Georgette Heyer (12 page)

Only to John did Harry reveal a glimpse of the thoughts at war in his head. ‘There is no justice in Father’s banishment,’ he said. ‘The reason for it lies in what you’ve heard: half London is gathered outside our gates, to cheer him whenever he rides out! Do you know what the Commons say? They call him the only shield, defence, and comfort of the commonwealth! No King will stomach that! I would not!’

‘It seems to me,’ said John, ‘that King Richard would do better to give the Commons cause to say that of him!’

‘Yes,’ agreed Harry, with the flash of a smile, ‘but he would not then be Cousin Richard!’

John looked curiously at him. ‘Do you love him so much, Harry?’

‘Yes, I love him so much,’ Harry said. ‘He piles wrong on wrong. From the day in his boyhood that he promised the villeins they should be free, he has broken all the oaths he has taken. Nothing that he has done would I do, if I stood in his shoes! But I love him, still or loud!’

‘Is it true that he has grown so asotted of himself that if his glance falls on anyone that man must kneel?’

‘No! No! Leasings!’

‘ “As fair among men as another Absalom,” ’ said John.

‘Who said that?’

‘Some clerk, I think. One of Mortimer’s men. I have heard it repeated. Bel sire thinks him wood. Is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ Harry said. ‘I – oh, enough, John! I tell you I don’t know!’

7

My lord delivered Harry up to the King at Eltham on the eve of his departure, when he rode there with M. de Guyenne to take his leave. King Richard was at his most charming. He embraced his cousin, saying: ‘Forgive me, Harry! Indeed, I am unglad to part with you!’

‘All your life, Richard, you have spoken fair words,’ M. de Guyenne said.

The King turned his head. Still clasping one of my lord’s hands, he held out his own left one to his uncle. ‘Then let me speak some few more, bel oncle! I will remit four years of my cousin’s exile. When six years have passed, let me see you again, Harry!’

My lord dropped on his knee, and formally kissed his hand.

‘I shall not live to see that promise redeemed,’ the Duke said. ‘Of your grace, fair nephew, grant me one boon!’

‘Why, what is this?’ the King said, drawing him towards a chair. ‘Be seated, bel oncle! You and I shall welcome Harry home together!’

‘One boon!’ the Duke repeated.

‘It is yours, if it lies within my power to grant it to you.’

‘Give my son leave, sire, to appoint attorneys who shall receive on his behalf his inheritance when I unbody me.’

‘Why, faithly!’ the King said. ‘Letters shall be issued. And for your needs, cousin, while you sojourn overseas, you shall not find me ungenerous.’ He glanced at Harry, silent at his father’s elbow, and smiled at him. ‘I will take good care of your son,’ he said. ‘As good care as if he were mine own.’ Harry knelt; and the King laid a hand on his head, repeating mournfully: ‘As if he were mine own! Don’t repine, cousin! Though I am forced to banish you for a space, you are more fortunate than I.’

Six

Sa, sa, cy avaunt!

1

My lord of Hereford left London on the third day of October, but so large was his retinue that he found it hard to charter the necessary ships for his conveyance to Calais, and was obliged to beg the King’s permission to remain for six weeks at Sandgate Castle. It was granted. Not even the news that the Mayor and the leading citizens of London had escorted my lord as far as Deptford on his departure made the King abate any of his kindness. He was allowing his cousin two thousand pounds a year for his maintenance in France; and he raised no demur at his remaining a whole month in Calais. All my lord’s friends augured well from these signs; only M. de Guyenne had his fading eagle’s gaze fixed on something beyond other men’s sight, and paid no heed to these tokens of the King’s favour. He seemed always to be waiting for something; and he was perhaps the only man to show no surprise when it became known in England that my lord, courting the French King’s cousin, Marie de Berry, found his suit rejected at the eleventh hour. King Richard had told his father-in-law, King Charles, that such a marriage would be displeasant to him. Later, my lord was begged by the embarrassed French King to remove himself from his dominions: his presence in Paris was as displeasant to King Richard as had been his proposed marriage.

My lord found a champion in King Charles’s brother, Louis of Orleans, who said that if he returned to England with force of arms he would be acting like a wise man. My lord cocked a sardonic eye at him, and said nothing. The Duke of Orleans was not the man to inspire Henry of Bolingbroke with confidence. He removed to Blois; and from that city sent a messenger into Brittany, desiring to know if his good uncle, the Duke, was willing to receive him in his dominions.

John the Valiant opened wide his aged eyes, and enquired of the messenger what had caused his nephew to halt on the road to Brittany. ‘Let him come!’ he said. ‘He will find a hearty welcome! No one could more glad my heart, for although I never clapped eyes on him his father, by my reckoning, was the best of all the old King of England’s sons! They tell me your master is a proper man. Let him come!’ He nodded to his fair Duchess, and said: ‘You will like him, ma mie! He is the nephew of my first wife, whose soul God pardon!’

His third wife, a Navarrese princess who might well have passed for his daughter, said meekly that if her dear lord liked him, without guess she would like him too.

In England, young Thomas Fitzalan, the dead Arundel’s son, unable to bear the indignities heaped on him by his guardian, my lord of Exeter, and his guardian’s Steward, who had him in ward, escaped from Reigate Castle one night, and made his way in disguise to the coast. Try as he would my lord of Exeter could discover no trace of him; but after many weeks Fitzalan retainers were gladdened by the tidings that he had reached Utrecht, and was safe there in the care of his uncle, the Archbishop.

At Ely House, John was sojourning with Bel sire. He was not unhappy, because the Court remained at Westminster or at Eltham, and Harry was often at Ely House. Harry was happy too. He was the King’s favourite page, ousting his cousin Humfrey of Gloucester from that position. He always insisted that despitous tongues maligned the King, but some strange stories reached Ely House. Uncle Thomas Beaufort recounted them to his mother, Dame Katherine, often within John’s hearing. He said that the King had shocked all but the glosers who fawned upon him by declaring that the laws of England were in his mouth or in his breast, and that he alone could change them. ‘Then there are his ragmans,’ Thomas said.

‘For God’s love, what are they?’ asked Dame Katherine.

‘Well, he calls them La Pleasaunce,’ replied her son, ‘and all I can tell you is that men are obliged for very dread to sign them, owning themselves to be misdoers. He drags fines from them then. He said the other day that soothsayers foretold he should be an Emperor; and the latest abusion is that any man heard to speak ill of him shall not be tried by jury. Yes, and those curryfavours he keeps about him sing
placebo
to him until he thinks himself the wittiest conqueror that ever was, so to have rid himself of his enemies!’

‘Hereford?’ gasped Dame Katherine. ‘Jesu defend! Mary was right! My son, not a word of this to your father! Poor soul, he has enough to cumber him!’

‘Bel sire knows,’ John said.

‘Ho, so you are there, are you, malapert?’ said his uncle, pulling his ear. ‘And who told Bel sire?’

‘Great-uncle York,’ replied John. ‘And more besides! You need not regard it, madam: Bel sire doesn’t! He only smiled.’ He was surprised to see her shedding tears, and added, ‘It is true: I was there!’

‘Alas, Thomas!’ Dame Katherine said, wiping her eyes with her long sleeve. ‘He cares for nothing, my dear lord! He went away with Harry.’

These words meant little to a ten-year-old, but M. de Guyenne had become divorced from the cares of the world since my lord of Hereford’s banishment. His mind wandered backwards over the glorious past, and he would recount forgotten triumphs to John; or fall into reminiscence with Master Chaucer, who was old, like himself, and remembered Bel sire’s first wife, the Lady Blanche, and Thirdfather Edward, and others who had been dust for years. Nothing that happened in the inglorious present seemed to touch M. de Guyenne nearly: even the news that Sir John Beaufort was contracted to the Lady Margaret Holland drew no more from him than a lift of the brows, and some rather daunting recollections of the rise of that family. ‘Varlets,’ said M. de Guyenne. ‘Surrey’s sister, is she? I misliked it very much when I was forced to bestow Bess upon a Holland. The first of them I ever heard of was Steward to Thomas of Lancaster. He did very well for himself: stewards always feather their nests!
His
son was Steward to Salisbury: that was how he came to marry Joan of Kent. She was handfast to Salisbury, but Holland’s leman for all that. A lovely woman, but gamesome! I never thought that any good would come of my brother Edward’s marrying her. A widow, too! But he was asotted of her, and she paid for all in the end, poor wretch! So you mean to espouse her granddaughter, do you? Well, she should be a warm maid!’

She was indeed heavily dowered, and pretty besides, with a merry eye, and gurgling laugh; but so young that Dame Katherine advised her son to wait awhile before he bedded her.

2

By the end of January John knew that Bel sire was drawing to his last end. His physicians never left Ely House, but when Dame Katherine’s eyes besought comfort of them they shook their heads: leechcraft could not mend grief.

He had been busy making his Will for many weeks, taking pleasure in bequeathing two golden cups to Harry and to John, and striving to recall who had given him the arras he wished Dame Katherine to have. In his last days he added a codicil. Sir Robert Whitby, his Attorney-General, drafted and redrafted it, and still he could not be satisfied. He added my lord of Wiltshire’s name to the long list of his executors, smiling disdainfully as he did it. Wiltshire was a lickspittle lord, but Treasurer of England. M. de Guyenne’s old friend and follower, Sir Thomas Percy, who was now Earl of Worcester, was another of his executors. Sir Thomas came to visit him, and stayed for a long time, remembering for his pleasance old campaigns. At parting, he dropped tears on a hand that lay feather-light on his, but M. de Guyenne looking down on his grizzled head as from a remote peak, said only: ‘Do my son right, Sir Thomas!’

‘As God sees me!’ Worcester said.

King Richard also came to visit his uncle, attended by certain members of his Court. It pleased my lord of Lancaster to receive the King in his Great Chamber, clad in his parti-coloured robe of blue-and-white, and seated in his chair of state, his Beaufort sons, and the officers of the Duchy of Lancaster gathered behind him. He said: ‘Very dread sovereign, I cry your pardon that I am not able to rise to greet you!’

‘Dearest uncle, what need of such ceremonies between you and me?’ King Richard said, taking his hand and holding it.

M. de Guyenne’s eagle-look swept over the gentlemen who had entered the Chamber with the King. He lifted his left hand, and his Controller stepped forward. ‘The King’s servants,’ said the Duke. ‘See them entertained, Master Haytfield!’ He saw his grandson amongst the King’s servants, and added: ‘Come here, Harry!’

The courtiers who had so lately commiserated their master on the need to visit a dotard tottering to the vault, discovered that experience had not taught them how to counter so comprehensive a dismissal. They looked towards the King, but he shrugged, and waved them away.

M. de Guyenne, permitting his nephew to hold his hand for as long as it should please him to do so, looked Harry over, and nodded. ‘You will make a proper man!’ he said. He turned his head. ‘I pray you, fair nephew, be seated!’

Someone set a siege for the King; he took it, saying, ‘I would I might ease your heart, Bel oncle! It touches me as near as my shirt to find you in such case!’

‘Richard,’ said the Duke, ‘I have stood your friend this many a day, and while my life holds I am your man. Turn the leaf, and take a better lesson! I speak to you with a dying breath. Set aside your false and favel flatterers: they will lead you to your doom! I tell you, my liege, as you have done, so shall you feel!’

The colour rose to the King’s cheeks; he answered hotly, stammering, as he did when he was moved: ‘Bel oncle, you presume too much upon my love!’

He recoiled before the flash in the Duke’s eyes. ‘
I? I
presume too much, Richard of Bordeaux? You speak to Lancaster, boy! A King’s son, and one that has spared you again and yet again! Light as linden have you been, all the days of your life, wasting your livelihood, taking to your bosom men not worth a straw! I had done better to have brought in the Scots against you! As I might have! Yea, Richard, as I might have!’

Sir John Beaufort dropped on his knee. ‘Monseigneur! Father!’

The King had sprung up. He plunged over to the window, and stood there, breathing hard. M. de Guyenne had fallen back in his chair. They restored him with a cordial, but although he opened his eyes, he did not speak. My lord Bishop of Lincoln murmured in his brother’s ear, and John Beaufort moved towards the King. ‘Of your grace, sire! My father is forspent!’

‘My lord of Dorset!’ the King said angrily. He turned, and his gaze fell upon his uncle. His face softened; he passed a hand across his eyes, and said in an altered tone: ‘I did not know how ill he was. I will go.’ He stepped to the Duke’s chair, and bent over him, kissing his brow. ‘Christ have his soul!’ he said. ‘Harry, come with me!’

3

M. de Guyenne died upon the third day of February. Only the children of his last marriage were gathered about his bed, for his daughter Bess, the Duchess of Exeter, was so much affected that she was obliged to withdraw. She brought her two sons to receive their grandfather’s blessing: Richard, her eldest-born, and stolid little Jack, who was not quite four years old; but the sight of her father’s wasted hand on their heads proved to be too much for her fortitude. ‘Which,’ said her half-sister, the Lady Westmoreland, ‘is just what one would have expected of Bess! All of us have known for months that Father was at his last end, but would she heed? No! Nothing but the latest jets of fashion!’

Within an hour of M. de Guyenne’s passing, Sir Thomas Dymoke was riding for the coast, where a ship waited to convey him to Brittany; and Henry Bowet, Archdeacon of Lincoln, who was my lord of Hereford’s proxy, was closeted with M. de Guyenne’s Attorney-General, his Receiver, his faithful Clerk, and his clever son, the Bishop of Lincoln.

M. de Guyenne had left minute instructions for his interment, and they were fulfilled. He was laid to rest beside his first wife, in the choir of St Paul’s, and nothing could have exceeded the magnificence of his obsequies. The King was present, and was seen to shed tears: a circumstance that lulled into brief oblivion the fears of even so anxious a man as Edmund of York. But within a month the letters patent granted to my lord of Hereford had been revoked, and Master Bowet arrested for his share in having procured them. The King said that he had granted them inadvertently, and without proper advice; and declared the vast Lancaster estates to be forfeit to the Crown. My lord’s six-year exile was changed to banishment for life; and the Lord John’s confessor, hearing these tidings, snatched his charge away to sanctuary in his own Abbey of Waltham. Acting with equal promptitude, and more worldly wisdom, Sir Hugh Waterton conveyed the three younger children to London, and installed them in the Cold Harbour, no Lancaster possession, but part of the Bohun inheritance. The inn bristled with men in blue-and-white; but Sir Hugh was placing his trust rather in the citizens of London. When they gathered outside the gates, shouting ‘Noël’ to welcome the children, he allowed them a heartrending glimpse of Humfrey and the two angelic little maids. The citizens wept to see such fair children so tragically orphaned, and swore it should go ill with any who sought to do them scathe.

King Richard showed no disposition to harm them, nor was he less kind to Harry. He was preparing for his second expedition to Ireland, which he meant to undertake as soon as summer made the sea-passage less hazardous. His cousin, the Earl of March, had been slain by the wild Irish, and it was needful to undertake an expedition to the troublesome island. But even those most familiar with his irresponsible moods had expected him to postpone this when he seized the Lancaster inheritance, and were aghast to discover that he had no such intention. All the preparations were going forward; he was taking with him the most redoubtable of his knights, the wisest of his counsellors; and leaving the realm to the governance of his uncle of York, and his rushbuckling favourites.