Crown in Candlelight (60 page)

‘I was so sad about poor Jacqueline,’ said Margaret of Clarence. ‘I have Masses said for her monthly. I blame my Lady Cobham for that!’

… it was more like giving birth.

‘Jacqueline’s dead?’ Katherine said. Jacqueline dead. Lovely, silly princess, wounded to the heart. Betrayed, abandoned. Dead. And she was about my age. Jacqueline dead. The pain rose in celebration. Worse, heavy. Spreading back and front and down to …
my son’s soft gateway … the flowers at the hillfoot, I feel the dew upon them, the little streams that flow among them … Sainte Vierge!
close the gates!

‘But none dare cross or blame my Lady Cobham, she has such power.’ Margaret’s voice was a long way away. Katherine took a step forward, away from the King’s chantry, into the main aisle of the chapel. The exit was blocked by a press of knights and councillors. The monks of Westminster chanted on. The pain pressed downwards, urgent, demanding.

‘Katherine,’ the Duchess said. ‘You look … Stay, I’ll fetch your women.’

She tried to call Margaret back, but she was gone. The knot of men parted to let her through. Katherine took another unsteady step. She stopped abruptly, swinging round so that none should see her twisted face. There was a sticky warmth between her thighs, then a crystal rush that soaked petticoat and kirtle and stockings … the snow melting on the mountain top … now the mountain gives forth its cataract … a clear stain that seeped through the skirt of the new gown. She took another step. Blood spotted the floor. She leaned and grasped a carved bird’s head on the capital of a pillar. She thought: I can see the stonework through my own bones and flesh: Her legs were folding under her. She closed her eyes. She could see Owen’s tear-wet, starlit face, white with longing—he pushed her down beneath him on the gallery. It is my birthday. I can do as I please on my birthday. But I am chaste. The child is coming … She heard one of the knights approaching from the doorway, heard and felt the swish of his robes and the sound of his mailed shoes on the stone. She thought, logical in agony: he has just returned from war. Better late than never. She stretched out her hand to him and said:

‘Sir, I am taken ill.
M’aidez, je vous en prie
…’

He put his arm about her. She threw back her head with a tortured gasp, and opened her eyes. She saw a scarlet mantle, an eyebrow scarred from a savage blow, and on the face the ultimate flush of requital. From within her arose a whisper, a dreadful, conquering echo:

‘
Do not touch me! I am made of glass!
’

But Humphrey of Gloucester held her fast. She felt herself yield, become crystalline, and shatter.

The young man pulled at the bell and shivered, stamping his feet. The bell-rope was stiff with ice and little cascades of snow, disturbed by the vibration, drifted on to his shoulders. More snow lay thickly on streets and sloping roofs, towers and crenellations, giving a weird unwavering light to the darkening evening. Blowing on his fingers, he tugged at the bell again. The square spy-hole shot back and a red face frilled by a beard surveyed him through bars. Keys clanked and creaked. He was admitted, into the wall of London itself, where in the gatehouse torches and a brazier lit up the gloom. The bearded man was tall and beer-bellied. He held out his hand.

‘Your letters of appointment?’

These he read, holding them under the torchlight while with the other hand he adjusted the great ring of keys at his belt. The young man waited. He had never considered himself prone to fancies, but around him was four hundred years of pain and despair. His mind sniffed it out like a nervous hound. This was the start of what he had been assured was a career with boundless prospects. He was here through an uncle’s connections with constables and justices too mighty to be named. The big man handed the documents back.

‘Welcome to Newgate,’ he said.

There was a cask of ale on the bench beside the brazier, and two pewter mugs. The big man poured, and thrust a mug into the young man’s frigid hand.

‘Cold out,’ he said. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘I’m sorry’ the young man answered. ‘I had to wait for the boat from Southwark. They’re having to break the ice on the river.’ He swallowed gratefully and moved nearer the fire.

‘Yes. Warm yourself,’ said the turnkey. ‘Then I’ll show you my little kingdom. Yours, when I’m not here. You’re not very old, are you? Are your wits in good order? By Jesus, you’ll need them. Some of these devils … three jumps ahead before you can say kiss-your-arse. They’ll offer their souls to be loose. Tricks you wouldn’t believe.’

‘Am I to be alone here then, when you’re off duty?’ The young man’s voice was uneasy. The turnkey roared with laughter.

‘No, lad. We’ve a good, small crew, but they can’t be all places at once. Likely they’ll look to you for judgement. It’s Searching Time now, or near enough. So come; see the menagerie!’

He unlocked the inner door of the gatehouse. The noise and stench that had been sealed off by the oak now rocked the young man back on his heels. It was a huge communal chamber. The stone floor was scattered with straw so filthy that in places it was mere slime. Roaches ran about. The walls wept damp. In every corner and alcove fungi flourished in grotesque shapes. On the ledge of a bricked-up window a big toad sat like a bloated doom. A few torches lit the chamber. In it were about fifty people, several of whom rushed towards the turnkey as soon as he appeared, all babbling at once; a fat threadbare man demanding lawyers, a blonde whore in a ragged striped gown, screeching unintelligibly and clawing at the turnkey’s sleeve. Smartly he drew a little cudgel and laid about him. The supplicants fell back, except for the woman, who crept close to the young man with a pallid desperate smile.

‘Now, Alison,’ reproved the turnkey. She turned and went away, to sit cross-legged in one of the cleaner corners. These were few. A channel clogged with human waste and urine ran alongside one wall to a vent in its base, and there rats congregated, nosing, skittering apart as a jailer threw a bucket of water at the course of the drain. A rat dashed over the young man’s feet and he jumped, awed by its weight and size. The inmates had quietened somewhat after the first excitement. Two youths were casting dice. An old man prayed and groaned. Two more whores were examining their legs for flea-bites. But in a tumbled heap of straw someone lay recently dead, and the rats were busy there. Filthy, naked children wept against a woman’s skirt. Lying with their heads almost in the drain, a man and a girl copulated frantically, as if liberty hung upon the act.

The turnkey yelled to the jailer with the bucket. ‘I see the old Jew’s dead. Move him out.’

He steered the young man through an archway and unlocked another door. They were in a torchlit stone passage lined with cells.

‘So. Welcome to Newgate,’ he said. ‘This is where all the little felons end. The big ones go to the Tower of London, but you knew that, didn’t you? That pack are mostly debtors, thieves, whores, paupers, vagrants. These, here, are no better. But you have to watch them. For divers reasons, they’re dangerous.’

Each cell had bars halfway down its door, and was illuminated by the torches in the passage. A youth rose from his plank bed and smiled amiably.

‘Sawyer. Apprentice carpenter. Murdered his master. Stand back.’ He unlocked the door and entered to make a cursory search, turning the straw with his foot and feeling the youth for weapons. Sawyer smiled, mild as milk.

In the next cell a man was down on all fours, devouring his bedding.

‘Watkin,’ said the turnkey. ‘He’s been here so long even I can’t remember why. He went mad last month. Thinks he’s a horse.’

He laughed, slapping his barrel belly.

They moved on. The search became more and more perfunctory. A man and wife sat playing cards and greeted them with gracious nods. Their cell was better furnished than most.

‘Fray, and Mistress Fray’ said the big man, but did not elaborate on their crime. In the next cell a man with a purple growth on his head was yelling and beating the bars. The turnkey roared back and dealt the door a blow.

‘Houghton. Another murderer. Another madman. Swears he’s innocent. Listen. Never argue with them. No one goes out and no one goes in, unless under the Constable’s seal. And no letters. Some of these have money. They’ll offer the world. It’s not worth it.’ They had reached the last cell in the passage. The new recruit looked in.

A tall slender man with thick grey hair was standing motionless, his back against the wall. A small dark youth sat at a table, his elbows among the remains of a meal. He was staring with utter misery at the other man.

‘Meredyth,’ said the turnkey ‘And by Christ’s crown,—if you thought those back there were mad … hey, Meredyth! what message for the King today?’

The man came forward to the bars. There was something in his eyes more frightening than anything the new recruit had yet seen in Newgate.

‘What is your name?’ the man said softly.

‘Nickson,’ he stammered impulsively ‘Nick Nickson.’ ‘Nick,’ said the quiet voice. ‘Have you news for me of the Queen-Dowager?’

He could not look away from the eyes. Their blue and gold, their pain, appalled him, sucked him in. He opened his mouth. He was suddenly almost lifted off his feet by the turnkey’s arm and indignantly hustled away back along the line of cells.

‘I told you he was mad! I’ve had my bellyful of him for the past twelve months. It happens all the time. Some claim blood-kinship with the King. Some think they
are
the King! With him, it’s mostly the King’s mother!’

‘Queen Katherine? But …’

‘Jesus!’ said the turnkey in fury. ‘I told you. Don’t argue with them! Don’t get embroiled! Say nothing about anything! He is nobody. Neither of birth nor fortune, though he’s enough money to pay for his victuals and his servant’s … he writes quite a few letters. He’ll ask you to take them out. It’s your living gone if you do.’

‘Would he hurt me?’

‘I don’t know. His servant might. All the Welsh are mad. When he first came in, he was like that one’ (they were nearing the cell of the banging, raving man). ‘But that’s a year ago. I remember he had a safe-conduct in his pocket; there was some question of whether his arrest was lawful. But the Duke of Gloucester, no less, asked for and was granted a declaration under the Great Seal. Strange, Meredyth should have been sent to the Tower. So much more comfortable … but then, he’s nobody!’

‘What’s his crime?’

‘Inciting a rebellion in Wales. And yet … I sometimes wonder. He was quite alone, save for that boy. His hair was gold, then.’ He laughed. ‘Grey now. Did you see? It’s the air here that does it.’ (Knowledgeable as an alchemist.) ‘The foul air. The lack of light.’

‘When does he come to trial?’

‘When does anyone? He talks of seeking security in Chancery to appear in person before the King’s Council. He has grand ideas. Listen—’ he took Nickson by the shoulders—‘I saw your face. Don’t let him soften you up. He’s cunning. Or we’ll have my lord of Gloucester to answer to, let alone the Constable. No confidences. There’s a good fellow. If you must talk to him, get him to tell you about the war.’

‘I wonder what he thinks about, standing there?’ said Nick Nickson.

Annwyl Crist!
Sweet loving Jesus! this new little warder could never conceive my thoughts! He’s young, I thought, he’s malleable, I looked in his eyes and I nearly had him. News. Ah, sweet Christ give me news of her. I think as little as possible, or I should be truly mad. I must not go mad. When they brought me in, so long ago, I broke two of my fingers against the wall. It took four of them to bring me along that passage. My fingers; my right hand. So farewell to the harp. The least of my cares. Huw is a comfort. We speak Welsh all the time. It drives the jailers wild. The blood dried dark on the wall, it’s there even after all this time, there’s where I hit my head. Huw stopped me. Huw should not be here at all. But he loves me. Who knows better than I what love can do?

How clever of Gloucester to have me committed to this common jail under the name of my father, Meredyth. A ticklish business for him altogether. Curse him, rape him with white-hot irons, like Mortimer had done to the English king.

Oh, my Cathryn.

The dreams come. I hold on tight and let them in. It’s vital I remember every detail of the worst day of my life. I thought I had had bad days before. When every Englishman’s hand seemed against me, through my race and my pride and the preferments I received through my art. Battle, siege, the terrible time when her mourning had taken even her essence from me. No. I’ve had no bad days. Until I returned, riding. light, hot of heart, with Huw and the priest whom I had bought of all places in Warwick. The priest was the thinnest man I have ever seen; a skeleton.

The Southampton monk told me of him. This costly, cunning priest, whose trade it is to perform marriages with no questions asked. I rode to Warwick and added three weeks to my errand. It was the longest time she and I had ever been apart. Think of something else. Quickly.

The bad day. I start over and over, from the moment we left the tavern where the three of us had indulged in premature celebration. The thin priest could drink both Huw and me under the bench. Hertford; through the park and gates and into the bailey. Chaos and nightmare. The horde of servants, that funny loyal little crew who love us so much—running to meet me, world fragmented. The old steward in tears. Guillemot flinging herself into my arms. I couldn’t stop her weeping. And the bailiffs, moving about the courtyard and in and out of the manor, taking inventory.

When I was young I used to drink the snow from the lower slopes of Eglwyseg Mountain just for the pleasure of shivering. As I looked over Guillemot’s head at the open doorway, looked for
fy merch fach
, my little girl, my Cathryn, saw no Cathryn, the shivering deepened on me, colder than that snow. Then I looked for Jasper and Edmund who always came to meet me. The shivering grew. I picked Guillemot up and carried her in. I sat her on my lap and gave her wine: Day after day, month after month, I try to recall her exact words. I can’t. I’m so lost. I’m so wounded.