A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  Having money in their pouches, they were able to buy a few dainties, although they were always robbed in the transactions; but even when a kind-hearted jailer did bring the wine they asked for, it could not drown the spectres that haunted them sleeping or waking. Like beasts before slaughter, they awaited death and tried to speak philosophically of it; but there were occasions when its horror burst upon them, drove them near to madness, and they implored their friends to slay them rather than to let them live to be tortured. Only Ashley maintained his air of scornful courage, rarely speaking and never repining. Heron seemed to have shrivelled with panic. He prayed continually and begged the priests for a string of beads that he might say his Aves. They’d not give him one, they said, lest he hang himself with Mary’s blessing. In silence, Skelton sat shivering, only groaning now and then and squeaking as though suddenly stung when he remembered some favourite sin and knew that he must die and never taste ecstasy again. In misery, often weeping, Perkin sat, brooding on Katherine’s fate rather than on his own.

  She was safe, one of the lay-brothers said to torment him; and she was very blithe, said the man, having sport at Taunton with the king.

  “My brother has just returned from there,” he said, “and he saw her carried in a litter through the streets with no veiling to hide her face. Rosy, she was, says he, and very mirthful and with so lovesome a smile that it pierced his marrow-bones.”

  “She smiled?” cried Perkin. “Are you sure she smiled?”

  “It was my born brother himself who saw her with his own eyes,” said the man haughtily, “and he was always as quick as a sparrow to look on a bonnibell. There were gentlemen riding beside her litter, says he, and she was chambering with them in her eyes when they leaned down to whisper or to pinch her cheeks … So he tells me, I only say what he tells me …”

  Before the rage in Perkin’s eyes, the man stood back and grinned; then he laughed as he strode out and slammed and locked the door.

  “Let the curs snap,” said Ashley. “The fellow lies. Have no fear; your lady's safe. If only in fear of Scotland, Tydder would not have her harmed.”

  “Would to God I knew for certain they were lies!” wailed Perkin. “It is not knowing that drives me mad, to wrestle with fears and doubts … Women are never easy folk to understand, and my dear lady was a mirror that showed no depth. Never once did I find what she was thinking of, or what she thought of me, or whether she loved me or pretended because she was a good woman and must obey her husband. She told me nothing, nothing …”

  Never before to any man had he spoken thus. But in this jail, pride was of no importance and reticence impossible.

  “Nothing!” he cried; “she admitted nothing. I have watched her when she did not know that I was by, yea, I have spied on her like some old cuckold; but it was never because I distrusted her honesty. She is too proud a lady to deceive me. But I wanted to startle her into some confession, even if only to be read in her eyes, or to listen to what she said amongst her women. But I remained as shut out as before. When alone — or when she believed herself alone, I peeping from behind the arras — then have I watched her dance, lissom as a child, gay as a girl. But she never showed that girl to me, never. Once I had revealed my presence, she was ice again, remote, all dignity, no laughter.”

  “What else should you expect?” said Ashley gently. “She is a king’s sibling and not like common women. Such are reared like nuns and taught to hate the flesh and to hide themselves even from their own husbands.”

  “Never a sign, never a fond word … except at night with the curtains drawn; but even then, she did not talk …”

  “Fortunate were you, my boy,” groaned Skelton. “That is when most wives talk, after they’ve thrown their smock over the taper, and you can’t help but listen. Ay, often the most seeming modest are most surprising. Do not trust too much the roguish wenches, ogling and smouching only. Usually there is more of the boy than the woman in such fizgigs; but seek you the pale-cheeked lassies for ever clicking their beads and with hollows under their eyes where dreams have eaten them. Ah, I could be an excellent instructor to youth …”

  “A corrupter rather, you vile lecher,” cried Heron. “Your sins have wrought this evil. No wonder God turned from us with you to stink like a goat to heaven. Get you to your prayers, pray for forgiveness, that we the innocent should not have to suffer for your years of wickedness. O, God!” he howled, “I will go mad unless I see the sky again!”

  Through the small barred window they could not see the sky, but only the stone walls of a house facing them. Therefore all day was it dark in that small chamber. In half-light, a prison’s twilight, they remained, at times pacing from wall to wall, back and forth, back and forth, to tire the body if they could not tire the mind. Cards and dice which the lay-brothers brought were useless to them: they could not concentrate on any game. In lonely misery, each shut up within his soul, they stayed, waiting for the sound of the bells that they might divide the hours by the times when the monks went about their offices. Dimly, through many walls, the sonorous chanting or singing reached them; but usually they were left in silence, waiting for they knew not what while counting the days that passed with scratches on the wall.

  “The abbot plays with us like a cat,” moaned Heron. “This is not sanctuary but imprisonment. True, he protects us from our enemies but also he guards us from escape. And in forty days, forty days … how many days are gone, O, God, how many days! … he’ll throw us to Tudor to be killed.”

  “We can abjure the realm,” chattered Skelton. “That is our right, is it not, to put on sackcloth and hurry to some port, and no man then can hurt us?”

  “Do you trust the abbot?” asked Ashley, raising his brows. “You are a greater simpleton than I thought you, good Master Skelton. Before we walked a yard or two, we’d be murdered. Or, which would suit his malice, he’d assign us to walk to ports hundreds of miles away, in the north country somewhere, and give us too few days in which to reach there. He is Tydder’s man and doubtless now he chuckles over his wine when he thinks of us like unwinged flies in his trap.”

  “You believe there is no hope?” yelped Heron. “And he a man of God!”

  “No hope,” said Ashley. “You and I, all four of us, will die. I only pray that the end be quick.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” cried Perkin, springing to his feet. “If it’s our fate to die, let us at least die fighting.”

  “You?” cackled Skelton. “O, admirable youth who acts with energy because he’s grown no brains. How could we fight? With our fists, think you? That would give the bloody abbot a warm heart, to have us scourged for having hit his servants. The man’s no fool and will have thought of everything that you might think of. You can be sure that there are guards all round this jail.”

  “Yea,” sighed Ashley, “our time for fighting is over. Outwardly at least, we must submit and wait an opportunity to escape. In Tydder’s army we have many friends, lovers of the White Rose, honest men who were loyal servants to Edward and Richard and who hate their master, remembering the days when Englishmen were free under an English king. Time is what we need, time in which to plot with them. This we cannot do while we lie prisoners here.”

  “Nay,” squealed Heron. “ ’Twould be madness to abandon sanctuary. We will but leave one prison for another, an abbot’s for a king’s.”

  “In Beaulieu we have no friends,” said Ashley. “We are amongst monks who fear rebellion lest it bring freedom to the poor. Think of the unhappy fellows who followed us to Exeter. Their lands were idle while they marched and they could pay no tithes. And to a priest there is no greater sin on earth than to forget to pay him. Such men will never help us; but at court, amongst those who suffer under one man’s tyranny and who weep to see the greatness of England crushed beneath a miser … We’ll find friends sufficient there, I warrant.”

  “Better,” cried Skelton, hitting his fist on the stone, “bett
er to face danger like men than to suck on our terrors like babies. The imagination can breed fears like maggots in muck. Here we itch with fear of the rack and of hot pincers and such, and every hour we die in our thoughts hellishly. Perhaps, pray God, we will not suffer much. They might but hang us, after all.”

  “No,” groaned Perkin, sinking back on to his stool. “No …” As though it stood before him, he could see the rack and a man pulling the lever that the ropes might drag on his wrists and ankles until the bones started out of their sockets. He saw the brazier glowing on the iron pincers as though it panted with the lust to burn him and to twist out his sinews.

  “No,” he cried, for the third time; and with round eyes he stared at Skelton. “Better to wait,” he whispered, “to hope …”

  “There is no hope,” said Skelton sadly.

  Heron began to sob, swinging from side to side on the stool, his grey head bowed towards his knees.

  “Nay,” said Ashley gently, “there is no hope in here; but outside … Here we be helpless as birds in a cage. You will feel differently, lad, when you can look into the sky again and feel the wind and the sun on your cheeks.”

  “It’s not that I fear death so greatly,” muttered Perkin, “or even torture, though my skin crinkles at the thought. It is mostly myself whom I fear. I am not a brave man like you, Master Ashley. Nor like you, Master Skelton. I am young and unprepared to die. But also I remember that I am King Edward’s son, I hope. Perhaps not Prince Richard … I know not … perchance some bychop of his engendering, or of his brothers’; but I am certain that there is Plantagenet blood in me. I am so like him, it is said, that it can be no accident.”

  “I have seen him often,” said Ashley, “and I would swear you were of his making. Is that not truth, Master Skelton?”

  “Ay,” said Skelton, “he is like enough to have deceived even me who was ever a worshipper of that lusty king. If not King Edward’s, mayhap you are Richard’s or Clarence’s bychop. I knew all three, and they were proper men, and you are somewhat like, saving that fish-eye of yours.”

  “And being Plantagenet, even a bychop,” cried Perkin, “I am afraid, not of body’s pain but of my honour. In me flowers purer blood than Tydder’s. Of that am I now certain. If I could prove myself a liar, I’d care not how I died. If I am Warbeck, I am a coward; but if I am Plantagenet …”

  “That the thought should trouble you,” said Ashley, “is proof that you are no coward. A coward thinks only of his own. pain. You will art bravely because your thoughts are on brave things”

  Almost pleading, Perkin turned to him, arms out. “You believe that, Master Ashley?” he asked. “You truly believe it?”

  “I am certain of it,” said Ashley, forcing a smile. “Only his own fears can frighten a man. You are Plantagenet and should not be afraid. You are what you believe yourself, and naught else matters. Show a bold face to the usurper; let him see by your walk and by your mien that you are indeed a king’s son. He will work to degrade you that he might make your name a jest throughout the world, as he did to Simnel; but keep your heart brave, remember always when you droop that you are Plantagenet and must not give way. He is cunning and he knows that if he kills you, people will say that he was afraid, that that he dared not let you live, because you are truly. England’s heir. Therefore, out-face him, taunt him with a smile. In defiance lies your safety; and our safety with yours. Also, in that lies the honour of your great forbears, your noble father and your courageous uncle. They never whined, by God, or turned their back upon an enemy.”

  “If you think … if I am really Plantagenet …”

  “You are Plantagenet!” cried Ashley in so fierce a voice that even Heron was lifted out of his melancholy to gape at him. “Never question that! Be always certain of it in your own heart, no matter what men may say or what they might do. You are Plantagenet. Out-grin the tyrant, and men will love you for it and will take heart to plot to save you; but once you weaken, once you tell them that you are Warbeck … our cause will then be dead, as dead as your own soul will be.”

  “I am Plantagenet!” cried Perkin. “By God’s glory, I’ll prove it yet; I’ll show the Lady Katherine … She’ll not despise me when she hears and sees me. I’ll laugh in Tydder’s teeth. And she must see me and must love me for it.”

  “Yea,” cried Ashley, taking him in his arms and kissing him. “You are what your heart tells you. Kings are kings only because they feel that they are kings. You are Prince Richard, rightful King of England. Even though they chop off your head, they’ll never be able to slay that dream which is stronger than you or me or any other man. For it is by dreams that we all live; and it is through dreams alone that we love and find beauty in human clay. Cling to your dream, my lord, and it will bring you courage.”

  “Let us leave this filthy place,” cried Perkin in the exalted voice of one who looks upon a vision. “Let us summon the abbot and tell him we must go.”

  “It would be best,” agreed Skelton, his knees creaking as he stood upright. “I am weary of this cold prison, and, if I cannot live in the light, it is best that I die.”

  “You must not leave me,” squealed Heron. “God’s pity, do not leave me!”

  “It is you who are leaving us,” said Ashley, “if you stay here.”

  Moaning and sobbing, Heron dragged himself to his feet as Perkin strode to the door and rapped loudly on the wood. Calm he felt, all recent terrors gone, as he waited for the jailer to answer his call; and he wondered if he would see his Katherine at King Henry’s court when they carried him there.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PRINCE OR PERKIN?

  HE HAD expected imprisonment or torture, or, more likely, death; hut when at Taunton, Perkin was taken, well guarded, before King Henry Tudor, he was surprised to find that he was not cruelly treated. Without chains on arms or legs, he was allowed to walk with few restrictions in the house which the king had taken for his residence. Even his clothing was changed. The dirty verminous garments were exchanged for a clean and costly doublet, with shirt and hose, and he was washed and shaved and perfumed; and nobody laughed at or insulted him. Certainly, when he had been carried in a shameful cart through the streets, many of those who watched had whistled and scoffed, calling him King Perkin and asking where he wore his crown; but after he had entered the royal lodgings, he had been greeted like a welcome traveller and given the richest wines and most delicate foods.

  Such deference and the respectful behaviour of the servants worried him, being unexpected and inexplicable. Suspecting mockery under the ceremony, warily he watched and listened to what was said, seeking to catch them in a wink, a grin, or in some jeering comment. But, no. Whatever their thoughts, these men maintained a respectful demeanour and seemed genuinely courteous. King Henry was notorious for his duplicity. One day could he fondle a man as though he loved him; then, the next, he could trap him in some plot of his devising, for he did not like to imprison or kill without at least the appearance of legality. For gossip he had Cardinal Morton, the traitor who had inspired the Duke of Buckingham to rebellion against King Richard and who was the deviser of most of the degrading lies about the dead king; unceasing were the legal trickeries to which the cardinal resorted when chancellor, sweating the country of gold through the tricks of his two lawyers, Dudley and Empson. Using these and other agents, the king attempted to remain concealed that they and not he should suffer the people’s fury and their hatred. Tortuous in thought, always striving under soft words to conceal his motives, he remained hidden behind the backs of others. Knowing how he was detested, knowing how the nation fretted under his dominion, on occasions he would make a pretence of generosity, being swift to pardon those whom he no longer feared, and entangling in conspiracies others who might prove dangerous, that he could sorrowfully proclaim their guilt and have them crushed. In Westminster’s Star Chamber of his invention, causes at law could be dealt with in secret and always for his benefit. Wis
er than most kings, he did not work through open terror; he worked slyly, sapping the people’s strength with laws and ever seeking new tricks with which to steal their money.

  Therefore was Perkin distrustful of this honourable reception, there being, he knew, no generosity in the king’s dry heart. If today he was petted, it might be as a victim would be fattened for a cannibals’ feast; Cautiously he had to tread and guard his tongue and be ever watchful for Henry’s spies.

  Clerks and officers of the court came to converse friendlily with him, some jovially drinking with him, talking of his adventures as though they had been sport, a subject for commendatory amusement, a brave jape for an unknown, base-born Perkin Warbeck to have befooled so many great folk with a lie and his handsome face and person. They congratulated him, slapping his back, and laughed at the simplicity of those who had believed his tale.

  In silence with them would Perkin sit, letting them gab on, and replying always that he was King Richard IV and that he would reward them when he had been surrendered his rightful throne. Often, against his will, he found himself asking how his princess did and whether he might see her. She was on her way from St. Michael’s Mount, they told him, and he was grimly relieved at hearing that that scoundrel at Beaulieu had been lying. She was riding with an honourable company, he was told, and would be met at Exeter.

  They saw the way his eyes lighted at this intelligence and how he became suddenly almost happy because his lady was safe and he might soon be meeting her again.

  “It seems that the fool is in love,” said the king when his spies told him, and the lids drooped lower over the sleepy-seeming blue eyes, and the thin lips smiled without parting.