The Midsummer Crown by Kate Sedley Page A

recent building repairs.’
    There was dreadful silence. Timothy, Piers and I stood as though struck dumb. I was conscious of the drumming of my heart, of a deep sense of foreboding and of the high, shrill singing of a bird in a tree behind me. Finally, after what seemed an age, Timothy cleared his throat and at the second attempt said, ‘His Grace of Gloucester wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t condemn a man to death without trial. It’s illegal. It’s against the laws of Magna Carta. Even the king himself couldn’t do it, and my lord is only Protector.’ He suddenly gained in confidence and his voice became stronger. ‘There must be some mistake. You must have misheard, Simon.’
    The other shook his head. ‘I didn’t mishear nothing. Nor did anybody else. ’Cause we were all saying the same as you. As how it was against the law. As how the duke, who’s a stickler for doing things right, wouldn’t go against his conscience by executing a man without trial.’
    Timothy chewed his lower lip. ‘What do you think, Roger?’
    It demonstrated the extent of his perturbation that he should ask for my opinion. In normal circumstances, his own was all that counted with him.
    I hesitated before answering. The truth was that I didn’t really know what to think. On one hand, the man whose birthday I shared, whom I had known and deeply admired for the past twelve years, who was renowned everywhere for his sense of fair play, would surely never have permitted, let alone ordered, such a travesty of justice; but on the other hand, ever since the previous year’s expedition to Scotland, I had been conscious of a growing ruthlessness beneath the cultured and civilized front which the duke presented to the world.
    He had cause, heaven knew, for being embittered. Richard of Gloucester had a strong, puritanical streak in his nature and he had been forced to stand by and watch his adored elder brother, the magnificent, golden warrior of his youth, transformed into a man devoted to hedonism, his health slowly but surely destroyed by the pleasures of the flesh. The chief companions of the king’s overeating, drinking and whoring had been his best friend, William Hastings, and his two stepsons and their uncles, members of the queen’s hated Woodville family, all of whom the duke held responsible for the death of his other brother, George of Clarence. Yet even so . . .
    â€˜There must be some mistake,’ I replied at last. ‘A rumour that’s been taken as fact.’
    Timothy grunted, presumably in agreement, but said nothing, an omission that made me uneasy. I was about to press him for his own thoughts on the matter when there was a sudden shifting of the crowd as people began invading the churchyard, stampeding towards St Paul’s Cross in the north-east corner.
    â€˜There’s a herald coming,’ Simon Finglass announced, and made off after the rest.
    Timothy, Piers and I remounted, giving us a distinct advantage over our fellows, and simply turned our horses to face the right direction. Sure enough, a herald in the royal livery appeared, preceded by a trumpeter whose piercing blasts on his instrument commanded not just silence from the crowd, but threatened to waken the dead all around us and raise them from their graves. But they had the necessary effect. The people fell silent.
    â€˜Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ The herald eyed us all severely to make certain that he had our attention before proceeding to unscroll and read from the parchment in his hand. It seemed that during a meeting of the Privy Council that morning, the Duke of Gloucester had suddenly turned on Lord Hastings, Lord Stanley – Henry Tudor’s stepfather – the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely and accused them of plotting his own and the Duke of Buckingham’s deaths with the intention of then taking control of the king. The plot also involved the