A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  “Nay,” he cried, “do not touch me!”

  Her warm hand was on his, her body pressed against him, and she kissed his cheek because he turned away his mouth. He felt her arms glide about his neck and her bosom tight against his chest; and then, sobbing, raging, he found that his arms, seemingly of their own accord, were gripping her and had drawn her up, tighter against him, and her mouth was on his mouth … and dreams were forgotten in the reality of a dream greater than any other.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CAUGHT IN THE WEB

  HER love had given him strength and he had not expected that. Now, refreshed, cool yet excited, he could smile at the world, feeling strangely safe from malice because in some mystical fashion her love protected him. Fears lest her wooing had been done under the king’s instructions to tempt him into confessing his plots soon went once he found that she made no attempts to pry. Only she begged him to step carefully. “You have not only yourself to think of,” she had said. “Nay,” he had smiled, “I have all England.” And she had sighed, defeated before this secret dream. That he was plotting to escape from the Tower and to lead a rising against King Henry, she could not doubt. He had confessed it by his silences and she had read something of their meaning in the glances he had exchanged with the turnkey, Astwood. Her failure to be trusted she had to accept as the failure of all women in love. Her beauty and her passion inspired him to heroic deeds, the reward of her body giving him strength in its submission; but his mind remained beyond her searching. Deeper than the flesh she could not venture. She could but rejoice to see him made happy, to note new colour in his cheeks, new brightness in his eyes, new confidence in his voice, even though she realized that by thus inspiring him she had merely strengthened him against her mastery. That was the unending circle of slavery in which women were bound; to inspire men only to find themselves defeated by the inspiration they had aroused. This new Perkin loved her more than the old, timid Perkin had loved her; he loved her as an equal, nay, rather as her master, and she was glad of that, although regretful. It seemed that there could be no perfection, no ideal balance, in love.

  Reluctantly at last she left him in his cell and she sighed because she knew that he did not regret her going. Of course, he would have preferred to have kept her by him; but that was not enough to pacify her pride. He should have been desolate at her departure. Instead, he remained gay, kissing and caressing her, laughing and playing with her hair, like a boy. Easily were men sated, able swiftly to withdraw their spirits and to think of other things. With fond sorrow had she watched him, knowing that he ached to tell her of his plotting while she had prayed he would not. The less she knew the calmer would be her peace of mind; and should the plot, as she feared, fail against the patient cunning of the king, she did not want him to believe a second time that she had betrayed him. And, of course, he had been right to suspect her as a spy. The king had sent her to learn his secrets. Should she now report that there were no secrets, the king would not believe her and would suspect she lied from love; while if she told what she believed was being plotted, Perkin would be more narrowly watched, perhaps even, tempted by some traitor into a trap, and he would think that she had been the informer, his enemy.

  In that dilemma, she lay back on the cushions under the awning of the royal barge, wondering what best to do. Something must be told the king or she would not be sent to the Tower again; but what? … Would to God Perkin would submit and proclaim himself his mother’s bastard; but to urge that, she knew, would be only to disgust and infuriate him, and thereby to lose him. Why should he care about the reputation of that old woman who had had him reared in secret and brought up in obscurity by the Warbecks only that she might use him as an instrument of her hatred and revenge? Rather should he detest her for her lack of love and her indifference towards his fate. But after years of questioning his parentage, this discovery that he was of royal blood had driven him slightly mad on the question. Rather would he die than repudiate an honour he dared not proclaim. Against that obsession, she could do nothing. Beauty and love were useless weapons; they were, indeed, dangerous because should he begin to believe, as he was very likely to believe, that she used them coldly like a harlot as a means of squirming out his secrets, he would forever hate her. And life without his love was a prospect so appalling that she dared not consider it. All dreams of the future must be based on him and her together, and in his masculine recklessness, somehow he must be protected; but how? and what lie was she to tell the king who was quick to see through liars?

  Never had she met a man to whom it was more difficult to lie. He seemed to be reading something you did not intend in anything you said, while all the time those blue eyes under the drowsy lids showed as expressionless as painted glass. Tight-lipped, he listened while she talked, and he made no comment, asked no questions; only now and then did his thin lips twitch at the corners or the eyelids lift very slightly.

  “So he’ll not do it?” he asked when she had faltered to a stop, alone with him in his privy chamber.

  “Nay, your grace,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “I feared to press too hard lest he mistrust me further. As it was, at first he swore I came as your agent, and it was long before I could calm his fears. Even now, he remains uncertain. Had I demanded that he proclaim himself her bastard, he’d have said me Nay! and would only have stiffened in whatever plot he might be working.”

  “So you believe there is a plot?” murmured the king, still looking hard at her.

  “I cannot tell; he did not say. He has no reason yet to trust me, your grace. It seems that he believes that I betrayed him when he left Sheen that night; but as you know, I was innocent in that.”

  A smile trembled on the corners of his mouth. “Innocent?” he murmured. “Is any lady ever innocent? But he trusts you now, eh? He gave you strong proof of that, eh? Ah, there’s no need to blush and put it into words, child. Your bright eyes and your swollen mouth tell more than speech; and long parting can prove, can it hot? a more potent love-charm than any filthy philtre or conjuration of the stars. That is well. When a man’s fool enough to be in love, he wants to share everything with his beloved; that is why it is an emotion shunned by wise men. For a beginning, you have not done badly.”

  Relieved to escape the searching look in his eyes, she dipped into a curtsey, thanking him for his commendation.

  “You must remember, lady,” he said when she was again erect, “that I don’t trust you. Behind that haughtiness of yours I fear me there lives a common, manhandled Eve who puts her body’s satisfactions beyond all else. In that, at least, are queens sisters to bronstrops. Honesty, loyalty, faith, truth, justice, even God, they are all forgotten under the sting of Amor, a very persuasive demon from which even nunneries are not always safe. For that reason, women either make excellent spies, superior to men, or they can be untrustworthy. They can be unscrupulous and cruel enough to betray a hundred men for coin, to give Satan their souls with never a thought of the Judgment, but once they fall in love … then can they be dangerous because their reason is overthrown and to them black becomes white and dishonour can count as honour. I do begin to believe that you art unfashionable enough to love your husband.”

  The lie was on her tongue, but she knew that it would not deceive him. Better was it to play him with the truth or a half-truth. “You may be right, your grace,” she said, “that we women are more venerous than men, although I don’t believe it; and doubtless also you are right — -and here I think you are — that when we love we love utterly, gladly giving our hearts to be eaten like the apple, and we can prove unscrupulous in our love’s defence. I grant all that, sire, and I know that you are too wise to be bubbled by any weak pretence that I might be silly enough to offer. Yea, it is true; I love my husband, and even in the Tower I was happy with him for a time.”

  “I knew it,” he said, “but why do you confess it to me? Women do not confess such secrets without cause.”

&nbs
p; “It is no secret,” she sighed. “I love him and I think that he loves me. As you say, women can be stubborn when they love and have few thoughts beyond it. The only thing in the world that I want is to have my husband with me. If by helping you, I can achieve this, gladly will I do whatever you ask. Yea, even though I have to deceive him, lie to him, I will do it should it mean his freedom. You must keep to your bargain, sire, as I will keep to mine, because what you desire is what I desire — peace in this realm and my husband always with me. While there are conspiracies against you, naturally you will continue to distrust him. It is therefore not only love for you, sire, that keeps me loyal, but my own future happiness.”

  “And you believe it can be done?”

  “I am certain of it,” she said. “Shut in the Tower with only vermin and his own dark thoughts, can he be blamed if he broods on treason? Soon will he grow to need me again, to suffer from my lack, and he’ll not sleep with love-longing; but one meeting, such as today’s, cannot suffice for that.”

  Slowly the king began to laugh, not loudly and with open lips but deep in his throat, as was his way. He shook with his own hidden merriment as though he grudged to share the jest.

  “You are a shameless trullibub” he mocked her. “You would pretend that you go to him only in the way of duty when it is your own sweet tooth that bites you. Cover your desires with a cloak of obedience to your king: that excuse is as good as any other lie; and yet …” He paused, still watching her as though to catch her in some cheat. “ … And yet,” he said, “there is truth in what you say. Women are skilled at amorous cruelties and know best how to enthral and destroy a man in their vanity’s rapacity. The need for love feeds on fantasy. That’s truth. Once the mad fever’s spent, a man can go for months, nay, years, with never a thought for a woman; but once he finds himself again entrapped with the old poison beating in his heart, he itches in that sorceress’s web, afire with wanton longing. Yea, yea, your wisdom is woman's wisdom, Eve's knowledge that comes to you from the snake. To offer and then to snatch away, to tempt and to deny; to excite and tantalize, giving only sufficient to keep the poor devil on the burning hook until he can think of nothing else in that shirt of Nessus. You may visit your husband again … but …” He raised a warning hand when he saw happiness flush her cheeks. “ … but not too often. I will be advised by you, my child. A sip of honey followed by nights of gall, until we'll have him eating from your lap. But, devil take it, can I trust you?”

  “I told you, sire,” she cried, “that so long as by serving you I serve myself, I am your faithful servant. I care not a rush for conspiracies and want only peace in which to love and be loved. While my husband remains in the Tower, I can know no peace; while should he think to plot against you, again do I know no peace; but if I can tempt him to renounce his treason and to proclaim the truth of his parentage, he'll no longer be a danger to you and none will trust him while the duchess will be shamed before the world, betrayed by her own son. Then shall he be all mine and you'll have no further need to fear him.”

  “That is my sole desire,” groaned the king, and suddenly he looked old and his hair thinner, his skin more sallow. “I am not a cruel man,” he said, “and I came to bring peace to my dominions yet I have encountered naught but conspiracy after conspiracy against me; and I am growing weary of them all. If I could hold this threat against the duchess, I might be safe, these plots being all spun of her malice and hard-heartedness. But if we could make her own bastard denounce her as a wanton, her leman a bishop, she would be laughed at as a strumpet throughout the world.”

  “He shall do it,” said Katherine with a confidence she did not feel. “Give me a little time, sire, and he shall do it.”

  Gladly would she have made Perkin do it had that been possible, but she knew that it was not possible. To have him degrade his mother would have been to pluck out his very backbone. This change in him, his new courage and defiance of fate, was bred in the discovery of his parentage and he would have died rather than have bescumbered his mother’s name. Even while she fretted against them, Katherine could appreciate his feelings. He was right, she realized, and she was wrong; but time was running out while they lived apart on a sword-point of fear. At any moment, the king might weary of delay and send her husband to the hangman. All he needed was the excuse, so greatly did he dread being called unjust, and he feared lest the killing of Perkin might suggest that there had been virtue in his claim. Whether he had murdered the princes, she did not know, but like most people, she felt that their blood must rust his soul, King Richard having had no need for their deaths when they could not have proved dangerous to him. With Tudor it was very different. Had the boys lived, he would have had to surrender the crown to the older lad and all his plots and trickeries would have gone for little. But the horror that that suspicion of killing had aroused, not only in England but through the courts of Europe, had frightened him, it seemed, from further killings in the dark. No one believed his tale that Richard had smothered the lads. Had he done so, Henry would have proclaimed the fact immediately on seizing the throne. But he had remained silent. All that people knew was. that the boys had vanished, either into imprisonment or by death. Always were those two ghosts at the king’s elbow and there was nothing he could do to exorcise them, except to spread the lie that Richard and not he had been the killer.

  Because of that, Perkin and the Earl of Warwick were safe. He wanted no further corpses in the Tower, no other murderers with whom he must share a perilous secret and whose mouths would be greedy for gold. To prove to Europe that it was mistaken in him and that he was a kind and generous man, he had forgiven many, such as Perkin and Lambert Simnel, and at least he kept Warwick alive so that he could be produced should impostors prove too dangerous.

  In this he was wise, Katherine realized, when one morning she awoke to find the palace in uproar, men shouting for weapons and armour, the archers standing in ranks with the men-at-arms in the courtyard and gardens, and the king concealed in his closet with his council. Aghast, she listened to the tidings and fumbled at her dressing while the women squeaked and cawed, excited as though they were making ready for somebody’s wedding. Rumours were countless but no one was certain of the truth. Katherine gripped the cloth On the wall. It was painted with the scene of Susanna in her bath being peeped at by the elders; otherwise she might have fallen and she scarcely saw the chamberer dragging her green gown down her arms and over her shoulders. White-faced, fearing to speak lest she betray her agitation, she was grateful when she could sit down on the stool to have her yellow hair combed and braided. What were they saying? Men marching against the king? Another rising! would the people never give over, would they never realize that the Tudor king was here to stay? Rising again against him, always were the unsatisfied. people rising at the cry of some ambitious madman calling himself Edward or Richard or Warwick.

  Had Perkin managed to escape from the Tower? was the sweet fool trying for a second time to steal the crown?

  Nay. She did not hear his name mentioned save when it was spat derisively to taunt her, as these women rarely ceased taunting her with sidling remarks about impostors and false princes. They chattered now about some friar, someone called Patrick. And of someone called Ralph Wilford. Not Perkin. No, may God be thanked, not of Perkin. Nor did this new rebel take Prince Richard’s name. He said that he was Warwick escaped out of the Tower. Perhaps he was Warwick. Perhaps Perkin had helped Warwick to escape. Ay, that must be it. The meaning behind certain phrases he had let slip assumed now a different meaning. Not for himself had he worked, preferring to remain, the duchess’s bastard, but for Clarence’s son, his fellow-prisoner.

  Katherine was so certain of this that when the king summoned her to his privy-chamber, she went on lagging feet, fearing lest he tell her that Perkin had been caught and must be hanged.

  This sudden revolt had aged the king she noticed when the usher opened his privy-chamber door. Hunched over the fire he sat,
his thin brown hair disordered, showing bald patches, his eyes red-rimmed and his lips loose. As though after debauch he looked as he watched her with malignity while she dipped into a curtsey in which she had to remain, waiting for his permission to stand up.

  In that posture, her legs began to ache, so long was it before he spoke; and all the while she trembled, being off balance, while her heart’s frantic knocking thundered in her temples with the threat that Perkin Perkin Perkin was to die.

  “I have been too merciful too long,” cried the king at last in a thin, angry voice. “I have pardoned and pardoned until I am weary of pardoning. Why must I be continually fretted in this fashion? Other kings stay undisturbed, yet I … O, this is a wicked, an ungrateful people and I shall make them suffer for it, by God’s glory! They’ll learn that I’m their king and have the power and rights of a king. When mercy is rejected one must turn merciless. If the fools spit out my love they must be tamed with hate. Too long have I been patient, and now to see my government flouted again, my name bescumbered as a usurper’s — I, the true heir of Lancaster! — my lineage disparaged, although their own damned parliament declared I was their rightful king, my mercy derided and great lies said of my doings; … I shall pardon no more.”

  Viciously he spoke as though he spat each word like a poison; and Katherine kept her head bowed and her eyes hidden from him, fearing she would swoon, her legs sagging apart and her back threatening to fall, and shame her by spilling her on to the dirty rushes.

  “Here is Spain,” said the king slowly, as though speaking to himself, “that almost calls me a fool to my face because I am so kindly hearted. And there are astrologers who warn me that the stars are angry at my stubborn mercy. One, I have been told, has had the hardihood to foretell my death unless I take action against my people. All the time, every moment, no matter where I go, I am in danger. Even at night with my gentlemen in the ante-chamber and guards under my window, I am in danger; and there are none to trust. In this cup of wine, who knows? there might lurk poison; my cooks may have been suborned; how am I to tell, alone amongst hundreds with not one whom I can trust! Yet I have always striven to work justly, honestly. These are a savage people, these English, and they need the whip. And, by God, they’ll get it!”