The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  “You must take that signboard down,” ordered Rose Marsh. “Even now when the Tudor’s army has gone it is still the rallying point for every rough youth in the neighbourhood. The target for local venom, encouraged, I wouldn’t be surprised, by Hugh Malpas at the Crown.”

  What she said was true enough. There are always some who will hit at a lost cause. So Jod fetched a ladder from the yard and set it up against the front of the inn, and Tansy stood in the High Street steadying the foot of it. “The chains be set so fast to the iron shaft hooks ’twill need a chisel or summat to detach ’em,” he reported from aloft, and while he had gone back for the necessary tools Rose said to Tansy, “There’s no need to tell your father we’re taking it down. He’s very low this afternoon. It would only upset him.”

  “When things get quiet maybe we can get it put back before he’s about again,” said Tansy.

  “Much good a white boar will do trade now!” scoffed Rose. “And sometimes I doubt if he ever will get about again, or notice whether there’s a boar or a bush hanging there. Sheer madness it was, dashing off like that to Bosworth when everyone knew he was more sick than he said, and leaving us with all this work and worry.”

  “You managed splendidly — and seemed to enjoy managing — when the King was here,” Tansy could not help recalling.

  “There was some incentive then, when we thought the money was coming in. And that we would have the laugh over Malpas.”

  Tansy leant her slight weight against the ladder while Tod ascended for the second time. “And you — really think — that my father is worse,” she asked, her voice jerky as much through anxiety as physical effort. “That he may not — get better?”

  “Doctor Leigh thinks it is doubtful. And what shall we do then, with half our customers slinking off to the Golden Crown?”

  Tansy watched her go indoors, wondering how she could care where the customers went when the beloved landlord’s life was in the balance. Yet her own thoughts went to the gold coins in her pocket. They could help to tide over a bad time, but perhaps they would be spent on fripperies for her step-mother and not make much difference to her father. Like her, he would mind more about the well-known sign coming down than about the money.

  “Poor beast be fair battered,” Jod was saying, as he clambered down the last few rungs carrying the signboard.

  Tansy held out her arms for it as she might have for a hurt child. Together they surveyed its chipped paint and pitted surface, deploring the venom with which it had been belaboured, then stood looking up sadly at the wrought-iron shaft which, now useless, gave the front of the building a lifeless look. And as Tansy stood clasping the ill-used white boar in her arms she suddenly decided how she would spend the money in her pocket.

  “Go to the farrier’s in Cank Street, and fetch a horse which Master Hood has bought from him. Put it in the stall nearest the Lane gates and see it has a good feed. If anyone asks you about it say we are stabling it temporarily for Master Hood, but it is really for the wounded man in the loft, Jod. I will find an old cloak of my father’s and fill a saddle-bag with food. As soon as it is getting dusk direct him through South Gate on to the road to London. And then bolt the yard gates after him.”

  “Just as well he be goin’,” muttered Jod, “with that sharp-nosed Diggory pryin’ around!”

  There would be time enough to see her father and try to cheer him before he settled for the night. Tansy followed the ostler round to the yard and set the signboard down against the wall in the wagon shed. Calling softly, she climbed the ladder to the hayloft.

  In her mood of depression it was good to be greeted by a cheerful voice. “See, I can walk!” proclaimed Dickon. “I’ve been practising, back and forth. I shan’t need to burden you any more. I must be on my way to London.”

  “You wouldn’t get very far with that ankle,” said Tansy, oddly hurt that he should sound so willing to go. “But Tom Hood has found you a horse.”

  “Found one?”

  “Since Bosworth all the roads around here have been full of roaming, riderless horses,” Tansy told him, quoting what Tom had said.

  “I suppose they may well be, judging by the slaughter I saw. But, even so, a horse is worth something. If he found it, he could sell it.”

  “It might even be the one you lost. And then you’d have every right to it,” laughed Tansy.

  “Heaven forbid! And unless it were, how can I take it? As you know, I have no money.”

  “I assure you Tom will not be the loser.”

  “Is he so rich then?”

  “N-no. But what people hereabouts call ‘up and coming’. The sort of person who has his own business and plenty of initiative, and doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet.”

  “Not an ineffectual dreamer like me.” Tansy was aware of the edge of envy in Dickon’s voice, and was glad when his attention was caught by the battered signboard standing below against the waggon-shed wall. “Looks as if they’ve been throwing stones at it again. I heard a lot of shouting.”

  “It was some of the same crowd who chased you. I recognized two of them drinking here midday. They swore they had seen you come into the yard, and that they would get you.”

  “They know I am still here?”

  “That little beast of a yard boy heard us talking.”

  “Then Mistress Marsh knows?”

  Tansy nodded. “That is why you must go — this evening — before your ankle is really well enough, I am afraid.”

  “I saw her when she was talking to Master Gervase. She looked brassy hard. If she thinks that harbouring a Yorkist is dangerous, why doesn’t she drive me out?”

  “She doesn’t believe them. She knows Diggory heard us that first evening. But she just thinks that you — that we — ”

  Dickon caught her arm and looked into her face, and she reddened with embarrassment. “And you let her think it, to protect me. Oh, Tansy!” He let her go, sullen with self-abasement, and began pulling his discarded shoe on to the foot with the injured ankle. “I will go now. I have brought you nothing but trouble. I can walk well enough.”

  “Of course you must go. The sooner you get to London the better. For you, and for us. But it isn’t because I want you to. I shall be sorry — truly sorry — not to see you again. But you must do as the King your father said — ”

  “Oh, all that romantic stuff I told you! You don’t have to pretend you believe it,” he said roughly.

  “But I do believe it. And to prove it here is some money which belongs to you.” She drew the coins from her pocket and held them out before his astonished gaze. “The King must have dropped them. I found them on the floor beside his bed. I can only think that in the haste of leaving for the battle either he or some nervous squire who was dressing him let them drop from the purse at his belt. And now whose are they, if not yours? Take them. He would have wished you to have them, Dickon — all the more so since we know he meant you to use the money which that unspeakable Gervase made off with.”

  “Findings, keepings,” quoted Dickon, waving it aside. “It is yours.”

  Tansy faced him gravely. “I am afraid we can neither of us make ourselves disbelieve now that you are the King’s illegitimate son. I haven’t had time to tell you this before. But he spoke to me. Standing at the foot of that curious camp-bed of his. He explained to me about some small carvings which he said represented the Holy Sepulchre. He — the King of England — explained to me, Tansy the innkeeper’s daughter. And again just before he rode out to Bosworth he put his hand on my shoulder. So you must understand that I have seen him close to — close as I am to you now. And that evening when you stumbled into the yard — ”

  “When you saved my life. Yes?” He was now listening intently to every word.

  “Well, when I wiped the blood from your face it was so drawn with exhaustion that you looked much older than you are — you looked just like him. However people might make fun of your story I could never disbelieve it. So take your money, all ex
cept a noble which I will use to repay Tom.”

  He took her hands and kissed them, and put the money slowly into the wallet at his belt. He made no further protest “If ever I am able to repay it, I can find you here. But since I am so much your debtor — so unutterably your debtor for much more than this money — I should like you to be able to contact me. I will leave you Master Aeneas Paston’s address in Wood Street. See, I will scratch it with my knife on the wall behind that old lantern. Whether I serve my apprenticeship in London or not he will always know where I am. I suspect that he knows who I am. Is there anyone who would bring you a letter?”

  Tansy thought about it while he scratched laboriously on the wall. “There is Gufford, the chapman, who brings silks and new fashions from London every two or three months”

  “Where does he live?”

  “In Cheapside. Near an inn called the Boar’s Head. I remember his telling my step-mother about it. The coincidence, I mean. Is that near Wood Street?”

  “Quite near.”

  In spite of her distress for her father and for the bad blow to business, a new happiness warmed Tansy’s heart at the thought that this strangely made new friend might keep in touch with her. “But you must not write as a duty, because of anything which I have been able to do for you,” she insisted, sensing his conscientiousness. “And listen, Dickon. I have something for you which I think you will value for more than money. It is one of the King’s own books, which I found beside his bed.”

  Dickon thrust the knife back into his belt and turned to her, his face alive with interest. “A book?” he repeated,

  “In lovely leather binding, with a metal clasp.”

  “Printed or in manuscript?”

  “Printed, I think. The name William Caxton was all I could read.”

  “With the sign of the Red Pale?”

  “What is that?”

  “A kind of crest, to show that it came from his press in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.”

  “I think so, Dickon. But I am sorry — it was all in Latin and I don’t read even English very well.”

  “I must teach you.”

  “Nothing would please me better. But how, when we live so far apart?”

  But he didn’t seem to hear her. His usually sober face was wholly attractive in its eagerness. “I have never really possessed a book before, except one or two tattered school primers.”

  “You will possess this one,” she assured him. “For there were, two Latin words which any ninny could read. The King’s own signature on the title page.”

  Dickon’s joy was indescribable, until a thought began to nag at him. “Then it must be doubly valuable. And since it was left here, and he can never claim it, it must belong to your parents.”

  “My father was too sick to be consulted, and my stepmother gave it to me. She wasn’t interested.”

  “Not interested!” he cried. “Why, it might well be the Order of Chivalry which Caxton dedicated to King Richard himself. Or even Earl Rivers’ Sayings of the Philosophers. I should never be lonely if I had that.”

  “How do you know so much about these books?” asked Tansy.

  “Master Paston took us once to the Red Pale and we actually saw the printing press working. And then again I have a sort of personal interest. For although William Caxton is quite an old man now and spent most of his life in Bruges — although he has changed the world of literature and has royal patrons — he began as an apprentice in London like the rest of us. A mercer’s apprentice, oddly enough. And when his first master died the Mercer’s Guild arranged for him to finish his term with a Master John Harrowe, who was my friend Piers’ grandfather. So, of course, at school we all talked often about Caxton’s work.”

  “I will wrap the book carefully in a napkin and pack it in your saddle bag,” promised Tansy, feeling sadly out of her depth.

  With one of his swift changes of mood he came back into her world again, coming close to her and taking her hands in his. “If there is ever anything that I can do for you, Tansy — anything at all — you must send me word, and I will do it.”

  There was a depth of sincerity in his words but she supposed them to be his only means of expressing present gratitude. “There is something which you can do for us here and now — if you have time,” she said, speaking lightly in an effort to dispel embarrassment. “Indeed, I told Jod that I thought you were the very man to do it. That board down there.”

  “You want it re-painted?”

  “But not as it is. I suppose my step-mother is right. We must move with the changing mood of the times.”

  “I will make it over for you in no time at all. Before it is dark. I am so glad you asked me.” He looked at it consideringly. “Now, why not a blue boar, which — since the great Duke of York’s death — has no particular significance to stir up party feeling? And which would probably hurt your father’s feelings less than having his sign changed altogether?”

  “Oh, Dickon, can you do that?”

  “Easily. Tell your man to bring the board up here and to fetch me some blue paint and a brush. Why do you laugh?”

  “Because it is the first time I have heard you give an order, and you sound so much like — your father.”

  “Do I?” This was a new possibility which seemed to intrigue him. But he did not dwell on it. With something constructive to do — something which he could do — he seemed a different being. He stripped off his doublet and began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and clearing the only part of the loft where there was light, When she told him that she would send Jod with the paint but would not, herself, be coming back, she thought that he bade her a rather preoccupied farewell. But when she would have run down the ladder he caught her by the arms and stopped her. “Tansy, who is this Tom Hood?” he asked, frowning prodigiously.

  She had to laugh. “Heaven help me! Do I have to spend my life explaining each of you to the other?”

  “Did he ask about me?”

  “But naturally. Wasn’t he getting you the horse?”

  “Of course. And I will not forget it. But you said he was ‘up and coming’. Do your parents want you to marry him?”

  It was the first time the question had come to her so definitely, and she jibbed from it. “I think so,” she admitted, trying to turn from him.

  “And do you love him?”

  She pulled herself angrily away. “How should that concern you — who have only known me a bare three days?”

  “Because I may be leaving you for as many years. All the time that I serve my apprenticeship. I must know.”

  Slowly, beneath the warm gaze of his brown eyes, she was coerced to speak the truth as far as she could tell it. “I have always been fond of him since I was a child. But I do not think that I love him — as you mean love.” She felt the pressure of his hands relax as the breath came out of him in a vast sigh. “But why must you know? How can it matter to you so much?”

  “Because I shall always carry your image in my heart”

  “So much can happen in three years. You would be a fool to do that,” she told him, hoping desperately that he would.

  9

  In the morning when Tansy went to the waggon-shed Dickon was gone. All that remained of his strange visit was a newly-painted signboard, expertly repaired, picturing a sagacious-looking blue boar. With no money, but using his innate skill, he had left an offering to protect her and her family from annoyance. And as the weeks passed she almost needed this tangible proof that she had really received an incredible confidence and a brief friendship which had made so much difference in her life. Other citizens of Leicester might comment or jest about the inn’s changed sign, but every time she looked up at it she felt oddly warmed by the possession of a precious secret.

  At first, on a more material level, the board was an embarrassment as well as a safeguard, since she had to make some sort of explanation as to how she had managed to get the thing repainted. Fortunately, Rose Marsh was so relieved to have it, a
nd in such a hurry for Jod to rehang it, that she accepted without much question Tansy’s vague references to one of their customers who had been both kind and artistic, and clearly associated the gift with some amorous episode which Diggory thought he had overheard in the hayloft.

  To her father Tansy tried to tell the truth, but he was past taking much interest in the return of a guest at whose fantastic story he had already scoffed. “He was welcome to a night’s lodging if that foolish charlatan who hoped to profit by him left him penniless and stranded,” he said weakly. “But it was a good idea to make him pay for it by repainting our sign. I have been meaning to have it done for months. But there are so many things I have been meaning to do …” He lay musing sadly, and Tansy was glad that he seemed scarcely to have taken in the fact that the sign had been altered as well as repainted, “But there is one thing I have done, Tansy, my child,” he went on, rousing himself. “Some months ago while I still had the strength I got lawyer Langstaff to draw up my Will, And you ought to know about it. The business and house and everything in it goes to Rose, of course, during her lifetime — unless she marries again — in which case a half of the profits go to you. I know you do not get on with her. But that is why I want you to stay as long as you can and do your best for the Boar. At her death it becomes yours anyway.”

  “But I should not know how to run it. She may be lazy, but I am not really as capable as she is when she chooses,” said Tansy, painfully conscious of her youth and inexperience.

  “That is the sadness of having no son,” sighed Robert Marsh. “But you, who have helped me in so many ways, should know better than most. And you will marry.”

  “My husband may not want to be an innkeeper.”

  “Then you could sell it. Through Langstaff. He would see to your interests, for my sake. And whatever your husband’s trade, the money will not come amiss.”

  Tansy sank to her knees beside the bed and sobbed in the weakening shelter of his arm. “What do I care about marriage or money? I don’t know how I can live without you,” she cried brokenly.