Within the Hollow Crown

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  "That I should have brought you here—a daughter of the Caesars—" he began.

  But she was making conversation as one does to cheer the sick, rather than grumbling. "Since you are here, my love—" she whispered, with a little secret smile that brightened life for him more than all the lights the servants brought. "I really came to tell you that we have a visitor. Your Uncle Edmund. I have just spoken to him outside the Lieutenant's lodgings."

  "Uncle Edmund? Here?"

  "You know how long he takes to puff up the stairs—"

  Richard was all action immediately. "Go down, Martin, and light the Duke of York," he ordered.

  But Edmund of York's round, red face was already visible at the top bend of the stairs, and soon his scarlet-clad girth was filling the doorway. Anxiety sat incongruously upon him and he was badly out of breath. "My—dear—nephew!" he panted portentously.

  Richard gripped his hand and settled him in the largest chair. "How kind of you to come!" he exclaimed without ceremony.

  "I'm afraid I've only bad news for you."

  Richard and Anne hung on his heavy words. "What did they decide this morning?" they asked, almost simultaneously.

  The Duke mopped his brow unashamedly with a handkerchief which Anne had made for him. "It's the death sentence, Richard. For Salisbury, Brembre, Chaucer—and poor Simon Burley."

  "Mother of God!" cried Richard, walking away to the window.

  "And Robert de Vere—if they can catch him," added York, trying to sound decently sorry.

  Anne came and sat near him, laying pleading fingers on the arm of his chair. "But couldn't you—weren't there any members who—"

  He covered her hand with his own white, podgy one. "I did what I could, my dear."

  "They tell me you quarrelled with Uncle Thomas over it in Council," put in Richard appreciatively, from the window.

  "There are some things that even an easy-going person like me can't stomach," admitted York, with rare sincerity. "But Gloucester and Arundel are on the crest of the wave just now. That French ship they captured in the Channel turned out to have her holds stuffed with good Chartreuse and—"

  "Oh, don't tell me!" implored Richard bitterly. "And they were clever enough to refuse all profit on her, just to show up my extravagance, and now London is flooded with duty-free wine. Isn't that so? And isn't it the sort of thing that would happen at the right moment—for them?"

  "I'm afraid you're right, Richard. Normally, there are scores of moderate, level-headed members and citizens who think these two go too far, and who would have been profoundly shocked at the idea of a man like Burley being hanged, drawn, and—"

  "Don't!" cried Anne, and in a moment Richard was standing beside her, pressing her cowering head against his side. "Not that, York! For God's sake, not that!" he protested. But no cruelty nor indignity was too great, it seemed, for any man who had been his friend. Across Anne's stricken head the Duke made an expressive gesture indicating that the same fate was in store for all four of the impeached.

  Nobody moved for a minute or two. Only the licking flames on the hearth broke the silence. And then Richard's slow, sorrowful words. "Simon Burley was like a father to me. Sometimes I've wished to Heaven he were my father!" He began to pace up and down, beating fist to palm. "I'd do anything— anything…" he muttered.

  "You've already done a good deal," York reminded him. And perhaps only he knew how near Richard had come to losing his crown over it.

  Anne lifted her tear-drenched face to look at her husband. "Do

  you mean that, Richard? Anything?" she asked.

  "Of course."

  She got up slowly, almost like an old woman. "Then let me go to Arundel's house and beseech him—"

  Richard stopped short and stared at her. "You must be crazed!" he said.

  She went towards him steadfastly. "But you said just now—"

  "I said I would do anything. But I can't go on bended knee and beseech my own subjects—"

  "Everybody knows you can't. But I'm asking you to do something much harder, Richard. For Brembre and Salisbury, Geoffrey Chaucer and—Simon Burley." Seeing his face still adamantine, she clung to his arm. "Oh, Richard, remember that I love him too. And that I, too, want to do something—anything—to atone for the trouble I caused when I wrote to the Pope about granting Robert a divorce."

  Richard caressed her absently. Although nothing ever could make him angry with her, he knew how much her ill-considered action must have enraged all Philippa's important relatives, who were mostly his enemies, and how often he had caught Anne worrying about it. But this suggestion of hers was unthinkable.

  "There is nothing more any of us can do," York was saying. "And if the Queen sees Arundel privately there is just a chance."

  "Send my wife as suppliant to a soulless fiend like that? A man with a reputation for raping nuns—"

  "I know how you feel, Richard. But Standish and some of her ladies can attend her. And if she should be able to save the life of any one of those four you'd both be glad all your lives."

  Neither of them had ever seen the "middle" uncle behaving with such reasonable dignity, and because he sounded almost like Burley, Richard gave in. "I suppose you are right," he agreed reluctantly. "But will you arrange for some of your people to go with her? I don't want her—to encounter any unpleasantness—in the streets."

  "Willingly," promised York.

  To hide the hotness of his face, Richard bent over a chessboard

  on which the pieces stood just as he and Anne had left them, when trying to pass away the dragging hours of suspense. Experimentally, he moved a red pawn so that the white king was in check from a bishop and a knight. "It has come to something—when I have to ask that," he said.

  Even Edmund Plantagenet, unimaginative as he was, regretted at that moment any part he had taken in his nephew's humiliation. "You are right," he said kindly. "And I am sure that Lancaster would agree."

  Richard looked up and smiled at him. "Won't you stay to supper?" he asked, with genuine invitation in his voice. He must be sadly bereft of real friends, he reflected, to be really wanting him. But when York refused, Richard didn't press him. His own quick initiative told him that it had cost the man a great deal to come, and that beneath his well-fed unctuousness he was fidgeting to get away before the convenient mist cleared and any of his friends should see him. "I should take Anne away to the West of England for a while until this blows over," he was advising, kissing her hand and fussing for his gloves. "After all, the next piece of luck may well be yours."

  "It would be refreshing if you could think of any that's likely to be!" smiled Richard, with an attempt at normal insouciance.

  York pursed his fat lips. "Lancaster might come home," he suggested. "John Holland says—"

  "John Holland! I thought he was supposed to have gone on a crusade?"

  "He's just back from Spain. Oh, it's all right, Richard. Even the opposition don't want him in the country. They've given him an appointment abroad—in Aquitaine, I believe."

  "In my own Duchy! Without my consent!"

  Having had a hand in the appointment, the Duke ignored the criticism. "It appears that Lancaster has failed to substantiate his claim to the throne of Castile," he said.

  "Why, then, all those men and all the money the Commons voted him were wasted!" exclaimed Anne, seething because they would grant Richard nothing.

  "But he has managed to marry one of those gawky daughters of

  his to the Castilian heir," added York, pulling on his gloves at last.

  "How like him!" laughed Richard.

  Anne turned to him eagerly. "Why don't you write to your uncle of Lancaster? Perhaps, if he came home now—"

  Richard's face brightened. "It's an idea. But he wouldn't be in time to prevent—"

  Anne caught at the departing Duke. "You don't believe Lancaster was treacherous, do you?" she demanded, with the disconcerting forthrightness of her sex. Caught off his guard like that, York forgot that
a direct reply must of necessity incriminate either one brother or the other. "If he were, he wouldn't have taken all those men out of the country, would he?" he countered conclusively. "I should take the Queen's advice, Richard, if I were you. It might end this uncomfortable quarrelling and instability for us all." From the doorway, he added with gusty emotion, "It's a long time since I last saw John!"

  "And, quite understandably, the poor fellow's getting rather tired of having to look at Thomas," observed Richard, as soon as the door swung to behind him.

  He leaned against it and took Anne in his arms, kissing her closed eyes and her sweet, responsive mouth. "I hate your going," he said, crushing her little body possessively against his own.

  "I hate it terribly myself," she whispered. "But I will put on my most becoming dress—"

  "Not the pink one. That is only for me!"

  "Of course not, imbecile! But something a little bizarre that will give me confidence." Womanlike, she was already planning an alluring toilette; but she dared not tell him that she would even try to enslave the senses of a notorious libertine to save him the pain of losing Simon Burley.

  "I will give Standish special instructions to take care of you," said Richard. "And you will take Agnes?"

  Anne shook her head. "Agnes's eyes are red as winter berries, and she is afraid to leave the window overlooking the Byward gate in case Robert manages to send her some message."

  "You think he will try to reach her?" In spite of everything, a

  note of relief lightened Richard's voice.

  "I am sure he will," Anne assured him. "Their love is very real, Richard."

  He released Anne and went back to finger the chessmen, absently trying to get the white king out of check. "I suppose that in his own way Robert did love people," he mused, as if speaking of someone who was already dead. "I remember once when we were boys practising for a tournament, I had just made a worse exhibition of myself than usual, and he let himself be unhorsed in the dust to keep me company. He had on a new pink velvet coat, I remember. So he must have cared for me quite a good deal."

  "Please, Richard, don't talk like that!" remonstrated Anne. "You must know that, whatever his faults, Robert loved you. That he was always completely loyal to you."

  He shrugged and swept the ivory pieces back into their box. "Oh, what does it matter, one way or the other?" he said.

  "It matters to me that Agnes should be happy again."

  Richard was all contrition at once. "Of course, my darling. What a selfish swine I am, puling about my own emotions! And you doing all this for Burley!" He took a thoughtful turn or two about the room, while she waited impatiently to be gone; and presently, having hit upon an idea, he shot a question at her. "Agnes and Lizbeth were friends, weren't they?"

  "Up to a point, I suppose." Anne's surprise gave place to a humorous dig. "You see, they were both desperately in love with other women's husbands."

  At any other time Richard would have smiled at her sophistry, but he was absorbed in a scheme which in his heart he knew to be really for Robert, more than for Agnes. "Then tell her—if her messenger should come—to say she will wait for him at Bodiam."

  "Bodiam? But that's a little inland place, isn't it?"

  "All the ports will be watched, my dear. But Edward Dalyngrigge has ships that steal down the Rother and might be after more French wine any dark night. So nobody is likely to try to stop him at Rye. And Lizbeth is still a bride, isn't she? And a very bewitching one, I should think, when she wants something done—say, in Calais…"

  Anne had almost forgotten the Earl of Arundel. "But would Lizbeth help them? She was always so jealous of Robert."

  "Which only goes to prove how much she would still do for me," grinned Richard, "even though she is furious with me about her wedding."

  Anne came closer, regarding him almost with awe. "Richard, you're a genius!" she breathed gratefully.

  He tilted her adorable chin and kissed her adieu. "I look like one, don't I, cornered in one of my own castles?" he mocked.

  Apparently his plan prospered, for Agnes had received her message and slipped away before the Queen's return. But Anne cried herself to sleep in his arms that night. Arundel had deliberately kept her waiting until some of York's men had protested, and when at last he had given her audience he had found her so delectable that he had been over-familiar. "You had better save your pretty prayers for that redeless husband of yours," he had said. The fate of Burley, Salisbury and Brembre was firmly sealed and out of his hands, he declared; but for the sake of her patient persistence he would spare her Chaucer. Secretly, he and Gloucester had been uneasy about having Chaucer executed in London because he was, in his quiet way, so popular with the people. Besides, a mere rhyming Customs official wasn't important enough to bother about either way, and being rather overawed by the Queen's imperial connections, Arundel decided that it might be as well to make some show of mercy. And when she went down on her knees to him, for very shame he had promised gruffly that Burley should be beheaded as befitted his rank.

  "Simon will bless you for that, Anne," Richard told her, holding her against his heart in the healing darkness. "A man could go very proudly to his death, I think, knowing that his Queen had cared so much."

  "If only I could have saved them all!" sobbed Anne.

  "Life must be very sweet to Geoffrey Chaucer, with his golden gift and his friendly nature," he reminded her. "Salisbury and Burley are both old men, and Brembre will go out with a jest on his lips. But probably some of Chaucer's best poems are yet to be written. And the world will have you, my love, to thank for them."

  It was good for Richard, having her to comfort. It gave him less time to think of his own grief, and made him, for the time being, lay aside his consuming fury against the men who had insulted his wife and killed his friends. But nothing that Gloucester or Arundel had ever done to him, or ever could, would call so loudly for revenge.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Richard began the day by singing in his bath. It was a long time since he had done that. Almost a year. There had been those awful weeks in the Tower when Mowbray and Bolingbroke had deserted him, and when he had had to endure the humiliation of being seen almost beaten to earth and helpless by the woman to whom he would have given the whole world. There had been the black day of his friends' execution. And then a sort of semi-exile in Bristol, with plenty of time for remembering the price they had paid for him and feeling ashamed of being alive.

  Parliament had soon relented, and on the backward swing of the pendulum several members had felt sneaking shame for their outburst of savagery. There had been no French invasion and the stocks of French wine had run out. With their brains cleared from the fumes of Chartreuse and subversive oratory, people regained some sense of balance. And the heads of three good men stuck on London Bridge sobered them still more. Men began to speak of it as the Merciless Parliament.

  Richard and Anne had come back to Sheen. But it had taken a lot of persuasion to make the King promise to re-enter London. When he appealed to the rich City Guilds to lend him a thousand pounds they had refused, and had torn to pieces an Italian merchant who, benefiting from his peace policy in Europe, had been willing to do so. Such senseless cruelty always enraged Richard. So he had promptly pawned his Aquitanian coronet and retaliated by taking

  away their charters.

  On the proceeds of the coronet he had kept open house. All winter he had hunted hard, putting Barbary at the highest hedges, not seeming to care whether he broke his own neck or not. And at Christmas time he had plunged into an orgy of revelry, so that guests gorging themselves at his board reported that he cared for nothing but pleasure. But even in the midst of masks and mummeries, waves of bitterness and grief swept over him, and it seemed as if only Anne's comfort kept him sane.

  But now it was summer again. And he was young and resilient and ardently in love. And so he leaned luxuriously against the tall, pulpit-like back of his wooden tub and sang. Although it was
scarcely six o'clock of an August morning, sunlight lay in golden shafts across the floor rushes, mingling pleasantly with the steam that enclouded his naked body and drew pungent sweetness from a huge bunch of herbs hung from a rafter above his head. Over by the door the servants were rolling out the empty water tubs, and nearer at hand Jacot himself was laying out his latest creations on a carved hutch at the bottom of the bed.

  Richard stepped from the foamy fragrance onto an Eastern rug a page had set for him, and allowed Standish to rub him down and his barber to shave him. It was fun putting on wellcut clothing when one had the figure. He hoped fervently that he would never grow fat. How devastating to grow a belly like Uncle Edmund's, or fleshy hands that would make an obscenity of the tenderest caress!