The Midsummer Crown by Kate Sedley Read Free Book Online Page B

particular reason why this Gideon Fitzalan has been brought to London. At the instigation of my lord Gloucester was what you said. Why?’
    It might have been my imagination, but I fancied Timothy suddenly looked slightly uncomfortable. The expression was so fleeting that, afterwards, I wasn’t really sure I had seen it.
    â€˜He and one or two other boys of the same age are to be the king’s companions and attend him at his coronation.’
    I raised my eyebrows. ‘I should have thought His Highness would have his own retinue, his own companions. He can’t have lived all those years at Ludlow without contemporaries to share his lessons and leisure time. He can’t have been permanently surrounded by his elders.’
    â€˜No, of course not.’ There was the slightest of hesitations before Timothy proceeded smoothly, ‘But they were the children of Woodville adherents, picked by the Queen Dowager and Lord Rivers.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜They have been dismissed. My lord Gloucester wishes the king to be attended by people he can trust.’
    I frowned, suddenly uneasy. ‘You mean that poor child has not only had his uncle and half-brother forcibly removed and clapped up in prison, but now his attendants, people he’s been familiar with all his life – his playmates, his fellow scholars – are also being replaced?’
    Whatever his own feelings in the matter, Timothy would never allow even implied criticism of his beloved master. He brought a hand down hard on the stone of the window seat, then winced with pain. ‘You don’t understand, Roger! Or, worse still, you’re not making the effort to understand. That situation at Northampton posed real danger to the duke’s life. Oh, I’m not a fool. I have spies everywhere. I know there are rumours among some sections of the populace that the whole story was a fabrication on my lord Gloucester’s part; a lie in order to provide grounds for arresting Rivers and Vaughan and Grey. But take my word for it, that wasn’t so. The duke knew that he might be in some danger from the Woodvilles, and of course it’s true that he doesn’t like them; that he has always held them responsible for Clarence’s death. But he was still hoping to work with them for a peaceful accession. I can vouch for it that he wasn’t truly suspicious even when we reached the rendezvous at Northampton and discovered that the royal party had moved on to Stony Stratford. I don’t believe it occurred to him that Stony Stratford was only a short distance from the Woodville’s family home at Grafton Regis. When Earl Rivers rode back with an explanation of why the king had ridden ahead by fourteen miles – and a pretty feeble explanation it was, too – my lord was willing to accept it and invited him to supper. If it hadn’t been for Lord Buckingham’s arrival to warn him of the truth, our duke could well be dead by now. So he dare not trust Woodville sympathizers of whatever age around the king.’
    I said nothing for a moment or two. It was a story I had heard before, and from Timothy, and had no doubt that it was true. But somehow I doubted that the queen’s family would have risked killing so popular a figure as the Duke of Gloucester. They could have incarcerated him at Grafton until such time as the king had been crowned and the Woodvilles had assumed positions of power. But even then, there would almost certainly have been trouble on the duke’s release.
    I sighed. No; taking everything into consideration, I felt bound to admit that my lord Gloucester’s reaction, his instinct for self-preservation, had probably been the right one. As was his present determination to rid the king of all those of his attendants appointed by, and therefore loyal to, the Queen Dowager’s family.
    â€˜So tell me about this murder and the boy’s disappearance,’ I said.
    â€˜I’ve