But it was Will’s unease of mind which did trouble her most. She’d begun to realize that Will cared for her much more deeply than she did for him. Had that made him more receptive to her pleas than he would otherwise have been? She didn’t like to think so; that was a burden she was not willing to take upon herself, that Will might have been coaxed into conspiracy out of love for her. She reminded herself that it was his own political survival which did motivate him, his fear that he’d be shunted aside, stripped of the chamberlainship once Gloucester was King. But still it nagged at her peace of mind; however deep Will’s discontent, would he have acted upon it were it not for her? And now he was committed, had thrown his lot in with the Woodvilles he so disliked, and his shadowed dark eyes held a baffled bewilderment, as if he were not sure how it had all come about.
Jane peeled the sheet back; it clung to her skin, sticky with sweat. Jesú, how hot it was! What would happen tomorrow morning at the council meeting? Would Will be able to carry it off, to face Gloucester as if nothing were amiss? Stray wisps of hair had escaped her night-plait, were tickling annoyingly against her neck. She brushed them back impatiently, sat up in the bed. She wished tomorrow weren’t a Friday the thirteenth; a bad omen, that. If only she knew that Tom was safe, that he’d gotten well away from sanctuary. If only she could be sure that this was what Ned would have wanted her to do.
She had been sure of that…in the beginning. Ned had loved his son, would want to see him crowned. But…but would he be willing that so many men must die that Edward might be King? It was that which gave Jane pause. She’d not fully realized before what the cost in men’s lives would be. Others must die with Gloucester. Buckingham. Viscount Lovell. All those who stood closest to Gloucester, who might have been made privy to the secret of the plight-troth. Would Ned have wanted that? He’d loved his son, but he’d loved his brother, too. Would he have been willing to sacrifice Gloucester for the sake of Edward’s sovereignty?
She sighed. Why couldn’t she care for Will as he cared for her? He was a good man, a decent man, and she could depend upon him, knew he’d always be there for her. Why was it, then, that she wanted Tom? Tom, who was a will-of-the-wisp, as unpredictable as he was handsome. What a pity she could not find a man as reliable as Will and as exciting to lay with as Tom! But then, she had. For nigh on nine years, she had.
Will mumbled something inaudible; it sounded like her name. Jane frowned. She’d not been honest with Will, had led him to believe she cared more than she did. She could live with that. But what if she’d done him a far greater hurt? What if their plans did not work out? Or—and this question brought her up short—what if they did? Once Will had secured his political future, would he come in time to feel the price had been too high?
She had to stop this. It served for naught. All would be well. It had to be. Edward would be King; Tom and Will would govern for him until he came of age. And in time she’d forget that his crown had been anointed in blood. Tom would help her to forget.
Shortly before 9:00 A.M., servants began to make ready the Council Chamber on the upper floor of the White Tower. Their task was easier than it might otherwise have been, for the council was not meeting in full session that day.
John Morton, Bishop of Ely, was the first to put in an appearance, followed by Lord Stanley. One by one, the others passed through the river gate into the Tower bailey, stopped to pay respects to Edward, who was playing at the archery butts on Tower Green, and then made their way up to the Council Chamber, took their seats.
It was not a congenial gathering, the atmosphere charged with dark undercurrents of strain, much like the static electricity that foretold a coming storm. Archbishop Rotherham had his mouth almost at Lord Stanley’s ear; as he droned on, Stanley stared out the window, looking bored. Morton made desultory conversation with Buckingham. No one else spoke. Will Hastings looked ill, almost unkempt, and there was about his eyes a bruised puffiness that proclaimed him starved for sleep. Apparently oblivious of the others, he was gazing down at a paper before him, sketching aimless circles with an erratic pen. John Howard had taken a seat as far away from Will as he could get, had yet to meet his old friend’s eyes even in passing. Less than four hours had elapsed since he’d been made privy to Will’s involvement in the Woodville-Morton plot, and the shock had not yet worn off. Beside him, Francis fidgeted nervously, watched the door.
It was after ten before Richard entered the chamber. He stood unmoving for a moment in the doorway, as if reluctant to cross the threshold, and then came forward, took his seat at the head of the table.
“Your Grace does look overtired this morn. Not a bad night, I trust?”
John Morton’s brows were raised in query. So solicitous did he sound that a stranger might well have assumed he was asking after the health of an old and intimate friend. Richard found his fingers twitching of their own volition; he wanted nothing so much at that moment as to be able to wipe away that fraudulent smile with his fist. He turned away without answering, let his eyes travel the length of the table until they came to rest upon Will Hastings.
If Morton was disconcerted by Richard’s rudeness, it didn’t show on his face. “Well, Your Grace, what be the first order of business?”
Richard ignored him. He drew a deep, steadying breath, and then began to speak, very low and very fast.
“My first lesson in betrayal came at seventeen, when I did learn that my cousin Warwick had taken as ally the woman he had reason above all others to hate. I’d have thought no degree of double-dealing could surprise me after that, but I was wrong. Last night I did discover all over again just what men will do in the name of ambition. Even men who profess to love honor….” His mouth contorted suddenly. “Men who cloak their betrayals in friendship!”
He could hear chairs shifting about, scraping against the floor rushes. Will’s pen had frozen with Richard’s first words. It now jerked, snapped cleanly in two by the pressure of clutching fingers.
“I’m not sure I do follow you, my lord.” It was Morton, regarding Richard with admirable aplomb; only the flicker of hooded black eyes gave the lie to his icy composure. “Just what are you implying?”
“Implying? I’m implying nothing. I’m accusing, my lord Bishop, accusing you and your confederates of plotting against the government, of seeking my death and the deaths of all those likely to oppose you.” Richard’s words were coming too fast now, were slurring in his haste to get them said. “In short, my lord Bishop, I’m charging you with treason.”
There was a deathly silence. Rotherham’s lips were puckering queerly, sucking in air like a beached fish. Stanley half rose, seemed to think better of it. Will’s face twitched, as if experiencing an unexpected pain; it had taken on a queer dusky red, a sudden suffusion of blood.
“I can assure you, my lord of Gloucester, that—”
“No, Dr Morton, you cannot.” Richard was gripping the edge of the table, so tightly that a ring was being driven deep into his flesh; he didn’t even feel it.
“There be nothing you can say that I want to hear. You and Thomas Stanley and Archbishop Rotherham did enter into a conspiracy with the Queen and her Woodville kindred to seize control of the government, and in so doing, you stand accused of far worse than treason and attempted murder. You were willing to risk civil war, cared not that you might be plunging England back into the turmoil and chaos of Lancaster’s reign. And had you succeeded, you’d have bled the country white with your greed, with a bloodletting such as even Marguerite d’Anjou would have shrunk from!
“And this…” His eyes came suddenly back to Will. “This you did know, Lord Hastings. You could have no illusions about the allies you’d chosen for yourself. You knew what they’d do once in power. And still you fettered yourself to them, to the Woodvilles and this Judas priest! Christ, Will, how could you?”
A commotion erupted at the end of the table. Stanley had unbuckled his scabbard before the council began, hung it over the back of his chair. Coming to his f
eet, he fumbled for it, sought to draw the sword. John Howard was quicker. He grabbed Stanley’s wrist, jerked with such force that Stanley lost his balance, somehow got his feet tangled under the legs of his chair, and fell heavily against the table.
Before anyone could move, before Stanley could regain his feet, the door was shoved open and men-at-arms rushed into the chamber. Rotherham, who was closest to the door, shrank back with a sound much like a bleat. Stanley’s sword had fallen to the floor in the scuffle. Francis kicked it out of reach.
Will finally found his voice. “It’s not true,” he said hoarsely. “Dickon, I do swear to you that it’s not!”
“And on what do you swear, Will?” Richard asked bitterly. “On the love you bore my brother? My brother, who died at forty because of you and men like you, you with your carousing and your court sluts! What cared you that your riotous living was ravaging his health, quenching his life’s breath like a gutted candle?”
“That’s not true! I did love Ned fully as much as you, accept no blame for his death. My whole life was a litany of loyalty to him, to York. How can you accuse me now of treason? Jack….” Will jerked about in his chair, toward John Howard. “Jack, for God’s sake, tell him I’d not join a Woodville intrigue!”
Howard averted his eyes. “Will, don’t,” he said gruffly. “It be no use to lie. You misjudged Catesby. He did go to Dickon.”
The breath went from Will’s lungs in one audible gasp. He slumped back in his chair, and then raised hollowed dark eyes to Richard’s face.
“You forced me to it, Dickon. I didn’t want it this way, but you gave me no choice.”
“I see…. You betrayed those who called you friend, intrigued with those you had most reason to distrust, sought to disavow your plotting with still more lies, and now you do explain it all away as my fault?” Richard said, so scathingly that Will’s face went even redder.
“Yes, damn you, yes! What did you expect me to do? To stand by while you let Buckingham usurp the place that was rightfully mine? A man who be green as grass and as hungry for power as ever Warwick was! I was Ned’s Chamberlain for twenty-two years; you owed me better than this!”
“I trusted you, Will. Fool that I was, I trusted you! Even knowing that you were sharing Ned’s harlot with Thomas Grey, I never once suspected you might be false!”
A vein was pulsing in Will’s forehead. “And Ned trusted you! You above all other men! With his dying breath, he gave his son over into your keeping. And how mean you to fulfill that trust? By branding Ned’s children as bastards and taking the crown from a boy you swore to protect!”
Richard had gone very white. He was on his feet, had backed away from the table, and the look on his face was such that the captain of his guards at once came forward, hand on sword hilt.
“Your Grace? What is your will?”
“This man does stand convicted by his own mouth of high treason. Let him learn, then, how traitors be dealt with.” Sweat glistened at Richard’s temples; his chest heaved as if he’d been running. “Take him out onto the green and strike his head from his shoulders.”
The man blinked. “You mean…now, Your Grace? Without a…” He’d been about to say “trial,” but thought better of it in time, said instead, “What…what of the block, my lord? We’re not set up for an execution….”
“Find one!” Richard shouted. “I don’t care how, but see to it!”
The captain didn’t wait to be told twice. He signaled and men-at-arms moved to Will’s chair, pulled him roughly to his feet. He didn’t resist; his mouth was working but no sounds emerged. The other accused men looked no less stunned. Stanley struggled briefly with his captors, was dragged away from the table by force. Seeing that, Morton stood up hastily. He’d lost much of his urbane assurance now that he thought he, too, might be facing the axe within moments; his face was blanched a sickly bloodless color neither white nor grey. Rotherham had begun to make soft whimpering noises low in his throat. He had to be grasped under the arms and yanked upright and even then he could not stand alone, had to be supported by the guards.
No one else had moved. Francis looked dazed. Buckingham was brightly flushed, his eyes glittering green-gold in the sun. John Howard had bitten his lip so deeply that blood was beginning to trickle down his chin.
It was to Howard, not Richard, that Will now looked. “Jack?” he whispered, saw the other man flinch away from the sound. Before he had time fully to realize that Howard was not going to intercede for him, nor was Richard to relent, he was at the door, was about to be shoved through into the stairwell.
“A priest!” he blurted out desperately. “Holy Christ, but you’d not deny me a priest!”
The captain, however, was not about to do anything at that point without Richard’s express authorization. “Your Grace? May he be shriven?”
And only when Richard gave a jerky nod did the captain turn to his sergeant, say tersely, “Go to the chapel. Get us a priest. Take Hastings onto the green; wait for me there. Escort the other three to Wakefield Tower and put them under guard.”
Once the door had closed behind them, Richard turned away, moved like a man sleepwalking toward the closest window. He recoiled almost at once, however, for it afforded him a clear view of the Tower Green. Earlier that morning, Edward had been amusing himself there at the butts. Now men were already engaged in urgent activity, were rolling a large log into position on the grass. A priest was emerging from the Chapel of St Peter. Summer sun glinted blindingly upon the silver-gilt pyx that held the Host, so that it seemed enveloped in a halo of light. Richard backed away.
Francis started to rise, only to have Buckingham lean across the table and grasp his wrist. “Let him be,” he hissed.
“The Devil I will!” Francis jerked his wrist free. “There’s still time to put a halt to it. Let Hastings die for his treason, but not like this. Jesú, not like this!”
“And would you rather have him tried and condemned and pleading with Richard for clemency? Would you have Hastings’s wife on her knees before Richard begging for mercy? God’s Blood, Lovell, use your head! The man be too dangerous to be forgiven; did you learn nothing with Warwick?”
John Howard had slouched down in his chair, chin resting almost on his chest. He looked up now, tasted blood on his lips, and spat into the floor rushes. “Buckingham be right,” he said thickly. “Will did choose, did know the price for failure. If death is to come, it be a mercy that it does come quick….”
Francis glared at them both. “You fools, don’t you see? It’s not Hastings I do care about, it’s Dickon! It be for his sake that—”
He stopped in midsentence. The captain of the guards had returned, was standing in the doorway.
“Your Grace?” He stopped self-consciously, and then said briskly, striving to sound matter-of-fact, “It be done, my lord, as you did command. What would you have us do with the body? Be it your wish that the head be displayed on Drawbridge Gate, to lesson others as to what befalls traitors?”
“No!” Richard drew a deep breath, said more calmly, “It was my brother’s wish that Hastings be buried beside him at Windsor. See that it be done.”
There was a glazed earthenware jug at the end of the table, which had somehow emerged unscathed when Stanley lurched into the table. Richard crossed to it, spilled water into an empty cup. It was only then that he realized how his hand was trembling.
The day’s heat did not begin to burn off until dusk. Kneeling on the window seat in her bedchamber, Anne was grateful to feel cooler air fan past her face. For the first time in hours, the street below was quiet. A few carts creaked by; a few housewives were hastening homeward with market purchases. But the others were gone, the crowds drawn by curiosity to gather before the Lord Protector’s house on this, a day of such momentous happenings.
It was noontime when the first rumors did spill over the Tower walls, spread through the streets of London. None knew for sure what had happened, but there was talk of a confrontation in coun
cil, one that did end in a pool of blood on Tower Green. By the time Lord Mayor Shaa had been summoned to the Tower, the city was in a fair state of panic. So, too, was Anne, waiting anxiously at Crosby Place for word of Richard’s safety.
The courier arrived with a message for her from Francis Lovell at the same time a royal herald was proclaiming at Paul’s Cross that Lord Hastings had involved himself in a plot to overthrow the government and had met the fate that all traitors deserved, a swift and ignominious death. Francis’s note was hastily scribbled, told Anne little beyond the stark facts of Will Hastings’s execution. Dickon was going to Westminster directly after meeting with the Lord Mayor, he wrote, to put the proof of the conspiracy before the full council. He had no idea how long it would take; she’d best not expect Dickon for hours. He hoped she understood why Dickon hadn’t the time to write himself, but she mustn’t worry; the worst was over.
Hours later, Anne was still struggling with a stunned sense of disbelief. What had driven Richard to this, to ordering a man’s death without trial? Had Will’s betrayal lacerated so deeply as that? Or had he feared that he’d not be able to do it if he delayed?
She had no answers, only questions. How could their world have changed so in just two brief months? All seemed to be closing in on them, to be conspiring to strip all security from their lives. Only seven days had passed since Stillington’s revelation. Seven days! And now Will Hastings was dead, Ned’s dearest friend, dead at her husband’s command, and how in God’s Name had it all come about?
Darkness was laying claim to the sky, slowly blotting out the last traces of light lingering along the horizon by the time Richard came home to her. She jumped to her feet as he walked through the bedchamber doorway and then ran to him, into his arms. They stood that way in silence for a time; she could hear his heart hammering against her ear, could feel tension in every line of his body.
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