The Brothers of Glastonbury Read Free Page B

affect my life, although the Queen’s kinfolk might do well to beware. In the meantime, if my instincts served me aright, God had His own plans for me.
    The messenger led me across the inner courtyard and up a short flight of steps to the great hall, where trestle tables were being laid for dinner. A twisting staircase in one corner brought us to a pleasant solar where the casements stood wide, flooding the room with warmth and light. I was almost blinded by the sudden glare, and was still trying to clear my vision when my companion bade me be seated while he went in search of the Duke. I groped my way to a stool and sat with my back to the window until my sight returned to normal, by which time I could hear footsteps on the stairs outside. The next moment my lord of Clarence, booted and spurred for his forthcoming journey, entered the solar accompanied by his wife and followed by a man and a young girl, the very one that I had seen by the chapel of the east gate earlier that same morning. I rose hastily to my feet.
    I had never seen the Duchess Isabel close to before, and I was startled by her likeness to her younger sister, the Duchess of Gloucester. There was the same delicate colouring of eyes and skin, the same air of fragility that made me think of harebells blowing in the wind. She wore a loose robe of leaf-green sarsenet which imperfectly concealed the fact that she was pregnant – about five months gone by my reckoning, the dark circles beneath her eyes and the way she sank thankfully into a chair indicating that she was finding her condition trying. She already had children, the daughter Margaret who had been born at Farleigh, and a son called Edward after the King, his uncle. I thought that George of Clarence, had he been concerned for his wife’s health, should have been content with the two he already had, for the Duchess looked a sick woman to me.
    The Duke nodded curtly in my direction. ‘I couldn’t place your face when I first saw you yesterday evening,’ he said. ‘But then, when I noticed you again this morning at Mass, I remembered who you are. Our paths crossed last year when you saved my brother Richard from assassination.’
    ‘I had that privilege,’ I answered, bowing. ‘His Grace the Duke of Gloucester has employed me once or twice on his private affairs, but I am a chapman by trade.’
    Clarence seated himself in a carved armchair and pursed his lips. ‘Yes, he told me all about you, how he offered you a place in his household and you refused.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’re a fool, man! But I suppose you know that.’
    ‘Perhaps, but I prefer to be my own master.’
    The Duke shrugged and his blue eyes surveyed me with indifference. ‘That’s up to you, of course. The important thing at this moment is that I know my brother trusts you, and that I can therefore call upon you with confidence to perform a small service for me.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, nothing of any significance; not at all the kind of thing you’ve done for Dickon. An errand really!’ He turned and beckoned forward the man and the girl. ‘This is William Armstrong, one of my sergeants-at-arms, and this is his daughter Cicely, chamber-maid to the Duchess.’
    The man was tall and thickset with closely cropped, curling red hair and a surly expression. The girl was as different from him as she possibly could be, the top of her head not reaching much above his shoulder. She had small, neat hands and feet, and a huge pair of violet-blue eyes beneath well-shaped eyebrows. Her hair was concealed under a linen hood, but from the few stray tendrils that had escaped their confinement and lay damply across her forehead, I guessed it to be a pale golden brown. She was not beautiful – her lips were too thin and there was a slight heaviness of the lower jaw – but when she glanced up and gave me an impish smile I was ready to swear that she was one of the prettiest girls I had ever met.
    The Duke continued,