Too Many White Roses 1

 

Chapter 1 Shrove Tuesday, February 8^th 1512 old calendar 1513 modern reckoning.

 

 

When there is a rude interruption to one’s merrymaking of a fellow who positively falls in the door, staggers towards the high table and falls to his knees gasping, “You have to find it before it be too late,” ere pitching forward to fall on his face, it is just a bit of a shock.

 

We do not, in England, celebrate Carnevale with the exuberance with which it be celebrated in the Latin countries, but we were naytheless having something of a feast in using up all our fats and eggs in the traditional way before we enter the fast of Lent; and the musicians and John Jester had donned masks to entertain us with a sung play loosely based on the Comedia de’l’Arte and large portions of their own imagination and quite recognisable satires on local notables. The arrival of this unexpected guest brought their performance to a rather abrupt halt.

The reason for the poor fellow’s indisposition became immediately apparent as he fell forward; being a good clothyard long and much of that buried under his shoulder blade that meant he was probably a dead man walking from the moment it hit him. I leaped up to go to his side; but it was too late. The pulse in his throat was still and his eyes stared with that blankly knowing expression of a man who has seen the hereafter.

Justin Kemp, our chaplain knelt at his side to start the prayers for the dead the moment I shook my head.

There was nothing more anyone could do for the poor fellow.

 

We had scarce had time to draw breath over this unexpected intrusion when there was another; and four armed men burst into our Hall, brandishing their longbows as though they were longing to use them.

The servants screamed. Adam and Jerid, covered by Robin leaping to his feet, slid through the solar door.

“What I’God’s name is the meaning of this?” bellowed Robin in fury.

The leader of the group, in the Lincoln green of a verderer, lowered his bow. The others copied his action. He were a heavy featured man, with a sallow, jowled face and long brownish blonde hair.

“My apologies, good sir, that I so abruptly interrupt you; I did fear that this very ruffian of a poacher,” he indicated the body of our first uninvited visitor, “Might have come in here to menace the ladies; but I see he did not get very far. Is he dead?” he turned to me and asked peremptorily.

He had neither doffed nor louted, so I stood to stare down my nose at him and waited coldly for some kind of courtesy from the fellow that seemed not to be forthcoming.

Robin growled,

“An you wish an answer from My Lady wife, naughty fellow, I suggest you find some manners; and after you have louted and craved pardon of her for your rudeness you may then leave; for the only one menacing my household right now is you!”

The fellow looked startled, looked at me dubiously and louted punctiliously with as much insolence as he might muster, murmuring,

“Why I do beg your pardon – My Lady.”

WHY does my dark skin always make these limited types assume I be a slave? Honestly! In fine pink camlet – and quite sixteen yards of it in my gown – with expensive brocade sleeves in a pattern of a pink pæony on a silver grey ground and silver thread in the pattern, then mine estate should be obvious. Not to mention my manner towards him that was of cold hauteur.

Did he have such foolish views that he did not imagine the mistress of a house be not the first to check the health of a sick stranger?

“Good; and now you will do as my father commands, and leave,” said Adam’s calm clear voice from the balcony. “These crossbows have double beds; my cousin and I have two bolts each and can drop any man ere he knock an arrow. My father likes not armed ruffians in his halls; so begone.”

“Well done you lads,” said Robin cheerily.

The verderer looked up into two pairs of implacable young eyes; and the horror on his face that one of those who covered him and his men be blacker than me was quite delightful; ‘deed, almost comic.

The boys had collected them from the solar where they hang, against possible nocturnal trouble, from the bedposts at the foot of our bed, inside the curtains.

Robin and I could probably have dropped them with thrown knives; but it were better not to let such fellows know that an we not actually plan to kill them.

“Uh…. If we might take the body now?” suggested the verderer, taking a step towards it.

Adam let him see that he took up more pressure on the trigger and he stepped hastily back.

“You need not bother; we will bury him here,” I said coolly “Perchance ere you leave you may furnish us with a name of this poacher?”

“He – uh, he was known as John,” said the Verderer. “Really it is no trouble for us to take the body with us,”

“Well he may then be buried as John Attwood Poacher,” I said carelessly “Shut the door gently on your way out, no need to be as noisy as on your entrance.”

There were enough discrepancies to the body of this supposed poacher, as well as his cryptic utterance, that I wanted to examine him closely.

“I – did he say anything ere he died?” asked the verderer.

Robin regarded him coldly.

“Why would I care to listen to any incoherent cries of a dying poacher?” he said “Out, sirrah! You have been dismissed, and your continued presence mislikes me! I will count to three, and an you not be gone you will lie beside him in the church for my son and my nephew will kill you all as brigands!”

Adam and Jerid sighted theatrically down their weapons as Robin started the count.

The intruders fled.

I signed to Rafe and to Ellery Juby.

They grabbed a loaf each and a chunk of fat bacon to put in it and glided off after the fellows, going through the pantry to use the kitchen door.

Rafe would track them well enough; and would send Ellery to get our verderers and poachers to help.

Rafe would then leave sign for Tom Partridge and Hammet Lever to help them catch up with him; and leave the rest to them.

We had some remarkably good rogues in our employ.

 

We took the dead man temporarily into the chapel, where we might also later examine him; and I made sure the men who carried him there also washed their hands under the piscina before returning to their meal.

I was approached by one of the musicians who removed his mask to reveal it to be Dicelin o’ the pipes as I returned from the chapel; and he louted low.

“My Lady, excuse me,” he said “But my brother Jenkin and me, we seen that man in verderer’s green afore; and the fletching of the arrow in that poor soul’s back do agree. The arrow be one o’ Fleury’s, the flight feathers dyed tan, grey and all scarlet tipped; and that verderer I have seen at Sir William’s Hall in Ellough too.”

“Thank you Dicelin,” I said “You and your brother drink deep to this poor soul’s memory then,” I added as I passed a vail. He grinned, pleased. He and Jenkin had been most careful, as I recalled, to keep their masks on all the time the verderer was in the Hall; and I could not blame him.

He and his brother were wanted dead by Sir William Fleury for a daring theft that, on account of the mean swine’s nature we had connived at covering up, merely passing the fruits of the theft to the orphanage at Bungay.

I had not missed the colours in the fletching and had wondered, for Sir William’s livery be tan and grey; and the three accompanying men had worn besides their Lincoln green jerkins hose with one leg grey and the other tan. Confirmation of mine own guesswork was right helpful.

 

Robin was still furious.

“This is getting ridiculous!” he stormed “Even with a porch, we seem not immune from ruffians storming our Hall! What price the king’s peace? I swear I shall erect a gate at the gatehouse as in times of yore when the Roses still raged!  Aye, and hire a guard to man it day and night too!”

“An we have made an enemy of Sir William Fleury that had not been a bad idea,” I said dryly. “As Jenkin and Dicelin so identify his man. He be the last sulky Yorkist in the county and identify us as Lancastrians rather than recognise us as pragmatists; and in that I fear too for Tybalt’s safety.”

I nodded at our young ward as I spoke, stuffing himself unconcernedly now the excitement be over, as a boy not ten years old will; he having been awarded to us for his safety and that of the realm, having been made the focus of a plot as a spurious grandson of Richard III for his uncanny resemblance to the old king.

“There is only one Yorkist claimant that counts; and he be in the Tower,” said Robin, meaning the White Tower in London.

“Why pa?” asked Emma. “Why do he be in the Tower, I mean?”

Robin laughed; the children always lightened his mood on the rare occasions he felt angered or depressed.

“Oh, ‘tis a prodigious old story! He and his older brother - his brother was Duke of Suffolk – rebelled against Henry VII; and the older brother died in battle. This be about the time I was at school with Tom Wolsey. John de la Pole being dead, Edmund his brother was then Duke of Suffolk. He stayed quiet for a while but in the year Pernel was born he decided he would like to be king and went to get help out of England from the Holy Roman Empire.”

“Why pa? Aren’t they our allies against France?” demanded Pernel.

Robin spread his arms wide.

“Alliances? Such change from year to year,” he said “We weren’t allies with the German Empire then. And Edmund de la Pole got others to help him, like Sir James Tyrrell, who got caught and was…. persuaded….. to say that he had killed the little princes in the Tower on the orders of Richard III.”

“But why would Richard of York need to kill them? He had them declared illegitimate because of Edward IV’s bigamous marriage to Elizabeth Woodville,” said Adam.

Robin shrugged.

“A Bella Figura for Henry VII by painting Diccon black I suppose,” he said “Or provided explanation an he had them killed himself because bastards or no they were still raised as princes of York. Plenty would see the irregular sons of Edward IV preferable to Henry Richmond, whose own claim to the throne descends through illegitimacy.”

Adam nodded understanding.

He had spent time in Italy; he understood Bella Figura.

“You mean this Sir James was tortured until he said what the king wanted,” said Pernel disapprovingly.

“Yes,” said Robin shortly “And the rebellion sort of fizzled out like a damp firework; and Edmund de la Pole stayed quietly put in the Low Countries. Until Emperor Maximilian’s son Philip the Handsome got blown off course and got to be the er, guest of Henry VII.”

Emma giggled.

“How come they called him ‘the handsome’?” she asked puzzled “Aren’t all these Hapsburgs tutmouthed?”

Robin looked helpless before a question he knew not the answer to.

“I never saw this Philip,” he said “Maybe it were irony; or mayhap he escaped the prognathic jaw that runs in the family and was handsome by comparison. Anyway, Henry VII made a bargain with Philip that he could go home if he gave up Edmund de la Pole; and he promised not to execute him. And he never did; and nor has our king, Henry VIII.”

“What relation is he to Richard III then?” demanded Adam.

“Good Lord! I don’t know,” said Robin “Get not Yorkist ambitions in thy head, boy; peace is good. The de la Poles are descended from one king or another of the house of York; I never cared enough to find out exactly from whom or in what degree. Edmund is the grandson of Chaucer, as I believe, his mother being Chaucer’s daughter; and as Chaucer was an Ipswich boy for a while that was ever of more interest to me in my childhood, dreaming of being one day as great as Chaucer.”

“You be greater father,” said Adam, who was partisan; though I tended to agree. As an artist Robin was a very genius. “I had not Yorkist ambitions as it happens; I was just curious. Being Chaucer’s grandson is more interesting as you say; kings aren’t very. The king was nice enough to us; and I liked Francis of France very well, but princes and their trappings make me nervous.”

“Well keep it that way and meddle not in inflammatory politics,” said Robin.

“Is Fleury an heir?” asked Pernel.

“I think he’s a relation of the de la Poles; as de Curtney is of Bigod,” said Robin “Tenuous of connection but it exists.”

Emma giggled.

“That make Walter Danforth a claimant too; he be a cousin of Fleury and de Curtney!”

“And that, my poppet,” I said “Is why Walter lies low; save when he may assist the peace of the realm. He have no desire for any man to recall that he have such nervous albeit tenuous claim to the thrones of England and Scotland.”

“Scotland?” demanded Adam.

“A Bigod married a daughter of Robert the Bruce as I understand,” I said “Or rather, a Bigod descendant; like the de Curtneys they bred only girls for several generations, at least, only girls that produced their own offspring. The family name is Stuart, but King James IV is a Bigod. It’s what make him obstinate and pig headed as well as erudite and inquisitive.”

Adam grinned.

“And that’ll be something to tease Walter over,” he said.

Poor Walter.

At least he could now take teasing since he had become used to it. Adam used him as an older brother in many ways; and methinks Walter was not so averse to that.

 

We decided to leave the body overnight that we might have better light to examine it in the morning.

On Adam’s suggestion we also locked and barricaded the crypt door to prevent anyone stealing the body as the verderer and his minions had seemed keen to take him away; and we barred the front door into the Hall stoutly too, and the kitchen door for both open into the porch area.

“Shall I keep vigil, My Lady, Sir Robert?” asked Justin.

He was a very conscientious chaplain.

“Yes: do,” I said “The poor soul was concerned that something be found that was on his conscience more than anything else and our prayers will help him. Be sure and wear a fur-lined cope and boot hose; and take Connie’s favourite skillet with you too. It make a satisfying BONG noise when hit with a ladle as will do for an alarum bell to summon help an any come; and at a pinch will serve as a weapon too.”

Justin grinned. He would defend his charge from interlopers cheerfully and was young enough to welcome trouble an it came.

Adam spoke up.

“Jerid, Oliver and me will sleep there in blankets and spell each other in keeping Justin company,” he said volunteering those of the boys he thought most reliable.

“What about me?” demanded Kistur, hurt.

“You and Maud and Fanchon and Pernel will watch in Rafe’s tower chamber of the gatehouse against visitors from the front,” Adam said “Being all good shots and under Rafe’s orders there.”

“We’re hardly needed, are we?” said Robin, twinkling at me as he ruffled Adam’s hair.

Adam grinned.

“Well I won’t learn any younger,” he said.

True enough; but Robin’s face at being quoted back at himself was a study.

Hobbes Hall and its demesnes would be Adam’s one day; he might as well practice defending it now as later; when it might be too late.

“We’ll listen for anyone trying to get in the crypt door, Uncle Robin,” said Jerid seriously “Should we pour nightsoil and hot oil on them like the Aldous girls did when the mercenaries came?”

“No, lad, no need to let them know we know they come; unless they should manage somehow to break in and Justin must needs rouse us. If they fire the place, say, or try to break an entrance.”

Jerid nodded seriously. He was a very solumn little boy but now at least no stranger to fun and laughter.

Crispin made decision to move his family into the main building; the school wing was vulnerable to attack. We had chambers wherein we place guests after all; and Sylvia slept in the chamber for the older girls on the top floor in any case.  Those paying scholars who boarded in the schoolhouse might sleep in the boys room and with plenty of room as our boys were not this night. Lucia moved in with Rosa for the time being, Richard elected to take his turn with the boys in the chapel, being scarce more than a boy himself, and Labhoise, also moved into a guest chamber. Tawn and Cornelia had not moved into the schoolroom since they planned to build a house for themselves in Hobbeshithe St Stephen in the better weather where Cornelia would teach petties and start scholars, though she made herself useful for now starting smaller scholars on their Latin ere they went to Richard. Our Sebastian was learning from her and thought her wonderful.

 

Rafe and Ellery returned and I waved them to eat what we had left for them ere they told their tale.

Rafe could eat and talk at the same time without making a mess; and did so.

“We went out through the kitchen door at the side of the porch to see them across the courtyard; then went through the undercroft to the family wing and out through the parlour window,” he said. As Rafe, being sensible, would think to do; and Ellery would never have the temerity to do. Nor the keys, as it happens; the door from undercroft into our studio is kept locked and Rafe was one of the few people to have a key to it. “They were hanging around watching,” Rafe went on “Checking, methinks, that they were not followed out of the gatehouse, so I was main glad we did it that way. I sent Ellery for Tom and Hammet as be our best rogues now Tom’s leg be healed – though I suppose Piaz and his family be so too now – and waited, watching. They still hung about; and the one clad all in green took one of them to scout all round the house while two stayed to watch, painfully deep in gorse bushes. I wager they’d have preferred the gorse fortress we had to burn those mercenaries out of.”

“It was a shame to lose it too,” I said “We should encourage the growth of others; perchance by planting gorse bushes in a circle, and with overlapping ends that it not be easy to find the entrance an you not know where it be. And build secret tunnels to such too an we be like to have a private war on our hands again.”

Rafe grinned enthusiastically.

“Rob and I can manage that,” he said. “And perchance too a maze in the Italianate fashion as they say is becoming fashionable here; that also be reached by tunnel and hide all manner of things for our defence.”

That idea I liked. There was not a lot that man could NOT turn his hand to; he and Robin were a formidable team, especially with Adam too.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“I took decision to follow round the ones on the move,” said Rafe. “After dark it was child’s play. They looked hard at the crypt door and wondered what manner of building works the start of the loggia might be. But the crypt door interested them and the one in green declared that you would never bother to move the body at night but would leave it in your crypt most likely.”

“And that door ready barred and barricaded,” I said “Adam saw to that.”

Rafe nodded.

“He’s a good lad….then they retreated. I heard Hammet Lever give me a call whistling like a nightingale’s song and I replied with an owl hoot. I don’t whistle too well,” he added.

“Sure it was Hammet not a real nightingale?” I asked.

He sighed.

“In February?” he said, patiently.

“You KNOW I’m not familiar with birdsong,” I said “I only know that owls are loudest in January when they mate because Chel told me so.”

“And I made sure Hammet know it were me that I gave a call half way between that of a tawny owl and a brown owl,” said Rafe.

I frowned suddenly.

“One moment – would not a verderer know that? And know when nightingales sing?”

Rafe looked surprised.

“He were no verderer; I thought that were obvious. He be a bowman at arms or some such. He wore green but he carried his quiver as a soldier wear it, not a verderer; and he had no huntsman’s knife, nor horn, and his boots were too fine.”

“Rafe, you’re brilliant,” I said. “And I should have noticed his boots though I knew not to look for the rest.”

He grinned.

“You have taught me to look for discrepancies,” he said “And you notice most the things you know. And I know a verderer’s job; and I have had enough to do with soldiers to recognise one when I see one. I wager from the way he gave orders as well as from the fineness of his boots that he was a squire; or at least a well trusted and wealthy yeoman. I think you were too busy noticing that poor dead soul to take as much notice of the green clad fellow,”

“That would agree with his rather arrogant manner in the Hall an he have higher estate,” I said “and it be a lesson to me that I should have noticed him too; and not merely for irritation of his manner. We do have something very odd going on here. DICELIN!” I called.

The musician came down.

“Lady?” he louted low.

“You said you had seen the verderer before,” I said sharply “Was he a verderer then, in Lincoln green?”

He shook his head.

“Last time I see him he wore not green at all but Fleury tan and grey,” he said. “But I questioned not; for I know not how Fleury like his men liveried within doors so when I see him in green this day I thought no more of it. I had thought him more important; but a verderer may be a favoured servant, especially an he be say a natural son.”

I nodded.

That was fair enough

They had not, after all, been long in William Fleury’s halls to learn his custom and usage.

 

 

We discussed the idea of letting Artemis and Orion loose in the yard; and decided to leave the door to the porch open for them, and blankets at the bottom of the stairs, for the nights were still bitter cold.

“And I’ll sleep in the porch room upstairs,” said Jem Sykes “Those dogs will do anything for me; and I can keep an eye out too.”

“Bless you Jem; an you be certain you will not be too cold I’ll not say no,” said Robin.

“Oh never mind about me, Sir Robert!” said Jem “I’ll be just fine with a pile of blankets and I shan’t disrobe. With coney fur boothose I’ll be as warm as warm; a man with warm feet feels not the cold.”

“We could shut the porch door and put a dirt box for them that will stop any coming in,” said Robin.

“That will stop any using the main or the kitchen door,” I said tartly “But not our solar studio door, nor the laundry, nor any of the windows. Without a gate at the gatehouse this house be indefensible unless there be guards at all times. An Jem be willing I say thank you very much.”

“Hmm, yes, I do take your point, my dearest dear,” said Robin. “And even with the porch door open, above stairs is at least out of the draught; and warmer in the Hall for those who sleep on the gallery than it was before we built the porch.”

 

 

The dogs set up a barking about two hours after Matins.

We had gone to bed partially clad against such sudden alarums and were soon at our fine oriel windows with crossbows and pistols.

“Thieves! Murderers! Vagabonds!” I screeched with histrionic fervour. “Alarum! Alarum! Brigands and thieves!”

“See them off Orion! Eat them Artemis!” cried Robin, over acting as much as I. “Why my dear, there must be a veritable gang of ruffians – first that poacher fellow, then the ones that followed him and now this!”

We fired our pistols.

A fat lot of chance they had of hitting any target at such a distance and in the dark; but there is something eminently intimidating about firearms.

Our unwelcome visitors were intimidated.

They fled incontinently with lymer hounds baying at their heels and, judging by the odd yelp in human tongue, getting close enough to nip.

The dogs had been well trained by Jem and knew how to see people off. He had a special command an he want them to actually bring a man down; but that were not needed.

We only wanted rid of them.

We knew – more or less – who they were.

And had we taken them prisoner, doubtless the fellow who posed as a verderer would claim either that he was pursuing another spurious poacher; or admit to criminal intent and say that he wished to steal our gold and crystal Salt, aye, and our fine silver, too; that Sir William would then pay to compound him and nothing would happen. And an we question him too closely he would know that our dead guest had left an urgent, if rather cryptic, message.

 

We all convened at Lauds.

“Exciting night, or what?” said Adam laconically.

“They tried to get in the crypt,” said Oliver “I was on watch. They had a whispered conversation but I had the small bit of the window open that I might hear them; and they were discussing what to do. They thought mayhap that as the door look all rusty that you have stuff stored against it and never use it.”

That had indeed been the whole idea of leaving the door looking all rusty. The hinges are actually very well oiled; but since the alarum of the sell-swords we had painted vinegar and salt onto all the metalwork of the door that showed, to encourage rust.

It WAS a rather vulnerable back way into the Hall after all.

“And they read what we wanted them to read,” I said with satisfaction, grinning at the boy.

“Anyway,” said Oliver “They then decided on the bold approach round the front; and shortly after then we heard the dogs and My Lady and Sir Robert waxing duly outraged with the spirit of Melpomene upon them.”

I grinned.

“I’d have said it were more farce than tragedy myself, but as there be no muse for that we had needs make it up as we went along. It seemed appropriate anyhow. Whatever is going on here is not farce however; one man have died to prevent whatever it be, who sought us out. And thus our comedy; for an we seem no more than outraged householders it may buy time to find out what it may be. We may hypothesise that William Fleury owes us a grudge or two and seeks to pay them off; and the dead man came to warn us that he plan some attack, and to first glance looking more an indoor servant than a forester of any kind, legal or illegal; that we shall study in more detail later. But we are forewarned that something untoward is afoot; and better, an we have dissembled well enough, that Fleury not know that we so surmise.”

“An attack on us seem the most likely idea based on what we have to go on,” said Robin “Or an attack on someone we be close to, like Sir Godfrey.”

“What can we do?” asked Jem Sykes.

“You warn the verderers and steady men; and Rafe should issue those as be trustworthy with crossbows; people like Hobb Husbandman, aye and his wife Dorothy too that took up crossbow at the windows when the sell-swords came,” said Robin “The verderers all be better skilled at longbow that be a better weapon in any case. Rafe’s been converting all our crossbows to double bedded ones that there be a second shot from them; and that a surprise to any enemy. We’ll have hurdles ready to make a barricade as I hope won’t be needed, and tell people to be ready to withdraw within the Hall too, as before. As I also hope will not be needed. Ellery shall warn the Jubys, the Aldouses, the Rom-folk and Father Piers Alcock; who shall ready St Stephen’s to be defensible.”

“Is this Sir William Fleury likely to go for all out assault?” asked Fanny incredulously “He knows surely that we fought off the sell-swords; were he so rash?”

“I don’t know m’dear,” said Robin “But he have a foul and nasty temper and be hasty in dealing out blows to underlings that may scar them for life; even his own nephew as a page. And we DID catch one of his sons out in naughty murder over land fraud; and Sir Godfrey have given succour to the widow of his other son as would not go anywhere near her father-in-law; and we did help deprive him of a young bride for the want of a stolen betrothal gift. And perchance worst of our crimes against him, we have accepted the Tudor boy as King, as the Fleurys have never done, methinks. And he is a mean-spirited yet choleric man. Such is oft times difficult to second guess; save that he would do us ill an he might.”

“He didn’t know how we helped hide the pearls, pa; he still thinks they were faked by his father and that the hog ate them,” said Adam.

“He suspects that we laugh at him over it,” said Robin “As a man of his stamp hates worse than anything. Princess, why so glum?” he turned to Pernel who showed a less than douce face to us.

“Rafe doesn’t think we can train owls like hawks to fly at villains at night,” mourned our eldest daughter. “And I did think that as they be good hunting birds it might be possible.”

Good Lord, whatever next.

Scarily, I could actually see in my mind’s eye a picture of Pernel with a highly trained attack barn owl, like Minerva on one of her retributive quests.