‘That messenger, Rowan. He came on a horse, didn’t he?’
Rowan opened his mouth to reply, but his father was already walking to the tavern where they’d seen the man arrive. Thomas had to thump a stable boy to get the horse, but he and his son were thin and the animal was grain-fed, able to carry them both. They passed the dumbfounded messenger as he walked back just a little while later. The fishermen hooted with laughter at the man’s appalled expression as he watched his horse ridden away, slapping their knees and holding on to each other to stay upright.
In his rooms in the White Tower, Derry came awake by grabbing the hand that had touched him on the shoulder. Before he was even fully aware, he had a blade against the shocked face of his servant, pressing a line in the cheek below the eye. As quick as he had moved, he took a moment longer to understand he was not under attack and he put the blade away with a muttered apology. His servant’s hands were shaking as the man lit a candle and placed it under a glass funnel to spread the light.
‘I’m sorry, Hallerton, I’m … not in my right mind at the moment. I see assassins everywhere.’
‘I understand, sir,’ Hallerton replied, still pale with fear. ‘I would not have woken you, but you said to come if there was news of Lord Suffolk.’
The older man broke off as Derry swung his legs over the bed and stood up. He was fully dressed, having collapsed on to the blankets just a few hours before.
‘Well? Spit it out then, man. What news?’
‘He’s taken, sir. Arrested by Cardinal Beaufort’s men as he tried to report to Parliament.’
Derry blinked, his mind still foggy from sleep.
‘Oh, for Christ’s
sake
. I sent him a warning, Hallerton! What on earth was he thinking to come to London now?’ He rubbed his face, staring into nothing while he thought. ‘Do we know where they took him?’
His servant shook his head and Derry frowned, thinking hard.
‘Fetch me a bowl of water and the pot, would you?’
‘Yes, sir. Will you be needing me to shave you this morning?’
‘The way your hands are shaking? No, not today. I’ll shave myself, make myself neat for Speaker Tresham. Send a runner to his offices in Westminster announcing me. No doubt the old spider is already up and doing this morning. It is still morning?’
‘It is, sir,’ Hallerton replied, searching under the bed for the porcelain pot waiting there, already quarter-full with dark urine. Derry groaned to himself. He’d gone to bed with the first light of the sun in the sky. It hardly felt as if he’d slept at all, yet he had to be alert, or Tresham and Beaufort would have their scapegoat. What
had
William been thinking to come meekly into their hands? The trouble was that Derry knew the man’s pride well enough. Suffolk wouldn’t run, even from charges of high treason. In his own way, William was as much an innocent lamb as the king himself, but he was surrounded now by wolves. Derry had no illusions as to the seriousness of the charges. His friend would be torn apart unless Derry could save him.
‘Stop fiddling around with the damned pot, Hallerton! And forget Tresham. Where is the king this morning?’
‘In his chambers here, sir,’ his servant replied, worried at the woolly dullness of his master. ‘He remains abed and his servants say he is still suffering with an ague. I believe his wife is with him, or close by.’
‘Good. Announce me there instead. I will need the fountainhead if I’m to find a way through for William. Go, man! I don’t need you to watch me piss.’
Derry placed the pot on the blankets and sighed in relief as he urinated into it. Hallerton left quickly, calling for other servants to attend the spymaster. He raced down the steps of the White Tower and out across the open sward beyond,
slowing only a fraction as he passed marching files of heavily armed soldiers. The Tower of London was a maze of buildings and paths and Hallerton was sweating by the time he reached the king’s personal chambers and announced the imminent arrival of his master to the servants there. He was still arguing with the steward of the royal bedchamber when Derry came up panting behind him.
‘Master Brewer!’ the king’s steward said loudly. ‘I have been explaining to your servant that His Royal Highness King Henry is unwell and cannot be disturbed.’
Derry went past them both, simply pressing a hand on to the steward’s chest to hold him back against the wall. Two stern-looking soldiers watched his approach and stepped deliberately into his way. Derry had a sudden thought of Lord York attempting to reach the king in Windsor and he almost laughed.
‘Step aside, lads. I have standing orders to be allowed to reach the king, day or night. You know me and you know that is true.’
The soldiers shifted uncomfortably. They looked past Derry to the king’s steward, who folded his arms in clear refusal. It was an impasse and Derry turned in relief at the sound of a woman’s voice on the floor above.
‘What goes on? Is that Master Brewer?’ Margaret called as she came halfway down a set of oak stairs, peering at the group of men gathered there. She was barefoot, dressed in a long white sleeping robe with her hair tousled. After a moment of dull shock, all the men looked at their boots rather than stare at the queen in such a state of undress.
‘Your Highness, I don’t …’ the king’s steward began, still looking down.
Derry spoke over him, suddenly feeling that time pressed on them all.
‘Suffolk has been arrested, my lady. I need to speak to the king.’
Margaret’s mouth opened in surprise and the king’s steward stopped talking. The queen saw the worry in Derry and made a quick decision.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Margaret said in clear dismissal. ‘Come, Master Brewer. I will wake my husband.’
Derry was too concerned even to enjoy his small victory over the steward and clattered up the steps behind Margaret. As they walked down a long corridor, he passed rooms that stank of bitter chemicals. Derry shuddered as the air seemed to thicken. The king’s chambers smelled of sickness and he sipped his breath to avoid drawing in too much of the bad air.
‘Wait here, Master Brewer,’ Margaret said. ‘I will see if he is awake.’
She stepped into the king’s personal rooms and Derry was left to kick his heels in the corridor. He noticed two more soldiers watching him suspiciously from one end of it, but Margaret’s permission put him beyond their reach in all ways. He ignored them while he waited.
By the time the door opened again, Derry had readied his arguments. They died in his throat as he saw the pale figure of the king sitting up in bed, his thin white chest wrapped in a cloak. Derry could still remember the bull-like frame of the boy’s father and sadness came in a surge as he closed the door and faced King Henry.
Derry knelt, with his head bowed. Margaret stood watching him, her hands writhing together as she waited for Henry to acknowledge his spymaster. When the silence stretched unbroken, it was she who spoke at last.
‘Please stand, Master Brewer. You said Lord William has been arrested. On what charge?’
Derry rose slowly and dared to step closer. Without look
ing away from the king, he replied, searching for some spark of life that would show Henry was aware and understood.
‘For high treason, my lady. Cardinal Beaufort’s men arrested him when he came back from Kent last night. I’m certain Tresham is behind it. He said as much to me a few days ago. I told him then that it was a charge that could lead only to disaster.’ He stepped closer still, within arm’s reach of the king. ‘Your Grace? We cannot let William de la Pole go to trial. I feel York’s hand in this. Tresham and Beaufort will put Lord Suffolk to the question. On such a charge, there are no protections. They will insist on proving the truth with hot irons.’
He waited a beat, but Henry’s eyes remained blank and guileless. For an instant, Derry believed he saw something like compassion, though he could equally have imagined it.
‘Your Grace?’ he said again. ‘I fear this is a plot aimed at the royal line itself. If they force Lord Suffolk to reveal the details of the truce in France, he will say the truth, that it was by royal order. After the losses there, such an admission will aid their cause, Your Grace.’ He took a slow breath, forcing himself to ask a question that shamed him. ‘Do you understand, Your Grace?’
For a time, he thought the king would not respond, but then Henry sighed and spoke, his voice slurred.
‘William would not betray me, Master Brewer. If the charge is false, he should be released. Is that the truth?’
‘It
is
, Your Grace! They seek to blame and kill Lord Suffolk, to placate the mobs of London. Please. You know William cannot be put to trial.’
‘No trial? Very well, Master Brewer. I know …’
The king’s voice faded and he stared with dull eyes. Derry cleared his throat, but the face remained utterly still and slack, as if its guiding spirit had been snuffed.
‘Your Grace?’ Derry said, glancing up at Margaret in confusion.
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes so that they shone.
The moment passed and Henry seemed to return, blinking and smiling as if nothing had happened.
‘I am weary now, Master Brewer. I would like to sleep. The learned doctor says I must sleep if I am to be well again.’
Derry looked at Margaret and saw her anguish as she gazed down on her husband. It was a moment of shocking intimacy and it surprised him to see something like love there as well. For a moment, their eyes met.
‘What do you need from your king, Master Brewer?’ Margaret asked softly. ‘Can he order William’s release?’
‘He could, if they would honour it,’ Derry said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I don’t doubt the order will be delayed, or William taken to some dark place where I can’t reach him. In Westminster, Tresham and Beaufort have a great deal of power, if only because Parliament pays the guards. Please, my lady, let me think for a moment. It is not enough to send a written order to free him.’
He hated to speak of Henry while the man himself sat there and watched him like a trusting child, but there was no help for it.
‘Is His Royal Highness well enough to travel? If the king took a barge to Westminster, he could walk into the cells and no one would dare to stop him. We could free William today, before they have done too much harm.’
To his sorrow, Margaret shook her head, reaching down to touch Derry’s shoulder, then drawing him aside. Henry’s head turned to watch them, smiling innocently.
‘He has … suffered this … vagueness for days now. He is as well as I have seen him, at this moment,’ Margaret whispered.
‘There has to be some other way to get William out of their clutches. What about Lord Somerset? Is he not in London? He and William are friends. Somerset would not allow William to be tortured, no matter what charges they have brought.’
‘I wish it were that simple. They have him, Your Grace! I can hardly believe he was such a fool as to give himself up to them, but you know William. You know his sense of honour and his pride. I gave him the chance to run, but instead he came meekly, trusting that his captors were men of honour themselves. They are not, my lady. They will either bring down a powerful lord who supports the king, or … the king himself. I don’t know yet exactly what they intend, but William …’
His voice trailed off as a fresh thought struck him.
‘There
is
a way to avoid a trial, I think! Wait … yes. They cannot put him to the question if he admits guilt immediately, to all the charges.’
Margaret’s brow furrowed as she listened.
‘But does that not play into their hands, Master Brewer? That is surely what this Tresham and Cardinal Beaufort want!’
To her confusion, she saw Derry smile, his eyes glittering. It was not a pleasant expression.
‘It will do for now. It will give me a little more time and that is what I lack most. I have to find where they have put him. I have to reach him. Your Highness, thank you. I will fetch Lord Somerset from his home. I know he will help me and he has his own men-at-arms. Only pray that William has not been tortured already, for his honour and his damned pride.’
He knelt again at the bedside of his sovereign, bowing his head to address Henry once more.
‘Your Grace? Your palace at Westminster is but a short boat’s journey away. It would help William if you were there. It would help me.’
Henry blinked at him.
‘No beer from you, Brewer! Eh? Doctor Allworthy says I must sleep.’
Derry closed his eyes in frustration.
‘As you say, Your Grace. If it pleases you, I will leave now.’
King Henry waved a hand and Margaret saw Derry’s face had grown pale and strained as he bowed slowly to her and then clattered out of the room at a run.
In the Jewel Tower, across the road from the Palace of Westminster, William paced the room, making the thick oak boards creak with every step. The room was cold and bare beyond a table and chair placed for the light to fall across it. Some perverse part of him felt it was only right that he should be confined in such a way. He had been unable to stop the French army. Though his men had butchered or maimed thousands of them, they’d still been forced back to Calais, step by bloody step. Before he’d left, he’d seen his men winching up the Calais gates, closing the ancient portcullis and lining the walls with archers. William smiled wearily to himself. At least he’d saved the archers. The rest fell on his head. He had not resisted when Tresham’s men came to arrest him. His guards had touched their swords in question but he’d shaken his head and gone quietly. A duke had protections from the king himself and William knew he would have the chance to deny the charges against him.
Staring out of the window, he could see both the king’s palace and the ancient abbey, with its octagonal Chapter House. The Commons met there, or in the Painted Chamber in the palace. William had heard talk of giving them some
permanent place for their debates, but there were always more pressing issues than warm seats for men from the shires. He rubbed his temples, feeling tension and not a little fear. Only a blind man would have missed the anger and threat of violence he’d seen ever since touching the land of his birth. He’d ridden fast through Kent, at times in the same tracks as large bodies of soldiers. When he’d stopped for the night at a crossroads inn, he’d heard nothing but stories of Jack Cade and his army. The owners had thrown hostile glances William’s way all evening, but whether he’d been recognized or not, no one had dared to interrupt his progress back to the capital.
Turning away from the view, William resumed his pacing, clasping his hands tightly behind his back. The charges were a farce to anyone who knew what had truly gone on that year and the one before. He was certain they would not stand, not once the king was informed. William wondered if Derry Brewer had heard of his confinement. After the warning he’d sent, it amused William to think of Derry’s disgust at his decision to come home anyway, but there had been no real choice. William straightened his back. He was the commander of English soldiers in France and a duke of the Crown. For all the disasters he’d witnessed, nothing changed that. He found himself thinking of his wife, Alice. She would know nothing except the worst rumours. He wondered if his captors would let him write to her as well as to his son, John. He did not want them to worry.