Kingmaker: Broken Faith (30 page)

‘May we see?’ he asks. He looks around, as if seeking permission from the priests and the courtiers, and Grey pushes Devon John toward King Henry. Devon John walks the few paces, his stump leading the way. King Henry’s expression over Devon John’s head is hard to interpret. If he weren’t the king, Katherine might think he was trying to empathise with Devon John, trying to imagine what it might be like to lose a limb. After a moment, he speaks.

‘We have a physician,’ he says in a fluttering voice, ‘who knows the movement of the planets, and can tell the balance of our humours by the smell of our urine alone.’

The priest with no beard claps encouragingly and smiles at King Henry as if owning such a thing is a great accomplishment. The others on the boards are silent.

‘We have been ill,’ King Henry continues, confiding in Devon John now. ‘They tell us that we did not move a muscle for a year. As if we were made of stone, they said, like the carved image of a saint or a martyr in one of our cathedrals. Except we were soft. Our wife, the queen, may God keep her safe, prayed for us, and we came back to her, and to our miraculous son Edward, may God also cherish him. But they are in France now, do you know? Undertaking their great task. We wish we were with them. Or they with us. Or we all in Windsor, together.’

The beardless priest is delighted by this eloquence. Elsewhere the silence persists.

‘Would you like to meet my physician?’ King Henry asks Devon John. ‘His name is Master Payne. A good name for a physician, don’t you think?’

Devon John turns for guidance to Grey, who clenches his stained teeth and nods enough so that the tassel on his soft cap dances long after he is still again. Devon John says he would. King Henry raises his eyes to a nearby servant as if they hurt him, as if he has the ’flu, and the servant departs. King Henry returns his gaze to Devon John. He smiles almost apologetically, but says nothing, and the silence persists. Not even Grey says anything.

After a while there is a shuffling, the noise of a musical instrument hitting the ground, and then, from behind the tapestry from which they themselves entered earlier, comes a tall man in a soft blue gown, slightly patterned, with a grey-furred collar. He is tall, broad-shouldered, with a close-trimmed beard that suits him, and a lively ‘what now?’ expression on his handsome features. His cap, a tall red thing, obviously expensive, probably a gift, is perched just so on his fine black hair that hangs longer than the other men wear theirs, almost to the fur collar, and he moves quickly, unencumbered by harness, or the weapons that seem to weigh other men down. The wool of his hose is very fine-spun, and his shoes are wonderfully piked, and have never met mud.

‘I am sorry, your grace,’ Payne says. ‘I was attending to the patient.’

He has a fine voice, carefully enunciated, and King Henry beams at him forgivingly, but there is a stiffening of spines around the table, as if these men approve of neither the patient nor the physician.

‘How fares he today?’ King Henry asks, blind to their reaction. ‘Is he in good spirits?’

There is a moment’s hesitation before Payne replies:

‘Thanks to your prayers, your grace, and God’s ever-continuing mercy, of course, he is tolerably comfortable.’

King Henry bows his head to accept the praise. It is not, Katherine thinks, intended as pure praise, but, rather, has a weariness about it.

‘You are too modest, Master Payne,’ he says. ‘It is in part your skill that keeps him with us, of that I am sure, and with God’s great blessings he will make a recovery, and return to us ever more determined to serve. But, as we speak of wounds, pray take a look at this. A stump, where this man’s arm once was. I know nothing of these things, but they tell me it is cunningly done?’

Payne glances across at Devon John, then down at his stump. He looks again. His eyes sharpen.

‘Ha,’ he says, coming to cup the stump in his palm. ‘It is. It is cunningly done, indeed. No burning, no dipping in tar, just stitched. Exemplary.’

‘Yes,’ Grey intervenes. ‘My surgeon cut it off, with a silver blade blessed by the Pope himself.’

‘Thought you said it was the Bishop of Toledo,’ the man at the head of the board mutters.

‘I said that was the saw,’ Grey says.

‘And who is your surgeon?’ Payne asks.

‘Here,’ Grey says. ‘Step forward, if you please, master.’

And now the blood floods to Katherine’s cheeks. She has not thought this through. She did not expect this. She cannot stand examination by all these men. Someone will say something. She does not move. But Grey is insistent.

‘Come, master,’ he prompts. ‘He is modest, your grace.’

And King Henry smiles as if to say that is as it should be, but he waits, and they all do too, and Payne cocks an eyebrow, and so now she must step forward. She feels naked, as if she were one of those women in the marketplace, and she withers within, wishing she did not fill her clothes at all, wishing she could now be set loose to run. But she can’t and Grey is smiling furiously. She steps forward. There is a muttering of incredulity from the men at the boards.

‘This boy?’

‘This scruff?’

‘No, surely?’

But Payne studies her and cocks his head to one side.

‘Hmmm,’ he says, and she waits for it to come, for him to say something, for she is sure that this is the one, the man who will see straight through her stupid costume, and part of her – dear God! Part of her wants him to! But instead he folds his arms and taps his lips with one finger, and says nothing more, but there is a smile on his lips that will not go away.

King Henry too, says nothing, but she can see he is just as surprised, and as well he might be, she thinks, for she is dressed even worse than King Henry. She is in an old linen cap to cover her ear, an overlarge tabard that hangs loose to below her codpiece, and her hose sag at the knee. Only her boots are good. She stands and is unsteady in them and she can feel the sweat dripping and tingling on the lodestone that she keeps around her neck, and she wishes to God she were anywhere else but here.

She bends her head to King Henry.

‘Your grace,’ she says.

And King Henry smiles uncertainly again but Grey is going on.

‘I assure you, sirs,’ he says. ‘I saw it with my very own eyes. The boy cut the arm, first with a knife, around, then with a saw.’

‘A marvel,’ Payne says. King Henry turns to him.

‘Sir Ralph Grey of Castle Heaton begs us to allow his surgeon to see the patient,’ he tells Payne, and Payne closes his eyes for a moment, more in sorrow than in anything else, and she sees that he is in fact sensitive to the slight, though, she thinks, used to that sort of thing, as if he had, indeed, been expecting it. She is treading on his toes, she thinks, and wishes she weren’t.

‘May I ask the master a question, your grace?’ Payne asks.

King Henry checks with the bearded priest if he might allow it, and the bearded priest nods impatiently through his eating, and so then King Henry allows it. Payne turns to her. She can hardly swallow for the lump in her throat and she blushes warmly. Here it comes, she thinks, here it comes. What will she do? Run. Back out into the bailey and then – she has no idea.

‘Under whom did you train?’ he asks.

She can barely croak an answer.

‘Well?’ Payne persists.

‘I did not train under one single master,’ she says. ‘But I have read. Widely. And I have worked in numerous hospitals.’

‘Hospitals,’ he says. ‘Where?’

She is about to answer when at the last moment she sees she has set herself yet another trap. If she answers Hereford, where she believes she learned the most, treating the wounded after the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, then the men here will naturally know that she was saving the lives of men who fought against King Henry, and now, she sees, that she cannot say Towton either, for the same reason. But Thomas has seen the danger too.

‘You said you would only ask one question,’ he intervenes, using that confident voice.

Payne glances over at him.

‘And who are you, sir?’

‘Only one question,’ Thomas repeats.

Payne appeals to King Henry.

‘But, your grace,’ he says.

King Henry chuckles. The beardless priest laughs.

‘It is as you asked, Master Payne,’ King Henry says. ‘One question.’

Payne says nothing. He closes his eyes and takes a step back. King Henry is childish, she can see this is what he thinks. He makes a mock gracious bow. Katherine turns to King Henry again. She must speak now, she thinks. She must show him the ledger. She will never have the chance again. She holds out her hand for the ledger that Thomas begins to swing from his shoulder.

‘Your grace,’ she begins, ‘if I may—’

But then a bell rings above the distant chapel, and there is a moment of perfect stillness in the room while everybody makes sure they are hearing what they think they are hearing, and then King Henry stands and a moment later there is the scrape of the benches being pushed back as everybody joins him, and then they turn to their right, and the King proceeds out of the room through a door towards the tolling bell. The priests follow him, and then the other men who’d been at board. They file into a line behind King Henry, each face a character study of impatience, or frustration, or resignation, except for Sir Ralph who glares at them as if they have somehow let him down, and the servants – mostly young men who look as if they will develop into the same sort of men as those who are just now trooping out after King Henry – wait until the last back has filed through the door and then there is a sudden flurry of violent action as they fall on the remains of the meal, snatching bread rolls and bowls of dense-looking stew from the table and the victors guard their spoils and back away, retiring to different points of the room to gorge on their rewards.

THE SUMMONS FROM
Sir Ralph comes after Katherine and Thomas have just finished the food they stole from King Henry’s board and the taste of the gravy-soaked crust and the white bread has barely faded from their lips. They are sitting by the hardly warm oven again, when Horner comes up the winding steps.

‘Sir Ralph is after an audience with you, Kit,’ he tells them. ‘Something to discuss. Sorry.’

Sir Ralph Grey meets them in the great hall where they were presented to King Henry earlier in the day. The boards have been cleared, dust motes whirl in the wan autumn light from the long windows, and the fire has died in its place. Grey, who has been celebrating the success of his audience with King Henry, is sitting on a coffer, smiling warmly at a long-nosed dog busy with a beef bone.

‘Ahhh,’ he says when he sees them. ‘Aaaahhhh.’

He stands and sits again, so that his head is slightly lower than theirs, his rheumy eyes peering up not unlike the dog’s, and he smells strongly of his spirit.

‘Boy,’ he says, addressing Katherine. ‘I mean, ahhh, master. I want you to see to this patient of the King’s. I – to tell the truth, and this is absolutely. No. No. I want you to cure him. Do you see? Cure him. Why? Why? Well. I’ve never met him. I can’t speak for him. He may be a good Christian. He may not be. As I say. I don’t know him. Never met him. I am not one to judge. But the thing is, now, I need you to – hmmmm?’

She has to remain calm.

‘What is wrong with him?’ she asks.

‘Wrong with him?’ Grey says. ‘Wrong with him? There’s nothing wrong with him. He is as stout a Christian who ever walked God’s earth. I daresay. As I say. I know people say things about him. How he turned his coat and betrayed his king, but I’ll fight the man who says there is something wrong with – with – with him.’

He puts his hand on his dagger handle but doesn’t draw it. Then he switches character, becomes confiding.

‘No,’ he says. ‘The truth is, I mean, forget about him. The truth is, I’ve made a little bet. With Tailboys. You know him, hmmm? Moneybags, I call him. Always got gold. Keeper of the King’s Purse. Or is he? I don’t know. You tell me. Anyway. But. As I say. If you can cure the patient, get him on his feet, strong enough to mount a horse – unaided, mind, unaided. No easy task at the – ah – best of times. Then – well. I stand to gain a lot. And I mean rather a lot. Of money.’

He draws the words out and taps the side of his nose. She is absently surprised at this being true. There does not seem like an awful lot of money about the place.

‘But Sir Ralph,’ Thomas begins. ‘What is his illness? Kit – Master Kit – cannot cure him if he is – I don’t know. He cannot cure everything. Some things cannot be cured.’

‘Say no more!’ Grey interrupts, holding up a hand. ‘Say no more. Quite understand. Quite understand. Can’t cure everything. Not a miracle worker. Absolutely. Understood. But. But there is this thing, I should say, that the piss-sniffer physician made me think, and it is that you aren’t a real surgeon.’

There is a moment of silence. She forgets to say she is, because for God’s sake, she is not.

‘And I was remembering,’ Grey goes on, ‘how you two blew in, to the castle, in Alnwick. Telling some story about how you were knocked flat at Towton, weren’t you? No livery and no one to maintain you save a tale of some gentle no one’d ever heard of. I mean, I can’t – remember, can I? Can you, Horner? No. You see? And so we are left wondering if you really are who you say you are? Or whether you are, what? Spies. Sent by that bastard John Neville, the so-called, hmmm? Lord Montagu. Yes. So. If you are. And I am saying nothing. I don’t judge. I don’t judge. Do I? But I was wondering. If that were the – ah – case. If you were spies. If you were not the surgeon you say you are, then we might be calling on the hangman, right here in Bamburgh? I believe they have a gibbet already set up.’

He nods to indicate somewhere out in the bailey.

‘But Kit cured the boy!’ Thomas says. ‘He cured Devon John! Surely that is proof enough?’

‘Oh, pish!’ Grey swats away the objection. ‘Might have been luck. Boy might have lived anyway. His arm could have fallen off. Ha!’

They say nothing.

‘So you must prove your skills afresh,’ Grey says. ‘Get the bugger strong enough to climb into a saddle, eh? It is all for which King Henry most fervently wishes. Yes. You see? Then we’ll be in funds, or I will, at any rate, and we can – well, I’ll tell you what. I will pay, and I mean pay, a priest. No. No. Fair enough. You are right. I will pay two priests to say Mass for your soul, should you ever need prayers said for your soul, for all eternity. How’s about that?’