by Robyn Young
Leaving Antonio guarded by one of his friends, Rodrigo had come forward and was murmuring to Estevan. Dimly, Jack realised he was translating the stranger’s English.
‘Arrested?’ Jack struggled to take in this news through his exhaustion. ‘Treason?’
‘I have passage on a galley that will take us back to England. But we must leave now.’ The man’s gaze flicked to Estevan and the others. He lowered his voice. ‘You have it?’
Jack knew at once what he meant. ‘Yes, but—’
‘What is this?’ Estevan stared at Jack, appraising him differently now.
Jack wasn’t listening. He remained focused on the stranger. Through the initial shock, suspicion was rising in him. He didn’t know this man, who knew a secret few others did, and the message he bore was unexpected. ‘My father said for me to come home?’
‘At once.’
As the man parted his blue cloak Jack tensed, but the man merely gestured to the war sword hanging in a red leather scabbard beside a dagger. Jack recognised the silver disc-shaped pommel embedded with a large ruby immediately. There were few other blades so beautifully wrought. Estevan’s eyes widened at the sight of it.
‘Sir Thomas gave me his sword to give to you. As proof,’ the man added, ‘if proof were needed.’
‘Show me the blade.’
The man complied, withdrawing the sword partially from the scabbard. Jack saw the familiar words inscribed in Latin along the tapered length of steel.
As Above, So Below
A long time ago, he had asked his father what it meant. Hope, his father had replied cryptically.
The Englishman reached into a pouch tied to his belt, then held out his fist. ‘He also gave me these.’
Jack came forward cautiously. As he opened his hand the man dropped two rings into his gloved palm. One was a silver band. The other bore a gold disc engraved with a winged staff entwined by two serpents. Many years ago his father had returned from France, where he’d been sent by King Edward as an ambassador, wearing that ring. He had said it was a gift from an official in the French royal court. Jack had a memory of trying it on, shortly after his tenth birthday, while his father was bathing. He recalled it dangling loose on his finger and wondering when he’d grow big enough for it to fit him. He frowned, seeing a smear of red on the disc. ‘There’s blood on it?’
The man stepped forward. After a moment, he nodded. ‘Sir Thomas did not go gently into their custody.’
Jack hesitated, then stowed the rings in his own purse. ‘What is your name? How do you know my father? Why did he not send Stephen, his squire?’
‘Gregory. My name is Gregory.’
‘Enough!’ Estevan cut across them. He stepped forward, pointing his sword at Jack. His nose was still dribbling blood on to his chin. ‘We finish this, you and me.’
Jack looked round at him, switching into Castilian. ‘It is over between us. I had first blood. But you can keep the wager.’ He gestured to Antonio. ‘Come.’
Estevan’s eyes flashed with fury. ‘I say when it’s over!’ He sprang forward.
‘Jack!’ yelled Antonio, but Jack was already in motion.
As they came together, instinct took him. He ducked under Estevan’s strike – all rage and power – and came up into his open defences to ram his sword through the man’s throat. As it punctured flesh and muscle, Jack drove the weapon on through with a thrust of his arm. The tip burst out the back of Estevan’s neck beneath the base of his skull. Estevan hung there for a moment. As he opened his mouth, blood spewed out. Jack twisted his face away as it sprayed across him, startlingly hot.
Rodrigo rushed at Jack, who wrenched his sword free from Estevan’s throat, leaving the man to collapse in the dust, choking on his own fluids. Antonio turned to fend off one of Estevan’s comrades, swiping Jack’s food knife defensively in front of him. The other ran to crouch beside Estevan, clutching his friend’s thrashing body. Drawing Vaughan’s sword, Gregory surged forward to aid Jack. Rodrigo saw him coming at the last moment. The Castilian managed to turn his body from the full force of the strike, but the war blade slashed his side, cutting through his doublet and opening up skin. He screamed and reeled away.
The Englishman grabbed hold of Jack. ‘Go!’
Jack pulled from his grip, shouting at Antonio. The young man ran towards them, but didn’t see Rodrigo rising behind him. Jack roared a warning. He saw Rodrigo, face contorted with pain, punch out with his blade. Antonio was caught mid-stride. He arched, shock stretching his face as Rodrigo’s sword entered his back.
Jack yelled and started towards him, but Gregory hauled him away. ‘Run, damn you!’
With a shout of frustration, Jack turned and began to run. Behind them Rodrigo, clutching his side, was shouting at his comrades to mount up.
Out of the olive grove they fled, past the monastery and along the river, back towards the Castillo de San Jorge. Over his pounding feet and ragged breaths, Jack could hear the drum of hooves. Risking a glance over his shoulder as they neared the castle, he saw Rodrigo and his two comrades in pursuit, kicking ruthlessly at their horses. He and Gregory vaulted a low wall and sped towards the bridge.
The Puente de Barcas was crowded with people. Jack glimpsed the black robes of Inquisitors at the head of a sombre procession. In their midst, recognisable by their tall, conical hats, were six accused heretics, bound for the judgement of the auto-da-fé. He and Gregory raced on to the bridge into the tight knot of people following the procession. Just before they were swallowed by the throng, Jack saw Rodrigo and the others hauling their horses to a stop at the head of the bridge, their path blocked by the crowds.
Chapter 4
The three men walked the empty hall, their footsteps echoing. The oak floor was covered in a fine layer of dust, marked with the prints of the many servants who had traversed the grand chamber in the last few hours, hauling chests and furnishings from the carts that filled the inner courtyard of Crosby Place. Streams of them were now moving around the expansive lodgings going from room to room, sweeping out fireplaces and opening windows to let in sweet air from the gardens.
‘A palace fit for a king.’ Lord William Hastings paused in the bay of the oriel window. His broad face was lit by the shafts of sunlight that were fractured by the leaded glass. The baron’s eyes lingered on the gilt crest of John Crosby that embossed the stone vault above. ‘Built by a draper.’
Hastings chuckled, but Richard detected umbrage in his tone. He had observed such offence in many peers at the rise of men like the former owner of Crosby Place: a new breed from the merchant classes capable of shedding the strings of their humble origins and ascending to the very heights of the realm – a rise that revealed itself in every inch of this sprawling mansion off Bishopsgate, with its own brewhouse, bakehouse, stables and chapel. Richard understood their resentment, but he himself felt only admiration. As the youngest son of twelve siblings, dogged by deformity and ever in the crowned shadow cast by his brother, he understood well the necessity of hard work and determination that could allow a man to slip the bonds he was born in.
‘It is a worthy choice for your new home, Sir Richard,’ confirmed William Catesby, who had broken away, neck craned to the ornately carved ceiling, the pendants and bosses of which were painted blue and scarlet.
By the lawyer’s appreciative tone, Richard guessed he was of his mind.
‘It speaks of your strength and will help establish you here.’ Catesby glanced over at him. ‘Such a move will inform the city – and the Woodvilles – that you are here to stay.’
Richard scanned the chamber, imagining it in full pomp: tapestries adorning the walls, the blaze of fire in the cavernous hearth, minstrels playing high up in the gallery. As soon as he and his wife were settled he would organise a feast for his supporters and prominent courtiers. As Lieutenant of the North much of his physical power was centred in his strongholds in Yorkshire and Cumberland, his reputation founded there upon a decade of careful negotiations, shr
ewd dealings and brute force. He needed, as Catesby said, to establish himself in the capital. Although his enemies had been wrong-footed by the swift action he had taken this past month – separating the young king from his chief counsellors and breaking the dominion of the Woodville family – it wasn’t enough to ensure his authority. Not for the long term.
‘I only regret I could not secure Lady Elizabeth before she sought sanctuary at Westminster.’ Hastings’s tone was gruff. ‘Her spies must run on grease to have alerted her so quickly to our movements. And with her brother at large with the fleet—’
‘You did what was most important,’ Richard cut across him. ‘Only by your enterprise was I able to intervene at all. If not for you my brother would be cold in his tomb and my nephew crowned before I knew anything of it. For that, you have my gratitude.’
In truth, he was angry – angry Hastings and his allies hadn’t managed to contain the queen or her brother, who had sailed on the king’s death to patrol the seas in case Louis of France chose to capitalise on England’s vulnerability. Edward Woodville, Admiral of the Fleet, was now somewhere in the Channel in command of six English ships. But there was no use fretting over the danger. Action was what was needed.
‘I have drafted a proclamation denouncing Woodville as an enemy of the realm and ordering the fleet disbanded. The captains of the ships will be allowed to return to shore free of penalty for a period, after which time they will be declared outlaws.’
‘Very good, my lord,’ said Hastings. ‘It may be prudent, as well, to offer a reward for the capture of Woodville himself. Nothing turns a sailor’s loyalty more swiftly than gold.’
Richard headed for the double doors that led into an adjoining chamber. ‘You said you have men watching the abbey precinct?’
‘At all times.’ Hastings fell into step with him, his bulky frame matching the duke’s stiff-backed stride. ‘Your sister-in-law and her children will go nowhere without our knowing.’
‘On the matter of her children, is there any word on the whereabouts of Thomas Grey?’
Hastings shook his head. ‘I have agents searching for him, but it seems the marquess has gone to ground. Have no fear. We will root him out.’
Richard entered the room, which Crosby’s executors had informed him was the council chamber. Hastings and Catesby followed him in. A high arched window let in morning sunlight which illuminated a fresco on the back wall that depicted scenes from the legend of St Nicholas. The patron saint of merchants and sailors had served Crosby well, thought Richard, the man building his fortune trading in silks and damask from Venice and Genoa. The rest of the walls were clad in finely carved oak panels. Stairs climbed to an upper level and there were a few items of furniture that came with the house. Covered in embroidered cloths to protect them from dust, they filled the chamber with indeterminate shapes. The place had a sense of waiting, of breath held.
Hastings’s voice broke the silence. ‘In the meantime, we should not underestimate Elizabeth. The queen-dowager will not imprison herself in Westminster indefinitely. When young Edward is crowned we must work to stop the witch manipulating him, as she did his father.’
Richard noted the steel in Hastings’s eyes. The man had no affection for the queen – a commoner their king had married in secret against the wishes of all.
Elizabeth, widow of a Lancastrian knight with two sons from that marriage, had swept through the doors of court and on her skirts had come her large, avaricious family, hungry for titles, marriages and estates. The members of the old nobility had watched, impotent, as they were passed over in favour of the queen’s brothers, sisters and sons. It had been one of the chief reasons the mighty Earl of Warwick – Richard’s cousin and father-in-law – had turned to King Edward’s nemesis, the brain-addled Lancastrian king, Henry VI. Fomenting a rebellion against Edward, Warwick had helped restore Henry to the throne, splitting the kingdom once again with the stinging blade of civil war. For the love of Elizabeth, who some whispered had won his heart through sorcery, Edward had lost his crown and it was only by the grit of men like Hastings and Richard that he had won it back.
With the concord that came with Edward’s victory and the subsequent death of King Henry, swiftly dispatched in the privacy of the Tower, most peers settled grudgingly into the reality of the Woodvilles’ hegemony, but Hastings and the queen had never come to peace; not least because she had pressed the case of her brother, Earl Rivers, for captain of the English enclave of Calais. The port, a jewel in the English crown, had a thriving economy built on the back of the textile trade and poured huge revenues into royal coffers. It was a high post, which Hastings had clung to with a death-grip.
For his own part, the baron had done little to endear himself to Elizabeth. Inseparable from her husband, he had kept the king’s company into the bedchamber, where it was rumoured their decadent feasts would descend into debauchery of the lowest kind with all manner of women. Over the past few years, Richard, his own body twisting painfully in on itself, had watched his formidable brother grow as fat as a slug, one greasy hand ever clutching a goblet, the other up some maid’s skirts. It was something he had come to privately detest about Edward – that one born with such a perfect, warrior’s physique could squander it all on wine and whores.
Still, despite his distaste for Hastings’s role in his brother’s degeneration, he had to admit the baron, his distant cousin, had served the king faithfully as Lord Chamberlain and, as Master of the Mint and a Knight of the Garter, was one of the leading lords in the kingdom. He was a powerful ally and his enmity towards the queen was a useful weapon to wield.
‘Lady Elizabeth may prove a problem, yes, but for now she is trouble contained. A spider under a glass. She can be dealt with in due course, along with the rest of her family. Most importantly, my nephew is now under my control. So, we turn ourselves to the matter of his coronation. The arrangements for the ceremony are proceeding as planned?’
Hastings, now chamberlain to young Edward in place of Thomas Vaughan, was at once all business. Richard listened while the baron outlined the invitations that would be sent in the coming days to the dignitaries of the realm, summoning them to the coronation planned for the end of the month. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed William Catesby tapping one slender finger impatiently on his jewelled belt, his narrowed gaze on Hastings. Richard had always been impressed by the self-assured lawyer. He recognised the fires of ambition that burned in Catesby, who had climbed his way up the slippery ladder of court faction to become Hastings’s trusted adviser. Here was a man like John Crosby, not afraid to toil and sweat for his place in the world. Today, however, Catesby’s poise seemed ruffled and his thoughts preoccupied. Richard wondered what was on his mind.
He was drawn back to Hastings as the baron asked who would maintain order during the procession that would escort the king from his lodgings in the Tower to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.
‘Henry Stafford has five hundred men with him,’ Richard answered. ‘He will keep the peace.’
‘You trust Buckingham with that authority? There is a reason he was kept out of royal favour for so long, my lord. He has his own ambitions and given his wife I worry where his loyalties lie.’
Richard shook his head, unswayed by Hastings’s caution. Buckingham had been one of the first victims of the Woodvilles’ rush to power. Heir to extensive estates in Wales and the Midlands and himself a prince of the blood, he had been married, aged ten, to Elizabeth’s younger sister. The marriage had been long and unhappy, and the duke had never forgiven the queen for making him wed a woman far below his station. ‘Buckingham has more than proven himself these past weeks and few others command such strength of arms. We need him.’
‘Just be careful, my lord, not to give him too great a grip on the reins of power. He’s the kind who’ll take hold of that horse if he can.’ Hastings clapped his hands together. ‘Well, there is much work to do and scant time in which to do it. If that is all, I will take my leave
.’ He started towards the door, but looked back with a frown when Catesby didn’t follow.
The lawyer stepped forward with a cool smile. ‘If it pleases you, my lord, I will remain. There are some minor details I need to confirm in the lease for the house.’
Hastings paused, then nodded. ‘Of course.’ He inclined his head to Richard. ‘Lord Protector.’
Richard watched the baron stride from the chamber. When Hastings had gone, he turned to Catesby. ‘What is it then? Not the lease, I know.’
Catesby crossed to the double doors and closed them, cutting off the sound of Hastings’s receding footsteps. He turned to the duke, his expression at once alert, but he stalled before answering, pacing to the window and back.
Richard followed him with his eyes.
‘Sir William is not wrong to be concerned about Lady Elizabeth and her kin. Or, indeed, the malleability of young Edward.’ Catesby halted before the duke. ‘We find ourselves at the edge of a precipice. One wrong step and our kingdom could fall into chaos. The French will not hesitate to exploit our weakness, given the chance. Neither will the Scots. You subdued them last year, my lord. But will they test our borders again?’
Richard said nothing, but his jaw tightened. His brother had rewarded him earlier in the year for his victorious campaign in Scotland with the creation of his own county palatine, giving him special authority over the region. He had been due to lead an army across the border this summer, intending to take control of his new lands in the north. But then Edward died and all Richard’s plans for the expansion of his powers had been thrown into disarray.
‘The Turks crowd like wolves at the doors of Christendom, ravenous for our destruction. We had a warrior for a king with a strong will and a quick mind. Now, in the face of all these dangers, we find ourselves cast adrift with a twelve-year-old boy at our helm. A boy whose mother and ministers will stop at nothing to steer him in the direction that best suits them.’ Catesby spoke passionately, fiercely, all the energy he had forced down in Hastings’s presence now releasing. ‘You have secured your role as Protector of the Realm, but once the crown touches Edward’s head your authority will end.’
