Within the Hollow Crown (39 page)

   People lingered about the palace, watching all the going and coming by day, and then looking up at the lighted windows. For what was going on in there concerned them intimately. The King was not only going to get married. He was going to sign a peace treaty. Something to last for years, this time. Well, perhaps it really
would
last now that Gloucester was out of the way. Men lowered their voices when they said "out of the way." The words had a sinister sound and they weren't clear what had really happened to him. He had gone to stay in Calais because of his health, and news had leaked through that he was dead. Nobody knew quite how or when. Some said he had died of fever, others that he had been murdered. Probably by the King's orders. Anyway, it had come at a mighty convenient time.

   Thomas of Gloucester, with his everlasting warmongering, wasn't such a popular figure that he'd be greatly missed. And relaxation from this ever-recurring fear of invasion would be a relief. Young married men would be able to till their fields or go about their business without the nagging feeling that any year they might be called away to war. But it was to be hoped the King in his zeal for peace wouldn't sign away Calais! England without Calais would be like a house without a front door. The very word Calais touched an Englishman's pride.

   Richard himself was mindful of it when it came to leaving Calais for St. Omer. "God knows I'll have finessed and fought for this peace as hard as ever my father fought in battle," he said, while Standish and Tom Holland were putting the finishing touches to his grandeur before meeting King Charles.

   Young Holland was Duke of Kent now and went with him everywhere. "Do you remember, sir, how implacable Gloucester was when we came before? Even when the French lords loaded him with gifts?" he asked, kneeling to fasten the Garter above his uncle's knee. "And how you had to bribe him to take himself and his ill manners home again before he started another war?"

   "It cost me as much as a dozen of the dinners he was always grumbling about," laughed Richard reminiscently. He could afford to laugh now.

   "Well, thank God, he won't be here to spike everything this time!" said Standish, arranging the ermine cloak.

   Richard said nothing. A fortnight after Mowbray had sailed from Bodiam, Dalyngrigge had brought back news that Gloucester was dead. The two other uncles had gone into mourning, and he fancied that they had looked askance at him. And if, during the long conscience-ridden nights, he often wished the deed undone, he had persuaded himself that it was part of the price he must pay for peace.

   On the whole he was in better spirits. His life's policy was about to be crowned with success. Simon Burley and Michael de la Pole seemed very close to him as he rode forth to St. Omer. The whole journey seemed propitious. He got on well with Frenchmen, speaking their language and often thinking their thoughts; and he always had had much in common with his future father-in-law, who wasn't much older than himself. Each of them had managed to throw off the yoke of avuncular control. Each of them had made his Court a cultural centre. They had books and architecture and the chase to talk about, and neither of them had really wanted war. True, the French Queen hinted that poor Charles was as mad as a maypole at times. "And perhaps we even have that in common, too!" thought Richard, remembering the grief-crazed hours in which he envisaged an eternity spent apart from Anne.

   There was all the usual ceremonial feasting and display, but within the golden tent prepared for them, he and Charles and Lancaster, with the powerful Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, managed to talk some sound sense as well. With the same good will on both sides which Richard seemed able to inspire whenever he set foot in Ireland, they came to an agreement whereby the English retained Calais and he promised to renounce all claim through his wife to the French throne. A light enough promise, in reality, seeing that Charles had three sons, but one which he felt sure his ambitious cousin Bolingbroke would bring up against him.

   As soon as all these solemn conclaves were ended and the documents signed, the two kings and their retinues had dined in a still larger tent, strewn with priceless rugs and warmed by glowing braziers. And towards the conclusion of the feast, Richard's little bride had been brought in—rather as if she were a sort of postscript to the wines and spices.

   And a very charming postscript she was, with her mother's beauty shorn of malevolence, and her father's friendliness tempered by shyness. The English ladies were delighted with her, and the French ladies responsible for her deportment need have known no qualms.

   Richard had a happy way with children. "How will you like being Queen of England?" he asked, when Charles had formally given her to him.

   "If it please my lord and father, I shall like it very much," she had answered with quaint solemnity. "For, being your queen, I shall be a very great lady."

   Everyone had smiled indulgently, but interest in her had soon given place to their still more burning interest in her dowry. After the napery was drawn and the servants had retired, Medford and the French clerks brought out long, legal-looking parchments, and tongues blurred a little by good wine grew sharp as swords on the question of finance. Medford was an important person these days, as Richard had rewarded his able loyalty by making him Bishop of Salisbury. As the dull discussion dragged on, Richard was aware of a small hand creeping into his. The same hand that he had kissed so formally a while ago. Only now it felt a little limp and moist. He squeezed it encouragingly and, although he had to watch his own interests with these shrewd French lawyers, he found time to look down at the stiffly dressed small figure at his side and caught her stifling a yawn. Poor little Isabel! He remembered so well how it felt to sit through tedious ceremonies when one was small. And this was Isabel of Valois' first sally from the schoolroom!

   Somehow the feel of that little hand in his had been a warmth at his heart for hours afterwards. Something helpless to be cared for—an appeal to his essential kindness. Something to crack the ice forming so hopelessly about his whole nature.

   And later in the day, when state affairs had given place to pleasure, another small incident seemed of good omen. Richard was listening appreciatively to the King's minstrels when he noticed a look of anxiety on Charles's face. Following the direction of his gaze, he saw his little princess and the Duke of Orleans' small son playing quietly with Mathe. Tired of her official role, Isabel had been decking the hound with a rose garland from the table. She had climbed on to a stool and the small boy, who was evidently her adoring slave, was holding Mathe's collar and pretending to be her groom. While the ladies in charge of her were momentarily distracted by the music, she had gathered the ends of the garland as reins and was trying to mount the tall hound as though he were a horse.

   It was an ordinary child's game but Mathe was getting old. His temper was uncertain these days and he wasn't used to children. Charles of Valois half rose, and called something to his squires. Isabel was the apple of his eye. But Richard Plantagenet was quicker than any of them. Like a whirlwind of crimson and gold he had crossed the richly covered floor, swept past the astonished ladies and picked up his promised bride.

   He found her light as thistledown, surprised and not a little indignant. "But I want to ride him and he likes me!" she protested.

   "I was only afraid that he might bite you, little one," explained Richard. "Usually, he does things only for me."

   He set her gently on the coveted steed, whispering something to Mathe as he did so. Proudly and carefully, the sagacious old deerhound bore his precious burden across the tent to her father's throne, with Richard walking on one side and the small Orleans boy on the other. French and English were delighted at the impromptu pageant. And when Richard lifted Isabel down she ran and kissed Mathe's forehead while he nuzzled against her fearless hand. "What tricks does he do for you, my lord?" she wanted to know, between shrieks of delicious childish laughter.

   Richard snapped his fingers and the handsome creature rose on his hind legs to place a paw on each of his shoulders, regardless of cloth of gold and ermine.

   Both children watched with shining eyes. "One day will he do that for Isabel, sir? When she is Queen of England?" inquired little Charles of Orleans.

   "I hope not, or he will certainly knock her over!" laughed Richard, envying the Duke so delightful a son.

   The spontaneous interlude had broken up formality, and when it came time for parting the two children kissed with tears. Richard tactfully withdrew to discuss some minor point with Lancaster while Isabel made her adieux to her parents, and for her sake they were cut as short as possible.

   "You will see them again," Richard comforted her, when the horses were ready.

   "I know I can trust her to you, my son," said Charles.

   "My own cousin, Philippa de Courcy, will look after her at Windsor," promised Richard. "And my own old nurse, when she comes back from Bordeaux."

   So they rode briskly back to Calais. Isabel had been up betimes to be dressed and the next day would be her wedding day. When they lifted her from her litter she was fast asleep.

   Richard went to his own room in the Citadelle. The room in which Gloucester had died. He knew that people were watching to see if he would avoid doing so, and that they would judge his conscience accordingly. When his body squires had divested him of the cloth of gold and all the royal insignia he stood looking at the bed. Especially he noticed the high down pillows in cases of fine linen, each embroidered with a chained, crowned hart. The very pillows, probably, with which Mowbray had had Gloucester smothered. Not unnaturally, he decided to sit by the fire for a while. And also he bethought him of a piece of pearled braid that didn't set properly on his wedding tunic. Jacot had better come and see to it, against the morrow.

   Weary as he looked, Jacot came obediently. "Only he and the King could possibly find a fault in the cut of that white velvet!" the squires exclaimed, once they were outside the door.

   "Well, what did you find out?" asked Richard, as soon as he and

his tailor were alone.

   "It is true, what milord of Norfolk told your Grace," corroborated Jacot, beginning to refold the faultless garment. "Mundina left Calais at the end of the week."

   "Which way did she go?"

   "By what they tell me, I think she took the road home."

   Jacot was still bending over the hymeneal velvet and his voice dragged uncertainly. He had always feared Mundina more than he had loved her. And he wasn't at all certain what Mundina would want him to say.

   "You gathered nothing more about—my uncle?"

   "No, sir. Some say that he was smothered, some that he was poisoned, and others that he died in his sleep."

   The King sighed. "You sound tired, Jacot," he said. "All this spate of wedding garments must have been a strain on you. You'd better go to bed, and start for Bordeaux in the morning."

   He had no idea that Jacot knew the journey to be useless, and had no desire to go.

Strengthened by a French alliance, and with a Council of eighteen supporters overriding Parliament, Richard became more and more absolute. Isabel's dowry and the subsidy on wool which he had wrung from the Commons went far towards resolving his ever pressing financial problems. And before the year was out a private quarrel had delivered Bolingbroke and Mowbray into his hands.

   But their quarrel, blowing up so suddenly, had shown what dangerous rifts lay unsuspected beneath the smooth surface of his autocracy. It should have taught him that men do not dare to tell things to a despot and that because his ear was less accessible he was losing touch with the pulse of his people. Losing that gift of imaginative insight by which he had ruled so instinctively and so brilliantly. But he did not want to look back to any element of that other life, nor realize, while there was yet time, the unreal security in which he lived. By a series of monstrous blows, all those whom he had loved so devotedly had been taken from him. Ill-beset indeed he was. Even Mundina, who had first said it, seemed to have walked out of his life. And nothing seemed left but the making of a new, cold world of his own, building further and further away from warm reality.

   At times his mind was still informed by Anne. But his sense of humour was drying up within him, and without that to keep him sane he was beginning to believe that because he was a murderer— no matter what the provocation, no matter how often other men killed—God would not let him find her again. And that being so, his restless mentality impelled him to fill his days with some sort of effort, of which the ethics scarcely mattered.

   Bolingbroke and Mowbray had each accused the other of treason. Searching for some cause, Richard saw ambition on the one side and fear on the other. It touched his pride that two of his contemporary associates should be wrangling in public about an alleged plot to take his life. At first he joined with Lancaster in trying to reconcile them and hush the matter up. But the quarrel was too savage, the honour and safety of each too deeply involved. Bolingbroke had even accused Mowbray of embezzling money granted for the upkeep of Calais. Finally, they had thrown down their gauntlets at each other's feet. By all the laws of chivalry there was but one inexorable solution: single combat to the death.

   So Richard found himself sitting in the royal pavilion overlooking the lists at Coventry. The proud old Midland city had been chosen for convenience' sake, because one protagonist had estates in the north and the other in the east, and every man who called himself a sportsman wanted to see England's two foremost champions fight. They came flocking from every county, but few of them brought their wives. Since the combat was
a l'outrance, th
e culmination would scarcely be a pretty sight for women.