I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  Another oaf, drunk on ale within a rowdy tavern had sniped, “The Duke of Gloucester does not do enough for the City of York! When we ask for more assistance, he just stands and grins at us!”

  Grins at them! Hand upon my heart, I did not know what more this ungrateful churl wished me to do, when I had business away from York as well as within its walls. Lately duty often called me to the West Marches, of which Edward had made me Warden. The Scots were restive again, burning a village here, a hamlet there, and I rode up to the borders to patrol with the weather-beaten troops who guarded that bitter, bleak land.

  Other than a few skirmishes, no major incursions happened that year, but I had a feeling that the Scots were waiting….waiting for a time when they thought we were weak.

  Back in Middleham, it was wonderful to see the busy throng around the crosses in the market place, my college with its six priests and the bells ringing, women laying posies at St Alkelda’s well …and of course Anne and little Ned, who waited impatiently for my arrival within the castle walls..

  “Did you see any Scots?”

  I was sprawled in my large wooden bathtub, with a canopy drawn over it that held in the steam from the water that my squires, florid-faced and heaving, had hauled in great buckets up the castle stairs. The water had been scented and oils poured in, and a lump of soap of Castile, wadded with oatmeal and lavender, thrown in for my use.

  “Mm.” I sank into the warm water up to my chin. Anne had dismissed the squires, coming to look after me herself, since I had been gone a month and she wanted my homecoming to be pleasurable. When the lads left the chamber, she called her ladies to unbind her hair, letting it fall free past her hips like a waterfall. They also removed her heavy overdress, leaving her just in her thin kirtle, before departing themselves. “Yes, I saw one. Or two.”

  “What were they like?” she asked, fear and curiosity mingling in her voice.

  “Oh, huge, giants, half as tall as trees,” I told her, expression serious. “Great shocks of fiery hair and eyes like burning gledes. Teeth like a lion’s, massive bushy beards like flame. And that was just their women…”

  “You are teasing me, Dickon,” she said, pouting.

  “I am. They were men, Ann, like other men. They may not dress as we do, or have our ways, but they still act as men…and if they continue to harry our borders, they will die like men.”

  “Do you think they will invade?”

  “Sadly…aye. All he signs are there. The Scottish King and his brother are at odds and the land is filled with unrest. Edward believes Louis the Spider is convincing King James to break his truces with us.”

  Anne picked up a cloth and began to gently wipe my face, neck, and shoulders with it. “Will you be ready?”

  “As always.”

  “Will the King?”

  I was silent. At one time, I would have jumped to say yes. Now, I was not so sure. More rumours had come about Edward’s health, that he felt breathless and so big around the waist he found wearing his armour difficult and mounting a horse a hardship.

  Anne sighed. “I hope it does not happen. “If you had to fight them alone…”

  “If I have to, I will,” I said stalwartly. “I fear no Scots.”

  “Maybe you are too fearless, my love. You should not be overbold. Remember Margaret’s husband. Those terrible tales of his death; his head split by a bill, his body frozen in a pond and chewed by wolves, recognized only by….”

  “By his gnarled yellow toenails,” I finished waspishly. “I know the tale. He was a hothead, Anne.”

  “You have a Plantagenet temper.”

  “Mayhap I do. But still I have more of this…” I slapped my wet hand against the side of my head, “than Charles the Rash ever did.”

  “I just worry for you.” Anne sounded annoyed. “And for our son, who I would prefer not to raise without a father!”

  “Ah, Anne, let us not quarrel, not on our first night back together. You are glad I am home, are you not?”

  “Of course I am glad.” Her voice softened.

  “You have reminded me, though. Margaret will be visiting London soon. I must see her, though I much prefer being away from Ned’s court.”

  “Yes, you must go; you see your sister so rarely. She will expect your presence and so will the King.”

  “Call the boys to attend me. I want to get out of this tub.”

  “I will help you out myself; we don’t need them back. Tonight I will look after you as well as they. Better.” She glanced at me meaningfully from under lowered eyelashes. How long and curving those lashes looked against her cheek, while her hair coiled against that fair swan’s neck….

  My eyebrows rose at her boldness…and that was not all that did! I stretched my hand to my wife and she clasped it and, showering water, I climbed from the tub and stepped carefully down the small ladder placed at the side, careful not to slip. It would not do the dignity of Gloucester any good to end up on his bare buttocks on the cold flagstones!

  Anne threw a linen cloth around me, and in tandem, we endeavoured to rub my skin and hair until they were no longer dripping. “Ah, my kirtle, it is now all wet!” Anne exclaimed, glancing down at the damp patches dappling the front of her garment.

  “Take it off then,” I said.

  “Margaret!”

  “Richard!”

  I had not seen my sister since our brief meeting in France before the dishonourable Treaty of Picquigny was signed, and we greeted each other with kisses. She looked a little older in her widowhood, but had a stateliness that had grown with age.

  Her calm grey eyes raked over me. “You are looking well, little brother. I swear you have grown bigger since I saw you last, though I dare say that cannot be so.”

  “You said the same in St Omer too, Meg, but I am eternally short,” I grinned. “Is my height the only thing worthy of mention? If I have grown at all it is doubtless only about my middle.”

  Margaret looked doubtful. “You were, and are, as thin as a stick, Dickon. Do you never eat?”

  “I do! And drink! Fear not.”

  She leaned closed to me, raising her hand to her mouth in feigned shock. “I cannot believe it, though, Richard…the size of Edward! Surely, this weight can do him no good. Has Dr Hobbes spoken to him?”

  “Ned loves food…and wine…and women,” I said. “Nothing will ever change that. I, too, wish he would be more temperate, but he will listen to no man, be he physician, priest…or brother.”

  “I suppose a sister even less so, especially a wayward sister such as I,” sighed Margaret, and she stared down at the tiled floor. Instinctively I knew she thought of George, executed less than a year ago. Her favourite of all her siblings…. but, though I dared not say it, it was my belief she had fuelled the madness that led to George’s demise, stoking the unseemly fire in his brain with foolish thoughts of kingship. Why she would have acted so against Edward, I dared not ask. Edward had never done her ill as far as I knew. She was indeed fortunate that he was, at times, a forgiving ruler, and still welcomed her at court to spill out Burgundy’s woes with the Spider King and implore him for a firm English alliance with her adopted country.

  She glanced up again and steeled herself, the sorrow passing from her face. “Did you hear the latest from that dirty oaf, Louis? He has approached Edward through John Howard, offering to pay 15,000 a year extra in maintenance to young Bess before she finally marries the Dauphin! Another of his bribes, to keep our brother sweet…and to try and keep him from aiding Burgundy!”

  “Do you think Ned will be tempted?”

  “I pray not, but who knows? The Spider is very free with gifts and bribes. He is also free with threats; in his letter he said that if Edward failed him, he would instigate a rival treaty!” She stamped her foot, with its silver-buckled shoe. “He is so devious, Richard…and he is loose in my land! Even now, he seeks to lay siege to St Omer!”

  “Edward will do the right thing,” I said, hoping this was true, but my though
ts were full of the dishonour at Picquigny. 15,000 a year extra for Elizabeth was a very great sum.

  “Yes,” said Margaret thoughtfully. “Now, come let us go see our brother. I have brought wondrous gifts to please…books. I am enamoured of books, and I know Edward is collecting them. Are you interested too, my dearest young brother?”

  “Greatly. I have been to visit Master Caxton in his workshop at Red Pale.”

  “Then you will want to see what I have in my baggage.”

  Margaret charmed Edward, giving him many gifts, including rare and collectable books for his library. If he still felt any ire about her former support of George, he hid it well, and soon agreed to reject King Louis’s offer of extra maintenance money for Elizabeth, and instead make a treaty with Maximilian the Archduke of Austria. Maximilian, married to Margaret’s stepdaughter Mary (the heiress who wisely rejected both Clarence and Rivers), was to agree to the eventual marriage of his son Philip with Edward’s daughter, Anne of York, when she came of fitting age. This idea of this alliance pleased Margaret, for she treated Mary as a blood-daughter—and of course, the new treaty spat in the eye of France.

  “Oh, think how Louis will fume,” Margaret said cheerfully one night, after yet more dining and dancing. “I do love being a thorn in his side.”

  I said nothing. I was fearful of what retaliation the Spider King might take. He had held to the contract he had made with Edward on our disastrous French campaign…thus far. If he decided to renege, would Edward be able to move against him? The one light was that Louis’s health was poor; if we were lucky, he might die and leave a child-heir on the throne….

  “To think, Edward at one time entertained an idea that you might marry his daughter Joan! I’ve heard she is deformed! And could you imagine, having that creature as your father-in-law?”

  “I met Joan of France. At Amiens. Louis was dangling her before me then…but there wasn’t much to dangle. I pitied her.”

  “All Louis’ daughters have his huge nose, I’ve heard!” Margaret continued with merry and malicious spite. “And no doubt they are as slovenly and smelly as he is; he stunk of garlic and old cheese when we met!”

  “That they have his nose is true, at any rate,” I laughed.

  Margaret threaded her arm through mine. “I must go home very soon,” she said, and suddenly there was graveness to her tone. “Richard, if anything…untoward…should happen in England in the years to come, remember that I am your loving sister and will support the true House of York.”

  I gazed at her with some puzzlement. “I had no doubt of it, Lady.”

  “If for any reason you need me…”

  “I will remember.”

  “Good. Now dance with me, this last time, as a farewell, little brother. I remember you were always a good dancer as a boy.”

  “I still am.” The minstrels were striking up, and I led her onto the floor, uncaring that it looked strange with her height so great and mine so low. I was ever a good dancer, and although my back is crooked, my legs suffer no deformity, being quite long in relation to my body and well shaped. They looked well in my tight hosen and sometimes I can be as vain as Edward, who in his prime liked to display his fine body for all to admire him.

  When we were done, Margaret, breathless, drew me into a corner. “One more thing, Dickon. If ever you go to Tewkesbury again, light some candles in my name for dear, lost George, will you?”

  “I shall,” I promised, but half of me wanted to shout: You encouraged him, Margaret…you led him to believe he could be more than he could ever be! More than he was entitled to be. George as King! You both must have been possessed! Christ’s Blood, if it came to it, I would make a better King than…”

  A strange rush of emotion gripped me, a heat that ran from heart to head, a jolt of lightning. The wine, I must have had too much of Edward’s fine claret. “Christ Jesu, what am I thinking?” I murmured.

  “Farewell, Richard.” Meg was departing the hall, her ladies gathered around her in a bright cloud. The flames of the torches danced on her jewels, made her eyes glittering points of jet. One hand was raised in farewell…then she was gone into the night, and I was left alone, my heart thudding against my ribcage.

  “More wine, milord?” A decanter swayed before my face.

  “No. No more.” In haste, I rose and left the chamber, feeling only myself when I stood hidden in the corridor’s darkness, the raucous laughter of the court and the wheezing of the bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy fading into the distance like an unpleasant dream…

  Francis Lovell was sitting with his feet up in my solar at Middleham, talking to Anne as he drank my best claret. I had just walked in the door, cloak rain-speckled and hair windswept and tangled. “Frank! I did not know you were in the vicinity!”

  “I’ve been busy at Mottram and my other northern estates,” he said, “and now I am looking for a spot of hawking and hunting with my old friend Gloucester, if possible.”

  I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “I am delighted to see you, Frank,” I said…and meant it. It had been too long.

  “Something has arrived for you too, Richard,” said Anne. “A gift. It must have been sent from London just after your departure but somehow it arrived before you got home.”

  I frowned. This was unexpected. “Who is it from?”

  “You will scarce believe it. The Universal Spider!”

  “King Louis!” I yelped. “What can he want of me? What is this thing he has sent me? Where is it?”

  “Down in the armoury. I think you might well like it better than its sender.”

  Frank close by my side, I rushed to the armoury storeroom, the pair of us like excited boys instead of proud lords of the land. There, standing on the flagstones, was a stunning bombard, all gleaming polished iron, its bore gaping and ready for a cannonball.

  “I cannot believe he has sent this to me!” I cried, walking around the bombard and admiring it from all perspectives. Despite the sender being Louis, I fell instantly in love with it; a beautiful piece of artillery if there ever was one. I swept my hands over the polished metal, admiring and proprietary. “What can he possibly want from me?”

  “He is still trying to bribe you,” said Francis dryly. “He is working on the wrong assumption that you and the king are unfriends since the death of Clarence.”

  Anne had followed us down from the solar and was watching me in bemusement. “He sent a missive with his gift, husband. In your excitement, you ran off without waiting to read it.”

  I took the letter from her fingers and read it quickly. “To the most admirable and extraordinary man in England…mon cousin, the Duke of Gloucester. Use it well against your true enemies. Louis.”

  “Yes, it’s a bribe.” Francis nodded sagely. “He’s trying to say he’s not your true enemy and hopes you’ll throw in your lot with him against Burgundy. Against your own sister.”

  “He tried to get at Ned through offering added maintenance for young Bessy,” I said, “but Edward did not appreciate the veiled threats that went with the offer. He is firmly behind Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. Louis has wasted his time with Ned, and with me—yet again.”

  “Are you going to return it? Throw his gift back into his ugly face?”

  I stared at Francis, astounded. “Christ’s Nails, Lovell! No, I want it! Look at it, Frank! Perfect, should we need to go head to head with Louis’s old allies, the Scots.” I would have hugged that gleaming cannon if it had not been undignified to do so. “I will write to Louis and tell him how much I appreciate his gift. I do not want a lack of appropriate response to be regarded as churlish, and perhaps cause an incident.”

  Retiring to my private chamber, I sat at my desk and dictated a letter to John Kendall: “To my Lord King Louis of France. It is with great gratitude that I write to you from my castle of Middleham. Your gift has been received and brings me much pleasure. I assure you it will go towards the use you have suggested—against my true foes. All my days I have taken great pleasure
in modern artillery and I assure you this bombard will be a special treasure to me.”

  “He cannot complain about that response, surely,” I said, as I pressed my seal onto the letter to the French King.

  “It was impeccably polite, Richard, but he still won’t like it.”

  “Well, I could have said worse!” I gestured for some Rhenish White to be poured. Frank and I had both consumed a few too many glasses already.

  “If you could insult him openly, what would you say?”

  “Oh…that he dresses like a jester. And has a nose that would put a hawk’s beak to shame. And that his stables are cleaner than he is…”

  I began to laugh at my own jest, spluttering on my wine. Frank joined me. “Is it true, Dickon, that he bathes but once a year?”

  “Once a year!” I cried. “So often? Once a decade I’d wager by the smell!”

  “And his daughters are ugly?”

  “Could they be anything but with Louis as a father? Why do you ask, Frank? Do you want one?”

  We giggled conspiratorially, like naughty little boys. John Kendall headed out of the room bearing my missive to Louis, pretending to be serious…but his lip was quivering too and I could see his eyes watering.

  When he had departed, I looked drunkenly over at Francis, silly with wine and happiness. “I love that bombard. Shall we try it out tomorrow?”

  Over the next few days, Francis and I hunted and hawked on the moors and the dales as we did in our youth. Oh, yes, and we fired that bombard, my lovely gift from that unlovely ruler, Louis of France, whooping with childish glee as cannonballs shot out into the fields and the castle walls reverberated to explosive booms.

  “How is Lady Anna?” I asked Frank one afternoon as I sat on my steed, my hawk Gawain flapping on my gloved arm, the bells on its leg jingling noisily as it danced in anticipation of flight and the kill. I realised that in all these days I had not asked after his lady; a rather impolite oversight on my part.