At least she had proved herself dutiful in giving him two sons, Prince Arthur, now eleven, and Prince Henry, who was six, with two daughters that had lived: Margaret, eight, and Mary, recently born. And they were yet both young and strong, he being forty and she thirty-one; and she was robust and spry and would breed for him for many years ahead. But there came to him times when hatred was no longer sufficient satisfaction, when he felt suddenly lonely within his crowded palaces; and even money, the collecting of which absorbed almost all his lusts, his joys, his fears, could not plaster the ache he felt, the need for sympathy and love. For he dared not uncover his heart to love. He, King of England by right of conquest and his marriage with this woman, dared not betray his humanity before a people avid for any hateful talk about his doings. Until death, he must remain confined in this detestable union, finding his delight, not in amorous pastime, but in subjugation of a Plantagenet who, he knew, cringed within at the slightest touch he gave her. After she died — and grief, he hoped, would shortly kill her — he would choose to replace her as mother of his sons some childlike creature whose spirit he could fashion to his liking, some twelve-year-old princess with unformed spirit and a pinch of breasts. Until then, lechery by the eyes was his main satisfaction with the satisfaction of seeing his wife cringe when he was brought at night, torch-lit, to her bedchamber.
This Lady Kate, Morton suggested, might love her husband? If that were so, more easily should he be able to wring from her confession of the man’s imposture. He had only to threaten torture, to say that he would hang the rogue, while dangling the promise of forgiveness, mayhap, to have her tell what she knew that she might save him. Or if, as he suspected, she was angry at her disparagement, he could promise her a second husband amongst his lusty subjects; and what woman could refuse that bait?
She was rumoured to be beautiful, and that impressed him. Even though he must do no more than look at her appreciatively as though she were a painted image in church or some bright limning in a book, finding pleasure only through the eye, he was eager to see her as he would have been eager to taste some new wine or to read a new work on statecraft or a list of his debtors.
As though she were indeed a princess, richly did he welcome the Lady Katherine to Exeter. Tired she looked, her eyelids darkened and her eyes mauve-rimmed, her skin lacking life; yet there was no sign of weariness in the insolent manner in which she walked with her shoulders back and her bosom out-thrust; and when she slid before him into a curtsey, there was nothing submissive in the act. As though to an equal, down she sank within her golden skirt, her embroidered headdress of red cloth of gold pushed a little off the brow and showing, under the velvet loop by which it could be drawn oh carefully without disturbing the hair, a strip of that hair, parted down the centre, sparkling as though with gold dust in the wintery light.
“Nay, lady,” he said, the thin lips curved into a tight smile, “you must not kneel so long to one who would be your friend. You, too, are of royal blood and we would look upon you as our sister.”
Without replying, with no sign of gratitude for his condescension, she stood again erect, her skirts rustling as though alive, and purring like a sensual beast.
“You honour me, your grace,” she said; and he noted, while admiring her shapely body in that tight bodice, that her eyes were exasperatingly like his wife’s, although of different colour, revealing nothing of her thoughts. Could it be possible that a woman such as this, secretive, haughty and outwardly disdainful, could have submitted herself even in marriage to one who was base-born?
“Nay,” he said, still watching in hopes that he might catch her off-guard and read her thoughts, “it is you, lady, who honour us by visiting our court. Would you had entered our realm with pleasanter companions, men who were more worthy of your rank and lineage.”
“I came,” she said quietly, “with my husband. I am told that he lodges here with you.”
“He lodges nearby,” said the king, startled because he had not expected her so soon and so openly to mention her husband. “Alas, lady,” he groaned, “like an enemy he entered our dominions when, had he come as a friend, gladly would we have welcomed him as now we welcome you.” He sighed and rolled his eyes to show how helpless he felt before such misguided and such foolish behaviour. “And he remains ungrateful for our forgiveness and is, methinks, a little mad. He swears that he is the son of Edward of York … alas, those poor unhappy boys, as all the world, knows, were murdered by their cruel uncle, Richard Crouchback, and for that reason are we helpless to disprove the claim of any rogue or simpleton who thinks to put a sprig of broom in his cap and call himself Plantagenet. Our one desire is to live in peace amidst our peaceful subjects, but these persistent interruptions … Our patience is growing weary, lady … For your sake, gladly would we spare this youth who seems a pretty lad. We do not like to kill; indeed, the thought is hateful to us who are piteous, but when he says that he is Richard Plantagenet and will not cease from saying that he is Richard … “ He shrugged and groaned. “His death,” he sighed, “will be of his own digging and not of ours.”
For the first time, he saw light behind her eyes. Her body remained straight, the hands folded below her girdle, but within her eyes there showed something … anger? fear? hope? He could not tell.
“Therefore, lady,” he continued gently, “we pray that you will not blame us should your husband die. We’ll not be cruel: you have our royal word on it. Not by the rope or any other churlish way shall he die, but like a gentleman, under the axe, should he continue stiff-necked in his tale … The axe is quick, they tell me.”
Ay, beyond doubt, there was fear in her eyes, and her lip twitched.
“Your silly husband’s foolishness,” he continued with a pretence of lightness, “shall never be visited on you, lady; therefore, have no fears. So long as it shall be your wish to adorn our poor country and to reside at our court, most welcome will you be and you shall want for naught that is in our power to bestow. Or, should you desire to return to Scotland, there’ll be a ship for your sailing. Only — and we wish that it were otherwise — in his present obstinacy, we could not permit your husband to travel with you.”
“You mean, sire,” she said in a low yet clear voice warm with its Scottish burr, “you mean that should my husband deny his claim to be Prince Richard, you would let him go free? But if he persists in his tale, he will be executed?”
“Nay, nay, madam, you are too fast!” cried the king, “You are too harsh and twist our meaning. We bear no hatred towards the youth who seems, forsooth, save for that one dull eye, a sprightly, lovesome lad. Were it in our power, and we speak truth, lady, he and you would be free to romp off this minute … but we dare not, nay, we dare not. Already have we been pestered by over many claimants who, knowing that King Richard slew his nephews, believed themselves safe in their imposture. If we let your husband go while he continues to call himself Prince Richard, would it not seem that we had acknowledged his pretensions?”
“Would they not rather say that King Henry is a just king who bears no malice?”
“Child …” Sadly, he smiled. “We wish we had your innocence, but this heavy crown, this weight of majesty, we never can forget and it makes us suspect the good-will of the world, particularly of those who tell any tarradiddle in the hopes to shake our throne. Nay, this youth must die. With deepest sorrow do we declare it … he must die, unless …”
Long did she stand staring at him with those unrevealing blue eyes, reminding him unpleasantly of his queen; and he noticed that her composure was betrayed by her fingers picking at the embroidery of her girdle.
“May I see my husband alone?” she asked at last.
He had been waiting for that request and had the refusal ready worded, and quickly he assumed his rueful countenance.
“It goes against our heart to deny you, lady,” he sighed, “but we dare not permit it. You are his wife and doubtless you love him as an honest wife
should love her husband …”. No sign in her eyes that he had touched her with those words “wife” and “husband”: still, blankly she looked at him. “It would be no crime,” he continued, “indeed, in a wife’s mind, no doubt, it would be a meritorious act to slip a phial into his mouth while kissing him. That has been known in Italy. Poison spat from one mouth to the other as lovers, I am told, like to let oysters.at a meal pass from one lover’s lips to between the other’s. Ah, there are subtle ways of poisoning, though fortunately rare in our lands, of secret poisonings.”
“Why should I poison my own husband?” she asked icily.
“To save him from disgrace, the long ride through the streets in an open cart, the people throwing muck at him, as is their beastly custom … Death by quick poison, to most men and women, would be an easier end than that; and often an executioner can be clumsy with his axe.”
“Yea, lady,” said the cardinal, groaning and rolling his eyes as though he were ill, “like my royal master here, with all my heart do I pity this misguided youth; but he is stubborn, doubtless bewitched. Even in holy confession he keeps his lips sealed, and that smacks of heresy. These accursed lollards, the canker in the rose of England, care not how they lie —”
“He is no lollard,” cried Katherine. “Before God, your grace, he is no heretic but a true son of holy church.”
“Nay,” said the cardinal sorrowfully, “a true son of holy church would never lie to God. If in the pity of his noble heart, his highness should let this youth go free, it would be my sad duty to have him examined in the spiritual courts … and if he should persist in falsehood …” he shrugged, then sank inside his scarlet, grey head waggling “ … it would be my duty, lady, to pass him to the secular arm …”
To be burnt. On every side beset, Katherine stood and glared at king and cardinal and tried to be brave. The king would cut off Perkin’s head as a traitor; the cardinal would have him burnt as a heretic. Behind their gracious manner, their pretended pity and sorrow, the threats lay bare. What they wanted through her was her husband’s confession. Whether he lived or died was of no account to them whose need, to quieten the country’s distrust, was proof that their prisoner was not the prince. No published statement, no amount of sermons from every pulpit and under every tree in England would convince the sceptical people who hated their king. But should the prisoner himself, apparently of his own will, confess the cheat and publicly degrade himself a liar and impostor, his followers would be scattered and turned harmless. For this reason was she now cherished and welcomed as royalty, that these two rogues, king and cardinal, might use her to seduce her husband into confessing trickery.
“Nay,” she said softly, “nay”; and she sighed, her body seeming deflated, drooping, her shoulders down. “Nay, I could not do it.”
“Why! we ask nothing of you, lady,” said the king. “You have our compassion and will be tenderly treated in our realm. But you must understand why it is that we cannot permit your meeting your husband in secret. In his desperate corner, he might think to cheat us by strangling himself in the braids of your hair, or you might pass to him a dagger or a poison-phial Then all the world would say that we had murdered him. Apt are our brothers, the Kings of France and Spain, of Scotland and Austria, to call us names without proof. This young man must not die in secret as though we are afraid to let him live. His death must come in the open so that any who care to listen may hear his dying words. But should you wish to speak to him in company … we do not mean before the court, as now, for we’d not have strangers glouting on such a meeting betwixt loving wife and husband, but before ourself and with a clerk to write down what might be said … That we can grant you, should you wish it.”
“Thank you, your grace,” said she in almost a humble voice.
“A wife’s loving counsel,” said the king, “can oft be stronger than the voice of wisdom or authority, and you, we know, lady, could speak wisely to the misguided fellow, and thus would your plea be doubly strong. The choice before you both is simply stated: it is life or death, truth of his origin or the lie of his greatness.”
“What men call truth,” said Katherine, “often varies between man and man and is rare between man and woman. Was not that what Pilate meant when he mocked at our Lord Jesus? My husband may be Prince Richard or he may be Perkin Warbeck, as you say. What is important is what he thinks himself to be. And to many men, death can seem a little thing beside dishonour.”
The king bowed. “None can deny that,” he said, and his narrowed eyes almost smiled as lazily they moved their glance up and down her splendid body’s length; “but there is one tiling transcending even honour, which can itself be honour, lady, and that is love. Death will rob him not only of life — it will rob him also of you …
“We have talked enough,” he cried abruptly, pushing back his chair and standing as a sign for all to go, “and you must be tired after travel. You may go to your chamber and rest, lady.”
“But my husband …”
“We told you, he is safe,” said the king. “When you decide that you wish to visit him, he will be brought to our privy chamber. We will be alone, save for a clerk to write down what he might say.”
“I — I would see him now,” she whispered.
“Nay,” said the king, “we will not have you overtire yourself. Your women wait with wines and cushions for your ease. After supper, we will summon you again … and mayhap your husband to meet you, should you wish it …”
Slowly, she curtsied, knowing that further pleading would be useless and would only degrade her in that peacock-company. Still curtseying, she backed towards the door, men moving aside to let her pass. At the door, her eyes still on the king, she stood erect and walked out like a queen; and all marvelled that she had not wept nor given any outward sign of distress, save that her white hands were trembling and that her lips were pressed so tightly one against the other that the blood had left them and they were as pale as a dying woman’s.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WITHOUT ARMOUR
LET them wait, said the king, smiling at the cardinal. Recalling the panic wet in his hair and pounding on his heart when he had waited at Bosworth for King Richard’s charge, he chuckled to think of the Lady Katherine and her handsome mammet, each in a separate room, waiting for time to pass towards their meeting. They would be haunted by the ghosts of their own desires, by tingling memories of caresses, and at the same time, twisted on the terror of torture or of death on the rope. Had he allowed them to meet immediately after the lady’s arrival at Exeter, excitement might have inspired them into taking noble postures, each in ecstasy playing a part; but now they had had hours in which to brood, in which to frighten themselves with images of their own devising; and he did not question the outcome. This Lady Katherine was no maggotpate but a clever woman; yet she loved the mammet. If her Scottish pride should demand his sacrifice, love would war with it, demanding his freedom; and in such a conflict in a woman’s heart, love almost always won. Had the lad been in truth Prince Richard, son of a courageous father, he might have defied even his lady’s pleading; but he was merely Perkin Warbeck, mayhap one of Edward’s or Richard’s by-blows, but nevertheless base-born and bred as a merchant without a gentleman’s passion for honour and chivalry, and it was unlikely that such a fellow would remain indifferent before his lady’s demands or endearments.
“Whatever. his birth,” shrugged the cardinal, “he has his dreams. And dreams, your grace, make dangerous enemies. Swords cannot slay them nor torture exorcise them.”
“Pish,” said the king, smiling. “Dreams are cold comfort to the sick and lonely and they are no armour against pain. Do you think that dreams, alone could have won me England?”
“I,” said the cardinal quietly, “won you England, my lord.”
Angrily, the king moved away and stood, tapping his fingers on the twisted glass in the jalousies of the window. The twilit world outside was misshapen through that
glass, seen as under disturbed water, but he was not looking at anything. Each side of him, the flames of the candles shone, spluttering in their reflection, and he did not notice them. He saw nothing save a dark anger which was shaped like the cardinal now grinning beside the fire at his back. That old intriguer presumed too greatly on his privileges, but the king dared not defy him. Many were the dangerous secrets that Morton held and, as Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, his power was truly greater than the king’s, for he had behind him the weight of the papacy. Should he quarrel with the church, Henry knew that he would be destroyed, left armourless to the people’s hatred. Morton’s approval kept him on his stolen throne. Otherwise, his enemies might long since have sailed from France and Burgundy. Had he been excommunicated, gleefully would they have set out on that unholy crusade, and the great men of England would have welcomed them as liberators. Therefore, whatever Rome might demand' of him, he must give; and the damned cardinal knew it and delighted in showing that he knew it.
“It is time,” said the king, swinging round from the window when he knew that his face would no longer show his exasperation.
The cardinal smiled and nodded, leaning back in his chair and stretching his pantofled feet to the brazier. “As you will, sire,” he said. “The guard is ready in the ante-chamber to come should I call; and my clerk has his pens sharpened. I think it would be best if she were brought here first that he might be startled into speaking truth at seeing her with his enemies.”
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