by MARY HOCKING
There was a rumour that Lord Strange was raising men to fight for Buckingham; never had Lord Stanley thought himself so unfortunate in his family.
‘At any rate, you will do well, I am sure.’ Richard dismissed Stanley and watched him walk away. ‘I have shown much mercy to that man and little good it has done me,’ he said drily to his secretary, John Kendall. ‘Yet, see what wonders fear can work! There goes a man as determined as any to further my cause.’
He worked for the rest of the day, calculating, planning, studying the reports which had so far been received, driving himself and others to exhaustion. Then, suddenly, at twilight, all his energy drained from him; he barely managed to sign the last document John Kendall put before him. Beyond the window the sun had faded, but it was not yet dark enough for candlelight to be effective. This time that is neither dark nor day is more dangerous than midnight, he thought; for at midnight we know what to expect and can arm ourselves against it; but who can fight the emptiness of this bloodless hour when the world’s heart ceases to beat? Oh Buckingham, Buckingham, there is more than treason here! He walked round the room, going from one of his clerks to the other, but could find nothing to fill his mind. He went back to the window. This wing of the building stood on a small promontory, jutting out like the bow of a ship over the town. It was darker now. Beyond the walls of the city the forest had already swallowed up the daylight. Something fluttered at the edge of his mind, beyond the reach of reason.
In the street immediately below there was a commotion of a common enough kind when an arrest has been made; two men were dragging a woman, the crowd pelting her with any refuse which came to hand. He grasped at this distraction as at a staff held out to him from the darkness. He called Kendall to him and said, ‘Send one of my men to find out what she has done.’ He watched as one of his yeomen strode into the fray, conscious that he acted on the King’s authority and eager to make others aware of it. Of those present, the woman seemed the least impressed; while the men argued she looked about her in a haughty manner which went oddly with her ragged clothes and was yet convincing. A woman who practised the black arts, perhaps? As Richard gazed down, he felt himself possessed of something rank and vile.
His man returned and reported that the woman had been arrested for speaking treason.
‘Treason!’ What alliance of Fortune and the Devil had brought her here to speak treason beneath his window at such a moment? He shivered. Yet such ‘chances’ are to be accepted by all save the coward; so, he said, ‘I will see her and hear what treason she speaks.’
‘She shall be brought here. Sire.’
But dark things are for dark places. Richard said, ‘And rehearsed on the way as to what she shall say? No. Do you know where the jail is?’
‘Yes, Sire.’
‘Then you shall conduct me there, quietly, after the curfew has sounded.’ He saw the excitement in the man’s face and added, ‘And you will not speak of this to anyone?’
‘No, Sire.’
‘Nor make mysterious statements which excite curiosity.’
The man said, ‘No, Sire’ more soberly.
Richard waited for the curfew impatiently, feeling himself imprisoned here in this place where everything had been prepared for his comfort. The room was full of people whose purpose it was to beguile the evening for him with food and wine, music and conversation. How was he to escape them? ‘I can command anything,’ he thought, ‘yet I must lie and deceive in order to win a few hours alone.’ He joked that Lord Stanley’s ‘sickness’ must have infected him. He would retire early and on no account was he to be disturbed. ‘For I have disturbance enough in my stomach.’ Later, as he was conducted through the dark streets of the town, his stomach was indeed disturbed. He felt strangely apprehensive and drew the dark anonymous cloak about him. There was only one man on duty when they reached the jail and he was truculent. ‘If I let in everyone who came here saying he was the King, where would I be?’ Richard held out his hand. Perhaps it was the manner in which the gesture was made, as much as the ring, which convinced the jailer that it would be wise to give this man the benefit of any doubts he might still have. There was a room kept for the private examination of prisoners, well away from other rooms, and thither he conducted the King before he went to fetch the woman.
A torch flared in the corridor; Richard bade the man stand it in the room so that he could see her clearly. Water trickled down the walls and the floor was slimy with filth. There was a high window in the outer wall which let in the noises of the street and the smell of human ordure with a piquant dash of entrails offish. There was smoke in the air, too. Bonfires had been lit and the citizens danced around them, celebrating the King’s visit.
One citizen, however, was not in festive mood. He could hear her jeering as she was led down the passage, ‘The King here! I saw him yesterday all dressed up like the King o’ the May. One whiff of this place would kill such as him!’
The jailer thrust her into the room. She was a thin, sinewy creature with a mass of tangled hair from which sharp eyes stared at Richard like an animal peering from a thicket. She said, ‘The King, is it?’
The jailer said uneasily, ‘She’s mad. We’ve had her here before.’
Richard said, ‘Leave us.’
The jailer’s footsteps receded and then it was quiet save for the trickling of water and the scuffling of rats in the corner. Outside a church bell began to chime the hour and bells all over the city joined in. Richard waited, counting the chimes and watching the woman. She remained quite still, studying Richard, her eyes narrowed. Suddenly, she said imperiously, ‘Well, speak man, are you the King or not? If you’re an impostor, you’ll pay for it. This King thinks no price too high for the throne.’
Some obscene thing he had glimpsed once before but had managed to escape stared out from the woman’s eyes. She is a witch, he thought; it is madness to have commerce with her. But the trap was set and it was too late now for escape. He asked, ‘And what price will the King demand of me if I am an impostor?’
‘Why, your death, what else? He killed his own nephews so he’d hardly think twice of killing you.’
Her voice was strong and resonant. How long had he been summoned by this knell? Faint at first, then louder, it had tolled through his dreams, and as he rode from one town to another, he had heard it and known it was drawing him nearer and nearer to a place at which he must one day arrive. Yet even now, he protested, ‘They are not dead!’
‘Smothered as they slept!’
‘Who told you these wicked lies?’
‘Them as know.’
‘Then you know murderers!’
‘I have known murderers,’ she said indifferently. ‘Highwaymen, robbers, all dead now. But they will not hang the King on the roadside, nor hack out his bowels while he still lives to burn them beneath his nose.’
He put his hands to his face willing that this thing should not be. But when dark things begin to take shape, when dread words are spoken, then must the strong man not cravenly seek to turn aside, but boldly stand and defend himself. Before God, I will state my case, he thought, and he said, ‘Who told you this story?’
‘A priest.’
‘A priest! I know that man. I read murder in his eyes. In his eyes, not mine. I have a son of my own whom I love dearly. How could I harm these innocents?’
Her shoulders twitched. ‘Someone did.’
‘But not I!’
‘You men are all the same,’ she spat. ‘When things don’t turn out the way you like, you shout “it wasn’t me!” ’
‘But I loved them. When they were children I was good uncle to them. It was their mother who poisoned their minds against me. If it hadn’t been for her they would have trusted me still; they would have come to me with their fears and I would have protected them.’
‘You, not their mother! Never their mother!’ The creature began to rock to and fro clutching at her breasts and moaning. Now the evil is most potent, Richard thought, and h
e spoke loudly and firmly.
‘It was indeed their mother! That wicked woman corrupted my brother and now she has destroyed her own sons by her scheming. She should have trusted me.’
The creature moved her lips as though trying to spew something out, her tongue became rigid, the breath whined in her throat, she began to shiver; soon the shivering convulsed her so that she had no control over muscles and limbs. Surely, the evil that has tormented me is being taken from me, Richard thought, it is passing into this woman.
‘What harm have I ever done these children?’ He had thought this was a subject too dark for words, but now the words began to come. ‘It was no light burden I took from Edward, but one he could never have borne . . . it was not to satisfy ambition that I seized the throne, it was for the people, that they might not be thrown back into another age of misrule . . .’ The woman fell to the floor, vomiting, her fingers scratching at the cracks in the stone. ‘How could I have stood by and seen this happen? I, a grown man, strong and with years of government to school me for the role of King, how could I have watched a child stagger beneath such a load, have abandoned him to those who would have broken him ere ever he came to manhood?’ Gradually the squalid room was being transformed; every stone in the wet walls glistened, the slimy floor was silvered over. ‘In generations yet unknown men would curse at the very mention of my name had I turned aside from my duty.’
Gradually, the woman’s shuddering ceased and she lay still. Richard said, ‘As God is my witness, I speak the truth, and in the light of this truth may my actions be judged.’ The moonlight, slanting through the window, marked the woman’s body with the shadow of iron bars. Richard felt cool and clean. When he left he said to the jailer, ‘You say you have had this woman here before; whatever her offence was then, she shall be charged with the same again. There will be no more talk of treason.’
In the morning he heard the bells ring as the city gates were opened; he stood at the window of his chamber and heard the market come alive as the stall-keepers put out their produce and, far in the distance, the singing of a goatherd taking his beasts out to crop the lean fields at the edge of the forest. Later, he went to Mass and thanked God for purging him of evil.
He set about the business of the day with confidence. He knew he was a better soldier than any of those ranged against him and he felt the old itch for battle. Only the thought of Buckingham unsteadied him and after Kendall had penned a letter to the Chancellor asking him to send the Great Seal, Richard appended a note in his own hand, ‘ . . . Here, loved be God, is all well and truly determined, and for to resist the malice of him that had best cause to be true, the Duke of Buckingham, the most untrue creature living; whom with God’s grace we shall not be long till that we will be in those parts, and subdue his malice. We assure you there was never false traitor better purveyed for, as this bearer Gloucester shall show you.’
‘And that priest,’ he said, as an after-thought. ‘He must be found and silenced.’
5
Buckingham’s blood thrilled and his quicksilver spirits soared as he rode out from the shadow of the barbican into the bright sunlight. There was not to be much sunlight from now on, but he wasn’t to know that.
The King is a pawn; it is the hand that moves the pawn that rules. Buckingham looked down at his own hands on the reins. So, too, he thought, had that other Kingmaker ridden out to war. But Buckingham was mistaken, for the great Earl of Warwick would have taken more note of his men, dealing harshly with the poor-spirited and slovenly, making sure they did not remain to infect the whole. Buckingham glanced from side to side as he rode, but as he held his head high he saw little but the line of the mountains giving way to softer hills and the river winding through the valley. He did not note that the river was high even for this time of the year, but he did say to Bishop Morton who rode beside him, ‘See how fast the river runs.’ His tone was one of satisfaction that Nature should swell its forces to meet his own.
The place where Nature and Buckingham’s forces actually met was at the first river crossing. But before then the rear of his army had been attacked by riders who came swooping down from the hills only to disappear as soon as the soldiers had marshalled themselves to deal with the attack. The first attack was as irritating as the buzzing of flies; but when it became apparent that these attacks were to be a recurring feature of the march, men began to thrash about, maddened as if stung by hornets.
Buckingham was maddened when he realized that it was impossible to cross the river at the place where they must do so in order to head east. They had to follow its winding course, travelling for many miles in the wrong direction, before they came to a place where they could make the crossing. By this time the sun had been sucked down between the mountains and it was raining steadily.
It had been hoped that more Welshmen would join them en route, but thanks to the demons from the hills the army was cut off from Wales. Worse still, Buckingham could no longer communicate with his own castle.
He was preoccupied with rain and flood. Morton, hunched sodden and grim on his horse, reflected that to pit one’s strength against wind and rain avails a man little; it would have been better to turn about and deal with these wild men from the hills. After they crossed the river they were soon held up again because the path was blocked by a landslide and they had to wait while men cleared a passage. Morton looked at what remained visible of the landscape, dark brutish hills and valleys insubstantial as a twist of broken thread. This place was ideal for quick raids by men who knew the territory and merged with the vegetation so that you couldn’t see them until they were on top of you. Anyone who wanted to bring an army through land such as this would be well- advised to make sure the inhabitants supported his cause. Morton looked at Buckingham’s bedraggled banner. When I come here again, he thought, it will be under another banner. In the meantime, he hunched his chin down in his cloak and passed the time planning at what point it would be best to break away from this mismanaged expedition. Certainly not now. It was safer to travel in company of any kind, however demoralized, until comparatively civilized country was reached.
Others of Buckingham’s company had the same thought. His men did not begin to desert in large numbers until they were in the gentler country of Herefordshire. A few days more and the Duke of Buckingham was himself in flight.
King Richard could congratulate himself on conquering without having the bother of fighting. The rebels of Kent and Surrey, hard- pressed by the Duke of Norfolk, had abandoned their attempt on London; and by the end of October Richard had reached Salisbury without encountering any resistance. All that he needed to secure his position was to take the Earl of Richmond prisoner. ‘Not that he troubles me, he is scarce to be taken seriously. But I, too, must be allowed some whimsicality, and it is my whim that he be taken.’ Accordingly instructions were given that should Henry’s ships be sighted, those on shore should give the appearance of welcoming him.
Duke Francis, in one of his more lucid moments, had been generous to Henry and had drifted off into insanity before he was disposed to change his mind, leaving Henry with a gift of 10,000 crowns as well as ships and men. The weather was less favourable to Henry’s enterprise, hampering his ships so that his departure was delayed and buffeting them with high winds and huge seas so that they were scattered. When Henry had his first sight of the coast of Dorset, there was only one other ship with him.
‘There are men lined up on that beach,’ the captain said to Henry, who could see that for himself The tiny figures waved and gesticulated and over the water came the faint sound of cheering.
Henry scratched the side of his nose. ‘I have little stomach to be taken prisoner now,’ he said. After his tempestuous voyage he had little stomach to be proclaimed king either. Nevertheless, he despatched men in a small boat and in due course they returned saying that his cause had triumphed and his loyal supporters waited to escort him to London. Henry gazed thoughtfully at what he could see of his loyal supporters. T
he boat rocked and pitched for the sea was far from calm still; Henry felt a deep unease in his stomach. It was a long time since he had waited on a rock-strewn coast for a boat to carry him away to safety. Robin had been beside him then. Must one always look for treachery? The green land beckoned him, the sand was golden and looked firm; behind him there was nothing but heaving grey-green water and, over the rim of that desolate horizon, Brittany and the weariness of having it all to do again. He had waited so long for this moment, was he to be cheated of it now? He groaned in spirit, tempted as seldom before to gamble everything, but his senses warned him against the welcome now being crudely enacted on that golden shore.
‘If we have had this tremendous victory, then all along the coast I shall receive news of it,’ he said at last. ‘I can as well travel from Plymouth as from here.’
‘I think Plymouth is much further,’ he was cautiously informed.
‘Is it indeed?’ he said dispiritedly. ‘Well, that is a risk I am prepared to take.’
Shortly after this he received news that his cause had foundered. He felt more broken than at any time in his life. Fortunately, he could feign seasickness so that the men with him should not see how badly he had taken this blow. ‘God,’ he thought wretchedly, ‘you try me too hard! This man who has done such evil things triumphs, while your good servant, Henry, must crawl on his belly back to Brittany, 10,000 crowns the worse, and begin all over again this wretched business of begging for money, men, and ships. I have never been able to afford pride, but even I tire sometimes of humiliation.’
A hand gripped his shoulder and turning round he saw an old man who had been with him for a long time now; the old man gazed at him with eyes full of pity, and behind him, Henry could see others looking at him. Their sympathy was well-meant, but he knew that he must not accept it.
‘Why are you all so disconsolate?’ he rebuked. ‘I have good cause to thank God and so have all of you. We must thank Him for this miraculous deliverance which has proved how He guards us from the snares of our enemies, and intends our cause to prosper. Were this not so we should by now be captives on our way to London.’ He looked at their faces to see if there were any would add, ‘instead of returning in great ignominy to Brittany.’ But he saw that their faces reflected his own apparent assurance. They will only feel ignominy if I show it to them, he realized; that being so, I must remember that if I cannot afford pride, neither can I afford ignominy.