We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (6 page)

Hastings turned to the whole company, but it was to Richard of Gloucester that he spoke.

‘Come, good prince,’ he said. ‘You and I will ride together. We will shortly have his Grace again at Westminster.’ And Richard smiled, his colour returning. Hastings spurred forward. ‘King’s men!’ he cried, holding up his sword. Richard watched him. ‘My lords, muster all the men you are able in the north country. We ride to free a King!’

John Neville’s sweated mount brushed my leg in passing. ‘How does my lord of Gloucester?’ he asked Richard softly.

‘Grateful, sir, for your fidelity.’

‘The King has given me the favour of a great earldom,’ answered Northumberland. ‘I could do naught else.’

‘Would that all were as grateful,’ said Richard.

We mustered a great company, and set Yorkshire aflame with our own holy war, our pledge to rescue an anointed King. We were not at York to see Edward standing in the market place, whole and sound; neither did we hear the cheers, nor see the dark glances of disapproval for Earl Warwick and Clarence. For we were busy. I rode with Northumberland and watched our ranks swell with lords and commonalty alike, while to the west the standards of Hastings and Gloucester summoned both the loyal and the wavering until all were armed, shouting for the Rose, the golden Rose, who answered from Pomfret Castle with a proclamation that made Robin of Redesdale’s pitiful shaft break midway, like the ill-oiled, unprepared thing it was.

I have seen King Edward’s smile often. A cunning smile, or a kindly glance, or a mischievous smile full of white bodies and soft beds; never, however, a sad smile that I saw. But I remember, over the tearful, bloody years, the smile he wore at Pomfret when we rode, calm and sharp of blade to escort him back to London. We left the Nevilles weak as a woman lately up from childbed. We rode into London accompanied by the greatest lords of England, welcomed by the Aldermen of the City, in loyalty’s blue.

Richard of Gloucester was horsed between King Edward and the Lord Chamberlain. For the White Boar had drawn men, as it had drawn me—ask me not why. He had rallied hundreds to his standard. He looked drained and proud. Verily, I thought him happy at last. And the King was not ungrateful, for he gave Richard honourable commissions in Wales.

As for my part, the King was still pleased with me. He brought me into his Household as Gentleman Usher; many were the tasks I undertook beside the guarding of his royal person. Cleanly and strong archers, gentle men—was the stipulation. But King Edward also loved love. I was quiet, I was discreet, and if I were a little surprised at times, I did not show it. Gentleman Usher—that is good! Many women did I usher in to that god-like presence.

I saw Richard once before he departed for the Welsh marches. He took my hand.

‘My thanks for your loyalty in this affair.’

‘I hope to meet your Grace in less turbulent times,’ I answered. ‘I recall, you owe me three shillings.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Leave it—as surety that we shall dice together again. Besides, I find myself sorely ill-purveyed of money.’ And we laughed together in remembrance, for it was a good jest, the King having rewarded him well. He said:

‘Gloucester does not go back upon his word. You shall have your debt in full—the next time we come upon each other.’

‘May it be soon, Richard my lord,’ I answered.

‘I feel you are a good man,’ he said softly. ‘Give me your prayers, sometimes.’

I saw him hardly at all for some two years, during which time the King kept me occupied with all manner of pleasurable duty. Many the cloaked lady; many the whisper. Toxophilus was still my leman, but wantonness led my rein. O Jesu! I was a laggard lover of Richard those days, for if ever I spoke his name at Mass, it was only when others did so in accord, and without deep thought. Fitting, perchance, that the next time our paths crossed it was in the face of danger.

Again, the enemy Warwick. But a Warwick better prepared, and we so unready. Mad, furious flight, easterly that September; a night ride through chill mists sad with the warnings of winter. To Norfolk, with the mud of the King’s horse stinging up into my face. From Doncaster, where I had been waked by the rude cries of the
rex minstrallorum
. Enemies had come to take the King; allies of Earl Warwick, with an army that far outnumbered our own. Again, the same frail company: Lord Hastings, galloping stirrup by stirrup with the King. Sir Richard of Gloucester; a few esquires. A score of men-at-arms, hastily and inadequately harnessed. An addition: Sir Anthony Woodville, now Earl Rivers. He had misplaced his helm, and his bright yellow hair streamed about his face, and once he gave me a smile, riding, saying softly: ‘The pity of it! I was having a wondrous dream; saints in their golden crowns.’

An omission: no faithful John of Northumberland this time! Alas, the fickleness of princes—and the irony of circumstance! No longer Earl of Northumberland, but plain Marquess Montagu, it was from him and an army doubly outnumbering the King’s that we fled.

Four or five woolships bobbed against the quay at Lynn. It was the King himself who marched over the cobbles and spoke with the harbour-master. A few incurious eyes watched. A greybeard sitting on a coil of rope spat in the sea and muttered: ‘Heigh-ho! Kings sail out—Queens sail in,’ and cackled, the horrid laugh of the ancient. The captain of the wool fleet was likewise unmoved.

‘Your Grace wishes my ships—to take you to Flanders?’ Despite the imminence of our danger, Edward pressed him but gently.

‘You will be well rewarded.’

The other answered, shoulders hunched: ‘King’s men will steal the room for my cargo.’ One of Edward’s esquires dropped a pouch of gold into the captain’s hand. He shifted it to his other palm, saying: ‘This will not redress the lack of my livelode.’

The King was taking off his cloak, the purple cloak lined with ermine into which I had eased him what seemed years before, thought it was but a matter of some hours.

‘When we return,’ he said gallantly, ‘I will give you a far richer garment. Meanwhile, keep the King’s cloak warm for him. Pray for him.’ This, with a smile to charm the blood.

Behind me, Richard of Gloucester was talking.

‘He has him,’ he said softly. ‘Would Jesu that men followed me, like they do his Grace.’

I all but turned, but checked myself, for I fain would have told him: Ah, they do, Richard, my lord! You may not have the bright glory of Edward; your countenance may be sober and over-anxious, yet, there was one once that dropped his dreams and took horse at your bidding. Even the Welsh respect you—you need have no fear. And I looked at Anthony Woodville, with his calm fairness and devotion to the King, and I thought: we may be fugitives now, but I am proud to sail into exile with such great men. So clever, charming and devout. All thoughts of Earl Rivers’s base lineage and past Lancastrian loyalties had long been chased from my mind.

As I leaped over the vessel’s side and dropped down on deck, an aiding hand caught mine. A familiar, tense grip.

‘How does the man of keen sight?’ Richard asked, before I could beg his pardon for having used him as I would a page, then: ‘Exiles—equal in exile. But mark me, we shall return in glory.’

And when they raised anchor, in a wave of fish-stinking sea, I marvelled at Gloucester’s confidence, for London was swamped now by the adherents of Warwick and Clarence and the fearsome Frenchwoman, the French Bitch, Queen Margaret, who men said was half-mad with ambition and love for her whelp Edward.

I walked behind Richard on the deck, looking the last on England. The quay swung away and a high-calling flock of seabirds lifted around our vessel. And then my mind brought back Margetta, for her breast was verily the colour of those crying gulls, and her eyes... why, gazing at the whipping grey water, sucked black in pools by the wind... surely, she could see me! Margetta my betrothed, whom by now I had met, and loved.

I sat down upon a sarpler of wool, hatefully wet from an early squall, and cursed Northumberland, he that was, well—I cursed Montagu then, the Neville who had turned through rancour to treason. King Edward stood by the masthead, under the sail which waxed as a woman but newly with child; and I thought on Margetta and, for an instant, spitefully, upon the King. For the
culpa
was surely his; he had traded an earldom for a kingdom, and had lost. John Neville had been crazed with spleen. I had heard his very words from Earl Rivers, reading a letter borne in after the event.

‘My lord vows,’ he said, laughing on each word, ‘that the King has robbed him unjustly. Is this how he rewards loyalty (asks my lord)? For here is a rich Earldom forfeit to Lord Percy, and for what? A Paltry Marquisate—and a pie’s nest to maintain it with!’ He and Thomas Grey had laughed, loud and long. Rich, warm laughter. Until their gay humour was shortened by the avenging pursuit of six thousand men.

I was ocean-soaked again already, my clothes only just having dried from our earlier crossing of the Wash. I walked upon the deck beside Richard. The sails of our little craft fattened now, like a woman well-ripened with love’s fruit. Richard was saying: ‘They should fly England aloft,’ looking up at the mainsail; and I had need gently to remind him that we had only the garments we stood up in, let alone the Royal standard, or pennoncelles.

It had been so easy—Margetta and me. She had been like a flower in the meadow-grass, yet whiter than the daisies, her eyes changing from grey to black and back to grey; her smile clearer than sunlight. And her sweet body—once a little nook, now a door open only to me... when I returned. Holy God! If I returned! There were others who had sought her favours and been turned upon with a pouting lip which served but to madden them further. I cursed Montagu, and his pie’s nest.

It began to rain great drops which, against an unnaturally red sky, looked like blood.

I curled myself into damp, miserable sleep, to be wakened hours later by a call from the look-out.

‘A strange fleet astern, Captain, and your Grace,’ he said, uncertain as to which he should address first: his familiar master or a fugitive King.

‘I can’t see what they are flying, but they come in haste,’ and he craned out from half-way up the rigging until he looked like an old figurehead of Saxon time. ‘Great speed!’ he yelled. His voice was whipped away as the wind changed and nudged us southerly.

‘I will look,’ I said, and hoisted myself high, burning my hands with the fierce sheet’s tooth. Margetta waited far away, and I had no wish to drown—not in that dark draught at any rate. One glance only, and that enough to make me assume mastership, crying in unashamed fear:

‘The Easterlings! Cram on all sail!’ and sliding down in readiness to fight by the side of my lord, and my King.

They were out for our cargo, and our lives. The dreaded Hanseatic League, spiders of the sea, coming nearer and nearer with each bounding gust. Great ships, manned by grim, pitiless men. Topsail, mainsail, each straining inch of belly, not like a woman now, more like an old man hard-swollen with the dropsy of death; and the foolish, loving wind, as like to change as a King’s whim, sweeping us up in its embrace. The cross-currents buffeted us hither and thither, and we swore, and called on St Peter and Blessed Nicholas. Again my keen sight picked up the blandly fierce faces of the Hanse traders, and their snarling blazon, and the fire of their steel, and I saw their pointing arms, and the spideriness of them, working up and down their rigging for a closer look.

‘Now may God be with York!’ cried Richard, for this was verily a battle-charge, against an accursed, shifting wind; then I knew us humbled by a miracle, for our look-out cried: ‘Landfall!’ while at the same moment a detachment of armed craft showing the pennons of the Seigneur de la Gruthuyse hove into sight, come from the nearing shore of Alkmaar to drive off the men of the Hanse towns. So we were delivered from distress.

‘Blessed be Jesus!’

‘Amen and amen,’ said I, then: ‘Soon we shall be on Flanders soil for the first time, your Grace.’

‘For your first time,’ Richard said, sad and sharp and gentle. ‘On my part—it is like a wicked dream come round once more.’ He looked instantly at Edward, fine-coloured from the sprayful wind. Be calm, my lord, thought I; the one who expunged your evil dreams before is still within a handgrasp and will not fail you—no more than he did when you were seven years old. You see how I was as the wind is? Full of pride and all a-bluster with good counsel, yet veering one side to the other, and whirling in currents of rancour, admiration, envy and love!

The horse they gave me for the ride to Bruges was not to be compared with my sorrel, and the sere terrain of Flanders far less pleasing than the flower-starred fields of Bloomsbury, where Margetta and I had lain together. The Seigneur de la Gruthuyse was a great man, tall and round-bellied. When he embraced King Edward, the Governor’s gold collar, weighty with rubies, caught for a moment on the salt-soaked doublet of his Grace, and, doubtless showing his cognizance of this brotherly omen, Gruthuyse took it off, placing it lovingly about Edward’s neck

‘My house is yours, cousin,’ he said, in what passed for English. ‘Yaa! Like bird in storm the King of England comes. One day—bird strong: he fly away—pouf! To deliver us all from those who plague us.’ And I looked at the woolships nudging the quay, and thought on King Spider, Queen Margaret—and Margetta.