Jack opened his door, still surprised that it remained unlocked. He’d spent the better part of the day simply staring out the window into the walled garden and listening to the sounds of the Thames as it rushed by, with its many boats and fishermen shouting to one another across the churning water, casting up the earthy smells of moss and fish.
But after some hours at a leisure he was ill used to, he jumped up from his post and squinted into the next room. He had to be put to something useful. This idleness seemed only to add to his frustration.
‘Oi!’ he called out softly. ‘Is anyone there?’ Perhaps a servant was about. He could ask them and perhaps be put to work, sweeping or setting the fires. For there were rooms yet to explore in the warren of apartments that connected Lady Katherine’s with Lancaster’s.
Jack turned his head around the door and spied a young servant looking back at him with horror. Jack looked down at himself to check for … well, he wasn’t sure. Something horrible, but could identify nothing that would make the boy look at him like that. The lad wore a coat with the arms of someone on his breast. Jack surmised it might be the Swynford arms.
‘Er … boy. Can you—?’
The servant yelped and darted away through one of the antechamber doors.
Jack leaned back against the archway. ‘God’s blood,’ he murmured, using Master Crispin’s favorite oath without thinking. ‘He’s a skittish one, isn’t he?’ Listening, he couldn’t detect anyone else about, and so he made his own way to the hearth and urged the flames with a poker sitting beside it.
Looking around, he could find little in the way of dust or untidiness. He supposed Lady Katherine’s servants were competent enough. In a corner of his heart, he wished that perhaps they weren’t so tidy. There was little for him to do.
A door opened and he jumped back. Was he supposed to leave his little ‘squire’s room’? He wasn’t sure.
Lady Katherine swept in, looking much the same as when she’d left him hours before. The coif on her head fell around her face in gentle folds, and though a mature woman, she was still quite lovely in his estimation, with a small mouth, wide, thoughtful eyes, and gently arching brows. Her brown hair, slightly wavy, was pinned up under her coif but still showed at the nape of her exposed neck, in the French fashion.
‘Master Tucker.’ She gave a little bow and, belatedly, he scrambled to bow back. ‘I’m afraid you startled one of my servants. He wasn’t made aware that you would be our guest.’ Her eyes held amusement.
‘Begging your pardon, my lady, I didn’t know no one was about. And I also didn’t know … if I was allowed to leave the room. The d-door … it wasn’t barred.’
‘I have no intention of locking you in, Master Tucker. I promised to keep you here but not to shackle you.’
‘And for that I thank you again, my lady.’ Rolling on his heels, he pressed his hands behind his back. ‘Might there be something I can do, my lady? I was not brought up to be idle.’
‘Ah, I see. Boredom brings you forth.’
‘Aye. My master taught me never to be idle. Our characters are a result of our conduct. So says Aristotle.’
She laughed, pressing her fingers to her lips. ‘I had forgotten how Crispin was so enamored of the philosophers. I see he has passed on this liking to you.’
‘Oh, Aristotle is wise, my lady! Did you know he has a saying for all of man’s foibles?’ Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t wonder why my master holds such store in him. And Aristotle being dead all them centuries, too.’
‘It is a wonder,’ she agreed.
‘But er …’ Jack looked around the sunny room. ‘There doesn’t appear to be anything for me to put myself to, my lady. I would happily clean, but your rooms are well kept. I commend you on your servants’ competence.’ He didn’t mean to sneer, but he felt his face configure that way.
Her lips twitched into a smile, and she seemed to try to hide it behind her veil. ‘I’m sure they will be happy to hear that. I don’t suppose you play chess, Master Tucker.’
He brightened. ‘Oh, but I do! My master has taught me.’
‘What an efficient master. Crispin is training you up as a proper squire, I see.’ She moved to a sideboard and opened one of the cabinet’s doors, removing an ornate box and setting it on a table between two chairs.
‘I can’t be no squire as my master is no knight.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Ah, look at me. Parroting his words back. He is always saying that. But Master Crispin will always be a knight in my eyes, even though I never knew him as such.’
‘Yes,’ Lady Katherine agreed softly. Opening the box, she began taking out the finely carved chess pieces and rolled out the checkered leather board onto the small round table.
Jack sat opposite her and waited for her to finish setting up the board. She took white and he waited again for her to make the first move. They played silently, with Katherine making soft compliments on his moves from time to time. It never occurred to him to try to lose.
In the end, he managed to win, and when he lifted his beaming face he found a smile on her face as well. ‘You are very good, Master Tucker. I commend you and your master on his tutelage. I never could quite get Henry to play fair or to enjoy the game.’
Henry? He realized she must have meant Henry of Bolingbroke, Lancaster’s son.
‘Master Crispin is very patient. He is always correcting me in my play, my swordsmanship, the way I speak.’ When he looked up again, her eyes seemed saddened.
‘These past twelve years,’ she said softly, ‘they must have been very hard.’
‘Aye, my lady. I don’t think there’s a day that’s gone by when my master hasn’t felt the sting of it. I try to ease his burden, but … well. I can little understand myself the extent of what he has lost.’
‘I’ve no doubt that your presence in his life has comforted his troubled soul.’
‘I only pray that that is true, my lady.’
She sat quietly, examining the board, or so he thought. When he measured her gaze, it was unfocused, looking past the knights, queens, and kings. ‘If only we could help him.’
Jack realized she might be speaking more broadly, but his mind was focused on the trouble at hand. He scooted to the edge of his chair. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that. If the Stone is very important to the Scots, so it must be Scots what took it. And took it in a spectacular manner, the most of which was designed to embarrass the king.’
She slowly nodded. ‘Yes. I should think that was certainly part of it.’
‘And so. If that is true, then this whole thing is a Scottish plot. What might have set them off at this time? My master and I get so little news from court.’
She leaned in, talking quietly, always with an eye glancing toward the closed doors. ‘I don’t suppose it is any secret that King Richard hasn’t enjoyed the last two years under the guidance of his lords. Those led by Gloucester and Henry.’
Jack nodded. Master Crispin had said as much. They were sent to London to set the king aright about his favorites and how the royal coffers were spent. In fact, it had kept all of London on tenterhooks, wondering if any of the five lords – the duke of Gloucester, the earls of Arundel and Warwick, Lord Derby, and the duke of Nottingham – would try to seize the throne for themselves. Richard had holed himself up in the Tower when they marched into London last year, with Henry Derby in the lead. Master Crispin had been nothing but tense the entire time. Indeed, all of London was so until it had all settled and Richard had come out of his tower, still the king but with less power than before. But even now, with the earl of Nottingham and Henry still breathing down Richard’s neck, there was still no easy rest for the king. He had said as much himself before he had snatched Jack by the point of a blade.
It was rumored that Henry was more disposed toward his cousin the king, whether because of guilt at treating one anointed by God so, or because he feared to act this way toward his kin, but the tongues of London also claimed that Henry wasn’t warming to Richard. Jack thought rather that Henry remembered their childhood friendship and wanted something of that back. But whenever Jack brought it up, Master Crispin would only grunt his reply. Jack could only shrug. Master Crispin surely knew more about court politics than he did.
Katherine spoke again. ‘And Richard has not warmed to their guidance. Any excuse to embarrass him puts Richard at a disadvantage.’
‘But to steal the Stone? Even that seems risky.’
‘Just so. Then that leaves the escapade in the hands of the Scots.’
‘Why would they strike at this time?’
She placed one hand near the one that rested on the edge of the chessboard-table. ‘There has been rebellion in the north. As I understand it, the Scots did not renew a truce with us, a clear signal that they wished to wage war, or so I have been told. And there have been many battles, many skirmishes. We have lost several of them. The latest was only last month, in Otterburn, in Northumberland.’
‘That must have hurt the king dearly.’
‘It was a blow to all who stand with the king and England.’
‘Who are the players, my lady, so that I might understand it?’
‘Did not Crispin explain it?’
‘He, er, might have. But sometimes, when he speaks of such things, it is only the sound of the wind to me.’ Jack reddened. ‘I will try to fathom it this time, I give my oath.’
Katherine smiled. ‘I do believe you, Master Tucker. Well, then. As I understand it, Sir Henry Percy, the earl of Northumberland’s son, had just taken over the defense of the border.’ She placed a white knight on a black square ‘But there is a reason they call him “Hotspur,”’ she said with a shake to her head. ‘He engaged with Sir James Douglas of the Douglas clan—’ She slid the black knight to another black square, facing the first knight – ‘against the advisement of others. He and his army were routed. Over fifteen hundred English lives were lost and captured to their Scottish five hundred. It was foolish and wasteful … and it embarrassed the king.’ She tipped the white knight, and he toppled several pawns.
‘Ah! Then perhaps this Sir James—’
‘No. He was killed at the battle.’
‘Oh.’ Jack glared at the chessboard, suddenly seeing lines of men-at-arms and mounted knights. The sounds of battle assailed his imagination, and he could almost picture it all in his mind.
‘Percy was captured,’ she went on. ‘But Douglas’s right-hand man survived.’ She picked up another black knight and clutched it. ‘John Dunbar, earl of Moray. I should think that this victory might have riled the Scots into greater fervor. The marches are such dangerous places.’
‘And is he still in Northumberland, my lady? This earl of Moray?’
She shrugged, replacing the white knight on the board. ‘I don’t know if anyone knows his whereabouts. But it is said he is clever and treacherous.’
Jack rose. ‘A message should be sent to my master. This is valuable information he could use.’
‘And are you to deliver this message, Master Tucker?’
Jack jolted. Dammit! He had been ready to fly and suddenly remembered his wings had been clipped. He sagged back into his chair. ‘Faith! I cannot.’
‘But nothing prevents me from doing so.’
Jack’s hopes soared again. ‘Would you, my lady? Oh, but my master’s lodgings are on the Shambles. You … you shouldn’t go there.’
‘Nonsense. Every woman has the right to shop for meat. That is what one does on the Shambles, does one not?’
Slowly he nodded. ‘Aye. You could. And my lady, can you tell Master Crispin that all is well with me? That you are taking fine care of me.’
‘I will.’ She rose and called out for her lady’s maid. Mylisant popped through the middle door and frowned upon seeing Jack, as she always seemed to do.
‘Make ready to ride. We are going to London.’
Mylisant curtseyed. ‘Yes, my lady.’ And she rushed off with Lady Katherine to find cloaks and footmen.
Jack felt more at ease now that he was helping at last, though little he knew what good it would do Master Crispin in the end if the Stone was in Northumberland.
He paced again, from one side of the room to the window on the other.
He stopped abruptly when he heard noise outside the apartments in the corridors. Marching men. And suddenly there was a pounding on the door.
Jack dove for the squire’s room and scrambled to shut the door just in time, as he heard the maid, Mylisant, hurry to the antechamber door and open its locks.
A man bellowed to see Lady Katherine. Jack dropped to his knees and peered out the keyhole.
Lady Katherine strolled in, sedate and unperturbed, long gown trailing after her.
‘What is the meaning of this disturbance, Captain?’ she said sternly. Jack could well imagine her saying the same thing in that same tone to her erstwhile charges; to Crispin, when he was Jack’s age, if he had been rough-playing with Henry Bolingbroke.
The captain of the guard bowed. ‘Forgive me, Lady Katherine. But I was given to understand that the prisoner was broken out by you. His majesty is very displeased.’
‘His majesty gave me permission to house the hostage Jack Tucker in more amenable surroundings.’
The man, clad in armor, head covered in a visor-less bascinet and aventail, shook his head. ‘That is not the message the king conveyed to me, Madam.’
‘It is the message he conveyed to me, Captain.’
The captain sighed and shuffled his armored boots. ‘Lady Katherine, perhaps it is best that you divorce yourself from these dangerous proceedings. The king explicitly commanded me to make certain of the prisoner’s whereabouts. I think it is best that I take him and let you sort it out with his majesty at a later time.’
‘I do not think it best, Captain. I think that I should talk to the king myself now.’
The captain raised his chin and looked down at her. ‘I will not debate it.’ He turned to his guards and gestured them in. ‘Find him,’ he said to them.
Jack clutched the door. He should surrender himself before harm came to Lady Katherine. He rose and reached for the handle when a loud voice arose from the open doorway.
‘Hold! What, by Christ, are you doing molesting my governess!’
Jack knelt to the keyhole again and pressed his eye to it. Henry Bolingbroke himself walked through the door, shoving aside some of the king’s guards. He stepped into the room and stood with his fist at his hip, facing the captain. Garbed in a long, crimson houppelande with his family arms embroidered riotously over the material, Jack thought that Henry seemed more intimidating than that captain of the guard with all his armor. Henry little resembled his dark and stoic father Lancaster, but instead – so it was said – took after his mother the Lady Blanche, with his ruddy hair and husky build.
The captain was clearly ruffled. ‘My Lord Derby, I was sent by the king—’
‘I know that my cousin sent you,’ he said, gleefully emphasizing the royal relationship. Henry, as well as Jack, could plainly see how it discomfited the captain. ‘But I am telling you that there has been an error. Surely the king could not have made conflicting orders.’ He turned and bowed decorously to Lady Katherine. ‘My dear Lady Katherine.’ He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Surely you spoke directly to the king himself on this matter?’
She nodded demurely, allowing the soft veil to flutter about her face to great effect. ‘Of course. I never should have had the nerve to steal one of the king’s hostages without his express permission.’
‘I thought as much.’ He turned to face the captain. ‘And you, sir. Was your audience with the king in person?’
The captain scowled. ‘No, my lord. I received a missive—’
‘Ah well!’ Henry slapped the man’s shoulder. The captain cringed. ‘That is all settled, then. Plainly the message was somehow muddled. I will speak to my cousin the king without delay and clear up this misunderstanding. You are free to return to your duties, Captain, as are your men.’
The men, poised in the room, looked from Henry to their captain. It was clear that Henry held greater sway. They bowed to him and exited smartly out the door.
The captain, tight-lipped and taut, stiffly bowed to Henry, then to Katherine, before turning on his heel and marching over the threshold.
Henry strode to the door and pushed it shut. Jack saw him relax his shoulders, and he suddenly looked like the congenial man he always appeared to be in front of Crispin. ‘My lady, you do get yourself into fixes. You know very well that the king gave you no such order.’
‘He might have done,’ she said with a shrug. She straightened Henry’s collar affectionately. ‘Had I asked him.’
‘Lady Katherine,’ he sighed. ‘Ah me.’
‘And how did you arrive in so timely a fashion, Henry?’
‘I happened to overhear the guards discussing it. Imagine my surprise to discover that you were harboring him. Of course I should have known.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘You are quick to find me guilty.’
He laughed. ‘Truly? Very well, tell me the miscreant isn’t here, then.’
Jack shoved the door open and raised his chin. ‘I am no miscreant, my lord,’ he said defiantly, if not a bit shakily. ‘I am the king’s hostage for no other reason but that he hates my master.’
Henry smiled. ‘And there is Jack Tucker, Crispin’s right-hand man. How goes it, Master Tucker?’ He took two long strides with an outstretched hand and met Jack in the middle of the room, grasping his hand in a tight grip.
Jack stared down at their clasped hands in awe. Why was Henry Derby shaking his hand like an equal?
Henry tightened his grip and pulled Jack closer. ‘And though it is true that King Richard does not favor Crispin …’ He leaned toward Jack’s ear and said in a rough whisper, ‘it is best not to say that aloud.’
‘I … I beg your pardon, my lord.’
He released Jack and waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Never mind. What’s done is done. There is time to make certain you are safe. I suggest moving you to my lodgings across the corridor. It might be safer there. But you must keep out of sight as it is next to the king’s lodgings.’
Jack gulped. ‘Aye, my lord. You are being very kind to me. I don’t know that I deserve it except to keep my master happy, God bless him.’
‘I was on my way to see him, in fact,’ offered Lady Katherine.
Henry raised his brows. ‘Were you? Well then. While you are on your mission I shall sequester Master Tucker. And you can honestly reply once the king’s guards return – and they will – that he is not here. I don’t think the king would dare search my lodgings. I must say, I am surprised he sent men to search yours. Especially since I thought you were lodged at our estates with my wife.’
She turned her head slightly. ‘And so I was. You know I find her most charming and your little Henry a joy, but I felt the need to visit Westminster to see to the duke’s household here. I expected a speedy trip and an equally speedy return. Nothing controversial was on my mind, I assure you. As for the king searching my lodgings, well. As you well know, I am only Lady Swynford, governess to Lancaster’s children, all of whom are grown and at their own affairs. The king does not consider me to be unassailable.’
Henry narrowed his eyes but nodded at the truth of it. ‘Be that as it may …’ He turned to Jack. ‘I think we are both tasked with making sure young Jack here is kept from the king’s eye. For an old friend’s sake.’
Katherine turned to study Jack, hands folded one over the other. She gave him an encouraging smile.
Jack looked from one to the other gratefully. Not in a thousand years would he ever have thought he would be in such company. Not if you had paid him a bag of gold.