The Perfect Sinner. Will Davenport

      The priest looked at me. ‘Molyns?’ he asked.

      I nodded.

      ‘All right, I’ll grant you that,’ the priest went on. ‘One. But good and evil notwithstanding, what I don’t believe in is all this modern blackmail.’

      ‘You know what I did.’

      ‘I know what you think you did. Seems to me other people had a big hand in it.’

      He didn’t know about my third sin. That was the problem and somehow I wasn’t yet ready to tell him. I had tucked it so far out of sight that I no longer quite knew its shape.

      The wicket gate creaked open and a face looked round. It was the man from up on the hill. I didn’t want to be interrupted and certainly not by a stranger.

      ‘Not now,’ I called, perhaps a little impatiently, and the face disappeared abruptly.

      ‘Ah,’ said the priest, ‘sorry, he’s with me. I was just about to mention him.’

      ‘Who is he?’

      ‘He’s a squire in the King’s household. Well connected. Trusted. In with the people who matter. They send him to sort out things, very like you were at that age, I’d say. Oh and he’s married to the beautiful Philippa Roet, so that puts him in with Lancaster.’

      ‘Really? Why’s he here?’

      ‘You’re off travelling again. He’s going with you.’

      ‘Who says he is? Come to that, who says I’m going anywhere?’

      William looked at me with a smug expression. ‘I am trusted with certain information, you know. He came down with me. I was asked to bring him to you. Up at court they thought he’d never find Slap ton by himself. I know where you’re going.’

      He’d tried that sort of trick a few times before. ‘I don’t think you do,’ I said.

      ‘You’re journeying overland, avoiding France and all its friends. Your final destination is Genoa by way of the Rhine valley and the Alpine passes. Your purpose there is to negotiate an agreement whereby the Genoese will trade freely with us, using one port specially nominated for that purpose and hopefully granting free use of Genoa by English ships in return. Am I right?’

      That removed any chance that he was guessing. ‘It’s supposed to be a secret. Who told you?’

      ‘Calm down. It is a secret. Lancaster told me. Is that high enough authority for you? This young man has been sent to give you a hand on the grounds that, many qualities though you undoubtedly have, fluency in Italian is not known to be one of them.’

      ‘I speak some Italian,’ I said, a little stung.

      ‘Enough to order food. Not enough to conduct high level negotiations.’

      ‘But why is he here now? We’re not leaving until the beginning of April.’

      ‘You mean nobody told you?’

      ‘Told me what?’

      ‘The King sent word last week. There’s a rush on. It’s all been brought forward. You really didn’t know?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘You’re leaving in three days time from Dartmouth on the afternoon tide, on board your ship, Le Michel, captained by John Hawley, although why you should trust yourself to that rogue is a mystery to me. You are sailing up channel to Dordrecht in Flanders where you will join Sir James di Provan and John di Mari, two of the most irritating and self-regarding clots it has ever been my misfortune to meet, and with them you head south as soon as you possibly can.’

      ‘William, you know as well as I do nobody travels across the Alps in winter. Even the Brenner Pass is tough going now.’

      He looked uncomfortable. ‘It seems the King believes in your ability to do it. Someone apparently has to and he thought sending you would give the best chance.’

      I knew him well enough to make an accurate guess. ‘Come on, you know more about this than you’re saying. What’s it really all about?’

      He squirmed. At least he gave a tiny involuntary wriggle which is as close to a squirm as a man of William’s size and experience is ever likely to get.

      ‘I’ve heard a few things,’ he said eventually and I just waited.

      ‘It’s his bankers,’ he said in the end. ‘You know he still owes those Florentines a huge fortune?’

      ‘The Bardi family? Yes, I have heard.’

      ‘They’re pressing him hard. The Genoa deal is something to do with it. He has promised them agreement by the end of February, otherwise he is in default.’

      I knew all too well what default would mean. Humiliation for the English crown. We all remembered the last time he’d had to pawn the crown and the shame that brought, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he’d done the same again. I loved my king, but sometimes he behaved like a complete idiot.

      I rubbed my brow, suddenly aware of the enormous practical difficulties of this whole enterprise.

      ‘Three days to get all this ready? I don’t even know if Hawley’s in Dartmouth and the Michel hasn’t left his mooring since October.’

      ‘Hawley’s ready. I saw him on the way. The King’s messenger got that far, at least.’

      ‘Well, he didn’t get here. Oh, wait a minute. They found a man on the rocks below Strete. He’d been thrown off the cliffs, stripped of everything but his jerkin.’

      ‘That was him. Someone’s killed a King’s messenger in your lands. There’ll be a big fuss about that.’

      ‘There’s no time to lose. Is Hawley provisioning the ship?’

      ‘Yes. I told him to do it well. I can’t eat that vile stuff you usually serve on board.’

      I stared at him in astonishment. ‘You’re coming to Dordrecht?’

      ‘No, no. What would be the point of that? I’m coming all the way to Genoa.’

      ‘Why?’ The thought of getting William’s great bulk over the Alps in the snow was appalling.

      ‘It sounded like fun,’ was all he would say, then before I had a chance to argue, the priest played his trump card.

      ‘I also hear, if the masons are to be believed, you’re going to leave your message on the walls here for all to see, and as far as the future of your soul and come to that, your neck, is concerned that seems to me to be the more pressing concern right now.’

      That made me blink. ‘You know about that?’ I had thought the Declaration was a secret. There was nothing of it yet to be seen. It was all still forming in my head and the words had to be right before I would let the carver pick up his chisel. Second thoughts are best avoided when you set your words in stone.

      ‘I get to hear most things. Is that something to do with the clerks? I keep wondering why a Chantry needs all those clerks.’

      He was a perceptive man and he knew me better than any now alive, perhaps better than anyone bar Elizabeth ever had done.

      ‘To a point. I have a great work in mind. The message, as you call it, is a small part of it. The clerks will work to draw together the thoughts that lie behind it.’

      ‘Has it struck you that the only ones likely to have learning enough to read your message are also the ones most likely to disapprove?’

      ‘I don’t care.’

      ‘And if the King reads it?’

      ‘Does the King know about it?’

      ‘Not yet, but when he does…’

      ‘All