Royal Mistress (61 page)

“Then ve are safe, husband,
ja
?” Sophie said. “You vill not need your stick.”

“Let us hope not,” Jane agreed, and then recited:

“The weaver dropped his trusty weft

To sharpen up his stave,

We hope he never uses it

For the consequence is grave.”

Even Ankarette caught the double meaning and crossed herself.

T
he day planned for the simultaneous strikes by the rebels was the eighteenth of October, but those in the west and Wales were unaware the men of Kent had not waited and had been already thwarted in their bid to capture London.

The unrelenting rain of the past week still sheeted in drenching torrents as Buckingham and his erstwhile prisoner and now fellow conspirator John Morton, bishop of Ely, started for Hereford, thirty miles away. Morton looked around at the force Harry had assembled and told himself it would have to do. It seemed the duke did not have the sway with the Welsh he had boasted of, and the men trudging behind their captains did not appear to be relishing a long march in abominable conditions to fight for a cause that did not concern them. With luck, Morton thought, those leaders in the west country and the southeast will have gathered larger and more willing armies to join with Henry Tudor when he landed somewhere on the south coast with his force from Brittany, weather permitting. On the appointed day, the four arms of the insurrection would move toward London and trap Richard coming down from the north. Morton had prayed hard the night before that the weeks of planning would reap the sought-after rewards.

Buckingham, however, was in fine spirits, laughing with his squires and knights as they moved toward the Severn. His unruly curls, dancing like coiled dark springs, sprayed droplets of rain around him as he turned his head this way and that. He was behaving as though he were king, Morton noted, the man’s vainglory evident in every loud command, booming laugh, and dramatic gesture. Morton would rather put up with Richard as king than this buffoon, he had long ago decided, and, staring at a spot between his horse’s ears, he fell back to avoid communication with the man.

T
he proclamation Richard published soon after leaving Lincoln condemned Buckingham and his rebels and was affixed to every church door and market cross in England. Those who read it marveled at the extraordinary news that the rebel leader was the duke of Buckingham. Richard exhorted his subjects to be ready to fight for their king, but he made clear that none of the duke’s followers who resisted this treason must be harmed or taken. In the meantime, Richard began assembling a host of his own at Leicester, while Jack Howard gathered a large number of troops and stationed them at Guildford. His quick action of the previous week had allowed London’s defenses to be strengthened, and by blocking the crossing at Gravesend, the Kentish rebels were unable to join those from East Anglia.

I
t was while bartering for a large mullet that Jane learned how close London had come to being overrun by the rebels. After Tom deserted her, she returned a little chastened to the Vandersands, and she was grateful Sophie had never resorted to saying “Did I not warn you?”

She listened as the skinny wife of the fishmonger told her husband the latest news from that wellspring of all wisdom, the Great Conduit in the Chepe, where brewers, cooks, and others
who fetched fresh water for their businesses exchanged gossip and information.

“Who would’ve thought that high and mighty duke of Buckingham would turn traitor,” the woman was saying, prompting Jane to eavesdrop. “Wants to be king I wouldn’t wonder, now that them poor boys are dead and gone.”

“Aw, shut yer mouth, wife,” the fishmonger said. “Who sez them boys are dead? ’Ave you seen the bodies then?” And he laughed. “Aye, mistress, this mullet is a fine one. And ’cos you’re so pretty, I’ll give it to yer for a shilling.”

“I’ll give you two groats and not a penny more,” Jane retorted, and the fishmonger relented and took the silver coins. “What else have you heard, goody,” she asked his wife after safely stowing the fish in her basket.

“That Jack Howard saved London, mistress. Always did like ’im. My sister lives in Stepney and he gives generously in the parish,” the woman confided. “He’s now the duke of Norfolk, did you know?” she said, proud of her knowledge of those far above her.

Jane pretended to be surprised but was wanting more pertinent information. “Is anyone else charged in this rebellion, have you heard?”

The goodwife scratched her armpit, making Jane move a step away. “Well, wot I heard was them rebels want to put somebody called Tidder on the throne. I dunno who that is, but I don’t like his name. ’E beds down in France somewhere. Why should we want a Frenchie on the throne? Can’t abide ’em.”

“I think they mean Henry Tudor, who is the countess of Richmond’s son,” Jane told her. She pulled the woman aside and asked, “Why do you think the princes are dead? Do you know someone in the Tower?”

“Nah,” the fishwife said through her nose. “But ’tis said the king had them murdered.” She leaned forward, her eyes as big as
the mullets in Kate’s basket. “Smothered them, they say, with ’is own ’ands.”

“Nonsense!” Jane could not help snapping, although why she would defend Richard she did not pause to ponder. “The boys were seen playing after the king left on his progress. And he has not been back to London since. It must be he has sent them somewhere safe after that failed attempt to spirit them away from their apartments. Besides, why would the king want to murder his own nephews? They are bastards now and cannot inherit the throne.”

The goodwife looked askance at Jane. “ ’Ere, who are yer then that yer know so much? Come to think of it, where’ve I seen yer afore?”

“Why, I come here to buy fish every week, mistress,” Jane said airily. “I am just a Londoner like you.” And she nodded good-bye and sauntered back into Fish Street Hill.

She wondered if Tom had joined the rebels, although she could not imagine why; she knew he and his mother looked on Henry Tudor as a threat not an ally. As she did not see any signs of Londoners concerned for their safety, she assumed the king was a long way from here dealing with the uprising.

J
ane was correct. The rebellion fizzled when the duke of Buckingham was caught on the wrong side of the River Severn, which was in flood and all its bridges sabotaged by the king’s commanders. Morton escaped first to sanctuary in his own cathedral of Ely and then to Flanders, while poor, duped Harry of Buckingham was discovered hiding in a barn a hundred miles from his disbanded army, disguised as one of his own soldiers. He was taken in chains to Salisbury, where he awaited King Richard’s justice.

In the meantime, Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, his little fleet battered by storms and unable to arrive on English shores and unify the rebels in the Southwest, returned to France, unaware the rebellion he had instigated had already collapsed.

S
ophie stared at the proclamation nailed to the church door of St. Anthony’s in Watling Street on her way home from the Mercery. London had ceased to be worried about an attack by rebels; King Richard’s army had swiftly moved south from Coventry, and Londoners were certain Buckingham’s rebellion, as it was being called, would be quickly put down.

The beginning of the document praised the pardons Richard had given the followers of the rebel leaders when they had first laid down their arms against him. But then the language of this second edict became less about treason and strangely, Sophie noted, about morality:

His grace, in his own person, as is well known, has addressed himself to divers parties of his realm for the equal administration of justice to every person, having confidence and trust that all oppressors and extortioners of his subjects, horrible adulterers and bawds, provoking the high indignation of displeasure of God, should be reconciled and reduced to the way of truth and virtue . . .

Sophie shook her head in disbelief, but then something caught her eye in the next paragraph and she skipped on:

This not withstanding, Thomas, lately marquess of Dorset, who not fearing God nor the peril of his soul, has many and sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defouled, holding the shameless and mischievous woman called Shore’s wife in adultery
^II

“
In Godsnaam!
” Sophie whispered. “Jane!” She peered closely at the cramped script, unsure of her new reading skills.
Ja,
there was her friend’s name, accused of adultery—again. Checking that no one was watching her, she tore the paper from the door, and ran back to the house, where she found Jane playing hide-and-seek with Pieter. Jane’s face was flushed from laughter as, with noisy excitement, Poppy gave away the little boy’s hiding place, and Sophie opined for the hundredth time how tragic it was Jane had not had children of her own.

“Pieter, take Poppy in the garden,
alstublieft
—please, but keep her out of the midden today,” Sophie told her son, who obeyed happily, her tone immediately warning Jane that something was amiss.

“What is it, Sophie?” she asked, glancing at the parchment Sophie was clutching.