We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (11 page)

‘Jesu! that’s an old quarrel,’ I said. I myself could hardly remember it. ‘Stanley was wavering once, and Richard cut him off ere he could ride against the King. Now he follows, says Richard, as well as the next man.’

‘As well as the next man,’ mused Dorset. ‘That I like well... For who indeed, is this next man we hear of so often? By troth, my noble uncle could fashion a paradox on that!’ He laughed again, his fresh young sound.

‘In rhyme, of course,’ I said.

‘You shall come to Ludlow,’ he said, his elbows on the board. ‘You shall come and see the royal heir. A gem of price,’ he said, as if he were not a fleshly little boy at all, but something hard and glittering. ‘When we return to London, speak with my uncle, Lord Edward—regard my kin your friends.’ Why, these Woodvilles are not half the grasping, callous persons that the barons say, I thought, clasping the arm of Queen Elizabeth’s son, and half-hearing his flashing words. ‘So Stanley is docile and loyal? What of his wife, though? Eh, friend? To what end think you she puts her terrible learning? For she’s fuller of philosophy than becomes any dame. Their place is at the loom and in the bed, I vow. Mistress Shore... there’s a woman! Empty as a fowl, but those little, dewy paps...’ He stopped short, with quirking brow. ‘So! Lady Margaret Beaufort! Has Stanley tamed her?’

I firmed my thumb on the table-damask. He glanced down. ‘He on she, or
vice versa
?’ he asked, and I was about to tell him the little I knew of this turbulent match, and to ask also his knowledge of the mysterious Henry Tudor, when there was a great uprising as the King of France called a toast to the King of England, and the toast-master came riding up to the dais with a golden cup and the whole evening blurred into merriment, unmarred for me except by my damned hand, which pricked and burned like the very devil.

I recall that Dorset said again: ‘You must ride to Ludlow,’ for all the world as if he owned that castle, and he bade me go watch the royal prince at his schooling, for it was one of heaven’s delights, said he. And he made me smile with tales of Mistress Shore; of her wit, her amorousness—ah, did she not belong to the King, said he, he would joyfully seek her bed, delicious creature. So his talk flowed all the way back to Calais and England. And Gloucester rode north again, without a word for me, and I rode London-ward to Margetta; and for the next five years it was a jewelled time, all the jewels being counterfeit, had I but known it.

In the midst of the pleasure and the glad service I hung like a fool between two factions: the charming Woodvilles, and Hastings’s party, who chewed their thumbs down to the bone at sight of the Queen’s kinfolk still, and I got some spice of delight from it all. I promised myself that I would journey to Ludlow and see the future king at his lessons; I promised this for full five years and was too busy and too idle to fulfil even a pledge to myself. When the time came for that ride, it was full of weeping.

‘Come closer,’ said King Edward. ‘My Lord Chamberlain. Ah, Will, my good old friend!’ He stretched out a hand and Hastings tenderly took linen and wiped the King’s face, the froth from the mouth, the sweat from the purpling cheeks.

‘Can you do naught to ease him?’ Hastings turned on the physicians. ‘For Christ’s love, Master Hobbes! Have you no more tricks, no more potions? He burns like fire.’

‘I will not be bled again,’ said Edward querulously. Then he chuckled. He had laughed before, during the days and nights when we had watched him, all of us grouped about the great plumed bed and empty with fatigue. I had fixed my eyes upon the Sun device behind the King’s head, and it had seared my brain, each flickering point bidding me believe what I would not. For Edward could not die. He was a lion, untouched by war and pestilence, he was forty or thereabouts, but he was supreme and would live to three score years. He had been gay at Christmas, laughing lustily then at the players’ antics, bawling sarcastic quips against the sombre mummings of World, Flesh and Devil in the Hall, and it was only a week since he had laughed himself silly on the fishing trip up-river—a clumsy young henchman capsized the boat containing Lord Dacre’s mistress; she went in head-first, revealing plump naked privy parts; he had laughed too, in his fever-madness, rearing in the bed. He could not die, and there he was, dying, of an April damp taken spearing the salmon, or so ran the diagnosis of Master Hobbes and Brother Dominic. And when their noxious draughts failed to remedy the ill, they set blood irons to the royal veins and vainly all but drained that vast body. They placed a little dog upon his chest to suck the evil humours out, and he cast it down, saying, ‘Take the poor beast away; why should she share my sorrow?’ They even sent pages to Southwark in search of old Tib, but they found her gibbering wantwit with all her simples gone useless and a green and powdery skin, like the fur of a frog, atop each jar.

The chantry priests had gone, but one young monk knelt in the corner, murmuring mechanically: ‘
Ave Maria, gratia plena
,’ fervently oblivious of his betters; of Lionel Woodville, Bishop of Salisbury, Sir Edward, Lord Richard Grey and Thomas Dorset, Hastings, and Stanley. The King’s bed was an abyss. The Woodvilles stood together on one side; Hastings did not look at them, but Stanley did, sometimes, with that lip-chewing wavery glance. Sir John Fogge knelt at the foot of the couch, hands clasped on swordhilt. I hovered near Dorset. Fantasies assailed my weary mind, old soothsayings, returning like bats at dusk; ‘How shall we know that our life’s span is not like unto that sparrow’s flight?’; looking down at the cicatrix upon my hand, and up again to catch the sombre smile of Dorset, or the markings on the astrologer’s robe, all the Zodiac starring its black silk, or the Sun in Splendour, whereunder the King tossed and burned up.

The astrologer stirred a dark liquid in a little vial. This he handed to the taster who swilled a mouthful, said ‘Drink, Sire,’ handing it to the King. Edward sucked the brew and spat it out, saying: ‘By troth, friend, your potions are worse than your prophecies!’ and there was a fierce clash of glances betwixt Hastings and the Queen’s kinfolk as an old spectre rose. ‘Your Grace’s pardon for past errors; ’twas the dark of the moon,’ whimpered the astrologer.

The King’s eyes were a hard blue above the fleshy cheeks. ‘Nay,’ he said, with renewed vigour. ‘There was no “G”... no “G” for King. No fault of yours. I forgive.’ He plucked at the coverlet, while the air waxed stale with hate.

Master Hobbes was feeding him saffron-water, a harmless draught to allay the congestion in his bowels, and he said, with a weak laugh: ‘’Tis naught, sir, ’tis naught for that. But mix me a purge to drive the Treaty of Arras from my belly and I’ll give you knighthood.’ Then he began to weep a little, and I had to quit the room for a space, or swoon and be shamed.

So from the tremendous heat of the chamber I stepped, to find half the court without. Mingling with the awed, yawning pages there were women, one of whom clutched my sleeve.

‘How is he?’ she gasped.

For a space I did not recognize Mistress Shore. Her face wore a bruised look, as if she had been beaten by her grief.

‘His Grace is passing sick,’ I said, then added: ‘Don’t weep, good Jane.’ This I called her by custom, as did all men, though she was far from such, being free with her body. Yet she was kind, and had given gladness to the King, so I spoke her thus. She made a muffled sound and withdrew into the shadows, as another figure, taller, more slender, rose from before a prie-dieu and came to me, attended by the ladies Scrope and Beaufort. Elizabeth of York was beautiful as ever.

She asked: ‘How does my noble father?’ with firm lips.

‘Madame, he fights his last battle,’ I answered, and I did not speak of the Treaty of Arras, for if we had lost Burgundy, Artois, and 50,000 crowns a year through Louis’s treachery, she had lost the Dauphin to the German Emperor’s daughter.

‘Is he in there?’ she asked with sorrowful scorn. I knew she spoke of the astrologer. ‘Surely his presence will worsen the ill.’

‘He’s full of sadness, not prophecy, your Grace.’

‘One day,’ she said bitterly, ‘I met my father walking in the pleasaunce, with tears. The charlatan had said that his blood would never rule England... that no Plantagenet would grace the throne through Edward’s sons.’ Her lips lost their set line and quivered. Then she said: ‘I would my uncle of Gloucester were here. He can comfort him best.’ I bowed down, kissed the hem of her garment and left her; and leaving, caught the eye of Lady Margaret Beaufort. An eye like a lizard’s, motionless, but very alive.

The ways were black with priests and monks. Holy men, familiar hooded faces, some strange to me, for the clergy had ridden from far to be with the King in this melancholy. There, an old bishop, heavy with winters and sorrowful of countenance, walked falteringly through the close-packed corridor; I bowing in reverence, looked up to see his face of great trouble under the golden mitre. And looking, knew him from long ago. The Bishop Stillington, of Bath and Wells, A frugal man, I had heard, who did not revel or sate himself with glories such as many other prelates.

‘He is weaker?’

‘Hourly, my lord.’

The deep groan startled me.

‘May Our Blessed Lord preserve him,’ he said, and then, shaking his head, murmured softly, ‘I am an old man. Too old, too old, ah, Christ Jesu!’

I left him, uncomprehending, to his privy sorrow and returned to the King’s bedchamber, where Lord Audley was speaking.

‘Shall we summon the Queen, Sire?’

Edward shook his head, wearily, offering no reason. There was a little hiss of breath from Doctor Morton, Master of the Rolls.

‘Your daughters then, lord?’

He sighed. ‘Ah, sweet Bess,’ he muttered. ‘The cursed Treaty robbed her sore. Nay, let them stay without. For I fear that same poison will be my end.’ His physicians looked gravely at one another, and began to pack their medicines away, for now the King confessed what had been in all our hearts. The rocking at his realm had been too much for our sovereign lord. Edward’s eye roved round, settled on Lord Stanley, who knelt at the bedside.

‘Your Grace?’

‘My lord, keep your lady...’

‘Sire?’

‘Keep your lady in submission,’ the King said faintly. ‘And let not that impudent son of hers aspire to stir my realm—that Tydder—on your loyalty, let him not harass my heir with his threats once I am gone.’

‘Henry Tudor is in Brittany, lord,’ said Stanley stoutly. ‘And my wife is loyal as I, to York.’

Edward sighed again. ‘That is well. God’s Blessed Lady!’ he said suddenly, and it was strange to hear the fierce familiar oath on dying lips. ‘There
is
one face I would kiss ere I depart. Dickon...’

Thomas Dorset leaned forward. ‘His Grace is on the Scottish border, Sire. Too far, I fear.’

Edward smiled, paling. ‘Yea, God keep him. The only man, the only strength to tame those barbarians. Ha! to think he’s made them denizens of England. To fight the French—and all our foes... to fight... to die...’ He closed his eyes and a gasping breeze rose in the chamber.

‘The Eucharist! hurry!’

Yet Edward spoke again, still with lids closed.

‘First summon my executors,’ he said.

They came, five noble prelates and three great lords, Stanley among them. The death-smell grew stronger, and with it the fierce stench of enmity and strife. Kneeling by the King, Sir Edward Woodville and I raised the huge, gross body, bloated like a wine-bag. We heard the fat choking from organs ill-purveyed to fight this enemy. We propped him on pillows, and saw his eyes open on a film of tears.

‘My lords,’ he said, and we all drew near at the urgency in his tone. ‘My good friends, soon I shall be no more. Before I return to Him who made me, I would have your promise. I, who have granted many boons, ask one now in exchange. A simple, gentle thing...’

‘Aught for your easement, O King,’ said Hastings thickly. Edward looked at him, slow, then at Stanley, then at the Woodvilles, flanked like archers on the other side of the bed.

‘Love one another,’ said the King. ‘As Christ Jesus loved the world, and in His Name. Let there be an end to quarrelling, to envy and spite. Let the past be washed away. For the sake of my son and heir I beseech you all, be as brothers henceforward. Forgive all wrongs. Live at peace.’

I was still supporting him and a great tear fell upon my hand.

‘Your arm, Dorset,’ he said, while the water coursed down his cheeks. Thomas stretched out an arm straight as a lance.

‘And yours, sweet Will.’

Hastings extended his hand. With difficulty, King Edward joined them in a clasp. A hard, invincible grip, wrist locked on wrist, each set of fingers gripping the other’s sleeve.

‘Love one another,’ he said again, and Dorset began to weep.

‘My promise, Sire,’ muttered Hastings, and I looked up to see that he too wept, and so did Sir Edward, and Lords Audley and Howard, and the Bishop of Salisbury; and Stanley buried his face in a kerchief, and sobbed out loud.

‘And mine,’ Dorset cried, as the ambient air waxed full with love and sorrow. Edward gave a great shudder and rolled on his right side.