We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (24 page)

That summer we rode down to Eltham while Baynard’s Castle was being cleansed and I was glad, for I had feared we might move to Greenwich, and I had memories both sweet and sour... there it was I used to steal up on to the gallery to talk with the Maiden. Little did she know or care that I could have lost my post through it—each time I skipped away my heart was in my mouth that the King would look for diversion among his fools and find one missing. The Maiden beggared protocol. Once, I brought her up a red apple, I who would have given her rubies, and she tossed the core over the balustrade at Thomas Grey, who turned in anger on his brother Dick, while the Maiden laughed among the shadows like a witless woman. The tears rolled down her face; I marvelled how she wept for a space long after the end of laughter. She would not tell me why.

I tried to guard that little damsel when I had the chance. I know that folk try to make out there’s no such thing as love, only barter and bargain, and that women lead us all to Hell, but I loved her. I think she was fond of me, and others must have thought the same. Often I came up against that French-born witch of a friend of hers, that Elysande, who looked sly and mocking at me and spoke of paramours. I would like to have turned her skirts over her head. She was a mischief-weaver, and more than that, for the last I heard of her was in France, where she had flown to the kin of her dead husband, changing her allegiance like a running hare.

We had the jousting and the games at Eltham. Despite his hair shirt, Anthony Rivers excelled once more at all things; and when they had packed up the tents and banners and loaded the carts with all the groaning knights who had been maimed in the fierce sport, we returned to Westminster. I rode by the serjeant of the minstrels, Master Alexander Carlile. King Edward was very agreeable to him; it was the serjeant who had roused him in the middle of the night when John Neville’s men were breaking down the gates at Doncaster. Doubtless this swift action saved the lives of his Grace and Lords Hastings, Rivers and Gloucester. He told me of that wild crossing to the Low Countries, and the five months’ maddening exile in Bruges and Flushing.

Also we spoke of the jousting lately ended, and of old tourneys, reliving with a little mirth the most famous occasion of all: that contest between Rivers and Antoine of Burgundy, a day nearly ending in disaster.

‘His Grace the Bastard of Burgundy vowed my lord used illegal harness, and weapons of trickery,’ said Master Carlile.

‘When he did but fight with a nag’s head,’ I gibed. For a time we conjured again the whole spectacle: the loges at Smithfield blazing with tapestries and the satin and silk of the nobility; King Edward in purple with the Garter; foreign diplomats dotting the stands like a pox—the ambassador of Charolais, come to finalize plans for the marriage of Edward’s sister Margaret with Duke Charles; Olivier de la Marche, the Burgundian chronicler, anxious to trap every moment; Butcher Tiptoft of Worcester, Arbiter of Chivalry for the day, smiling in complacent gladness. Then the preliminary skirmishing with swords, dismay and scandal. For when the two knights tilted fiercely at each other, the Burgundian’s horse rammed its head into Lord Rivers’s saddle and fell dead. The noble rider lay still, pinned beneath the destrier’s weight, while the crowd rose with a thundering roar of disbelief.

‘Do you recall how exceedingly displeased he seemed?’

‘Yea, for when his Grace asked if he wished another mount, he replied it was “no season” and retired.’

‘Twas well he was unharmed,’ I said. I had at that moment remembered that even then Warwick was conniving in France with King Louis.

Riding through fields of harvest, the hay-apple smell sweet and bitter, we spoke of Warwick, and as night follows day, we spoke of his widow, immured in Beaulieu Sanctuary, and of his youngest daughter Anne, whom Richard of Gloucester hankered to marry.

‘I think his Grace will have Anne Neville,’ said Master Carlile, with an unshakable air.

‘I heard the King forbade the match,’ I said cautiously.

‘Yes, while her father lived and the Duke would not go against him; but now he seeks his reward, and he’s earned it, certes. Though George of Clarence is wrath—he is her self-appointed guardian. Vast estates she has. But the King loves Gloucester.’

Something in this tickled my spleen. I remembered the little Neville well; thin and fair and flaxen, with a gentle smile and small, anxious hands. ‘Now he seeks his reward,’ Master Carlile had said. Her mother’s lands were forfeit to the Crown. With a sudden distaste I thought of Dan Fray, who had talked of love to my mother, and to what purpose, and then envisaged Gloucester, distant and frowning these past weeks. I had seen him wandering about the Palace at evening, preoccupied with what thoughts one could only guess at. George had married Isabel Neville—Richard’s almost perverse loyalty had curbed his own ambition. As we rode I wondered whether there was a spark of tenderness in him for poor, beleaguered Anne, and saw the red eyes of greed in the face of Fray’s nephew, sweeping up the contents of my mother’s parlour with a glance.

‘He has not seen her of late,’ I said. The serjeant looked oddly at me.

‘So? He saw her, and so did I, after Tewkesbury. I had blown my last attack and the enemy were cut to pieces or drowning in the stream; my lord Stanley came to take the French Queen. She had just learned that her son was slain. By my loyalty! her screams rang in my head for days.’

‘And Warwick’s daughter?’

‘Still, she sat, and the colour of a tallow dip. Eyes open, seeing naught. Then up rode Gloucester—harness shining with blood—even his horse’s coat black with it—and he doffed his helm and looked at her. Hair wild, eyes rimmed with blood and mire on his face. And the maid, corpse-mute, staring as if he were the foul fiend.’

‘Did he speak?’ I asked.

‘Nay, not a word. Yet he looked at her, for a long space, with a strange look. Then he turned and rode off to join the King, while Anne was taken under the protection of Duke George, to her sister’s house. The Neville affairs are entirely in his hands, so he says. Thus her inheritance lies safe within his walls, until the maiden shall be married.’

I had noted the dark glances between Clarence and Gloucester. The picture was emerging.

‘And yet,’ he continued, ‘I think my lord of Gloucester will have his way. For the King’s Grace is inclined to dismiss Clarence’s right of wardship as nebulous.’

I saw life as a spread chessboard neatly partitioned, though some of the black ran into the white at times. It shifted and wavered in my vision. The smallest pawn was Anne of Warwick, a little ivory figure. The Maiden and I were not on the board—we were of no importance, and I was glad of it.

Then suddenly we had reached the top of Shooters Hill, and there was London, again lying like a wanton along the breast of the swift river, while in the distance all the green turned blue as it merged with the hills of Hampstead and Highgate. Down the slope we came with a throng of people all hurrying to be within the walls by sunset. Their frantic haste put me in mind of a rhyme. I took out my tablets to snare it, and the fortunes of the nobility faded and were gone.

The Master of the Revels had his eye on me. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. He was minded that my jests were too bold, and would have had me booted from the court had not the King unwittingly shielded me with his ready smile. None could gainsay his Grace in matters of pleasure, and I was a very small matter for dissent. Though there were a few, deeply devout, who would fain have called the Church down about our ears, with their rumblings that we trouvères—to wit, ‘jesters, jugglers, histrios, dancing women and harlots’—were lewd leaders to damnation and the Devil. Strong words these, for the belly of one who worked hard for his money. I would have found solace in giving the Revels Master my task for a day. He would have taken his bed a wearier man, and stiff of limb.

One late summer evening he was watching me, and he was robed and regal and ready to frown. We, the joculatores, skilled in singing, in recounting of fable spiced with mime and posture, had been summoned to the King’s chamber. It was an island of informality betwixt the outer hall of reception and the inner mysteries of Edward’s bedroom. Within this middle haunt the King would snatch his pleasure after hours of wrangling in the chair of Council. He sat fair-humouredly, his astute brain free to wander, like his well-shaped hands to the dish of grapes and walnuts near his couch. A few of his intimates stood about him. There was a lady there, Elizabeth Lucey, whose husband had met his death fighting for the Royal House... the King made much of her. Did I not say he rewarded loyalty well? In her butterfly headgear and gown of sapphire silk, she looked queenly. There is treason. Lord Hastings had his gaze on her, as she sat on her little velvet cushion, and his smooth jaw quivered with the fullness of his thoughts.

And the Master of the Revels had his eye on me.

I fancied I excelled myself at reciting one of the
Gesta Romanorum,
one of those tales fashioned by the monk Pierre Bercheur at the convent of Saint Eloi. Latin lends well to a double meaning. The King beckoned me nearer. I shot a sly complacent glance at my mentor as I drew a new pack of cards from my sleeve. I threw them high in a rainbow skein from one hand to the other. Some charlatans use a silk thread through the pack: I first mastered the trick when I was eight years old and was beaten if I dared to let them drop thereafter.

‘If you, most dread Sire, would...’

‘Take a card,’ laughed Edward. He reached out his fingers. He liked cards. Dame Elizabeth Lucey stretched her fair neck like a flower. I palmed the Death Card quickly ere he should take it. Kings must only see and hear what is good. The royal astrologer stood near, fingering his pearl reliquary. Edward’s hand hovered over the blind, spread fan of cards. A distant sound, growing louder, came to our ears. Heads turned at the noise of two sharp voices outside. A henchman tapped, entered, knelt. He announced that the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester sought audience. Edward raised his eyebrows.

‘Bid them come.’

I stayed, one foot lightly on the dais, my eyes on my cards. Under my lids I could study George and Dickon as they entered. Clarence came first, laughing a little ill-temperedly. He flew the pink flag of temper on his cheek, but he was full of grace as he kissed the King’s hand.

‘Talk! talk! by my faith, it’s thirsty work,’ he remarked. Crossing to a side table, he lifted and drained a cup of hypocras. Edward’s keen eyes smiled.

‘Come, my lord, here’s something to intrigue—a new piece of magic from our friend. He seeks to blind us with swift skill.’

Clarence leaned over me. The smell of wine was a heavy song on his breath. His bright hair fell about his rosy cheeks. A young pagan god was he, tall and gilded, but alas! the hand that touched the cards was over-plump, and trembled.

‘Good fellow, what is it?’

Edward said softly: ‘A game of chance, fair prince,’ and for a brief instant the plump hand was rigid, and I knew that even my little diversion had its use, the reminder of old sins.

George laughed too loud. He straightened his back. ‘I’m done with such,’ he said with a candour that made me squirm. ‘Besides, I am lucky in love—’ He turned to include the silent Gloucester in his charming smile. ‘Therefore I should not meddle with these nice tricky pastimes, neither will I.’

Gloucester moved forward into my sight. White as a ghost, more slender than ever, he looked as if he could be broken in two. His hair shone dark, and his eyes smouldered. Quietly he said: ‘Your Grace, I would speak with you on a matter of gravest importance.’

‘Concerning?’ said Edward gently.

Richard glanced at my intruding figure almost with hatred. He fiddled with his finger-rings. In the privacy of our stable, we fools often mimicked him; but then we aped everyone, from the Dowager Duchess downwards; it was sport. Discreetly I huddled from the step, and watched him. I would have thought he might have looked happier, for lately he had again earned the King’s praise. There had been trouble on the Scottish border. The North was a seat of unrest, and the King was cautious in his attitude to Lord Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Thus he had accorded his youngest brother the Wardenship of the North, all dead Warwick’s commands. Richard had resigned his offices of Chief Justice and Chamberlain of Wales to the new Earl of Pembroke and now, with his northern holdings went Warwick’s estates: Sheriff Hutton, Penrith and, above all, his beloved Middleham. He should have looked happier, but by his demeanour, these things were not enough. Something vexed him, and judging by Clarence’s uncomfortably high spirits, I knew what it was. Earl Warwick’s lands were Richard’s, but not the Countess’s, and the marriage ring was not yet on her daughter’s finger. I heard Anne Neville’s name, and knew that Gloucester still hankered. Little Anne, buffeted and tossed from the arms of the fierce, arrogant Silver Swan to those of the strange, unsmiling Silver Boar. Anne, who had looked with terror on the bloody Richard at Tewkesbury and who trailed the fetters of vast wealth. I glared at Gloucester, and catching his long dark eye, hastily turned my baleful look into a fool’s grimace.

I was thinking that I must go back and see my mother, and that all men were acquisitive save for myself, who would have wedded the Maiden in the shift she stood up in, when a sudden explosion from the dais came.

‘O Jesu! Cannot you, my lords, be at peace one with another?’ The King’s jovial mood was gone. He sat bolt upright on the couch, glowering at his brothers. Elizabeth Lucey scuttled off her cushion and fled. Lord Hastings studied his nails, while Thomas Grey smirked openly from behind the dais.

‘Sire,’ said Richard, ‘how shall I live happily with one who will not give me answer?’

The King turned his fierce look upon Clarence.

‘How say you, my lord?’ he demanded. ‘It seems the lady Anne is no longer in your household. Where shall my brother find her?’

Clarence turned up his eyes. ‘Fair Sire,’ he said eventually, ‘it grieves me, by my loyalty, that I cannot ease our noble brother. Though I know he desires the lady my sister-in-law, how can I help? For, since Your Grace would have it that I own no wardship over her—her whereabouts are surely no concern of mine.’