Part 30 (1/2)

FORTY-SIX.

Winchester Palace Luke Hodge had served William Wykeham as chief steward for nearly twenty years, rising to a position of quiet prominence in the official life of Southwark. Our early acquaintance had involved a sensitive matter regarding Hodge's daughter that had left him breathless with grat.i.tude. Despite the pre-feast frenzy, the bishop's steward was glad to invite me within the palace's service gate to observe the final preparations.

As the first arrivals streamed through the gates the inner gardens and hall were abustle, the large staff garlanding shrubs and trees, setting tables with servingware and gla.s.s, arranging chairs. On the lawn a large tent was being raised, and in the hall, where the wide doors sat open to the inner court, I noted tables set up in the northeast corner for games and amus.e.m.e.nts. On the dais the bishop's high table beneath the baldachin was arrayed with serving dishes and a s.h.i.+p of salt-pot and cutlery. A dozen ewers stood in a line along the south wall.

I found an inconspicuous spot by the outer pa.s.sage to the bishop's kitchens, ma.s.sive chambers filled with smoke, yells, the clatter of roasting pans and utensils. A company of butchers arrived with spitted lambs, which they flung on boards and proceeded to carve with a determined energy, flas.h.i.+ng knives glistening with grease, competing with the bishop's own cooks as they loaded the results on to large platters held by the servers. As I watched them at their work I started to notice several of the men trading peculiar looks, as if sharing an unspoken secret among themselves. Others were pale in the face as they carved, and I wondered for a moment if they might be ill. Then one of the butchers, a large, beefy man who seemed to be the leader, started to move among the others, patting their backs, speaking softly into their ears, getting grim nods in return, though one young man, perhaps his apprentice, received a hard smack to the ear, and an order to get to it.

By bank of a bishop shall butchers abide.

The line came to me with the force of a hard sneeze. Butchers. A metaphor, I had thought, signifying a clutch of armed men primed to attack the king during the feast. Yet what more efficient, more sinister plan could one hatch than to enlist a company of butchers, already armed to the teeth, in the slaying of a royal? The lower trades of Southwark had acted notoriously during the rising, none more so than the butchers. What if the butchers named in the prophecy as Richard's killers were not soldiers or knights after all but ... just butchers?

I moved quickly out to the kitchen yard, where Hodge stood on a tree stump and addressed a crowd of servants. 'The hour before the king's arrival there will be games and amus.e.m.e.nts in the hall,' he called out. 'Beers, wines, bird tarts. Aim here is to refresh the ladies' cups as often as possible.'

A few gruff laughs.

'Upon the arrival of His Highness the company will proceed to the gardens. Then Ma.s.s for St Dunstan, with the bishop presiding. Craddock, the ma.s.s pavilion?'

A man to the steward's left visibly winced. 'Cracked post, sir.' He held up his axe. 'But we felled us that small elm before the gates at sunrise-'

'Yes, I heard you at it as did the lord bishop.'

'Ah!' the man said to scattered chuckles. 'So his wors.h.i.+p'll know we got it down, then. Tent'll be upright sooner than a c.o.c.k at a maud's mouth.'

'Glad to hear it. The bishop's pulpit?'

'Already in place, carted out last night.'

This went on until the steward had ticked most of the way through his list, then he clapped his hands. 'A word more.' Hodge straightened himself, spreading a wise smile to all corners. 'We are to have an additional guest or twenty at our feast this day. With the bishop's consent, His Most Indisputably Charming, His Most Esteemed, Generous, and His Most Faultless and Unimpeachable, His Most Excessively Irreproachable Excellency the Duke of Lancaster will be present for the festivities.'

A low murmur from the servants, some calls of scorn. Wykeham and Lancaster despised each other, a sentiment shared throughout the factions of the two magnates, from the lowliest stableboy to the uppermost baron. The domestic servants gathered here would be especially keen in their bitterness toward Gaunt, whose notorious contempt for the commons flavoured every mention of the duke among the city's servingmen.

'I'm told that His Highness King Richard wishes to put an end to the enduring hostilities between our households,' Hodge continued. 'His esteemed uncle, his most trusted bishop these men should be allies, not enemies. And for today, at least, they shall.'

'Bah!' came a call from the crowd's edges. Hodge shrugged.

'Look to your work. It's not your pounds paying for the puddings.'

'Just our backs,' someone muttered.

Hodge dismissed them all after a few words with the head cook. I followed him into the hall, where he wiped out a silver soup basin as I approached him. 'Gower!' he said, looking up. 'Settling in for a long day?'

I hesitated. 'Keep a hard eye on those butchers, Hodge.'

He looked at me strangely. 'Why's that?'

Challenging me, as if he knew already what to expect. Taken aback, I stumbled a bit, then said, 'Keep an eye on them, will you?'

A thin smile. 'Already am, Gower. Already am.' He left me there, feeling rather foolish, and only slightly rea.s.sured.

In the lower lawn the accoutrements of the bishop's Ma.s.s had been arranged at the east end of the pavilion. Most notable was Winchester's moveable pulpit, an ornately crafted thing of polished wood with ivory inlays that had been carted out to elevate the bishop above the congregation for his St Dunstan's sermon. I stopped in front of it. In addition to Wykeham's arms, two chevrons sable between three roses gules, the front panel had been carved with the same pearl-and-oyster pattern visible on the stonework above the hall. In palace of prelate with pearls all appointed. I stared at the woodwork. Even here, at the site of the bishop's holy Ma.s.s for St Dunstan, the signs of King Richard's death.

FORTY-SEVEN.

Pepper Alley, Southwark Millicent waited in the noontime shadows not far from the southern end of the bridge. Southwark was too small a town by far, and though she hadn't swyved on this side of the river in years, there were still men about who knew her face. She edged a slight way down the lane to get a better view up the high street. The alley met the broad thoroughfare at a fork, where a knot of hucksters peddled to pa.s.sers-by going in both directions.

She soon spotted a grand company coming smartly up from the Thames, their jennets colourfully flounced for the occasion, the commoners parting at their approach. The younger of them ran alongside the horses, shouting for pennies. There were both lords and ladies but mostly ladies, perhaps twenty of them, veiled and bound for the palace and the Dunstan's Day feast. As the company pa.s.sed the mouth of Pepper Alley two of the horses split off, with several guards falling in behind them. The guards wheeled round and allowed the two ladies to proceed up the alley about fifty feet, where they reined in their horses and pulled up their veils.

The powdered tip of a fine nose, then the face of Katherine Swynford. Millicent had seen this nose only once before, during a mayor's show on Cat Street when she had stood proudly at Sir Humphrey ap-Roger's side, her knight pointing out the array of gentry in the crowd, though Millicent would have recognized it anywhere. Swynford wore a dress of silk brocade in white and blue, trimmed in furs of pured miniver dusting her fine neck.

'You're the prioress's girl?' Swynford said, her voice hard. Her companion gazed up at the tenements. The women looked strikingly alike.

'Yes, my lady,' Millicent said.

'My daughter tells me to trust the Reverend Mother.'

'Yes, my lady.'

'I agree,' said the other lady.

With a gloved finger, Swynford flicked a fly off her knee. 'Lancaster won't do a thing, of course,' she said to her companion. 'He doesn't credit for a minute that Richard would actually fall for this this prophecy. Believe me, I considered telling him everything. But what would be the point?' She raised her chin. 'King Richard. Ugh! Staring off into s.p.a.ce, making up little fantasies to amuse himself. As I've told John a hundred times, if that brat once gets it into his head that you're out to depose him, why that's the end of the game, and we're all quartered for our troubles.'

'Surely, though,' said Millicent, hesitantly, 'the duke will not suspect your involvement, my lady. Won't you be handing the cloth off to the Countess of Kent before the feast?' This had been John Gower's suggestion, which the prioress had approved during his visit.

'It is more complicated than that, I'm afraid,' Swynford sighed. 'I have been asked for a round of Prince of Plums. By the Earl of Oxford himself.'

At Prince of Plums shall prelate oppose. The first line of the prophecy rang in Millicent's ears.

'Prince of Plums?' said Swynford's companion.

'Cards, Philippa,' said Swynford. 'It's a game of cards.'

The second woman was Philippa Chaucer, Millicent realized as the prophecy's words continued to echo in her mind. Swynford's sister, and the wife of a minor official in customs, though everyone knew the man was a long-time favourite with Gaunt. 'Why would you possibly front yourself in such a way?' she asked her sister. 'And at Oxford's bidding? What are you thinking, Katherine?'

'He approached me last week, all charm and baby fat. You know how the earl can be.'