“Your grace,” she whispered, “how do I know that you’ll not hang my husband with the duke?”
Slowly, he drew himself erect. “You have my royal word on it,” he said.
Of what weight was his royal word? A feather he could afterwards laugh away while mocking at her simplicity. Yet what else was there that she could do that might save her husband?
“I — I will do it,” she said, and fell again to weeping as though she were mad with sorrow while, drumming his long fingers on the table, the king sat slowly down again and watched her. He did not speak as though her torment meant nothing to him, as though she acted some mime to be noted critically and, perhaps, afterwards condemned rather than rewarded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MEN ARE UNWISE …
SHE had washed away the tears, bathing her eyes to make them clearer, and with care she painted and perfumed herself in readiness for this meeting that could mean so much. With care also did she dress, although she knew that Perkin took small heed of a woman’s covering and it was so dark in the Tower it scarcely mattered what she wore, but bright clothing brightened her spirit and brought her courage. Like armour to a man in battle, were rich cloths and laces and perfumes to her in the war of love. This time she must not fail. She must conquer Perkin or it might mean their deaths. If not their deaths, most certainly would it mean the death in her of any hope of happiness. That he should be hanged was a thought so appalling that she dared not consider it. She would win him to sanity, she told herself: she must win him to sanity …
Nevertheless this was dangerous bait she had to use. Cunningly had the king drawn her into a net and to cut free of it she must lie, cheat, use any trick that came to mind, even treachery. For if by midnight Warwick were not captured, exposed as an escaped prisoner and an enemy to the realm, the king would hang her husband. He would like to hang him, if only to show her his contempt for love and his indifference to ordinary feelings common to humankind. But it was Warwick he wanted for victim. After Warwick’s death, he would not care what happened to Perkin and would doubtless keep his promise to reward her with this man she loved. Only, she prayed, Perkin might not suspect her hand in this game which should prove no easy one to play.
In the royal barge on the way to the Tower, she sat that night and did not heed the oarsmen watching her while they sang a bawdy ballad in rhythm with their strokes. She saw nothing of the river, of the up-and-down outline of the city, and she did not even stir when they shot under the dangerous Bridge in a flurry of foam, the boat jarring against the starlings before being spat out to rock gently forward on the waters. Her mind was inward, trying to sort hope from terror, trying to think clearly and to remember everything that she must do.
She had to tell Perkin that the king knew of his plotting and was sending that night to have him and his friends taken to Westminster before midnight; therefore must they either abandon the adventure or set to work swiftly. That Perkin would abandon the adventure she knew was impossible. Nothing, certainly no entreaties or kisses from her, could shift him from his loyalty to that idea. As the son of Margaret and nephew of Edward and Richard, the future of the White Rose meant more to him than aught on earth or in heaven. Certainly it meant more to him than she could ever hope to do. And on that ideal she must play, having Warwick taken, while somehow she kept Perkin back until all danger passed.
Dear God, she prayed, and Mother Mary help me in this hour.
She could conjure no safe plan. She could only hope for luck, and luck she feared had long deserted her. Yet she seemed calm to the rowers, and calm she looked when she ascended the slippery steps to the gate beyond the toothed portcullis, and the guard let her pass without challenge, merely holding up the lanthorn that he might see her face.
In the darkness, she could see darker shapes, men in steel whispering together, and she wondered whether they were those already gathered for the trap. A lanthorn hooked to a nail in the wall shone down on metal when they moved and she heard a rivet click and saw the long blade of a voulge flash back the light that seemed almost to dribble from it. But these were phantoms, all were phantoms beyond her own problem and the panic growing in her heart; and she was glad that she could not be plainly seen when at last Cleymound opened Perkin’s door and she stumbled into the room that was lit only by one rush-light guttering in its own grease.
Perkin was at the table, whispering to Astwood; and when she entered both men fell silent and looked at her suspiciously, surprised at her coming at this late hour. Their silence and the way that Perkin did not answer her kiss chilled Katherine, and she began to tremble.
“My lord,” she said, “I hurried to tell you. I was afraid. I don’t know, But I was afraid. It was the way he said it more than the words, and you will blame me for it.”
“Blame you … for what?” asked Perkin coldly.
“Because the king hinted, nay, more than hinted that he has become angry because of Wilford’s rising. He was so angry that he let slip things he’d never otherwise have said.”
“What did he let slip?”
The words came quickly, spoken before she had clearly formed them in her mind, and terror gave them conviction.
“That he is going to arrest you tonight for conspiracy, both you and Warwick.”
“What! he told you that!”
“Not in so many words; he told me I would be a widow before morning; and what else could that mean?”
“Yet he let you visit here?” It was Cleymound speaking and his voice, coming so unexpectedly, for she had not heard him enter at her heels, made her gasp and shake. “This is treachery,” he said. “The king lets nothing slip without intention. If he. told you that, he meant you to come to tell us. Why?”
“I am certain he didn’t,” she cried, not daring to turn and face this man she feared and hated. “And he does not know I’m here. When I left him I hurried straight to the wharf and told the bargemen I was on his business. They are so used to carrying me here they asked no questions. Yet he might soon hear of it; and if he did, my God, he’d hang us all.”
She saw Perkin draw back and heard him take a deep breath, but he did not speak as though he knew not what to believe.
“Had I known,” said Cleymound, “that there would be a woman in this, I’d have kept well clear. When she’s rowed back to Westminster she’s closeted with the king. Their talk is secret, but not difficult to guess. I have this from a friend, a groom at court. Straight from us to the king goes she: why does she do that if she be no traitor?”
“I told my husband,” she gasped, trying to speak calmly. “I have to pretend with the king, else I’d not be permitted to come here. He thinks I work for him when I am really working for my husband.”
“I was afraid of this,” sighed Cleymound. “I knew it. When I saw a female in your confidence, I should have fled this place and run to sanctuary. Here’s devil’s work, thought I; once a woman’s finger’s in the game, you are lost. But I tried to believe that you were using her, Master Warbeck, to lull the king. It seems that I was wrong, that she is using you to step upon your back to court favour and after your hanging mayhap to make merry with a second husband.”
“That is not true!” she cried and swung round to face him. He was in darkness to her, for her body hid the taper, but she could see the flicker of his eyes. Never had she liked the man, now she detested him, feeling helpless while he stared at her and neither her husband nor Astwood spoke. Why did they not speak, even to revile her?
“I know nothing of your conspiracy,” she cried, “or very little. My husband tells me almost nothing, but I’d be a fool if I didn’t smoke a plot here. If I have been a spy, I have proved of little use. Ask my husband. I’ve not one secret worth a tester that I could betray, even had I wished to betray you. I seized the king’s offer to come here, pretending to act for him, because it gave me my chance to be with my husband. That, in God’s holy name, is the truth.”
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br /> “There is no fool,” groaned Cleymound, “to equal love’s fool. If you expect me to have faith in you, lady, because you act the spy from love of the husband you spy on, I should go play with little boys and not work with men. Were I not so deep in this, by God’s thunder, I’d leave you all to spoil the brew. Too much depends on it, so many have faith in us, have given money, risked their necks … And must all perish because a woman’s fair yet sly?”
“Nay,” cried Katherine, maddened at the feel of tears under her lids and tormented by Perkin's accusing silence, “nay, I’ll not have you say such things. I hate Tydder as much as any of you, more mayhap, than you do, for he threatens my happiness and would rob me of my husband.”
“Yet you are closeted with him almost every night!”
“Robin speaks truth,” said Astwood suddenly. “This woman can’t be trusted.”
“I swear by all that’s holy that I’m true; and even if I weren’t, what harm could I have done? I have betrayed nothing, nothing, as you must know.”
“This talk tonight,” murmured Astwood, “this saying we will be taken if we dally, that might be a trap.”
“This woman is my wife,” said Perkin in a sad voice, and all turned and looked at him, “yet I know nothing of her; but I cannot see that she has done us harm. If we go tonight or tomorrow night, what matters it? I have asked you often, Robin, why we must delay like this. The ship is waiting, you have told me often. Let us go now.”
He stood to his feet, and, weeping with relief, Katherine ran to him and clasped him in her arms; but he did not answer her kiss. Over her shoulder he watched Cleymound.
“Yea, yea,” muttered Astwood, “I too am stiff with waiting. Devil damn it, if we’re to hang, we hang, whether it be tonight or on Good Friday. You tell us all is ready save for a few silly guards. We should overpower them easily enough.”
“You, too?” sighed Cleymound, and Katherine saw him step back towards the door. “You also are her fool?”
“You are the spy!” she cried. “The king told me that he had a spy in the Tower. I thought it might be Astwood but it’s you. That’s why you’ve dallied, that you might draw longer payments for your treachery. Look at him, sirs! Here is the villain and not I.”
“I a traitor!” smirked Cleymound, and began to laugh. “Why should I betray you? This is female trickery, to turn the blame on me when she’s stripped naked. A common trick. I warned you that this woman would foul any plot. There’s only one way to stop her tongue,” he purred, and put his hand caressingly on his dagger-grip.
“Coward!” she cried. “Kill me if you think that that will stop me from denouncing you, but your malice shows your fear.”
“I kill only in self-defence,” said Cleymound, “and it’s small matter to me whether the throat be a man’s or a woman’s, except that women’s are easier to slit. But I’ll not have our careful plotting kicked to futility by this bitch’s lies.”
“Stop playing the fool,” said Perkin, drawing Katherine towards him, “and put down that dagger.”
“Either she dies — I’ll throw the corpse in the river — or the escape is doomed. I’ll run to sanctuary and leave you here. That is your choice. What say you? Is this woman more precious to you than your future king?”
“She is not to be hurt,” said Perkin. “We can take her with us.”
“That would be best,” chirped Astwood. “Let us take her with us. Then she can work no harm even though she be a traitor. But to kill her thus, nay, nay, it would be sad work and men would hate us for it. It would do the cause no good. Prithee, friend, let us make haste and warn good Warwick to make ready.”
“I think, yea, I am certain,” said Perkin quietly, “that you are the traitor, Master Cleymound, you with the mask of friend. It has always been you who has advised delay, always you who hinted this and hinted that, and now that the time has come, you would have us do nothing that we might be trapped. You were going to aid us, weren’t you, and counselled patience while you pocketed your dirty pieces of silver?”
“Ay,” said Astwood, looking up with a surprised, almost delighted air. “You’d not have us go now because you’ve not had time to gather the guard to stop us.”
“My lady has surprised you,” cried Perkin, and leaped at the man.
He was too late. Already Cleymound was at the door and had leaped through and clashed it after him. They heard the key grind in the lock as Perkin half-fell, stunned for the moment, by the speed of his leap against wood.
Back on to his stool sank Astwood and he trimmed the spitting rush with steady fingers and seemed intent on what he did, not heeding Katherine kneeling beside Perkin. He glanced once at her and, shrugging, turned away again.
“For God’s love,” she wailed, “don’t sit there, fool! Do something for my husband.”
“What can I do?” he murmured. “He will soon be awake and I have no key to the door. I am a prisoner now with you both, so swift does fortune move to throw one down. A jailer becomes the jailed, the killer in his turn is killed by a rope. I had great dreams of this adventure but the devil always works for Tydder and God was ever weak against the devil.- Who would have thought that Robin was a cheat? He it was who found me this work here. Think you he did it, hoping I would plot with him, as plot I did, to trap you? And all the while he mocked at us, piffling on his fist. Never had I any wisdom even when I was a child and, in innocence, told my father that my mother had been patching his neighbour's breech and singing while she sewed. I was well beaten for it, by mother, dad and neighbour, and no one loved me afterwards. He will soon be well, lady. Have no fear.”
Already Perkin’s eyes were open and he was staring up dazedly, then, suddenly recollecting what had happened, he struggled out of Katherine’s arms and beat with both fists on the door, howling for Cleymound to come back and be murdered.
“Peace,” said Astwood, waving a tired hand. “Knocking will not bring him back. By now, the dog’s in sanctuary or chuckling with the king. He kept telling us to wait, saying that this was not ready, that that was not ready; and in time, when he’d squeezed the king of a little more Judas-money, we’d have been delivered to the hangman. But now, let him run and skip and say what he will, he’ll not be believed. There’s only his dirty word against our honest ones.
“But for the traitor to run free,” cried Perkin, “while we are locked in here!”
“You must turn philosopher,” smiled Astwood, “as I have been since puppyhood. Life’s never proved a friend to me. I have struggled and am for the moment cudgelled down. Not for the first time, nor for the last, I doubt not, the stars being most malicious in their conspiracy against me. We must set to work again.”
“How can you talk of starting again!” howled Perkin, his hand sliding from the lock of the door. “To rest so high on hopes, only then to tumble! I wish that I were dead and Cleymound dead with me!”
“You are young,” sighed Astwood. “I also once was young, and now that I am old, disappointments mean but little. After you deserted us near Taunton, I thought that I would die; but, see! I did not die, not in the flesh. All must begin again; next time we will work alone, we two — with your lady also, if she pleases — and we should count it gain that we unmasked the traitor before it was too late.”
“To sit here doing nothing, nothing! That is too much!” Again Perkin beat on the door, his blows echoing dully, the wood not even shaking on the hinges, and sadly Astwood watched.
“Peace, my son,” he said at last. “You hurt only your own hands. Cleymound has the key and we must wait till morning when the guard is sure to seek us out. Thus have we many melancholy hours to pass. Being ever courteous to lovers, I will try to sleep; but why should you complain who has a comely lady with whom to play away the hours? I’ll turn my back on you and try to think of other things. It was ever thus with me, spectator and not doer, the ladies fleering at me and laughing in my beard. Envious i am, what man
would not be envious with such an apple in your hand? yet I’d not hamper your dalliance.”
He turned from them and, leaning his head on the table, pretended to sleep instantly, while Perkin glared at him, clenched fists raised. In this tumbling of his hopes, Katherine was forgotten, and she knew it. Among shadows she stood, afraid to speak lest in his anger he reject her; then she saw him turn slowly and look at her. They were but solid shapes to one another, they could not see their eyes, yet each was more intensely aware of the other’s nearness than if they had stood in sunlight. Like a man roused out of sleep, Perkin blinked at her and held his breath, and his arms drooped.
“I was a fool,” he groaned. “I did not trust you.”
Happily she wept and was in his arms, running her fingers along his back to make more real the feel of his closeness. For this moment, her recent torments had been coin well spent. Almost was she grateful for them because they made her joy deeper now that he confessed himself a fool for his distrust.
“What does it matter,” she whispered against his mouth, “when we are together and I love you?”
“By God, lady,” he whispered in his kiss, “I have been mad and blind. What is there worth having in this world save your love?”
Forgotten by them in their momentary happiness, Astwood crouched with his head on the table and his eyes closed; but there were tears — the first in many, many years — behind his lids. These younglings were fortunate. They could cheat time with love, but he was elderly and love had passed him by. Death would mean little to him, but that these two should die was an injustice that made him tremble with impotent rage at the stars. For die they certainly would. By now, Cleymound was summoning the guard and he would give evidence against them, telling great lies to save his own neck; and mayhap even this woman would hang beside them, her dainty body given to the crows. The king would have no mercy and Cleymound hated them as only a traitor can hate those whom he has betrayed.
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