Georgette Heyer (23 page)

Three

Fox of the North

1

When he reached London, John found Harry and Thomas there before him. They welcomed him joyfully, admitting him to their fellowship. They hailed him as Lord High Constable, and begged him to adjudicate between them on points of dispute, all of which he took in good part, grinning lovingly upon them both, and apostrophising them as lurdans and cumberworlds. ‘Or, as we say in the North,’ he added, ‘codsheads!’

‘ “As we say in the North!” ’ echoed Harry admiringly. ‘Do but pay heed to the worshipful Warden, Thomas! A full five months he has been in office! What’s your northern word for malapert, little John?’

John had not met Harry for so many months that for a day or two he was shy of him. Harry, with the scar of his wound still angry on his cheek, was now a man; and if, in holiday mood, he could indulge in madder pranks than any that had shocked his tutors, he seemed to John to have grown ten years beyond Thomas. Thomas had not greatly changed. In his sixteenth year he was fulfilling his early promise to be the best looking member of a handsome family. He was tall, and well-knit; tawny-haired, like his father, and with the straight nose of the Lancasters, and the full, curved lips which gave him a pronounced resemblance both to Harry and to his uncle John Beaufort. All three princes were much of a height, but the two elder ones were built on slighter lines than John. John had big limbs; and the aquiline trend of his nose was becoming more marked, so that Thomas asserted it was hard to tell him and his goshawk apart.

Thomas had enjoyed his service in Wales; and he did not seem to have quarrelled with Harry. He told John that Harry was a great captain, but very stark. ‘The men love him, but I can’t tell why, for he keeps a stricter discipline than anyone. Do you know, if the Welsh complain of any one of them, and he finds it to be just, he gives the poor wretch only time to be shriven before he sends him to the long-going!’

John asked Harry how he paid his men; and Harry answered: ‘Out of my livelihood – and still they are not paid! And you?’

‘Well, I have done that too,’ admitted John. ‘But I own no great livelihood, and the wages are more than three thousand pounds in arrears. Unbosom, Harry! What must I do? What do you do?’

‘Oh, I lead my men out to ravage Glendower’s lands, and plunder supplies that Father will not!’ Harry said.

‘I can’t do that. I may not break the Border.’

‘You may be glad! Plunder and rapine spoil the men, and breed up hatred against us. When I am King I will put an end to such usage!’

‘Yes, and in the meantime?’

‘Petition the King’s grace! He may send you fifty pounds!’

One week in the palace of Westminster had been enough to make John uncomfortably aware of the antagonism which too often sprang up between the King and his heir. He said: ‘I think there is very little in his coffers, Harry.’

‘Little or much, I see none of it, and nor will you! You will be told, as Harry Percy was, that with better government you will need no money! Holy Saint Cross, does he think soldiers feed on air? We do as we may, but it is not enough, and it is ill policy for a King to stand so deep in debt to his captains. I pawned my jewels long since; now Edward of York is forced into the same straits, and if he grutches, who shall blame him?’

‘Not you, at all events,’ remarked John. ‘You never blame Edward!’

Harry laughed. ‘I know him too well! I must not lose him on the Marches:
he
doesn’t mishandle the Welsh! But no one will ever make Father understand how to use them. Hotspur tried, but what thanks had he for the work he did? When he and I came to terms with them, the King said the terms were dishonourable to us, and called the Welsh barefooted scrubs! I tell you, John, I have to fight for the life of every Welshman I win to me! The war drags on, and so it will, until I can wrench from the King the means to wage it in
my
way, and the power to treat in
my
way! I shall not make perdurable foes of a brave people, but that is what Father is doing!’ He paused, the corners of his mouth curling up in a bitter smile. ‘Grey of Ruthin is the man I have to thank for this policy. The longer that makebait remains a prisoner the better pleased I shall be. He hates the Welsh, but knows no more than Father does upon what perilous ground we stand on the Marches.’

‘Still – after Shrewsbury?’ John asked.

‘Glendower bore no part in that battle; his power is unbroken.’ Harry’s eyes began to smoulder. ‘In your northern wilds, John, did any noise come to you out of France? Did you hear that Orleans insulted the King with challenges?’

‘Oh, yes, and also that St Pol hung Edward up by the heels in effigy!’

That won the flicker of a smile, but Harry replied: ‘They landed to help Glendower, the French. They departed in most hasty wise after Shrewsbury fight, but they are becoming too stomachy, brother!’

‘Father calls Orleans a gadling; and as for St Pol, Father had the better of that exchange, if he really did tell him he would give him enough to do in looking after his own domains.’

‘I have no liking for empty words,’ Harry said grimly.

‘Well, Bowet made them extend the truce, so what more would you?’

‘Or for empty truces!’ Harry snapped, the flash of the lion in his eyes. ‘They are still raiding our coasts, and I think Glendower is looking towards them. If I were King – ’

He stopped; and John said: ‘That way still? Not, I think, while Father lives. He sees no profit in war with France. Nor I, to speak sooth.’

‘I shall show you! Or will you oppose me when I am King?’

‘Nay, I know my duty! I shall follow you, lief or loth.’

‘Loth?’ Harry gripped his shoulders. ‘Loth, John?’

Humfrey had said once that Harry was a warlock, casting his spells at will. It was a knavish thing to have said, but John remembered the idle speech. He looked into Harry’s compelling eyes, and answered: ‘Loth, and yet lief. God give you strength to prosper in your beginnings, my liege!’

Harry laughed, and let him go. ‘Gramercy! Keep the North quiet for me, my Lord Warden!’

‘I shall do my power. But while Northumberland is on life that is little! Father should make an end.’

‘Sturdy words! I remember now that Bishop Henry told me you were very stark!’

‘Well, Thomas says the like of you!’ retorted John.

‘Does he? But I would not be so blithe to head my old friends, brother!’

‘When were the Hollands and the Despensers friends to Lancaster? Traitorous thatchgallows, every one, and Father enlarged them, as he will Northumberland!’

‘What happened when Father seized this throne you may not call treachery. King Richard was then on life,’ Harry said.

‘He was not on life when Percy, who had betrayed him, betrayed Father!’ John said. ‘I say that I would make an end! You fear that the French may lend aid to Glendower. Well, I fear, and I have some reason, that the Scots may lend aid to Percy!’

‘So!’ Harry gave a low whistle. ‘Was that in the wind, when Hotspur turned against us?’

‘Albany had an army mustered. Do you think the Fox did not know it? No man more surely! He called up his levies, but not to keep the Border! But for Ralph Neville he would have joined Hotspur, while the Scots crossed the Tweed in force – and had Berwick from him for their hire!’

‘Do you think that for very truth, John?’

‘No, I think it not provable, but by the faith of my knighthood I do believe it!’

Harry was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘I think we shall not see him headed. And if I stood in Father’s place – Think, John! Hotspur, that was the last of his sons, is dead; his high offices have been taken from him; he is stricken in years – It is enough!’

‘It is too much, or not enough!’ John said.

2

Northumberland was not brought to his assize until February 1404; and in the meantime the princes made merry. Harry, flinging off the cares of his lieutenancy, linked arms with Thomas and John, and went roistering with them along West Cheap, or dropped down the river from Westminster Stairs to land at Southwark, and sup at the Tabard or the Falcon. All the chief hostelries and the cook-shops enjoyed their patronage; many of the great merchants entertained them at their inns within the City; the masons at work on the new Guildhall knew them well; and so did the fair frail ones on Bankside. London adored them, from the sheriffs’ officers, who often turned blind eyes to their exploits, to the jack-rakers who swept the garbage from the streets. Led by Harry, they indulged in the most shocking pranks; but only Archbishop Arundel frowned, hinting to the King that his heir should demean himself more decorously. Arundel had a stiff-necked pride which made the very thought of Prince Harry asprawl in a tavern with a wench on his knee, and a dozen rude fellows cracking bawdy jokes with him, offensive; but the King only laughed, and took no order to his graceless sons. They were at the bottom of more than one of the hurlings which disturbed the peace of the City, when the sudden shout of ‘Staves!’ brought apprentices tumbling out of every alley, lusty for a fight. In the cold dawn-light neither Thomas nor John could have told why they had ended an adventurous night in clamorous debate, and a slipping, dodging flight down malodorous lanes, lanterns discarded and the hue and cry sounding in their wake: wine-fumes clouded memory, but never the memory of Harry’s eyes, wide open and ablaze with elvish mischief; nor the smile on his lips which mocked and challenged, and lured them to follow him.

‘A warlock! Didn’t I tell you so?’ Humfrey said, cross because Harry would not let him company with him. Harry said he was too young to go a-whoring: Humfrey never knew how narrowly John escaped being excluded also from these heady delights. That was the worst of Harry: you never knew when his discomfortable conscience would smite him. John read prohibition in his glance, and boasted dreadfully of northern gigelots tumbled in the hay. Harry laughed and laughed. He may not have believed the tales, but he let John go with him and Thomas; and John embarked boldly on some fumbling adventures. The doxies with whom he trafficked helped him to overcome his shyness; he played his part manfully; and secretly preferred the evenings spent in less perilous company.

He enjoyed many of these: jolly supper-parties in Master Askham’s inn, that was Mayor of London that year and had the wit to bid his bouncing children to his board rather than the staid and bearded aldermen; and quite informal visits to Master Whittington, in Vintry Ward, where he owned an inn so crammed with costly treasures that it almost put Westminster Palace to shame. Master Whittington was an old friend: a warm man, and a mercer who had supplied the Lancaster children with silks and velvets for as long as any of them could remember. He had furnished Blanche with cloths for her wedding attire, and would supply Philippa too, if ever the lagging plans for her spousal came to fruition. He was not at all chary of mentioning his trade, unlike some of his fellow aldermen, who seemed to wish it to be forgotten that they dealt in merchandise, and amused the princes by aping lords’ fashions. Master Whittington never fell into such unwit, though he might have done so, since he was well-born: the third son of a knight of Gloucester, and of a considerable heiress. Both his parents were of the West Country, and he had married a Dorset damsel, but you would never have taken him for anyone but a Londoner. He had made his fortune there, he had been its Mayor, and it held his heart. He was a spare man, with a clean-shaven face, and shrewd, twinkling eyes. He had no children; and a considerable part of his livelihood was spent in enriching the City he loved so well. The princes, finding themselves in the vicinity of his inn, never hesitated to hammer on his gate, and never lacked a welcome. He and Dame Alice would entertain them in an upper room, smelling of juniper and rosemary, and hung with tapestries from the hand of Dourdin; and they would drink their wine out of goblets of blue glass from Murano, or slim, enamelled Damascus cups; sit upon cushions of fringed red velvet; sup up the dish-meats with silver spoons; turn over the leaves of his Book of Hours by the light of waxen candles set in candlesticks of Limoges enamel; absently take an apple from a green-glazed Persian bowl; or play chess on a tabler cut out of rock-crystal. Humfrey, who was sometimes permitted to go with them on these visits, used to handle these things with a lover’s touch, and was avid to know whence they came. Master Whittington was a little vague: that oaken coffer, encased in metal scroll-work, was Flemish, he thought; as he recalled, he had had those ivory-handled knives out of Almaine; that cup of silver-gilt was of Italian craftsmanship, brought him by the master of a Genoese galley, if his memory served him. Humfrey, delicately turning the pages of his Book of Hours, told him of the Psalter which had been made for Father. Master Whittington heard him courteously, and said: ‘That is a book for a King, my lord. This of mine is a poor thing.’

‘No,’ Humfrey said, flashing a crooked smile at him. ‘Books are lovely things, Master Whittington.’

Thomas, eyeing him with dubious indulgence, explained: ‘He is a scholar, you know.’

‘Why, so are you all, sir!’ said Whittington. ‘I remember, when I brought eight ells of red satin to Tutbury, to make you gowns, that you were busy with your grammar books.’

‘That’s a long time ago,’ said Thomas.

‘Witterly. The King’s majesty was then my lord of Derby. He bespoke red and white satin for the giton to his lance.’