I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  “No, no, of course you cannot. It is natural for any young man of standing to desire as many lands as he can gather. I will write to George tonight. Tell him that he is not to block your suit. Maybe the letter will reach him when he is sober and more willing to see sense. I doubt it, though. George is seldom sober.”

  “My deepest thanks, your Grace.” I kissed Ned’s hand, feeling a sense of relief knowing Edward was indeed behind me in this matter.

  Ned patted me on the shoulder with brotherly affection. “Give the girl a kiss from me,” he said cheerily.

  I returned to L’Erber several days later, having given George time to digest the contents of Edward’s letter. Filled with burgeoning confidence, I approached the gates of the great townhouse, dressed in my best doublet and bonnet for making my suit to Anne.

  Once again, as I walked towards the door, George and his henchmen burst from hiding, bristling with weapons. They appeared to have been waiting for me. I suppose George must have had his own spies out in force. He was even more drunk than the first time, and his thuggish supporters every bit as threatening.

  “Get you gone from my doorstep, Richard!” George shrieked like some quayside fishwife. I wrinkled my face in disgust as I saw wine stains dappling his doublet. “There is nothing for you here!”

  My face became stone. “I presume you read the letter from the King?” I asked coldly.

  “Yes, I did indeed, you miserable, tittle-tattling little bastard! And I have heeded it. If Anne is not to be my ward, in my care and under my jurisdiction, so be it. The wench will not be in my house, either.”

  My heart lurched. “Where is she, George? What have you done with her?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know where she is; it’s nothing to do with me anymore. You find her…if you can!”

  “You bloody…sotted turd!” Incandescent with rage, I took a swing at him; his men started to draw their weapons while mine grabbed me by the arms and dragged me bodily away from the door.

  “If anything has happened to her, I will bloody have your head, George!” I yelled, as my brother retreated into his house and slammed the door of l’Erber in my face yet again.

  Furious, I stormed back out into the street, weaving in and out amidst trundling carts, the bawds in their striped hoods, the hawkers with coarse voices out selling cheap wares. Revolting odours of rank meat pies and the fishy scent of eel tarts assailed my nostrils, making me feel like vomiting into the gutter. My breath railed in and out of my lungs; I must have seemed a lunatic, possessed of some evil spirit.

  By the Bones of Christ, where was Anne? London was huge, London was dangerous, especially for a young girl of good birth out on her own with no one to protect her.

  I had to find her. I had to find her soon….

  I sent out spies that afternoon, and anyone else I could persuade to help me in my search. Angrily I wrote to Edward, setting forth my newest complaint against George. I disguised myself in plain clothes and a hood, and walked alone in parts of London where no man or woman of good repute should go; I thought it would be George’s idea of vengeance to have Anne locked away in such a place. But surely even George would not do that to his wife’s sister. Surely.

  Weeks went by. There was no sign of Anne. No sightings, no news. I could not sleep, tossed all night until the bleached linen sheets were a-tangle, woke foul-tempered and with black hollows beneath my eyes. Edward confronted George, but he then pretended Anne had left l’Erber of her own accord; and what could Edward do—arrest him, torture him for the truth? I truly felt like torturing him, especially since I had begged Edward for clemency toward him after he came to regret his foolish stint as Warwick’s pawn.

  Then one day a blacksmith working in the stables asked to have an audience with me. He was brought to my chamber all in a panic of excitement. There was a rumour. He had seen a girl. A girl who seemed oddly out of place, working in the kitchens of a tavern called ‘The Bear.’ The Bear! Could that be George’s idea of a macabre joke, since Anne’s arms bore the Bear and Ragged Staff of Warwick?

  “Tell me of this girl? What do you know?” I had to restrain myself from reaching out and shaking him in my urgency to hear his story.

  “I saw her there, milord, scouring the pots,” said the stable hand. “Her hands looked too little, too white, for a tavern wench and she didn’t seem to know how to clean the pots real well. Her fellows rebuked her, but one of the kinder ones said, ‘I don’t think she’s scoured a pot in ‘er life, she came here with ‘is lordship after all’ and then her fellows all shushed her as though she had spouted the biggest secret in the world. With that, they hustled the little pale girl out of my view.”

  Rising from my chair so quickly it almost overturned, I snatched up my cloak and sword and called for men to attend me, and for my horse to be made ready. “Give this fellow a reward!” I ordered my secretary, nodding briskly toward the stable hand, even though I knew it might well be money paid in vain. So grateful was I for any possible news, I cared nothing for that. I saw the man’s hand go out for his pay as I swept out of the room.

  The Bear was an evil-looking, ramshackle tavern sandwiched between two derelict houses near the banks of the Thames. The smell of gutters and rotting God-knows-what in the river was overwhelming; the air was so thick with noxious vapours I could have sliced it with my dagger. The tavern sign creaked in the rising wind; a brown bear, chained. I presumed at one time bear-baiting had taken place there, but the tavern looked too poor to hold such sport now.

  I wasted no time with niceties. Leaping from my horse’s back, I hurled the tavern door wide open and charged into the smoky common room without waiting for my guards. Inside, a gaggle of oafs sat on benches, belching and farting and swilling beer from grimy tankards. It was foolhardy to have entered before my armed escort had even dismounted, but the fire was red-hot in me and I was not thinking straight.

  “Who the hell are you?” screeched a fat old man with a bald head shining with grease. I guessed he was the taverner; he held a grimy platter in his hand, wiping half-heartedly at it with a rag. “How dare you come barging in, disturbing my patrons?”

  “I am the Duke of Gloucester!” I shouted. “Answer me this…where is the girl?”

  The man’s eyes bulged as he spotted the jewelled boar pendant on my chain of office, and his visage turned puce. His terrified expression told me all I needed to know.

  “Where is she?” I demanded again, as my men burst into the room, weapons drawn.

  “I don’t know what you mean!” the taverner protested weakly, looking near to swooning. One of the churls squatting on a bench gave a menacing grunt and tried to rise, but in his inebriated state he fell over backwards onto the flagstones and split his head. Someone shrieked loudly, and in the dim passage that led to the kitchens there was scurrying and scuffling, like so many fleeing rats.

  I dared not let any of these tavern folk leave; what if they dragged Anne out to a barge on the river? “Don’t anyone move!” I snarled, drawing my sword with a flash. “Men, search this place from top to bottom, and let no one go forth without my permission!”

  “My Lord!” The tavern-keeper dropped his platter and fell on his fat knees in front of me. “It wasn’t my fault. My Lord of Clarence forced me to do it. I had no choice!”

  “Shut up!” I hurled him out of the way, as I scrambled for the back of the tavern.

  Two of my men flanking me for protection, I burst into the kitchen, skidding on a puddle of grease on the floor. It was empty, abandoned—save for an old, one-eyed cat and a rancid brew bubbling in a cauldron hung over a fire. The cat leapt up, spitting, and sprang out through the open window.

  No Anne, no Anne…desperation made the blood thud in my brain.

  Leaving the kitchen, I thundered up a nearby flight of stairs, feeling them sway beneath my boots, the mouldering wood near to disintegration. On the landing above, a cluster of tavern maids clung to each other and let out a collective scream as I appeared, sword in
hand.

  Their terror brought me to my senses and I halted, lowering my blade. “Do not worry, I am a knight, I will not harm you. I seek a girl who has only of late started working here. Anne, her name is Anne…”

  “We have a new girl….Master Cooper told us to call ‘er Nan,” one of the wenches admitted, a blowsy creature with flushed cheeks like round red apples. Wormy apples; she’d had the pox and her skin was pitted with scars. “She ain’t very good at her job.” She pointed to a closed door behind her. “When you came in and there was shouting, Mistress Griselda told us she was putting Nan in the back room. What’s she done, my lord…killed someone?”

  “Be silent, you chattering chit,” I snapped, not in the mood to listen to her nonsense. Impatiently I motioned the tavern wenches aside and reached for the door, which I found to be barred from the other side.

  I thudded on the door’s worm-eaten surface with my gloved fist. “Open up!” I yelled, while the serving girls set up another bout of terrified shrieking. My men were thundering up the stairs now, following on behind me and causing more squealing and wailing from the women.

  I gestured to one burly soldier with shoulders as broad as those of a bull. “Knock down that door!”

  The soldier flung himself at the door once, twice, thrice, roaring like the bull he resembled as he put all his energy into his assault. Green, damp wood bent, buckled beneath his weight, then splintered. The broken door crashed inwards, and I raced headlong into the garret room atop The Bear.

  First thing I saw was a wretched crone, missing her front teeth and with straggling hair under a filthy cap. The ‘Mistress Griselda’ mentioned by the jabbering tavern wench. She glared at me in fear and outrage, then spat a foul gobbet in my direction. I leapt aside to avoid the noisome spittle and she thrust past me and fled down the stairs.

  I cared nothing for Mistress Griselda; she could flee to Hell for all I cared. For there, huddled in the corner on a grubby pallet, wearing a cap that hid her long tresses and a rough grey dress like that of a penitent, was Anne, my Anne, her little hands all red and rubbed raw to the wrist, dirt smudges on her drained cheeks. She looked older than I remembered; but that was only natural. Although still very young, Anne was now a woman, not a girl. Hard times and sorrow had dogged her these past months; I could see their shadows etched upon her face. Her fair, oval face, pale as snowdrops.

  I heard her gasp when she saw me; she clambered unsteadily to her feet and pulled the grimy cap from her head. Her waist-length fell down; it was greasy and snarled but as the light through the narrow window-slit struck it, it shone like burnished gold. “Richard!”

  In my head I had planned it all out; what I should say to her when I found her, what I would do. None of it happened. I found I could not utter a word. I did not know quite what had come over me, after all my shouting and sword waving in the common room.

  I will be honest, Anne did not inflame me with lust in the manner of Kate, whose slightest touch or sultry glance always led to ardent bed-sports, nor did she have Alice’s open earthiness and practicality, her love with no shame….But there was something that bound me to Anne…

  With Anne, I wanted to protect her as well as bed her, to know her thoughts as well as her body. I wanted her not just within my bed, but also within my household, always at my side. I had seen Anne’s calm steadfastness even as a child, and knew her quality. She was Warwick’s daughter, proud and full of grace like her name. Her lands were important to me, certainly; but I wanted to marry her.

  I lifted my arms slightly and then Anne was in them. I am a short man and she of much the same height as me, our bodies fitting together as if they had ever meant to be thus. She buried her face in my doublet, holding on to me desperately, as if she thought I was a spectre and might vanish in an eye’s blink.

  “Dickon, Dickon…” she called me by my childhood name. “I cannot believe you are here!”

  “Are you unharmed, Anne?” I folded her under my cloak; she was shivering. The feel of her slender body so close to mine made me want to kiss her again, and more than that, if I am honest…but I knew the time for such dalliance was not then. I did not even know her true feelings towards her; she seemed glad enough to see me, but what maid would not, if rescued from forced labour in such a hovel? She had been Edward of Westminster’s wife; she was Dowager Princess of Wales for all that we spoke informally to each other, like the children we had been long ago at Middleham castle. I had no idea how it had been between them; maybe she had loved him; maybe she even saw me as one of his killers, though he had fallen in plain battle. “Tell me, my lady, did any of these miscreants harm you?”

  She lifted her head from my chest, shook it. “No. They are rough folk, but not unduly cruel. I was fed daily and never beaten. More than these uncouth souls, it is George, I hate…bloody George of Clarence! Why did Isabel ever marry him?”

  She paused, reddening, and gazed apprehensively at me as if I might be angered by the insults to my older brother.

  “Fear not, I am not enamoured of George either,” I murmured dryly.

  “And Isabel, my own sister, let him do this to me without a protest! What a useless milksop she has become! I cannot believe she meekly went along with his vile plans”

  “Do not be over-hard on her. George is overbearing and full of ill-temper.”

  Anne’s eyes darkened. “He tried to force me to be a nun, you know. A nun! So that he and Ib could claim all of father and mother’s lands and leave me out! When I refused, he packed me off here to punish me.”

  Ah, so George had not told her of my visits, or of the King’s letter. “Did you know that I tried to come and see you, Anne?” I asked softly.

  She shook her head.

  Down below, in the common room, I heard men shouting and the scuffling of feet. The locals my guards had rounded up were becoming restive, wondering why they were still being held. Glancing out the window, I saw ruffians thronging the street, aware something unusual was going on at The Bear. We needed to make our escape before things got out of hand.

  “Anne, take my arm. I am going to bear you away to safety. Stay by my side, in case the taverner or his servants try to stop us.”

  We descended the stairs, Anne clutching my left arm, while I carried my unsheathed sword in my right hand. I gestured for my soldiers to surround us, and we moved deftly across the common room, out the door and into the street, where the rest of my party waited with the horses.

  I mounted my steed, lifted Anne lightly on to the back of another. “Come, let us make haste,” I ordered, as I saw glowering faces in the road and heard the sound of angry murmurs. “We need to get away from this place fast…”

  Bloodied by the red dusk, my escort cantered through the streets of London. Occasionally rogues shouted at us or even took a run at the horses; we smacked them aside with the flats of our blades. Lanterns and torches glowed, dim blobs in the odorous mist curling up from the river.

  Anne was unusually silent. Suddenly she glanced over at me, her face serious, white as whey. “Richard, I beg you…what are you going to do with me?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  I detected a note of fear in her query, and it twisted a knife in me to hear that tone in her voice. Anne, afraid of me, when I wanted only to protect her. Anne, who I would never hurt.

  I gazed back at her, riding steadfastly on her palfrey, and the cause of her consternation dawned on me. Willing or not, Anne had entered into matrimony with Edward of Westminster; her duty as a daughter was to obey the will of her parents in the matter of marriage. But she had learned too that she was her father’s pawn; and that even those you cared for might force you to deeds that would further their own causes. She feared I would be as unscrupulous as Warwick. It was not unknown for an unprincipled man to capture a rich heiress and in an attempt to have both the woman and her lands, ravish her against her will, then force her in shame to the altar. Such forced marriages were frowned upon by the church and by society, and could
be contested by the woman or her kin, but they still happened on occasion.

  “Anne, you must not fear,” I said. “I am taking you to safety. I am taking you to sanctuary at the Church of St Martin-le-Grand.”

  I saw her tense shoulders sag with relief. It hurt me to watch and I turned my face away.

  Up ahead, the road veered toward Aldergate. Soon I could see the monastic buildings of St Martin’s through the haze; the great tower with the mist wrapping cold grey fingers around it. St Martin’s was famed for its sanctuary, which was not necessarily a good thing; some seventy years ago it bore a reputation for sheltering hardened criminals—murderers, forgers, and thieves who stole their master’s wealth then lived on it while under the church’s protection. Even the King could not touch them; criminals removed by force were always brought back unpunished. In 1452, the Sheriffs dragged out William Oldhall, speaker of the House of Commons, who had supported my father, the Duke of York; Oldhall had been attainted and named an outlaw. However, the King could not touch him; he was soon returned to the monks’ stronghold unharmed.

  And that was why I wanted Anne safe within those walls. George could not touch her there, and, if, God forbid, Edward should ever heed George’s whining and change his mind about permitting me to seek her hand, even he could not take her away by force.

  The gate of the abbey loomed, its statues of saints dim and cowled in the night-fog. Dismounting my horse, I rang the bell that hung over the door, once, twice. A small panel shot open in the door and a pair of rheumy eyes glared out. “What is your need?” asked a muffled voice.

  “I come bringing a lady who would seek sanctuary within St Martin’s,” I informed him. “A great Lady of high status. I would not say her name here upon the open street, but she will speak herself to the Dean and tell him what she requires.”

  The eyes vanished and the panel snapped shut. A moment later, the gate began to creak open. A burly monk, built more like a soldier than a religious man, stood in the entrance. As if by rote, he intoned the list of rules for the sanctuary, which had curbed the tendency for utter rogues to be harboured there: “I bid you welcome to St Martin’s. All who seek refuge here must be registered by the Dean; no weapons shall be permitted within the premises; no known criminals shall be allowed to come and go; stolen goods will be removed if their owners come seeking them; counterfeiters will be turned away; and vice will not be countenanced.”