Georgette Heyer (42 page)

They were seated in the window-embrasure of the Great Chamber, after one of Harry’s supper parties. Harry’s musicians had been discoursing music to the company, but Henry Scrope had coaxed him to take up his harp, and to sing a song of his own composing. He had just discarded the harp for a gitern, and was regaling the company with quite a different ditty. It was as well that his confessor, who considered him to be too much addicted to music, was not present to hear such unchaste rhymes; his uncle, when a rusty line reached his ears, merely smiled; and the younger members of the party sang the refrain with gusto, and clamoured for more.

John turned his head, to follow the direction of the Bishop’s eyes. Seated on a stool, and hugging his knees, was young Jack Holland, a sturdy stripling, very smart in a new pourpoint, his freckled countenance one large grin, as he watched his fascinating cousin. ‘Between you and me, and God before, Henry,’ John replied ruefully, ‘
I
bade him to supper tonight!’

‘I thought you had more kind-wit,’ said the Bishop. ‘He’s scarcely out of his swaddling-bands!
Why
did you bid him to supper?’

John had bidden his cousin to supper because his Aunt Bess had told him that if he wished to please her he would bring poor little Jack to Harry’s notice. Sir John Cornwall was indurate in refusing to take Jack to Cold Harbour. He said that Jack was too young for Harry’s parties, but that, Bess assured her nephew, was a very unthrifty way to talk, since Jack was fifteen, and well grown for his years. Besides, if no one made a push to help him, what was to become of him? It was plain that Bess, despairing of bullying her brother into restoring Jack to his father’s dignities, had turned her still brilliant eyes towards the rising sun. That was what came of paying mannerly visits to one’s aunts, John realised, particularly on Aunt Bess, who was not a whit less redoubtable than she had been in her tempestuous youth. She had a fiery temper, too: there had been nothing for it but to bid Jack to Cold Harbour, and to cry Harry mercy for having done it. Harry said he cared not a rush whom John bade to his inn, but he would dearly have loved to have seen his large brother put to rout by Aunt Bess. ‘But as for bringing Jack to my notice, I’ve seen him full-oft: he’s been squiring John Cornwall this year past. I don’t know much about him, though. Let him come! If we don’t like him, we can give him the bells and let him fly!’

John knew his astute uncle well enough to be sure that there was no need for him to explain all this. He merely said: ‘Well, I went to visit my aunt, you see.’

The Bishop saw exactly, as his lively eyes betrayed. ‘Bess!’ he uttered, conveying in this scathingly delivered monosyllable his unflattering opinion of his half-sister. He brooded over her for a minute, looking, John thought irreverently, very like a falcon, with his predatory beak of a nose, and his hard, fixed stare. Then he appeared to dismiss Bess and her son from his mind, and turned his face towards John, looking him over critically. ‘Well, John?’ he said. ‘I have not had as many as two words with you alone since you came to town. You spoke very well before the Council, let me tell you! You should be on it, of course! Have you ever regretted that command in the North, which you so greatly desired?’

John considered the question, remembering humiliations, endless, unrewarded toil, mutinous garrisons, the unforgettable grace of a tern’s flight, the swathes of purple heather on the moors, and the sharpness of the wind that swept across them. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Grant me only the means to pay my men, and repair my holds, and I shall be content.’

‘Well,’ said the Bishop, with a gleam of amusement in his eyes, ‘Harry says he will not rest – or let us rest – until you have them, so I expect you will! Harry’s fell energy! He has attended every meeting of the Council that has been held this year – and so many of them have there been that some of our number were driven to protest! He allows us no leisure.’

‘Or himself,’ John said, smiling. ‘I know Harry!’

‘Or himself,’ agreed the Bishop. ‘No force but that he has achieved what no other could, but young cocks love no coops, and he is impatient still, and would turn the world up-so-down, if he could. Green wood! But ripening fast, I promise you.’ He regarded through half-closed eyes a great ring he wore upon his finger, and said: ‘If the King should mishappily be unable to take upon himself again the government of this realm, he will find that in Harry he has a passing excellent successor.’

‘Successor?’

There was a note in John’s voice which the Bishop recog-nised, and dispassionately approved. He was glad to know that he had not been mistaken six years ago when he had perceived in the King’s third son the seeds of mastery. Just like Harry, he thought: thus far, and not an inch farther would he let you go with him. ‘Deputy,’ he amended, with a faint smile.

4

John went back to Northumberland having at last achieved, he felt, something he had set out to win. After much questioning, and much haggling, the Council had promised to Berwick the sum of two thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds for the pay of the garrison. It was not the half of the sum for which he had petitioned, nor could it be sent to him outright, but it was more than he had succeeded in wringing from the Council for many a day. In spite of forced loans, money was woefully scarce; but Henry Scrope was confident that the sum could be raised within a few months by making diligent enquiry throughout the land into the annual incomes of all persons of worship, and of imposing a fine of three pounds on any gentleman possessed of an income of forty pounds a year who refused to take the order of knighthood. This was an ancient practice, invariably adopted in times of financial distress, and always productive of considerable revenue. Anyone who had the right to coat-armour, and who was possessed of lands to the value of a knight’s fee, was technically compelled to take the order; but as the honour carried with it many chargeous obligations the majority of the squirearchy, unambitious to excel in feats of arms, was glad to compound for a relatively small fine.

By November the first substantial instalment of the sum promised him was sent to John in Berwick; and before he travelled south again, to spend Christmas-tide at Kenilworth, he had had word from Harry that the second would be forthcoming early in the New Year.

It had been hoped that the King would have been well enough to have returned to London before the winter, but December found him still in the Midlands, fluctuating in health, sometimes fretting to resume the charge of his affairs, but more often, to the grief of those who loved him, listless, and disinclined to exert himself. His closest friends, visiting him in his seclusion, came away heavy-hearted to see him so unlike himself; and none who had seen the ravages of his disease was surprised when at the last he chose to travel no farther south than to Kenilworth.

It seemed strange to be spending Christmas-tide otherwhere than at Eltham Palace. As he rode into the outer bailey, it occurred to John that he had never revisited Kenilworth since a golden summer, many years past, when Father had returned from his pilgrimage. Dimly he could remember Father playing at handball with Sir Peter Buckton, teaching Harry and Thomas their knightly exercises, playing at chess with Mother. There had been dogs, too: little spaniels, like the one Harry possessed; and masons at work on an enormous hall. The memory of a rose-pink castle, perpetually sun-soaked, came to him, and he raised his eyes to look at the great Norman keep. No, he didn’t remember it. Had it always been that rather ugly red? Perhaps, when the sun shone, the stones took on a softer hue. No building looked its best on a grey winter’s day, after all.

Within the inner bailey he dismounted, and stood for a moment, looking about him. His first feeling was of disappointment to find the castle much smaller than he had remembered. It had seemed to him, as a child, immense; but he now saw that it was considerably smaller than his own castle of Warkworth. The Great Hall was certainly a magnificent erection; but the buildings on the south side of the bailey looked scarcely large enough to contain the family. As for the keep, if that was where the grooms and the valets were to be housed, there would be a great deal of grutching from them. Some of the old, slit windows had been enlarged, and glazed, but there were very few of them, and the grim mass of masonry held out no promise of interior comfort. He began to think that they were all of them going to spend a discomfortable twelve days at Kenilworth, huddled so close together that tempers would be rubbed, and quarrels break out.

But in the end it passed off much better than might have been expected. The King, though he looked very ill, and moved as if even to put one foot before the other cost him an effort, was pathetically glad to have gathered his sons round him again. When he asked them if they remembered living at Kenilworth many years ago, the dreadful change in him was brought home to them, and for a moment none of them could answer him. Then Harry said, in a gentle voice: ‘Verily, sir.’

It made Harry’s gorge rise to look upon his father’s face, disfigured as it was with evil eruptions; and his eyes flinched from the sight of his gloved hand. One of the King’s fingers was missing: rotted away. If his malady was not leprosy, it was hideously akin to that awful scourge; but his physicians still maintained that it was not. The Queen – one could hardly blame her – had made them swear to her on a very holy relic that there was no danger to anyone touching the King.

The Queen was at Kenilworth, not complaining about anything, but unable to forbear the wish that it had pleased the King to be carried to Eltham, or to Westminster, where he would have been very much more comfortable. For herself, it was well known that she could be content to live in a hovel, but it grieved her to be unable to house the princes as befitted their estates. Harry, in particular, should have had the Sainteowe tower, adjoining the Great Hall, and linking this with the King’s Great Chamber, allotted to him; but although she had lain awake all night, trying to think how this might be achieved, it was quite impossible, and she had been obliged to agree to the Groom of the Chambers’ suggestion that dear John should share the tower with him.

As soon as he set foot inside the Sainteowe tower, memory came flooding back to John. He exclaimed: ‘This was our nursery! And there is a great lake outside!’

He strode over to the window, and thrust it open, leaning out. The Mere could be seen beyond the curtain wall, a huge sheet of water, protected, on the eastern side, by a large outwork, known as the Brays. John was delighted to find that memory had not cheated him, but he was obliged to admit that the prospect, on a winter’s day, was not very cheerful. Kenilworth was certainly not a winter palace.

It was a quiet Christmas, but if it was enlivened by few sports and mummings it was also undisturbed by quarrels. The King and his eldest son seemed to be more in accord than they had been for a long time. The Queen said that Harry’s visit was doing her dear lord a great deal of good. It had roused him from his accidie. All the year, he had hardly seemed to care in what case his affairs stood, but now that Harry was here he had begun to take an interest again.

It was quite true. The King had many talks with Harry, not saying much himself, but listening, and interpolating now and then comments or questions which showed his mind to be still shrewd and alert. Harry must have used great lip-wisdom during these sessions, John thought, for the King’s jealousy slept throughout the twelve days. He gave the Queen a little credit for this: there was no doubt that she really did try to smooth Harry’s path, assuring him always that she would use her best endeavours to further his desires. It had hitherto been supposed that Humfrey was her favourite amongst her stepsons, but it now appeared that it was Harry for whom she felt the tenderest affection, and the greatest admiration. In her weak, woman’s way, she said, she had new and new tried to persuade the King to give Harry more of his confidence, believing, as she did, that no one knew better than he just what should be done at every turn.

Harry himself said rather grimly that the happier relations with his father were due to the absence of the Archbishop. ‘That breedbait,’ was what Harry called his grand-uncle Arundel. ‘When he is not at hand to whisper in Father’s ear that I am a rash-head striving to overset him, I can bring Father round my thumb. But he is not as witty as once he was, John. For a little, he can see as clearly as ever he did, but that does not long endure. He forgets, too. I have said the same things three and four times within an hour – and he used to have the keenest remembrance of any I ever knew – even you!’

Harry had talked to the King of the civil war in France, feeling his way cautiously at first, but soon finding that in this his father took a shrewd interest. The King was at one with him in thinking that if England lent support to either of the factions it should be to Burgundy; and in considering the possibilities inherent in English intervention he became so much like his old, energetic self that Harry feared he had excited him too much. He seemed to think that if an expedition set forth for France he would himself lead it: a suggestion that would seriously have alarmed Harry, who had the poorest opinion of his generalship, had it not been so obviously absurd.

Perhaps he had indeed said too much: on the following day, the King kept his bed; and the princes, released from attendance on him, conceived the happy idea of riding to Warwick Castle, and taking Richard Beauchamp by surprise. Off they went, all four of them, with a tail of grooms and squires. The cavalcade clattered into the bailey at Warwick just as my lord and his lady were sitting down to dinner in the Great Hall, but there was never any real hope, as Harry had prophesied, of startling Richard out of his calm. It had been their intention to demean themselves like humble persons, giving up their basilards to the porter at the gate, walking unheralded into the Hall, pulling off their hoods and gloves there, and, after bowing to the company, standing meekly before the screen until it should either please an usher to lead them to table, or Richard should catch sight of them.