A Burnable Book

by Bruce Holsinger

  ‘Your Highness,’ said Robert de Vere, in a voice that carried through the assemblage.

  ‘What is it, Oxford?’ The king looked unsteady, sickened.

  ‘With your leave, sire, I wish to speak.’ The king nodded. The earl approached Richard with his right arm raised. He took a slow circle around the front of the pavilion, displaying something for all of us to see. ‘Your eyes and ears, please,’ he called out. The earl’s hand clutched a book. A thin volume, with a simple, unembossed binding, and no clasps.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this, Oxford?’ the king demanded.

  ‘We have been preparing for this day with grim resolve, Your Highness,’ said Oxford. ‘In this book lies the key to this attempt on your life. The book is called the Liber de Mortibus Regum Anglorum. In our tongue, “The Book of the Deaths of English Kings”.’ The title sent a thrill through the guests. ‘The work’s author is named Lollius. A writer of ancient lineage, inking these prophecies during the reign of King William.’

  Things had moved so quickly between the king’s entrance and the death of the butchers that I had had little time to gather my thoughts. My first reaction to what had just happened was to assume that the plan to kill the king, whoever its instigator, had been thwarted, the prophecy proven false by a hail of arrows. Richard, after all, was alive and unharmed.

  Yet now, with the disconcerting sight of the book in Oxford’s hands, I was forced to wait as the ingenious machinery of the plot unfolded before my weak eyes. After so many weeks of ignorance I mistrusted my own reactions, and felt at the mercy of the many forces around me – beginning with the intimidating presence of Robert de Vere.

  ‘Who was this Lollius?’ asked the king. ‘Was he an Englishman?’

  ‘Little is known of him, Your Highness.’ Oxford hesitated. ‘Though his works are in favour with the followers of John Wycliffe.’

  ‘Preposterous!’ thundered John of Gaunt, who had been standing silent since the attack. ‘Wycliffe’s dissent was a theological one, Your Highness, not a political one.’

  Oxford gave the duke a withering look. ‘It is known that a copy of this work was made by Sir John Clanvowe, and that it has been circulated among Wycliffe’s followers.’ His cold eyes found me in the crowd. ‘There are copies of this book being handed around in their conventicles, Your Highness.’

  ‘You lie, Oxford,’ Gaunt taunted him.

  ‘Silence, Lancaster!’ King Richard barked, causing a stir of frightened awe among the assembly. Despite their private disagreements, no one had ever seen the king dress down his uncle in public. This whole affair had just taken a dangerous new direction. I felt sick.

  Gaunt stared in disbelief at his newly assertive nephew. King Richard turned to Oxford. ‘Continue, Oxford.’

  ‘As you wish, Your Highness,’ said Oxford with a puerile sneer at Gaunt. ‘We have recovered this book through the devices of Master Thomas Pinchbeak, appointed serjeant-at-law by good King Edward.’

  ‘It is true, Your Highness.’ Pinchbeak, having risen from his tumble, stepped forward and knelt gingerly before the king. King Richard looked at the powerful lawman: his leg lame from war, his back bent with compensation of his injury, the serjeant’s stripes on his arm. Here was an unimpeachable source confirming Oxford’s claims, a serjeant-at-law, appointed by patent of Richard himself.

  ‘What is in these prophecies, Oxford?’ asked the king. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Oxford. ‘The prophecies, Your Highness, foretell the deaths of thirteen kings, beginning with the great William, Norman conqueror of the Saxons. Their deaths are related in detail and with an accuracy that matches the accounts set forth in our chronicles.’ He went on to give several examples from the De Mortibus, all of them by now intimately familiar to me.

  I watched the king’s reaction to the earl’s masterful discoursing. Richard was trying to remain impassive, though he was clearly affected by what he heard. By the time Oxford reached the death of the late King Edward, the crowd, I could tell, had been swayed. All that remained was for Oxford to convince the king that the final prophecy had been foiled.

  ‘Yet it is the thirteenth prophecy, Your Highness, that most concerns us today.’ Oxford’s voice found a pitch that matched the insidious content of the matter. ‘For in this final prophecy, your own death is shadowed forth in lines that leave little doubt concerning the day, place, and manner of the plot.’

  ‘Read it, Robert,’ Richard ordered, feigning a confidence belied by the deep blush that shot up his cheeks. Behind him, Bolingbroke looked similarly stricken.

  The earl intoned the final prophecy:

  ‘At Prince of Plums shall prelate oppose

  A faun of three feathers with flaunting of fur,

  Long castle will collar and cast out the core,

  His reign to fall ruin, mors regis to roar.

  By bank of a bishop shall butchers abide,

  To nest, by God’s name, with knives in hand,

  Then springen in service at spiritus sung.

  In palace of prelate with pearls all appointed,

  By kingmaker’s cunning a king to unking,

  A magnate whose majesty mingles with mort.

  By Half-ten of Hawks might shender be shown.’

  Oxford looked up at the king as he recited the final line.

  ‘On day of Saint Dunstan shall Death have his doom.’

  The crowd erupted. During the reading of the prophecy more of the king’s personal guard had stepped forward. Twenty powerful soldiers now surrounded the company of magnates, their intention to apprehend – and, I feared, likely to slay without thought – anyone named as a conspirator. I wondered how many of them were truly the king’s men, and what portion fed from Oxford’s trough.

  King Richard, regaining some of his composure, stood straight, a hand at his belt. ‘Unravel this prophecy for us, Oxford,’ he commanded.

  ‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Oxford looked around. ‘I have consulted with men of Cambridge and Oxford, sire. Our wisest masters of theology. They have glossed this ancient prophecy, explaining its words, its symbols. I shall interpret it for you in turn, word for word – beginning with the “prelate”, a great man of the realm who opposes the “faun of three feathers”.’

  ‘Three feathers,’ King Richard repeated, slowly nodding. ‘My father’s crest?’

  ‘The very same,’ Oxford said with a brisk nod. ‘Everyone knows the legend of your father at the Battle of Crécy, the ostrich feather seized from the crown of King John. You are the faun, sire, the offspring of Prince Edward.’

  ‘What about this “flaunting of fur”?’

  Oxford gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘Like the three feathers, it must refer to heraldry. That part of a lord’s livery consisting of animal fur.’ He looked up and cast a meaningful glance over at Gaunt. ‘Points of ermine, would be my best guess.’

  The king slowly turned his head, staring at the band of ermine points on Gaunt’s collar. Lancaster looked at Oxford with a searing hatred.

  ‘Go on,’ rattled the king.

  ‘The next lines are clearer,’ Vere continued. ‘A “long castle” will collar and cast out the core. The core is the cor, Latin for “heart”. You are the White Hart, Your Highness, to be cast out and your reign to “fall ruin”. The Latin phrase mors regis, “death of a king”, suggests that the deposition will come at the expense of your life.’

  The king had gone pale.

  ‘The prophecy even tells us the time, place, and manner of your death, Your Highness. The place: “by bank of a bishop”, in the “palace of prelate with pearls all appointed”. And here we all are, gathered at the palace of the Bishop of Winchester on the banks of the Thames, with these fine carvings of pearls adorning the walls above our heads.’ He spread his right hand, drawing all eyes up to Blythe’s ornate pearl carvings.

  ‘And the time,’ said Oxford. ‘We knew all along that the attack would take place on Dunstan’s Day. Yet the prophecy is more specific than tha
t. Our killers are to spring forth “in service” – during the Mass procession, Your Highness – “at Spiritus sung”: in other words, at the singing of the word spiritus, a word which appears in the final verse of the processional proper to this day. And so it was: at the very moment this word was sung, your would-be assassins sprang forth to attack you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said King Richard, nodding weakly in the face of Oxford’s relentless explication.

  ‘And finally,’ said the earl without a pause, ‘we come to the killers themselves, and their weapons. Here the De Mortibus reads as follows: “By bank of a bishop shall butchers abide”, with “knives in hand”.’ Oxford waved a hand toward the spot where the butchers had met their deaths, bloodied on the ground. ‘You’ve seen our butchers, Your Highness. You’ve seen their knives.’

  Finally, with a slow turn, he pointed to John of Gaunt. ‘And here we have our “kingmaker”, this cunning conspirator intent on seizing your crown – in the words of the prophecy, a magnate whose majesty mingles with mort. Your death, sire, and the death of England. Had we not discovered this conspiracy you would be dead, Your Highness. I give you the man thinly disguised in the prophecy as “long castle” – none other than your treacherous uncle, the Duke of Lancaster.’

  John of Gaunt had few friends at Winchester Palace that day. The lawn and pavilion were shot through with an uneasy silence, as all present shared a common thought: What was to prevent the king’s men from slaying Lancaster on the spot? With an assassination attempt foiled and the evidence of his uncle’s guilt in hand, what would prevent King Richard from ordering his uncle’s execution on the palace grounds? Such an order would be perfectly justified before all these witnesses – in fact, I reasoned, it would be much safer to kill Gaunt now rather than wait for a legal proceeding, which would give the forces loyal to Lancaster time and opportunity to redress Oxford’s lethal accusation against the powerful duke.

  King Richard looked from his uncle to Oxford to his guard, struggling within himself. I closed my eyes, waiting.

  ‘Pray stay your hand, sire.’

  A woman’s voice, shattering the silence. I opened my eyes, and through the clearing blur saw that the speaker was Joan of Kent, mother of King Richard. The king turned with visible relief toward the countess as she stepped forward from the edge of the crowd.

  ‘What is it, Countess?’ he said in a quavering voice.

  ‘Our Lord the Earl of Oxford has given us a remarkable performance,’ said Joan with a tight smile. ‘Why, he’s almost convinced me that my husband’s brother is behind this attempt on your life today. That it was Lancaster’s hand guiding the men who nearly killed my son. Oxford’s account is convincing, and you are right to take this dark prophecy with the utmost seriousness.’

  She looked around and raised her voice. ‘Yet there is one additional piece to this strange puzzle. As Lord Oxford knows very well, this book of prophecies has travelled from abroad wrapped in a cloth, a piece of embroidery fitted to the manuscript like a glove to a hand.’

  Oxford looked delighted to have an unexpected ally. ‘Your noble mother is correct, Your Highness. The book and the cloth have travelled together. The cloth went missing and hasn’t been recovered.’

  ‘The cloth has been found,’ said Joan of Kent. Murmurs of surprise, and she held it bunched up above her head. Oxford looked at the embroidery like a dog at a cutlet. ‘The cloth came to me, Your Highness, by the hand of the Mother Superior of St Leonard’s Bromley, Prioress Isabel, who was brought the cloth by one of her former laysisters. It reveals with no room for doubt the identity of the agent behind this conspiracy.’ She paused for effect. ‘May I unfurl the cloth, Your Highness?’

  ‘Please, Countess,’ said Richard, almost pathetically grateful to have his moment of decision deferred.

  ‘And with your consent, Lord Oxford?’ The earl responded with a courtly nod.

  With a flick of her shapely wrist, Joan snapped the cloth open. I craned my neck and smiled at the result of Millicent Fonteyn’s handiwork. Where Lancaster’s heraldry had once been embroidered into the cloth, there now appeared the arms of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, emblazoned on a mounted knight, his sword thrust in the breast of an unarmed king bearing Richard’s colours. A perfect substitution, and I found myself in a state of awe at the ingenuity of Bromley – and pleased that I had suggested the countess rather than Swynford as the agent of its revealing.

  After the appropriate exclamations, everyone started speculating wildly. King Richard looked from his mother to the earl. ‘What do you say to this, Oxford?’ he demanded.

  ‘This—’ sputtered Oxford, as word and sight of the cloth spread quickly through the crowd, ‘this is absurd, Your Highness! An outrage of the highest order!’

  ‘Who could disagree?’ Joan of Kent said. ‘This cloth throws the whole of the prophecy into doubt, Your Highness. Many would say your close friendship with the Earl of Oxford renders the man half a king already, so the “kingmaker” could just as well point to him. And heaven knows that this “flaunting of fur”, supposedly Lancaster’s ermine points, could as easily refer to Robert de Vere, who ladies about wrapped in his fur-lined hood!’

  There was scattered laughter as Oxford’s hand went to his hood, lined in fox.

  The countess was not finished. ‘God Himself knows how deeply I have despised my late husband’s brother.’ Lancaster said nothing. Joan approached her son and took his hand. ‘But he loves you, Richard, as does his son.’ A brief glance at Bolingbroke. ‘You are the duke’s liege lord, and he is your most loyal subject of all.’

  Joan dropped the king’s hand and looked around, matching Oxford’s flourishes and volume with her steadiness and grace. ‘The Duke of Lancaster has had many opportunities to take your life since your coronation, Your Highness. How often have you hunted together in Knaresburgh Forest, when a stray arrow might have taken you in the back? Instead he has protected you, Richard: from enemies, from slander, from treason. All of this while others conspire against you.’

  ‘No, Your Highness!’ Oxford protested. ‘I beg you, sire, don’t believe these words from your mother’s false mo—’ He caught himself before voicing the irrevocable insult, then straightened his back. ‘The Countess of Kent has been fooled. This cloth is a false replica, Your Highness.’

  ‘There are many false replicas in your kingdom,’ said Joan to her son. ‘False loyalties, false friends.’ She looked at Oxford. ‘And false lords.’

  Oxford shook his head. ‘The original embroidery is emblazoned with the arms of Lancaster, I swear it.’

  ‘You have seen it, Robert?’ the king demanded.

  ‘Yes, Your Highness, though before it went missing.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you bring it to me earlier, along with this book, and tell me about this whole plot?’ Richard sounded almost petulant; I winced for him.

  Oxford hesitated. ‘It was thought better to wait, Your Highness – to gauge the seriousness of the conspiracy, and allow us to reveal the perpetrators. As I believe we now have.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Joan of Kent, her meaning lost on no one.

  The earl’s eyes brightened. ‘There is one final token mentioned in the prophecy, Your Highness. One final sign of your betrayer.’

  ‘And what is that, Oxford?’ said the king, starting to lose patience.

  ‘The Prince of Plums,’ he said. ‘The prophecy begins “At Prince of Plums” – a phrase everyone here will understand. Right now, Your Highness, we are in the middle of a game called Prince of Plums. Seventy-four of us, on our persons, carry a card from Lady Katherine Swynford’s deck, a card to be revealed at some point during the feast.’

  A number of the guests started patting themselves. Oxford raised a hand. ‘Halt!’ he shouted. ‘Do not touch your card, under pain of seizure.’ The guards spun round, warning the assembly against disobeying Oxford’s orders. It was then that I realized what the earl had done. Somehow he had connived Swynford, Lancaster’s mistress, into le
ading the guests in the card game – never revealing that its purpose would be to condemn the father of her children. I could only imagine what Oxford might have promised Gaunt’s unknowing concubine in return. The Order of the Garter, perhaps?

  ‘Each of the guests has been given one of the unique cards from Lady Katherine’s stack, to carry on his person until the feast is done. According to the prophecy, your would-be killer will be known by the “Half-ten of Hawks”. Whoever bears the Five of Hawks, then, is the agent behind this murderous plot.’

  King Richard raised his chin. ‘Hold your cards aloft, my good people,’ he called to the crowd. ‘We shall test the truth of Oxford’s claim.’ Numerous hands dug into pockets and folds, and soon dozens of cards were held overhead. Those without cards looked on in visible fear. Anything, it seemed, could happen now.

  ‘Who holds the Five of Hawks?’ Oxford demanded. He surveyed the elevated cards, walking about the crowd before coming to a position before Gaunt. The duke had not obeyed the king’s orders. Instead he was staring with contempt at his card, which he held at waist height. ‘Show us your card, Lancaster,’ Oxford said to him.

  Gaunt slowly turned his card toward the king and the earl. The Five of Hawks.

  Oxford whirled toward the king. ‘Do you see, Your Highness? “By Half-ten of Hawks might shender be shown.” Lancaster’s guilt is now beyond doubt.’

  The king stared at the card in his uncle’s hand, then slowly raised his eyes to meet the duke’s.

  ‘Now show us your card, Robert,’ Gaunt said into the silence.

  Robert de Vere scoffed.

  ‘Yes, my Lord Oxford,’ said Joan of Kent softly, looking intently at the earl. ‘Show us your card.’

  Vere shrugged and reached within his coat, pulling out a card without looking at it. The king stepped forward and took it from him.

  King Richard looked down at the card. He audibly gasped. ‘The Five of Hawks! Identical to Lancaster’s card!’

  As the gathering cooed astonishment I looked for Swynford, who had melted into the crowd behind the altar. Then I found her, standing between Ralph Strode and the Baron de la Pole. She had covered her mouth with a gloved hand, and I realized what she had done. Oxford must have requested the game of Prince of Plums from her well in advance of the feast, presenting it as an entertaining diversion and assuming she would go along with his plan to slip the Five of Hawks to her lover. But Swynford, as I knew from that appointment at La Neyte, possessed two identical decks, and an agility with the cards that would have made it an easy matter to place an extra Five of Hawks into the deck and slip it to Oxford. I was glad to see the familiar twinkle of amusement in her eye, and I wondered who had come up with the ingenious contrivance. Strode, I suspected, or perhaps the chancellor himself, each standing to one side of Lancaster’s mistress as the spectacle unfolded.