A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  “Whatever he plots,” said the queen suddenly, “it is treacherous. Be assured of that. He grudges your husband’s very bouche, so mercenary a man is he, and he would like to have you suffer because you are, like me, called the White Rose. There is only one thing to be done.”

  “And that, your grace?” Katherine held her breath, watching that pallid mask swim under darkness; and she knew, and did not want to know, what that answer would be because it frightened her.

  “You must both leave England,” said the queen. “I have jewels, a few of value that I hid from him, and they should bring money enough. Boats can be hired, and secrecy can be bought. We must have one waiting on the river nearby so that you can steal off with him and be rowed to London. I have friends of the White Rose there. I will give you names, names of loyal men who love my family; they will hide you and smuggle you out of England.”

  For a moment, Katherine could not speak, although she had been waiting for some such suggestion as this. To escape, to be able to breathe again away from the menace of Henry’s shadow, to have her husband safely hers forever in some far country where there would be none to scoff at his pretensions … yet she was afraid, not afraid of capture but of herself again with Perkin. Now would they be naked together, stripped of evasions, she no longer the condescending lady with a disinherited prince but woman and man together with no lies to cover them. And to lower her mask, to confess herself wholly woman who could be weakened and conquered through love … That was a thought to chill her heart and body.

  “I — I couldn’t do it,” she gasped.

  “Then,” said the queen contemptuously, “you do not love the man.”

  “I — I don’t know.” Try though she did, she could not admit her love: the word stuck in her throat. “God knows,” she cried at last, beginning to sob, “I hate myself because I torment him; and I fear, were we together again, I would act no differently. There is no reaching into his mind. A dreamer who won’t face life, he’s content so long as he can see himself a king in fantasy; and he’s so cowardly and so fearful of my humours that half of me despises him because he will not act the man but my page. Ah, your grace, are not women foolish creatures, always uncontent with what they have? My husband loves me greatly; but for me he might have abandoned the adventure, only he had to prove, he felt, that our marriage had not. been unwise; therefore he risked his life and is now a prisoner … I am to blame for it, yet I blame him, and it torments me.”

  “Were I in your place,” said the queen huskily, “I would be happy. You fight for mastery, not knowing how other women crave a kindly word, for someone to tell you that you are fair and worthy of loving. I think that in all life there could be no bliss to equal that, to love and to be loved and to know that you are loved. You are a fool, child, a fool.”

  “There is nothing your grace could say,” moaned Katherine, “that could whip me as I whip myself. I’ve bitten my tongue with anger till it’s bled to teach it to speak gently; I have sat in torment with the longing to answer when he kissed me, my body not my soul stiffening against his touch; and I have hated, hated it myself. Only sometimes in the darkness was I able to forget my angry pride, but when the dawn came … I could have wept to find that the cold demon had slipped back under my skin. I am possessed by something which I hate.”

  “That is because you have been, told too much about hell and Satan’s spite on women; but also, think you not, it might be because you are uncertain of your husband’s name? In love, there should be no reticence; all must be given or it is not love. Because I am a woman, I suppose, I am a heretic when it comes to love and priests are right to say that we are born to corrupt men. But there should not be any barrier betwixt lovers, and you not knowing whether he were Perkin or Richard makes you resent him. Your royal pride resents it, not you.”

  As though the queen had unlocked a secret from her heart, Katherine found herself inexplicably happy. Of course, of course, there lay the truth of it! It was the lie, his lie, that had been the barrier, caging her from him in doubt. Once that lie could be lifted and she became his Kate and he her Peterkin, woman and man, wife and husband, she would surely find contentment and even joy?

  “You are right, your grace,” she said softly as though to herself; and then she began to weep. “I had not thought of that. O, your sweet grace, do you think we truly can escape?”

  “If you’ve the courage,” said the queen, “and truly love this man, you should be happy with him. But, come, child! ’Tis cold and you are shivering. Even though the days be warm, the nights are chilly. Come here to me, my child.”

  As though this were a man, and not a woman, summoning her, Katherine felt shy when she let fall the sheet and clumsily crawled between the curtains held apart by the queen. Then under the blankets she burrowed; and when by chance her leg touched the queen s, she was startled to realize as she had not completely realized before that, crowned queen or no, this was a woman like herself and, being of flesh and blood, must know the sufferings that the flesh was heir to. Reverence for her crown had made her almost holy, keeping her apart from life; yet she, too, in lonely nights must often have prayed for company and for a friendly head beside hers on the pillows that she might open her heart without fear of rebuffs or of indifference.

  “Who are these friends in London, your grace?” she asked.

  Far into the night they whispered in that cosy cavern, warm and perfumed; and darkness gave them freedom to speak openly and to forget that one of them was a queen. No longer a queen but a woman spoke to Katherine, telling things which previously only her confessor had heard; and, to her own amazement, Katherine found that she, too, was saying what she had thought she would never be able to say to man or woman. United in suffering, they lay, each with her fears and memories and regrets; and they wept, the queen because for her there could be no longer hope of happiness such as had made bright her youth when her father and King Richard had been alive; and Katherine because she tormented herself with thinking how very different her life might have been had she had the power to abandon her orgulous vanities and to have loved her husband without questioning his right to love her in return.

  Excitedly yet carefully, they plotted the escape, and, talking and listening, Katherine’s fears soon left her, exorcised by this new dream. So confidently did the queen explain what could be done, so contemptuous was she of the bare mention of failure, that Katherine felt herself a maid again preparing for the adventure of marriage. Yea, she would make it a second, a true marriage. Modestly, lovingly, would she go to Perkin, withholding nothing, becoming his cheerful slave as recompense for the unhappiness she previously had caused him with her disdain. And the queen shared her excitement, as though this re-marriage was also her own re-marriage and the king was no longer vindictive and brutal but as penitent and gentle as Adonis in gratitude for her goddess-like submission.

  As they plotted it, like children preparing for a holyday, the adventure went swiftly, safely. The queen would send to certain London merchants, secret followers of the White Rose, and they would arrange the passage in some vessel bound for Burgundy. A boat would be hired and rowed on the appointed night close to this palace and hidden in greenery. Perkin was closely watched yet he should be able to elude the spies, while the queen would arrange for Katherine to be free of duties on that night. Only the difficulty of Perkin having to elude his guard troubled them, but those guards were careless, suspecting no revolt from the man’s present acceptance of his fate. At the first opportunity, Katherine must speak to him alone. No one should suspect anything in such a meeting, for were they not husband and wife? and while she talked to him, she must maintain her petulant attitude as though she were still grieved and angry.

  “It will be done, your grace,” smiled Katherine, tingling with delight. “But how can we ever repay you? Is there anything, anything …”

  Under the darkness and the blankets, the queen stirred, and Katherine heard her sigh and f
elt her limbs slacken against hers.

  “No,” said the queen. “There is nothing that anyone now can do for me.”

  Sorrow for the queen in her neglect could not dampen Katherine’s excitement. She wept and yet was happy, while in her mind over and over she acted the moment when she would meet her husband alone and what she would say to him. In imagination, she could see the lightening of his eyes when she confessed that she loved him with all her heart. No matter how that confession might twist her silly pride, for once she would be honest with him, discarding womanly coyness and tergiversations.

  The resolution once made, she was impatient to act; and that action was not to be forced. To go and ask to see her husband would arouse suspicion and men and women would speculate about this sudden change in her who had always spoken of him as though his name meant nothing to her. Warily she set to work, wandering, whenever duties permitted, through the palace; and now that it was summer again, she walked the gardens and even strolled into the deer park. But nowhere could she find Perkin; and fearfully she wondered whether he had been sent elsewhere.

  Being old and often altered or rebuilt at the whims of different kings in different ages, the royal palace of Sheen was like a maze indoors, halls and chambers and galleries and passages seeming pressed one into another, so that there was little privacy for either men or women. From outside, its stone walls showed a confusion of shapes ending in turrets, towers and chimneys placed haphazardly here or there with painted beasts in stone or little painted vanes twirling in the wind.

  Beyond a stretch of grass with scanty flowers in the green were the landing-stages, with always some boats or barges moored there. Away from the river, on the other side of the palace and around it, the village was scattered; and the space cleared for tournaments, tennis, archery, bowls and other games was small compared to palaces like Windsor or Westminster. This smallness gave it an intimacy denied to many other royal residences. Here in a continual bustle of hurry and scurry the court lived, few men, apart from the king, having chambers to themselves. They lived and slept in groups, tight-packed on pallets which could be rolled up and put away in daytime. Therefore did lovers curse its name in winter, knowing that whatever they might seek to do would be most likely overseen by mockers or by jealous folk; and there were times when Katherine despaired and wondered -whether it might not be best to. postpone the plot until the court had journeyed to some larger place; but to this suggestion the queen would not listen.

  “The confusion here will work for us,” she said. “When everybody’s treading on each other’s heels, they are less likely to notice if someone is missing. And the guard is often careless. But, most importantly, the Thames is barely a step away.”

  Silver under the summer sunlight flowed the Thames, back and forth, down to London and freedom, and up to Hampton and the mysteries beyond. Small bosky islands which Adam and Eve might haunt in fearless nudity showed green and tantalizingly remote from the world, tempting to thoughts of Cytherea. Often, strolling down the green slope to the wharf, Katherine watched the boats and barges push into the tide, the rowers leaning on their oars, then pulling long strong strokes to speed the vessel, lucky vessel and lucky passengers, down-river towards freedom. Escape should not prove difficult once they were away from the palace, so many were the boats coming and going with messengers and visitors to and from the court and with cargoes from London. The rowers smiled at seeing her often watching them, thinking she waited for some waterman-lover, and daintily she stepped amongst the ropes and tackle, dreaming herself and Perkin into white swans sailing off.

  At the lower end of the gardens, by the tilt-yard and bowling-alley behind the tennis-play, stood little pleasure-houses where men and women could sit and drink and watch others sweat at games. Never once did Katherine spy Perkin amongst them although sometimes her heart began to pitter-patter when she thought some man was he until the fellow turned; and once she felt giddy when she stumbled on a lover with his lass in the shrubbery and for a moment believed the man was Perkin. Few people spoke to her. The gallants who at her first coming to court had coasted her skirts had now withdrawn, angry and baffled and pretending disdain. Yet there were many men who watched her with hot eyes, speculating on what beauties were concealed under the cloth. Always, however, when they dared smile at her, her cold glance intimidated them and they felt that they had become boys again in awe of woman’s scorn at their incompetence as lovers.

  Of one thing was she glad. Her rigorous upbringing had given her this haughty mask behind which she could hide the true Katherine, that mask which had daunted Perkin, the only man who should never have feared her womanhood. Safely, therefore, was she able to walk amongst these roguish satyrs as though she were some saint under the Virgin’s care. Not that she had any fears these days of men. Rather had she learned to despise them because they rarely bothered to conceal their feelings; and when she flinched out of their handling, it was not with fear so much as with distaste. And that puzzled her who knew herself to be a passionate woman grown from a girl who had been hot-tempered with forbidden dreams.

  Whenever she thought of Perkin, her blood warmed at memories of his loving while her mind stayed coolly contemptuous and angry with the weak flesh. But this conflict now betwixt flesh and spirit, she swore, would soon be finally resolved. As the queen said, it was time she and Perkin were honest with each other and, once they were honest, fears and distrust would be purged from her, she prayed.

  But, nay, they were still with her, a knot in her heart, she soon discovered. When, one day, drooping with disappointment at not finding him, she strolled from the tilt-yard, she blinked to see him walk quite near, sulkily kicking the grass with his round-toed shoon, the fair hair falling over his face. Scarcely able to breathe, she stood, furious with herself because she blushed and in this tight blue gown her laboured breathing could not be veiled, when he looked up and saw her. In silence, they stood, staring at each other; and she noticed that not a yard behind him a page strutted with an air of over-innocence. That man was a spy and she must be careful what she said.

  He would have walked by, trying to ignore her, but with a great effort she forced herself to say: “One moment … sir.” She had intended to call him Perkin but found that she could not shape the name.

  “You?” he asked. “Did you speak to me?”

  This was the moment over which she had pondered so long. She wished to say: “Forgive me, my own sweetheart. I have been foolish in the past but, if you would forgive me, I would show myself a right loving wife and be buxom to you in all things”; only she found that the words would not come. Feverishly, in terror lest he walk on, she tried to think how to force her tongue to tenderness; and, to her anger, all that she could make it say was: “I have been looking for you, sir.”

  “I am not a difficult man to find,” he said, and she could hear the bitterness in his voice. “Ask anyone, squire or scullion, lady or laundress, where the coward Warbeck lodges and they’ll tell you yarely enough.”

  “You are no coward,” she said. “You fought so long as there was hope.”

  “I was a coward,” he cried, and began to tremble; “I was a coward because I betrayed my friends. I am told that unhappy Ashley, Skelton and Heron have all been hanged because of me. For love of a woman I betrayed their memory and myself. You begged of me to tell the truth before the king, begged it for your soul’s ease, and then spurned me for it. Since then, lady, I have lived in hell.”

  “I … I did not think that you would say that you were Perkin Warbeck …” She bit her tongue to stop it telling truth, reminding them both of that day at Exeter when he had confessed his imposture. “But I’ve not come to rake the past,” she said, her voice lowered almost to a whisper, while she looked from side to side for eavesdroppers. “I have come rather to talk of the future, our future.”

  “I have no future,” he said harshly. “That died in Exeter with my heart. I never thought that a man could be
so shamed, and yet could live. When they put me in a cart, dishonoured in a cart as though I were a thief or a woman, and carried me through the streets, I felt.no shame; not then. I was numb and did not care. Since Exeter I have been a leaf in the wind. I have been a mammet with a dead man looking through my eyes. It would have been far kinder had he killed me.”

  Weak: ay, he had always been weak; and she despised weakness. Meekly, no true Plantagenet, he accepted this semi-imprisonment and did not answer the taunts of the jester and the grins of servants. Furious words were on her tongue. Even his hatred of her would have been preferable to this boneless acceptance of disaster. But she must not taunt him. Her task was to restore his courage, to inspire him with her faith and love; only she had no faith in him.

  “Our future,” she managed to gasp, “is one”; and she looked quickly away, blushing like, a silly maid. “I am your wife, you must remember,” she continued breathlessly, still not looking at him; “and we are young. We must not judge each other. I … O, Mother of God, had you a bite of manhood in you, you’d not stand there gaping and force me to say such things!” Horrified, her panic growing, she heard her voice becoming shrill; and she had always despised a scold; but his supineness exasperated her. Taking a deep breath, more softly, in trembling tones she whispered: “We might escape from here, had you the courage.”

  “We?” he repeated. “We?” And she was proud to see colour edge into his cheeks and joy lighten his eyes when for the first time he looked directly at her. “Did you say ‘We’?”

  “I am your wife,” she said, forcing herself hot to flinch from his excited, amorous stare of wonderment. “Therefore why should I not say ‘we’? Did you think me some weak female who would forget her troth under misfortune? The greater becomes your need for me, and … and … my need for you.”

  It was said! With enormous satisfaction that was near ecstasy she heard her lips form the words she had formed so often already in her thoughts. At last, she had told him that she loved him! No man could ask more from any woman unless she were a drazel. She had told him that she needed him.