CHAPTER 36

For the benefit of the embassy, Edwin was once again clothed in the fashion of the men of Crown Point. But he no longer needed to hide his nature from Elizabeth. The barriers were falling away between them. He felt empowered.

In the morning room, he greeted the king and the consort, then took his place at table and began to load his plate with slices of apple and venison.

“You’ve got your appetite back,” said the consort.

“He’s a magician,” said the king. “Some days he fasts.”

Edwin nodded, though she’d been right. He’d hardly noticed it himself, but the stress had been stopping him from eating. Now, his hunger made every morsel delicious.

Janus entered, bowed to the king, to Timon, to the consort, then sat. That bland smile gave nothing away. It seemed impossible that only a few hours before he’d been threatening torture.

“I hear you have your agreement written,” Janus said.

“It will be the king’s agreement,” Edwin said. “Should he wish it.”

All were staring at him.

“And if I don’t wish it?” asked the king.

“Then I will throw it in the fire.”

“Then I shall read it. But why the long face, Mr Janus?”

Janus’s brow was indeed folded into a frown. “It is not agreed yet, sire, by either side.”

The king’s face darkened. It seemed he would respond, but the Master at Arms stepped into the room, face grave. “A body’s been found,” he said. “A mile from here.”

Edwin was suddenly alert.

“Who?” asked the king.

“A working man, to judge by the clothes.”

It would be bandits, Edwin thought. Yet so close to Crown Point.

The king clearly had the same idea. He scowled. “How dare they!”

“The body was left in the track. No sign they tried to hide it.”

“Which track?” the king asked.

“Just off the east road. Halfway to the Cairn.”

Edwin’s mouth had turned dry. “How’s the man not known?”

“Oh, he may yet be,” said the Master at Arms. “But not by his face. He’s been lying there through one day and one night at least. The crows have been at him. And there was… damage.”

Edwin had seen the Master at Arms describe battles where scores of men had died. His unease in making this report seemed wrong. Edwin’s stomach tightened. “Was anything found with the body?”

“A worker’s knife. A key. Tinder box, steel, a length of twine, a handful of grain…”

“What kind of grain?” Edwin asked.

The Master at Arms shrugged. “Didn’t see it myself.”

“How was the grain carried?”

“A pocket. Sewn into the poor man’s coat.”

“Where’s the body now?”

“I sent men with a handcart. Give it an hour and they’ll be back. Then you can see for yourself.”

The king was peering at Edwin. “You have a thought on who it might be?”

Edwin answered with a shake of the head, not trusting himself to lie in a level voice. “If you’ll give me leave, sire. I’d like to see the body where it lies.”

The king gestured his assent, suspicious it seemed.

Edwin marched from the room, breaking into a run only once he was clear of the royal apartments. The guards at the gate stood back to let him pass.

He had argued with Janus over the lives of millions. No doubt the man might order an army to attack. But somehow, it was hard to imagine that pasty-faced counsellor getting his own hands wet. Please don’t let it be Pentecost, he thought. Please don’t let it be him. But in another part of his mind, he already knew and was ashamed that his care was more for what the death might mean than for the snuffing out of the life of a man who had helped him so much over the years. And his mother before him.

He caught up with the soldiers and the handcart, walked behind them until his breath was less ragged, and then took over the lead. Two more of the castle’s garrison had been left to guard the corpse. The feet were the only part of it visible.

“Show me,” Edwin told them.

One stooped and half pulled back the cloak that had been covering it, revealing the back of the body, but keeping the front covered.

It was Pentecost, though Edwin wouldn’t have known without the context of place and time. A lumpen man with steely grey hair, whose fat hands had been so gentle in gathering pigeons from their cages. How often had he dipped inside his coat and flourished a few grains of wheat or corn to scatter as treats.

“Show me the rest,” he said.

The guard didn’t like it, but didn’t complain. He stood back and dropped the cloak away from the body.

A trickle of blood had seeped from a coin-sized wound in the steel grey hair. An entry wound, Edwin thought, and then remembered Janus’s threat: a bullet in the head. Taking a breath to steady himself, he stepped to the other side of the body, looked then retched. The bullet must have fragmented on its way through. Little wonder no one had been able to recognise the pigeon master’s assistant. Everyone thought he was visiting his sick mother, in any case. Who would think that such a mass of flesh and shattered bone had once been the face of gentle Pentecost?

But his identity would soon be revealed. Then the king would send out trackers. The pigeon loft was a place of politics, after all. The secrets of the kingdom passed through it. With the ground dry and dusty, there wasn’t much that Edwin could see, beyond a chaos of prints from garrison boots. But not so long before, he had walked on beyond that point to their night time meeting.

“Has anyone gone further up the track?” he asked.

The guards said no.

“Then take the body back to the castle. I’m going to scout around the cairn.”

As he walked away, he wished that he had the skill to read the ground like the king’s hunting master. But with every pace, he allowed his feet to scuff away any evidence that he, or the killer, might have left behind.

A wintery breeze rattled the branches of scrub trees on either side of the path. He shivered, trying not to think of that ruined face. At the cairn, he knelt, getting his head low. It seemed the wind had done his work for him, scouring the dust of traces.

“Looking for something?”

The voice made Edwin scramble back to his feet. Janus had crept close without him hearing. The man wore an easy smile. They were quite alone.

Edwin tried not to let his panic show. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching you. Were you checking for footprints?”

“I… I was.”

“And do you think this might be something to do with it?”

Janus held out a bag, which Edwin found himself accepting. It was his own, once filled with silver. Now empty.

“Do you know it?” Janus asked, the soft clay of his face impossible to read. “I found it caught in the scrub.” He gestured back along the path.

Edwin had passed that way and not seen it.

They were standing close enough that either could have reached out with a knife and stabbed the other. Edwin tried not to blink, though his eyes were stinging.

“Why do you hate me?” he asked.

“How little you understand,” Janus said. “You and your mother. She was the same – always missing the subtext. You want to know where the hate came from? It was bequeathed to me. There! I’ve given you something for free. I wouldn’t want you to die without knowing.”

Edwin could think of only one person who might be able and willing to tell him the answer. His feet took him to her door, and into that room of pastel silks. The consort must have sensed the turmoil in his thoughts, because she dismissed her ladies-in-waiting and stepped with him to the window furthest from any ears that might hear.

“Who was Janus’s mother?” he whispered.

“The blacksmith’s wife. Why is it you ask?”

“I thought… I don’t know. It’s something he said to me.”

She sighed, as if disappointed with a child who won’t learn their lesson. “You didn’t ask about his father.”

“The blacksmith.”

She put a hand on her belly. “All can see when a woman carries a child. But a man can sow his seed in any bed and be gone by morning.”

“Not the blacksmith?”

She nodded as if encouraging him to take the final step. Only then did he understand.

“The old magician…”

“Yes,” she said. “The father of your enemy is the man your mother had killed.”