Wonders Will Never Cease

by Robert Irwin

  Early the following morning, the Wednesday after the Feast of the Resurrection, three of the King’s gentlemen-at-arms appear at the Woodville townhouse. Anthony is given only a little time to dress, for their orders are to escort him as swiftly as possible to Sheen Palace where the King, having moved from winter quarters at Eltham, currently holds court. They are courteous, but cannot tell him why he has been summoned, only that he is urgently required to present himself. As Anthony rides with them, he mentally prepares his defence. But then it occurs to him that perhaps it is not the death of the Gascon that is at issue. Perhaps word has got out about his nocturnal sojourns with his wife in churches. Perhaps they will be indicted as heretical adherents of the Brothers and Sisters of the Blessed Vespers. But then he tells himself that, if that were the case then his deranged wife would have been fetched out of the convent too. But perhaps that has happened. And then he thinks that perhaps he will not be accused of anything and that he is being called to be given command of one of the armies that are being sent north once more to retake the Border fortresses from the Lancastrians. Though that would be a joyless commission, at least he would still be alive.

  On their arrival it is Hastings who greets him at the gateway and he is all smiles. (But then he is usually smiling.) He says that the King is away hunting and will not return till later that evening. But it is the Queen who first requires his presence and now Hastings carefully instructs Anthony in the rituals that are to follow.

  So it is that when Anthony enters the presence of his sister, he doffs his cap and kneels before her. Even now he finds it hard to accustom himself to kneeling before his sister. Then one of the Queen’s maids of honour comes and kneels beside him so that she may attach a jewelled collar of gold and pearls to his thigh. The maid of honour whispers to him that this is ‘The Flower of Souvenance’. At the same moment his sister throws a parchment tied with thread of gold into his cap. It is a pretty ritual, but as Anthony kneels before his sister, he finds himself wondering if it is possible that he is kneeling before a slave of the heathen god, Bel.

  The collar of gold and pearls is not his to keep. A little later, when the King has returned from hunting, the scroll is unrolled and it is proclaimed to the court that the Flower of Souvenance is a token of a challenge and it is to be fought for in two days of combat between Anthony and a nobleman ‘of four lineages and without reproach’. The document, which has been drafted by Tiptoft in consultation with the herald Bluemantle, specifies that the first day’s combat should be in saddle of war with spears and swords and the second day should be fought on foot with spears, axes and daggers. So Anthony is to be England’s champion and he now learns that his adversary has also been selected. This will be the redoubtable jouster, veteran of the Crusades and Knight of the Golden Fleece, Antoine, Count de la Roche, the Bastard of Burgundy and brother of Duke Charles.

  Chester Herald reads out the challenge that will be taken by him on Anthony’s behalf over to Bruges, ‘I send you herewith, in all affection and cordial request, Chester, herald and servant of the King of England, beseeching and requiring you that it please you to show me so much honour and friendship as to touch the said flower of my emprise, the which flower I send over the sea to you, as the most renowned Knight I can choose. And forever I bind me and mine and all that God shall ever give me of good fortune to be yours so long as honour, life and goods shall allow…’

  The document is very long. This is one of the charades of the courts of Christendom at play. This challenge to combat curiously resembles a wedding proposal, since the purpose of the forthcoming fight is a sacrament of ritualised violence which will celebrate the diplomatic and military alliance of England and Burgundy against France. As the herald reads on, Anthony’s mind wanders and he finds himself thinking first of ‘saddles of war’ and then of the slaughter at Cock River on Palm Sunday four years earlier.

  Though Edward presses him to stay at Sheen, there is no tiltyard attached to this palace and consequently Anthony prefers to return to London. It is more necessary than ever that he should fashion himself into the perfect warrior. Early every morning he rides out from the Woodville townhouse to the tiltyard where he will receive more abuse and instruction from Raker. A week after his return to London, just as he is riding out to the tiltyard once more, he finds his way blocked by four young men armed with swords and daggers. A red-headed youth, who is the boldest of them and apparently their leader, uses his dagger to stab Black Saladin in the ribs before striking the horse in the shoulder. By now Anthony has his sword out. Though he is surrounded, Black Saladin is wheeling and kicking so wildly that they cannot get near. The horse’s shrieks are terrible. Surely people must hear this and come to Anthony’s assistance? He leans over his horse and tries to land a heavy blow on the redhead, but that is blocked by the youth’s sword and dagger crossed in defence and Anthony’s own blade is shattered.

  He should be afraid, but since he still wears the amulet that he wore at the Battle of Palm Sunday, he is not and because his chief anxiety is then not for his life, but for his horse, he decides to dismount in the hope that this will allow the horse to escape further injury, but at that moment it bucks and Anthony falls with one foot trapped in the stirrup. ‘He is mine,’ says the redhead to the others. ‘I have him.’ He rushes upon Anthony with his sword raised high for what should be a fatal blow, but Anthony grabs for his legs and the redhead falls with his head hitting the cobbles. Now Anthony has his foot out of the stirrup and is able to stand. The other three men have retreated before the kicking horse. Anthony finds that there is blood on the shoulder of his jerkin though he had not noticed this wound before. The redhead lies on the cobbles and looks dazed. Anthony staggers over and plans to use his broken sword to finish him off. But the redhead manages to get to his feet, and tottering slightly, raises his sword and dagger to protect his head. He is a brave man, but not a professional fighter. Anthony plunges what is left of his sword into the man’s chest and he falls to the ground once more. Anthony hears shouting all around him. He calls for help, for by now a crowd has gathered to watch but, though they are shouting and pointing, no one dares to intervene. Black Saladin has fallen to the ground and lies squealing and thrashing his legs.

  Though the redhead is on the ground and bleeding heavily, he is not finished. He lunges upward with his sword and Anthony uses his gloved hand to beat the sword away, but meanwhile his assailant gets to his knees and strikes at Anthony with his dagger and brings it all the way down the ribs to Anthony’s hip where it remains embedded. It is his last thrust, for now Anthony, who has dropped his broken sword, uses his right elbow to trap the man’s arm and forces him to drop his sword. Though Anthony can hardly see for the blood that is running down his face, he becomes aware that help has arrived. The steward of the Woodville townhouse is first on the scene and grabs the kneeling man from behind, while Anthony scrambles for his broken sword which he smashes over the man’s head, beating him once more to the ground and then he throws himself on top of him and sets to using what is left of the blade in an attempt to saw the man’s left hand off.

  More retainers come running out of the Woodville townhouse, and seeing this, the redhead’s companions rush forward and threaten Anthony and the steward with swords and knives to force them off, so that their leader can be dragged away by his head and shoulders and then his companions manage to load him on one of the horses that they have tethered at the corner of the house before making haste to get away. At last Earl Rivers arrives at the scene. It is he who pulls the dagger from Anthony’s hip and, tearing his own shirt into pieces, he uses those pieces to staunch the bleeding from the hip and other places. A great deal of blood has been lost already. Anthony tells his father to send for Ripley who must bring his skull moss with him. The horse is making such a noise that Anthony has difficulty in getting himself understood. The last thing he hears is a bystander remarking on the terrible quality of the swords they make these days. Then he loses consciousness.


  When he next opens his eyes, he finds that he has been brought back to his bedchamber. He can still hear the noises that Black Saladin is making and Jacquetta, who is sitting beside the bed, explains that a team of men using large leather straps have been successful in carrying the horse into the courtyard where his wounds are being attended to.

  Then Anthony sees that Ripley has arrived and he, sweating heavily, is trying to explain to Jacquetta and Richard how hoplochrisma works. Ripley insists that the redheaded man’s sword or dagger must be found and brought to him before the magnetic healing can begin. The sword is found and brought to the alchemist, who with shaking hands plunges its blade into a flask containing the skull moss of the Earl of Wiltshire and the other ingredients. Then he tries to roll Anthony onto his side so that he can apply the dagger to the wound on the hip, saying as he does so, ‘I knew that you would have need of me.’

  Anthony tries to wave him off.

  ‘No, I am not in such a bad way. It is not I who needs you, but I want you to go to my horse. Take the skull moss to the horse and attend to its wounds.’

  Ripley ignores this and shakily sets to using the blade of the redhead’s sword to paste the fungus from the decayed skull of James Butler, the Earl of Wiltshire, into Anthony’s wounds.

  Anthony is panicking. He calls out, ‘Is Black Saladin dying?’

  Those are his last sensible words for several days, since he faints once more, and with wounds that are infected, he soon becomes feverish. As he starts to float in his fever he hears Ripley and Jacquetta arguing. In his delirium he fancies that James Butler is inside his head looking out through his eye sockets and gazing hungrily round the room as he seeks out Anthony’s wife, but since Anthony cannot move his head, Butler cannot see her sitting by the doorway. Even so he can hear her voice. Butler’s wraith seems angry that Anthony cannot leave his bed and discontentedly starts whispering inside Anthony’s head. Butler’s silvery whisperings are about fear and how it cannot be resisted, for it is a physical thing, a great chilling sickness, which grabs a man in the guts, makes his legs weak and sends piss dribbling down those legs. It is a dreadful thing to die. Yet fear is a man’s best friend. Fear is good, for it takes a man away from danger and keeps him alive. Now that Anthony is infected, he will know what fear really is and surely the fever will kill him. While listening to the demented whispering, he falls asleep. When he is lucid once more, he thinks that he has just woken from a dream in which Phebus had been telling him a story, another story, only he cannot remember what the story is.

  Jacquetta sits beside his bed playing with her figurines.

  ‘So that was George Ripley, the King’s alchemist,’ she says eventually, ‘I am very sorry for him, but there is nothing I can do that will help him, the poor man. We have thanked him for his hoplochrisma, but before we paid him and sent him away, I told him not to visit again.’

  But when Anthony asks her why, she is vague. She mutters something about there being nothing to the man but words, and changing the subject, she reports that Black Saladin is back in his stable and will recover. Although Ripley had taken the redhead’s sword down into the courtyard and applied the residue of his flask’s contents to the horse’s wounds, shortly afterwards a groom, who had not been informed of this special treatment, cleaned out the wounds before stitching and cauterizing them. She adds that she has been trying to identify the men who attacked him, but so far her little men will not help her in her inquiries. Richard believes that it must have been an attempt by someone at court to prevent the joust with the Bastard of Burgundy taking place, and that would be in the hope that this will delay the proposed Anglo-Burgundian pact against France. It is even possible that Anthony’s horse was the chief target, since it would take many months for Anthony to train a new horse to run in the lists and where would he find another horse like Black Saladin? Richard does not name the ‘someone at court’, but it is certain that he is thinking of the Earl of Warwick. Anthony has not told his parents about the killing of Phebus.

  Now Anthony, laid up in bed, has recurrent dreams of a man running. The friends who might have waited for him have gone already. Or perhaps those men were not really friends. His horse has wandered off and cannot be seen. The hill is very steep. He thought that he knew this part of the land but it seems not. Importunate people try to accost him, but he brushes past them. At last he thinks that he is free, but then looking back he sees his pursuers on the horizon, dim figures in the distance, but getting closer. What do they want of him?

  When Anthony is well enough to stand once more, he goes out walking through the streets of London so that he may regain the strength in his legs, but at his father’s insistence, he is always followed by two armed retainers, Amyas and Hugh. It feels strange to be moving through those streets but not on a horse, for now he is on the same level as porters, rag-and-bone men, sellers of pies and suchlike folk and this is not entirely comfortable, and after the attack he walks in fear. He scents danger everywhere and he wishes that he had given Sir Thomas Malory a better answer.

  Since he now regrets the rough manner in which he broke up his association with Ripley and is ashamed too at his mother’s abrupt dismissal of him, one of Anthony’s first visits is to the alchemist’s laboratory in the Palace of Westminster. He leaves his guards at the gatehouse of the outer courtyard. Though Anthony is nervous about how he will be received, Ripley’s face lights up when he sees him.

  ‘You are on your feet again! Oh well done, Lord Scales! You are looking so well! Let us drink to your recovery,’ and he finds the flagon of wine and they drink a toast to Anthony’s health and Anthony proposes a toast of thanks to the healing power of hoplochrisma.

  Then, ‘I told you that there are many who hate you,’ says Ripley. ‘You will be safer in a tournament list or on a battlefield than in any street in London.’

  Ripley is alarmed that Anthony has no sword and he is not entirely reassured when Anthony tells him about his bodyguards.

  ‘You must have a sword.’ Then, ‘I saw that your mother does not like me. Why is that? You can tell me. I shall not be offended. I thought that we should be friends. I am not used to being disliked. I want to be everyone’s friend for it takes so little to bring a smile to a person’s face.’

  Anthony truthfully replies that he does not know what his mother thinks of Ripley.

  ‘But she needs me. She may not know it but she does.’ Ripley is emphatic about this. ‘You are not the only person who has enemies. There are certain people, evil people who go about London, frequenting pothouses, marketplaces and churches muttering stories that are not true. One of the stories that is now being spread about is that Jacquetta de St Pol is a witch. They are saying that Eleanor Cobham taught her the dark arts when she was a girl.’

  There, it is out. Anthony has long known this story, yet without his acknowledging that he did know it. He was still a small boy when Eleanor Cobham was arrested and charged with sorcery. His nurse told him the horrid story. Looking back on it, Anthony thinks that the nurse was not concerned with the effect of the story on him. It was herself that she wanted to scare. Eleanor Cobham was beautiful and clever and later became very rich. The nurse used her hands to describe Eleanor’s curving body and her high arched eyebrows. Eleanor was of low birth but clever and ambitious. A maid in the service of Jacqueline of Hainault, the wife of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, after Jacqueline’s unexpectedly early death, Eleanor had gone on to marry the Duke, and since Humphrey was brother to the King, it seemed that the throne might be within her reach, for the King was sickening and it was said that mysterious watery elements were affecting his brain.

  Yet it was the King’s sickness that doomed her, for those around the King judged that sorcery must be the cause of the King’s growing madness and since Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, was the most likely suspect, she and several of her associates were arrested. Among those arrested with her was an expert wizard, canon Master Roger Bolingbroke, and another clergyman, Thomas Southwe
ll. Margaret Jourdemayne, the notorious Witch of Eye, was also seized. Since Eleanor was of high rank, she could not be tortured, but those she had employed were put to the rack and stretched until a story could be pieced together. Jourdemayne told how Eleanor first purchased philtres from her to make Duke Humphrey fall in love with her and then later she bought more potions which she hoped would cause her to give birth to a son who might one day become King of England. Bolingbroke admitted making astrological forecasts that showed that the King would die very shortly and this kind of prophecy amounted to treason.

  Then the court discovered that Jourdemayne, Bolingbroke and Southwell were all present when Eleanor, Queen of Night and Darkness, presided over a Black Mass one Sunday night in St Paul’s churchyard. The nurse did her best to conjure up the scene in the churchyard in which the bare branches of the trees hovered and shook over the conspirators like clawed hands and where the tombstones tilted at odd angles as if they were being forced aside by the restless dead who pushed from below and tried to rise up out of the earth. It was there that Eleanor held conference with the emissaries of Satan from whom she sought confirmation of the imminence of the King’s demise. Tiny dark figures that flickered in the smoke of the tallow candles, these emissaries whispered that there would be a price to be paid. There is always a price to be paid.