Within the Hollow Crown

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  But in his ignorance and encouraged by such kindly reference to his home, he clutched over-familiarly, thrusting his face close to Richard's as he might have done with a friend with whom he wished to speak intimately. Unfortunately, too, his right hand was still upon the sword he had half drawn while arguing with Sir Robert. Richard knew he meant no harm. He felt no fear, only repugnance for the man's garlic-scented breath. But it was more than Walworth could endure. His dagger leapt from his belt. Close before his face Richard saw it plunge into the bare, muscular column of Wat Tyler's throat and felt the man's hot, nauseating blood spurt over him.

  The bold brown eyes looking into his seemed to start from their sockets in agony. Clutching and slipping, the great body toppled from clumsy saddle to trampled earth. Such was his strength that even then, with his lifeblood flowing from him, Tyler half rose again to grapple with his assailant. But Ralph Standish sprang lithely from his horse to finish the business with his sword, straddling the mighty body where it had rolled in the dust.

  The unpremeditated incident was all over in a few moments. In their hot loyalty and indignation, those closest to the King scarcely comprehended the dangerous crisis they had created.

  "Good God, you fools, must you get us all torn to pieces?" cried Arundel, eyeing the advancing mob. They had already broken ranks and came straggling across the trampled field, and he had just dodged a sharp flint as he spoke. Mercifully some of those at the back, having seen the uplifted sword and then the empty saddle, still believed the King had been knighting their leader. "For Christ's sake, what had we better do?" asked a dozen different voices in panic. "They will be upon us in a moment and massacre us!"

  "We'll have to make a dash for it," decided Gloucester, measuring with a soldier's eyes the distance to the road by which they had come. "Once in the narrow streets a handful of us might hold them."

  But they all knew that once they moved away from Wat Tyler's dead body it was unlikely that even the most swiftly mounted of them would make it alive.

  Richard ignored him and spoke to the abashed slayers. "Don't you see that our only chance is for me to ride forward—alone? To seem to leave you and side with them?" he urged.

  They looked at each other, desperate but loath to let him go.

  "His Grace is right. It's a chance—" said Brembre, who understood the temper of the people.

  "If he has the nerve to do it," muttered Arundel.

  Richard overheard him and the words were like a spur.

  Walworth rode a few paces with him. "Try to lead them away from London," he entreated.

  "There are open fields at Clerkenwell," Brembre whispered in his other ear. "We'll ride back and rouse Knollys and the citizens— and meet you there—"

  The moment they had wheeled their horses Richard heard them galloping hell for leather back into the City. He knew that his uncle and the rest were gathered into an irresolute huddle behind him, and that Tyler's bleeding body must now lie exposed to view. He knew it by the savage roar that went up from the rebels' ranks. But his mind worked like quicksilver. Before the wild beast in them had time to spring he was cantering across Smithfield right into the midst of them. And they were so astonished that they stayed each in arrested motion, like so many statues, gaping at him.

  He pulled Blanchette to her haunches, hailing them with upraised arm. "Tyler is dead," he called, his clear young voice cutting across their confusion. "But I—your King—will be your leader in his place."

  He was good to look upon with his red-gold hair and his peacock green tunic and his white horse. To their untutored minds he was all-powerful. Because he was put forward on all state occasions, they had no idea that the men whom he had forsaken really ruled. And he was offering to befriend them and champion their cause. Bewildered by the whirlwind twist he had given events, they were suddenly abashed and dumb. One by one they let fall their stones and gathered about him. And with shining eyes he rode through the midst of them. Some of them swore they saw a flame about him. Some even crossed themselves, thinking the ghost of a tall crusader rode with him. But probably it was only the noonday sun on the brightness of his hair.

  Cunningly, while they were still bemused and at a disadvantage, he turned northward past the gatehouse of poor Hales' smouldering priory. And they followed like sheep. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the strangest procession he had ever led and wondered just how ridiculous he must look. None of them, he supposed, had the least idea where they were going or why. And he himself wasn't too sure of the way. But somehow or other he must keep them in good humour—keep them together and unsuspicious until someone came to round them up. So, to cover his inclination to laughter, he began to sing as he rode, choosing popular ditties like "When Adam delved and Eve span" so that they could join in the choruses.

  He ambled purposely, taking several wrong turnings. And by the time he had found Clerkenwell fields he saw, to his unspeakable relief, that Walworth and Brembre were already there with a considerable force of armed men. They must have worked with amazing speed. Sir Robert Knollys had been ready cap-a-pie, of course, and it was apparent now that all those shuttered houses must have held a veritable army of loyal citizens only waiting a chance to muster. Well, he himself had given them the chance. And now all that remained was to lead his poor fools of peasants into the trap. It was like throwing the deer's carcass to hounds at the curée—so easy that he rather hated himself for doing it. But he would be glad not to have to see or smell them any more for a while. It would be wonderful to live normally again. And to enjoy the thrill of being a hero, of course.

  Once the rebels had been rounded up, people crowded round him. In their excitement they wrung him unceremoniously by the hand and called him the saviour of London. Even old soldiers like Warwick and Northumberland, who had hitherto disapproved of him, called down blessings on his head.

  Some of the people from London had even had the fore-thought to bring him food, and suddenly he found that he was famished. And while he sat on a thyme-scented hillock consuming cold pigeon pie, Walworth had Tyler's body brought and shown to the discomfited followers, and someone rode up in a cloud of dust to announce the good news that the mad priest, Ball, had been caught as well.

  So the rebellion was really over. All around him men of the ruling classes were rejoicing because this hitherto unknown taste of subjection was lifted from them. But even that was a small thing to young Richard Plantagenet compared with finding the assurance of his own manhood. Bareheaded among the golden gorse, he faced the warm splendour of the dying sun and knew that the flame of courage that had illumined most of his ancestors was in him too. That from now onwards he could afford to disregard men's taunts—to laugh in his uncles' faces when they called him "peacemonger," and enjoy without self-searchings the beautiful, constructive things which appealed to him. And never more would he be afraid of fear.

  Reluctantly he withdrew himself from the moments of ecstasy during which he had let his soul browse upon her new-found treasure. Although his face was radiant, there were tears in his eyes. "Why are all the bells ringing?" he asked, looking beyond his companions at a silhouette of City churches.

  Walworth, proud unemotional man that he was, bent a knee in the dust and kissed Richard's hand. "Because you have saved London," he said. And Richard guessed that the wealthy fish merchant was all the more grateful because his own hasty act had endangered it.

  "It was rumoured in the City that you had been killed, sir," added Brembre, his humorously puckered face more serious than usual. "And they have just heard that it is untrue."

  Richard smiled at him ingenuously. "Do they care so much?" he said softly. Then, realizing that his mother must have heard the rumour too, he ran down from his gorse-clad hillock, calling for his horse. "We must get back to Carter Lane," he said, seeming to mount and make for London all in one movement.

  The rest cantered willingly after him. But above the cheerful bustle of departure he heard the peasants calling after him. Knollys'
men were rounding them up, while Dalyngrigge's desperadoes, trained in despatching raiding Frenchmen, stood ready, knife in hand. With only a few seconds between them and Eternity, the peasants' voices rose to a beseeching scream.

  Richard reined in before his father's implacable old captain.

  "What are you going to do?" he asked, breathlessly.

  "Kill 'em," grunted Sir Robert. "It's all the swine deserve. If your Grace hadn't outwitted them they might have killed you."

  It was true enough. But on such a joyful day Richard couldn't bear to be the cause of so much suffering. He lifted an arm to stay Dalyngrigge's men. "Any fool can kill," he said. "I led these poor ignorant wretches here and I'll not betray them. I pray you, good Sir Robert, stop this butchery and send them home."

  It was sweet to have the power to reprieve men's lives and to hear a thousand blessings mingle with the music of the bells. And because this day he was the idol of all classes, Gloucester and Arundel bowed unquestioningly to his will.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was in the dusk of a drear February afternoon that Richard came again, months later, to the Wardrobe house in Carter Lane. His mother was wintering at Berkhampstead and the Court had just returned to Westminster. He disembarked from a hired shallop with only Standish in attendance, and climbed Blackfriars steps through the mizzling rain, wrapped in his squire's cloak. And because they had given his uncles the slip they hugged the shuttered house fronts like a couple of cutpurses, and knocked almost furtively on Jacot's door.

  It had been one of those leaden grey days which depressed Richard to the soul. But inside the house all was warmth and welcome. The dapper little tailor bowed and beamed and sent his servants scurrying in all directions. No one was more glad than he. Now that the King was back from the County assizes and most of the rebel leaders hanged, London would come to life again. There would be new houppelardes to fashion and new winter furs to buy. Jacot could scarcely wait until his master had been warmed with wine before showing him the mulberry velvet he was itching to make up for the Twelfth Night revels. It wasn't often a Court tailor had a patron with a figure like Richard's, and an easy grace that set off sartorial genius to such advantage. "Straight from Utrecht," he murmured, unrolling the precious stuff. "And tones perfectly with the new scented gloves your Grace had from Paris."

  The wine in Richard's glass was no richer than the colour of the velvet. He sauntered across the room to finger it. At any other time he would have been enchanted. "It's exquisite, Jacot. You did well to buy it," he approved absently. "But I'm not wanting anything just now—except Mundina. Will you send for her?"

  Yet in the midst of his depression he spared a smile that charmed away the man's disappointment and left him contentedly calculating the extra inches he would have to add when cutting the new tunic. And when Mundina came she noticed how much taller and older the King had grown. But she noticed, too, with a woman's eye, that some spontaneous enthusiasm had gone out of him.

  He kissed her on both cheeks, French fashion, and restrained her from ordering a meal for him. "No, I have dined," he said, impatiently. "It is just that I wanted—to come home."

  Mundina understood. She left Standish and her husband to finish the wine and led the way upstairs to her own room. Richard thought it had a more comfortable, lived-in look than rooms in palaces ever seemed to achieve. A bright fire burned on the hearth, and candles had been lighted and curtains drawn against the river dankness—and against his other world. A sheet which Mundina must have been mending still trailed from the seat of a high-backed chair. And he recognized with pleased surprise many things which he had used or played with in childhood. Even the small four-poster was the one he had slept in at Bordeaux. Glancing from its faded tapestry to the bolted door, he wondered if Mundina's husband ever came here. He had often wondered why she had married Jacot. Probably she lay with him dutifully enough in the best bedroom they had given up to him that awful night when the Tower was taken. But Richard felt sure, somehow, that her soul lived here, apart in this sanctum over the forecourt gate.

  Understanding his mood, she took up her sewing in silence, seating herself unbidden in his presence as she used to do. She let him wander round picking up a remembered toy here and a trifle there, until the memories conjured up by each had wiped the listlessness from his face.

  He came to her soon with a small worn shoe in his hand. "Dost thou love me as much as all this, that thou must needs keep my old clothes?" he chided teasingly, slipping into the intimate tu-toi of her native tongue as they always did the moment they were alone.

  She looked up sharply from her work, and it was not only the firelight that kindled a deeper colour in the southern olive of her cheek. She was a woman of strange reserves, and had not meant him to find the thing. But since he had…"I would give my body to be burned for you," she said, in matter-of-fact tones which precluded sentiment.

  Richard knew right down in his soul that she would. He put the shoe back very carefully between a little mother-of-pearl box his Uncle John had brought him from Spain and his first lopsided drawing of a horse. He took rather a long time about it because hot tears were pricking at his eyes. "Then go on loving me like that, Mundina Danos," he ordered with his back to her. "For God knows I have need of it to combat so much hate!"

  Her dark eyes surveyed him anxiously, adoringly. He had gone away a laughing boy. But tonight he looked more like eighteen than sixteen, she thought. "Something or someone has hurt you, ma mie," she said, biting off a thread with a jerk of strong, white teeth.

  Richard sat down on the edge of the bed. It was still hung with the set of crimson baudekin curtains which had been specially bequeathed to him in his father's will. The face of each gold embroidered angel was familiar as only one's earliest recollections are. "You can't have everything you believed in broken and stay the same," he said slowly. "Do you know where I have been all these months, Mundy?"

  "Everybody knows you went on a sort of Circuit with Tressilian, the new Chief Justice, and milords of Gloucester and Arundel. Cleaning up the counties and trying those vile rebels. Your mother said it would be good experience for you," she said, picking her words carefully.

  She knew that he was holding himself in check. That he probably had been ever since she last saw him—that day when he had been so radiant and confident, and the people had cheered him so. She knew, too, that when his mind had accustomed itself to the ease of being alone with her—the rare ease of being alone at all—the full flood of his feelings would overflow the dams built by his unique position. And, being a wise woman, she knew that only that way could relief come. But she was to be badly shaken by the accumulated bitterness laid bare.

  "Yes, it was experience all right," he agreed, turning the folds of baudekin about until he found his special angel and then staring at it with a sort of blank estrangement. "Up till then I had believed that the men who ruled England wished her well. And that this chivalry which was crammed down our throats meant keeping our word."

  "So it does, my dear," argued Mundina. "When your father captured King John of France didn't he keep him over here as an honoured guest, and then trust him to go back to collect his own ransom?"

  "Yes. Because he happened to be a king. But he butchered the women and children when he took Limoges." Richard let go of the curtains so roughly that they slid back along their rods with an angry swish. "I see it now. Chivalry is only for the rich. Even my mother thinks that."

  Mundina went on stitching and let him talk.

  "When I promised better conditions to those poor wretches at Mile End, I meant it. And—Christ help me for an unfledged fool—I thought the others knew I meant it. But they just laughed— Uncle Thomas and Warwick and that cur Arundel—and said I'd acted beautifully." Richard ceased sprawling on the bed and sat up. His blue eyes blazed. "But I wasn't acting, Mundina. For once, I wasn't acting! It was the best and most sincere thing I'd ever had a chance to do. Don't you see? My life's been like a golden cage—and I
was in contact with real life at last. And overjoyed to find myself able to cope with it." His voice went suddenly gruff the way it did now adolescence was upon him, and he leaned forward and covered his face with both hands. "But they've killed my joy and covered me with shame."

  Mundina laid aside her work. "Who, Dickon—and how? You rode through the counties in state, didn't you?"

  "Yes. And they made me sit in evil-smelling courts while they condemned to death the very men I'd pardoned. Condemned them in my name. The Bloody Assize, men called it, in Essex. Tressilian wasn't really trying them. He was avenging his fellow lawyers on any peasant he could catch. And when he couldn't convict in court his soldiers used to stab them after dark in the woods. I've lain in bed many a time, at Havering, listening to their screams. And when Uncle Thomas broke up their camp at Billericay it was just plain murder."