seemed there had been no mistake, he thought grimly.
Margaret stared back, daring him to refuse her. After a time, Derry bowed his head.
‘Very well, my lady. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you what this means.’
They went down the steps together to the main grounds, as busy with soldiers and staff as a market day in any large town. Derry led the way across the crowded sward and Margaret followed, determined not to give up the least part of what she had won, whatever it turned out to be.
The White Tower was the oldest part of the fortress, built in pale Caen stone from France by William the Conqueror almost four centuries before. It loomed above them as Derry waved her up the wooden stairs that led to the only entrance. In time of war, the stairs could be removed, making the tower practically impregnable to assault. Inside the massive outer walls, she and Derry passed sentries and went up more stairs and through a dozen chambers and corridors before he halted at a thick oak door and turned the handle.
The room beyond was filled with scribes. High above the rest of the fortress, under the beams of a pitched roof marked in centuries of soot, they sat and scratched on vellum or bound scrolls in ribbons of different colours, passing them onwards and downwards to their superiors. Margaret’s eyes widened as she saw piles of parchment stacked to the ceiling in a few places, or waiting to be moved on upright wooden trolleys.
‘All of this amounts to just a few days, my lady,’ Derry said softly. ‘It is parchment that rules the kingdom, coming in and out of here to all the nobles and merchants and leaseholds and crofts — hundreds of ancient disputes and rents, my lady. Everything from the pay for a maid, to petitions for soldiers, to the debts on a great castle — it all comes through here. And this is just one room. There are others in the palaces of Westminster and Windsor that are at least as busy.’
He turned to her, aware that all movement had ceased as the scribes understood the queen herself had come into their cramped and stuffy domain.
‘No one man can possibly read it all, my lady,’ Derry went on complacently. ‘No woman either, if you’ll forgive me. What small part reaches the king has already been checked and handed on to the most senior scribes, then passed again to the king’s chamberlain and stewards. Men like Lord Suffolk will read some of it, as steward of the king’s household. He will answer a few himself, or rule on them, but he too will pass on a part. Would you have it all stop, my lady? Would you clog the pipe that flows through this room with just your hands and eyes? You would not see daylight again for years. That would not be a fate I’d choose for myself, I’ll tell you that much.’
Margaret hesitated, awed by the room and the deathly silence her presence had created. She could feel the eyes of the scribes wandering over her like beetles on her skin and she shuddered. She could sense Derry’s triumph at the mountain he’d shown her, the impossibility of reading it all. Just the documents in that room alone would take a lifetime, and he said all that was the fruit of a few days? She was reluctant to give up the advantage she had won just by being up there and she did not answer at first. The solution was clearly to read only the most important demands and petitions, the ones that found their way into Henry’s own hands. Yet if she did that, Derry Brewer would still control the vast mass of communication in the king’s purview. He was telling her as much, with the tableau of scribes to make his point. She began to appreciate what a dangerously powerful man he actually was.
She smiled, more for the benefit of the scribes than Derry himself. With a hand laid on his arm, she spoke sweetly and calmly.
‘I will see and read the parchments my husband must sign, Master Brewer. I will ask William, Lord Suffolk, to describe the rest, if he sees so many in his new role. I’m certain he can tell me which ones are important and which can be safely left to the king’s chamberlain and others. Does that not sound like a fine solution to this mountain of work? I am grateful to be shown this room and those who labour here without reward. I will mention them to my husband, to their honour.’
She sensed the scribes beaming at the words of praise, while Derry only cleared his throat.
‘As you say, then, my lady.’
He kept his smile in place, though he seethed inwardly. With anyone else, he knew he could persuade Henry to change his mind, but the king’s own wife? The young woman who had him alone each evening in the royal rooms? He wondered if she was still a virgin, which might perhaps explain why she felt she needed to fill her time in such a way. Unfortunately, that was one subject he dared not raise.
Derry led her back down through the White Tower. At the final set of steps leading outside, he raised his hand to the small of her back to guide her, then thought better of it, so that she gathered her skirts and walked down without his aid.
14
Jack Cade stumbled as he tried to dance a jig on the fine lawn. There was no moon and the only light for miles was the house he had set on fire. As he waved his arms, he dropped the jug he was carrying and almost wept when it cracked into two neat pieces and its precious contents drained away. One half of the broken clay contained a mouthful of the fiery spirit and he tipped it up and drank the last of it, never noticing how he cut his lips on the sharp edges.
Leaning back, he roared red-faced up at the windows already reflecting the flames creeping up to the roof.
‘I
Jack threw his shard of pottery at the flames and staggered with the effort. Tears were running freely down his face and when two men came running up behind him, he turned with a snarl, his fists bunching and his head dropping from a fighter’s instinct.
The first man to reach him was around the same burly size, with pale, freckled skin and a mass of wild red hair and beard.
‘Easy there, Jack!’ he said, trying to take hold of an arm as it whirled by his head in a great missed blow. ‘It’s Patrick — Paddy. I’m your friend, remember? For Christ’s sake, come away now. You’ll be hanged yourself, if you don’t.’
With a roar, Jack shook him off, turning back to the house.
‘I’ll be here when the craven is forced to come out.’ His voice rose to an almost incoherent bellow. ‘You
The third man was thin, all knuckles and elbows, with hollow cheeks and long, bare arms. Robert Ecclestone was as ragged and pale as the other two, with black chemical stains marking the skin of his hands that looked like shifting shadows in the flamelight.
‘You’ve shown him now, Jack,’ Ecclestone said. ‘By God, you’ve shown him well enough. This will burn all night. Paddy’s right, though. You should take yourself away, before the bailiffs come.’
Jack rounded on Ecclestone before he’d finished speaking, taking a bunched hand of his jerkin and lifting him. In response, Ecclestone’s hand blurred, so that a long razor appeared at Jack’s throat. Drunk as he was, the cold touch was enough to hold him still.
‘You’d draw a knife on me, Rob Ecclestone? On your own mate?’
‘You laid hands on me first, Jack. Let me down slow and I’ll make it disappear. We’re
Jack unclenched the fist holding him and, good as his word, Ecclestone folded the blade and slid it under his belt behind him. As Jack began to speak again, they all heard the same sound and turned as one to the house. Above the crackle and whoosh of the flames, they could hear the voices of children crying out.
‘Ah shit, Jack. His boys are in there,’ Paddy said, rubbing his jaw. He took a more serious look at the house, seeing how the entire ground floor was in flames. The windows above were still whole, but no one could live who went in.
‘I had a son yesterday,’ Jack growled, his eyes glittering. ‘Before he was hung by Alwyn bloody Judgment. Before the Welsh magistrate, who ain’t even a Kentish man, hung him for practically nothing. If I’d been here, I’d
