We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (13 page)

Standing shivering in my
robe de chambre
, I admired them. Close by my hand lay a volume, richly dight with pearls, and every leaf gold-edged. Earl Rivers had loaned it to me in part payment, he said, for swift service, and the
Romance of Alexander
had lulled me to sleep and perchance had given me my mystic dreams. I remembered this book well: I had seen it first at London, when they had little York read from it. He had snapped shut the clasps and declaimed the verses by heart, adding that his lord uncle’s saintly father had brought it back from pilgrimage.

‘He was a great and holy man,’ he had volunteered, coming close to the dais where his mother sat with her icy smile. ‘And he was cruelly slain by the villain Warwick, who had the face of a serpent and lion’s teeth. My good brother Dorset told me so.’

My thoughts turned to the new King. In his years at Ludlow he had grown upward, pale and slender as a lily. After the ceremony they had seated him between Earl Rivers and the Bishop, and his maiden’s face he had kept low, as if the chains of kingship already hung hard upon him. And little did he say in answer to his subjects’ greeting, for he looked ever and anon at the Earl like an actor with lines ill-prepared. While Rivers, kindly, bent to the pale child’s head and whispered in his ear until a faint smile accompanied the ever-faithful words: ‘It’s as you say, dear uncle.’

I stood and admired the three clever men. Absently I listened to their voices. They whispered no longer.

‘Pray God Dorset comes soon,’ said Lord Richard Grey. Rivers laughed softly, moving to the dying fire.

‘You were ever anxious, nephew,’ he said. ‘He will be here, with force the like of which those sad northern birds have never seen.’

Vaughan was chafing his hands together.

‘Even if we are gone before they arrive,’ he said, ‘so much the better. Your captains have their orders?’

‘They know what their work is,’ said Rivers. ‘They will have stout bands strung all along the road to London. He will not pass.’

‘You are sure?’ asked Grey unquietly. ‘By the Passion of God, I would not meet him unprepared. He fights like Samson when provoked, men say.’

‘He has great courage,’ said Vaughan.

‘Too much, for our safety,’ murmured Grey.

‘And, perhaps, for his own,’ said Sir Anthony, with another musing laugh. ‘Neither he nor his rusty yokels will suspect aught. Every contingency is covered. My brother Edward blockades the Channel—good Dorset has a fair armoury beneath his belt. He will not—shall not pass.’

‘One would think he had forgiven us brother Clarence,’ Vaughan said. ‘He of the drunken, clappering tongue. For he wrote you courteously, did he not?’

‘Yea,’ said Rivers, with some contempt. ‘But by God’s Grace, Elizabeth’s letter cheered my fainting heart. Did man ever have such a sister?’

‘I would she had given us more time, though,’ said Grey.

‘God will stretch the days,’ said Rivers fervently. ‘The boy will be crowned on fourth of May. Fear naught. Ah, my lords!’ he said, his voice rising higher, ‘what a future lies before us!’

‘The riches of England!’ said Grey breathlessly.

‘The sea, the Tower, the treasure!’

‘And the consecrated King!’ said Rivers. He nudged a slumbering boy with his foot. ‘Good John, bring wine! Certes, we have talked long. ’Tis cock-crow, near enough.’

‘I pray that all goes well,’ said Grey once more. ‘I would liefer not meet the Hog in battle.’

Anthony Woodville sighed deeply, taking wine from the page.

‘Hear me well, nephew,’ he said, in the same voice as when he showed the young Edward his lessons. ‘Know you not by this time that we are so important that we can, with impunity, make and enforce the law? A fig for any deathbed decree! ’Tis no treason—the King wandered in his mind. As for Gloucester—he will fall like a flower beneath the harvester’s scythe... enough of this womanish talk! Gentlemen! I give you King Edward the Fifth!’

They drank meekly. Their swallow sounded loud in the stillness.

‘And his noble counsellors!’ said Richard Grey, bold at last.

‘Perdition to Protectors!’ said Vaughan, laughing, then Rivers laughed, and in that moment, my restless shifting in the doorway loosed the hasp and it swung wide open so that I stood, unguarded, a target for the turning faces wild with joy.

‘Come in, sir, come in!’ said Earl Rivers, hand outstretched. ‘Will you not share a toast to better days?’

They gave a coconut cup into my hand. Its fanciful stem was inlaid with silver. They gave me wine, and sweet Christ Jesu pardon me, Dickon, I drank to your destruction! Then, instead of dashing down the cup and feeling the steel in my throat for my championing words, what did I next? I walked with the Prince Edward’s governors to the oriel and looked out to see the dawn, clear-coloured like a plover’s egg, limning the Shropshire hills and the Teme valley; and I saw also that the drawbridge of Ludlow was down, and that over Dinan Bridge and Ludford too, poured an endless stream of armed men, a throng that crowded the bailey, traitors, all, and I their chief.

‘Two thousand at a guess,’ said Grey, satisfied.

‘A fair escort for an infant King,’ said Rivers, smiling at me.

The scar upon my hand burned white; while the palace grew astir with preparation and the Mass bell of St Peter’s chapel groaned ‘Love one another’ mockingly.

Then Rivers bade us get going with all speed, and Richard Grey turned to him with renewed disquiet.

‘You will ride with us?’

The Earl wagged his head. ‘I have another strategy,’ he said. ‘I shall play Gloucester like a salmon on the line. My men and I will meet him in courtesy at Northampton and hinder his progress. But you shall take the main force onward and get the King to London. Station your fellows as you ride south—in every copse from Stoney Stratford. I will blind him with fair words—the axe and spear will complete my work. Later.’

‘We’ll meet with you in London, then,’ said Grey, to a ghastly smile. Did he muse on whether the Earl might play us false? Once, King Edward had rebuked him for going off on pilgrimage during the campaign against Margaret of Anjou...

‘Yea!’ said Rivers heartily. ‘And noble Dorset too. At our fair sovereign’s coronation.’

‘Take care,’ said Vaughan. ‘Hastings may have got word to him of our contrivance. And Plantagenet is no fool.’

‘I will tie him in a true-love knot,’ said Rivers, then smote Grey upon the shoulder, saying: ‘Get you gone.’

‘Can you not make a potion of his wine?’ asked Vaughan, also a little unhappy at this change of plan. ‘Hemlock or mandragora?’

‘Like my grandam used lusty Edward?’ smiled Grey, his colour returning. ‘That five-leaf grass with Jupiter strong and the moon applying... amorous herb. Jesu! Clever dame! To send a King so want-wit that he wedded where he merely should have...’

‘Tongue, wanton tongue, get you gone, my lords,’ said Rivers, sword-sharp, and this I knew was something so black that it was unfitted for the ears of even a paid traitor like myself. Grey bit his lip and ran calling for his henchmen, and I followed, sick and dolorous, bought and sold, and prepared to join the pack of men whose mailed feet trod down the bailey’s green grass.

Through April rain and flickering sun we went. From every hedge demons leered acclaim for my weakness. Earl. Rivers had given me a gold collar when I came to Ludlow; it hung about my neck like lead. The little King sighed aloud, complaining of a toothache, and Vaughan cheered him merrily. I was both sorry and amused to hear the boy’s reply.

‘When I am crowned, my first command...’ he began, his voice jounced breathless by the pace.

‘Sire?’ smiled Vaughan, riding hard beside him.

‘To have my brother York as squire,’ cried Edward. ‘To keep him close by me again. His wit could ever chase away these gripings in my head and I have missed him sorely.’

‘It shall be as you say, O King,’ said Grey, with a sidelong glance at Richard Haute, who slept beside the boy of a night. ‘But God grant you will not cast us off, who love you so.’

We rode through Northampton and the townsfolk came out to stare. A few doffed their caps and held them on the heart, but in God’s own truth, we went so swiftly that they had scarce time to glimpse the King. And from each holy house by which we fled the requiem bell tolled out so that our ride seemed yet unseemly with Edward the Fourth lately entombed. Our hoof-beats splintered the cobbles of Stoney Stratford towards evening, and we were fourteen miles nearer London. Suddenly the surging line ahead of me wheeled to a halt. Leaving my own contingent rubbing their chafed thighs I rode up to the front of the train. The young King was near to tears, so thin and pale, the men about him grimly strong.

‘My lords, I can go no more,’ he said. ‘My accursed jaw pains me. I must rest.’

‘Your Grace, London awaits you,’ said Haute coaxingly. ‘Do you not long for your coronation? It will be splendid—all will bear you homage. There will be fine gifts, clarions alight with exultation...’

‘God grant me rest a space,’ cried the boy.

‘His Grace is weary,’ admitted Grey anxiously.

‘As are we all,’ I said. The first words I had spoken to them on that mad, treasonous ride. Behind, I could hear a grumble of assent. Grey pulled his horse near to mine. Two knights were helping escort the young King into a tavern; his knees buckled.

‘He cannot ride through the night,’ Grey said. ‘He will fall sick—he must be well for crowning. Tomorrow will see us in London.’

‘And the Hog will not ride by night either,’ Vaughan replied. ‘Even now, I doubt not your good uncle entertains him with delay.’

‘Anthony is clever,’ said Grey, then yawned. ‘I am bone-weary. Come! Tomorrow we will press on and leave our watchdogs on the road. Tapster, ho! Are there inns enough in this town for a king’s escort?’

There was a bed for me. My esquires had the floor. I was soul-sick. I threw myself into sleep.

I rode a lame-legged horse through a thicket where once holy rowan trees black and twisted resembled vicious spirits; then I was in a clearing filled with tall marguerites, their stems thicker than my arm, and each pretty daisy-face was Margetta’s face, all wet with tears, and my horse trampled the blooms and ground that lovesome face while every flower sobbed and screamed aloud. Then the darkness came before me again and a copse lay ahead denser than the first and I would fain have pulled my horse aside so as not to enter, but my hobbling mount walked on with iron neck and will unconquerable, into a glowering den of evil with Margetta’s screams behind me and a growing noise ahead. And came a whirl of blinding light and out of it a fearsome snarling Boar, with tusks like the unicorn’s spear and slavering bloody jaws; and about him the rattle of all the horsemen who had ever forged into war; and the Boar came at me and I heard my own desolate shriek as he caught me on his tusks and shook me, and a voice said: ‘My lord, awake!’

‘Sir, your harness, quickly.’ I felt them buckling on my cuirass and greaves, handing me my helm, the mantling limp from yesterday’s spring storms. Below the window there was a noise of horsemen, and dream-bewitched I said: ‘The Hog is coming.’

‘Nay, sir,’ said one of the squires comfortably. ‘We must make haste, though. Lords Grey and Vaughan are calling horse already. The day begins.’

Knights were lifting the young King into the saddle when I gained the street. Vaughan, Haute and Grey were horsed and impatient. The first detachment swung off down the road; their speartips caught the early sun. Behind them went trundling a score of loaded arms-wagons.

‘Gentlemen! Your Grace!’ said Grey. ‘To London!’

Young Edward had bluish rings beneath his eyes. He called for his pet hawk. Grey’s temper was shortening.

‘Sire, there will be no time for sport this day,’ he said, and while they argued my spirit shifted within me from great misery as I thought what evil this day would bring to a man I had not seen for full five years, yet with whom I had once sat in friendship, sharing wine and ladies’ smiles; and I heard one the squires say softly: ‘Sir, you have hurt your hand.’ I looked down at the flaming mark upon my flesh which stabbed and burned beyond belief for such an ancient wound, and a ghostly voice spoke in my mind.

‘Think on me by this brand,’ it said. ‘Remember... Remember...’

Then there came hooves, and those not of our own departing force whose steel pricked the air, but from the rear. And I caught Grey’s face in the candle of my eye as he turned, and Vaughan’s likewise, and all our captains’, and saw the mouths fall open clownishly as slackens the jaw of a corpse, and I twisted on my mount, and the old fear of witchcraft shook me to the bones.

Richard Plantagenet rode towards us at a steady pace. Clad entirely in black, he forked a great white horse, and he was very pale. Behind him there came riding a silent company, all unarmed, all in deep mourning, all quiet with a dangerous quietness. A black community cool and sad, and if these were the rusty yokels Rivers had jested about he was never further from the truth. Wildly I took in the quarterings, the faces. The arms of Neville and Northumberland, Scrope, Greystoke, Ratcliffe—he there in person, as was Sir Francis Lovell and William Catesby. The gentlemen of the North, come Londonward to mourn a King. The Lord Protector of England, riding south in requiem and duty.

His eyes held mine for an instant and I bowed my head, for had he spoken the words would have come no clearer. ‘You also,’ said the dark eyes in the lean pale countenance. Then, possibly: ‘How strange are the hearts of men!’

As one silent man, the gentlemen of the North dismounted to kneel in obeisance. The young King sat his horse nervously, waiting as Richard Plantagenet strode towards him between the bowed, black ranks. The Lord Protector was not alone. For one instant I thought that George of Clarence was back from the tomb; the man who walked proud at Richard’s side was cast in the same mould: flushed and sheen, with arrogant head held high, and a smile of goodly triumph on his lips. And I marvelled at the likeness, seeing then no wraith of a dead duke, but Harry Stafford of Buckingham, whom all had thought whiling away his days on a manor at Brecon. Yes, those were Brecon foot-soldiers behind him....