After Flodden by Rosemary Goring

cloth and scrubbed, rubbing at his skin until
the water’s chill was banished in a red glow. Arms, chest, belly, groin, legs and feet were lathered and rinsed. With each swipe of the cloth, the smell of the field grew fainter.
    Goodwife Black held out fresh clothes, and Paniter dressed with care: shirt, hose, stockings, shoes and waistcoat. He slipped on his ring and chain, and smiled. ‘I will see her now, thank
you,’ he said, and took a seat by the window, whose shutters his housekeeper latched open, letting in the late morning light.
    Louise bowed as she entered the room. The air was stale, very different from the polished hallway. Before she left Paniter’s room, Goodwife Black had placed an ashet of pot pourri on the
dresser, but its sweet rot could not disguise the smell of metallic dirt and sweat that her master had brought home with him.
    The man himself was immaculate. Louise had been waiting all morning, unaware of the torment going on above her, certain only of her own growing impatience and unease. By the time she was shown
into Paniter’s room, Goodwife Black’s face as expressionless as a chapel carving, she was rigid with anxiety. If Paniter could not help, she did not know what she would do.
    The distance between the door and the window where Paniter sat was a gangplank, and Louise’s steps were unsteady. As she approached he looked at the vixen and raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Your housekeeper threatened to kill her,’ said Louise. ‘I couldn’t leave her outside the room.’
    ‘She does not care for animals,’ he said mildly. But to Louise, he looked far from mild. Dressed in black, with a great silver cross on his chest, and a topaz ring that winked in his
lap, he was a man from a world so different from her own it was a wonder they spoke the same language.
    Louise had heard how Paniter could hold the council spellbound. It was a rabble of opinionated men who were not easily silenced, yet Paniter was second only to the king in the awe he inspired.
Some, fearful of his power, wondered if he might be the son of a witch. Others said one need look no further than his agile brain to explain his rise from tutor to the king’s boys to
secretary to the state.
    It was said that he had written all the king’s letters, as a secretary would, but most without the need for dictation, and many on his own whim. While his official position was as clerk,
not policymaker, the secretary was regarded as the most influential man at court. He had been the king’s right hand. What did that make him now his master was dead? Was every word he spoke
guided from beyond the grave? Louise shivered.
    ‘Come over here and take a seat,’ said Paniter. Louise joined him by the window. ‘I hear you are searching for your brother.’
    Louise explained that Benoit had ridden out of town to join Lord Home’s men, and never been seen again. ‘I am told Home’s troops were first into battle and first out,’
she said, ‘and many survived, yet we have not heard a word from him.’
    She clasped her hands to hold back her tears, but it was no good. One, then another, fell onto her hands. She dashed them away, but could not speak.
    Paniter’s face offered no comfort. One man among such mayhem would have gone unnoticed, whether he fell or fled.
    Louise was too blinded to see the secretary’s harsh look, and his words were gentler than his expression. ‘I know your brother. Marguerite’s brother. A dark, squat lad. He
looks like a solid worker. A steady man, no doubt.’
    Louise nodded, though this description did no justice to him. Benoit’s serious demeanour and shyness among strangers hid the kindest heart Louise could ever hope to find. In a
moment’s distraction, she saw her brother’s face in front of her, his quiet half-smile as he took her hand and hauled her onto the back of his horse for a day’s tramping over the
hills.
    She shook her head to be rid of the image, and found Paniter talking about Lord Home,