A Tapestry of Treason. Anne O'Brien

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      ‘Not yet.’ I covered his hand with mine, for here, to my mind, was the true purpose of this venture. ‘Now throw the dice for us. What will our future hold?’

      With a shrug, he threw again. A two and a three. The three was the first to be revealed, then the two to fall alongside. From Friar John there was a long intake of breath.

      ‘What is it?’ Edward demanded. ‘Don’t stop now…’

      ‘When two overcomes three, all is lost.’ The friar let the words fall from his tongue in a turbulence, with no attempt to hide his dismay. ‘When two overcomes three, disaster looms. Two reveals disunity. Disunity threatens the King. It threatens peace. It is necessary to unite behind the King to prevent so critical an attack on the peace of the realm. Sometimes it is necessary…’

      He swallowed, his words at last faltering.

      ‘Sometimes what?’ I saw Edward’s fingers tighten into talons on our friar’s shoulder.

      Friar John looked up into his face. ‘Sometimes it means that the King is unable to hold the realm in peace, my lord. It means that the lords of the realm must unite to choose a new King. One more fit for the task.’

      ‘But we don’t need a new King,’ I said. ‘We are content with the one we have. We will unite behind King Richard to…’

      Thomas pushed himself to his feet with a clatter as the stool fell over. ‘Is that it? Is that all you see? It makes no sense.’

      Needing the answer, reluctant that Thomas should break up the meeting, I grasped his arm. ‘Does seeing it make it so, sir? Is this what will occur? Disunity?’

      ‘No, my lady. Not necessarily…’

      ‘So it is all nonsense. As I said.’ Thomas, freeing himself, was already halfway to the door. ‘Pay him what you think he’s worth and let’s get out of here. It’s cold enough to freeze my balls.’

      His crudity did not move me. I had seen the anxiety in Friar John’s eye. But before I could question him further: ‘Do you see me in the fall of the dice, Master Friar?’ Dickon asked.

      ‘I see no faces, no names, sir. That is not the role of the dice.’

      ‘Then where will you see me?’

      Friar John was unwilling to be drawn by a question from a mere youth, not yet grown into his full height or his wits. ‘I cannot say. I might see it in a cup of wine, but there is none here to be had.’

      He looked hopeful, but indeed there was nothing of comfort in the room, except the heavily chased silver vessel that Thomas had brought with him.

      ‘Then you can take yourself off, Master Dissembler. You’ll get no more from us, neither coin nor wine.’ Thomas held the door open for him.

      But Friar John was staring at his hands, laid flat against the wood, fingers spread. His eyes stared as if transfixed by some thought that had lodged in his mind.

      ‘What is it, man?’ Edward asked.

      The tip of the soothsayer’s tongue passed over his lips, and his voice fell as if chanting a psalm at Vespers, except that this was no religious comfort.

      ‘When a raven shall build in a stone lion’s mouth

       On the church top beside the grey forest,

       Then shall a King of England be drove from his crown

      And return no more.’

      A little beat of silence fell amongst us. Until Dickon laughed. ‘Do we have to kill every church-nesting raven, then, to save King Richard’s crown?’

      Friar John blinked, looked horrified. ‘Did I say that? It is treason.’

      ‘No, it is not,’ I assured, hoping to get more from him before he fled. ‘Just a verse that came into your head from some old ballad from the north.’ I pushed Thomas’s abandoned cup in his direction.

      Friar John drank the contents in two gulps, wiping his mouth with his hand, and when we made no move to prevent him, he left in a portly swirl of black robes. He forgot to take the dice with him.

      ‘Well! What do we make of all that?’ I asked. A sharp sense of disquiet had pervaded the room, as if we had stirred up something noxious.

      ‘I have no belief in such things,’ Edward replied. ‘Do we not make our own destiny?’

      I could not be so dispassionate. ‘Cousin Richard has opened the doors of power for us. It will not be to our advantage for that power to be threatened.’

      The Friar’s uneasy prediction was not what I had wanted to hear. We had been given a warning, enough to get under the skin like a winter itch.

      ‘Do you want my prophecy, sister?’ Edward was irresponsibly confident. ‘Without any need for golden dice, I say all will be well. I say we will return from Ireland with music and rejoicing. To whom will Richard apportion land in Ireland once it has fallen to him? I doubt we will be overlooked.’

      ‘And our authority will be greater than ever,’ Thomas concurred. ‘Let’s get out of here and find some good company.’

      Edward punched Dickon on the shoulder. ‘And if we see a raven nesting near a grey forest, we set Dickon here to kill it.’

      We laughed. Our tame soothsayer was indeed a mountebank, yet a discomfort remained with me beneath the laughter. Friar John had been disturbed. It had been no deliberately false reading. And to what purpose would it have been, to prophesy unrest and upheaval? There had been terror in his flight.

      I scooped up the dice that the magician had left behind, before Edward could take possession. Out of cursory interest, I threw them, without skill. A three and then, a moment later as the second die fell, a two. The three overcome by the two. A warning? But to whom? I had no power to read the future.

      I kept in step with Edward and Dickon as we strolled back to the Court festivities where the practised voices of the minstrels could be heard in enthusiastic harmony.

      ‘Did you learn what it was that you wished to learn?’ Edward asked.

      I avoided his speculative glance. ‘I do not know that I wished to learn anything.’

      ‘Oh, I think you did. It was not merely a frivolous entertainment, was it? It was all your idea.’

      I smiled, offering nothing, uncomfortable at his reading of my intention. I had learned nothing for my peace of mind but I would keep my own counsel, Edward being too keen to use information, even that given privately, to further his own ends. Not that there was anything for me to admit. As a family we were at the supreme apex of our powers. I merely wished to know that it would stay that way. Now I was unsure.

      ‘Give me the dice,’ Edward said, holding out his hand.

      ‘I will not,’ I replied, ‘since you have no belief in their efficacy.’

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