'And our noble King believes all this?'
Agrippa made a face. 'Hopkins confessed, Wolsey informed the King, and Stafford did little to help his cause. He was arrested at London Bridge and taken to the Tower. He would neither deny nor confirm Wolsey's allegations.'
The doctor steepled his fingers together. 'Buckingham had also been stupid enough, in the privacy of his own home, to make certain treasonable remarks to his own sister, the Lady Fitzwalter.'
Benjamin smiled thinly and I realised how clever the Cardinal had been: Henry had seduced Buckingham's sister and the Duke had been furious that the King should treat her like some common trollop. Wolsey would have struck - summoning the hapless woman before the Privy Council, placing her on oath and making her confess to words which he could so easily twist.
'Then what happened?' asked Benjamin.
'Buckingham was tried at Westminster Hall before a panel of his peers, led by the Duke of Norfolk. The sentence was a foregone conclusion: he was to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution there to be hanged, cut down alive, his private parts to be hacked off and cast in the fire, his bowels burnt before his eyes, his head smitten off and his body to be quartered and divided at the King's will.'
'Surely Henry will show mercy?'
'Queen Catherine went down on her knees and begged for the Duke's life. The King took to his bed for three days suffering from a fever, but the only mercy he will show is that Buckingham must lose his head. The rest of the indignities have been cancelled. He will die in two days.'
'When you came here, you said the killing was beginning, that Henry will be The Mouldwarp?' I prompted him.
Agrippa looked at me chillingly and I remembered his diagnosis, many years earlier, of how sick the King's mind had turned.
'Can't you see, Roger,' he whispered, 'if Henry can kill the greatest peer in his realm, who will be safe? Already the courts of Europe have lodged their protests. The King of France has openly derided the Cardinal, claiming the butcher's dog has pulled down the fairest buck in Christendom.'
Of course, Agrippa was right. Henry was mad as a March hare: he was obsessed with plots against him and would brook no opposition. By the time he died, he was said to be responsible for at least sixty thousand executions. I can well believe it! I was with the fat bastard as he grew old. I'll never forget those puffy white cheeks and mad, pig-like eyes. The open ulcer on his leg which smelt like a sewer and the syphilis in his brain which turned him into a devil incarnate . . .
Benjamin rose and refilled our cups. 'So the killing has begun?' he murmured. 'Buckingham will die and dear Uncle needs us.'
Agrippa folded his hands in his lap. Once again he underwent one of those remarkable character changes - no longer the sombre prophet but the amiable priest seeking counsel and help.
'You are right, Master Benjamin,' he said lightly, 'Buckingham will die and there's nothing we can do to prevent it. But, of course, there is also Master Nicholas Hopkins's confession. Your uncle needs you in London. He has given express orders that we are all to witness Buckingham's execution.*
(Oh, Lord, I thought, here we go again, blood and gore and poor Shallot in the middle of it!)
'And then what?' Benjamin asked sharply.
'We are to continue the interrogation of Master Hopkins and find out more about his mysterious revelations.'
'But you said the man was mad?'
'Oh, he undoubtedly is but that doesn't necessarily make his confession false.'
'Do you think Buckingham was involved in treason?' I asked.
Agrippa shook his head. 'No. But you see, Master Shallot, the problem has two sides. Buckingham is going to die and that is the end of that matter. Hopkins, however, was a bearer of messages. He must have received instructions. But from whom?'
'And Uncle is determined,' Benjamin concluded flatly, 'to seek out the truth?'
'Truth, Master Benjamin? What is the truth? Pilate asked me the same question and I could not answer him then.' Agrippa smiled as if we shared a joke and ran the edge of his cloak through his fingers.
'Enough,' he murmured. 'We must leave for London now.'
Chapter 2
Benjamin reluctantly agreed to our leaving immediately and brushed aside my objections. I went to my chamber feeling like a school boy being forced back to his studies and angrily began to throw clothing and other necessities into saddle bags. Benjamin slipped quietly into my room and stood with his back to the closed door.
'Roger, I am sorry but we have no choice. You remember the oath we took, to be the Cardinal's men during peace and war?' He waved a hand airily. 'Everything we have comes from him.'
'If the Duke of Buckingham can lose both his life and possessions,' I shouted, 'then what about the other fleas who do not live so high on the hog?'