Cecily had nursed the sick and buried the dead, had of necessity become as skilled in the arts of healing as any apothecary. She’d watched throughout supper as Richard measured his meal in mouthfuls, left a plateful of food untouched. She’d noted, too, that even though he was lightly tanned, his eyes were deeply smudged, bloodshot, and there was about him the taut wariness of a woodland creature in strange surroundings; when a servant carelessly dropped a chafing dish, Cecily had seen her son flinch like one struck. She’d said nothing, but as soon as Richard retired that evening, she sent a servant for her store of medicinal herbs, and with sure hands, mixed a sleeping draught of henbane, darnel, and dried bryony root. This she dissolved in a cupful of hippocras, and carried it herself on a tray up to her son’s bedchamber.
There she found that Richard’s attendants had already assembled the bed he’d brought with him from Windsor; when she’d questioned him about this, Richard had acted much like a man caught in some secret vice, reluctantly admitted that he was sleeping poorly at night, so much so that he could not sleep at all in a strange bed. He was still up; his esquires had just taken off his doublet, were unbuttoning his shirt as Cecily entered. He smiled at sight of her, and without being asked, dismissed his attendants.
“I thought we might talk awhile longer. I brought you that book I mentioned at supper, the one I want you to read.” Seeing his blank look she prompted patiently, “The Mirroure of the Worlde, remember? It does deal most knowledgeably with the Commandments, the Articles of Faith, and the like.”
“I remember now; thank you,” Richard said politely, and Cecily knew it unlikely he’d ever read it. She tucked it away, nonetheless, in the open coffer that held his personal belongings. As she did, she noticed a book already in the coffer, bound in velvet so faded its original color was beyond determining. Curious, she picked it up, flipped it open. It was a French exercise book, pages yellowing with age, smudged with ink and careless fingers; Anne’s name was written in a childish hand across the flyleaf, and below it, “Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Salisbury,” with “Ned” neatly penned in brackets beneath.
“I found that among Anne’s things,” Richard said. He’d come to stand beside Cecily, now reached for this book that had been first his wife’s and then his son’s. It turned as if of its own accord to a page partially filled with French verbs. Below the exercise, Anne had amused herself by sketching pictures of birds, nesting and on the wing.
“The only creature she could ever draw worth a damn,” Richard said softly, and Cecily saw that still further down on the page were variations of Anne’s name: Anne Neville, Anne Warwick, the Lady Anne, and then, Anne Gloucestre, Anne, Duchess of Gloucestre. Cecily stared down at the young girl’s handwriting—rounded, unformed; how old had Anne been when she’d written that…twelve? Thirteen?
“I brought you some wine, Richard,” she said, and taking the book from him, she replaced it in the coffer, closed the lid.
“Be it true that you expect Tudor to invade the realm come summer?”
They were sitting on the bed; Richard propped a pillow behind him, settled back against the headboard. “Yes,” he said. “Tudor’s putting together a fleet, having it rigged at Harfleur.”
Cecily frowned; he might have been discussing the likelihood of rain, for all the emotion in his voice. “I understand that Lord Stanley has asked for leave to depart the court, to withdraw to his estates in Lancashire.”
Richard nodded. “He says that when the time comes to issue summons to arms against Tudor, he can better rally his men in person.” Dryly.
“And yet you’re going to let him go.” It was not a question, was more in the nature of an accusation.
Richard shrugged. “If I do, Ma Mère, it’ll not be before he does send his eldest son to court to take his place.”
Cecily shook her head. “That’s not enough, Richard, not nearly enough. Stanley is not a man to be bound by the welfare of others, not even his own flesh and blood.”
Another shrug. “I’ve given him reasons a hundredfold to be loyal. I can’t very well force a man to fight for me at swordpoint, Ma Mère.”
“Why not?” she said tartly. “At the least, you can limit his opportunities for betrayal. Keep him close, Richard. Edward would never have let him go.”
“I’m not Ned.” Said very low.
He had, she saw, barely touched the wine. She decided for the moment to let Stanley lie, said instead, “John Scrope told me that you’ve had some success in raising loans?”
“Yes…since February, we’ve been able to collect nigh on twenty thousand pounds.” Richard grimaced. “As if I didn’t already have debts enough to answer for! But short of summoning parliament and inveigling a grant, there was nothing else I could do. I’ve three months at most before Tudor does invade, and I can’t raise an army with expectations, feed them with promises.”
“I understand, though, that there was much grumbling among the London merchants,” Cecily said, hoping to thus diplomatically ease into the subject of her concern, but Richard gave her no chance. With her first words, his eyes had darkened, showed sudden anger.
“What of it?” he demanded. “They’ll get their blood money back. These be loans, not benevolences. I did pledge repayment in full within a year and a half.”
“Yes, I know you did. But while I’m sure few doubt your willingness to make repayment, you cannot blame men for fretting over your ability to do so, Richard. Not when these loans be no more voluntary than the outright gifts Edward demanded; who, after all, is going to feel free to turn down the King?”
“Just what are you suggesting, Ma Mère? What other recourse had I?”
“None,” she agreed. “I just think it might have been more to your political advantage had you exempted London, the way you’ve remitted taxes for York in the past. You haven’t been able to establish the rapport with Londoners that you have with the citizens of York, and nothing be more likely to strain loyalties than to make demands upon men’s purses.”
“Loyalty…in Londoners? I’d as soon look for honor should I fall among thieves,” Richard said caustically, and there was a savagery to the sarcasm that she’d rarely heard from him.
“Those who live in London have ever had a dislike of northerners, Richard,” she said quietly. “It be a bias that, however unfair, you must take into account in your dealings with them. You did but confirm their suspicions by showing such favor to men of the North Country. All those who stand closest to you do come from Yorkshire or the Midlands. You’ve little liking for London or Londoners, and well they know it. And the result is that you’ve reaped a bitter harvest, rumor and innuendo and slanders which would never have taken root in York.”
She reached over, let her fingers rest lightly on his wrist. “The burden be upon you, Richard, to allay their concerns, to show them that you do not hold London any less dearly than York. A King cannot do less, my dearest. You have it in you to be a good King, a better one than your brother, but in this you’ve so far failed; you’ve let your subjects see all too clearly that your heart lies in the North.”
“To be a King is to be no less a man, Ma Mère. I cannot help the way I feel.”
“You can try, however, to make your affinities a little less plain to all. It’s that which I’m asking of you, Richard. Will you think on what I’ve said?”
“Of course,” he said, but she took little encouragement from his ready agreement, saw that her words had not truly touched him.
She watched him in silence for a time, remembering how enthused he’d been about his first parliament, how he’d held forth for hours about the need for reform in the judiciary, how he’d sat himself in Chancery and Exchequer as cases were tried, occasionally even summoning the justices to the Inner Star Chamber to put queries to them about particularly troublesome cases. It’s gone, she thought, utterly gone, that unique capacity for moral indignation in the face of injustice, that willingness to define kingship in terms of service, of responsibilities a
nd rights and the redress of grievances. All at once, Cecily found herself blinking back tears, she who cried so rarely and so reluctantly. Perhaps in time, she thought, in time he’d come to care again; eventually the grieving would have to give way, just as snow melted before the first thaw and all renewed itself in the grace of God.
Richard sat down his half-empty wine cup, began to cough. Cecily had been listening to that cough for hours, and yet each time it started anew, she found herself tensing, unable to concentrate on anything else until the spasm passed. She did not realize her concern showed so nakedly, not until Richard shook his head, said,
“Not you, too, Ma Mère?” He sounded grimly amused. “Poor old Hobbys all but jumps out of his skin every time I so much as clear my throat! I can only tell you what I told him, that I’ve been sneezing and coughing for nigh on a fortnight now. It be a wretched cold, and I’ll admit it’s making life miserable for me, but it’s just that, a cold and no more.”
He smiled and, after a pause, she did, too, albeit far from reassured.
“You look dreadful,” she said candidly, “and I’m not surprised you’ve been ailing, not after watching you pick at your food like a man suspecting poison. But I’m not about to lecture you; you’d not heed me any more than you do Hobbys. I do want to discuss something of great importance with you, though, something you’ve been refusing to discuss in council…remarriage.”
Richard coughed again. “That’s not a topic I care to talk about, Ma Mère, even with you.”
“I would have you hear me out, nonetheless. I can guess what they’ve been telling you, that Anne is two months dead and you need an heir, owe it to England to marry and beget a son. But that’s not why I would urge you to do the same. You are my son and I want what’s best for you. I think you should remarry, Richard, and soon. I know how you loved Anne. But there be a great danger in letting your grieving go unchecked, a danger in that the dead can begin to seem more real than the living.”
Richard looked at her. “Yes,” he said huskily, “I know.” How could he tell her that he was still haunted by the fragrance of Anne’s perfume, that to look upon a woman with chestnut hair was a hurt almost beyond endurance, that Anne claimed his dreams as if they were her own, a merciless tender ghost who laughed and made love and led him back into their past, breathed life into memories, and then fled at dawn, leaving him to awaken alone, to be confronted anew with the reality of her loss.
“This afternoon,” he said, “when you were showing me your gardens, and I saw your beds of hyacinth, white and butter-yellow and crimson…Hyacinths were always Anne’s favorite flower, and for a second or so, I actually found myself thinking, I ought to gather some for Anne.”
Cecily was fingering the rosary beads looped at her belt. “For nigh on a year after your father died,” she said, “I kept his belongings, his clothes, everything, in our bedchamber…as if I thought he’d somehow be coming back.”
That was a rare admission; she’d borne her grief alone, had done all her weeping behind locked doors. There was more than love in the look Richard now gave her, there was awe. This was a particularly bad day for him, being the anniversary of his son’s death, thirteen months past. It was also the birthday of the brother who’d died twenty-four years ago in the snow on Wakefield Bridge, and thinking of Edmund, and of George, thinking of the lifetime of pain that had been his mother’s, he said slowly, “There be this I’ve long wanted to say to you, Ma Mère, that I’ve known no man’s courage greater than your own. I cannot begin to comprehend your resolve, your strength of will; I can only marvel at it.”
Cecily looked down at her hands; they were veined with age, no longer as steady as she would wish. “I truly believe the Almighty does not ask of us more than we have to give, that He does not abandon us in our time of need, and in His love we find the strength to endure, to accept what must be. While it be true that death has come too often for those I’ve loved, I do feel that I’ve been more fortunate than most, for I’ve never known the greatest of all griefs, pain such as yours.”
Richard stared at her in disbelief. “How in God’s Name can you say that, Ma Mère? You’ve lost husband, son, brother, and three nephews…all on the field of battle. Of the twelve children you bore my father, you did bury nine. What can my griefs possibly be when weighed on the scales against such as that?”
“Yes,” she said simply, “but yet I’ve never known what it be like to feel as you do now, forsaken by God.”
Richard stiffened, and she smiled sadly. “Ah, Richard, did you think I’d need to be told? It must seem to you as if your crown were anointed in blood…. So many deaths, so much grief. Being the man you are, you could not but question why.” She leaned over, reached out to touch his face in the lightest, most fleeting of caresses.
“I know my sons. Had it been Edward, he, too, might have doubted his right, but not for long. Your brother was not one to wear a hairshirt, and all his life had a lamentable tendency to confuse God’s will with his own. As for my poor George, he was as deaf to the voice of conscience as he was blind to the consequences of his sins. But you and Edmund…you were ever my vulnerable ones.”
“Can you tell me that I’m wrong, Ma Mère? Can you in all honesty tell me that I’ve not sinned in taking the crown?”
“No, Richard, I cannot. Only God can answer that, and you, for you alone know what was in your heart when you took the crown.”
“That’s just it, Ma Mère, I don’t know anymore. At the time, I truly thought I had no choice, that I had the right. But now…now I can’t be sure.” He paused, said with wrenching candor, “I wanted it, you see. I wanted to be King.”
“That in and of itself is not a sin, Richard,” Cecily said, very softly.
“Tell me this, then. In little more than a month, it will be two years since I was anointed with the holy chrism, asked the Almighty to uphold my right, Richard, by the Grace of God…. I have the kingship, Ma Mère, have the blessed crown of the Confessor. But my brother’s sons are dead, the children he entrusted to my keeping. My own son died a death that was not easy, and Anne…I watched her life ebb away like sand through my fingers, unable to ease her suffering, to do anything at all for her. And even as she lay dying, there were men to say I welcomed her death, that I lusted after my own niece, and there were those to believe it of me, those who do think me guilty of child-murder, adultery, and incest. If I have not sinned against God, why am I being punished like this?”
“Ah, Richard….” Cecily’s voice had thickened; she drew a deep shuddering breath, at last said, “God does sometimes act to test our faith, in ways we cannot hope to understand. Did not Satan say to the Lord of Job, ‘Put forth Thy hand now and touch all he has and he will curse Thee to Thy face,’ and the Lord did reply to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your power,’ and Job did suffer greatly, did lose his family and his health, had to lose all to find anew his faith in the Almighty.”
Richard raised his eyes to hers, saw with shock that her face was wet with tears. He could not remember ever having seen her cry openly before, not even when he’d come to tell her that George had been put to death, and stricken with remorse, he sought to make amends the only way he could, saying urgently, “I’m sorry, Ma Mère, so sorry. Can you not forget this, forget what I’ve said? I didn’t mean it. I’m just tired and more dispirited than usual tonight, more inclined to self-pity. That’s all it was, in truth.”
Cecily said nothing. She understood now what had previously seemed inexplicable to her, why he was willing to put Stanley’s loyalty to the test, a risk that he need not have taken. He was no longer listening to the dictates of self-interest, was following inner instincts more compelling than reason. Trial by combat, to seek God’s judgment on the field of battle. If his claim to the crown was just, he’d prevail. If not, Tudor would have the victory.
She had known fear for her sons before. Until she’d been reassured by her husband’s confessor that both he and Edmund had been shriven on Chri
stmas Eve, she’d lived in terror that they might have been denied salvation, died in mortal sin. It was her fear for George’s immortal soul that had at last impelled her to take holy vows, for she had not been able to take much comfort in Stillington’s assurance that George had confessed, received absolution for his sins. The Sacrament of Penance was meaningless unless the sinner was truly repentant, and Cecily harbored grave doubts that her troubled son had been capable of contrition. Her fear for Richard now was such that her mouth went dry, and her soul cried out in anguish that her faith was not strong enough, not sufficient unto the Lord, for how could she ever bear it should she lose this son, too? She squeezed the rosary until the beads imprinted themselves in the palm of her hand, until she was able to give him the assurance he so needed, to say with at least a semblance of conviction, “I know you didn’t mean it, Richard, and if you want this conversation forgotten, then it is.”
The sleeping draught was beginning to have its effect; Richard’s dark eyes were drowsy, heavy-lidded, and she could take some satisfaction in that, at least, that she’d given him one night’s untroubled rest.
“You’re tired; we’ll talk in the morning,” she said gently. Leaning over, she brushed her lips against his forehead and then straightened, for his shirt was open and his throat bare, no longer encircled by silver.
“Richard, what happened to your pilgrim pledge? Did you lose it?”
“No…. I gave it to Anne.”
“Here then, take this.” She fumbled with the chain around her neck, and disregarding his protests, pressed her own crucifix into his hand.
Richard was deeply touched. “Thank you, Ma Mère.” There was an intensity of emotion in this moment impossible to acknowledge, too much that they could not put into words, and he swallowed, said as lightly as he could, “Do you have vervain in your garden? I’ve been told it acts to safeguard men in battle.”
She knew he was teasing, knew there was no other way for them to deal with the dangers he’d be facing, but she felt a chill, nonetheless, and she who all her life had been so sparing in her caresses, so prudent with her praise, found herself wanting only to gather him to her and keep him safe within her arms, to comfort the boy he had been and heal the man he now was, her lastborn and the dearest of her children.
The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III Page 117