Within the Hollow Crown

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  "The striped ray is the dernier cri from Paris, sir. So youthful, so légère! They say King Charles of France had one made for Candlemas," chattered Jacot.

  "They say too that he has at last shaken off the outworn regency of his uncles," murmured Richard, through the trickle of rose water being sprayed on his freshly shaven cheeks. The multi-coloured gaudiness of the ray was certainly tempting; just the thing for a river party or a bal masque. But today he wanted to look his age, so he chose the fawn lamé with the gold-lined over-sleeves.

  "You've certainly surpassed yourself in the cut, Jacot!" he

  commended, when they had buttoned him into it. Clasping the narrow gold belt, he pivoted round to survey straight shoulder and slender flank in the burnished Saracen shield which young Tom Holland held for him. Not a crease anywhere. The quiet, expensive material and up-standing collar gave him dignity; and the narrow line of white linen at neck and wrist added that touch of modishness which so became him.

  The little French tailor skipped round him, smoothing here and tweaking there, and giving vent to staccato superlatives.

  "Stop behaving like an ecstatic monkey, and go home and give my love to Mundina!" laughed Richard. "Tell her that Chaucer has written a marvellous allegorical fantasy about the Queen. It is called 'The Legend of Good Women', and he reads it to us all among the roses in the garden. In it he says God made her like a daisy, fair to see. And everybody is so enchanted with it that my wife is badgering me to have the whole scene painted—to remind us of happiness when we are old or sad, she says. So I specially want Mundina to be sitting among her women in the foreground."

  While Richard was still sipping his morning cup of hot spiced wine, Medford came to read him a list of the day's engagements in London. In spite of the royal dudgeon, they sounded pleasant enough, and Richard had promised himself an unscheduled and chancy adventure to which he looked forward with keen excitement. He gave orders for all the most important members of his household to accompany him. But first he must go and bid the Queen good morning.

  He found her still abed, and shooed the tiring women from her room.

  "Lazy wench!" he remarked pleasantly, looking down at the sleepy weight of curled lashes on her unpainted face.

  "Whose fault?" she countered, turning on her pillow in delicious drowsiness.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her up against his shoulder, so that her long dark hair made a curtain over his possessive hands. "Nice!" murmured Anne, nuzzling appreciatively at the smooth fawn cloth. "How do you manage to look so vigorous and

  smell so nice at this hour in the morning?"

  "By taking a herb bath at the crack of dawn," he told her.

  "You're like a child," she complained adoringly. "Waking instantly, clear-eyed, and sparkling irritatingly before anybody else can bear to be funny."

  "Well, we've quite a lot of things to do today."

  "What sort of things, Richard?"

  "Since you insist that I go to London, I am taking the opportunity of meeting the architect about the new roof I want to put into Westminster Hall. The proportions of the place are so perfect that it deserves something really beautiful, and Chaucer seems to think that we can take down those supporting Norman pillars and span the whole roof space with oak. He seems to know quite a lot about architecture as well as poetry, Anne."

  "You will have to make him Clerk of the Works," laughed Anne, who always felt specially responsible for his career now that she had been instrumental in saving his life. "What next?"

  "The College of Heraldry experts will be meeting me there with the designs they've been getting out for livery badges. All sorts of suggestions for people to choose from, and taken mostly from our coats-of-arms."

  Anne settled herself more snugly in his arms. "Why are you so anxious for everybody's followers, as well as ordinary household servants, to be labelled?" she asked.

  "Because it will make a lot of people come out into the open, and we shall know where we stand. And I rather think the Gloucester-Arundel faction are in for some surprises. Specially now that Lancaster is coming home. I want you to be there, Anne. It should be rather amusing. Some of the barons may sneer and say it's one of my fantastic ideas, but they'd hate to be left out."

  "I wonder what heraldic badges your uncle Thomas and Arundel will choose," laughed Anne.

  "Oh, a couple of belching dragons rampant, I should imagine."

  "And after that?"

  Richard got up and smoothed down his new tunic. "After

  that," he told her with dignity, "I have some state business to attend to."

  "Oh!"

  The dignity crumbled very quickly. "But first there is this state entry," he complained. "Our stock seems to have gone up with the civic corporation. Probably it shook them, my pawning the Aquitanian regalia. Anyway, they're feeding us lavishly at the Guild Hall. Peacock and roast boar, I understand. And I suppose Richard Whittington or someone will sit in Brembre's place and expect me not to notice. And to have a good appetite."

  "My dear! But I suppose it is their way of trying to win your forgiveness."

  "I can't forgive them. But I can ride through the streets loathing them if it will please you."

  "Not to please me, Richard, but because we can't afford to quarrel with them. I am sure Simon would have thought it best." It was difficult giving advice in a strange country. Anne frowned in perplexity, sitting bolt upright braiding her hair into two glossy ropes. "What I can't understand is why the Londoners betrayed you, when you and Robert and Brembre were always planning things for their good."

  "Because, long before you came, Gloucester destroyed their trust in me. And trust doesn't grow a second time," Richard explained sadly. "But they loved me once, Ann. You should have heard the bells ringing after I'd saved their city from Wat Tyler's men!"

  Anne slid down from the great four-poster and ran barefoot to where he stood, putting warm, bare arms about his neck. "I will make them love you again, Richard," she promised.

  He held her tight, remembering how uncomplainingly she had shared his misfortunes. "And I will give you a lovely, peaceful England. A place fit for a wonderful queen to reign over," he swore. "Sooner than you think, perhaps." His face kindled as it always did in his enthusiasms, and he held her at arm's length, all the artist in him considering the porphyry loveliness of her nude body almost as impersonally as he might have studied the perfection of a statue. "Anne, I want you to look queenly today," he said urgently. "I want you to put on that silver dress stitched over with pearls."

  "I can't put on anything unless you go away and let my women come in," pointed out Anne.

  Richard let her go. "They can come in now," he said, obligingly clapping his hands for them.

  "But, darling, you know how shocked old Mother Techsen is because you will wander about my bedroom while they're dressing me," objected Anne, reaching hurriedly for her wrap.

  "Shocked? The prim old Hussite! But I sleep here, don't I?"

  "That's different," explained Anne, furling the extravagant garment about her slender hips. "They're not here then."

  "Good God, I should hope not!" ejaculated Richard, scowling horribly as they all trooped into the room bearing towels and perfumes and stacks of feminine gear. He bowed frigidly to the hawk-eyed duenna in charge of them. But by the time he had reached the door a happy thought had restored his good humour. "Landgravine Techsen, the Queen and I invite you and the other Bohemian ladies to come to London with us this morning—in your best dresses," he said graciously. "My late mother's state charette will be at your disposal."

  They all looked much elated at the honour, and even the landgravine preened herself at the thought of riding in the grandest equipage in the stables.

  To Anne, Richard kissed his fingertips, adding in very bad Latin, "The scarlet hangings are moth-eaten and it jolts like a pack horse!"

  So they rode out from Sheen, all in the summer weather— Anne radiant in a gown studded with precious stones
and Richard wearing the floreated ducal coronet which he had redeemed from the moneylenders for the occasion. And by the bridge gate at Southwark was Whittington, the Mayor, waiting for them with a splendid gift of two white horses for the King and a little white palfrey for the Queen. Richard loved the horses, of course, but was not placated. Like a good wife, Anne tried to cover the stiffness of his thanks with her own genuine enthusiasm, and watched the sulky set of his lips with foreboding. Unfortunately, the worthy Whittington saw fit to accompany the gifts with a long, boring speech sprinkled with hints about the return of his City's charters and the influence of gentle wives.

  "It was clever of you to think of the horses; he loves them so. And I will do what I can to persuade him," whispered Anne, pleasing the perspiring Mayor immensely by riding beside him.

  And on London Bridge the fates were kind to their collusion. Crowds followed them from Southwark and crowds swept forward from London to meet them, and close behind them pranced the startled white horses. And in all the confusion and press of people the brightly painted charette full of Anne's women wobbled on its worn wheels and overturned. Bohemian ladies rolled out of it, best dresses, horned headdresses and all. Prentice boys jeered and cheered and worthy citizens, hurrying to their assistance, found themselves too shaken with laughter to help. And Richard and Anne, hearing shrieks and foreign voices raised above the pandemonium, looked back to see the narrow roadway strewn with scarlet upholstery and inebriated-looking ladies.

  "Oh, my poor dears!" cried Anne, thinking of the river racing through the narrow arches below.

  "I'm sorry! I'd no idea the old hen cart was as rickety as that!" spluttered Richard, trying to look repentant. But the sight of Old Mother Techsen's skinny legs sticking through the side window was too much for him. "Tell her how shocked I am," he tried to say severely. "Bare to the thigh, and not in the privacy of her bedroom!" But at sight of his wife's anxious face he stopped grinning and turned to the Mayor behind him. "For God's sake, Whittington, go and see them properly packed in again," he ordered. And there on London Bridge he forgot all about his royal dudgeon, and made his entry into London, enjoying himself enormously in the middle of a laughing crowd. And if Anne were hurt because her countrywomen were the target of their ribald mirth, she was too wise to show resentment. Her love for Richard was such that she would have been glad of any event that seemed so happy an augury for him.

  They feasted in the Guild Hall. The Cheapside conduit ran red wine, and bands of musicians made harmonies about St. Paul's. Down Ludgate Hill the royal party rode, between tall houses hung with gold and silver tapestries; and out from the Wardrobe gatehouse came Mundina to kiss their hands. As they passed under Ludgate and clattered over the Fleet, bevies of golden-haired girls dressed as angels showered them with scented flowers, and at the Temple barrier they drew rein to watch a pageant which included lions and dragons and even a Garden of Eden serpent, and must have cost the repentant magnates hundreds of pounds.

  "Peace be to this city; for the sake of Christ, His mother, and my patron St. John," said Richard, kissing the gemmed crucifix they gave him. And because he was obviously moved, others besides Anne saw that light of inner grace about him.

  The apartness of his kinghood was still upon him as he ascended his throne in Westminster Hall. But he led Anne to the throne beside his own and, still sitting, addressed his people. Richard never made long speeches and what he said was always spontaneous, his beautifully modulated voice carrying even to the crowds standing in the sunlight outside the great open doors. "I will restore to you my royal favour as in former days," he promised, "for I duly prize the expense you have incurred, the presents you have made me, and the prayers of the Queen." He knew that their tumultuous cheers were even more for her than for himself, and gave them time to exhaust themselves. "Take back the key and the sword," he said, taking the symbols of their freedom from his squires and handing them to the kneeling Mayor. "Henceforth avoid offence to your sovereign and preserve the ancient faith. Keep my peace in your city," he added sternly, "and be my representatives among the people."

  Anne was eaten with pride in him. In that rich setting, with the gorgeous banners of his knights and ancestors as background, he bore himself so much a Plantagenet. But beneath all the romantic ritual of his public personality he was still her own everyday Richard, and as the scarlet-clad aldermen filed out she heard him say to York with irritable realism, "Today's show must have cost them every groat of a thousand pounds. Why, in the name of common sense,

  couldn't they have lent it to me in the first place?"

  A few minutes later he was immersed in plans for the new roof, poring over parchments, listening to the suggestions of Hugh Hurland, his beloved carpenter, and walking about the hall with unflagging energy to view the possibilities from all angles.

  But when the experts from the College of Heraldry were admitted he rejoined Anne on the dais. "One gets a better view from here," he whispered, preparing to enjoy himself.

  The body of the hall was all animation at once. Nobles and knights—anybody who was anybody at all—crowded round the long refectory tables upon which the designs of proposed badges were being spread. Obviously, their amour propre was very deeply involved.

  "Let Thomas Holland choose first. He is a sick man," Richard ordered, across the rising din of their contentious voices. And his elder half-brother, who hadn't long to live, chose—as everyone had expected—the hind from his mother's quartering.

  "Which heraldic beast are you going to have for yourself, Dickon?" he asked, from the chair in which his servants had brought him.

  "Something fierce, symbolic of his bloodthirsty Cheshire archers?" snickered Gloucester.

  "Forty thousand of them, weren't there?" grinned Henry Bolingbroke, behind his hand.

  "Presumably, you will choose the lion, sir," York hastened to suggest. Since Radcot Bridge, he considered young Bolingbroke was growing too big for his boots.

  "No, I am leaving that for Uncle John," said Richard, flicking them with a reminder that the mighty Lancaster was on his way home. "I will think for a while, while the rest of you choose."

  Tigers, panthers, foxes, bears, fierce cockatrices, wild boars— they parted the whole menagerie among them. Fiery cressets were hot favourites. Lions rampant and lions couchant they haggled over. They were quite unaware that their young king and queen were laying bets on them with suppressed laughter. And presently Richard strolled down to the table. They made way for him and he stood among them, lifting first one design and then another, looking at each consideringly. Anne felt certain that all the time he knew exactly what he meant to have, and that he was only amusing himself keeping them standing there, watching him. "I think I will choose this," he decided at length, holding up an exquisite drawing of a little white hart.

  Obviously some of them thought he was joking.

  "A white hart—for the King of England!" exploded Gloucester. "Have you no pride, Richard?"

  "After Crécy! And with the three leopards of the first Richard on your shield!" snarled Arundel.

  "A chained white hart, I think," went on Richard, as if they had not spoken. "You could easily add a collar, couldn't you?" he asked, turning to the hovering draughtsman.

  Even Edmund of York, who had chosen an inoffensive falcon, was vaguely shocked. "My dear Richard, at least add a sunburst or a broomscod or something," he remonstrated.

  "You think so? Well, perhaps the collar can be turned into a crown—worn round the poor creature's neck. And I think two chains," he added, staring gently at Gloucester and Arundel, "to lead it by."

  None of them knew how to take him, and their discomfited glances followed him as he turned aside to arrange about a coat-ofarms for Chaucer. Really, when he looked round the hall, Geoffrey Chaucer seemed to be the only friend left out of his old life. And, after all, Philippa Chaucer's family had borne arms and her sister, Katherine, was Lancaster's mistress. "Trace it through Mistress Chaucer's father, Sir Payne Roet," h
e told Surroy King-of-Arms.

  Anne, of course, was delighted. But before he went to attend a full Council meeting she drew him apart to scold him gently.

  "You just try to provoke them!" she whispered, straightening the buckle of his belt.

  "Did you see Warwick oozing disgust, and Henry's popping eyes!" Richard chuckled reminiscently.

  "But why did you have to choose a white hart? Was it just a joke?"

  "No. There are some things one doesn't jest about." He was

  suddenly serious and, seeing his squires waiting to conduct him to the Council Chamber, he explained in low, hurried tones, "Just before the peasants revolted my mother tried to keep me with her in Canterbury. I know now that she must have been worried about my going to London. She tried to persuade me…She had even had some stuff specially woven for me for a new hunting coat. It was covered with little white harts. I never had that coat. It seems so churlish now…"