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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781780101255 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Severn House |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2011 |
| Series: | A Roger the Chapman Mystery , #20 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 563,175 |
| File size: | 392 KB |
About the Author
Kate Sedley, a student of Anglo-Saxon and medieval history, lives in England. She is married and has a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren. "The Saint John's Fern" is the ninth novel in her critically acclaimed series featuring Roger the Chapman.
Read an Excerpt
The Midsummer Crown
A Roger the Chapman Mystery
By Kate Sedley
Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2011 Kate SedleyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84751-342-7
CHAPTER 1
Everything was very hot and very still. Sunlight splashed across the walls of the farmhouse making them tremble in the afternoon heat. The courtyard was an empty, glimmering shell, and the tantalizing smell of early honeysuckle mingled with the more elusive scent of newly scythed grass. May, that most capricious of months, had today decided she would play at being August. Tomorrow, doubtless, she would again be as tearful as Niobe, alternating sunshine and showers with a chilly wind better suited to April weather.
I was five or six miles distant from London which I had quit early that morning, just after sun-up, passing through the New Gate and the fields around Holborn to join the Bristol road. I had left behind me a city fretful and uneasy, searching for the answers to questions, but uncertain exactly what those questions were.
It was just over five weeks since the sudden death of King Edward IV and the accession of his twelve-year-old son as Edward V, provoking a general sense of misgiving at the prospect of another minority reign. More than once recently I had heard Ecclesiastes quoted: 'Woe unto thee, O land, when thy ruler is a child.' Older people remembered, and younger people knew of, the chaos that had prevailed for so many years after Henry VI had been proclaimed king at nine months old; the jockeying for position by his various uncles, the barons' struggle for power. And today, everyone was fully aware of the enmity between Queen Elizabeth – Dowager Queen as she now was – and her vast family of brothers, sisters and first-marriage sons and the rest of the nobility. Particularly keen was the dislike between the Woodvilles and the man who was at present the most important personage in the kingdom after the king: Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
If the duke were to be believed – and most people would choose to believe him rather that the queen and her kin – there had already been one attempt on either his liberty or life at Northampton, during the journey south from his Yorkshire estates. It was there that Richard had arranged to rendezvous with the cavalcade travelling across the country from Ludlow Castle, where the young king had been raised for most of his life as Prince of Wales. It seemed that only the timely intervention of another of the royal Plantagenet cousins, Henry, Duke of Buckingham, had revealed the plot to Richard in time for him to arrest the ringleaders – the queen's brother, Anthony, Earl Rivers, her kinsman, Sir Thomas Vaughan and her younger first-marriage son, Sir Richard Grey – and have all three escorted to separate prisons in the north. The Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham had then taken charge of the young king, escorting him into his capital, while the Queen Dowager had fled into Westminster sanctuary accompanied by the little Duke of York and her bevy of daughters, where they still remained today.
Five days previously, I had been a witness to that entry into London, being just one of the cheering throng who had greeted the arrival of that blond, blue-eyed child as he rode towards St Paul's and the service of thanksgiving for his safe deliverance. The crowd had been mainly made up of women, all of them ecstatic at the sight of such an angelic countenance, their maternal instincts leaving them almost breathless with the desire to mother the sweet little soul. The men had been nearly as bad, and I had wondered at the time if I were the only person to note the sour expression in the boy's eyes and the bitter twist to his rosebud lips.
But, after all, who could blame him for being bitter? All his life he had been surrounded by members of his mother's family; he was himself entirely a Woodville in looks, with Elizabeth's famous silver-gilt hair. And suddenly, without warning, he had found himself bereft of everyone he trusted most and taken into the custody of two uncles whom he barely knew: his father's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who had lived mostly away from court in his northern fastnesses, and Henry of Buckingham, the reluctant and resentful husband of his mother's sister, Katherine.
And the king had not been the only disgruntled member of that procession. I had also noted the equally sour face of the Lord Chamberlain, William Hastings, the late king's greatest friend who had expected to find himself the Duke of Gloucester's right-hand man, but who had been pushed into a secondary place by Henry of Buckingham, now basking in his cousin's gratitude and elevated to the position of saviour, confidante and friend which Hastings had assumed he would occupy. The Lord Chamberlain's resentment and anger had not surprised me, but the speed of his reaction had. It was only the following day that, quite by chance, I had stumbled on a conspiracy between him and his former enemies, the Queen Dowager and some of her adherents, with the late king's favourite mistress, now living under Hastings's protection, acting as go-between.
It had, of course, been my duty as a good citizen – and more particularly as a loyal servant of Prince Richard – to report what I had discovered to the duke's Spymaster General and my old friend, Timothy Plummer. But for reasons of my own I had not done so.
It had never been my intention to go to London at such a difficult and transitional time in civic affairs, but fate, in the person of one, Juliette Gerrish, had forced my hand. A month or so ago, while I was away from home, virtuously plying my trade in order to keep my loved ones in food, clothing and those little luxuries they had come to take for granted, the aforesaid Juliette had arrived in Bristol and, for reasons I had not yet fathomed, persuaded my wife that the baby in her arms was also mine. Adela foolishly believed her – although I have to concede that there were grounds for her credulity – and went to stay with distant relatives in the capital, taking Nicholas, her son by her first husband, and Adam, our son, with her. She left Elizabeth, my first-marriage daughter, with her grandmother.
To cut a long story short, I went after her, having an unshakeable alibi for the time I was supposed to have been fathering this bastard child. (I hadn't even been in the country!) Adela realized she had made a fool of herself – of course I failed to mention the fact that there had been a time, long before, when I had allowed Juliette Gerrish to seduce me – and welcomed me with open arms. Unfortunately, the rapid return to Bristol that I had planned for us all was delayed by the fact that her cousins, a large family by the name of Godslove, had been in need of my assistance: an old enemy had been intent on killing them all off, one by one. I had eventually managed to expose the culprit, but in doing so, I had, as previously noted, stumbled across the fact that Lord Chamberlain Hastings was plotting treason against the Duke of Gloucester.
I knew very well that I should have informed Timothy Plummer, of my discovery straight away. But fear of being once again sucked into his and the duke's affairs – which invariably proved life-threatening – and being trapped in London when I wanted to be at home, stayed my hand. Finally, I salved my conscience by writing Timothy a letter which I had arranged to be delivered to him that very day, but not until noon at the earliest, by which hour I hoped to be well clear of London.
As indeed I was, although not as far on as I could have been had I remained on the main Bristol road, where I might easily have got a lift on a cart travelling in my direction. But having, three days ago, sent Adela and the children home ahead of me in the care of our good friend, the Bristol carter, Jack Nym, I had prudently abandoned the highway for the byways, taking the unused tracks and half-hidden paths known only to those who, like myself, use Shanks's mare rather than the four-legged kind. I had no intention of finding myself overtaken by stalwart young men in the Gloucester livery with instructions to hale me straight back to the capital, not just to explain my conduct, but doubtless to be embroiled in further work for Master Plummer. In the past year, I had been first to Scotland and then to France on the duke's business. And I wasn't even officially in his employ. I was a simple, honest – well, perhaps not so simple and not always, I regret to say, entirely honest – pedlar who, twelve years previously, had accidentally stumbled into Richard of Gloucester's life, rendering him a signal service, and never completely left it since.
But enough was enough, and it seemed to me that London at the present moment was a particularly dark and dangerous place to be. I was not going back there if I could possibly help it.
Which was how, on this sunny May afternoon I came to be lying on my back on a wooded ridge, staring down into a secluded dell housing a small daub-and-wattle homestead with a roof thatched with twigs and brushwood. A few scrawny hens scratched for food in the courtyard and a black pig dozed in its sty, overcome by the sudden heat. Of human life there was at present no sign and I presumed the goodwife of the house to be indoors, also keeping cool. The homesteader himself could well be with her or, if he had sheep, out somewhere on the neighbouring hills. (Although this was not good sheep country, as even I could tell. But judging by the size of his other animals and the state of the property in general, the owner was not, in any case, much of a husbandman.)
I stared into the interlacing branches overhead where leaves clustered in pendants of lime and jade-green, stirred gently by the faintest of breezes as it went whispering among the trees. A ladybird, emerging from its hideaway, crawled down my arm like a drop of blood oozing from an unseen wound, and a chorus of insects chattered among the grass on which I sprawled. Silence and sunlight were both golden and a bee droned past my ear, searching for clover. I was where I liked to be best on my own, out of the world, where no one could find me.
Don't mistake me. Anyone who has done me the honour of reading these chronicles thus far will know that I am a devoted family man. We-ell ... all right! Devoted may be too strong a word, but I love my wife and children. The trouble is, I love my freedom more. It was why, after I left Glastonbury Abbey and my life as a novice there, I became a pedlar. Not the life my mother had intended for me, nor one really suitable for an educated man (and my education at the abbey had been of the best: it was noted for its learning). But the open road, the happy encounters with fellow travellers, the protracted silences of early summer mornings or winter afternoons, the decisions when to eat and when to sleep that were mine alone, above all, the luxury of enjoying my own company undisturbed, these were the things that bolstered my determination never to renounce the calling I had chosen for myself.
Naturally, there was a reverse side to the coin. After weeks, even months, of tramping the roads in all weathers, there was nothing pleasanter than returning to a warm house, a loving wife, adoring children and a dog who regarded me as the hero of his canine dreams. (And if you believe that about the children and the dog, you're more credulous than I gave you credit for being.) For a while at least I enjoyed the domesticity, the comfort of a settled life, the petty trivialities of day-to-day existence, the drinking sessions and meetings with friends in my favourite among Bristol's numerous alehouses, the Green Lattis (alias the New Inn, alias Abingdon's; it has had many names in its time). But in the end, the desire for solitude, for freedom continued to assert itself, making me increasingly short-tempered and restless until my understanding wife, God bless her, handed me my pack and my cudgel and told me to get out from under her feet, to go and earn some money further afield than the local villages and hamlets around the city. (It's different nowadays, of course. Old age and the infirmities of the body make you a prisoner more surely than stone walls or iron bars because there's no reprieve.)
So, as I said, I lay on my back that sunny afternoon in late spring, basking in the unexpected warmth and sunshine, grateful to be on my own again, particularly as the past week or so had been crowded with too much activity and too many people. I congratulated myself that I had successfully eluded Timothy Plummer should he come chasing after me when he had read my letter, and planning the long, slow route home to Bristol. I would go, I decided, through Avebury and see again the weird and ancient hump of Silbury Hill and the remains of the stone circles raised by our Celtic forebears hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. I had only seen them once before, whereas I had visited the great Giant's Dance on Salisbury Plain on more than one occasion.
My belly rumbled and I realized that it must be getting on for four o'clock and supper time. I reckoned it was all of six hours since I had stopped at a wayside cottage to buy bread and cheese and home-made ale which I had swallowed sitting on a stone bench in the cottage garden. I also needed to find shelter for the night, although dusk was still some hours distant. But it was always well to be prepared, to have somewhere in mind unless the night was fine and dry enough to spend it under a hedge or in the lee of a barn. Tonight might well be such a night, but May, as I said at the beginning, is a notoriously fickle month and rain could easily arrive with darkness. Besides, I had a fancy for the comfort of a bed such as I had occupied at the Godsloves' house. I was not yet ready to sleep rough.
I rolled on to my left side, propping myself on one elbow, and looked down again into the farmhouse courtyard. It was still as quiet as the grave, devoid of life, almost eerie in its silence, and I was just wondering if perhaps it really was uninhabited when the door burst open and a child, a young girl, her skirts bunched awkwardly in one hand, went laughing and screaming across the compacted earth towards the gate, scattering the indignant hens as she ran. She was plainly escaping from someone, hell-bent on mischief, and a moment later that someone appeared. A middle-aged woman, the girl's mother I guessed, also laughing and shouting, emerged from the house in pursuit of her errant daughter, catching her just as she was about to make her bid for freedom. For a moment or two, the girl fought her captor, wriggling and squirming. The woman continued to laugh, at the same time giving the child what seemed to be an affectionate scold, holding her gently but firmly in one arm while wagging a finger of her other hand in mock severity. Eventually, tiring of a game she knew she couldn't win, the girl collapsed against the woman's side and allowed herself to be taken back indoors.
As they were about to vanish inside, I got to my feet, stretching my arms above my head to ease the cramp in my shoulders. The woman must have glimpsed the movement out of the corner of one eye for she stopped and stared up at the ridge on which I was standing. I raised a hand in greeting, but she gave no answering wave, merely pushing the girl ahead of her through the open doorway and following herself with all speed. I felt somewhat aggrieved by this unfriendly treatment but decided that there was probably a good reason for it. Perhaps the lass, although she looked young, had an eye for the men; perhaps that was why she had been attempting to escape, to keep a tryst with some youth of the district. In which case, my request for a bed for the night might not be well received, but there was no harm in trying. I therefore shouldered the canvas sack containing the clothes I had taken with me to London, picked up my cudgel and descended the path to the farmhouse gate.
All was now peaceful, so I crossed the courtyard and rapped loudly on the door. Nothing happened, and I had raised my hand to knock again when a snarling sound made me whirl about just in time to see a man and dog appear around the corner of the building. The latter was one of the largest dogs I had ever encountered, with small, malicious eyes and excellent teeth. Heaven alone knew what mixed parentage had gone towards its making. With mounting horror I saw it crouch, ready to spring, and clutched my cudgel horizontally in both hands. My one hope was to thrust it between the animal's jaws as it launched itself at me, and I braced myself for the attack.
It did not come. Instead, there was a thunderous roar of 'Stay!' and the dog, almost in mid-jump, lay down obediently at his master's feet, although his beady eyes never left my face and he slobbered in frustration. The man himself was hardly more prepossessing than the beast; a big fellow both tall and heavily built with a bull neck and powerful thighs. His hair was grizzled and there were wrinkles around the slightly protuberant brown eyes. I judged him to be somewhere in his late fifties.
'What do you want?' His voice was harsh, suspicious.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Midsummer Crown by Kate Sedley. Copyright © 2011 Kate Sedley. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
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