Free The Midsummer Crown by Kate Sedley Page A

Master Chapman.’
    I bowed to the inevitable. ‘Let’s sit over here,’ I suggested, moving towards a stone bench set against a wall of the outer compound. And once we were settled, I commanded, ‘Now, tell me everything you know.’
    Piers grimaced. ‘It’s not very much,’ he admitted and then fell silent.
    â€˜You spent one night at Crosby’s Place,’ I encouraged him, ‘before visiting Baynard’s Castle?’
    â€˜Yes. Master Gideon, Tutor Machin, Dame Copley and myself joined Her Grace of Gloucester’s entourage earlier in the week, when she stopped here on her journey south, and we reached London and Crosby’s Place late last Thursday. But the day was too advanced for us to do more than tumble into bed wherever we could find one.’
    â€˜You didn’t share Master Fitzalan’s?’
    â€˜No. Mind you, he offered. He’s a kindly lad. But I don’t like sharing beds with people.’ Piers gave a mischievous grin. ‘They either snore or their feet smell.’
    Timothy snorted. ‘A bit particular, aren’t you, my lad? There aren’t many who’d pass up the chance of sleeping in a soft bed instead of making shift in some corner or other.’
    The boy grimaced. ‘Perhaps not. But I prefer my own company whatever the discomfort. I’ve told you. I’m like that.’
    I broke in impatiently on this exchange.
    â€˜So next day, you and the tutor and nurse accompanied your young master to Baynard’s Castle so that the boy could meet his uncle – er . . .’
    â€˜Godfrey,’ Timothy supplied.
    Piers nodded agreement. ‘And also two of his brothers, Blaise and Bevis, who are in attendance on their uncle.’
    â€˜There seem to be a lot of these Fitzalans,’ I commented drily.
    â€˜Oh, there are. A lot of them,’ my younger companion commented happily.
    â€˜And did Master Gideon meet his kinsmen?’
    â€˜I think so. I wasn’t present, of course. Well, he wouldn’t need me to say hello to his uncle and brothers, now would he?’
    â€˜And then what happened?’
    â€˜Sir Francis informed Gideon that he was to join the king in the royal apartments in the Tower the following day, but that we would be spending that night, Friday night, at the castle. But –’ he shrugged – ‘we never did get to the Tower. The next morning, Tutor Machin was found dead in his room – his locked room – and Master Gideon had disappeared.’ He was silent for a moment, biting a thumbnail, then added, ‘It must be magic. I reckon it was Mother Copley. I’ve always said she was a witch.’

FIVE
    Timothy glanced up sharply.
    â€˜You shouldn’t say things like that,’ I reprimanded Piers, ‘not even in jest. Particularly not in jest. You know very well that witchcraft is a hanging offence. Burning at the stake for a woman.’
    The boy looked frightened. ‘I – I didn’t mean it,’ he stammered. In – in Yorkshire, where I come from, “witch” can be a term applied to any old woman.’
    I didn’t believe him. Neither did Timothy.
    â€˜You also mentioned the word “magic”,’ he pointed out sternly.
    â€˜It was a joke,’ was the desperate reply.
    I turned the conversation. ‘Dame Copley is an old woman, then?’ Piers hesitated. I surmised that the nurse was most probably somewhere in her late forties or perhaps early fifties. Such an age, though old, would doubtless seem ancient to a lad in the first flush of youth. ‘Older than Mistress Blancheflower?’ I suggested.
    â€˜Maybe, a little,’ he admitted, adding defensively, ‘Well, she’s old.’
    â€˜Not when you’re my age or Master Plummer’s.’ I saw the spymaster shoot me a look and grinned to myself. I was never quite sure how old Timothy really was. Older than he was