A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  “You take the king’s silver,” he said to him one day, “you live here on his bounty, yet you urge me to revolt. To one of us you must be faithless, either to him or to me. Therefore how can I trust you?”

  “Ah,” said Astwood, grinning hugely. “That’s more the spirit I wished to meet! Now you’re more like your dad, God’s blessing on his bonny smile! You are right, my lord. Do not trust me. Kick me out of the door and down the stairs, and you’d be in the right of it. Ay, hang me high as Paul’s steeple if you will, lock me in here and let me be the scapegoat while you run off; keep your own counsel, and tell me nothing. Not a word. Only is my heart cheerful as a sparrow to hear that there are things you must not speak of, for that shows, does it not? that you’ve some plan of your own devising. Nay, I ask not; tell me nothing; pull out my tongue and bottle it. I am as silent as a toad with a jewel in his head. You can rely on me, sire.”

  At least, the suggestion quietened the fellow; but Perkin soon found himself more disturbed by the new Astwood than he had been by his previous barking. He had no plans because he had no intention of trying to escape. And the conspiratorial smiles and nods and winks from his jailer, with the sudden nudges and uncalled-for chuckles, irritated him to such a condition that he felt, if only to pacify the rogue, that he should at least pretend to have some plan. And what possible plan could he invent when he was locked within such thick walls and was surrounded by armed men? Between the outer walls and the Thames on the south stood the wharf which was guarded night and day; while west, north and east, beyond the guarded walls, flowed the ditch. Even if by some miracle he had been able to unpick, not only the lock of his door, but of the door out of his particular tower, he had then the court to traverse and other walls to surmount; and everything was watched, patrolled and guarded. Escape from such a fortress was an impossibility, not worth the dreaming, unless he could bribe both warders and garrison, and he had no money. Within these walls he was as helpless as a boatless man on a desert island guarded by dragons. Without the help of the saints or the devil, he could do nothing; yet this damned Astwood expected him somehow to spring to freedom, heaven burn the dog!

  Once had he heard that men could die by willing their own death when life had turned tasteless to them; but although in his dim chamber which was always damp, he grew weak and thin, he did not die. Dear God, he did not die. His body was too strong and it enclosed the angry spirit clamouring for release; and there Was always Astwood to prod him alive whenever he felt himself sinking blissfully into sleep.

  Men came to question him, seeking to make. him implicate others in his escape from Sheen, but he would give them no satisfaction. Some were kindly, condoling with him on his fate; others became abusive and taunted him as a bastard counterfeit. He did not care. He merely smiled.at them and furiously they left him to his living death.

  Until one day when, to his surprise, he was taken out of his cell. He was brought blinking into the light so that for many minutes he could see merely a blur, an underwater-like vision in which men moved like fishes, while someone shaved his cheeks and chin and upper lip, and combed his filthy hair and washed it free of lice, and took away his rags which were stiff with dirt and running with insects. Startled, he stared at the ghost face peering from the steel mirror they raised before him. Ay, a ghost’s face, as white as something from under a stone, a drawn wizened creature with lack-lustre looks and loose mouth, a man who had almost forgotten how to walk.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

  “There is nothing to fear, my lord,” said the jailer, Robert Cleymound, whom he did not like because he had a mocking eye. “No doubt his highness regrets the haste with which he sent you here. He might even be going to give you his crown, should you ask it.”

  “I’d not ask it,” said Perkin, trying to force a smile to his stiff lips. “But is he taking me before the judges?”

  “Master Cleymound knows no more than I,” said Astwood, “and that is that you have been summoned to go to Westminster.”

  “For my trial?”

  “We know not,” said Astwood, “nor do I think it. Were you to be tried, we’d have had warning of it, would we not, Master Cleymound? Perhaps, as Master Cleymound says, his highness regrets his haste in condemning you and would favour you again. All we know is that you have been summoned to Westminster.”

  “To the court? Nay, please, not to the court! I care not if you take me to a judge, to the Star Chamber, where you will, but not back to the court!”

  Back to the court where men and women would delight to flout and mock him in his disgrace, those whom he had once known prancing to crow at sight of his enfeebled body and white face! Nay, please, nay! Chop off his head, hang him; but not that … His strength had leaked away and he would not have the will again to defy them with silence as in the past. All self-respect had left him after that night at Sheen when he had found the garden door locked against him. That final betrayal had killed all hope, all pride, and had robbed him of manhood. He was unwanted, spurned, an Ishmael, even his own lady conspiring against him, and the gentle prior at the Charterhouse betraying him to his enemy when he had asked for sanctuary. Nameless, a bastard, or the child of parents who denied their parenthood, the despised husband of a wife who wished him dead that she might run wild like a lady-whore … he dreaded to see the contempt in the eyes of healthy men and women when they saw him crawl, weak and white, into the sunshine to repeat, as he had repeated uncounted times, the long lying roll of his infamies.

  “Nay,” he whimpered. “I’ll not go with you! I won’t. I say I won’t!”

  But when he felt the large strong hand of Cleymound on his arm, he realized that struggle would only degrade him. Like a child he had become, his flesh loose and thinning. What use was there in fighting and in pleading for peace? Better far to submit with what little dignity was left him, while trying to remember what it had been like to be healthy and fearless.

  He let them lift him to his feet, and he shuddered and hung his head before the pity and reproach in Astwood’s eyes. Alas, he was not behaving like a prince! For silly Astwood’s sake, he should at least pretend that he was Richard; only that was not easy when he seemed to walk on air with brittle legs that bent at the knees. Nevertheless, with a strong effort, he managed to stand erect and, when Cleymound reached out to support his arm, he knocked his hand away and scorned him in a glance.

  On his own feet, without help, he walked; and when he tottered into the sunlight it was as though he had been struck across the eyes, so brightly beautiful was everything, even the flinty walls seeming polished and shining like oyster-shells, and the grass was of so deep a green that even emeralds would have looked dull beside it. And the smell was intoxicating after prison-stinks. He took deep breaths and he even smiled, drunk on the odour of earth and flowers. Then suddenly he wanted to cry because he knew that these men were going to rob him forever of these lovely things, that they were going to kill him; and he did not want to cry because, for foolish Astwood’s sake, he wished to show that, if nothing else, he could, at least, die like a king.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A PETAL FROM THE ROSE

  SHRINKING within the cloak they had placed over his shoulders, Perkin tried to maintain’ his old air of scornful indifference when he walked behind the gentleman-usher tapping the stone floor with his wand-of office as though he were too indolent to rely on his two legs and needed a third to support him on his weary way. Not through some side-door and up back-stairs as he had hoped, but into the palace itself where anyone could see him was he taken. King Henry neglected no trifle with which he might humiliate an enemy; and Perkin trembled with shame and anger before the amused, contemptuous looks of men who not long since had been his equals. Everything had been planned by the king, doubtless from the time of his capture at Beaulieu: the pretended affection, the outward show of forgiveness, his almost freedom at this court, then the betrayal and his imprisonment. Thus
had the king displayed to the world his magnanimity while deepening the suggestion of Perkin’s ingratitude. Now was this to be the end of the morality, to be followed by death? What other end could the crowned ape have plotted?

  Alas, sighed Perkin, no longer did he have the strength to play his part of innocence and pride. Weeks in semi-darkness, underfed, unwashed, with vermin ever biting and crawling, had broken his will, as doubtless the king had intended it should be broken. Even with his weapons of silence and pride, he could no longer fight. Whatever the king should ask, he would do. Yea, no matter how degrading, how debasing the act, he would do it because he no longer cared, being alone and unloved in an inimical world, the pawn of fate always moved by some hand he could not see.

  He hung his head and would not look around him. Only the legs of the courtiers did he see as he walked through the palace of Westminster, their legs, thin legs, fat legs, shapely legs, legs knobbly with veins or bowed or knock-kneed, in hose of many colours, some parti-coloured, each leg different from the other, or striped, with codpieces insolently prominent, the shoes square-toed with rounded corners. Through the dazzling crowd, Perkin trudged with drooping head, trying not to hear what they were saying or to understand why they laughed, and he was grateful that no ladies were amongst them lest Katherine spit at him, appalled to know that this recreant creature was her husband. But she would not have ventured into the king’s portion of the palace unless she were well-attended and on some mission there.

  Before the hearth in his small curtained closet, King Henry sat, and, expressionlessly from under the half-closed lids, the blue eyes watched Perkin when he entered and did not bow. There was another man present, a churchman, whom at first Perkin did not recognize; then the man turned and the firelight showed the smooth cheek of the Bishop of Cambrai, Henry of Bergen, whom he had last seen at the Duchess of Burgundy’s court. Had even the duchess sided with his enemies and sent this bishop with further evidence of his low parentage? Wretched though Perkin was, believing that no further wretchedness could hurt him, the thought that she, too, could betray him brought a throb of anger to his pulse.

  Long did the bishop stare into his eyes while Perkin sought, and failed, to meet his gaze; and the king sat back in his chair, watching them with aloof amusement.

  “Well, my lord bishop,” he said at last, “here is the man, sadly changed, no doubt, since last you saw him; but I’ll take no blame for that. His own ingratitude and insolent spirit have worked for his misfortune.”

  The bishop did not answer. Pityingly, he looked into Perkin’s eyes, then turned to the king. Very much older he seemed since Perkin last had seen him in Burgundy, and his thin hands were shaking.

  “Well, my lord bishop,” said the king again, “are you now content? Your mistress of Burgundy is ever seeing ghosts at my court. This man is flesh and blood. Because she is a woman I forgive her; because she is the sister of the usurper, Richard, again do I forgive her, for I can understand a sister’s feelings. But will her hatred never tire? By God, she’s tried to make me out a monster, an eater of babes, a cruncher of men’s bones, a killer of princes … Thus does she think to blind the world from the truth of her brother’s iniquities. I am, I tell you, bone-weary of it all. My kingdom has been racked with dissension while all my desire is to keep the peace. Nevertheless, continually she plots against me with these false mammets, these Richards and Warwicks. Am I never to be rid of them?”

  “Your highness,” murmured the bishop, “it is but human that the duchess should love her brother’s memory and seek to discover the fate of her other brother’s sons … but I am purely a churchman and do not meddle with state affairs. More was it for your good fame than to satisfy a woman that I came to England. Rumours are abroad that this lad was dead. To seal that ghost in its grave, your highness, and to satisfy her grace’s curiosity, the surest way was to show the living youth.”

  “Then look at him there,” said the king. “If you can call him ‘living’.”

  Even though he hung his head, Perkin could feel them watching him and he wished that he had the strength with which to hate this man. But even hatred was beyond him.

  “I am content,” sighed the bishop.

  “My lord,” said the king, “would you come nearer, a little closer to the fire? Ay, there …” Perkin heard him suck the spittle through his teeth with a hissing note as of surprise and pleasure. “Ah, yea,” he murmured, “I had heard rumours of it, but one hears so many rumours, mostly lies … but now that the lad has thinned and looks quite old, the likeness … Yea, yea, there can be no doubt of it! For once, gossip is no liar.”

  What did he mean? and why did he chuckle and slap his leg? Perkin looked up and saw that the king was merry, grinning at the bishop, and that the bishop, standing clear in the firelight, looked down at him with sad but unperturbed expression.

  “Indiscreet of you, your grace,” chuckled the king, “to have come here with questions about a bastard whose lineaments remind men of the house of York. Many sought to find Edward in him; others believed they could see Richard; and if not Richard, George; and we all forgot that sons are bred of women and often most resemble their mothers who, in their turn, can resemble their brothers. Yea, there is much of the mother in him … and, methinks, much of the father, too.”

  “The duchess is no longer very young,” said the bishop, “and I am an ageing man; scandal can no longer hurt us. That likeness you think you see has been noted before and been dismissed; yourself dismissed it.”

  “I had not seen you both together then,” laughed the king. “What say you, peasant prince,” he suddenly jeered, turning on Perkin, “have you no kiss to give your dad?”

  Too startled fully to understand what was said, Perkin blinked at him, then he gaped at the bishop, fearing that he was being tricked.

  “Yea,” said the king, “here is your father, fool, a good churchman with the ladies, a breeder of enthusiastic devotion in them, and of other, prettier things. A ladies’ devout familiar who can reward their sin with absolution so that concupiscence is forgiven even while it is performed. See here, my boy, your own father a bishop! are you not proud?”

  “And my mother?” whispered Perkin.

  “The fool has wool for wits,” jeered the king. “The good bishop is no Plantagenet, yet some espy Plantagenet in your mien and by that likeness were you seduced to treason. If your father be no Plantagenet, who must your mother be?”

  He had known it. In his heart, he had always known it. In her great compassionate eyes had he read the truth when she had clasped both his hands in hers and stared into his eyes with a kind of hungry satisfaction, almost gloating on him. Yea, he had known it; all the time he had known it while he had pretended that he was his cousin. He was the son of the Duchess of Burgundy and this bishop, and therefore he was, through her, a true Plantagenet, if on the distaff side. Yea, yea, and here stood his father who, being a priest, could never acknowledge parenthood, no more than his mother, a widowed duchess, could confess her motherhood; a child bred of the love betwixt a duchess and a bishop.

  Timidly, yet with growing joy, he looked at his father who peered awkwardly at him, as though half-angry at the king’s disclosure. Neither spoke, the father because it was impossible for him to confess the truth in words, and Perkin because he was too surprised and excited to think clearly and too awed by his father’s greatness not to feel humble and proud.

  “Now that at last the truth is out,” said the king, “and the impostor can be proved a bastard, it will not look well for you, sir priest, in the eyes of the world; and your aged leman will become a whistling jest in all the courts, breeder of bastards who would send her own son to his death if she might spite me.”

  “I told you, the rumour is not new,” sighed the bishop, “and no one will believe it simply because you swear that it’s true.”

  “I hold the bastard. Remember that, my lord. I will keep him as a card against whatev
er spade your old leman might think to deal me. Let her continue with her conspiracies against my throne and, by God, sir priest, I’ll have her son dragged in a cart throughout my land with placards round his neck giving to the world his bastard lineage and with bawdy rimes on his mother’s name.”

  “No one will believe you,” smiled the bishop. “They will only say that King Tudor shows his malicious heart.”

  When he forced himself to speak, Perkin was surprised to hear how firm and strong sounded his voice; and both turned to him with a startled look as though they had forgotten he was there. He heard himself saying:

  “You forget one thing, your grace. You can send me through the world, if that be your wish, with placards and a fool’s cap, but you cannot make me say what I will not say. At your command, already have I sworn to many lies; but never will I swear to the truth while my good father and mother are alive.”

  “Pah!” said the king. “You will crow differently after a twist of the rack.”

  “Nothing will alter me,” cried Perkin. “Rack me, ay, and in pain I might, God help me, speak against my will; but who’d believe it? When afterwards you showed me to the people, I’d tell them that it was a lie wrenched out of me by pain; and when they saw me crippled, they’d believe it.”

  “Brave talk,” sneered the king, paling with anger. “You were ever an insolent fool; and a coward. Pish, lad, you have not the stomach to be a hero. Whatever I’ve asked of you, however menial, you have done it, and you will do it again.”

  “Never again,” said Perkin. “Then was I lost without kin, or thought I had no kin, the fool of someone else’s dream. Now things are very different. Do with my body as you will, I’ll die worthy of my parentage.”