Beaufort want!’
To her confusion, she saw Derry smile, his eyes glittering. It was not a pleasant expression.
‘It will do for now. It will give me a little more time and that is what I lack most. I have to find where they have put him. I have to reach him. Your Highness, thank you. I will fetch Lord Somerset from his home. I know he will help me and he has his own men-at-arms. Only pray that William has not been tortured already, for his honour and his damned pride.’
He knelt again at the bedside of his sovereign, bowing his head to address Henry once more.
‘Your Grace? Your palace at Westminster is but a short boat’s journey away. It would help William if you were there. It would help me.’
Henry blinked at him.
‘No beer from you, Brewer! Eh? Doctor Allworthy says I must sleep.’
Derry closed his eyes in frustration.
‘As you say, Your Grace. If it pleases you, I will leave now.’
King Henry waved a hand and Margaret saw Derry’s face had grown pale and strained as he bowed slowly to her and then clattered out of the room at a run.
In the Jewel Tower, across the road from the Palace of Westminster, William paced the room, making the thick oak boards creak with every step. The room was cold and bare beyond a table and chair placed for the light to fall across it. Some perverse part of him felt it was only right that he should be confined in such a way. He had been unable to stop the French army. Though his men had butchered or maimed thousands of them, they’d still been forced back to Calais, step by bloody step. Before he’d left, he’d seen his men winching up the Calais gates, closing the ancient portcullis and lining the walls with archers. William smiled wearily to himself. At least he’d saved the archers. The rest fell on his head. He had not resisted when Tresham’s men came to arrest him. His guards had touched their swords in question but he’d shaken his head and gone quietly. A duke had protections from the king himself and William knew he would have the chance to deny the charges against him.
Staring out of the window, he could see both the king’s palace and the ancient abbey, with its octagonal Chapter House. The Commons met there, or in the Painted Chamber in the palace. William had heard talk of giving them some permanent place for their debates, but there were always more pressing issues than warm seats for men from the shires. He rubbed his temples, feeling tension and not a little fear. Only a blind man would have missed the anger and threat of violence he’d seen ever since touching the land of his birth. He’d ridden fast through Kent, at times in the same tracks as large bodies of soldiers. When he’d stopped for the night at a crossroads inn, he’d heard nothing but stories of Jack Cade and his army. The owners had thrown hostile glances William’s way all evening, but whether he’d been recognized or not, no one had dared to interrupt his progress back to the capital.
Turning away from the view, William resumed his pacing, clasping his hands tightly behind his back. The charges were a farce to anyone who knew what had truly gone on that year and the one before. He was certain they would not stand, not once the king was informed. William wondered if Derry Brewer had heard of his confinement. After the warning he’d sent, it amused William to think of Derry’s disgust at his decision to come home anyway, but there had been no real choice. William straightened his back. He was the commander of English soldiers in France and a duke of the Crown. For all the disasters he’d witnessed, nothing changed that. He found himself thinking of his wife, Alice. She would know nothing except the worst rumours. He wondered if his captors would let him write to her as well as to his son, John. He did not want them to worry.
William paused in his slow tread as he heard men’s voices on the floors below. His mouth firmed into a hard line and the knuckles showed white on his clasped hands. He stood waiting at the top of the stairs, almost as if he were guarding the room. Without conscious thought, his right hand moved to clutch at the empty space where his sword would usually sit.
Richard of York led two other men up the stairs with boyish energy. He paused with his hand on the railing at the sight of Suffolk standing to face them as if he might attack at any moment.
‘Calm yourself, William,’ York said softly as he came into the room. ‘I told you in France you’d been given a poisoned cup. Did you think I would vanish quietly to Ireland while great events played themselves out in my absence? Hardly. I’ve been busy these last few months. I believe you have been busier still, though not perhaps with such good results.’
York crossed the room to stare out at the rising sun and the mists burning off around Westminster. Behind him, Sir William Tresham and Cardinal Beaufort stepped into the tower space. York waved two fingers in their direction without looking round.
‘You know Tresham and Beaufort, of course. I suggest you listen to what they have to say, William. That is my best advice to you.’
York smiled thinly, enjoying the view. There was something about high places that had always pleased him, as if God were closer than to men on the ground below.
William had noticed York’s sword, of course, as well as the bollock dagger he wore thrust through his belt, with a polished pair of carved wooden testicles holding it steady. It was a stabbing blade, long and thin. William doubted York was fool enough to let him come within reach of either weapon, but he judged the distances even so. Neither Tresham nor Cardinal Beaufort was armed as far as he could see, but William knew he was as much a prisoner as any wretch in the cells of Westminster or the Tower. The thought made him look up from his musing.
‘Why have I not been taken to the Tower of London? On charges of high treason? I wonder, Richard, if it is because you know these accusations sit on weak foundations. I have done nothing on my own. It was never possible for
No one answered him. The three men stood patiently until two heavy-set soldiers trudged up the stairs. They wore mail and grubby tabards, as if they had been called from other duties. William noticed with distaste that they carried a stained canvas sack between them. It clinked as they rested it on the wooden floor and then stood to attention.
Cardinal Beaufort cleared his throat and William turned to the man, hiding his distaste. The king’s great- uncle looked the part, with his shaven pate and long, white fingers held together as if in prayer. Yet the man had been lord chancellor to two kings and was descended himself from Edward the Third, through John of Gaunt. Beaufort had been the one who sentenced Joan of Arc to death by fire and William knew there was no kindness in the old man. He suspected that of the three, Beaufort was his true captor. The presence of York was a clear statement of the cardinal’s loyalties. William could not keep a sneer from his face as Beaufort spoke in a voice made soft by decades of prayer and honey wine.
‘You stand accused of the most serious crimes, Lord William. I would have thought an aspect of humility and penance would suit you more than this feigned blustering. If you are brought to trial, I am sorry to say I do not doubt the outcome. There are too many witnesses willing to speak against you.’
William frowned as the three men exchanged glances before Beaufort went on. They’d discussed his fate before, that much was obvious. He tensed his jaw, determined to resist their conspiracy.
‘Your name appears on all the papers of state, my lord,’ Beaufort said. ‘The failed truce, the original marriage papers from Tours, the orders to defend Normandy against French incursion. The people of England cry out for justice, Lord Suffolk — and your life must answer for your treasons.’
The cardinal had that white softness of flesh William had seen before, from a life of cloisters and the Mass. Yet the black eyes were hard as they weighed him and found him wanting. He stared back, letting his contempt show. Beaufort shook his head sadly.
‘What a bad year it has been, William! I know you for a good man, a pious man. I wish it had not come to this. Yet the forms must be observed. I will ask you to confess to your crimes. You will no doubt refuse and then, I am afraid, my colleagues and I will retire. You will be secured to that chair and these two men will persuade you to sign your name to the mortal sin of treason.’
Listening to the soft voice drone on, William swallowed painfully, his heart pounding. His certainties were crumbling. York was smiling wryly, not looking at him. Tresham at least looked uncomfortable, but there was no doubting their resolve. William could not help looking over to the canvas sack as it sat there, dreading his first sight of the tools within.
‘I demand to speak to the king,’ William said, pleased that his voice came out calm and apparently
