The Green Man (29 page)

‘No doubt at all, Your Grace,' I confirmed.

He looked into my eyes, that always unexpected sense of humour of his lighting his own with laughter.

‘Quite so.' He patted my arm and, rousing his sleepy page, crossed the ante-chamber and disappeared through the outer door.

I turned to face Albany.

‘What news?' he demanded at once, dispensing with any form of greeting. ‘What have you discovered?'

I was tired. I would have appreciated being asked to sit down, but no such invitation was forthcoming. I advanced into the room, the whole of the Council Chamber becoming visible as I did so. There were even more tapestries on the wall so far hidden from my sight, and I could see that they were as beautiful as the rest. Albany saw me looking and gave a short bark of laughter.

‘They came with my sister-in-law,' he said ‘when she married James, along with the Orkneys and Shetlands, as I told you.' His mood grew impatient again. ‘Enough of that! Well, man? What have you found out?'

‘I've not discovered the whereabouts of the diary, my lord, if that's what you're hoping.'

He didn't, I noticed, seem unduly cast down by this piece of information. ‘That would have been too much to hope for,' he answered brusquely and somewhat surprisingly. ‘So what have you found out? You've been gone all day. Surely you must have drawn some conclusions.'

‘Not really, my lord.'

His expression became not merely exasperated, but angry. ‘I thought – at least, I was told – you had a reputation for solving mysteries. I want this matter cleared up quickly, Roger. Can't you understand that? I have affairs of my own to attend to, but I need to see Rab Sinclair liberated from prison before I can do so. Just tell me where you've been today, who you've talked to and what they had to say for themselves … Oh, sit down, man!' This as I swayed suddenly, almost out on my feet with fatigue and hunger. Albany pulled out a stool and indicated I should be seated. There was a flagon of wine on a side table, surrounded by dirty beakers and a few delicate Venetian glasses. He grabbed one of the former, filled it and thrust it towards me. ‘Here! Drink this!' I wondered with some distaste who had used it before me. But I could not afford to be fussy.

The wine steadied me, sending a glow through my veins and clearing my thoughts. I took a deep breath and began recounting my day's adventures, repeating the conversations I had had with Maria Beton, Mistress Callender and John Buchanan, and adding for good measure the impressions I had gathered along the way.

I was about to summarize my findings in one or two brief, but brilliantly acute sentences, when I realized that Albany was no longer listening. He spoke with suppressed excitement.

‘You're right, Roger!' Right? I'd said nothing conclusive. ‘It's Rab's brother-in-law, of course! You've proved that Aline had time to pass the diary to him when she and Master Buchanan returned from Roslin. She must have grown uneasy while she was at her aunt's – with good reason as it turned out: a premonition perhaps, such things do happen – and decided that it was too great a risk to keep it in the house any longer. And you're probably correct in assuming an incestuous relationship between them.'

‘My lord, I'm not assuming—'

Albany ignored me. He was well away now, having gone from supposition to fact in one short leap.

‘Those papers you mentioned on his table! The diary is among them, I know it. I feel it in my bones.' He leant over and slapped me on the back. ‘Roger, you've solved it! Tomorrow morning, first thing, I shall send Murdo and Donald, together with a contingent of the castle guards, to search Master Buchanan's house and mark my words, we shall find what we are looking for. Rab will be free by evening.'

I
was appalled.

‘My lord, you can't do this!' I was moved to protest with greater vehemence than I had ever used, either to him or to anyone in his exalted position. ‘This is sheer folly! You speak as though I have offered you incontrovertible proof of Master Buchanan's guilt. I haven't. It's a theory, nothing more; a theory that might prove to be correct, I grant you, but that's all. I beg you, don't persuade yourself that the Grassmarket house holds the answer to this puzzle. You are most likely only storing up disappointment for yourself – and for Master Sinclair – if you do.'

My voice had risen urgently and I discovered to my horror that I was actually thumping with my fist on the table. I broke off and stood nervously awaiting his furious reaction.

Nothing of the sort happened. Albany simply smiled at me; a smile full of pity and condescension.

‘You don't understand, Roger,' he said. ‘I have a feeling about this. As soon as you told me that Aline Sinclair could have passed the diary to her brother, I knew it was the truth. Come! You of all people should know what I mean. You have the “sight”. I, too, have these flashes of certainty that amount almost to glimpses of the future. This is such an occasion. Oh, I don't boast about my gift.' This was a fact: I couldn't recall him ever having mentioned it before. He went on, ‘But it's there, waiting to serve me when it's needed.'

I hoped I didn't look as sceptical as I felt.

‘My lord,' I said desperately, ‘I wish you could disabuse your mind of this belief that I have, or ever have had, the “sight” in the way you mean it. I've tried to explain to you several times in the past that what I get are dreams caused by my mind working through sleep and reminding me of facts which my waking self has forgotten. My mother occasionally was gifted with what you are pleased to term the “sight”, when she seemed able to foretell the future, but even so it was not often and rarely of things that were important. She didn't foresee my father's death, for instance, when he fell from the ceiling of Wells Cathedral nave. Otherwise, she might have kept him at home that day and prevented it.'

Still smiling, and not at all put out by my insubordinate tone, the duke patted me on the shoulder.

‘I can see that you are ignorant of the manner in which the “sight” operates, Roger. It is not given to us for our own benefit, to advance our own designs, but to promote the wishes of the gods.'

‘The gods?' I queried nervously, recalling that he had used the same words a short while previously, when the Duke of Gloucester had accused him of blasphemy. ‘What gods, my lord?'

He laughed softly and shrugged. Once again the candlelight rippled across the satin of his doublet, this time turning the scarlet to flame. I had the oddest impression that he had suddenly grown taller, that his head was almost touching the ceiling and that there was a strange aureole of light, like green fire, surrounding his whole body. His eyes, too, whose colour I was normally unaware of, were like two chips of emerald between his narrowed lids …

Albany was gripping me by the shoulders and forcing me into a chair. He was himself again and I noticed that his eyes were in reality a pale, indeterminate blue. Or were they brown? And why couldn't I be sure?

‘What … What happened?' I asked.

‘My dear fellow, you very nearly fainted,' Albany said and smiled. ‘I've been working you too hard. You've been running about the whole day and I daresay you haven't even had your supper yet. Sit here quietly and I'll see that food and drink is brought to you. No one will be returning to the Council Chamber this evening. We've finished our deliberations for the day.' His tone had turned sour once more, reminded of his grievances.

But I was not to be deflected by talk of food and rest, although I was feeling in need of both.

‘What gods were you referring to, my lord?'

‘Did I say that?' He attempted a look of surprise, as though it was something I had imagined. And indeed I might well have thought so, had I not heard him use the words earlier.

‘You did.' I spoke positively, giving him no room for argument.

He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably and grimaced. ‘It was just an expression for Fate or Chance or whatever it is that rules our lives and makes each one of us what we are; that equips us with the gifts life doles out to us.'

‘You don't think we owe all that to God?' I was being far bolder than I should have been, but I felt intuitively that Albany would not reprimand me. He appeared uneasy, like a man who had allowed his tongue to run away with him and was now wondering how he could retrieve the situation.

‘I think the Almighty may need help now and then, don't you? No! Don't answer me. This is neither the time nor place to enter into a theological discussion. You need that rest and food I promised you, while I must go and sup with my beloved kinfolk and my erstwhile allies.' The bitterness was back in his voice with a vengeance and mixed now with an underlying anger, all the more potent for being carefully suppressed. He paused for a moment, controlling his rampant emotions. When he spoke again, his tone was smooth. ‘Do as I bid you. Stay here and I'll have supper sent to you.' Suddenly he smiled as though his mind had been wiped clean of all care and worry in an instant. ‘And on that other matter, trust me. You will find, tomorrow, when we ransack Master Buchanan's house that the diary will be found.'

‘My lord—' I began, half rising from my seat.

But Albany pushed me down again, his irritation once more floating to the surface.

‘I want no further argument, Roger. Believe me when I tell you that I know my premonition is correct. I repeat, trust me!'

He was gone. I heard the outer door of the ante-room close behind him and I was left alone in the empty Council Chamber that still seemed to echo to the sound of his voice. The watery twilight of the August day was seeping through the room, and long shadows inched their way across the rush-strewn floor. A small log fire, which had previously gone unnoticed, smouldered on the hearth; then, with a sudden explosion of noise that made me jump, a tempestuous squall of rain beat against the window. The fire spurted and flared. A bubble of resin burst with a little splutter.

I suddenly felt unutterably weary, my whole body like lead, my mind stupid and confused. There was nothing to be surprised at in this, I told myself. It had been a long day; a very long day. It was only this morning that we had ridden into Edinburgh, although it seemed more like half a week away; only this morning, in the guest chamber at Holy Rood Abbey, that Donald had informed Albany of Rab Sinclair's arrest, a name totally unknown to me then, but now burned into my consciousness with letters of fire; only this morning that I had first set eyes on this castle perched on its great rock, hanging, or so it seemed to me, halfway between heaven and earth. And since then, I had trotted busily around the city, questioning, observing and generally being lied to. Well, someone was lying. He, or maybe she, had to be.

But these things were not really the cause of the lassitude that suddenly held me in an iron grip. There was something more; something that had its roots in my recent conversation with Albany perhaps, or even in his actual presence. But surely that was foolishness. I had never before felt disturbed by his company. I had always known him to be arrogant, self-satisfied, concerned with no one but himself and his own desires. But then he was a prince. What else could one expect of royalty, bred up as they were in conceit and self-importance from the earliest age? And yet, until now, I had found him easy-going enough, although there had always been an invisible line across which one dared not step. But that was so with most people, king or peasant. He was unwise in many ways. Then again, who was not?

There was another burst of rain against the window and a spattering of hail came down the chimney to sizzle and melt among the dying flames on the hearth. Shadows leaped up the walls, then retreated silently, succeeded by an almost eerie stillness. I found myself shivering although I was not conscious of feeling cold. I remained bodily tired, but not sleepy. In fact the earlier confusion of mind was beginning to clear.

I thought once more about the reason given me by Albany for my presence on this expedition; this military invasion that had fractured and splintered apart, descending, as far as he was concerned, into one of those farces played out at fairs to the ribald laughter of the crowds. I had been selected as his protector to guard him from assassination attempts from either ill-wishers within the English camp, who considered it a poor decision to try to enthrone him as King of Scots, or – and this, it seemed, had been Albany's main fear – from one of the late Earl of Mar's adherents who was really in the pay of his brother, King James. And yet, when I looked back over the past weeks, it appeared to me that this fear came and went at his convenience. When it had suited the duke that I should be elsewhere, he had never jibbed at being alone with any one of the five.

All the same, there had been attempts on Albany's life. There was the incident of his horse at Fotheringay Castle when Pegasus had nearly thrown him, and the attempted stabbing at York … I was growing confused again, not sure what to think. The rain had decreased to a steady drumming against the oiled panes of the chamber window, like ghostly fingers beating out a tattoo; rhythmic, sleep-inducing. My eyelids began to droop …

I glanced up and saw Albany standing in front of me, but as I watched, his head gradually sprouted leaves and branches until it became that of the Green Man. The foliage began to spread, shoots writhing and coiling out of his mouth, filling the room, reaching towards me; then one, longer than the rest, snaked around my neck, tightening its grip, choking me so that I could no longer breathe. My heart was hammering against my ribs as I gasped for air …

Someone was shaking me.

‘Wake up, Master Chapman! Wake up! You're riding the Night Mare!' It was Davey's voice, half laughing, half concerned. ‘What a noise you're making. As if you're being strangled.'

The page was standing by my chair, looking down at me, his hand on my shoulder. On the table was a tray, and I could smell the rich aroma of the stew that had obviously been served up in the servants' hall for supper. There was also a jug and beaker alongside the wooden bowl and spoon and a hunk of bread. Albany had sent my meal as he had promised.