Within the Hollow Crown (24 page)

   Part of Richard's brain assimilated the unwelcome information; but he scarcely appeared to be listening. "Mowbray said that," he repeated, "and you didn't k-kill him?"

   "But Richard, what does it really matter—since it isn't true?"

   "You mean you don't—mind?"

   De Vere was hanging on desperately to the shreds of a fast fraying temper. "Of course I mind. But what can I
do?
Nothing would have pleased them better than for me to have challenged Tom and blared abroad their horrid whispering campaign. And anyhow, I can't tear the thought out of men's minds, can I?"

   It was true enough—once those arch-fiends had planted it in fertile soil.

   "No," agreed Richard, relaxing slowly into normal movement. "But I can see that it withers, stillborn. I can make you Duke of Ireland."

   "Duke of Ireland!" Such an idea had never occurred to de Vere, who enjoyed most of the privileges that fall to the proverbial "king's favourite." He wasn't even related to the royal family and was sane enough to visualize the outcry that would ensue. "But I thought that you were keeping the title for your late uncle's son—Edward of March—because he's heir presumptive?"

   "By the time he's grown up Anne and I may have children. And I don't mean just take the title, but
go
there."

   It was de Vere's turn to be appalled. "By the Holy Rood, Richard, you don't mean me to go and live there among a lot of illiterate, half-savage chieftains? What do you suppose I should do in that God-forsaken, bog-ridden place?"

   "Rule it, I suppose," said Richard coldly. In that moment he almost hated any man whose name had been so coupled with his own. "At least it will show Arundel's dupes that we are
not
inseparable."

   De Vere saw that he was in deadly earnest. "I am honoured, sir," he said formally. "But I wish to God I hadn't told you!"

   "And I am unspeakably grateful that you did."

   "Grateful?" He glanced at Richard's ashen face. "But you are suffering hideously."

   "It is better to suffer and be warned," said Richard quietly.

   "Warned of what? The thing is done."

   "But done for a purpose." Richard seemed to have got a hold on himself and, seeing his friend's perplexity, he tried to speak with some sort of patience and dignity. "You don't understand, Robert. This isn't just one of their malevolent little thrusts at my happiness. Nor merely another insult to humiliate me. It's part of a deliberate plan. A plan to keep me in subjection. To keep the power in their own hands after my majority. To prostitute my abilities. They're hideously afraid sometimes because they know— and Burley and Michael know—that, once given the chance, I am capable of ruling this country a great deal better than they do. You don't believe me, perhaps? Well, all I can say is, you haven't had to bear with Arundel's veiled hints about the second Edward being dethroned. Or listen to Gloucester describing exactly how brutally he was murdered—"

   "Richard! They wouldn't dare—"

   But Richard was staring past his friend's protestations at the stately outline of Westminster Hall, seeing only an intangible world of intrigue where there was no pity at all. "This calumny is but the first step to what they want to do. I see it now. I'm not unprepossessing enough—I haven't done anything unconstitutional enough—With a popular bride beside me I'm not
hated
enough…So they thought of
this—and
cast you for the part of Piers Gaveston…"

   De Vere was staggered. Realizing that he could touch only the fringe of that troubled, inner world his most intimate friend must live in, all worldly wisdom was momentarily knocked out of him. "And I've treated you as if—as if I knew so much more than you," he said awkwardly, coming to lay a hand on Richard's shoulder. Anything, he thought, to pull him out of that wrapped, bleak mood.

   Richard laughed harshly, but he withdrew his inwardly focused gaze and smiled at him. "I told you long ago that it was a fool's game, giving me your friendship," he reminded him. "Have you forgotten Mundy's queer expression? How she always spoke of me as being 'ill beset?'"

   Robert walked soberly to the seat to retrieve his lute. Something in the cheerful look of it, with its streamers of coloured ribbons and its companionable gaiety, drove home to his mind the incredible role Richard had thrust upon him. Banishment, that is what it would be. Glorified banishment, to kill a rumour. Because of some rather far-fetched suspicion that his crown and life might be in danger. Plots and suspicions lurked everywhere with so young a king. But why should his own pleasant way of living be sacrificed, while Richard stayed here with all the delights of love and culture about him? Chivalry demanded that one serve the King. Give one's life for him, if need be. . And this would be only
living
it for a time in intolerable circumstances. But Robert de Vere wasn't quite big enough. He swung round to clutch at his departing companion's trailing over-sleeve. "I couldn't carry Agnes off to Ireland. It would start a Bohemian war or something. For God's sake, Richard, need this spoil our lives?"

   But he had come up against that streak of firmness, or obstinacy. Richard looked at him for a moment in genuine surprise. "Your private life is your own, for men to say of it what you let them," he answered, turning on his heel towards the palace. "But mine is not. It belongs to England. And what men say of me will be remembered."

Dusk was wrapping itself round the Queen's favourite palace at Sheen. It blurred solid towers to a grey, ethereal outline and began to extinguish the bright hues of stocks and larkspur in the gardens. The withdrawn river, shrunk to a flat sluggish ribbon between the wide mud flats of low tide, flowed silently in its narrow bed. Stiff reeds, fringing the ooze, had ceased their brittle lisping, and along the banks below the terraced garden the dripping fingers of sad willows shrouded the embrace of summer lovers.

   All Nature's perpetual whispering seemed to have transferred itself into the palace, where officials held anxious consultations and bewildered servants huddled here and there awaiting orders. Something had happened which was completely beyond the range of their accustomed duty. For a whole day the King had been in residence. Yet no meats had been borne into the great hall and no minstrels made music in the gallery. No one had called for hawks to be unhooded or hounds unleashed. No torches flamed through the state apartments. Only a couple of candles burned in the window of the King's bedroom, palely visible from the barge-walk below.

   Yet men-at-arms in the guardroom swore to having seen him ride in with the dawn, a startled groom had taken his horse and the Constable had been summoned frantically from his bed.

   The strangest thing of all was that the King had come alone. They were so accustomed to seeing him surrounded by sportive nobles and laughing ladies. But there was not so much as a squire in attendance, nor even the great grey wolfhound that was his devoted shadow.

   The King had not even eaten.

   He was standing now between the candles, staring out at the depressing mud. He himself was stained with mud. Stale, hard mud that had splashed up from dirty lanes to stick upon cheek and hose and tunic. Just as that uglier, more tenacious mud which had been thrown at him might stick upon his reputation.

   He turned a page or two of a psalter on the book desk beside him, trying to take in the soothing sense of words penned in some peaceful monastery. But his mind was too busy piecing together the events of the last twenty-four hours. He glanced round the room in search of some starting point. The great state bed behind him was still tumbled where he had thrown himself across it in the early hours. He must have bolted the servants out, he supposed, and slept. Slept until late afternoon. But then, he had been riding all night. He couldn't remember where except that he must have pounded past the gibbet on Hounslow Heath, lost himself in the darkness of woods and followed the familiar track through the deer park. Anywhere, to get away from Westminster and to find himself eventually in the healing quiet of Sheen. He had had to exhaust himself physically before he could burn out the fires of hatred that possessed him.

   He remembered leaving Westminster. He had given de Vere and the rest of them the slip. Someone had brought his horse. His new roan, Barbary, who had carried him so tirelessly in Scotland. People had looked at him queerly as he mounted. And then Ralph Standish had brought his cloak and been importunate about coming with him. And in his irritation he had struck at Ralph. At Ralph, who was one of the best swordsmen in the country, and who couldn't hit back!

   Richard hated himself very thoroughly. His sweaty, unwashed body and his rage-dishevelled soul. A wave of affection for his squire swept over him, engulfing him until it grew big enough to include all his household. At least his clerks and servants loved him. Only last week, passing through the kitchen courtyard, he had seen a scullion stoop furtively to kiss his shadow as it fell across the flagstones. Probably it was the aftermath of some forgotten kindness. But the boy had looked such a clod in contrast to the unconscious beauty of the gesture that all the facile sympathy in Richard had stung momentary tears to his eyes. And now the devotion of even the meanest scullion looked precious against the treasonable cruelty of greater men. All that was quick and generous in Richard wanted to champion them, to reward them with something better than blows. And, as if in judgment on him, before the night was out he had needed that proffered cloak. It had come on to rain, he remembered, passing exploring hands over the creases in his sodden summer tunic.

   Sudden anxiety seized him for Barbary. He had pushed the poor brute hard. He recalled the feel of her steaming flanks as he had slid stiffly from the saddle. He crossed the room to pull back the bolt, and a couple of wide-eyed servants almost tumbled into the room. They expected the King to call for comforts for himself. But all his concern was for the roan. Had she been properly rubbed down? Where was she bedded? Had the head groom remembered to give her a hot mash?

   Quick on their heels came the perplexed Constable. He was horrified at the mudstains. It was unthinkable that there should be no gentlemen-of-the-bedchamber. He would have a bath prepared with scented herbs. The cooks were preparing a meal and the tables laid in the hall. The King's grace must be famished. He had had nothing—nothing at all when he arrived—except some wine to quench his thirst.

   That had been just the trouble, thought Richard, suddenly remembering a good deal more about his thirst and his arrival. Too much Bordeaux on an empty stomach. Robert's wager and Gloucester's taunts all mixed up in his mind, and an overpowering desire to forget everything. "I gave you a message last night—or was it this morning—for my ward the Lady Lizbeth de Wardeaux," he recalled tentatively.

   The man bowed in confirmation.

   "Telling her''—Richard passed a hand through his matted hair, trying to remember exactly what he
had
told her—"telling her that I lie at Sheen and wish to arrange about her marriage."

   "Yes, sir."

   Well, that should certainly be good enough for anyone as amorous and as enterprising as Lizbeth. Richard made no doubt she would come before nightfall. He even smiled a little, picturing her eagerness. "I hope you entrusted the message to someone— circumspect?" he said.

   "I sent my own son, sir, thinking perhaps—"

   Not being a practised philanderer Richard looked up sharply to see what the Constable
was
thinking. But the old man had been in the Plantagenets' service for a long time and took it for granted that Kings could send for any ladies they fancied. All that appeared to worry him was lack of sleep.

   Richard's preoccupation broke into an indulgent smile, remembering that the man had been badly wounded at Crécy. "Go to bed, Gervase," he ordered, with his own happy blend of authority and badinage. "I shan't want you any more to-night. How should I, when I'm expecting a lady? And tell the cooks they can go to bed too and I'll taste their patisserie tomorrow. I'll have a chicken or something sent up here—and a flagon of that twelve sixty-eight vintage you've got hidden away in the cellars. I don't want any fuss. Only for God's sake have them bring me a bath and a clean suit of your son's."

   But Richard got neither suit nor bath. Before the servants could bring either there was a stir outside the door. It appeared that the lady had already come. The departing Constable spent a long time bowing and scraping to her in the doorway, but, rather surprisingly, made no attempt to detain her. Richard had certainly intimated that she might be admitted without any fuss, but to walk into his bedroom unannounced…Even for Lizbeth this was a piece of unwarrantable impudence. Antagonism rose in him. Doorway and arras were in shadow so that all he could make out was a girl's slim hooded figure. She had him at a disadvantage with his unbuttoned tunic and dishevelled appearance illuminated by the two tall candles. And showing unusual diffidence, she must needs linger just inside the room.

   "Come in, if you're coming!" he called, standing very still and erect as he always did when he felt his dignity was being infringed.

   The girl obeyed him immediately and he let out a startled, hastily stifled oath.

   It was not Lizbeth, but Anne.

   And even in his amazement and through swift dissembling thoughts he was conscious of a great sense of relief. He knew that he had only wanted Lizbeth as a kind of antidote.

   For a crazy moment he supposed that Anne might somehow have heard about his message and come to upbraid him. But her look of strained anxiety changed to relief at sight of him. "We have all been so worried about you," she explained. "When you didn't come to supper—and then when night fell. I had the gardens searched because that de Wardeaux girl said she had last seen you there. I even began to think perhaps there really
was
some plot of Lancaster's—or that John Holland had come back for revenge—"