged past Frevisse, turned the chair from the desk, and sat with a wry, “My thanks, my lord.”

  Since there was nothing she could do for his tiredness, Frevisse asked, still trying to put together what had happened, “Arteys came to you for help?”

  ‘It was more that we happened on each other while he was trying to get out of St. Saviour’s after Gloucester’s arrest.“

  ‘You were in St. Saviour’s when Gloucester was arrested?“

  ‘As it happens, yes.“

  ‘Why?“

  Joliffe pulled a slight face at her. “Does it matter?”

  ‘You’ve made me part of this whether I wanted it or no. If I’ve no way out of it, I at least want to know more than I do.“

  ‘I didn’t make you part of this.“

  ‘Your good Cardinal Bishop Beaufort of Winchester did, then,“ she snapped, ”but he’s not here and you are.“

  Arteys, who had been leaning back against the bookshelf at the desk’s end, straightened. “Bishop Beaufort?” he repeated in a strained voice.

  ‘That tears it,“ Joliffe said to no one in particular.

  ‘You’re here for Bishop Beaufort?“ Arteys demanded at them both.

  Frevisse made a sharp nod at Joliffe. “He’s here for Bishop Beaufort. I’m here because my prioress was bribed to ‘give me leave’ to serve the bishop’s ‘request’ for my help.”

  ‘Bribed?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘With promise of a gift of property our nunnery sorely needs, if I’d come to Bury St. Edmunds and see whatever might be happening. I was to watch and listen and give the use of my wits, if asked, to someone else the bishop would have here.“ She turned an unfriendly look on Joliffe. ”Him.“

  Arteys’ look at him was as unfriendly as hers. “She was forced to it, but you weren’t, were you? You’ve been looking how to make use of me against my father, haven’t you?” His eyes widened with a sudden thought. “That day in the tavern you knew how many men he was bringing with him. When all the rumors said thousands, you knew it was only eighty. I’ve been a fool!”

  At least briefly his fury was greater than his fear or shame and he jerked forward as if to shove past Bishop Pecock and leave, but Bishop Pecock put out a hand to stop him while asking Joliffe, “Well?”

  Joliffe hesitated, for once without even a glint of mockery, before he said, “Bishop Beaufort is dying. He likely won’t live to see the summer and he knows it.”

  Bishop Pecock and Frevisse made the sign of the cross. Unwillingly, belatedly, Arteys followed them.

  ‘You’re certain?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘Certain enough. He says it and he had death’s look on him when I last saw him, a month ago.“

  Bishop Pecock shook his head. “I hadn’t heard. I didn’t know.”

  ‘No one is supposed to know except the few in his household who have to. He’s given out he took a chill before Christmas and is having trouble being rid of it, nothing more.“

  ‘Believable enough at his age,“ Bishop Pecock granted. ”Not that there won’t be guessing going on by some. He’s had lessening power in England’s governance these few years past, but still…“ He shook his head again with the worried wonder of someone watching the world change shape. ”There’ll be a different balance to things when he’s gone, that’s sure.“

  Bitterly Arteys thrust in, “If he’s going to die, he wants my father dead with him. That’s what’s brought this on, isn’t it?”

  ‘Go at it the other way,“ Joliffe said. ”He doesn’t want Gloucester dead.“

  ‘They’ve been enemies for thirty years and more and suddenly, dying, he has a care for my father?“ Arteys mocked savagely.

  ‘I doubt he cares for Gloucester any better than he ever did,“ Joliffe said back. ”But he cares even less for what he’s seen of Suffolk and his little pack of lords.“

  ‘Disliking Suffolk and wanting to help Gloucester are two different things.“

  ‘Except where they meet in Bishop Beaufort’s worry over what’s going to happen when he’s gone and there’s no one left around the king of royal blood save Gloucester and the duke of York to be any check on Suffolk.“

  ‘The more so,“ Bishop Pecock put in, ”when neither Gloucester nor York are in any kind of favor or have much influence with King Henry and against Suffolk.“

  ‘They both have their royal blood, though, which counts for something, however far out of power they are,“ Joliffe returned. ”And two of them alive and well are a better guard against Suffolk having all his own way than if there’s only one of them.“

  ‘You’re watching York, too, then?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘I’m here because B
ishop Beaufort told me to find out what I could about everything. If Gloucester was at peril, as Bishop Beaufort had half-heard he was, he wanted to have some thought of what was going to happen, on the hope he could do something against it.“

  ‘Only they moved too fast or sooner than he expected,“ Bishop Pecock said. ”Not that there’s likely much could have been done to stop them, even if he’d known.“

  ‘None of you seem to suppose Gloucester might be actually guilty of treason,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘He isn’t,“ Arteys said fiercely. ”The one thing, the only thing he had in mind, coming here, was hope he could plead pardon for Lady Eleanor.“

  ‘Did he think he had any better hope of it than he’s had these past five years?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘Yes. He’d been told…“ Arteys briefly stopped, then went on more slowly, ”He was told there was finally a chance of it, he said.“ He looked from Joliffe to Bishop Pecock. ”There was never any hope of her being pardoned, was there? He was baited to come here. It’s been a trap all along, hasn’t it?“

  ‘I would judge so,“ Bishop Pecock said.

  Joliffe looked to Frevisse. “You were supposed to be picking up what you could in Suffolk’s household. Has there been anything?” Before she could answer, he shifted to Arteys and said, “You may as well know she’s cousin to Suffolk’s wife.”

  ‘That’s why Bishop Beaufort was able to make use of me,“ Frevisse said to forestall whatever Arteys might say to that. ”But I care as little for Suffolk as any of you do. And to your question, Joliffe—Suffolk and Dorset seem to be riding high on glee over something and all this morning there were clerks writing madly at something in the outer chamber of his rooms but I’ve found out nothing else.“ Alice’s unease she kept to herself.

  Joliffe switched to Bishop Pecock. “Among the lords? In parliament? Talk from your servants? Anything?”

  ‘Nothing. No. You’ve surely noted by now that Bury St. Edmunds is presently full of a large number of people who talk much but know nothing?“

  ‘Why were you at St. Saviour’s?“ Arteys demanded at Joliffe, his voice heavy with distrust. ”How did you come to be there then?“

  Level-voiced, Joliffe answered, “I was there because I’d seen the duke of Buckingham and his gaggle of nobles and royal-liveried men going that way. I followed them because I thought they looked like trouble.”

  Bishop Pecock peered at him. “Curiosity and the cat. I keep thinking of that when I’m around you, Joliffe. Presuming that his grace the duke of Buckingham was not so slack as to leave no guards at the gateways into St. Saviour’s, may one be told how you got yourself in and Arteys out?”

  Joliffe inclined his head to him as if conferring a favor, the small curve of a smile at his mouth’s corners. “But of course, my lord. Scholar, priest, and bishop as you are, you’ve likely never had reason to note that servants like to keep their comings and goings to themselves if they can.”

  ‘Oddly enough,“ Bishop Pecock returned, matching his dryness, ”I have occasionally noted such a thing, yes.“

  ‘Then perhaps you’ve likewise noted that if there’s another way out of somewhere besides the usual, it will be the servants who know of it. At St. Saviour’s the way happens to be a slight gap in the wellyard’s wall at the stables’ far end where a board swings loose to the side when pushed, enough for someone of no great bulk to slip through.“

  ‘And how did you happen to know that?“ Frevisse asked.

  Joliffe shrugged. “One sees things if one looks.”

  ‘And you’d been looking before today, I take it?“ she said.

  ‘One never knows,“ Bishop Pecock put in, ”what stray bits of knowledge may prove of use in the fullness of time. Arteys, he found you trying to leave but balked by Buckingham’s men, I take it?“

  ‘I’d escaped the hall but couldn’t go out any gateway and was circling the yard behind the outbuildings, trying to find another way out or a place to hide.“ Something of the hopelessness and fear from then was still in his voice. ”I met him there.“

  ‘And here was the best I could think of for him for the while,“ Joliffe said. ”Now, since you can’t stay here forever—“

  ‘Now,“ Arteys interrupted, ”I’ll see to myself.“

  ‘You have money and a way to leave Bury St. Edmunds?“ Bishop Pecock asked mildly. ”Or somewhere to hide while you find money and a way to leave?“

  ‘I don’t mean to leave!“

  ‘Then you know someone else here in Bury St. Edmunds you can go to for help? You have friends here? Or someone who’ll do it for the sake of your father?“

  Arteys’ silence was answer enough.

  ‘Then by removing the impossible and unlikely, it will have to be our help,“ Bishop Pecock said.

  Arteys pointed angrily at Joliffe. “Not his.”

  ‘Since I think we can well assume he was not in St. Saviour’s on the supposition of your escape, it can be argued that his willingness to help you then says something to his favor, don’t you think?“

  ‘Come to that,“ Arteys said, ignoring the question, ”why are you willing to help me?“

  ‘A very sound question,“ Bishop Pecock said approvingly, ”to which, unfortunately, I lack a sound answer. Will it be enough to say that I’m among those who don’t much care for what I see of Suffolk and those around him and therefore have no reason to refuse help to someone in need of it when that someone has done no wrong of which I know?“

  ‘Put simply,“ Joliffe said, ”he’d rather help you than Suffolk.“

  ‘And you?“ Arteys demanded. He gestured at Joliffe and Frevisse together. ”Why would you help me?“

  Frevisse winced inwardly at being lumped so unquestioningly with Joliffe, but he answered straightly, “For the same reason.”

  ‘How do I even know I need help?“ Sharp with confused anger, Arteys’ voice started to rise but he caught it down again to say at Bishop Pecock, ”Maybe I didn’t even need to run. Maybe I should just go back. What good am I doing my father here?“

  ‘What good can you do him there?“ Bishop Pecock returned. ”Moreover—and this is a thing you’d best not forget—your father’s greatest danger comes from his royal blood. Without that, he’d not be such a desperate problem to Suffolk and the others, and it may well occur to them, while they’re about it, that you’re royal blooded, too, and may likewise be worth being rid of. It’s no secret, I believe, that you’re his son.“

  ‘It’s not, but I hardly matter. I’m bastard-born.“

  ‘So is Bishop Beaufort and so was his brother, whose son is now marquis of Dorset and likely, in due course, to be earl of Somerset,“ Bishop Pecock said serenely and, leaving Arteys to make what he would of that thought, went on, ”As for your accepting help not only from me but from Dame Frevisse and Joliffe, I have to say that, taken all in all, their reasons for giving it are creditable and that so long as things hold as they are, I believe they can be depended on.“

  Joliffe silently mouthed a mocking “thank you” while Arteys, intent on Bishop Pecock, asked, “But if things change?”

  ‘Not ’if they change but ‘when,’ “ Bishop Pecock said. ”The world is mutable and always changing.“

  ‘And because it is,“ Joliffe said, ”the best you can do is play the game as it stands now.“ He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms on his chest, somewhat insultingly at ease and more as if he were watching an entertainment than something real and dangerous. ”And like it or not, as it stands now, you have no likelihood of help from anyone but the three of us, who are willing to help you because it’s against Suffolk. So what will it be? Striking out on your own with nowhere to go and no way to get there even if there was? Or our help, such as it is?“

  That was blunt to the point of brutal and Arteys, standing stiffly at bay against them all, flushed a strong red before snapping back, his in-held desperation flaring to defiance, “There’s hardly choice, is there?”

  ‘No, there isn�
��t,“ Joliffe returned, ”so you’d better take what’s offered.“

  Arteys turned his back as far as might be on Joliffe and asked Bishop Pecock, “How can you help me?”

  ‘A place to stay until we know better what’s happening. An advantage of being a lesser bishop is that I can stay in lesser places, rather than here in the abbey. I have rooms somewhat out of the way at St. Petronilla’s hospital outside Southgate. My people will say nothing about you if I tell them not to, nor is anyone likely to take particular note you’re there because no one takes particular note of me. If you’re willing to this, then by your leave I think we should go now.“

  Arteys hesitated, then gave a tight-lipped nod of agreement. Bishop Pecock nodded back, bent his head to Frevisse with, “My lady,” and to Joliffe with, “Master Joliffe,” and left. With neither word nor nod to either of them, Arteys followed and in silence Frevisse and Joliffe waited, listening while Bishop Pecock passed a few words with the monk at the door, then waited longer in the library’s quiet before Frevisse said, still remembering to keep her voice low, “You were harsh with him.”

  Joliffe sighed heavily, rubbed with both hands at his face, and drew himself up in the chair. “I had to move him. Otherwise we might have stayed here arguing forever.”

  ‘I know. It was well done,“ Frevisse said quietly.

  Joliffe looked up at her in surprise. “Thank you.”

  ‘On the other hand, you didn’t give his grace the bishop an actual answer when he asked if you were set to watch the duke of York as well as Gloucester.“

  Maybe remembering that by rights he should not be sitting while she stood, Joliffe rose to his feet. “I serve Bishop Beaufort at present, not the bishop of St. Asaph.”

  ‘Which still is not a straight answer.“

  ‘No,“ he agreed. ”It’s not.“

  He met her look long and level, with laughter in his but none in hers as she asked, “How long have you been Bishop Beaufort’s man?”