A Burnable Book

by Bruce Holsinger

  ‘Again – again, Your Highness,’ Oxford stammered, ‘there has been a substitution of some kind, another attempt to deceive you. There is only one of each card in Lady Katherine’s deck. The Duke of Lancaster has drawn the Five of Hawks, as we have all seen. That two Fives of Hawks have appeared in this game is—’

  ‘A mysterious circumstance indeed, Your Highness,’ said Lancaster quietly. ‘Lady Katherine distributed the cards before your arrival. The Bishop of Winchester himself took one of them. He is no friend of mine, as you well know. But he will attest that there were no substitutions or trickery of any sort.’

  King Richard looked at Wykeham, who said simply, ‘His Lordship the Duke of Lancaster speaks the truth, Your Highness.’

  The king stepped into the circle formed by his uncle, his mother, the earl, and the bishop. He looked small and wan. ‘So here we are, then,’ he said, spreading a sad look around the assemblage. ‘The prophecy tells me that my uncle the Duke of Lancaster has betrayed me.’ The king stared up at Gaunt. Lancaster’s chin lifted; he would not meet his nephew’s gaze. Richard then approached Oxford, who looked at him with a mix of deference and defiance. ‘And yet this cloth, revealed to me by my own mother, suggests that another faction wishes me dead.’ He placed a hand on Oxford’s cheek. ‘That Robert de Vere – friend, companion, loyal knight and earl – that it is you, Robert, who plots against me. Can it be true?’

  ‘Of course not, Your Highness,’ said Oxford hastily. ‘The very thought is—’

  ‘And yet if I am to credit these cards’ – Richard held up the two fives – ‘both of you want me gone, and soon.’ The young king sighed, his shoulders sagging with the burden of indecision. ‘So then. Whom should I believe? What is the solution to this awful dilemma?’

  No one spoke as Richard weighed the consequences of all we had seen that day. The king’s palm rested on the hilt of his sword, which, I feared, would be drawn at any moment and pointed at the man he decided was the guilty one. The moment stretched: the weightiest choice of King Richard’s reign, an irrevocable decision that would alter the future in unimaginable ways. Whatever the king decided, whichever way he went, there would be heavy conflict, possibly all-out civil war. Richard’s question hung in the air until a familiar voice sounded from the edge of the crowd.

  ‘It is France, Your Highness.’ One hundred heads swivelled toward the voice. It belonged to the Baron de la Pole, the Lord Chancellor.

  ‘What’s that?’ The king peered through the throng. ‘Who has spoken?’

  At the far side of the pavilion the guests parted. The chancellor stepped into the tightened circle and took a knee before the king. Richard waved away his guard and bid the baron to stand. ‘Explain yourself, Lord Chancellor.’

  De la Pole came to his full, commanding height, dwarfing the king in stature and maturity. The baron had stood by King Edward’s side for many years, a long history of dispassionate service to the realm evident in his bearing and the respect he was accorded by all. I remembered our last exchange, just outside St Lawrence Jewry, and wondered what he knew. ‘Your Highness, we have learned that this book came into the realm through the agency of King Charles, aided by the Scots.’

  Murmurs of concern. ‘You’re quite sure, Lord Chancellor?’ asked the king.

  ‘Indeed we are, Your Highness.’ He held up a document. ‘We have intercepted an encrypted dispatch, bought off a messenger in the service of Burgundy. As you know, sire, the truce has recently expired, and the French are eager to renew hostilities. According to this dispatch, which we managed to decipher only yesterday, the admiral of France is to set sail from Sluys with a thousand lances, bound for Dunbar. The book and the cloth are part of a larger plot to destabilize the realm in advance of an invasion, as was the clumsy attack by the butchers of Southwark, cooked up by a Scottish priest in the pay of the French. Our archers were prepared for the attack, of course. Lord Oxford informed me of the prophecy nearly a week ago, and your royal life was never in jeopardy, though we had to let it go forward to test the reliability of our information. Now we know it is solid. This is good news, Your Highness.’

  The King gaped. ‘So you’re saying all of this was the work of Charles? Who brought the book here, and who managed to deceive so many?’

  ‘French spies, Your Highness, perhaps a whole nest of them.’ I heard quite a few gasps as the assembly absorbed the news. The chancellor let them die down. ‘Circulating copies of these foul prophecies, passing around cloths, trying to turn our highest noblemen against one another.’ Here he paused again to bow to the duke and the earl, then did the same to the countess. ‘If your lordships and your ladyship will pardon the expression, you have been played by the French. We all have, Your Highness. And they nearly succeeded in their aim.’ The baron stared down Oxford, who looked about to protest but thought better of it.

  When the noise had subsided, the king addressed his subjects in a voice cracking giddily with relief. ‘Thanks be to God we have learned the source of this plot, and that through your good offices, Lord Chancellor, we have aborted it. A prophecy of my death, written as a poem and seeming to point a finger at no less than John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster.’ He laid a hand on his uncle’s arm. ‘A beautiful cloth, embroidered with the heraldry of one of the realm’s greatest lords, Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, tilting at his sovereign.’ Another hand on Oxford’s shoulder. ‘And a game of cards incriminating both of you at once.’ He hesitated for a moment, perhaps seeing a weakness in the chancellor’s story, then deciding, like the rest of the assembly, to gloss over it in the interests of peace. ‘Now it appears that we have been deceived, and by our common foe. Let us put it all behind us, and move forward in harmony, if we can.’

  A wave of relief swept through the crowd.

  ‘One last word, Your Highness,’ said the chancellor, his voice stern but guarded.

  ‘By all means, Baron,’ said King Richard.

  ‘I would appeal to the loyalty of this assembly in asking for discretion. It is imperative that no one speak of what has been heard and seen here today. Should word of this intercepted dispatch get to the French, they would know of our penetration of their networks, and our position would be greatly compromised.’

  ‘Well spoken, Lord Chancellor,’ said the king, nodding boyishly. ‘By my command no one present may record or speak of what has happened here today. Your silence will be the test of your loyalty, to me and to this realm.’

  Watching the effect of all this I marvelled at the chancellor’s disingenuous appeal for circumspection. The servants were already whispering, and soon every detail of the exchange would cover London as rumours of Dido swyving Aeneas blanketed Carthage. It was the performance of discretion that counted, the useful fiction that we were all somehow privy to the clandestine workings of the military. The aristocracy has always loved such insider talk of espionage and coming war, and Michael de la Pole played to this fancy like a master.

  ‘Uncle,’ said Richard to Gaunt, ‘take the arm of the Earl of Oxford.’ With a reluctance lost on no one, though also with a visible relief, John of Gaunt and Robert de Vere joined arms and faced Richard. ‘And now,’ the king continued, ‘if the Lord Bishop of Winchester will permit it, our Mass shall continue.’

  The disordered crowd became an orderly congregation, the women finding their places to the rear of the assemblage. When the Mass was concluded I spent a while looking around the grounds for Chaucer, wanting to ask him the dozen questions rattling through my mind, though he was nowhere to be found. In the hall Wykeham sat alone on the dais, his guests of honour absent, a scowl and a napkined lip accompanying his every sip of wine. Though the feast was only beginning, it seemed that nearly everyone of importance had left the palace grounds: Lancaster, Swynford, Joan of Kent—

  Though not Oxford. He had remained in the central courtyard and was leaning against one of the large posts holding up the pavilion, staring off into the distance with the copy of the De Mortibus still clutched in
his hands. I approached him and waited until he turned to me.

  ‘Give me the book, your lordship,’ I murmured.

  His lip curled. ‘Why would I possibly do such a thing, Gower?’

  ‘I know everything there is to know,’ I lied, though fairly confident in my speculations. ‘Hawkwood, Sir Stephen, the origin of the prophecies.’

  He flinched. ‘Who would believe you, of all people?’

  ‘Belief is beside the point, my lord,’ I said tiredly. ‘Written proof? That is another matter.’

  His eyes widened for a moment, then settled back into their familiar disdain. ‘Your tricks don’t intimidate me, Gower. You have nothing.’

  I waited before I spoke, giving him a long moment to squirm. ‘Are you quite sure, my lord? Simon is a thorough young man. You don’t think he tracked Weldon’s comings and goings, or thought to leave behind a record of some kind, perhaps a document or two in Sir Stephen’s hand – or yours? I can show them to you, if you’d like.’

  The earl shifted on his feet. I held his eyes, watching as the weakness I had always sensed in this man crept slowly over his features. Finally he looked away, then down at the manuscript still in his hands, this book that had caused so much anguish, sought by half a kingdom and now seemingly worthless. The earl appeared to realize this as he gave a slight shrug and handed me the volume. I stuffed it in my bag.

  ‘You have made a wise decision, your lordship.’ I gave him a slight bow, allowing him to save face in case of any onlookers. ‘We shouldn’t need to speak of this again.’

  He waved me off as he turned, calling angrily for his page and making for the main gates. The Earl of Oxford was still young, though his back was stooped as he walked away from me, his stride unconfident and self-conscious. This magnate would end the day a lesser man.

  I was about to turn for the stable gate and home when I saw a movement to the earl’s right. From the far side of the grange Sir Stephen Weldon emerged and stood in front of Oxford with his hands upraised, blocking his way. The two of them exchanged words. They were too far away to make anything out, but it was clear the knight was speaking angrily, even defiantly, to his lord, whose slouch now indicated the extent of his humiliation before the king. Oxford raised his fingers to his face, pinched his nose, wagged a hand. Not dismissing Weldon, I thought; it looked rather like a gesture of acquiescence.

  Weldon spun on his heel and strode off, heading for the postern door farther down the wall. The earl watched him for a moment, then turned slowly back. I did nothing to conceal myself as I came into his line of vision. He looked unfazed by the evidence of my eavesdropping, which Weldon had not observed. The earl gave me a long look, then tilted his head slightly in the direction of the postern before turning for the main gate.

  Weldon had already disappeared through the low door on to New Rents, though the earl’s message seemed clear enough. It would be in my interest to follow him, Oxford was telling me, wherever it led. I stood there for a moment, exhausted, wanting nothing more than a drink and a rest. Then, with a growing unease, I turned for the postern and the streets of Southwark.

  FIFTY-TWO

  New Rents, Southwark

  An attack on the king?

  In the midst of Mass.

  But who done the thing?

  And where can we find him to give our thanks?

  Or a ‘Better luck next time!’

  Or a ‘Richard? Why not Lancaster?’

  None of that talk, now. Enough treason in the bishop’s liberties to go around.

  Who done it, then?

  Fishmonger, what I heard.

  No, a butcher.

  Butcher?

  Whole scare of them, led by that cutter Grimes.

  Ah! No surprise there.

  Millicent hardly noticed the postern opening to her left, rapt as she was by the news being shouted about at the gate. The man who stepped through noticed her not at all, and until he passed she gave him no more than a glance, assuming that anyone exiting Winchester Palace by that door would be a servant on an errand. As he walked past Millicent saw his lower face, though his eyes were shadowed beneath a knight’s hood. A scar traced a crescent-shaped path from his lip to the turn of his chin. Millicent knew that scar.

  It came to her, finally. A hooked scar, white against sun-darkened skin. The ward watch, Eleanor said, had identified him as ‘Sir Stephen’ – and now she recalled his surname. He was Sir Stephen Weldon, a longtime member of Sir John Hawkwood’s company, and a knight of Oxford’s household. Sir Humphrey had pointed him out to her at a tournament, making an acerbic comment on the Italian style of his arms and raiment. ‘Rides like a Visconti,’ he’d said with disdain. ‘Scarred like one, too.’ Weldon was a badged man, sporting Oxford’s livery proudly around his collar, and his own on the back of his surcoat. Quarterly or and gules, and there, in the first quarter, a mullet argent: the silver star of the Veres, plain as the moon.

  Yet even as she watched his back recede down New Rents she heard another voice in her head. It’s the crochet. His face. Some of her sister’s last words, gasped from a bleeding mouth. Now she understood them. Sir Stephen Weldon, the man with the hook on his face.

  The killer of Agnes.

  Without thinking Millicent followed him down the alley beside the Overey churchyard and on to the crowded high street past the fishwives and the pillory. He jogged left on Pepper Alley, then into a narrower lane that led toward the mills on the river side of the palace wall. Millicent kept a safe distance, though never once did Weldon glance behind him.

  As they neared the bankside she slowed her steps. Weldon’s route had traced a full circle. He was now climbing a short but rough stairway built into the near embankment. He disappeared over the top. She took the steps slowly, stretching to peer over the dyke and down to the river. Just as she reached the uppermost step, she caught a glimpse of him on the near side of the wharf, keying open a low door set into the embankment. With his foot the knight dragged a small stone to the opening, wedging the door open before disappearing within.

  She descended the moist stair to the embankment and realized where he had gone: into the underpassage below the great chamber and almonry of Winchester Palace, where the bishop had his stores of drink delivered directly from the water. From this cellar the palace’s river doors opened to the wharfage through a series of covered channels and ramps carved into the Thames bankside. Silently she pulled open the door, keeping the stone in place, and followed the knight into the dank passageway. She had been here before, though not since her childhood, when the palace environs had been a favourite destination for games of hide-and-tag with her many companions in the liberties. The cold river air felt distantly familiar, the splash of dripping water from the vaults summoning old memories as she walked away from the river and toward the palace undercroft. She heard voices.

  ‘The garrison is encamped at Dartford, Sir Stephen, by the abbey mill, awaiting your orders.’

  ‘There’s been a change in plans.’

  ‘A change in plans?’

  ‘The men will need to stay in place for now.’

  ‘For how long?’

  There was a pause. Millicent edged around one of the great buttresses ascending to the undercroft’s roof and beyond. She peered around and down a short stair into a wider chamber perhaps three feet below, awash in pale light from an opened trapdoor above. Weldon paced the chamber’s width, giving orders to a nuncius wearing the king’s colours.

  ‘Next Friday is the feast of St Augustine, no?’ the knight finally said, turning away with a hand to his mouth.

  ‘And the third Ember Day.’

  ‘They’re to come up that day and camp at Mile End, on the green. Their orders will come Trinity morning, likely by Tierce. Then it’s up Aldgate Street as planned.’

  ‘Anything else, Sir Stephen?’

  ‘That’s it for now. Keep me posted.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Stephen.’

  The man ducked through a low doorway. Milli
cent watched as the knight took a few slow turns around the dank chamber, one hand on his scarred chin, the other cupping his elbow. She thought about what she had heard, putting it together with the prophecies and the failed attempt on the king’s life. It sounded as if Weldon had been planning to bring troops up from Dartford in the aftermath of the planned assassination. Who knew what else he had in store. She turned for the river door.

  She slipped. She quickly recovered her footing, but not before a small fragment of stone, dislodged by her shoe, tumbled down the stairs. Weldon’s head spun round. Frozen in terror, Millicent hesitated long enough for him to meet her gaze. His eyes widened, then narrowed in recognition. She knew that cold stare.

  Rose Alley. Weldon had been the leader of the riders, the man challenged by St Cath at the porch of the Pricking Bishop. Looking for Millicent, and the book.

  Millicent shot up the stairs. Through the door, over the dyke, down Pepper Alley. She looked back. Weldon was just making the turn.

  She ducked between two tanners’ stalls on the upper end. Rows of stretched hides gave some cover. An open door, at the end of the second yard. She sprinted through it. A tavern. Low ceiling, small crowd around a far table, the air sour with ale. She stepped from bench to bench and knocked several down on her way out, slowing Weldon a fraction. He stumbled, cursed. She heard his boots on the tables. The street door was also open.