He Who Plays The King

by MARY HOCKING

  That night, when the party camped, the men huddled round the fire. Henry made no mention of his encounter, not only because he realized that it would not meet with approval, but because he liked secrets. The men, who were missing their women, laughed a lot and told bawdy stories. Then, as it grew colder, one of their number, a Welshman, sang a melancholy Celtic ballad. The child listened, rubbing his gift-stone in the palm of his hand. The voice of the singer seemed to be answered by strange echoes.

  ‘How long are we going to be in these hills?’ one of the men asked uneasily.

  ‘In three days we shall come to a valley where my old aunt lives,’ the Welshman answered. ‘The people there will know where the Yorkists are.’

  ‘Who carries news? We haven’t seen anyone.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we have been seen, make no mistake about that! These hills are inhabited by clansmen who know every move a stranger makes.’

  The men glanced apprehensively over their shoulders. ‘Do they cast spells?’

  ‘I don’t know about that; they are so handy with their axes they hardly need spells to deal with such as us.’

  This did little to reassure his listeners. ‘We have nothing with which to buy safe passage,’ one man said.

  ‘Buy!’ The Welshman was angry. ‘They are a proud, ancient people and they would not trade with Saxons. It would take many lifetimes for them to accept so much as a “good-day” from such as you.’

  Henry put the gift-stone in his kerchief and knotted the kerchief securely.

  The next two days the going grew rougher and they had to lead the horses much of the way. Only the child, humped on horseback, had any joy of it. He liked the lofty position; with stinging eyes and running nose, Henry Tydder bumped along, king of all the wilderness and carrying in his kerchief a gift-stone signifying his acceptance by a man of a proud and ancient race.

  While the party was on the move, the little dark man did not appear. But once or twice in the evenings, when Henry wandered away to play on his own, the man came to him. He was very impressed with the locket, so Henry offered it to him. The gift was accepted with no sign of offended pride. Later, Henry gave the man a ring. In return, he acquired four more stones as uninteresting as the first one.

  On the occasion of the giving of the ring, Henry was down by a stream which chattered noisily over huge boulders. One of the attendants came down to the stream hoping to catch fish for supper. The little dark man dodged behind one of the boulders at the water’s edge. The attendant bent down to address Henry angrily, ‘Haven’t I told you not to wander away on your own?’ The next moment his feet shot from beneath him and he went head-first into the stream. Henry viewed this performance with ecstatic delight; he rolled over and over, clutching his stomach and laughing until he could scarcely draw breath. But when he was ducked in the icy water himself he did not think it was so funny.

  ‘He pushed me in the stream,’ the attendant explained when he brought his streaming charge to the camp fire.

  ‘Let him be,’ one of the others said. ‘If we don’t hand him over fit and well, we’ll have cause to regret it.’

  Fish was eventually caught and cooked over the fire. After he had finished his portion, Henry went away, unwrapped his bundle, and counted his gift-stones, an expression of great contentment on his face.

  The next day they reached the valley where the Welshman’s aunt lived, and where she waited on them and fussed over the child. He stank abominably by this time so she picked him up and took him into the yard where she scrubbed him vigorously in a tub; he resisted this assault on his person with vehemence, but she stood no nonsense and smacked him soundly. Later, when the men were at supper, she talked to the Welshman in their own tongue. ‘And has the child no kin?’

  ‘His father died two months before he was born and his grandfather went to the block last month. His uncle has fled to Pembroke Castle where we hope to join him.’

  ‘Ah, the poor little lad!’

  The object of her pity squatted on the hearth shovelling gruel into his mouth, seemingly unmoved by his plight. A plain child, she thought him; and though years later she would relate that ‘he was so beautiful it stopped your heart to look at him, and with something quite saintly about him, too!’ now, she merely observed, ‘He’s a very messy eater, isn’t he?’

  There was no good news for them yet. Yorkist supporters had been reported not far away and they must move west without delay. The next morning, they told the child, ‘One day’s ride and you’ll be there!’ They had told him this each day to cheer him, and young though he was he had by now come to doubt the statement. But he did not protest at such duplicity; he was a patient child.

  The land through which they were passing was green and gentle, threaded with small streams, and the men felt that now they had only the Yorkists to contend with, since this was not country that gave good cover for wandering clansmen. They stopped in the late afternoon to eat some of the food the woman had provided for them. After he had eaten, Henry opened his precious bundle and felt inside: the kerchief was torn and it contained only one stone. Henry’s face crumpled with something more than misery. He had looked after his treasure with such care, and this was his reward! From the bottom of his outraged heart and at the top of his voice, Henry Tydder proclaimed to the heavens his fury at the injustice of this return for good stewardship. ‘I lost my stones!’ he screamed. ‘I lost my stones!’ He was not to be comforted and the journey continued to the accompaniment of his unforgiving protests.

  ‘You’ve a long way to go yet,’ they told him grimly, driven at last to the truth. ‘A long way to go.’

  At last he fell silent and slumped dejectedly on his mount, the one remaining stone held in his clenched fist.

  2

  While Henry Tydder was still in flight westwards, the battle of St Albans was fought and won by Queen Margaret’s army, and the Earl of Warwick was put to flight. The Queen’s progress south was, however, accompanied by such terrors that the citizens of London, their resolution wonderfully stiffened by fear, resisted her demands and held her army at the gates of London. Within a month, Christopher Ormond, who had been visiting relations in London, wrote to Dr John Morton:

  ‘I have but recently returned from London. On the twenty eighth day of February, there was much excitement as it was said that advance parties of the armies of the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of March were arrived. There were men about with tales of a tremendous battle in which many had been killed. On the next day, I went to the Bridge where so many people were gathered that the shops could do no business, for customers could not move to make room for others. I was on the Bridge when the young Earl of March rode into the city. He looked about him from side to side as he rode, smiling in a way that people much liked, especially the women. The Earl of Warwick was there beside him. There was much rejoicing in the city that night and in some parts they burnt the barricades which had been put up in the streets, making bonfires and dancing around them, which displeased the shopkeepers whose premises were close by. The next day, as I was on my way to Budge Row, I was approached by a man who told me that a large crowd was gathering in St John’s Fields; after he spoke to me I saw him speaking to a number of other people, and so I went to St John’s Fields where there was a great press of people and all of them expecting something to happen but not knowing what. There were many soldiers and a platform had been erected; I saw several noblemen near the platform. Then one of the noblemen, I was too far away to be sure who it was but it might have been Lord Fauconberg, spoke to the crowd of the terrible things which had happened to the towns which had been taken by Queen Margaret’s army, and of the terrors which the people of London had been spared by the bravery of the Earl of March. At this the crowd cheered mightily. Then he asked whether they still wanted to be ruled by a weak-minded king who was in the power of Queen Margaret, and they shouted “No” very loud. Then he asked if they wanted Edward, Earl of March, to be their King and they all shouted “Yes” loude
r still. Not content with this, he began to tell them the reasons why this Edward deserved to be king, and then he asked again who they wanted to be king and they thundered that they wanted King Edward.’

  Morton never received this letter. Edward and Warwick, wasting little time on ceremony, pursued the Lancastrian army and another battle was fought at Towton. It was a terrible defeat for the Lancastrians. After the battle Queen Margaret fled north with her son and sick husband. King Edward, on his journey south, paused at Grafton Regis.

  Richard and George returned to England and saw their brother crowned king in June. The Yorkist cause prospered. In September Lord Herbert captured Pembroke Castle. Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, escaped and made his way to Britanny, but his four-year-old nephew was taken captive. Lord Herbert was rewarded with the grant of Pembroke Castle and he also acquired, for the payment of one thousand pounds, the custody and marriage of Henry Tydder.

  Edward gave little thought to events at Pembroke Castle. He had more important matters which called for his attention. In late September, he was in Grafton Regis again, on a tour of a garden.

  ‘From here it runs wild.’ Elizabeth Woodville looked at the tangle of trees and shrubs disdainfully, holding her skirts about her like a prim maid instead of a widow woman and the mother of two sons.

  ‘But I see there is a path over there,’ Edward said, hoping to escape from the wide green lawns which allowed no privacy.

  ‘It leads down to the place where the womere water runs,’ she said. ‘Shall we see if there is any sign of it now?’

  ‘How could there be?’ The womere water only ran at times when disaster was about to befall the country. ‘It will be dry as a bone. Come! Let me prove it to you.’

  The brittle twigs snapped beneath their feet and there was a hot, dusty smell from the ferns. Between the trees they had a glimpse of a small lake; the water had receded leaving the rushes high and dry surrounded by hard, cracked mud. It would indeed be a portent if the womere water gushed out in this place. Soon they came to a fallen tree trunk conveniently placed by the side of the path. Edward put out a hand to take Elizabeth’s arm but she ducked beneath the overhanging branch of a tree, disturbing it by her passage and allowing it to swing back in his face.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she laughed.

  ‘It will be my pleasure to make you show me just how sorry you are!’

  But she knew this path well, else she would not have led him down it, and by now they had reached a bank which sloped steeply to the bed of a stream. The earth was bare and shifted beneath their feet so that they had to move cautiously. On the far side of the stream a great rock thrust up making the place dark.

  ‘Bone dry,’ Edward said with satisfaction.

  ‘The womere water springs from there.’ She pointed up at a crevice in the rock face. They stared up at it. A silver vein glimmered in the shadow.

  ‘Not quite dry,’ she said.

  ‘But hardly gushing out.’ He put an arm round her waist but she eased away from him and seated herself on a big boulder, spreading her skirts about her and folding her hands in her lap.

  ‘You are a sorceress!’ he said, bending over her.

  ‘No. I have no magic, only a woman’s gifts.’

  ‘Those who are greatly gifted should be generous.’

  ‘But not with their virtue.’

  Her eyes met his; they were eyes that looked on life without illusion, but which as yet had seen more to make them merry than to arouse displeasure. The mouth was decisive; she would strike a hard bargain, but the slight fulness of the lower lip hinted that she would amply fulfil her part of it. The chin was nicely pointed so that one was not immediately conscious of its determination. At present, her femininity balanced her more formidable qualities.

  ‘My parents will expect us to return in a minute,’ she said. ‘Why should they expect that?’

  ‘Because they think that you have come to see them.’

  ‘They could not think anything so unlikely. You are lying as usual.’

  She remained quite calm, the folded hands emphasising her composure. Yet she was alert; the tilt of her head, the assured set of her shoulders, suggesting she was poised for whatever might be demanded of her.

  ‘But it would be most improper were there any other reason for your visit.’ She tilted her head back still further and looked up at the sky, musing on this. ‘Especially as you are to be married soon.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘They say that the Earl of Warwick plans for you to marry a French princess.’

  ‘Does he?’ Edward raised his eyebrows. ‘I expect you are right. Warwick has plans for everything and everyone; it would be surprising if he had neglected to make plans for my marriage.’

  ‘It has even been rumoured that you are already betrothed to the Lady Eleanor Butler.’

  Edward turned his attention to the crevice in the rock, narrowing his eyes. ‘I think you may be right. There is a little of that woe water dribbling out up there. How dismal!’

  She saw that he was angry and that she must not provoke him further. This was a time when she was balanced between triumph and disaster and must keep her nerve. As they walked back Edward talked about his plans for hunting during the winter. He did not say whether he planned to hunt near Grafton Regis.

  ‘This has been going on for five months!’ Elizabeth’s father, Lord Rivers, said when Edward had gone. ‘Five months!’ It was dangerous to stretch a man’s patience so, and that man lustful and a king. Elizabeth put some more stitches in her embroidery. Her father looked out of the window at the clouds forming above the trees at the end of the garden. ‘We shall have rain before the week is out,’ he said dourly. He was superstitious and read omens in the quiver of a leaf when he was uneasy.

  ‘We need rain,’ Elizabeth said practically. What had she to fear from the elements? Had it not been snowing when King Edward stopped at the manor after the battle of Towton and saw her for the first time?

  The father studied his daughter unhappily. He had seen her often enough over the years, but it had never been necessary to pay close attention to her until now when the family fortunes rested on her shoulders. Fortune was of considerable importance to the Woodville family, with its modest origins and lofty ambitions.

  ‘You are too sure of yourself,’ Lord Rivers said to Elizabeth. ‘You have offended him so much he will never return. He will do as the Earl of Warwick wishes.’

  ‘Do you know what he called me?’ Elizabeth drew the thread between her teeth and snapped it in two. ‘A sorceress!’ She smiled, sure that her spells were stronger than those of the Earl of Warwick.

  3

  Whether the womere water ran or not, all was not well in Edward’s kingdom. Robin Prithie rode through a countryside where woods and wasteland gradually encroached on land which had once been well-cultivated. He passed cottages almost completely covered with briars and brambles and sometimes a whole cluster of such places where a village had once been. Even on the fringes of manorial estates, the land rotted and ran to waste. Old people in the inns where Robin passed a night told him that they could remember a time when the population of these parts had been much greater; there had been plenty of peasants to work the land; ‘wages were low then and prices high,’ an old miller said regretfully.

  Robin paid little heed. He had troubles of his own to occupy his mind without bothering about the state of the country. It had been easy enough to deliver the Earl of Northumberland’s message to Lord Stanley; but it was quite a different matter to deliver Lord Stanley’s reply to the Earl of Northumberland. Robin had no great respect for noblemen and thought it possible that the Earl would not remember what his messenger had looked like when he last saw him; nevertheless, he was reluctant to put the Earl’s memory to the test. So for nearly a year he had moved from place to place, never staying long enough anywhere for awkward questions to be asked. Eventually, however, he tired of this and one dark night contrived to change clothes with a drunken tinker. Then
, for a time he worked at an inn, having ingratiated himself with the mistress of the establishment. This was in Yorkshire, and while he was there he sometimes saw the Earl of Warwick ride through the village on his way back to Middleham after a day’s hunting. Warwick’s party usually included boys who had been apprenticed to him and, with them was the King’s brother, Richard, recently created Duke of Gloucester.

  Robin thought the north an uncommonly grim place and looked to a time when he would journey south again. To Richard, however, each day spent there was a delight. There had been a warmth and softness about Burgundy, an insidious charm which he had resisted. This country was harsher; it presented a challenge but not one so extreme that it could not be met: he liked to test his resources but had no taste for defeat. His loyalties were strong, he would love Middleham and this northern land always; and, being observant, he had already noted that what one loved, one possessed, so he thought of it as his land and regretted that the castle was not his, too.

  In the autumn of 1462 the time came for Robin to journey south. He had made enemies as well as winning hearts at the inn. On his way he passed near the great castle of Middleham. Although he was sure that he could find employment there if he set his mind to it, he continued on his journey south. He thought how fortunate he was. He could go any which-way he chose and provided he kept his wits about him and let no man become his master for long, he’d keep his freedom and live well enough. The travelling life was the life for him. He sang as he rode. He was nineteen and Fortune’s darling.

  As Robin sang his song, Richard was jousting with Francis Lovell, watched by the Earl of Warwick and his two young daughters, Isabel and Anne. Richard and Francis felt themselves conquerors in a world new-minted for their delight, but the little girls had no such heroic vision of them. It was a bright day and the standard blew in a strong breeze, now stiff and straight, now twisting downwards, snakelike, now weaving back and forth so that the bright colours trembled before their eyes; it was boisterous, grew langorous, then wound itself into a frantic dance which slowed and became majestic. Behind the standard there was blue sky and a green band of hills in a great, sweeping semi-circle. A worthy setting for a great tournament. And what did they see but two boys bunched like frogs between their horses’ ears!