The Green Man Read Online Free Page B

denizens of my adopted town were an inward-looking, self-sufficient race, not much interested in other people’s problems.
    â€˜Look!’ I exclaimed irritably, conscious of the mounting tension inside me. ‘This is all very well, but it doesn’t explain what you are doing here and why I am being commanded – if that’s the truth – to go to Scotland.’
    â€˜Or why it’s Roger’s own fault,’ Adela added.
    â€˜True.’ Timothy scratched his chin and one or two other, more gruesome parts of his anatomy (where, presumably, the fleas were settling down to their own evening meal) before helping himself, unbidden, to another beaker of ale and leaning forward, his elbows planted squarely on the table. He turned to me. ‘What do you know of King James, third of that name, of Scotland?’
    â€˜Nothing whatsoever,’ I answered promptly, then hesitated. ‘Ah!’ A faint light began to illuminate the dimmer recesses of my mind.
    â€˜Ah, indeed!’ smirked Timothy. ‘So? What have you remembered?’
    â€˜I know King James has – or, rather, had – two brothers,’ I answered slowly. ‘He quarrelled with them both and had them arrested. I think I was told … by someone … that the younger …’
    â€˜John, Earl of Mar,’ Timothy supplied, as I paused uncertainly. His small, bright eyes, reminiscent of a ferret’s, stared at me across the rim of his beaker.
    â€˜Yes. Well … whatever his name was … he died in prison in suspicious circumstances. The elder, the Duke of Albany …’
    â€˜Aha! You have no difficulty in recollecting his name,’ my unwanted guest leered at me from the other side of the table.
    I continued doggedly, as if he had not spoken. ‘The elder, the Duke of Albany managed to escape and fled to France.’
    â€˜Oh, France is where he eventually fetched up,’ Timothy agreed, ‘at the court of his dear cousin, King Louis; who, with his propensity for stirring up trouble whenever and wherever he can, was no doubt delighted to see him. Yes; three years ago, Albany fled from Scotland to France. At least, that was the official story. You and I know somewhat better, don’t we, Roger?’
    I nodded dumbly.
    â€˜We know,’ the spymaster continued, ‘that a few ardent supporters of the Lancastrian cause brought him to Bristol with a view, when the moment should prove propitious, of taking him to Brittany to replace that uninspiring figurehead, Henry Tudor. Both, after all, are descendants of John of Gaunt’s bastard Beaufort line – the Tudor through his mother, Albany through his paternal grandmother – so one was as good as another. And at the time, as I recall, there were rumours concerning Henry Tudor’s health, which was supposed to be failing. Unfortunately for the conspirators, things started to go wrong when a certain pedlar stumbled into their affairs …’
    â€˜Unwittingly,’ I cut in angrily.
    â€˜Oh, I believe you,’ Timothy laughed. ‘Just as I believe that, once having got the scent of a mystery, you were unable to keep that long nose of yours out of what was going on.’
    â€˜I foiled the plot,’ I muttered sulkily.
    â€˜Oh, undoubtedly. You also helped the central player, Albany, to get away to Ireland with the help of those disreputable slavers you call your friends.’
    â€˜I don’t call them my friends,’ I retorted. ‘And they call no man friend!’
    Timothy shrugged. ‘Probably not. I’ll take your word for that. But it doesn’t alter the fact that you helped an enemy of this country to escape. Albany would have been a valuable hostage in our negotiations with Scotland.’
    â€˜I don’t see that,’ I argued. ‘Not if King James wanted him dead. Besides which,’ I added indignantly, ‘a year later he was in London, capering around