"If we knew where to look," shrugged Arundel indifferently, without troubling to move.
Richard glared at him and sent a page for his horse. "Well, anyhow, I'm going down to Westminster," he said, with calculated insolence. "At least a man can sometimes hope to be alone in his own house."
But apparently even that was to be denied him. His mother laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Wait a while, Dickon," she advised. "You remember how the governor of the Marshalsea prison escaped? Well, Brembre says the poor wretch took sanctuary in the Abbey and a pack of rebels are down there now trying to drag him out."
"If you take my advice, madam, you won't listen to everything that pert grocer says," snapped Gloucester.
But even to the most irreligious of them violation of sanctuary was a serious matter. It must be dealt with. For who knew when they, too, might stand in need of such protection! And having braved the mob once at Mile End they were not so much afraid, particularly as they were still wearing the same mail beneath their ordinary clothes. All except Richard, who had intended to stay in with his mother and Mundina. But only his body squire would know about that. And when Standish would have gone to get it, Richard pulled him by the elbow. "For God's sake don't make a commotion now," he muttered. "It will only upset my mother again and we shall never get out!" And a moment or two later he was hurrying out into the forecourt and leading the way down Ludgate Hill so that he wouldn't have to look at the self-righteous backs of men who thwarted him at every turn.
As he and his followers crossed Fleet Bridge a breeze caught them from the river, ruffling the bedraggled velvet of their horses' trappings. Along the Strand the sun poured impartially on rose bushes in walled gardens and stiffening bodies half submerged in gutters that ran blood. It shone on the smouldering site of the once proud Savoy and on the fine new hall at Westminster. And as the party passed through the little riverside village of Charing it glistened unexpectedly on a golden cross borne by a long, winding procession of monks coming out to meet them. A scandalized fraternity chanting dirges over the woeful desecration of their abbey.
The rebels had been to Westminster and gone. According to the Abbot they had dragged the unfortunate prison governor from the very shrine of the blessed St. Edward and taken him away to butcher him in Eastcheap. And God had not struck them down. There was nothing Holy Church could do about it. There was nothing stable or sacred any more.
Shocked and sobered, the King and his followers went in and prayed. And because they knew that sometime today, sooner or later, they must come to grips with these vandals and end it all or be themselves destroyed, they made humble confession of their sins. Laying a hand on the pillar to which the wretched victim had clung for life, Richard wondered with good reason how it would feel to die; and then—more irrelevantly—what sort of things his uncle and Arundel were confessing. It seemed so unfair that the only sins he himself could think of at the moment were the very spite and anger they had provoked in him; whereas only yesterday he had made so fine an effort, created harmony and understanding and been at peace with the world.
All thought of retiring to his rooms in the Palace to enjoy his books and his dog had been purged from his mind. There were sterner things to be done. Gathered in the chapter house, where the Commons normally sat, he and his party tasted the Abbot's famous wine and tried to draw up some plan of campaign. Because of the deserted streets scarcely anyone would know that they had left the Wardrobe. All the country westward lay open to them. The rebels were occupied with their horrid business in Eastcheap. It would be possible to reach Windsor before nightfall, disperse in various directions and raise a loyal army to march on London and encompass it. "That would be the safest thing to do," urged Gloucester.
"Safe for us, milord—but not for London," pointed out Walworth, to whose valiant heart the city represented a sacred trust. "If someone had had the sense to do that a week ago it would have been the soundest policy, I grant you," he added pointedly. "But if we leave London now, however large an army we raise, there may not be much left that is worth fighting for when we come back."
"Then we may as well ride back unmolested the way we came," said Thomas Holland, who had at least had the grace to return from the White Chapel and join them.
But Richard, looking from a window at a panorama of walls and streets and spires sprawling to the feet of St. Paul's, shared the Mayor's feelings. These things had been handed down to him from his ancestors and were worth fighting for now. "At least let's go back a different way and chance an encounter," he urged.
Nothing loath, Standish took up his master's sword from the Abbot's long table. It was a big, bejewelled weapon which had belonged to Edward the Third and was far too heavy for Richard, who seldom carried anything more formidable than a dagger. Before handing it to Sir Robert Newton, whose privilege it was to carry it, the King's squire ran a tentative finger along the naked edge of it. "It seems shameful somehow," he observed thoughtfully, "that although these dogs have killed a mort of honest men, so far we've never so much as struck at one of them."
Apparently there were many of the same mind.
"Then let's make a detour…"
"Better not go by Eastcheap—just now…"
Richard was always impatient of argument. He drained his cup and bade the unhappy Abbot farewell. "Ludgate, Newgate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate—seven gates to London," he chanted, spinning a frivolous coin close beneath the new Lord Chancellor's aquiline nose. "With milord Mayor's permission, does it matter very much by which we enter?"
The wine had warmed him. He would show this inflated blacksmith who was King of London!
Chapter Twelve
It seemed fantastic to be riding in broad daylight through silent, deserted streets with danger lurking round every corner. It was very depressing when one thought of all the pleasant things one had hoped to do in London.
It wouldn't have been so bad if Robert had stayed with him, or if Nicholas Brembre could have been diverting him with amusing gossip of all the latest disputes between the City Guilds. But Gloucester and Arundel insisted upon riding on either side, while pompous John Newton followed behind with the ceremonial sword. So absurd of them, thought Richard, to make a formal progress of it when they all knew they were going in fear of their lives!
In order to escape the tedium of their conversation he closed his mind as much as possible to present reality. He wondered what his friends were doing—whether Robert were having similar adventures in Oxfordshire and if poor Tom were chafing with boredom at Framlingham. What a lot he would have to tell them when all this fracas was ended! Always provided, of course, that it did come to an end and that he himself were alive to tell about it…A sudden horror impinged upon his vivid imaginings. What if the sunshine and the wind in the trees and his friends' cheerful voices were to go on, while he was speechless clay, like Sudbury and that poor devil who had been dragged from the Confessor's shrine… But that didn't bear thinking about. Not while one was young and attractive, with all life clamouring to be tasted. One must grow up and buy beautiful things, make love and marry.
Deliberately, to still the rising panic in his mind, he turned his thoughts to the bride Sir Simon even now might be negotiating for. Who would she be? There had been talk of one or two princesses but probably it would be that Bohemian girl, Anne, whom he had heard them wishing onto him in Council because she was related to the Emperor and her Flemish ancestry would improve the wool trade. He hadn't been much interested at the time. Boylike, he had been thinking more about the breaking in of Blanchette. But now he wondered what she would be like. Would she have warm dark eyes like Lizbeth, or mousy hair and thin lips like Henry's sister Blanche? Honey-coloured hair and white skin like the girl in the forge, or red-gold loveliness like his mother's? On the whole he hoped she would be a blonde. He rather wished he had been more explicit with Sir Simon. But Burley was a man of taste. He wouldn't bring him a perfect fright of a woman for all the wool in C
hristendom. And it wouldn't matter much, decided Richard in his youthful insouciance, so long as she had pleasant manners and smelled sweet.
He was brought back to earth by a smell that was anything but sweet. He looked about him, sniffing, and became aware of the dismal lowing of penned beasts and a stench of rotting entrails. He remembered encountering it before and knew they must be nearing Smithfield.
From a modish sleeve he drew the gay handkerchief which his uncles regarded as the last word in decadence, pressing it to offended nostrils. "I thought we passed a bill forbidding butchers to do their disgusting slaughtering so near the City walls?" he complained, turning to catch the Mayor's eye. "You should really speak to the alderman of this ward about it."
But neither Walworth nor Brembre paid any attention. A sudden silence had fallen upon the company so that only his own petulant words and the clatter of hooves on the cobbles seemed to be audible. They all appeared to be listening to something else. Warned by the strained gravity of their faces, Richard forgot the offending stench and listened too. And presently he distinctly heard the familiar muttering of a mob.
Coming to the end of a narrow street, and emerging from the protection of overhanging eaves into the great open space which served Londoners as meat market, lists and fair ground, they reined in involuntarily.
Smithfield. The very place where the Mayor's tournament was to have been held. Richard saw it all. The huge arena of trodden brown grass. The mass of sturdy Norman buildings which he knew to be St. Bartholomew's Abbey. And the mob. But for them he might have been tilting in this very place. He and Robert, Henry and Tom. Pitting their promising youth, with keen rivalry and careless laughter, against half the chivalry of England, just as they had practised at Eltham. Trying to win the bets they had laid that happy summer morning when they had jeered at each other, tilting at the quintain. And a fine, cloudless day the spectators would have had for it! Only here were no multi-coloured pavilions and banners and fine ladies. No trumpeting heralds and knights in shining armour. Only a countless mass of drably dressed peasants lined up in the deep shade of the Abbey. The threatening rise and fall of their uncouth voices, and the still more ominous silence that fell upon them as they perceived the gaily dressed band of nobles. Taken equally by surprise, they stared back like defensive curs or stooped with primitive cunning to pick up stones. And riding up and down in front of them, barking out harsh orders, was a huge hirsute man on a gaunt black horse. A man Richard had last seen swinging a hammer in a humble workshop—beating ploughshares into swords—roused to murderous fury by the sight of insult to his daughter. An honest tradesman, turned brute. A desperate man, with a price on his head. The man who would make himself King of London.
Richard's gorge rose at the sight of him. So this place was, after all, to be the lists. This day his trial. And here, ready to hand, his opponent. No stripling of his own age. But a giant, spoiled by power and popularity, who could snap him in two with a twist of his mighty hands. Backed by ten thousand toughs, drunk with undreamed-of power.
Richard glanced round at his own supporters, a mere handful of men whose names were part of England. They had spread themselves out funnel-wise on either side of him as if it were some state occasion, making an alley through which he could pass. Their eyes were watchful and measuring. They stood there firm enough. But they waited for him to go first.
He understood perfectly.
When it was a matter of choosing his own bride or deciding about the advisability of taxes, he was only a foolish, temperamental boy; but when it was a moment for dangerous action on which the fate of the whole country might depend, then he was the King.
He accepted his destiny, but would have liked some older man's advice. "Well, milords?" he prompted, searching their eyes for help. Thomas of Gloucester, Richard of Arundel, his own half-brother, Thomas, mighty Warwick, kind Salisbury and hotheaded Percy of Northumberland…But no man answered. They even seemed to huddle a little closer together as if withdrawing from a decision which must inevitably entail such momentous praise or blame. If only for their own sakes, they would have helped him if they could. But, warmongers as they were, they just did not know what to do. Whether to go on or to turn back.
So Richard bent to give Blanchette's soft white neck an encouraging pat, and rode forward. And as he passed close between Gloucester and Arundel he looked deliberately into the abashed face of each of them and laughed contemptuously.
This was his day! He would show them that a man who loved beauty was not necessarily decadent. He would teach them he was born to be their master. And—being young—he cared nothing that they would never forget or forgive a look which stripped them before their fellows for the paltry things they were.
As he emerged into the sunshine a sense of buoyancy sustained him. This time there was no cold shock of fear to overcome. He might have been the first Richard riding forth to meet the Saracens. The same spirit was in him, so that he felt it was a fine thing to confront his enemies. For enemies they definitely were. All his sympathy with the decent Essex folk had been betrayed. He had been fooled. His lodgings—his very bed—had been fouled. And old Sudbury's head, mouldering on London Bridge, cried for vengeance.
Faced with such fantastic odds, he stood implacably for authority and for his own friends. By his own wits he must save them.
He could see Wat Tyler still prancing up and down in front of his rabble. With keen young eyes he noted every braggart gesture. But he had met the man before in his own home and knew him to have decent instincts. "Go, my good sword-bearer, and bring that man to me," he called back over his shoulder. "Tell him I will talk to him only on condition that he tells his men to stay where they are." He spoke in such ordinary tones—so much as if he were summoning a defaulting servant or a competitor who had cheated in the lists— that the luckless Sir Robert had no choice but to obey; and the rest of the company were almost charmed into believing that they were in a position to make terms. Seeing their king, so slight and valiant a figure in that great space, most of them were moved to follow him a few yards. But all the same Richard passed a hand grimly over his thin, summer doublet, regretting the mail he had spurned; and felt grateful when Walworth and Standish closed in on either side of him as if to protect him with their own bodies.
Evidently Tyler was as surprised as they. He laughed boisterously at the coolness of a boy who couldn't see when he was cornered, but years of accepting orders had left him a prey to any confident command. He came as he was bid, half sheepish and half truculent. He had no idea how to address royalty and he was a very poor horseman. "You see all those men over there, King?" he asked.
"Naturally, I see them," said Richard. "Why do you ask?"
"Because they are sworn to obey me. There are ten thousand of them, and at a sign from me they will do whatever I want."
Seeing them straining forward, taut as a strung bow, Richard had no doubt of it. He knew that if he made the least sign of fear the stones and arrows clenched in their hands would be unleashed and centuries of resentment assuaged in blood. The lives of his followers were in his unarmed hands. He looked Tyler straight in the eyes, feeling like a lion tamer holding ravaging cruelty in check; "And what do you want?" he asked evenly.
The man had had his unreasonable demands glibly enough to tongue all morning, but never before had he voiced them in the presence of the gorgeously dressed master-men against whom they were aimed. Their contemptuous stares began to fray the bluster with which he bolstered up a peasant's natural discomfiture. Their very stillness unnerved him. He glanced over his shoulder at Sir Robert, who still kept close behind him. "I'd be better able to tell you if the gold-trimmed minion of yours would put down that sword," he said rudely.
"It is the King's sword," explained Newton, purple with indignation.
"Then give it to me. I'll hold it for him," offered Tyler, still showing off before his gaping ten thousand. "He and I have met before."
"A dog like you isn't fit to touch it!
" cried Sir Robert, holding the jewelled weapon out of his tormentor's reach so that it flashed in the sunlight. Inevitably there was an unseemly struggle, with Tyler turning his lumbering horse so inexpertly that the beast's ill-docked tail flicked Blanchette's delicate nostrils, causing her to shy.
Richard kept his seat and his temper. It was just the sort of thing he had been afraid would happen. The spark for a petty quarrel which might well blaze into disaster for them all. "Better put the sword down, Sir Robert," he advised, swallowing his pride. He knew how unpopular such an order would be with his haughty relatives, but if bloodshed were to be avoided he must handle this thing in his own way. Still soothing his mount, he looked up at the half-placated blacksmith. "It is true that I saw you in your forge," he said, trying to appeal to what had seemed fine in the man. "You were an honest tradesman, sorely tried by an insufferable insult to your daughter. You were no traitor then."
"I'm no traitor now!" protested Tyler. His hot brown eyes considered the King more sanely, seeing him less as the figurehead of a hated class and more as an individual. More as he had seen him then—a frank-faced youth who hadn't looked at him as if he were a dog—who, for all his fine clothing, had spoken to his Rose with gentle courtesy. Perhaps if one could talk to him alone one could get things altered. Those burning injustices which had been all that he cared for then—those things which really mattered…For a moment Wat Tyler forgot the ugly mounting ambitions which had gone to his head, forgot all about making himself King of London. He could talk reasonably as those Essex fellows had done. After all, it would be more comfortable to be done with this marching about and get back to his forge and Rose, who must be worrying her pretty head sick about him…"I'll tell you—" he began, lowering his voice so that those other proud pieces shouldn't hear, and clutching at the King's bridle.
Within the Hollow Crown: A Valiant King's Struggle to Save His Country, His Dynasty, and His Love Page 12