“Please,” he said, turning to a tight staircase. “Go through the door behind you and make yourselves at home.”
Opening the door first, John walked into a small, warm room, gently lit with a number of candles around several soft-looking seats and a large, solid oak desk to one side. Charlotte shut the door behind them and punched Jake in the arm grinning.
“You’re so mean!” she whispered, excitedly. “Did you see his face?”
Giggling and holding his arm in response, he pinched her side playfully with his free hand and opened his mouth in mocking of Samuel’s expression.
“Don’t,” she said, smiling.
“One must be in role, fiancée,” he replied and laughed. “Now make sure you behave yourself.”
John shook his head and looked away from yet another unspoken, private moment and looked around the room for a clue. The desk was littered with wrapped scrolls and scribbled notes in messy piles held down by paperweights. John tried his best to keep things where they were as he shifted through the piles, but as far as he could see the diary wasn’t there.
“Don’t say anything to him out of the ordinary unless we see the diary, ok?” he said, watching the others nod their agreement as the door opened behind them. Samuel entered looking quite different with his shirt and hips now covered by a bright red tunic and his long, blonde hair now tied tightly back in a knot behind him.
“I do apologise,” he said with a forced smile and a clear nervous expression. “Now, for what reason have you come here tonight?”
Jake spoke bluntly.
“My bride to be has misplaced her Grandmother’s locket. She believes she left it with you by mistake and we have come to retrieve it.”
“And that took all of you?”
“You don’t expect Miss Du Lac to cross this City alone do you? In any case, we are here to meet you formally in the process.”
“Oh right,” Samuel replied, smiling genuinely. “Well, yes of course I have her wonderful locket. You all left in such a hurry, I didn’t see you go so I kept hold of it and hoped to see you again.”
“Excellent,” Jake replied. “Then we will have it back immediately if you please?”
Samuel looked between them nervously then dropped his eyes.
“I am sorry, Sir Jake. I have placed it somewhere safe.”
“Very well, Samuel. So if you would be so kind as to retrieve it for us?”
“I cannot. At least, I cannot while you are present.”
Charlotte stood then and walked to the door.
“Very well De Lyons,” she said formally, taking a chance. “My husband and brother in law will see you at some point in the future when you can get to my precious locket that you have no right to hold. I, most probably, will not see you again.”
“Wait, Miss Du Lac, please?” he said hurriedly. “At least have a drink first? I really am sorry, the situation is quite unavoidable.”
“Very well, Samuel,” said John. “A drink would be nice. Charlotte?”
“Yes, John, very well,” she replied coolly. “Thank you, Samuel.”
The three of them shared a glance as Samuel poured out four goblets of wine in front of them. John took a deep breath as Samuel handed out the wine and sat down in the centre of the room with his back to his desk.
“How will we deal with the Duke then?” he blurted out making both Jake and Samuel choke on their wine.
“Pardon me?” Samuel asked.
“The Duke of Gloucester, of course. We all know he’s going to be on that throne soon, and we all know we can’t let him.”
“Sir John, you must never speak such words aloud.”
“Why not? You agree.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“It’s safer to speak the words than to write them, Sam,” John said calmly as Samuel looked back in confusion and worry. His reply stumbled senselessly as his eyes flicked momentarily to the small, unlit fireplace in the wall behind Jake. John saw his opportunity. “I say the way is through the King,” he continued, watching Samuel’s eyes open wide. “If we can get to Edward and Richard, we can take out the Duke. That’s what you had planned, right?”
“How dare you call me a traitor?” Samuel exploded as his eyes flicked involuntarily between John and the fireplace again. “You will leave my house at once!”
“No,” John said, turning round. “I’d rather look under your fireplace.” He saw Jake’s lightning fast movement as he felt a separate shuffle behind him. He kept his nerve, not turning around, and looked into the fireplace as a clang of metal on the stone floor and the thud of a body on a soft chair told him the struggle had ended. The deathly silence that followed told him that Jake was in control.
“Ah, here we are. Why didn’t you say so, Sam?” He asked as he dragged out the iron fireplace and lifted a tile revealing scrolls of letters and plan maps of the Tower.
“What the hell do you want from me?” yelled the voice of De Lyons, now far more gritty-sounding than his feigned effeminate tone of two minutes earlier. “You want to arrest me? Who are you? Who sent you?”
John chuckled as he finally came to a familiar, small, brown, leather diary. He checked the first few pages out of view, unable to believe he was looking at the same book he had just read five hundred years later. He nodded to himself satisfied and turned back.
“No Sam, we’re not going to arrest you,” he said, quietly. “But we do need your help.”
Samuel looked sceptical but relieved as he eyed the blade held at his throat by the grim-looking knight he knew only as Sir Jake. He’d seen enough violence and training in the rise to his position to know a skilful and deadly warrior when he saw one. He kept quiet and looked to John rather than attempt to move his captor himself. Sensing the silence, Charlotte moved forward and laid a hand on Jake’ shoulder. She whispered in his ear and Samuel’s legs shook as the knife was finally pulled away.
“Sir John,” he said. “What do you want?”
“We need access to your plan. We need to be part of it. I want you to facilitate our entry into it.”
“How you know of this is a mystery to me. I won’t ask you, but I will ask why.”
“We have our own interests, Samuel. The House of York cannot sit the throne any longer. This is the only chance any of us have and we must work together. Once Richard wears the crown it will take a war to stop him. We take Edward and his brother Richard, we land the treason on him and he’s gone. That’s your plan, yes?”
Samuel swallowed nervously, unable to believe what he’d just heard.
“You don’t just walk into this. None of you can. You don’t know who I work with.”
“You leave Courtridge to us,” John said. “But we need an introduction. We want what you want. Please, Samuel. Help us.”
De Lyons thought for a moment watching each of them. As his eyes fell on Charlotte he sighed visibly.
“Ok, John,” he said, turning back. “But if you wrong me, I’ll kill you. Both of you.”
Jake smiled.
“You won’t have to,” John said.
Sixteen
16th June 1483
“No, Edmund. I’m telling you it’s a trap,” shouted William Spence as he followed Courtridge through the dark streets around their meeting place in the City.
“What choice do we have, William? We need two more men anyway and we’ve come across no one suitable. They’re tough and they’re disposable.”
“But men we don’t know? Haven’t even heard of? And they’re being introduced by that fool, De Lyons. Come on, man, it’s ridiculous.”
“Samuel isn’t introducing them, I’ve told you that. He met them when we did, they figured him out and they wanted in. That’s the way of it, and you’ll accept it.”
“You believe that? That they figured us out? Us? It’s a set up. I know De Lyons works for someone else, Edmund. I just know it. He’s brought them here and he’s used this cover up. He’s dangerous, Edmund.”
“Sa
muel is dangerous? Oh please,” Courtridge laughed. “He’s a coward; I have known him for five years. I use him and that is all.”
“Then you’re a fool!” William shouted, spinning Edmund around in the dark, overhung street in the gutter-like district of Whitechapel outside the City walls. “You will not accept them. I haven’t risked my life for your idiocy. Do you want to be beheaded as a traitor? Racked, drawn and cut to pieces in front of the peasants? I would kill you first myself rather than be humiliated and killed like that.”
Only the sound of unseen footsteps in the darkness calmed Edmund as his face contorted with rage. He leaned close to Spence and spoke quietly.
“You are a traitor and you will do as you’re told. If you ever threaten or disobey me again, I will have your intestines bared and slowly eaten by rats from the inside out. Do you understand me? You are beneath me and I will never forget it.”
Spence swallowed and nodded grimly in the shadows.
“You may be a vicious thug, William. But you are nothing to me and I will cut you down if you even blink in the wrong way and put me at risk. You may not like them, quite frankly neither do I. But they’re here for a reason and it’s not bloody trade. Let’s find out. Yes?”
He steered the raging Spence around the final corner and into the dark, unsigned tavern that was their intended destination.
The small, quiet inn didn’t stir as two hooded figures entered with their identities intentionally concealed. John spotted Courtridge and Spence from under his own hood in the far corner of the tavern and nudged Jake with his elbow. The two men standing looked around for the right table as John lifted his hand and signalled to the dark shadow of the taller head looking his way. He shifted his recording equipment under his shirt, and as the cloaked figures sat down, all five men lifted their hoods halfway to reveal their faces to each other over the table. In the half-shadow of his hood Courtridge was barely more than a beard with eyes, while the clean-shaven, chiselled face of Spence appeared gaunt as he stared at them in the dim light.
“Men,” Courtridge said, nodding to each and receiving nods back. “Thank you for meeting. De Lyons, please explain your decisions and tell me about this proposal.”
“I’m here to propose the enlisting of these two men in order to assist our cause.”
“Why?”
“Well, for a start they share the same beliefs that we do; and with their clear talent we could use them to fill our spaces.”
“Talents? What talents might they be?”
“Jake moves like a cat, Edmund, I have seen it. And John, well from very little he easily figured out who I was, where my notes were hidden and all of the basics of our plan. He had even worked out who you were, and we know there are no leaks.”
Courtridge fixed them both with a stare and assessed them. He was usually a good judge of character and something inside him told him the two men were not out to stop him. But for a reason he could not place they were different; and the fact that he had no idea why frightened him.
“Well, Samuel,” he said, “what you propose to know about fighting I don’t know. But I am curious as to how you knew about us, John.”
“We’ve worked hard and we know what to look for,” John answered. “We came for a reason and spent time looking for a way. Quite frankly, we spotted Sam here and that led quickly to you.”
“How did you spot Sam?”
“That’s not important. But we can be useful to you. What we can offer in insight and experience cannot be overlooked. Will you have us aboard?”
“Why, John? Why have you travelled here for this?”
“Honestly? We descend from the Empress Matilda and if it had not been for her grandson, the wretched King John, then the territories of France would not have been lost with us in it and our estates would not have been overruled.” John paused as all five men studied each other. “Our ancestors took our wealth and moved to strange territories in Eastern France where they became established and kept relations with this country’s nobility until King Henry reignited the war in France. Our remaining allies connected to the Lancastrians and Margaret of Anjou were hurt in the war with the Yorkists and our trade and chance at development was severed by Edward the Fourth. We want the Duke and his nephew King out of our realm.”
“Why now then?” Courtridge asked. “Why come back now? Surely you did not suspect us from France?”
“We were informed that a plan was in existence, yes. We took a great gamble in fronting Samuel the way we did, and I am afraid it was a case of all or nothing in our approach. Edmund, with the death of King Edward we were free to return. Not only return, but right the wrongs of the English throne. This was our only chance. There is no strong King, Edward is uncrowned and young, and Richard stands only as Regent despite having his eye on the power. If we strike now we can ruin the Duke and leave the throne open. That is why we are here.”
“I see. So you want the House of York off the throne. That’s understandable, of course. You need help and we are already moving, so you want to be part of it for your own reasons which happen to assist ours. That too makes sense. So tell me, who in your mind will wear the crown once Edward and Richard are gone?”
“In an ideal world?” John asked, smiling. “We would choose the descendants of Lionel, the second surviving son of Edward Third.”
“I knew it!” Spence rasped from under his hood, his pale blue eyes burning into John’s as he stood up. “You’re here for your own purposes. You want to use us to clear space then fight your own way to our throne, you foreign, traitorous bastards. This isn’t for the good of England it’s for your own gain!”
Jake stood in reaction and caused Spence to step back and reach for his sword hilt. At equal speed, Spence’s sword was bared and Jake was inside it, a blade protruding from the heel of his hand and held calmly fixed to his adversary’s shadow-hidden throat.
“Sit down, you filthy leper and let my brother finish,” he said quietly to Spence. “Or else your gullet will stain this tavern with the black slime that swims inside you.”
“Consider the company you are in, Jake,” whispered Courtridge warningly. “Shedding the blood of William Spence will not serve you well with any faction of this City.”
“Believe me, I am not the kind to worry,” Jake replied before turning back and leaning close to the face before him. “Sheath your sword and listen to my brother. Sir Spence.”
After a moment’s pause, Spence slid his sword back to his hip and fixed Jake with a deathly stare to cover his shame. Feeling unnerved but refusing to show it, Jake slipped his own knife back into the folds of his robe and sat down. Spence hesitated on his feet a moment more as though contemplating his chances against an unprepared Jake, but the cool gaze watching him helped him make his decision and he sat down.
“May I continue?” John asked.
Courtridge waited for Spence to nod his affirmation before he smiled for the meeting to carry on.
“I said,” John continued,” that in an ideal world, we would crown a different line; but I didn’t say we had a plan. In truth, we have no one in mind. Our problem is with the Yorkists, not who takes the throne. If there must be Lancastrian rule, then so be it. We will not oppose. Who did you have in mind? A descendant of John of Gaunt such as Henry Tudor?”
“Tudor? Ha!” exclaimed Courtridge. The bastard is nothing; he is not fit to rule.” John felt De Lyons shuffle agitatedly next to him but ignored him in their public position, making a mental note of his reaction instead. “There are still Lancastrian connections with a claim to the throne,” Courtridge continued as his chest swelled slightly. “We have someone in mind.”
“Yes, Edmund. Just make sure this is for the right reasons.”
“Don’t question me, John. If you want in, you do as you’re told. And you calm down,” he added, glancing at Jake.
“So we’re in?” Jake asked.
Courtridge glanced around once more at Spence scowling from within his hood and smiled.
“You’re in,” he replied.
Seventeen
17th June 1483
The tiny door slammed against the cobwebbed wall behind it as William Spence ducked through the opening of the half-derelict building and into the dingy room below it.
“God this place stinks of shit,” he said furiously as he threw around various filthy items in the darkness looking for a seat. Finally finding an up-ended stool, he turned it over and sat down in the gloom, jumping startled as something scurried under his feet. He sat there in the darkness, the thought of Jake Rougemont getting the better of him and eating at him inside while he waited for the return of his occasional business associate. With no known true identity and no other way of prior contact, when Spence needed the services of a man he knew only as Starkes, he simply had to sit and wait.
The smell of faeces intensified suddenly as the feeling of breath on his neck made him almost fall of his seat in terror.
“Finished insulting my home, William?” came the soft, sinister voice, impossibly close but lost in the darkness.
“I need something, Starkes. I need your help,” replied Spence, his anger quickly returning.
“So it seems.”
“I need two men taken care of. They’ve gotten into my business and they’re dangerous. One of them, the arrogant fool, is trouble I know it. And the leader, he has an agenda.”
“Rougemont?”
Spence glanced in the direction of the putrid smelling breath.
“Rougemont,” he confirmed.
“If Edmund Courtridge trusts them are you sure it’s wise to meddle in this?”
Spence chuckled. He should’ve known better than to expect any personal circumstances would escape the man before him.
“Your knowledge of private business astounds and concerns me, Starkes. Forget Courtridge, I want them dead.”
“But once again you do not think. Having them murdered will arouse suspicion and cause uproar in the courts. Perhaps I shall suggest something else?”
“You have an idea?”
“Are they not plotting something sinister? Working against the King?”
The Tower Grave Page 11
