Baynard’s Castle, Spring 1438
Baynard’s Castle, Spring
THIS IS MY adult life; I have grown into my true self.
I will never again rage against my sister, lie to my father, or long for a lover.
I am like a sea cave, scoured clean and dry by high storm tides that are now ebbing.
And then – just as I am accustomed to my new self – Canon Southwell interrupts a private breakfast at Baynard’s Castle with my husband and Roger Bolingbroke and my clerk John Home.
He rushes in and sketches a bow to my husband at the head of the table and me at the foot.
‘Good day, Canon Southwell,’ I say frostily. ‘You seem to be in a very great hurry.’
He skids to a halt and bows properly to the duke and to me.
‘Forgive me! I came at once! You know, it’s part of my duties as a Westminster canon to celebrate mass in the Newgate Prison chapel?
I was there this morning, and after the service they told me that the Welshman burst out of his cell at the watching time – when the prisoners are mustered for the count.
He called for a riot, and every man in the place jumped to obey him, and every guard did nothing.
He’s got away – broken out and vanished – with his priest and his servant. ’
I feel my heart stop beating. ‘How?’ I gasp. ‘How? I thought he was below ground, in a cell with no door? I thought he would never escape.’
He shakes his head. ‘They have to pull out all the prisoners for muster.’
‘The whole prison rioted for him?’ I ask incredulously. I turn to Roger Bolingbroke and to my husband. ‘This is not Welsh luck. Someone paid for this.’
‘I’ll go this afternoon,’ my husband says. ‘And I’ll be on his tracks by the end of the day.’
‘Go now,’ I say brutally. ‘He won’t be sitting over his breakfast making empty threats. He’ll be on the road already. He’ll be halfway to Wales.’
My husband gets to his feet, drains his cup of small ale and throws it down. ‘I’ll brook no delay,’ he says. ‘I’ll go with my best guard.’
‘Take Watling Street,’ I tell him. ‘He knows he’s safe from us in Wales. All the Glendowers would die for each other.’
‘He might have gone to his sons at Barking Abbey. Or even to the king,’ Roger Bolingbroke puts in.
The duke hesitates.
‘I’ll go to John Somerset, the king’s tutor,’ Canon Southwell says. ‘He can make sure that Tudor does not get to the king before you do.’
‘I’ll go to Barking Abbey,’ I say.
‘If I catch him on the road, he’ll die this time,’ my husband swears. ‘I’ll say he was resisting arrest, even if he holds his hands out for the manacles and hoists a white flag. I’m sick of him and these craven leaps for freedom. I am sick of him.’
I rise from the table, and I get hold of him by the shoulders, as if I am blessing his strength.
Really, I wish I could shake him like a stupid child.
‘Don’t fail me,’ I order. ‘This is a matter of honour now. Don’t listen to him, and don’t argue with him.
Don’t even try and arrest him. Ride him down and kill him on the road. He is our enemy.’
He nods grimly. ‘And you,’ he says, ‘take a guard. What if you catch him at Barking?’
‘You can rely on me,’ I say. I do not tell him that I am determined that my troop will kill Owen – and his little bastards as he tries to defend them.