Payne glances across at Devon John, then down at his stump. He looks again. His eyes sharpen.
‘Ha,’ he says, coming to cup the stump in his palm. ‘It is. It is cunningly done, indeed. No burning, no dipping in tar, just stitched. Exemplary.’
‘Yes,’ Grey intervenes. ‘My surgeon cut it off, with a silver blade blessed by the Pope himself.’
‘Thought you said it was the Bishop of Toledo,’ the man at the head of the board mutters.
‘I said that was the saw,’ Grey says.
‘And who is your surgeon?’ Payne asks.
‘Here,’ Grey says. ‘Step forward, if you please, master.’
And now the blood floods to Katherine’s cheeks. She has not thought this through. She did not expect this. She cannot stand examination by all these men. Someone will say something. She does not move. But Grey is insistent.
‘Come, master,’ he prompts. ‘He is modest, your grace.’
And King Henry smiles as if to say that is as it should be, but he waits, and they all do too, and Payne cocks an eyebrow, and so now she must step forward. She feels naked, as if she were one of those women in the marketplace, and she withers within, wishing she did not fill her clothes at all, wishing she could now be set loose to run. But she can’t and Grey is smiling furiously. She steps forward. There is a muttering of incredulity from the men at the boards.
‘This boy?’
‘This scruff?’
‘No, surely?’
But Payne studies her and cocks his head to one side.
‘Hmmm,’ he says, and she waits for it to come, for him to say something, for she is sure that this is the one, the man who will see straight through her stupid costume, and part of her – dear God! Part of her wants him to! But instead he folds his arms and taps his lips with one finger, and says nothing more, but there is a smile on his lips that will not go away.
King Henry too, says nothing, but she can see he is just as surprised, and as well he might be, she thinks, for she is dressed even worse than King Henry. She is in an old linen cap to cover her ear, an overlarge tabard that hangs loose to below her codpiece, and her hose sag at the knee. Only her boots are good. She stands and is unsteady in them and she can feel the sweat dripping and tingling on the lodestone that she keeps around her neck, and she wishes to God she were anywhere else but here.
She bends her head to King Henry.
‘Your grace,’ she says.
And King Henry smiles uncertainly again but Grey is going on.
‘I assure you, sirs,’ he says. ‘I saw it with my very own eyes. The boy cut the arm, first with a knife, around, then with a saw.’
‘A marvel,’ Payne says. King Henry turns to him.
‘Sir Ralph Grey of Castle Heaton begs us to allow his surgeon to see the patient,’ he tells Payne, and Payne closes his eyes for a moment, more in sorrow than in anything else, and she sees that he is in fact sensitive to the slight, though, she thinks, used to that sort of thing, as if he had, indeed, been expecting it. She is treading on his toes, she thinks, and wishes she weren’t.
‘May I ask the master a question, your grace?’ Payne asks.
King Henry checks with the bearded priest if he might allow it, and the bearded priest nods impatiently through his eating, and so then King Henry allows it. Payne turns to her. She can hardly swallow for the lump in her throat and she blushes warmly. Here it comes, she thinks, here it comes. What will she do? Run. Back out into the bailey and then – she has no idea.
‘Under whom did you train?’ he asks.
She can barely croak an answer.
‘Well?’ Payne persists.
‘I did not train under one single master,’ she says. ‘But I have read. Widely. And I have worked in numerous hospitals.’
‘Hospitals,’ he says. ‘Where?’
She is about to answer when at the last moment she sees she has set herself yet another trap. If she answers Hereford, where she believes she learned the most, treating the wounded after the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, then the men here will naturally know that she was saving the lives of men who fought against King Henry, and now, she sees, that she cannot say Towton either, for the same reason. But Thomas has seen the danger too.
‘You said you would only ask one question,’ he intervenes, using that confident voice.
Payne glances over at him.
‘And who are you, sir?’
‘Only one question,’ Thomas repeats.
Payne appeals to King Henry.
‘But, your grace,’ he says.
King Henry chuckles. The beardless priest laughs.
‘It is as you asked, Master Payne,’ King Henry says. ‘One question.’
Payne says nothing. He closes his eyes and takes a step back. King Henry is childish, she can see this is what he thinks. He makes a mock gracious bow. Katherine turns to King Henry again. She must speak now, she thinks. She must show him the ledger. She will never have the chance again. She holds out her hand for the ledger that Thomas begins to swing from his shoulder.
‘Your grace,’ she begins, ‘if I may—’
But then a bell rings above the distant chapel, and there is a moment of perfect stillness in the room while everybody makes sure they are hearing what they think they are hearing, and then King Henry stands and a moment later there is the scrape of the benches being pushed back as everybody joins him, and then they turn to their right, and the King proceeds out of the room through a door towards the tolling bell. The priests follow him, and then the other men who’d been at board. They file into a line behind King Henry, each face a character study of impatience, or frustration, or resignation, except for Sir Ralph who glares at them as if they have somehow let him down, and the servants – mostly young men who look as if they will develop into the same sort of men as those who are just now trooping out after King Henry – wait until the last back has filed through the door and then there is a sudden flurry of violent action as they fall on the remains of the meal, snatching bread rolls and bowls of dense-looking stew from the table and the victors guard their spoils and back away, retiring to different points of the room to gorge on their rewards.
15
THE SUMMONS FROM Sir Ralph comes after Katherine and Thomas have just finished the food they stole from King Henry’s board and the taste of the gravy-soaked crust and the white bread has barely faded from their lips. They are sitting by the hardly warm oven again, when Horner comes up the winding steps.
‘Sir Ralph is after an audience with you, Kit,’ he tells them. ‘Something to discuss. Sorry.’
Sir Ralph Grey meets them in the great hall where they were presented to King Henry earlier in the day. The boards have been cleared, dust motes whirl in the wan autumn light from the long windows, and the fire has died in its place. Grey, who has been celebrating the success of his audience with King Henry, is sitting on a coffer, smiling warmly at a long-nosed dog busy with a beef bone.
‘Ahhh,’ he says when he sees them. ‘Aaaahhhh.’
He stands and sits again, so that his head is slightly lower than theirs, his rheumy eyes peering up not unlike the dog’s, and he smells strongly of his spirit.
‘Boy,’ he says, addressing Katherine. ‘I mean, ahhh, master. I want you to see to this patient of the King’s. I – to tell the truth, and this is absolutely. No. No. I want you to cure him. Do you see? Cure him. Why? Why? Well. I’ve never met him. I can’t speak for him. He may be a good Christian. He may not be. As I say. I don’t know him. Never met him. I am not one to judge. But the thing is, now, I need you to – hmmmm?’
She has to remain calm.
‘What is wrong with him?’ she asks.
‘Wrong with him?’ Grey says. ‘Wrong with him? There’s nothing wrong with him. He is as stout a Christian who ever walked God’s earth. I daresay. As I say. I know people say things about him. How he turned his coat and betrayed his king, but I’ll fight the man who says there is something wrong with – with – with him.�
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He puts his hand on his dagger handle but doesn’t draw it. Then he switches character, becomes confiding.
‘No,’ he says. ‘The truth is, I mean, forget about him. The truth is, I’ve made a little bet. With Tailboys. You know him, hmmm? Moneybags, I call him. Always got gold. Keeper of the King’s Purse. Or is he? I don’t know. You tell me. Anyway. But. As I say. If you can cure the patient, get him on his feet, strong enough to mount a horse – unaided, mind, unaided. No easy task at the – ah – best of times. Then – well. I stand to gain a lot. And I mean rather a lot. Of money.’
He draws the words out and taps the side of his nose. She is absently surprised at this being true. There does not seem like an awful lot of money about the place.
‘But Sir Ralph,’ Thomas begins. ‘What is his illness? Kit – Master Kit – cannot cure him if he is – I don’t know. He cannot cure everything. Some things cannot be cured.’
‘Say no more!’ Grey interrupts, holding up a hand. ‘Say no more. Quite understand. Quite understand. Can’t cure everything. Not a miracle worker. Absolutely. Understood. But. But there is this thing, I should say, that the piss-sniffer physician made me think, and it is that you aren’t a real surgeon.’
There is a moment of silence. She forgets to say she is, because for God’s sake, she is not.
‘And I was remembering,’ Grey goes on, ‘how you two blew in, to the castle, in Alnwick. Telling some story about how you were knocked flat at Towton, weren’t you? No livery and no one to maintain you save a tale of some gentle no one’d ever heard of. I mean, I can’t – remember, can I? Can you, Horner? No. You see? And so we are left wondering if you really are who you say you are? Or whether you are, what? Spies. Sent by that bastard John Neville, the so-called, hmmm? Lord Montagu. Yes. So. If you are. And I am saying nothing. I don’t judge. I don’t judge. Do I? But I was wondering. If that were the – ah – case. If you were spies. If you were not the surgeon you say you are, then we might be calling on the hangman, right here in Bamburgh? I believe they have a gibbet already set up.’
He nods to indicate somewhere out in the bailey.
‘But Kit cured the boy!’ Thomas says. ‘He cured Devon John! Surely that is proof enough?’
‘Oh, pish!’ Grey swats away the objection. ‘Might have been luck. Boy might have lived anyway. His arm could have fallen off. Ha!’
They say nothing.
‘So you must prove your skills afresh,’ Grey says. ‘Get the bugger strong enough to climb into a saddle, eh? It is all for which King Henry most fervently wishes. Yes. You see? Then we’ll be in funds, or I will, at any rate, and we can – well, I’ll tell you what. I will pay, and I mean pay, a priest. No. No. Fair enough. You are right. I will pay two priests to say Mass for your soul, should you ever need prayers said for your soul, for all eternity. How’s about that?’
‘A generous offer,’ Horner adds.
‘But—’ Thomas starts.
‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’ Grey interrupts. ‘So it is agreed. You will see this malingering wretch. You will get him up on his horse. Cure him, I mean, of whatever is wrong with him and then. And then we’ll, we’ll see what we shall see, eh? Hmm? Hmm?’
How can she avoid this?
‘I lack any tools,’ she tells him.
‘Knives and so forth? I thought you had them? No. No. I shall provide them. Have no fear. I shall ask what’s-his-name? The piss sniffer?’
‘Master Payne,’ Thomas tells him.
‘Master Pain?’ Grey laughs. ‘Is that his name? Master Pain! D’you see? Master Pain! Master Pain the piss sniffer. Oh, very good.’
When he is done laughing he shouts for a servant who comes after a moment and waits with no pretence of patience. Katherine sees that already Grey has set everybody against him. He tells the servant to ask – in King Henry’s name – the piss sniffer Payne to lend Katherine his tools.
‘Master Payne is with the patient now,’ the servant tells them.
‘Is he? Is he?’ Grey says, his eyes lighting up. ‘Well then, lead on! There is no time like the present.’
‘Wait,’ she says. Only now she can’t think of anything to say.
‘What for?’ Grey wants to know. ‘By the Mass, boy! Get on with it. We can’t hang about all day. Fellow might die before you make up your mind to save him, and then where will we be? Dangling from a rope with no Masses for your immortal soul! That’s where you’ll be. Could spend the rest of eternity in purgatory. More than that, my purse will wither and we’ll be stuck here for ever. Be the death of us all, that.’
‘Kit needs food, sir,’ Thomas says. ‘He cannot perform without sustenance.’
Grey tuts, then turns to the servant.
‘Bring things, will you? Ale and so forth. That is what you most like, you people, isn’t it, eh? Ale?’
By the end of their conversation, it seems Grey is almost sober, and she wonders how drunk he was to begin with. They follow the servant from the room and along a stone-floored passageway, past small cells with open doors where men are sprawled, or huddled over fires, not up to much, or playing dice, and then first up and then down some steps until they are deep within the keep. He takes them up a spiralling set of steps worn uneven over the years, where it is so dark there are rush lamps alight in sconces.
‘At least it’s warm, eh?’ Grey says over his shoulder. ‘Horner pointed out your billets. Should not fancy them myself. Especially not this time of year.’
The servant is silent until they reach the third storey, when he leads them from the steps along another passageway, and then another tighter, danker, with rougher, undressed stones, and there at the end in the deepest gloom is a blur of something pale – a man, turning to them, in a white jacket – and Katherine is seized by the sudden absolute certainty that she does not want to go down there. She finds herself backing away, and Thomas collides with her, and then he sees what she has, and he too draws a breath. Neither says a word.
Grey and the servant block the passageway until she cannot see the man, but he is there, she knows, and she knows what he is wearing. He is in Riven’s livery, and with a sudden rush, she is certain without a doubt, at last, just who the King’s patient is.
‘My God,’ she says. ‘It is Giles Riven.’
And Thomas’s eyes widen in the gloom and he gasps: ‘No!’
And as they stare up along the passage a terrible thought comes to her mind. What if that man is the giant?
‘Come on!’ Grey calls. ‘By Christ!’
And now Horner is there behind, pushing them forward, and it is as if he has never trusted them either. She wonders whether she can turn and get past him and just run, back to the tower, and then, somehow – though she knows it is not possible – somehow, away. But she can’t get past Horner, and Thomas is blocking her way too, fumbling in his brigandine to find that blade, and now he is trying to get past her, to get to the giant, and she knows the giant will kill him if he tries, and so she is then caught between them all, and she grabs his arm.
‘No,’ she tells him. ‘No. Don’t try. Don’t try. Just pass him by.’
And he tears his arm free, and he is breathing fiercely, and he looks mad.
‘Thomas,’ she says. ‘Thomas.’
And he seems to snap out of it, to subside, and after a moment he nods and returns the blade to his jack, and Grey is calling them and Horner is looking at them as if they are both mad. So she turns, and she gathers herself and takes a deep breath and tries to stop the shaking, and she steps forward and as she walks the passageway seems to narrow, closing in on her, her view constricting as if entering a hole, and her pulse booms and she can hardly breathe, and then there he is, only, thank God, it is not him: it is not the giant. It is another man. Not as big, though still too tall to stand straight in the passageway, and he looms over the small forms of the servant and of Grey and they are talking up to him, demanding he open the door, but he will only do it once reassured that they are on the King’s business, �
�come to save his lord and master’.
He opens the door and grey light seeps into the passageway. The guard steps into the room beyond, then the servant and Grey follow and she hears two men speaking and she stands there, and in that moment, her mind seems to go blank and she finds herself concentrating on the incidentals, the things that don’t matter, such as the construction of the door, which is thick and studded, with crude iron hinges and a locking handle, when she knows that she is mere paces from the man who once tried to kill her, and has done more harm to her than any man alive, the man whom she hates more than she loves her own life, and she finds she cannot move, she can hardly breathe. He is there. In the chamber, not ten paces away. She can probably smell him.
‘Come on, come on,’ Grey calls from within the chamber. She can hear Thomas breathing quickly behind. She does not want to go in, but now it is Thomas’s turn to calm her down, and he places his hand on her shoulder. He does not push her, but just keeps it there a moment, and his palm’s warmth is enough. She draws breath, and enters the little chamber.
And, after all that, there he is. Giles Riven. On a mattress, raised on a carpented wooden bed frame. He lies on his front. With his head turned away, facing the wall, but still, she knows. She knows it is him. He has blankets pulled up to his waist, and a linen sheet to his shoulders, but from it his right arm is thrust out awkwardly, over the bed’s edge, resting on a milking stool. His hair is brown, unclean, cut above the ears, as if he were wearing a woollen cap. He does not move. He could be asleep.
Thomas is beside her, behind her, likewise staring, likewise stiffened, open-mouthed. She glances at him, and after a moment he at her. Christ, it is absurd. The man they have been looking to kill for so long, the man whom they have both promised to kill, lies helpless, with his back to them, naked as a worm, and Thomas has that blade hidden in his brigandine. But Payne is there, holding up a glass jar to the thin window’s wan light, and the guard, with a short sword and his knife, and Grey and the servant, too, and the room is so crowded that they are nearly touching one another and outside Horner waits with his head ducked, trying to peer past, to see the King’s patient.
Kingmaker: Broken Faith Page 24
