frozen over and, beneath the ice, I glimpsed the scrawny corpse of a dead dog. The city was just recovering from one of the usual bouts of plague which come in late winter; its citizens, however, sensed the worst was over and the streets buzzed like an overturned hive. We reached the Tower through Poor Jewry, passing the house of the Crutched Friars and then through a postern gate which stands near Hog Street. Benjamin and Agrippa had fallen strangely silent.
Only as we entered the Tower did Benjamin lean over and whisper, 'Roger, pretend we discovered nothing. Keep your thoughts hidden and your counsel concealed until we find the truth about this party of knaves.'
Benjamin's 'party of knaves' had re-established themselves in the Tower waiting for spring to dry out the roads so they could travel north. Sir Robert Catesby greeted Agrippa warmly, taking him aside for secret consultations whilst ignoring Benjamin and me. At last I grew tired of such rudeness. The grooms had taken away our horses and I did not wish to stand like a servant on the freezing forecourt of the tower.
'Doctor Agrippa!' I called out. 'What is the matter?'
He apologised and walked back to us arm-in-arm with Catesby, who now gracefully bowed to both of us.
'Welcome back, Master Benjamin, Shallot. I apologise for any offence given but there has been another death, though one which may resolve the mysteries which have plagued us.'
'Moodie's dead!' Agrippa flatly announced. 'Not murder this time,' he added quickly. 'He died the Roman way.'
Benjamin cocked his head quizzically.
'He killed himself,' Catesby declared. 'Asked for a bowl of warm water from the kitchen, locked his chamber and slashed his wrist.' 'When was this?' I asked.
'Yester evening. His body was not found until late at night.'
I stared up at the grey sky and the black ravens which circled above the battlements like the souls of men condemned to wander the earth forever.
'You said his death may resolve the mysteries?' Benjamin abruptly asked.
I stamped my feet on the cobbles as a sign that I was freezing. Catesby took my point, smiled, and led us up to his own warm, spacious chamber in the Lion Tower. He served us mulled wine sprinkled with cinnamon and heated with a red hot poker and then emptied the contents of a saddle bag on to the table; it contained a few faded white rose petals and pieces of parchment. The latter were passed around for us to examine. Most were notes, drafts of letters or memoranda concerning secret Yorkist plans as well as proclamations written anonymously to be nailed on the doors of churches up and down the kingdom. They were full of the usual childish nonsense about the Tudors being usurpers and that the crown, by right and divine favour, should go to the House of York – in reality a pathetic bundle of faded dreams and failed aspirations. Agrippa studied them with a smile. Benjamin just dismissed them, tossing the documents back on to the table.
'So Moodie was a supporter of the White Rose,' he said quietly. 'A member of Les Blancs Sangliers. But why should he kill Selkirk and Ruthven?'
Catesby shrugged. 'God knows! Perhaps he saw them as a threat. Perhaps Selkirk's verses contained information which he wished destroyed.'
'Do you really believe that?' I asked.
Catesby shook his head. 'No,' he answered slowly. 'No, I don't. Perhaps it was just an act of revenge.' He sighed. 'There's neither rhyme nor reason to Moodie's suicide.'
He sat down heavily. 'I don't know how Selkirk and Ruthven died,' he murmured, and looked up. 'Do you?' Benjamin shook his head.
'Moodie could have killed Irvine,' Catesby continued. 'He did leave Royston for a while at the same time as you, and a priest would be acceptable within the convent walls at Coldstream.'
'What does Queen Margaret say?' asked Benjamin.
Catesby shrugged. 'She mourns Moodie's death and has her own explanation of it.' He paused to gather his thoughts. 'Her late husband, James IV, at one time supported the cause of the White Rose and then deserted it. She believes James was not killed at Flodden.' He coughed, the sound shattering the eerie silence of the chamber. 'Queen Margaret believes,' he continued, 'that her husband was murdered at Flodden by a member of Les Blancs Sangliers who have since waged continuous war against those who advised her late husband, such as Selkirk and Ruthven.'
I sat back, surprised because what Catesby said made sense. Agrippa toyed with the tassels on his robes whilst Benjamin just stared into the middle distance, lost in his own thoughts.
'But why,' he asked eventually, 'would Moodie now kill himself?'
'Because,' Doctor Agrippa intervened, 'he probably thought that you or Shallot would have discovered something during your travels in Scotland and France to trap him.'
Again, Agrippa's conclusions were logical; after all, Moodie had arranged the deadly attack on me in Paris.
'How was your mission?' Catesby queried.
I shrugged. Benjamin just laughed.
'Let me put it this way, Sir Robert, if Moodie dreaded our return then he had very little to fear.'
Agrippa sighed noisily, I don't know whether from relief or disappointment.
'Ah, well!' Catesby rose. 'Soon this matter will be finished and Her Grace will leave for Scotland. She is very busy.' His boyish face lit with a smile. 'But I know she wishes to see you.'
Agrippa excused himself whilst Catesby took Benjamin and me across to the Queen's spacious chamber on the second floor of the Tower just next to St Stephen's Chapel. [Or was it St John's? I forget now.] Well, the fat bitch had made herself comfortable! She had a beautiful room, painted red and decorated with golden moons and silver stars. Tapestries hung on the walls and Turkey rugs covered the polished floor. Margaret herself was dressed in a tight-fitting, damson-coloured gown which emphasised her full, rounded figure whilst her golden hair was unbraided and hung down to her shoulders. She looked warm and comely but her eyes were still black as night and her face spoilt by that false, simpering smile. The Careys were also in attendance: Lady Carey glowered whilst her husband busied himself at the far end of the room, totally ignoring our existence. Melford the killer was there, lounging like an alley cat on a bench against the wall, whilst the bastard Scawsby was mulling a glass of wine for his mistress. He turned away as we entered, shoulders shaking as if relishing some private joke. Queen Margaret took us both by the hand, welcoming us back and handing Benjamin a small purse of silver coins.
'Your work on my behalf is much appreciated, Master Daunbey,' she simpered. 'I would ask you to stay longer, but His Majesty the King has invited me to a masque at Richmond.' She waved a hand to indicate the dresses scattered around the room; some of taffeta, others of damask or cloth of gold. The false smile spread. 'Time is passing and I must go.'
We bowed and left, Catesby showing us to the door. We wandered back into the freezing bailey. Benjamin leaned against a wall watching a butcher at the far end of the yard hack a haunch of beef into huge, steaming slabs, the blood pouring like red streams over the rough-hewn carving block.
'Roger, Roger,' he murmured, 'what is going on here? One minute we are involved in matters of state, murder, Yorkist conspiracies, and the next we are dismissed because Her Grace wishes to attend a masque!'
Catesby had told us we had our old chamber in one of the towers but Benjamin insisted that, before we retire, we should examine Moodie's corpse which had been placed in the death house, no more than a wooden shed built against the walls of the Tower Church, St Peter ad Vincula.
Well, believe me, I have seen corpses enough, bodies piled six, seven feet high, left to steam and rot on battle fields as far flung as France and North Africa. I have seen heads hacked off and stacked high in baskets, and more bodies hanging from the branches of trees than I have apples in an orchard. Nothing, however, is more pathetic than a solitary corpse lying on a cold slab in a disused shed.
Moodie may have been a priest but in death his body had been laid out like some broken toy to he on a shelf, the grimacing features half-hidden by a dirty cloth; the eyes still open, sightless and empty. Some attempt had been made to straighten the limbs and that was all. Apparently, he was to be interred in the clothes he died in, wrapped in some canvas sheet and either buried in the cemetery of a nearby church or the small graveyard on the other side of the Tower church. Two days dead, the body was beginning to putrefy and the stench made both Benjamin and myself gag. Benjamin muttered the Requiem, stared at the mottled-hued face and carefully examined the wrists of the dead man. The left was unmarked but the right bore a huge, deep gash which must have drained the blood.
