Within A Forest Dark

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  When all had gathered around the sick bed, the Bishop of Bangor held out the jewel encrusted Bible.

  "I recommend to you my wife and son," the prince said to the king and John. "I love them greatly. Give them your aid."

  Both His Grace and the duke formally swore to maintain Richard's rights. Then they kissed the book.

  Settling back, the prince managed a smile at John. "I knew you would not forsake me. Strange that so many warn me against my own brother, when I know your loyalty matches my own."

  The duke knelt beside his couch. Edward rested his hand upon John's golden hair and closed his eyes.

  The king again began to weep and was led from the room by his sons, Thomas and Edmund. "Why has God allowed my children to die before me?" he moaned. "Why did He not see fit to spare my heir and take me instead?"

  Many of the lords of the realm now filing past the prince silently echoed their sovereign's question. Even in sickness, Edward of Woodstock remained their hope, their talisman. While he lived they feared no enemy invasion, no onslaught of battle. Never, when the prince had been with them, had they done badly or deserted the battlefield. But now their prince was deserting them.

  That evening, June 7, the prince dictated his will. He had thought long on his funeral, as well as the dispersal of his possessions. His funeral must be filled with the pomp and circumstance befitting his rank. 'Twas his duty to oversee every detail, down to the effigy on his tomb, which would be placed at Canterbury Cathedral.

  "Show me fully armed in plate of war, in the pride of battle," the prince dictated to his clerk. "Show half of my face exposed, in a meek expression, with my leopard helm set beneath the head of my image."

  Such instructions were more for posterity than to please himself or his family. For those who came after, just as his ancestors had done, for the continuum of the Plantagenets. From Henry II, who had worn on his helm the yellow planta genista which covered the hedges and fields of his native Anjou, until the end of time. Should God so will it.

  After his will was completed, Edward drowsed. Tomorrow was Trinity Sunday. The Feast of the Trinity had always been his favorite.

  "I ask only this, Heavenly Father," he prayed, before slipping into unconsciousness. "Let me die tomorrow. Grant me that much, if You would."

  * * *

  Matthew Hart strode across Old Palace Yard, past the sturdy three-storied Jewel Tower where the king kept his personal treasure. If there was any left, which, judging from Parliament's complaints, seemed unlikely. Even if stacked to the rafters, what good would all the gold on earth do them now?

  We cannot lock up Edward to protect him from death, and without our prince how can anything in the world be well again?

  Matthew had postponed seeing Edward as long as possible. Despite his best efforts to tamp them down, all the feelings he had suppressed over his father and brother's deaths were emerging. He passed familiar faces milling in the hall, most with glistening eyes or unabashedly weeping. He was uneased by such open displays of grief, though 'twas accepted that all life's emotions should be shamelessly expressed. Knights were meant to be tender-hearted as well as brave, to cry as easily as they wielded their swords, yet he preferred his grief to remain private. Mayhap because as a youth he'd had so little practice at melancholia and now it was his constant companion, trailing him everywhere the way a wolf tracks its bleeding prey. He had no experience with it or the arts with which to shake it off. If only his body could do its duty while his mind scampered off to hide...

  Matthew drew a shaky breath before entering the prince's chamber. Immediately, he spotted Edward's couch strategically positioned in the middle of the room. Several priests, including the Bishop of Bangor in his miter, and two royal brothers, hovered. If Matt looked, he could see Edward among the others but he preferred to focus on the window curtains rustling and billowing in a gentle breeze. Though no amount of air could erase the smell of disease. Or death.

  Matthew took his place in line to await his turn.

  This may be the hardest of all. My prince, whom I rejected.

  He swallowed hard to keep down threatening tears. In forty-six years, Edward had committed one wrong—Limoges. During a lifetime when his very name had evoked all that was chivalrous, Edward had erred only once.

  How many men can say that? Certainly I cannot.

  Ahead of Matthew was a knight named Richard Stury. Stury was a Lollard, or "babbler," as many called the heretical followers of the priest John Wycliffe, and had been one of those dismissed from His Grace's household by members of the Good Parliament. Matt was surprised to see the disgraced knight.

  At that moment the prince spotted Stury and struggled up on his pillows. "How dare you come here?" he cried in a voice that contained a flash of its old strength. Those around Edward swiveled their heads and looked at Stury with mixtures of alarm and animosity.

  Ignoring them, Stury knelt beside Edward's couch. "I have come to beg your pardon, sire, and ask your forgiveness for any wrong I might have committed."

  Stury had falsely reported that the Commons intended to depose King Edward as they had deposed, and ultimately murdered, his father, Edward II. His Grace had long been haunted by the brutal killing of that most unfortunate monarch, and the dying prince had railed, with what little strength had remained to him, against Stury's cruelty in needlessly frightening a helpless old man.

  "You have not come to make amends," the prince accused, "but to gaze upon what you have long desired to see."

  Stury's face paled. "Nay, my lord. I swear—"

  "God is just and will reward you according to your merits. Leave me and let me see your face no more."

  The Bishop of Bangor, horrified by the possibility that some hint of evil spirit remained in the prince's heart, hovered over him, clucking his tongue. "My lord, you must ask forgiveness of your sins and cleanse your mind of any feeling against those who have offended you. You must not approach God while in this state of impurity."

  The other priests began swarming about the room, sprinkling holy water on all and sundry.

  "He has wronged me and my family." Edward's pride would not be shaken. "I will not forgive."

  The bishop frowned and thrust his hands up the long sleeves of his vestment. "The hour of your death is at hand. You must. "

  Edward turned his head aside. Save for the muttered prayers of the clergy the room was silent. Richard Stury had resumed standing and stared down at him, ashen-faced, for 'twas a serious matter to be cursed by a dying man.

  The anger that had given Edward strength dissipated and he sank back against the pillows, his gaze distant. Then he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep before finally turning once more toward his adversary. Even now it was hard to be other than an ordinary man, to give up the cares, hurts, and animosities of the flesh.

  As if every word were reluctantly pulled from him, he muttered, "I will forgive."

  After Stury scuttered away, Matthew Hart hesitated. Edward seemed to have melted into the cushions, as if all remaining strength had been expended. The bishop impatiently motioned Matthew forward. Once he reached Edward, Matt stood quietly until the prince's eyelids fluttered. He stared at Matthew a long moment before recognition brightened his gaze and he breathed his name.

  "My lord." Matthew bent down to take Edward's swollen right hand. Dry it felt, like touching an autumn leaf blown free of its branch.

  He favored Matt with the ghost of a smile. "I am pleased you came."

  "And I also, my lord," he managed. If only he could race back to the black place he'd found at Limoges and during the Great March, if only he did not have to feel.

  "You will serve my son, will you not? As you served me?"

  "Aye, my lord." But Matthew had forsaken his prince. He'd been a poor vassal, after all.

  Edward's eyes drooped once again. Matt knew he was clinging to life by nothing more than force of will. Thinking to move on, he placed Edward's hand back upon his chest.

  The prince ra
llied. "Remember Poitiers, Matt?" he whispered.

  "Always."

  "'Twas a grand thing you did afterward, on the field. I've not forgotten how you sacrificed for your brother."

  Tears slid down Matthew's cheeks. Aye, he'd sacrificed, but not enough. Never had it been enough, not for his brother or his prince. And he could not retrace the trail to the past, for the trail could not be found. The past would forever remain as elusive as fog, caught in the hollow of the hills.

  Edward lifted a hand, beckoning to a clerk. "Add to my will. My destrier, Bayard Strangwish. To Matthew Hart, earl of Cumbria and Hertford." He turned back to him. "When we meet again, 'twill be in a far grander place than Poitiers."

  "Nothing could be grander than Poitiers." Struggling to compose himself Matthew stepped away from the prince.

  Edward drifted off. His body felt curiously light. How lovely to be rid of that rotting husk, to feel so free, to feel that he scarce needed to breathe at all, and to experience such peace, as if God had reached down and touched his heart.

  I need but say the words and He will take me. I will not again look upon my son, or Joan, or anyone I've loved. But I will look upon the faces of my departed... and my Lord.

  He was charged with the same excitement that had preceded battle. When the future had spread before him, ready for him to reach out and take, should he be strong and skilled—and worthy enough—to receive it.

  "I give thanks for all Thy benefits," Edward of Woodstock whispered. "I humbly beseech Thy mercy for all my sins—and for those who have sinned against me."

  Chapter 23

  Canterbury, Fall 1376

  Prince Edward's body lay in state at Westminster Abbey. Grief over his death extended beyond England. Upon news of his passing, Charles V and his nobles had attended a Requiem Mass at Sainte Chapelle. French chroniclers, as well as English, wrote solemn eulogies, terming Edward "one of the greatest knights on earth." Froissart called him the "flower of chivalry of all the world."

  Edward was to be buried in Canterbury, and after four months of mourning, the funeral procession, which included the entire Court and both houses of Parliament, set out. The mile-long train crawled past the tiny village of Charing, by St. Martin's and Queen Eleanor's cross, along the Strand, past the Savoy and other great palaces. The bells of St. Paul's tolled as the train crept down the steep hill toward London Bridge, through the stews of Southwark and along Pilgrim's Way—the fabled route to Canterbury.

  Prince Edward's body had been placed in a specially designed hearse drawn by twelve horses. Upon the coffin had been attached a waxen image of Edward's face, cast immediately after his death. In obedience to the prince's instructions, two destriers with the trappings of his arms and badges, as well as two men wearing his livery and helmets, preceded his corpse. Forty-six white garbed paupers—one for each year of Edward's life—carried lighted torches. On either side of the hearse rode members of every house in England, including the king and all the remaining members of the royal family.

  The procession wended its way along the rolling hills of Kent, through recently harvested fields of wheat and barley, and past the city of Rochester, located approximately halfway to Canterbury. The days remained cold; the sky showed unfailingly grey, the countryside brown and green, the churches draped in black. Everywhere, Englishmen left their fields, villages, and alehouses to view the passing of their prince. Everywhere Englishmen asked, "What will we do now?"

  Throughout the journey, Matthew Hart rode among the other nobility. Margery had accompanied him, but at her request stayed to the rear with the ladies-in-waiting and less exalted personages. Now was not the time to flaunt their relationship. She noticed that John of Gaunt's mistress, Katherine Swynford, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in England, was nowhere to be seen while the duke's wife was very much in evidence. On the other hand, Desiderata Cecy confirmed all the rumors about her relationship with King Edward by being ever at his side, seemingly oblivious to the sour looks and behind-the-hands gossip.

  Sighing, Margery shifted position upon her dainty white jennet. Three days of unaccustomed riding had left her saddle-sore and a fine drizzle had proven a continual plague, as if God and the saints were reflecting man's grief.

  In the front of the train, brightly painted banners bobbed, while gilded carriages interrupted the seemingly endless procession of people.

  So many lords and ladies...

  Most Margery recognized from Simon Crull's time as mayor, but the prince's death had attracted peers from across the kingdom, including Lawrence Ravenne. Yet it had been a curious thing about her nemesis. Viewed through adult eyes, Margery found Ravenne far different from the monster of her nightmares. He seemed more... faded than anything. More like a prosperous fishmonger or the lawyers she used to consult at Westminster Hall than a trained killer.

  If I were God and could see into the blackness of his soul, then 'twould be marked there. But I am not God. Mayhap Matthew's soul is just as black. Perhaps my own is.

  At night, when Margery and Matthew bedded down at an abbey or in a pitched tent, or if the weather was fine, in an open meadow, she held her lover in her arms and silently cursed fate for dealing him yet another blow.

  When will it all end?

  Ever hopeful, she had looked for signs over the past while that his melancholia was behind him. Hadn't he been smiling more frequently? And he'd even spoken of the Great March, and the circumstances surrounding Harry's death. Well, maybe "spoken" implied more than the sentence or so he'd actually uttered and perhaps she'd had to silently interject certain words in order to plump out his references. But she had not misread that he more frequently sought their son out, and sometimes recounted stories about his youth. Once she even came upon him telling Serill about Poitiers. That she hadn't imagined or needed to embellish. And, judging from her son's shining eyes, Serill already had dreams of being as bold a knight as his father.

  But now, Margery sensed that Matthew was holding himself together by the gossamer strands of his remaining will. He reminded her of the broken silver goblets that came into the Shop of the Unicorn for repair. The goblets could be fixed, but no matter how skilled the wiring, they would never again be as good as new.

  * * *

  On September 29, 1376, Edward's procession reached the Westgate of Canterbury. As the funeral procession inched along St. Peter's Street toward honey-colored Canterbury Cathedral, Margery found herself increasingly overwhelmed. Being in Canterbury was unsettling, for it brought back memories of her father, Thomas Rendell, who lived near here. Thomas must have viewed the narrow wattle and daub houses leaning into the lanes countless times, and had probably worshipped at the little church called St. Dunstan's where Henry II had begun his penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. No doubt that he would be among the worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral.

  I wish I had not come. I wish I had stayed at Warrick Inn with Serill.

  Events seemed to be closing in on her as relentlessly as the shop buildings along High Street squeezing out the sky.

  Now I know how Matthew feels. 'Tis easy for me to tell him to forget the past, to get on with his life, and yet I tremble inwardly at the very mention of my father.

  But she'd survived her re-acquaintance with Lawrence Ravenne, such as it was, without falling to pieces.

  I am no longer a child, she told herself as the procession halted. Whatever happens I will survive.

  * * *

  Prince Edward's tomb, placed between Canterbury's High Altar and Choir, was surrounded by burning candles and black hangings richly embroidered and trimmed in crimson. From her vantage point near the back, Margery could hear the sonorous voice of Archbishop Simon Sudbury delivering the mass of the dead.

  Following services, the nobility departed, led by the remaining royal family. John of Gaunt was the last member to pass, accompanied by his dour duchess. A tiny thing, all swathed in black, which was her favored color even when the court was not in mourning. So inconsequential,
so tiresomely devout, her detractors said. And yet, bearing the rightful title, "Queen of Castile," Constance held her husband's dreams in her delicate hands.

  Odd, the undercurrents, the complicated relationships, the intrigues that Margery could only guess at through snatches of conversation at the Shop, or Matthew's references. All looking so beautiful, magnificent, powerful or just simply remote from ordinary folk while shuffling past, to the great doors.

  And yet today unified in unfeigned grief.

  John of Gaunt, taller than most, moved solemnly among the mourners, his expression, usually so unreadable, openly sorrowful. Margery didn't know what to make of the duke. Thurold endowed him with such wicked attributes that sometimes in her imaginings Margery likened John of Gaunt to the demons in the wall frescoes at St. Paul's. Didn't his enemies accuse him of entering into a secret treaty with the French to depose young Richard and appoint himself England's King, and in years past of poisoning his sister-in-law, Maude of Lancaster, so that he could inherit the Lancastrian estate? She'd read those things and more in the penny leaflets scattered around London. The most scandalous assertion was that the duke was not even King Edward's true son. Upon her deathbed, so the story went, Queen Philippa had confessed that John was really the son of a Flemish porter and that the girl-child she'd actually borne had suffocated shortly after birth. Fearing her husband's wrath, Philippa had replaced the dead infant with the porter's son. Then she'd enjoined the Bishop of Winchester, to whom she'd confessed her secret, to reveal the truth should John ever stand next in line to the throne.

  Such hatred must have some merit, mustn't it? Yet, when Matthew spoke of John of Gaunt it was with tenderness and respect for his loyalty, his goodness to his vassals. Once, before The Good Parliament, he and his mistress, Katherine Swynford, had even dined with them at Warrick Inn. Lady Swynford had treated Margery as if she were an equal. (Perhaps they were, since both were living outside the marriage bed.) The duke had been pleasant and witty, without a trace of his famous arrogance, and so solicitous of Matthew's welfare that Margery found it easy to understand her lover's affection for his lord. But perhaps money and power had corrupted John, just as age had debilitated King Edward and sickness had driven Prince Edward to the massacre at Limoges.