A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  Behind him, Astwood heard the lovers sigh, heard them whisper without words, heard them move, and heard the flutter of their garments. They were lost in their dream of love, a dream that can blind even wild beasts to the approach of the hunter; and it was a world he had not entered, save in fantasy. Let them while they could taste happiness denied him, and he did not grudge it. Only he felt hatred against the king and Cleymound of such fury that it made him shake and blinded him with rage, as the two behind him were blind with love. Gleefully would he die if first he might kill Cleymound. Since youth, he had pursued death, fighting for King Richard and, ever after that, entering conspiracies against the usurper. No time had he found for tenderness, nor even for friendship. All his spirit had been concentrated on the will to overturn the throne, and that dream had led him to this reality, to be locked in with a pair of mad lovers, and betrayed by the man he had trusted.

  “Whatever might come to us,” he heard Perkin say, “I’ll not fear death in gratitude to life for having made you mine.”

  “We’ll not die,” she said. “You must not talk of death. There’s only Cleymound’s word against ours. Nay, nay, we must escape! We must not wait here! I told you the guard would take you before midnight.”

  “They’ll find no proofs of conspiracy …”

  “That does not matter. They will swear what they like and the king will kill you. I had that warning from him. For the love of God, my love, we must do something!”

  “We can but wait,” he said.

  “Trapped here! That means your death! … Master Astwood, Master Astwood, cannot you lead us out of this place!”

  Sighing, Astwood raised his head and turned and looked towards them.

  “Would that I could,” he said, “but Cleymound has the key and the doors have been built against escape. We have no tools, nothing save our hands.”

  “Then we must use our hands, use anything …” The passivity of these men before disaster outraged her. In battle they might be brave enough but they were cowards when it came to ordinary things. Here they were content to remain while time drained towards capture and death, and they did nothing.

  “There is nothing we can do,” said Astwood sadly.

  “We can fight when they come, that is all,” said Perkin. “Astwood has a baselard and I have my hands and the stool. Let them come and kill us, we’ll kill some of them first, eh, my friend?”

  Furiously in her despair, Katherine beat him with her fists, weeping and trying to devise some means of escape. A woman was more wily than any man, it was said, and she wished that were only, so. For lack of a key to an insensate lock, they must wait in here for death, for his death, she feared, would spell her own. In that stone chamber there was nothing they could use to smash through the wood, yet, she felt, there must be something, something; and wildly she looked about her in the flickering light.

  “We must have trust in God and our stars,” said Perkin, holding her wrists while trying to kiss her mouth. “Peace, lady,” he whispered, “it is no use battling in the air. When they come, Astwood and I can fight. The space is narrow, they cannot rush us but must enter one at a time, or two at a time; and when we’ve beaten some, we can take their steel and armour and fight our way through the others to freedom.”

  “With the Tower raised, with an army to meet you! O,” she wailed, fearing she was going mad, “time runs from us and you talk. All that men ever do is talk and talk. If it were not for women there would be nothing done in this world. For the love of God, do something, anything!”

  Out of Perkin’s embrace she wrenched herself and beat on the wood, bruising her hands. She knew that her blows were light as wind against the oak, but it was better to do something, however useless, than to mope and wait for capture. The king had given plain warning. Unless she could entrap Warwick tonight, Perkin would hang, and her hopes would all have been in vain. But how could she trap anybody while the door was shut? dear God, have mercy, she sobbed, dear God, do not abandon us here but open this door …

  Under her fists the door swung open, almost knocking her down; and she gasped in dread and triumph that her prayer had been heard and so quickly answered. Astwood sprang to his feet and Perkin stepped back, both too amazed to know what they should do.

  Then they heard Cleymound laugh.

  “Bow, fools, to your king!” he cried. “Bow to your King Edward the Fifth. On your knees, all of you!”

  Into the chamber stumbled a dirty creature with hanging head. His clothes were rags and rippled with vermin. They could not see his face because the dark matted hair fell forward, but they heard the creature giggle and saw him hold up his hands that seemed loose at the wrists.

  “Come,” he squeaked, “come bow to me. Am I not your king?”

  “No,” gasped Perkin, shuddering, “no!”

  “That can’t be Clarence,” stuttered Astwood. “This is a jape of Cleymound’s, some foul jape!”

  “Gentlemen, and lady,” jeered Cleymound from the darkness of the passage, “I told you — bow and curtsey to his grace, Edward, Duke of Clarence, by the grace of God and the right of your swords, soon to be your King of England and France and Lord of Ireland!”

  “Now,” giggled Clarence, “will you not bow to me?”

  This was the Duke of Clarence, King Richard’s nephew, this poor crazed thing! For this fellow, this Tom o’ Bedlam, had they risked their lives! They had had warnings enough and should have known what to expect. Since he had been seven years of age, he had been shut out of the world, untended, unwashed, uncared for, unshaved, with only phantoms for company. Now he was twenty-one and had rarely seen the light … what else could they have expected to find? but to Perkin this horror was beyond believing. He cringed from the creature as though he were some devil, and he crossed himself, muttering a prayer.

  “Why do you tarry?” laughed Cleymound. “The tide is on the turn, your barge awaits you at the stairs, for I have attended to everything. Come, your highness, your grace, Edward, puissant Earl of Warwick, you must waste no time here but be off.”

  “At least,” cried Astwood, “you’ll not escape me!” and he leaped from the stool while Cleymound darted away.

  Too sick at heart to move, Perkin drooped against the wall, scarcely able to believe that this animal was Warwick. He did not notice Astwood run past. He wished that he might die at the thought that for this scarecrow king he had hazarded his life and his love and had lost both by the treachery of Cleymound. There would be no barge waiting for them, no ship waiting to carry them to Burgundy; it had all been a dream which now was over.

  When Katherine took his hand and squeezed it, and miserably he looked up at her, the pity in her eyes in the taperlight made him want to weep as though he were a child needing comfort from his mother.

  “I have brought you to this,” he moaned. “Lady, can you forgive me?”

  Gently she kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair while he pressed against her, hiding from sight of his prince. Even when, panting, Astwood strode back into the chamber, he did not look up.

  “I nearly had him,” panted Astwood, “he was within an inch of my baselard. I pricked his buttocks and no more. Then he was out of the Tower, and there is an army waiting down there.”

  “Cunningly he worked,” said Perkin, kissing Katherine’s hand. Then slowly he stood to his feet. “You are fortunate, Astwood,” he sighed. “At least you have a sword, even though a short-bladed one. I have only my hands.”

  “You’ll not go!” wailed Katherine, clinging to him. “For the love of God, my lord, no, no! They will kill you!”

  “Pray that they do,” he said, kissing her softly. I do not want torture and a public hanging.”

  “No, no, when you are alive … you can’t!”

  “Better to go to them than for them to catch me here. I will be waiting for you, my love, in heaven, if that be God’s will.”

  She could barely
stand. Her traitorous legs were giving at the knees, yet still she clung to him as though there might be magic in her touch. Then she remembered what the king had said. It was Warwick, not Perkin, he wanted. He yet might keep his bargain and let her love stay free.

  “Yea, we are trapped,” she cried. “I will go with you, my lord; and we will take this poor creature, too.”

  “He cannot fight …”

  “But let him go with us,” she pleaded. “We might win through, you are strong and Master Astwood has a sword. I will guide the duke and might run with him while you hold the men back.”

  “And once I distrusted you!” he cried, kissing her again and again, forgetting even death for the moment in joy at finding her so brave and loyal. “Yea,” he said, “let us go like men, Astwood. My lady shall take Warwick.”

  One last kiss, one last, long embrace, then out of that dark chamber and down the narrow slanting stone steps they went, Perkin and Astwood first, Katherine following with her hand on Warwick’s arm. The poor wretch was babbling of how he would make her his queen when he was king and promising her dainty foods and spiced wines, and she felt his spit dribble on her hand. So dark it was that they could only grope their way until they opened the door and bright moonlight seemed to spring at them, dazzling them. Then they saw the soldiers waiting and big Cleymound grinning; and at sight of Cleymound, Astwood roared and leaped forward, swinging his baselard.

  “King Edward!” shouted Perkin, and he would have run with his friend had not Katherine slipped before him, pushing the stumbling Warwick into the arms of the guard.

  “Nay, my lord,” she gasped. “It is Warwick they want, not you.”

  Tight were her arms about him, holding him, and at first he was too startled to understand what she was saying or doing.

  “Pray, my lord,” she gasped, “they’re not here to hurt you; I’ve the king’s word on it; it’s Warwick they want, Warwick, not you.”

  Aghast, he stared into her flushed eager face as she strained against him, her weak arms trying to pinion his strong arms, and she was appalled to see the horror widen his eyes.

  “Judas!” he cried. “You, too, to cheat me!”

  Before he could struggle free, the soldiers caught him and bound his wrists; and all the while he glared at her with murderous lust, and he spat into her face when she tried to kiss him.

  “I have the king’s word!” she wailed. “The king has promised me his life!”

  The soldiers said nothing while they pushed her Perkin forward beside the pinioned Astwood and Warwick. When, weeping, she sought to follow them to wherever they might be taken, she was held back and the men grinned and joked when she struggled, wriggling and slipping in their grip, and kicked and strove to bite them. Like a mad-woman had she become at this end of her dreaming; and not until she saw again the hatred and contempt gleam in Perkin’s eyes did she realize that struggling now was useless. The king had tricked her, Perkin hated her, while she, alas, must live haunted with memories.

  Gently the soldiers let her go when their captives had been marched into the night and their steps could no longer be heard; and she sank, sobbing, to her knees, then on to her face against the icy pebbles; and there as though she were dead she lay, save that she quivered and moaned a little now and then.

  The king had won at the end, as cunning and hatred must always win against honour and love. He had taken his victims as he had plotted, using her, and with the last of the White Rose lopped, he would sit easier on his uneasy throne, while she … she was alone in the night and would be forever alone, and she wished that she were dead. She wished, and sighed on the wish, that she were now to be buried here, for she did not want ever to move from these cold stones in the purple shadow of the Tower under the stars that had spun for her love a winding-sheet, taking with Perkin’s body her soul away.

  If you enjoyed A Princely Knave, please share your thoughts on Amazon by leaving a review.

  For more free and discounted eBooks every week, sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.