We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (29 page)

‘Of being wed to Gloucester,’ I said.

‘All must marry,’ said the devil sensibly.

‘She has been married,’ I said. ‘A wretched, treacherous marriage—to the Lancastrian. She has been bludgeoned with bad tidings. Alone, bereft of husband, father, mother, attainted, disgraced. A pawn,’ I said, and nearly choked. ‘A movable.’

‘Why a pawn?’ he asked with interest. ‘Pawns are not flesh and blood—they are ivory. Inanimate. Devoid of feeling.’

And I said, ‘But she has feeling; I saw her tears, looked in her eyes. She should be cosseted, not hunted down for her fortune. If she must marry, let it be to a loving husband who cares not a jot for her livelode!’

The devil squinted at me and his horns moved a trifle. ‘You speak as if you have designs,’ he murmured. ‘Were she not the Lady Anne—but I forget, you love another...’

At this I was so incensed that I struck at him with the cane I carried, and he flew up to the roof in a fury, shrieking: ‘Tell him! Tell him! Tell him!’

I saw one of the pages turn green and cross himself and walk right speedily past me down the corridor, and I realized I had better put my affairs in order before they brought in a priest.

The weather snapped into coldness. Every morning mist lingered on the Thames until dinner, and drew down sharply at dusk. We were nearly in October and the birds were taking their leave for the other edge of the world. And as the birds departed, men and women began to thread back into the city. We had watched them go in late spring, with staff and pouch, heavy with sin. Under the hot suns of Galicia they had offered a waxen leg to St James for their deliverance, and now they came from
La-Dame-sous-Terre
and from Rome, dusty yet cleansed, and lighter of purse. Trailing the severed links of their fetters they came, bearing back all that had been healed by the sight of those sacred relics: their sick hawks, their limbs, their souls. They came with a wool-thread from the chasuble of a saint; a spoonful of dust lifted from the grounds of a shrine. The shell of Compostella adorned their hat brims. They came from abroad, and from Canterbury, where a thousand candles reflected the glory of Henry Plantagenet’s penitence. I had made that journey once, to see, in its canopy of beaten gold, the Regal of France, finest ruby in the realm. So they came: they had journeyed leagues and returned satisfied. Yet the Duke of Gloucester tramped London town, and came back empty.

I withdrew from the wager with John and Robert. They were surprised yet pleased with my new-found sense of propriety. Did I do it to safeguard my own interests? I was not even sure myself; I knew only that the whole matter had become too odious a jest. On the day prior to the Feast of St Michael, because I could not hear the conversation of my friends for my devil’s whispering, I went down to the stables to seek a mule that I might train for the coming Christmas festival. We would soon be in rehearsal and I reckoned to get all my properties in good array. I wondered whom the King would choose for Revels Master over the twelve days. Gloom ruled my every thought, I who was so merry. Along the terrace I went in my day’s pale grey. In the courtyard, the pigeons searched amid sodden red leaves; the pavement was silken with damp. I went under the arches into the smell of hay and horses. I looked at the mules. Two were too docile for my purpose but the third had mischief in its gait. I set up a tub for its forelegs to stand on, in practice for when it would reach the King’s dais, with me aboard. Two household stewards were grooming Lyard Duras and Lyard Lewes. Sir John Howard had chosen well in his gift to the royal couple—the fair coursers were everything that a horse should be. They struck at each other in play, with swift squealing blows. Lyard Duras kicked out, jarring a hoof on the stones.

‘They can smell the mares,’ said a steward. ‘Even the mule won’t quiet them today.’

Lyard Lewes rose on end and cried of his own beauty with quivering nostrils. His coat was silver, his haunches whorled and dappled like soaring smoke.

‘He’s as brave as he is fair,’ called the groom, grinning. ‘Today he killed a hound—cleft his skull like a nut.’

My mule was snuffing at something small behind us, something that moved and chuckled. ‘Holy Mary,’ whispered the groom. He lunged for the Princess Elizabeth as she ran laughing away. I never saw a five-year-old maid move so swiftly. She wanted to fondle the fair horses. She sped on across the courtyard—once, my fingers grazed her gown, but she was a hare, a light pink and golden bird, a faery. She was enjoying herself. Horsemen were approaching from the outer gate, their hooves resounding under the archway. She changed course and flew to meet them. They came strongly, their surcotes shimmering in the mist—I saw only the strong legs of the horses pounding air. She would be trampled to pulp. I foresaw her end—my sweet Elizabeth—and every man present jigging at Tyburn.

One of the front line of horsemen leaped from his mount. With a stride he was upon the Princess, grasping her by her flying hair. He wore the livery of the White Boar, and there mounted behind him was the Duke himself. The horsemen milled in a circle, exclaiming harshly, looking to see if the child had been harmed. The young knight who had caught her had been rough in his handling, and Elizabeth was on the point of tears. At that moment her nurse, the accursed, witless old fool, came panting flatfootedly across the yard. Gloucester dismounted, and the Princess ran to him. She threw herself against his legs—he lifted her up. He was chiding her gently, calling her ‘sweet Bess’. She wound her arms around him, burying her face in his fur collar.

Gloucester spoke to the nurse. He did not raise his voice, but its tone sent frissons down my spine.

‘Well, dame?’ he said, while the Princess peeped out at us with one eye.

The nurse fell to her knees, weeping and wailing.

‘Is this how you guard the blood royal?’ he asked. His voice was soft; soft and dangerous.

‘Your Grace, I did but turn my back an instant...’ she whimpered.

‘An instant,’ he repeated. ‘I doubt not it would have been likewise with the Prince Edward! An instant’s heinous idling—a hound at the cradle—a spark from the fire...’ He bit his words back in fury. ‘It seems that princes are cheaply begotten.’ He turned to two of the pallid guard. ‘Put this woman under arrest.’

‘They’ll flog her,’ whispered the groom.

‘They’ll hang her, if he’s a mind to it,’ said the steward who was trying to gentle Lyard Duras. ‘If he takes a leaf from the Butcher’s book.’

So I thought on our last Constable of England, Tiptoft Earl of Worcester, who had devised new wondrous methods of impalement for felons... a brave man, who requested his own head shorn off in three strokes to honour the Trinity. As they led the weeping woman away Gloucester took the Princess up higher in his arms. She clasped and prattled. ‘Bess, my love,’ I heard him say.

My devil took shape beside me, romping in the day’s dour colours, pleased at the aura of recent fear.

‘He is capable of tenderness,’ he murmured, and I instructed him to depart to his master, whoever that might be; while I heard Gloucester telling the Princess it was wrong to wander off, she all the time putting up great arguments—her nurse bored her and she would sooner be out of doors.

‘We must all do things we mislike,’ he said seriously, but she took it upon her to start kissing him, all over his face. She was more generous with kisses than protocol allowed; she had once kissed me before I could stop her. I have been kissed by a Queen.

‘What great wrath lies in him too,’ whispered the devil. He was beginning to talk more subtly to me these days. ‘Your Grace,’ I said, in a strangled voice, but by now the Duke was disappearing through the archway. Elizabeth’s hair caught the wind of their passing and lifted, cloth of gold but richer.

I feared his anger which was rare as his smile, but I also marked his gentleness with the child and sought portents in all this. But then my portents came so thick and fast I did not know what to believe, and the next thing I knew I was on my way, drearily, to his apartments. One of the young pages opened and asked my business, so I told him it was none of his. When I said it was an urgent and secret matter he seemed impressed. A pinelog fire burned in the hearth and one of Gloucester’s huge hounds lay before it. It was a room of paradoxes: there was a lute, a set of tables, and Caxton’s new printed book on chess, loaned from Flanders, but the Duke had a suit of harness piled against the wall, and I wondered if he contemplated joining forces with the Easterling traders, it being their custom to keep armour in every room. Then I remembered the purpose of my visit, and my heart started knocking at my ribs.

‘His Grace is taking a bath,’ announced the henchman.

The hound eyed me and growled. Murmuring voices came from behind the closed door of the bedchamber. I turned tail. I would shirk this odious duty. I had just convinced the page that what was important to me was of no consequence to the Duke, and was talking my way across the room when the bedchamber door opened. I heard Richard’s voice as one of the Yeomen of the Body came through.

‘If you will bring the book, Jervais, I’ll prove both you and Lord Anthony wrong,’ he called out. There was laughter.

Jervais picked up Caxton’s book lovingly.

‘They’re arguing a point,’ he told the page. ‘Last night Lord Anthony vowed...’ He saw me and raised his brows.

‘You wish to see the Duke?’

‘Who is it?’ said the Duke from his bath.

I knew then that matters were out of my hands. The henchmen whispered together and Jervais went through to the inner room. Miserably I heard him repeat my own words ‘urgent and secret’ and let them escort me to where Richard sat up to his armpits in warm water. He and I faced each other through curtains and steam. The aroma of coriander and rose-water tickled my nose. He looked at me apparently without recognition and the man Jervais bent over the bathing tent and murmured: ‘One of the histrios, sir,’ an unkind designation which at other times would have made me burst with rancour, but now I did not care. Richard nodded, then he said:

‘What is this matter concerning me?’

I tried to speak and found myself dumb.

‘This good man seems ailing,’ Richard said mildly. ‘Give him a drink.’

I gulped down a cup of Rhenish, which went straight to my head. I saw them all, grouped expectantly, save for the body servants who went on calmly pouring hot herbals over the Duke’s neck and back. Francis Lovell glanced up from the
Game and Play of the Chess
and smiled. I always liked him—he had a lucky face. Richard gazed quizzically at me over the high tub. I whispered my secret.

‘Come nearer,’ he said with impatience, and as I did not wish him to take me for a fool, I marched up to the parted curtains of the bathing tent and told him what I knew, louder than I had intended. Something strange befell his face. He waxed white and then rosy red and the skin seemed to be stretched tight over his cheeks as his normal pallor returned.

‘Help me out,’ he said and extended a hand on either side. Jervais caught one, and I the other. I took the Duke’s wet hand, all slippery with fine Bristol soap, and nearly had my fingers mangled by his inhuman grip. He was as thin as a whip, straight though not overtall, and well made, particularly about the shoulders. After my curiosity was sated I looked at his eyes, and ever afterwards he held my gaze with his, while they dressed him and I stood plaiting my fingers behind my back.

They dressed him with care. While one knight tied the points of his hose, the other put over his head an applebloom shirt of the finest Rennes cloth. They clothed him in the purple, the narrowwaisted doublet edged with gris, and with the new-fangled sleeves like bladders, arranging the tucks of the tunic to achieve the desired triangular effect. Two esquires knelt to introduce his legs into the soft leather thighboots with the grey silk lining. Jervais fastened the gold collar of York about his chest, and gave him his velvet bonnet with the pendant bauble of rubies and he said, without taking his eyes from mine:

‘Now I am ready, Frank, to go a-wooing.’ And under young Lovell’s soft mirth, I felt murder in my soul at so sickly a jest.

He slung his cloak about him, and it too mocked my sad thoughts of Anne Neville, for it was velvet on velvet, precedent of the highest nobility. Yes, you are very grand, Dickon, I thought. I hope that the stench of onions and greasy water will not taint you. Soon you will be even wealthier. May she spit on you.

London is dirtier now, under Henry Tudor. Ugly little houses clog the streets, though this is not, of course, the fault of his Divine Majesty. He has put much hard-earned money into the building of his Chapel to the Virgin at Westminster, where they sing Masses night and day for the souls of the dead. Speaking of death, he has given directions for his own funeral, commanding royal and proper magnificence but no outrageous superfluities. Such a King he is.

As I say, now it’s dirtier, but on the day I walked through town with Richard of Gloucester, going a-courting, I thought I had seldom seen it so foul and knew a peculiar shame for the filthy alleys and the stench which rose about me and my sumptuous companion. I was horrified that he had decided to walk anyway—I thought we would go by boat at least, and when he marched out of the Palace gate into the howling thoroughfare, I stopped in amazement.

‘I’ll get horses for your Grace,’ I murmured. He said grimly: ‘Friend, I have walked miles on this errand which ends today. I’ll see it through in like fashion,’ and added, as if to himself: ‘They marched further to Tewkesbury.’ I reckoned he was just rambling, being so full of triumph. We went together along the Strand, with the bishops’ palaces lining the south side, past Temple Bar and through Ludgate where the press thickened. I had need to run to keep up with him—all the while I was fearful that he might be assaulted or robbed, and I leaped from side to side of the street endeavouring to guard him. My disquiet must have been apparent, for at one point he stopped while I panted at his elbow.

‘My lord, why have we no esquires to ease your passage?’ I gasped. A smile crept over his face and he murmured: