I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  As I mounted the stair that led to the tower’s upper levels, I heard soft tread, a swish of robe behind me. There was a man…I grasped the hilt of the dagger at my belt. “Lord, I am with you,” the cloaked man whispered softly. His hood was so deep I could see no face; he might have been a wraith.

  “Then come,” I said.

  As we climbed, another man joined us, silent as the first, drifting out of a side corridor. Two more followed, clad in dark garb from head to foot, silent as footpads, their boots making no sound on the floor. Quietly, like ghosts haunting this grim high-vaulted bulk of a tower, we walked through empty passageway and unlit hall.

  “Where?” I murmured to the man nearest me. He moved his arm; beneath his ebon cowl, I caught a quick glimpse of weaponry.

  “The Chapel, your Grace. As ever. Night and day”

  Ahead I could see a feeble light aglow. Shadows wobbled on the walls. Slowly I walked up to the door of the Chapel and glanced inside. Behind the richly painted screen, old Henry of Lancaster was on his knees before the altar, still wearing the rancid robe he had worn at Barnet. His hair, hanging in straggling curls, crawled. There was no priest, thanks be to God, and the only guards were those down the end of the nearby corridor…who were not there to protect Henry, but to prevent anyone unauthorised from approaching the deposed king.

  To my surprise, Harry Six suddenly halted his devotions and turned in my direction. I saw his long, simple face, his sleepy eyes. He looked ill, his cheeks yellowish-grey; men said he had collapsed in a faint when told of the death of his heir at Tewkesbury.

  “Come in, whoever you are,” he said, in a tremulous voice. “I would be glad of company. I am so lonely here.”

  I cursed inwardly that he had heard my approach but there was no helping it now. I could not pretend I hadn’t heard him call out. Gesturing for my hooded companions to stay hidden, I walked into the chapel toward the frail old man.

  Mad Henry blinked at me; a torch glowed in a cresset behind my head and I guessed its brightness threw my features into shadow so he could not see my features clearly. “Who…who is it? Is that you Edward, my son? You are of an age with him…but, no, Edward is dead they say, dead in battle, his very first battle.” He bowed over, fat tears starting from his vapid eyes. “He’s gone…it’s all gone…”

  I cringed at the pathetic scene, this false King’s tears, his mad, mawkish words. Mistaking me for Edward of Westminster! The prince I had loathed, whom I had never met but who brought me dark and bloody dreams. The prince who had taken Anne.

  “The fall of your House is as God has willed it,” I said rather harshly, not sure what else to say.

  “Aye.” Blinking furiously, he nodded. “I am a sinner, such a sinner, and now I am being punished…” He began to wring his hands. “What is your name, boy, what is your name?”

  I hesitated. I could not tell him I was the Duke of Gloucester. At length I answered simply, “Richard.”

  He licked his lips; they were flecked with froth. “I knew a Richard once….a Duke, a kinsman. He wanted my crown, said he had a better right to it than I. Maybe he was right; I would have rather been a monk, as I told my headstrong, wilful Marguerite when she coerced me to fleshly sin. You…you are like that Richard, very like him…but he is long dead…”

  I froze. He spoke of my father, Richard Plantagenet. My father, whose head had adorned Micklegate Bar. They said that of all my family I resembled him the most. Now only broken memories of him remained in my mind; his face dim, wavering, his voice all but gone. Dust and ashes. The man who would be king, and paid the price for his presumption…

  Old Henry was still muttering on, looking ever more dazed and moonstruck. “You…you…do you want my crown too? Do you want it? It had not made me happy…no…so unhappy…”

  Something twisted inside me, a strange thrill mingled with fear. “No, I don’t want your fucking crown,” I snapped. “Go back to your prayers, the hour is late.”

  Slouch-shouldered he shuffled away, obedient, like a dog, and knelt down, hands folded, head bowed. He was hardly a man any more, let alone a king. Edward was King. Edward had given the order.

  I stalked from the tiny chapel into the corridor where Edward’s chosen men waited. “Go now,” I said. “And do what you must. Be quick and be as merciful as you may. He was a king once. Of sorts.”

  They flowed into the chapel, black cowls like dark mist. There were no screams, no shouts. Just the sound of a small commotion, a flurry of activity…then something hard hitting the flagstones and a small almost imperceptible groan

  I closed my eyes. The Old King was dead. Long live King Edward IV.

  CHAPTER FIVE: BASTARDS

  I had little sleep the rest of the night, and then a cold march to Kent in the grey dawn. Edward marched some distance behind me, with George, Anthony Woodville, Will Hastings and other nobles of stature. The King had already dealt with Henry’s body; the bells had rung out over London to announce the death, and word was put out by Edward that the old false king had died ‘of pure melancholy and displeasure.’ Of course, rumours of murder ran rife in the streets of London—the townsfolk whispered of seeing Henry’s body carried by armed soldiers on a bier to St Pauls and that it bled from nose and ears before being borne to Blackfriars, where it bled afresh.

  I met the pirate, Thomas Neville, the Bastard of Fauconberg, at the coastal town of Sandwich. Seagulls soaring over his head, screaming, he stood unarmed on the quay, holding out his empty hands in a token of submission, a tall, gangling man, with near-black hair and close-set eyes, and an over-toothed smile that I did not trust.

  Edward was eager to pardon him and have no more bad blood with the Nevilles, but I just did not trust the man, grinning over my head like some jackanapes, and I could foresee trouble ahead. I wanted to confer with Edward, to try to make him see sense on this matter, but he had ridden with his contingent to Canterbury, where he was investigating the recent Kentish uprisings and executing the leaders. I thought Fauconberg should have joined his fellows in death, as instigator of the rebels, but the decision was not mine to make.

  Confiscating Fauconberg’s forty or so ships, I then nodded toward a waiting horse. “Get on, my lord,” I ordered coldly. “You are to be taken to the King in Canterbury. He may then, if you are lucky, see fit to pardon you.”

  Fauconberg grinned at me as he mounted the steed waiting for him. Soldiers with pikes clustered round, forming a barricade in case he should try to flee. “Ah, my lord of Gloucester. You were once a ward of my kinsman, Richard Neville, were you not? He spoke highly of you, very highly…maybe we too can get to know each other on the road.”

  “I think not, my lord,” I retorted and turned my back on him. How dare he believe I would fall for such flattery!

  The road to Canterbury was uneventful. Fauconberg did not try to sweeten me up again. Nonetheless, I was glad to see the back of him once we got to the town, and made sure that on his way to meet Edward he was led past the gallows where his fellow rebels twirled with the birds already pecking at their corpses.

  I had hoped the Bastard’s pardon might be the end of an unpleasant day but then I saw George buzzing around like a drunken fly, which put me in an evil mood. “I have the Lancastrian pretender’s widow in my care now,” he said, deliberately loud, to one of his cronies. “My wife’s sister, but I shall keep her fast with stern rebuke, I tell you.”

  I wanted to hit him, but controlled my temper and walked away. I felt unduly tired, my back ached beneath my armour, and the wound on my side felt tight and sore.

  Seeking an audience with Edward, I found he had gone from the hall where he received and pardoned Fauconberg to lodgings in one of Canterbury’s many priories. Once I had tracked him down, I found him writing letters to Louis de Gruithuse, who had succoured us in exile, and Duke Charles of Burgundy, our sister Margaret’s husband. “What is it, Richard?” Edward did not look up from his desk.

  “Your Grace, if it pleases you, can I be release
d from your side for a short while, unless I am further required?” I asked. “I…I have long been away from my own lands and holdings and long absence causes unrest to my mind. I have many matters that need tending.”

  “I’ll wager you do.” Still writing Ned glanced up at me; one hazel eye, green and grey-flecked, gazed out from under a fall of shining hair. “Go, and with my blessing, Richard. And do not fret…all will be well. You will be rewarded, as I promised. Soon I will return to London for Pentecost, now that I have taught these rebellious men of Kent that I am not to be trifled with. They may never love me, brother, but by God’s teeth, they will learn to fear me and not rebel again. When you return to London, I will see that you are granted great gifts for your loyal service. But go now. I ask only that, at some point within the next few months, you visit Norwich and consolidate our position with the city elders. I think you will not mind that, though, eh, brother?” He grinned wickedly at me. “I know you like…Norwich.”

  He was teasing me now, about something very personal to me, and I blushed red. Ned he rose up, a giant whose long shadow spread across the high ceiling, and he kissed me on either cheek with great warmth. “Enjoy Norwich,” he said, clouting me on the shoulder with brotherly affection.

  I took my leave and left the priory, and mounting my horse rode through the open city gates, heading swiftly towards East Anglia.

  I was exhausted in body and mind. Heaviness hung over me, more than was usual, although I am seldom of bucolic nature even at the best of times.

  I needed rest, time to heal. I needed peace, freedom from battle.

  I needed a woman.

  I sat looking with adoration at the most beautiful girl in England…No, in the world. She lay asleep, curled on her side, damp dark curls clinging to her white forehead. Long, sweeping lashes were faery gossamer on her cheeks. A little broidered coverlet lay over her, pulled up to the middle of her chest; it rose and fell with her gentle breathing. I let my thumb slip along the line of her perfect, cream-white cheek, and her fingers came up involuntarily to fold round one of mine.

  My daughter, Katherine. Not yet two years old.

  I had become a father at sixteen, not the youngest boy even known to get a woman with child (and indeed Kate was not the first ever to lie in my bed) but young nonetheless.

  Kate, Katherine’s mother…I met her at a court banquet, the widow of an inconsequential knight from a village near Norwich.

  It was near Christmas…the snow fell. I was new at court, uncomfortable in my elder brother’s glittering world. A distant, minor relation of the Queen, demure Kate Haute was a few years older than me, with dark leaf-red hair, soft sultry eyes, and breasts a man would kill to lie between…

  I burned for her as only a sixteen-year-old youth can. At first she ignored me, thinking me callow or worse, some lordling trying to woo her with his bloodline when he had naught else to offer. Later, she admitted she was afraid I would use her body then vanish, perhaps leaving her with a babe neither acknowledged nor cared for.

  I did not give up, seeking to persuade her into my embrace; I am dogged in my passions, like all my Plantagenet forebears. I could not let her go. By some madness of the winter’s night, a race in new-fallen snow with stars above like diamond eyes, I charmed her back through the leafless willows by the Thames to the warmth of my chambers, and with wine on both our tongues as fuel on fire, I had her up against the wall in my chamber, tangled together in the tapestries, too desirous to even wait to get her to my bed.

  The consequences of such mad, illicit passion became quickly obvious. Within a few months, I received a letter, written on a tear-stained scrap of parchment, that Kate was with child. I cannot pretend I was not a little bit proud of myself for getting her pregnant in one coupling. With my small size and crooked back, I worried, as silly youths do, if everything else about me should work as God intended.

  It obviously did. Not that I need have worried about such matters. Around the same time, I also received news that I had fathered a base-born son in the north.

  Edward had laughed uproariously when he heard about both babes and smacked me on the shoulder so hard in some kind of male congratulatory rite, that I nearly fell on my face. “Ah, so my little brother is neither so little nor so monkish as I once thought him,” he teased, eyes twinkling with ribald mirth.

  “Little? Well, I’ve had no complaints,” I quipped, with mock seriousness.

  Edward had roared with even louder laughter; I imagined the whole household had heard my news. “Well, you’re doing better than George!” he chortled, staring pointedly at our brother, who at that time had not yet gone over to Warwick’s cause nor married Isabel Neville. “What’s the matter with you, George? Too much wine making you unable to…” He made a lewd gesture with his hand.

  Flame-faced, George had opened his mouth to make a screaming retort, but obviously thought better of bawling or swearing at our older brother, who also happened to be his king. Instead, he glared at me, crazy-eyed; it was, after all my fault I had made him the butt of a joke about his manhood…or lack thereof. “Fuck you, Richard,” he snarled and stormed from the chamber in a huff. Edward’s mirth followed him….

  Immediately after news of Kate’s pregnancy arrived, I did the honourable thing and put her mind to rest, writing to tell her that our child would bear the name of Plantagenet, and that I would provide for it as best I could when I had the funds to do so. (Despite what many think, young royal Dukes without rich wives were frequently penniless; I was no exception.)

  And once Katherine was born, I made a visit to Kate in the timber-framed house she inherited from her late husband, and was acquainted for the first time with my little daughter, and then became acquainted again with lovely, doe-eyed Kate in her stout bed with its carved panels and herb-fresh coverlets.

  So here I was back at Kate’s house again, after all my recent battles and trials, a real man now, a blooded soldier, looking at the child I made as she lay in the cradle I had ordered for her from the best artisans, with the initials K.P. carved amidst a tracery of roses, and thinking how bloody much I could truly have lost fighting for my brother’s kingdom…

  Kate had drifted in to Katherine’s nursery room to stand close behind me; I heard the faint rustle of her gown as she moved, the soft whisper of her breathing. She smelt clean, and of rose water. Leaning over, she placed her long white hand on my shoulder. “My Lord must be tired and ready for his bed.”

  I was so entranced by my little daughter, I mumbled unthinkingly, “I’m fine, Kate; I was weary but now that I’ve rested a bit…” then I realised, as she gave a little laugh, what she truly meant.

  I turned my head to her and our mouths met, hungry, asking, warm with wine. She had taken off her henin and her reddish-brown hair flowed down like silk. Kate did not shave her brows or forehead, as was the custom for many highborn ladies, but I liked her natural look; it suited her well. She began to unbutton my doublet, and likewise I tried to fiddle with the lacing on the back of her dress, but was not very good at it, one-handed…my wound had stiffened up and I could not reach as easily as normal.

  “Let us go upstairs,” she whispered to me.

  “The child?”

  “She’ll sleep. My servant Tilda is across the way, doing the washing. She will come right away if Katherine cries. She is as good as a nurse to her. She won’t disturb us; she knows you are here, and she approves.”

  “How lucky that I am approved of by a fat peasant woman,” I quipped.

  We stumbled up the stairs, hands hot upon each other, hardly able to draw breath for the passion of our kisses. Kate’s bedchamber was large and spacious; her dead husband had been reasonably wealthy, and her bed, bolster, and coverlets were of decent quality. The floor shone, clean of all rushes, and bowls of water for washing stood by the bed, and amidst the bed-covers lay bouquets of scented flowers to keep both air and bedding sweet.

  We fell onto the bed, she more skilled than I in the removal of my clothes.
“Turn around, my dear one,” I murmured, and she turned while I scrabbled clumsily at the laces on her back. How did women bear such confinement?

  Finally managing to free her from her gown, I gazed in awe as the brocade rustled to the floor, foaming green about her ankles; she was like some goddess in a myth, rising from the sea, naked and wonderful, her hair half-shielding her perfect breasts, half-showing me what I wanted to see.

  She laughed and the spell was broken; she was human Kate and she had realised that though my hose was down to mid-thigh, my boots were still on. She pointed. “Christ!” I cried, trying to kick them off to no avail. “These bloody things!”

  Kate laughed again and knelt before me, grasping hold of the boots and easing them from my feet. Watching her do so, naked and wanton, my heart pounded with desire. Then she was in my arms, sweet and rose-scented, drawing off my undershirt as she pressed me back against the bolster.

  And then she saw the wound from Barnet running from arm to ribs, red-edged and crusty as it slowly mended, it healing time lengthened by the over-usage of my arm these past weeks. “Oh Richard, what is this?” Kate cried. “You are hurt!” Tears suddenly sprang from her eyes and she hid her face against my belly.

  Slight annoyance rose in me; weeping rather spoiled the moment of passion. “It is fine, just a scratch given me by some Lancastrian at Barnet. A now-dead Lancastrian, I might add.” I tangled my hand in her free-flowing hair, gently drawing up her head so that she would gaze into my face. “Taking wounds is an occupational hazard of all soldiers.”

  “But you might have been killed!”

  “Mmm, but I wasn’t, was I? Now love me, you damn woman, and no more silly talk of wounds and death. I am aching for you…don’t torment me any longer.”