The Cardinal's Court Read online

  ‘Edmund Pace was a blackmailer; I’ve found that out for sure,’ I said slowly, sinking down onto the cushioned chair by the fire and accepting the small, warm dog onto my lap. I hesitated for a moment wondering whether to talk to her about Gilbert. I had no wish to get the boy into trouble, although I considered that he had as good a motive as James would have if it were true that Edmund Pace had wormed that dangerous secret out of him about James.

  ‘The instructor of the wards blackmailed Gilbert Tailboys – forgive me if I don’t tell you why,’ I began.

  ‘I suppose you mean about him having fits,’ said Alice with a quiet smile. ‘The cardinal knows all about that. He didn’t think it was of any importance. He thought – you know how optimistic a man His Grace is – well, he thought the boy would grow out of it. We had a chat together about it and I pointed out that Gilbert’s anxieties would be less when he was set up with his own household. His worries about his father would then retreat into the background.’

  I thought about this for a moment. It did not, in my mind, change anything. The boy was distraught with anxiety and could have been driven by fear into taking action.

  ‘He had one of the toy arrows left over in his bag,’ I said. Alice, like myself, knew well how carefully choreographed the whole pageant had been. She had even attended a dress rehearsal so that she could report to the cardinal that all was well.

  ‘I still can’t see him doing something like that. And if it is improbable that James, or Harry Percy, shot an arrow to kill a man in the presence of king and court, then I would say it is out of the question that a boy like Gilbert would have that sort of nerve,’ added Alice.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘It is, as you say, improbable that anyone would take such a chance, almost impossible, but what if the man was not killed then? What if he were shot later on, shot when all the festivities were over and the body carried into the hall when it was empty?’

  ‘Why? Why run the risk of transferring a body? Why not just leave him where he fell?’

  ‘There’s an easy answer to that,’ I said readily. ‘You agree that it is more feasible for the shooting to take place after the pageant was over. But if that was what happened, well, the body could have been moved to avoid incriminating the murderer.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Alice. ‘Master Pace went to someone’s lodgings, tried some blackmail, the victim takes his bow from behind the door and aims, then fires.’

  ‘Or better still, retires into the other room and then fires through the open door. Much easier to do than to stick a knife in a wary man.’ I thought about this for a moment, testing the theory for possible flaws. ‘The only drawback, I suppose is that both Harry and Gilbert are quite slight in build, not come to their full strength, as yet. I wonder whether they would be able to carry a body from their rooms to the hall.’ James was broader and stronger than either and his lame foot, while it made him ungainly, never seemed to stop him carrying heavy weights. I decided not to mention that, or to reveal the dangerous secret which could make my employer’s eldest son very open to blackmail.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Alice thoughtfully, ‘there might have been two of them. Harry and his friend Thomas.’

  ‘Or Harry and the Lady Anne,’ I suggested. ‘She’s a good archer, you know. I’ve seen her pull a heavy bow.’ I thought about it for a minute and smiled to myself at the picture in my mind. Yes, it would fit with what I had observed of the lady. ‘What about this for a possibility? The Lady Anne and Harry Percy are in his rooms, discussing … Rabelais, perhaps … a knock comes to the door. Anne retires to the inner room, overhears the blackmail demand, coolly takes down the bow from its hook, fits to it an arrow from the box, perhaps selects one with the initials JB, which Harry had picked up and meant to return to James. Anyway, our intrepid young lady comes to the door and with a steady hand shoots the blackmailer stone dead and then decides to throw the blame from the man she does want to marry, onto the man she does not want to marry and helps Harry to carry the body to the hall. I’d say that the plan was hers, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Alice thoughtfully. There was a crease on her brow as though an unwelcome thought had occurred to her. I began to wonder what was worrying her.

  Aloud, I said, ‘And knowing that he was a blackmailer, well, that opens up the field doesn’t it? Edmund Pace could have visited anyone’s rooms after everyone had retired for the night. It could be anyone.’

  ‘It could, indeed,’ she said readily. ‘I could be on the list myself. Who knows; I may have a secret lover over there in my closet. And you know how good I am with a bow.’

  I ignored that. ‘You see, at law school we teach the scholars to look for motives for murder under greed, fear, anger, or jealousy. Well, the dead man’s nearest relations are living somewhere in Cornwall, and, in any case, I don’t suppose that he was particularly rich, so ‘greed’ drops out. ‘Anger’ is a possibility. ‘Jealousy’, not, I would say. I don’t think he was a ladies’ man. I saw no sign of it.’

  ‘So we come back to fear. Fear of being found out, fear of a secret being discovered. Someone was driven, by an extremity of fear, to kill the man.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said quietly. ‘I think if I probe I may discover that he was blackmailing all of the wards and many of the cardinal’s staff.’

  ‘But, of course, you are looking at others, also, are you not, not just members of this household, members of the court?’ She put a few stitches into her embroidery and held it up to the light of the lamp above her head.

  I smiled. It was a pleasure to see how quick-witted she was. She had brought me neatly back to St Leger. I thought that I knew why. There had been a shade of worry on her face. John was her young brother and she was motherly towards him. Still, St Leger was a more likely guess.

  ‘I’ve had a word with Master Cavendish while you were away, Hugh,’ she continued, reading my thoughts. ‘He’s in charge of the arrangements at table and he has promised to put me next to St Leger during supper. John will be with us, also and that will be good. He has a great memory for the spoken word.’ She put in another few stitches while I said something appreciative about John. He came to the door just as I finished and Alice greeted him with the news that I had just been singing his praises and was sure that he would find the truth more quickly than the king’s serjeant.

  ‘Master Gibson is most upset about the flight of young James,’ he said in reply. ‘I must tell you, Hugh, that he thinks it is a sign of guilt.’

  ‘Or a lack of trust in justice.’ I sent the rejoinder whizzing back to him and he lifted a hand in acknowledgement, just as though we were knocking balls across a tennis net.

  ‘It’s a puzzling business,’ he said, sinking into another fireside chair. ‘I just do not know how it could have happened right under my own eyes.’

  ‘We were trying to make a list of people who might have disliked Master Edmund Pace.’ Alice put in another couple of stitches, avoiding my eyes.

  John gave a gruff laugh and passed his hand over his head. The ripe cornfield gold of Alice’s locks was, in him, transmuted to a pale sandy colour. He grimaced slightly.

  ‘A very long list,’ he said. ‘Give me a name and I’ll give you a motive.’

  ‘George Cavendish,’ I said promptly. It was the least likely name that I could come up with and was meant as a preliminary.

  ‘Could be,’ he said thoughtfully, seeming, to my surprise, to take it seriously. ‘George is a bit of a lady’s man, in a quiet way, of course. Master Pace could have found out something about him and be threatening to tell Mistress Kempe about it, but no, it has to be one of the wards. They were the only ones with bows and arrows in their hands.’

  I ignored that piece of nonsense. Time enough to face John with the real situation once I got a chance to view the body. ‘Harry Percy, then,’ I said promptly.

  James considered this while Alice eyed him protectively like a mother with a not-too-brig
ht child. ‘Young Percy is very keen to fasten the blame onto James,’ she prompted.

  ‘I suppose that Harry Percy could have a motive,’ said John slowly. ‘I overheard some talk after the Earl of Northumberland’s last visit. It appears that he is not very fond of his heir and is thinking of one of his other three sons as the next earl. The king likes second sons. And, of course, it is very important that the Earl of Northumberland’s heir should be a strong, reliable man. It would only take one more report of gambling debts for young Harry to lose his inheritance. If Edmund Pace was blackmailing him, he may have gone a step too far.’

  ‘And, of course, Mistress Anne Boleyn might have encouraged him, seeing it as a way that she could get out of this marriage arranged between herself and James Butler.’ Alice nodded her head encouragingly at her brother, but did not explain my theory.

  ‘And I’ve heard rumours that young Tailboys suffers from black bile. Gives him fits,’ said John morosely. ‘I could probably find out something about Thomas Arundel, too if I tried. Funny family, that.’

  I decided to open attack and distract him from poor young Gilbert. ‘You know, John, there’s something very strange about this whole affair. I’d like to have a look at the body. There’s something puzzles me. I don’t, I can’t …’ I looked at his face, expecting to see a stubborn look, and surprised an expression of alarm. ‘I was thinking that the murder might not have happened until after the evening was over. After the dancing. It seems impossible that someone shot him with an arrow in front of the king and the court. When the sugar banquet was finished, perhaps. Did everyone go off to bed then, John?’

  ‘Mostly,’ he replied. The look of alarm had intensified. Perhaps he just didn’t like matters to get too complicated. He shook his head like a dog shakes its ears before resuming. ‘I waited for a while to make sure that there was no trouble and then I went off myself. Some courtiers went off with the king to play cards, were at it for half the night, I heard that from the king’s serjeant. He said that they finished at dawn and then the king went off with a small riding party and the others went to bed.’

  ‘And St Leger?’

  ‘He was playing cards, but he sought his own bed after the king had departed.’

  Alice gave me a quick look and I knew that she had read my thoughts. It had, indeed, crossed my mind to wonder whether St Leger had set up the whole business to discredit James, but it seemed unlikely.

  ‘More a matter of seizing an opportunity,’ she said aloud and smiled sweetly at her brother’s puzzled face.

  ‘You mean that James seized the opportunity when he had a bow in his hand and saw that he had a real arrow in his bag,’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, and perhaps he’s insane or just plain stupid.’ I was getting tired of this. The cardinal’s serjeant-at-arms was not as bright as his sister, but he wasn’t stupid, either. Surely what was blindingly obvious to me should have occurred to him by now. And if it had, why was he not doing something about gathering evidence instead of deferring to Master Gibson.

  It was strange how he appeared to have accepted that ridiculous notion that the instructor of the wards had been shot during the pageant.

  ‘I think that I should have a word with cardinal,’ I said, and was meanly glad when I saw the expression of alarm come back into his eyes.

  6

  I did not see the cardinal until suppertime. He was busy entertaining the queen, I was told. I was invited to dine in the chamber that evening and would be placed beside the queen. George came to break the news to me and to offer, tentatively, the loan of a very ornate rose-pink jerkin embroidered in gold which I turned down on the grounds that it would suit him and his blonde hair better than a dark-haired Irishman like myself and, since Mistress Margery Kempe would be present, then George had to look his best. The gentlemen-ushers took it in turns to dine at the cardinal’s table, and tonight was George’s turn. He was lit up and excited at the thought, still new enough in his position to find life in the cardinal’s court exciting.

  ‘You don’t feel festive. Yes, I know; you are worried about James, aren’t you, worried that your employer will blame you. But never mind, the queen and her entourage may leave tomorrow morning, and if they do then you will get an opportunity to talk with the cardinal. He is a man who can always give good advice.’ George patted my arm with such an expression of commiseration that I knew the news of James’s flight had spread through Hampton Court.

  I made sure that I was early for the supper in the dining chamber. Even so, most of the gentlemen had already arrived and the cardinal was there, also, making easy conversation with Lord Mountjoy, but keeping a close eye on the preparations as the carvers stood by with their enormous napkins slung over one shoulder and knotted at the other hip and the trays of knives of all sizes ready in front of them. The boys with the ewers and towels at the entrance to the chamber had already arranged themselves in a neat row, standing still as statues. It was a magnificent display, a room full of light. The flames from the tiers of candles arranged on every surface were reflected in the silver trenchers, knives, spoons and cups at each place setting and in the goblets and plates that were ranged on the buffet by the wall.

  The queen and her ladies arrived punctually and the cardinal hurried down the room to escort Her Grace to her place. Queen Katherine, I gathered from George, was unlikely to speak to me, beyond a greeting and few polite words. The cardinal would keep her fully occupied.

  ‘I’ve put Lady Willoughby on your other side; she’s very pleasant to talk to, speaks good English,’ whispered George in my ear, as the cardinal took a bowl of rosewater from one of the boys and held it out for the queen to tip her fingers in.

  Lady Willoughby, who had once been Maria de Salinas, had been in England for over twenty years. Once we had exchanged a few remarks about the weather, I glanced down the table to where Alice was chatting to St Leger and wished that I could be with them and making some progress in solving this strange case. Moodily I cut my manchet in the regulation four neat slices. The silver plates were lined with a thin circular wooden platter so I could cut down viciously on the small loaf in order to relieve my feelings as I glanced down at one of the lower tables and saw the smug, self-satisfied face of Master Gibson, the king’s serjeant-at-arms, sitting beside Alice. He supposed, doubtless, that the murder of Edmund Pace had now been solved. He had, I heard from my servant, sent a boat off as soon as he heard the news. At the moment he probably had men out scouring the streets and lodging houses of Westminster looking for James. I dipped a piece of bread into the bowl of pottage to be shared between the four of us: Lady Mountjoy, George, Lady Willoughby and myself. This allocation of food into ‘a mess’ for four, or in the case of royalty, one or two persons, was an English custom that we did not have back in Kilkenny, but I was well used to it by now. We had in front of us a pie baked into the shape of a salmon, but once the pottage was consumed that would be removed by one of the servers and carved into neat slices and our portions placed in front of us. The service was superlatively good at the cardinal’s table.

  ‘That was a very sad and terrible occurrence to happen at the end of such a pleasant evening.’ To my astonishment the queen addressed me just as I had dipped my spoon into some walnut sauce. Despite her thirty years in England, she still spoke with a Spanish accent.

  ‘I understand that it happened in the middle of the evening, Your Grace.’ I hoped that it wasn’t the wrong thing to contradict the queen, but she looked a sensible woman as she vigorously cleaned her spoon with a piece of bread. She mopped her lips with the napkin draped across her shoulder and said in a motherly fashion:

  ‘Try the greensauce. It’s better for the digestion than walnuts. Mint and parsley, both very good for the stomach.’

  Obediently I helped myself to some of the mint sauce and cut a small slice of baked frumenty and porpoise for myself, taking it with the left hand and placing it on my plate, according to the custom. It smelled delicious and I hoped that the queen would
turn back to the cardinal and allow me to enjoy it in peace. Even during days of fast, like Ash Wednesday, the cardinal served magnificent food. I would have to pop into the kitchen afterwards and congratulate my friend Master Beasley.

  ‘Eat,’ she commanded and watched me carefully as I picked a small cube up between my right forefinger and thumb. I chewed and waited. There was a slight frown on her brow.

  ‘I understood that it was a brawl after the evening was over,’ she said.

  I let that go. I should have been more careful. The cardinal always had a reason for what he said. I had never known him to utter a hasty word. A brawl after a night’s jollification was acceptable. To kill a man in the presence of the king himself might be a crime worse than murder. It could, perhaps, be designated treason and if James were to be convicted, he would be hung, drawn and quartered. I replaced my knife on my plate and sat back feeling suddenly slightly sick. The queen showed no sign of a loss of appetite, but helped herself to some of the pickled crabmeat that was served splendidly garnished and piled high in a bright red crab shell. There was a great buzz of conversation. It had begun to snow heavily outside and broad stripes of eerily pale white light from the windows fell across the side tables. I thought of James, out there in the cold, and clenched my hand beneath the starched tablecloth.

  ‘You must have some of this rysmole, I insist, Master Brehon. Your Grace, your visitor from Ireland is not eating well.’ The queen held out the dish of rice, ground almonds and ginger and I carefully wiped my spoon a second time on some bread and took some from the dish shared between herself and the cardinal.