part0013

Andrew brought the conversation to a hasty conclusion and prepared to leave. “God will judge our acts, and we cannot and should not be our own assessor. If there is a fault and a blame, it will be paid for on God’s own terms. God will most assuredly address your father’s wrong against you.”

“God, on this occasion, is being a little tardy,” Richard remarked coldly. He had no wish to discuss the past and made no effort to further the conversation. “Sit, please. I am sorry. The past is not a place I like to dwell. That it still rankles me is certainly not your fault.”

Andrew dropped back into the chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “I want to help. It seems to me that the wheels were set against you years ago. I said before that I wished I could have saved you the pain. Elizabeth is her father’s daughter alright. I could not believe that she would treat you so badly just to cover up her trysts with Seymour.”

“What are you talking about?” Richard’s hard gaze was upon him, and he spoke the words slowly.

“Seymour and Elizabeth,” Andrew said, confused. “Surely you know now?”

“Know what?” Richard demanded, a cold feeling already starting to well from the pit of his stomach.

Andrew’s face creased in pain. “Christ forgive me.”

“Will you tell me, or do I need to get Jack to beat it out of you?” Richard spoke without humour.

“Elizabeth and Seymour were lovers. Catherine Parr had already found them together, and then you did as well in the garden.”

“He was trying to rape her.”

“Was he? Some women like a violent lover, especially one with a Tudor temperament,” Andrew supplied. “I’d seen them before, him with his hands around her neck. God, the sin of it. You were a scapegoat for the pair of them, not just for Thomas.”

The flat of Richard’s hand banged down on the table. “This conversation ends now.”

A moment later he had risen from the table and left the room .

Jack dropped down into the seat recently vacated by his brother. “So what did you say to him to send him to his room like a scolded child then?” The smile on Jack’s face fell away when he saw that Andrew was in no mood for his levity.

“I tried to help. Sometimes words cause greater wounds than we realise,” Andrew replied.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. He was always interested in any details of Richard’s past, and Andrew was a direct link to that.

Seeing the enquiring look on Jack’s face, Andrew continued, “I have my own guilt. I should have tried to help your brother when he was at Seymour’s house and I didn’t. I regret that. I thought it was just a minor incident. I did not realise that Seymour and Elizabeth would make him a scapegoat and I didn’t anticipate that his father would try and kill him, banish him and disinherit him either.”

“Stop there! What did you just say? Seymour and Elizabeth?” Jack repeated.

“Yes, together they used him to cover up their own sinful love. Boleyn’s brat is just the same as her mother…”

“You just told Richard that Seymour and Elizabeth were lovers?” Jack said slowly, his eyes wide.

“Yes, I thought he’d known, for Christ’s sake. Everyone else did,” Andrew said, his hands thrown wide.

“If I were you, I’d stay out of his way for a few days, and I will be doing the same,” Jack said darkly .

“You know which is his room? Take this up,” Dan said, holding the tray out for her to take.

Lizbet had little choice other than to take it from him, her eyes passing from one face to the next. “Why don’t you take it?” she asked warily, wondering exactly what was going on.

It was Jack who answered her, from where he was seated playing dice with Mat and Andrew. “Simple. If we go, there is more than a good chance we will end up with a knife between our ribs for our pains and we are fairly sure he’d not do that to you.”

Lizbet was alarmed. “Why? What’s happened?”

“Nothing, lass. He’s been drinking and Dan wants to make sure he’s not permanently drowned his sorrows,” Jack supplied, reaching out and picking up the bone dice from the table.

“Why don’t you bloody go and find out yourself? What’s it got to do with me?” Lizbet pushed the tray back toward Dan but he raised his hands and refused to take it.

“We’d rather you went, lass,” Dan said, stepping back and leaving her standing alone holding the tray.

Lizbet’s eyes flicked quickly between all their faces. “Are you all cowards?”

Jack laughed. “You have us, to a man. ”

“For God’s sake!” Lizbet, clutching the tray, stomped off across the room towards the stairs, unaware that every one of them was watching her closely.

“She’ll be running down those stairs screaming in no time at all,” Mat said.

“Nah, I reckon he’ll throw her down the stairs,” Froggy chipped in.

“You reckon? So Mat says she’ll be screaming, Froggy says thrown. I think she’ll get that tray hurled back at her. So, match my money, lads, and let’s see who is right.” Jack put two shillings on the table. “Dan, Andrew, are you in? What do you reckon?”

Dan gave Jack a sour look that Jack ignored.

“I’m in, and I’m with you.” Andrew, grinning, rolled two coins across the table to join Jack’s.

“For God’s sake!” she exclaimed to the empty corridor.

In her usual style, she pushed the door open with her rear and followed in with the tray.

Inside, the room was in darkness. The shutters were closed and what little light leaked around them showed an apparently empty and cold room. The fire was out, grey ash lying in the grate and the bed, although crumpled, was empty. Lizbet let the door swing closed with a bang behind her and put the tray on the table.

“So, whose idea was it to send you? ”

“God’s bones!” A hand to her chest, Lizbet wheeled round. Luckily, she had let go of the tray.

There, sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, was Richard. He was wearing nothing but a creased linen shirt and hose. The room was cold and Lizbet, looking at him, thought he must be freezing.

Reading her thoughts, he said, “Get me another bottle of this to warm me through.” There was an empty earthenware flask on the floor and he rolled it across the boards towards her, then added, “No, on second thoughts, get me two.”

Lizbet ignored him. She picked up the tray. “There’s dinner on here for you, and I’ll get this room sorted while you have it.”

Turning, she found him standing behind her. If he was as drunk as they had said he was, he didn’t look it. Lizbet took two precautionary steps backwards.

Richard’s eyes met hers. “Very wise.” Scooping the earthenware flask from the floor, he deposited it on the tray. “Two more.”

Lizbet’s hands were shaking now. “I’ll leave this.” She put down the tray and, taking the empty flask from it, let herself back out of the door.

Five pairs of eyes watched her expectantly as she walked back down the stairs. She ignored them all and disappeared into the inn, returning a few moments later with two full flasks and headed back up the stairs.

Opening the door, she made to step into the room only to be met immediately by Richard who neatly relieved her of the two flasks. The door began to swing closed in her face and Lizbet was about to turn and leave when it was yanked roughly open and the tray she had carried up was ejected. Lizbet tried to grasp it, but it was too late. It tipped, and the contents fell, bouncing off the floorboards.

“You bastard!” Lizbet exclaimed as the door slammed shut and she was left looking at the mess she’d now have to clean up. The bowl holding the pottage hadn’t broken but the soup was all over the floor, mingling with the spilt ale.

Downstairs, laughing, Jack collected his winnings from the table.

Shoved none-too-gently in the back by Dan, she had made her way up the stairs. Opening the door cautiously this time, Lizbet remained sensibly on the threshold.

Silence.

Peering round the door into the cold gloomy room, she found the Master this time insensible, it seemed, and face down on the floor in the corner. Lizbet hadn’t meant to let go of the door and it banged closed loudly, making her jump, but there was no movement at all from the man on the floor.

Standing near the door, Lizbet enquired tentatively, “Master?”

No reply.

Her eyes adjusting to the darkness saw the flasks on their sides next to him. Both with their stoppers removed and she presumed they were empty. Well, if he’d drunk that lot he had no right to rise again.

Moving across the room quietly, she looked down on him. He didn’t look asleep. His body was in too much of an uncomfortable pose for that. He looked dead.

Nervously she kicked his foot, ready to back quickly away if there was a reaction. Nothing.

The second kick was harder. Still nothing.

Bloody hell. Had he killed himself?

There was one outstretched hand. The palm faced the floor and the fingers were curled. Lizbet trod on it hard, producing a groan from the man on the floor. Not dead then, just drunk.

Lizbet smiled down at the unconscious man; at least her employment hadn’t come to an untimely end.

She’d had plenty of experience with drunken men before. When he woke, his head would be full of thunder and he’d not want to be reminded of how he got that way.

The counterpane from the bed lay in an untidy heap where it had slithered to the floor. Picking it up and shaking it out, Lizbet squared up the material and dropped it over the prone man. A pillow from the bed was delivered to the floor near an outstretched hand; he’d find it if he wanted it, she reasoned. When it landed, the draught sent an unfolded sheet of parchment sliding across the floor.

Lizbet eyed it for a moment. If it was the Master’s, it was a fair bet it would be important. Retrieving the sheet, she folded it along the creases back into a neat square and tucked it inside her bodice. There was no knowing who would be in the room next so it was, she reasoned, safer with her. Another half an hour had the room put back to rights, the grey embers cleared from the grate and replaced with a steady, warming fire.

Descending the stairs again, she met five pairs of eyes watching her. “Lost your bloody bets this time, did you, you bleeding cowards.” Lizbet marched up to Jack. There were indeed five coins still on the table before him. “I think they are mine.” Before he could object, she’d slid the lot off the table and pocketed them.

“Hey, now, you can’t just come in and steal that lot off the table,” objected Mat who stood up suddenly, the bench behind him scraping back noisily against the floor.

“Why not? That’s the price of sending me,” Lizbet said, her hands firmly on her hips matching his angry stare.

Dan settled a hand on Mat’s shoulder. “Lass has a point, and if it cost us a penny each, I think that is money well spent, don’t you? Or do you want to go back to drawing straws for the privilege of seeing who it is that goes, eh?”

“Fair point,” Froggy said. “Looks like it’s your job now, lass.”

“Bloody cowards, the lot of you,” Lizbet said again.

“Aye, we are,” Jack said. “When you’ve been on the wrong side of that drunken temper a time or two, you learn to keep well clear. ”

Lizbet had experienced his temper before but she had never seen him drunk. He’d been in his room for two days now. It made her wonder exactly what was written on the page she had tucked away in the folds of her dress; whatever it was, it probably wasn’t good news for the reader.

“Since when did you stop knocking?” he asked, his voice angry.

Lizbet had assumed he would still be asleep on the floor and had dispensed with the formality. About to say something and hoping he would not send this second tray of food to the floor, she thought better of it, and instead simply said, “Sorry, Master.” She laid the tray down quietly on the table and avoided meeting his eyes.

“Has anyone else been in here?” Richard’s eyes held hers until she dropped her gaze to the floor.

“No one that I know of,” Lizbet replied honestly.

He waved his hand in dismissal.

Lizbet pulled the white square from her dress and held it out. “Are you maybe worried about this?”

Richard didn’t take it. He just stared at her, hard .

Lizbet, not knowing what to do when he didn’t take it, put it down on the tray. “I’m sorry, Master. I’d thought maybe you’d not want just anyone reading it, so I took to looking after it for you.” Then she added unnecessarily, “You know I can’t read.”

“Sometimes, I wish that I couldn’t either,” was all he said quietly.

Lizbet left him alone, closing the door quietly behind her and feeling very much like she had earned those five coins she had scooped from the table earlier.

It seemed that his brother, Robert, had indeed scoured London looking for him. Who could blame him after he’d been left naked, bleeding and robbed in the street. He had, it seemed, found the inn where they had lodged and it had not taken long once coin had been offered to find a man who had a tale to tell in exchange for it. Fendrel, brother of Roddy who owned the inn, had profited twice, it seemed. Paid well by Richard for his help and silence in depositing Colan and his dead cousin some distance from the inn, he had then taken Robert’s coins and told of the help he had been forced to offer in disposing of the bodies.

So now a second warrant had been issued for the arrest of Richard and Jack and it seemed that even Lizbet had been named as complicit in the crime. The lines on the letter were well spaced. The penmanship would be that of Clement’s able assistant, Marcus. Richard was sure he could almost feel, emanating from the paper, the lawyer’s smug satisfaction in knowing that it would now be wholly unlikely that Richard would be making his presence known anytime soon in London.

It was true. His support of Elizabeth had already marked him for a traitor’s end, if he were ever caught. Now it seemed he’d dragged his brother and Lizbet into the pit with him. For the moment, Robert Fitzwarren and Clement had a better hand than he had, that was for sure, but who knew what the next cut of the cards would bring. A new queen perhaps? Had his head not felt like it was about to split into two, he might have smiled.

“They packed the powder too tight. I told them it was only a matter of time before the gun failed, but they would not listen,” Scranton continued. “Anyway, this morning, Crill, the Sergeant I’ve already told you about, was on duty and supervising the firing of the culverin. He was a miserable cur who had no time for anyone who did not wear the King’s uniform. When the gun fired, he was standing at the back and a huge piece of the barrel came out sideways and cut his arm off just above the elbow.” Scranton shook his head in wonder. “It was as neat a cut as if it had been an axe. And a waste of ordnance.”

Andrew smiled grimly. “It was a harsh lesson for Crill to learn, no doubt about that.”

“My point, sir, and you seem to be a man of middling intelligence for a soldiering type.”

Andrew raised his eyebrows but kept his counsel. Jack, sitting next to him, snorted beer back into his cup.

“Why is it that advice from outside the ranks is so hard to bear? It seems to me that there is a general failure in those of lower wit to recognise and heed the guidance of those at a higher level. It was the same when I was in Antwerp,” Scranton complained.

“Perhaps the issue is that those with lower wit are such that they do not recognise their need for guidance in the first place,” Jack pointed out unhelpfully.

Scranton cast him a sour sideways glance .

“I think what Master Scranton is trying to say is that there needs to be more respect for those with learning and skills,” Andrew interjected.

Scranton beamed. “And status. A man is also marked by his rank.”

“So, on this scale of wit that you have devised,” Jack said slowly, his eyes staring fixedly at Scranton, “you believe all those with rank have the wit and skills to guide the rest of us poor fools?”

Scranton returned his cold stare. “There are always exceptions to every rule. There are men who claim status and yet have not the wit to match their rank.”

Jack did not miss the slur which he knew was aimed directly at him. What Scranton did miss, however, was the elbow jammed painfully in Jack’s back from Dan who was sitting on the trestle behind him.

“I am sure your point is validly made,” replied Jack calmly. “Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore persevarare.”

Scranton stared at him. “A child can be taught to repeat words, that does not mean that it can comprehend their meaning, and…”

Jack cut off his words. “Fronti nuilla fides.”

“I am inclined to disagree with you. Appearances, in your case, do not deceive,” Master Scranton said bitingly.

Jack’s cold stare never left Scranton’s face as he rose and left the table.

“Master Scranton, you should have a care. Jack’s a man with quite a temper on him,” Andrew advised .

“He’d not dare to strike at me.” Scranton sounded quite shocked at the very thought. “He knows his place very well. He’s a bastard and they are a greedy and nasty breed by nature. It is an affront that he tries to emulate the Master.”

“The Master has a care for him, that’s true.” Andrew was still watching Jack as he seated himself further down the table out of earshot with Dan and Mat.

“Sometimes charity is a weakness.” Scranton was also still staring in Jack’s direction.

Andrew nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything. Lifting his cup, Scranton returned his attention to Andrew and fixed his beady eyes on him over the rim. “So, what persuaded you from Antwerp? Thomas told me you had worked for Estinheer. He is a merchant with deep pockets. It seems like quite a step down for you to join such a small group.”

Andrew smiled. “I needed little persuasion. I knew the Master when he was a lad and, when I saw him again, I was reminded of those days. Maybe I was reminded of my own lost youth as well.”

Scranton eyed him closely. “You’ve a few years on the Master, but not that many, I would say.”

“True. I was twenty when he was fourteen, and although that might not seem much of a difference now, back then it was. I provided much of his training and he was the best pupil I’d ever had, or ever would have, come to that,” Andrew remarked. “Those were good days. Thomas Seymour was a man who did not stint when it came to his household. I’ve never seen a stable yet with horses as good as the quality of those he kept. His men did not want for training or equipment and the gentleman’s sons, like Richard, were well placed to learn their craft.”

“I had not realised the Master had been a part of Thomas Seymour’s household.” Scranton sounded impressed. “His family must be well placed to have ties with the Seymour’s.”

“Surely you have heard of William Fitzwarren?” Andrew asked, slightly taken aback.

“William Fitzwarren, Henry’s right hand? Of course I know who he is. So the Master is part of his family?”

“Not just a part, Richard is his son,” Andrew provided and had the satisfaction of seeing Scranton’s eyes pop from his head in surprise. “Aye, he’s not the heir, that’s Robert Fitzwarren, but Richard is his younger brother and Jack, who you’ve taken such a dislike to, is William’s bastard as well.”

“I am shocked. I would not expect to find such a lord’s son embarked on an adventure such as this, with so few…” Scranton let the words trail off.

“The Master is set on a good course and I have faith in him,” Andrew said firmly. “After he was banished from his father’s door, there are many who would not fare as well, but the Master is in charge of his own destiny.”

Scranton’s whole attention was on Andrew’s face. “Banished?” he repeated.

“I’ve said too much. It is not my place. The Master is his own man and runs this band on his own terms,” Andrew said hastily .

Scranton, reminded about his own recent comments about status, was forced to agree and despite wanting to know more, allowed Andrew to change the subject back to black powder production.