seven years left to live. I could tell you a few stories about him – oh, yes. He killed Richard the Usurper at Bosworth and had his torn, hacked body thrown into a horse trough at Leicester before marching on to London and marrying the Usurper's niece, Elizabeth of York. I once asked the present Queen, God bless her duckies, who killed the princes in the Tower? Was it their uncle, the Usurper Richard, or her grandfather Henry Tudor when he found them alive in the Tower? She shook her head and raised one bony finger to her lips.
'There are rooms in the Tower, Roger,' Queen Elizabeth whispered, 'which now have no doors or windows. They are bricked up, removed from all plans and maps. Men say that in one of these rooms lie the corpses of the two young princes.'
(I wondered if she believed she was telling the truth for I once met one of the princes, alive! But that's another story.)
Well, back to the beginning. I was born near St Botolph's Wharf which stands close to the river at the end of a rat-infested maze of alleyways. The first sound
I heard, and one which always takes me back, was the constant cawing of the ever-hungry gulls as they plundered the evil-smelling lay stalls near the black glassy Thames. My first memory was the fear of the Sweating Sickness. Beggars huddled in doorways; lepers, their heads covered by white sacks, heard of his approach and forgot their miseries. The traders in greasy aprons and dirty leggings shuddered and prayed that the sickness would pass them by. Their masters and self-styled betters thought they were safe as they sat at table, guzzling delicacy after delicacy – venison and turbot cooked in cream, washed down by black Neapolitan wine in jewel-encrusted goblets -but no one was safe.
The Sweating Sickness took my father; at least, that's what my mother said. Someone else claimed his weaving trade collapsed and he ran away to be a soldier in the Low Countries. Perhaps the sight of me frightened him! I was the ugliest of children and, remembering my fair-haired mother, must have owed my looks to Father. You see, I was born a month late, my head covered in bumps, one of my eyes slightly askew from the rough handling of the midwife's instruments. Oh, Lord, I was so ugly! People came up to my cot ready to smile and chuckle, they took one look and walked away mumbling condolences to my poor parents. As I grew older and learnt to stagger about, free of my swaddling clothes, the loud-mouthed traders along the wharves used to call out to my mother:
'Here, Mistress, here! A cup of wine for yourself and some fruit for your monkey!'
Well, when Father went, Mother moved on, back to her own family in the rich but boring town of Ipswich. She assumed widow's weeds though I often wondered if my father did flee, swift as a greyhound from the slips as Master Shakespeare would put it. (Oh, yes, I have patronised Will and given him what assistance I could in the writing and the staging of his plays.) Anyway, when I was seven, Mother became friendly with a local vintner and married him in the parish church – a lovely day.
Mother wore a gown of russet over a kirtle of fine worsted and I, in silk-satins, carried the bridal cup before her with a sprig of rosemary in it. I was later very sick after stealing some wine and gnawing voraciously at the almond-packed bridal cake.
My step-father was a kindly man – he must have been to tolerate me. He sent me off to the local grammar school where I learnt Maths, Astronomy, Latin, Greek, and read the Chronicles of Fabyan, as well as being lashed, nipped, pinched, caned and strapped along with the other boys. Nevertheless, I was good at my studies and, after Mass on Sundays, the master would give my mother such a glowing report that I would be rewarded with a silver plate of comfits. I would sit and solemnly eat these whilst plotting fresh mischief against my teacher.
One student who was not drawn into these pranks and feats of malice was my future master, Benjamin Daunbey: quiet, studious and bookish to a fault. One day I and the other imps of Hell turned against him, placing a pitcher upon a door and crowing with delight when its contents, rich brown horse's piss, soaked him to the skin. He wiped his face and came over to me.
'Did you enjoy that, Roger?' he asked softly. 'Did you really? Does it give you pleasure to see pain in the eyes of others?'
He was not angry. His eyes were curious: clear, childlike in their innocence. I just stammered and turned away. The master came in, cloak billowing like bat wings around him. He seized Benjamin by the nape of the neck, roaring at him while he got his switch of birch down, ready to give the unfortunate a severe lashing. Benjamin did not utter a word but went like a lamb to the slaughter. I felt sorry then, and didn't know why. My motto has always been: 'Do unto yourself what should be done to your neighbour.' I have rarely been brave and always believed that volunteers never live to pay day. Perhaps it was the meek way Benjamin walked, the cowardly silence of my comrades…
I stepped forward.
'Master,' I declared, 'Benjamin Daunbey is not to blame!'
'Then who is?' the beast roared back.
I licked my lips nervously and held out my hand.
'He is!' I said, turning to the smallest of my coven. 'He placed the pitcher over the door!'
Benjamin was saved, someone else got a beating, and I congratulated myself on my own innate cunning. Well, I went from bad to worse. At night I would not go to bed. In the morning I would not get up. I did not wash my hands or study my hornbook; instead I ran wild. My mother, sickening from a strange humour, just gazed speechlessly at me, hollow-eyed, whilst my step-father's hands beat the air like the wings of some tired, feckless bird. I mocked their advice like the arrogant young fool I was. My backside became hardened to the master's cane and I began to play truant in the fields and apple-laden orchards outside the town. Once the master cornered me, asking where I had been.
'Master,' I replied, 'I have been milking the ducks.'
He grabbed me by the ear but I hit him hard under the chin and ran off like a whippet. I didn't go home – well, not to see my parents. I stole some money, packed a linen cloth full of food, and it was down to London where the streets are paved with gold. London I loved with its narrow alleyways, teeming Cheapside, many taverns, and, of course, well-stocked brothels. I will skirt over my many adventures but, eventually, I joined the household of old Mother Nightbird who ran one of the costliest brothels near the Bishop of Winchester's inn at Stewside close to the bridge in Southwark. I found out more about women in a month than some men would in a dozen lifetimes. I became a bully-boy, one of the roaring lads who drank deeply, and paraded the streets in a shirt of fine cambric linen, multi-coloured hose, high-stepping riding boots and a monstrous codpiece. I swaggered about, armed with hammer and dirk which I prayed I would never use.
I fell in with bad company, one especially, a lank-haired, cunning-eyed weasel of a man called Jack Hogg. We took to breaking into houses, taking the costly silks and precious objects back to Mother Nightbird who would always find a seller. Naturally, it was not long before we were caught. Two nights in Newgate and up before the Justices at the Guildhall. We were condemned to hang but the principal justice of the bench recognised me. I knew a little about him and made it obvious that if his sexual exploits were not to be part of my last confession, I should be given a second chance. Hogg died, swinging at Elms. I was given the opportunity of either joining him or enlisting in the King's Army now being gathered in the fields north of Cripplegate to march against the Scots.
Strange, isn't it, that even then the great mysteries of Flodden Field came south, like a mist, and changed my life? I didn't know it then. All I knew was that while King Henry VIII was in France, James IV of Scotland had sent his herald RougeCroix south with an insulting challenge to battle. Henry's Queen, the sallow-faced, lanky Catherine of Aragon, pining for her husband and longing to provide him with a lusty heir, accepted the challenge and sent insolent-eyed Surrey north with a huge army. Now old Surrey was a bastard. He drank so much the gout stopped him walking and he rode like a farmer in a cart, his orders being taken by outriders and scouts. A vicious man, Surrey, but a good general. You know, as a young man, he and his father Jack, the 'Jockey of Norfolk', fought for the Usurper Richard at Bosworth. Old Norfolk was killed and Surrey taken prisoner before Henry Tudor.
'You fought against your King!' the Welshman shouted.
Surrey pointed to a fence post.
'If Parliament crowned that fence King, I'd fight for it!' he bellowed back.
The Tudor prince seemed to relish this. Surrey went to the Tower for a while but was soon released because of his qualities as a general. He kept good discipline on that march to Flodden: he built a huge cart which carried a thirty-foot-high gallows, loudly declaring that if anyone committed a breach of camp discipline he would dance at the end of it.
Anyway I went north to meet my destiny. The dust of our great baggage train, stirred up by wheels, feet and
