Within the Hollow Crown

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  Instinctively their hands met. He pressed closer to her dappled jennet and she bent over him. "You will write to me, Richard?"

  "Because you will miss me?"

  "Because I shall be so anxious. I must know, Richard. Suppose— suppose you were wounded—"

  She saw him no longer as he was, erect and smiling, but lying on the cold earth, earth-cold himself and dabbled in blood. And now that his mind was wholly centred on her he read the thoughts that pictured him so.

  The adventure took on a more sombre aspect.

  "Of course I will write," he promised gravely.

  Thomas of Gloucester was bearing down upon them, tearing without delicacy through their precious moments. Anne glanced at his hard face with loathing. "Soon?" she urged.

  "As soon as we reach Scotland, sweet." Richard kissed her hands, then released them quickly as though his uncle's detested presence profaned the action, and snapped his finger for his waiting groom.

  In his thrustfulness Thomas Plantagenet had overheard their words. His clanking armour and blood royal jupon blotted out the summer sun. "Once we get to Scotland we shall need every man," he observed dourly. "It will be no time for dallying."

  Instantly Anne became a stiff-necked little piece of imperial pride. Rudeness always made her like that; and spiritually or physically, she would sooner starve than be beholden to this bully for a crust. "I will send Sir Meles with you as my messenger," she said haughtily, beckoning to one of her own Bohemian followers.

  Richard was in the saddle, gathering helmet and gloves from a page. Only his wife's example kept him from an outburst of rage. Anne never lost her temper or flared out at people, yet underneath her politeness there was a sharp edge of anger on his behalf. And somehow, deep down in that hidden part of him which had always feared Gloucester, he no longer felt alone. "If Sir Meles will ride in my own company we will make ourselves responsible for his comfort," he said formally, trying to emulate her self-control. "Stafford, we commend this honoured Bohemian knight to your charge, so that once we are safely across the border he may return with news for the Queen."

  Anne's quaint, elusive beauty flamed like a rose. Although they both ignored Gloucester, the romance of a private pact had had the bloom knocked off it by publicity. "It will be the first love letter I have had from you," she said half reproachfully, as Richard, wheeling his horse, passed close beside her for a final word.

  He looked back at her with warmth and laughter in his smile. She could almost have sworn that a spark of the passion she waited for was in his eyes. "I will see that it is a good one," he promised.

  Another shrilling of trumpets—a stirring of serried ranks—a trembling of productive soil beneath the beat of martial hoofs. Quite unself-consciously, Richard turned to wave to her from the head of a column where the proud banners were thickest. And then he was gone. A normal, peace-loving young man swallowed up in a welter of war.

  ***

  June slid into July, and all through the long summer days the sun

  shone mockingly at Sheen. Anne walked restlessly about the

  beloved gardens, waiting for her letter. She even begged for the big painting of Richard, gorgeous in his coronation robes, which the French artist Beauneveu was working on, to be brought from Westminster. But the portrait was stiff and wooden. The lips wouldn't break into a smile for her, nor the eyes light up. And anyhow, she couldn't remember him like that.

  So she sent for young Tom Holland to keep her company. He looked more like Richard than did the portrait, and it had nearly broken his heart when it was decided that he was too young to go to war. To cheer him and herself, Anne had Richard Medford fix a large map across an embroidery frame. And every day the three of them would hang over it, measuring the distance the army must have travelled. "Your Uncle Richard must have reached Oxford today"—or Coventry or Derby—Anne would say, sticking one of her new-fangled silver pins into county after county, always farther and farther northwards. And long after the lovable lad was asleep and dreaming of future laurels she would lie awake listening to the breeze stirring the riverside willows and telling herself like any sentimental dairymaid that the same stars shone over her love.

  But when at last Sir Meles came riding in it was no love letter he brought. Only a hasty, outraged scrawl telling her that Stafford had been murdered.

  "Not Stafford!" she cried, letting the slim, red-sealed roll of parchment flutter to her lap half-read. "Everybody loved him. He was what Chaucer calls 'a gentle parfait knight.'"

  "Surely no one could pick a quarrel with him,'' cried Agnes, who was in attendance.

  "I'm afraid the quarrel was picked on our behalf," their compatriot told them sadly.

  "By whom, Meles? By whom?"

  Meles didn't answer immediately but asked leave to send Tom Holland on some errand. And Anne, with heavy heart, read the full sum of her husband's rage and humiliation. "I see now why you sent the boy away," she said slowly. "It was his uncle. The King's own half-brother, John Holland, Agnes. Oh, how awful!"

  Both women looked to Sir Meles to fill in the details. "It all started with a servants' brawl," he explained. "Some of these English can't abide a foreigner and Holland's men lost no opportunity of jibing at mine. When we were come to a town called Beverley they jostled us out of all the best lodgings, and Stafford's men, knowing the King's hospitable wishes, rushed out on our behalf. A squire got killed. Accidentally, I believe. But it had to be John Holland's favourite squire. And as soon as it was dark he rode like an avenging devil through the streets and stabbed milord Stafford as he was riding home from supping with the King." Horrified silence greeted his words, and hung in the room. "Apart from the killing of his squire, that younger Holland always was jealous of any favour shown to another, they tell me," he added.

  "And Stafford?" asked Agnes.

  "Poor Stafford was taken unawares—bemused by a pleasant evening and singing as he rode. He hadn't even had time to sort the matter or to offer his regrets. And Holland stabbed again and again and left him lying between blood and garbage in the gutter."

  Anne covered her face with both hands. The letter she had so longed for lay, a besmirched thing, among the rushes at her feet. "Oh, Meles!" she shuddered. "And only the other day I was talking to him, and he was so kind and cultured. Richard thought the world of him." She looked up anxiously. "Whatever will the King do?"

  Meles went thoughtfully to the window where Agnes was standing. Without subterfuge he handed her a letter from Robert de Vere, but she hadn't the heart to open it. "What can he do, madam," he asked, turning back to the Queen, "but have him put to death?"

  Anne stretched an entreating hand. "But, Meles, his own brother—"

  "There is no love lost between them."

  "I know. But don't you see—his mother…Their mother. Oh, no, the King can't have him put to death! It would break her heart— and his, too, because it would always come between them."

  But, moved by her distraction as he was, Meles took the man's view. Only a few days ago he had had to look upon a much more passionate grief. "What about Stafford's father?" he argued. "With a son so full of promise. Stiff-jointed as he is, the old Earl has already ridden all those miles to beg justice from the King."

  All those miles. Richard so far away with all this worry on his mind, and she not there to ease it. Anne rose and joined the others. "Don't you see, my friends, that I am in some way responsible? If only I hadn't fussed about that letter!"

  "It was only natural, madam, with a husband going into battle," soothed Meles.

  But instead of soothing her, his words only brought to mind that vivid picture of her young husband lying grey-faced on the ground. Perhaps even now the only battle that mattered was over…And his last thoughts of her had been tinged with annoyance…"How Richard must hate me!" she cried, twisting her handkerchief into a fevered ball.

  Agnes Launcekron only laughed and put kind arms about her. She who was too happy-go-lucky ever to spoil a present moment by
dodging a future which had not yet caught her. Romance for her lay warm to hand, in Robert's letter; and she was a woman who exuded happiness. "Nonsense, dear Anne! All these weeks of anxiety are making you morbid," she declared. "Don't you remember how the very day we last saw Stafford, you were boasting to that solemn cousin Mowbray that Richard was civilized? So why should he be unreasonable and blame you? It was he who should have thought about exchanging letters. As Robert did."

  Anne had to smile at her friend's shamelessness. "That is just what Robert shouldn't have done, seeing he is married," she pointed out. "But go along now and read that letter, do, before it burns your pocket! And tell them to get Sir Meles a meal."

  "And you will try to persuade the Pope to get Robert a divorce?"

  "I will think about it."

  Left alone, Anne allowed herself to savour the unintended hurt in Agnes's consolation. "Richard isn't in love with me as Robert is with her," was the persistent burden of her thoughts, outweighing even the worry of this family scandal.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even the joy of Richard's return was spoiled by Stafford's murder. Bells pealed and balconies were draped with costly tapestries and London cheered the triumphant army. But many of the banners and balconies were draped with black, and men were whispering everywhere, "Where is John Holland? Will the King pardon him?" Richard knew that the common people were watching him, waiting to see if he who had hanged their relatives when they rose in a just cause would condone a brutal murderer because he was of his own blood.

  And inside Westminster palace Agnes Launcekron was asking the same question of the Queen.

  "I don't know, Agnes. I wish I did, for my mother-in-law's sake," sighed Anne.

  "But haven't you asked Richard?"

  The Queen and her favourite lady were already dressed for hawking and breaking their fast, but after the previous day's celebrations most of the warriors they had come to welcome were still abed. Anne shook her head as she set her small white teeth into a medlar. "They looked so fit and had so much to tell—he and Robert—that I hadn't the heart—"

  Agnes arched freshly-plucked brows. "Surely last night—" she began, but observing Anne's uncommunicative air she pursued the matter no further. "Their sunburn suits them, doesn't it? And although they had such an exciting time they were both ridiculously glad to be home, weren't they?" she babbled on, glowing over her own happy recollections of the last twenty-four hours.

  "Robert at least had good cause to be," said Anne.

  It was not like her to speak caustically. But she had noticed enviously how early they had both excused themselves from the festivities. Whereas Richard had sat up late, laughing and talking with Brembre and Walworth and the Masters of the Guilds who had given him civic welcome. She knew what pleasure he took in their forthright company, their practical outlook and their constructive plans for the everyday problems of London—particularly when he had been for long in the company of his uncles. And last night he had been in brilliant vein, describing the more human incidents of the campaign with a vivacity which everybody found infinitely more amusing than Bolingbroke's tedious statistics. But it was ages since she had seen him alone, and he might have shown some of Robert's eagerness. She had lain in bed shaken with lonely frustrated sobs until her head ached and her eyes were all puffed and ugly; so that when at last she had heard his hand on the latchet of the door she had turned her head away and feigned sleep. He had stood awhile by the bed. She had felt him gently replace the tumbled coverlets. And then she had been unreasonably angry because he had tiptoed out again for fear of waking her. It had been one of those lost, ill-synchronized hours that beset the path of matrimony.

  Anne looked up and saw him now, coming into the room with Mathe beside him. His eyes seemed to be searching for her, but whether with sheepishness or reproach she could not tell. "Why so soberly dressed this morning after all yesterday's gorgeousness?" she asked, knowing that the clothes he wore always indicated his mood.

  "Business," he answered crisply, helping himself to salted almonds from a plate which Agnes held up to him.

  "You sat so long with City merchants last night that you are beginning to talk like one," laughed Anne lightly, so that he might know he was forgiven.

  "Well, Parliament, then. I find I am expected to go down and tell the Commons how the money they voted for this expedition was spent. Already some of them are beginning to suggest that it was hardly a success."

  "Not a success!" exclaimed Agnes indignantly. "But you took Edinburgh."

  Richard's immaculate, sun-tanned fingers dived again among the Provencal almonds. "True, my dear Agnes. But it seems there weren't enough people killed."

  He was in one of those flippant, aloof moods which Anne recognized as a kind of armour against unimaginative criticism. She laid aside her platter. "Surely it was much cleverer to have frightened away the French and impressed the Scots without much bloodshed," she said.

  "That is exactly how I felt about it," agreed Richard. "I took such a large army that the Scots avoided a pitched battle. It cost a good deal of money, of course. And I suppose the paunchy gentlemen who sit here at Westminster prefer spending soldiers' lives to spending money." Accepting a cup of wine from a page, he strolled over to where his wife was sitting. So often the sight of her quenched his bitterness, much in the same way as Simon Burley's quiet words. "And each man's life means a broken home," he went on thoughtfully. "I saw inside the home of a blacksmith once. And I've talked with the people, Anne. At the time of the revolt. They've minds and hearts and hopes the same as we have. And so pitifully little besides."

  Anne looked up at him with shining eyes. She had seen something of the aftermath of war on her journey through Flanders, and she loved it when he spoke his thoughts to her with that complete naturalness.

  "Robert feels like that too," murmured Agnes, with the pride of recent surrender softening her face. "But I supposed it was because he is partly a poet."

  Richard was conscious of vague resentment, and not a little envy. What was it about this new-born passion which gave people possessive knowledge of their lovers' minds? "We used to hold forth about it when we were youngsters," he said with studied negligence. "I suppose there were so many amusing things we wanted to do that all the hours spent on preparing ourselves for war seemed a waste of precious time."

  "'The life so short, the craft so hard to learn,'" quoted Anne, in her lovely voice.

  Richard laughed at her affectionately. "Quoting English poetry at me already, you clever little Bohemian!" he teased, bestriding a stool before her. "I suppose you read Chaucer because he's besotted with you. Your charming head-dress, your exquisite gowns, and your demurely coiffed face, piquante as a nun's. Shall I tell you a secret, Anne Plantagenet?" He lowered his voice to a momentous whisper and winked at Agnes. "I believe the man's writing a poem about you!"

  Anne clapped her hands in delight. Her brown eyes danced. "Oh, do you mean it, Richard?"

  "Of course I mean it. And of course you'll get unbearably conceited. With all my knights wanting to wear your favour at tournaments, too. Why, Tom Mowbray nearly drove us crazy singing some tuneless song about you up in Scotland. And only the day we parted from you Stafford said—" Richard stopped abruptly, appalled afresh at the loss of a life that held all the promise of an opening epoch—all the gifts that would have helped the cultural renaissance craved after by the youth of a war-weary age. To cover their mutual emotion he snapped his fingers to Mathe, trying to make the great gentle brute nuzzle Anne's hand. "This is the only purblind creature who hasn't the sense to love you best," he said.

  "Nothing less than a king will do for Mathe," she laughed ruefully, ruffling the hound's reluctant head.

  But whatever they spoke of, it was really the Stafford tragedy that filled their minds. Richard touched a fold of Anne's riding skirt, smoothing the rich green velvet absently. "It was nice of you to go to see my mother so often while I was in Scotland. Has she really been as ill as the
doctors say, Anne?"

  "It's her poor tired heart, Richard."

  "I'm not surprised. Dragged from campaign to campaign. And then nursing my father through all those years of illness."

  Anne waited until Agnes had gone to join de Vere in the herb garden. "Why don't you ride over to Wallingford and see for yourself?" she suggested.

  "You know I would. It would be the first thing I should do. But now—it's so difficult…"

  "Then it's true what Burley tells me? You've decided your brother must die?"

  "He's not my brother," snapped Richard.

  "Your half-brother then," Anne corrected herself patiently. "Won't you pardon him for her sake?"

  "And have my people think that I have one set of laws for them and one for the nobility? That I twist justice how I like? Besides, John Holland is detestable. Everywhere he goes he makes trouble with his bombast and his brutality."