Sacrifice

by David Pilling

  He had been at York when the news of Edward IV’s premature death arrived, and travelled south in the duke’s retinue. At Northampton and Stony Stratford he witnessed, though played no part in, the arrests of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey. Geoffrey had hoped to escort the prisoners to Pontefract – well away from the crucible of London – but Gloucester chose a lesser knight for the role.

  “I could not afford to send you north,” Gloucester told him, “I need you at my side in London, where true friends are in short supply.”

  Now he found himself on the council, appointed to discuss arrangements for Edward V’s coronation at the end of June. The young king was originally supposed to have been crowned in May, but had arrived in London too late.

  Geoffrey clenched his fists to stop them trembling. It was a hot summer’s morning, and the air in the chamber was close and stuffy. At least the heat helped to explain the perspiration on his brow.

  “You look ill, Sir Geoffrey,” remarked Bishop Morton, seated to Geoffrey’s left, “or perhaps you suffer from an excess of last night’s wine?”

  Geoffrey returned the bishop’s gentle smile with a forced chuckle. Morton was in his sixties, a compact, square-faced man with a thinning grey tonsure and an agile mind. Intelligent, learned and ambitious, he missed nothing, and would soon detect any anxiety.

  It was vital he didn’t. Fortunately, Geoffrey was an accomplished play-actor. “It’s the heat,” he replied with one of his lazy smiles, “I have spent too long in the north. The cold air up there suits me.”

  Morton didn’t press the issue, and for a while they sat and talked of light matters. The bishop was clearly distracted, and conversation elsewhere at the table was stilted. All were waiting for the arrival of the Protector.

  Presently there came the sound of footsteps, and the heavy timbered door swung open. Two burly halberdiers wearing Gloucester’s livery marched in, followed by the slight, compact figure of their master.

  Gloucester was dressed all in black, and looked thin and pale, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

  “Apologies, my lords,” he said, stifling a yawn, “I was up until past two of the clock last night, and late in rising.”

  There was a murmur of greeting from the table. Lord Stanley, Geoffrey noticed, said nothing. Nor did the aged Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York.

  Geoffrey swallowed hard, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and glanced at the second door to the chamber. This one led to a small, disused room, and was usually kept locked. It wasn’t locked today.

  Despite his weariness, Gloucester was in good spirits, and seemed reluctant for the meeting to start in earnest.

  “Let us have some more wine, in Heaven’s name,” he cried, signalling to a page, “if we must discuss dry matters, let us not do it with dry throats.”

  His eye fell on Morton. “Your Grace, I have heard good things of the fruit you grow in your gardens at Holborn. Might we have a basket of strawberries to go with the wine?”

  Morton looked surprised, but it was a harmless enough request. “I will find a servant to fetch them, my lord,” he replied, rising stiffly from his chair.

  Gloucester smiled, and clapped the bishop on the shoulder as he went.

  “Well, then,” said the duke, “I see no reason to begin until the victuals arrive. Pray spare me a little while longer, my lords.”

  He turned and hurried out, leaving anger and confusion behind him.

  “What in God’s name is he about?” demanded Stanley, “I thought the duke was a man of business. Here we sit, with the city in ferment and cries of treason ringing through the streets, and he treats the affair like a holiday.”

  Rotherham murmured in agreement, but others cried no, the duke had everything firmly under control.

  Geoffrey knew that for a lie. London trembled on the verge of a precipice. Richard’s assumption of the Protectorship provided an illusion of power and stability, but no more.

  As soon as word had reached the capital of the arrest of Rivers, the Woodvilles panicked and fled. The bravest of them, Sir Edward Woodville, prowled the Channel with a hired fleet, like a common pirate. Sir Thomas Grey, the Queen’s eldest son by her first marriage and Marquess of Dorset, had gone to ground, and was being hunted through the countryside by soldiers with dogs.

  The Queen herself had fled to sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, taking her daughters and younger son, Richard, Duke of York. Armed gangs stalked the streets, some of them claiming to be for Gloucester, others for Queen Elizabeth. Most were neither, mere criminals taking advantage of the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty to indulge in a little wanton violence.

  Geoffrey shuddered. The tension in the capital was almost palpable. At least the king was safe, lodged in the Tower and surrounded by the Protector’s servants and guards.

  After Gloucester, the most important man in London was William Hastings, the Lord Chamberlain. Geoffrey found it difficult to gauge Hasting’s mood. Now in his fifties, stout and balding, the old Yorkist mainstay said little, but listened to the others talk and argue with an inscrutable expression on his blunt, jowly features.

  It was Hastings who sent letters to Richard at York after the old king’s death, warning him of the Woodville plot to seize power. It was Hastings who persuaded the council, in the first shock of the news of Rivers’ arrest, that Richard’s actions were justified. Hastings was Richard’s friend.

  Geoffrey glanced at the second door again. He was still sweating, and badly needed to piss, but his instructions were to remain seated.

  Strawberries! The duke made no mention of Morton’s damned strawberries. It is too much. He is taking too long. We shall be discovered. God help me, I am like to wet myself.

  Incredibly, Gloucester kept them waiting for another hour. Morton returned in that time, along with a servant carrying the requested basket of strawberries.

  The servant passed them out among the councillors. Geoffrey had no appetite, but was obliged to play his part, and managed to choke one down.

  At last the trial of his nerve and bladder control ended. Gloucester strode back into the chamber, again preceded by his halberdiers. Six more armed retainers were at his back, and spread out to stand either side of him.

  The duke’s cheerful manner had evaporated. His sallow features were contorted with fury, and his entire frame shook, like a man in the grip of a high fever. Spittle bubbled at the corners of his mouth as he roared in wordless rage and pounded his fist on the table, overturning the basket and spilling the remaining strawberries onto the floor.

  “Tell me, my lords,” he screamed, “what should they have, those who wish for and plot my destruction – I, who am close in blood to the king, the Protector of his royal person and realm?”

  The councillors gaped at him, and at each other, but none made any reply. Lord Stanley started to speak, but thought better of it.

  Only Geoffrey knew that Gloucester was play-acting. The duke was an angry man, true enough, and believed himself the target of a conspiracy. However, this show of rage was just that: a show, with lines and movements rehearsed beforehand.

  Lord Hastings cleared his throat. “Truly, my lord,” he ventured, “they should be punished as traitors, whoever they are.”

  Gloucester’s stare could have melted stone. “You say as much,” he hissed, “you, who are so sunk in these same treasons? Who have conspired with the Queen to unseat me, and have me done to death? Do you deny it?”

  Hastings looked utterly astonished, as well he might. His eyes bulged, and his lips worked soundlessly, groping for a reply. “M…my lord,” he croaked, “I…but…”

  “Will you trade ifs and buts with me, you accursed villain? I know, my lord. I know of your secret meetings with Lord Stanley, and Morton, and Rotherham, and how you used that whore Mistress Shore to carry your treasonable messages. I know all of it. Do you understand? All!”

  The word ‘all’ was the signal. Geoffrey scraped back his chair, and a moment later the second door flew
open.

  Armed men flooded into the room, led by Thomas Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, and two of Gloucester’s trusted northerners, Charles Pilkington and Robert Harrington. They had hidden away before the councillors arrived, waiting for their master’s summons.

  “Treason!” they shouted, “treason!”

  Rotherham tried to stand, to protest, but Howard placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and forced him back down. Stanley head-butted the first soldier who tried to seize his arm, and threw himself at two more. During the brief scuffle that followed, he suffered a cut to the cheek and was hurled to the floor. Pilkington knelt on the bellowing nobleman’s back and pressed his face against the cold stone of the floor.

  Geoffrey drew his dagger and held it against Morton’s neck. There was little need. The bishop sat still as a statue, hands folded on his lap, apparently unperturbed. His hard little grey eyes betrayed no sign of fear.

  They glanced down to the blade at his throat. “Either use that thing on me, or take it away,” he murmured. Embarrassed, Geoffrey lowered his weapon.

  A strange calm fell over the chamber. Howard held Rotherham, Pilkington held Stanley, no-one had laid hands on Hastings, and all eyes turned to the diminutive figure in black at the head of the table.

  Gloucester folded his arms. “Now,” he said, “will you confess your crimes, traitor, before you are shriven and taken out to die? By Saint Paul, I will not sit down to dinner until your head is off!”

  Harrington and three of his men had taken up position behind Hastings’ chair. They stood with their hands on their swords, ready to spring if he tried to escape.

  He didn’t move. Like Morton, he had remained perfectly still during the brief scuffle.

  His time has come,thought Geoffrey, and he knows it.

  “I will say this, my lord,” Hastings replied calmly, “upon my honour as a knight, I have committed no treason. It is true, I have sometimes visited the houses of these other men, or invited them to mine. We spoke of our concerns. Your name was often mentioned. But we never spoke treason. Discontent, perhaps, but never treason. As for Mistress Shore, I have never used her as a messenger. I beg you, let her be. She is entirely innocent.”

  His words had the uncomfortable ring of truth. Geoffrey was privy to some of Gloucester’s secrets, and knew the duke had employed spies in London to watch the movements of Hastings and the others who stood accused. They brought back vague reports of clandestine meetings at night, but nothing of what was actually said.

  There was no evidence against Jane Shore. She was the daughter of a prosperous merchant, and had risen to prominence by sharing the beds of certain high-born men, including the late Edward IV, the Marquess of Dorset and Hastings.

  Gloucester, who hated loose morals and the depravity of his late brother’s court, harboured a personal dislike of Shore. It was for her shamelessly lewd conduct, Geoffrey suspected, that Gloucester meant to charge her with treason.

  “Your honour is dung, my lord,” Gloucester sneered, “and shall be treated with the appropriate respect. Sir Geoffrey, take him outside. The rest shall be consigned to prison, to await further judgment.”

  Geoffrey nodded at Harrington, who stepped forward to lay his mailed hand on Hastings’ shoulder. The Chamberlain heaved a deep sigh, closed his eyes briefly, and then rose to his feet.

  “So be it,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on Gloucester, “so it begins, my lord. How many more heads will roll before you feel secure?”

  Gloucester scowled and said nothing. He stepped aside to allow the little procession to pass, with Geoffrey in the lead. Fresh curses flowed from Stanley’s mouth as Pilkington dragged him off the floor. Morton and Rotherham, in respect of their age and clerical office, were treated rather more gently, and offered no resistance as the guards ushered them away to prison.

  Hastings was taken down a short flight of stairs, to the little green beside the chapel within the Tower.

  All was ready for him. A soldier in Gloucester’s livery stood with a battle-axe beside a log on the middle of the green.

  There was also a priest, a skinny, nervous little creature with pop eyes and an abnormally large Adam’s Apple. His yellow hands shook as he clutched a small leather-bound Bible to his chest.

  “My lord of Gloucester has thought of everything,” Hastings remarked drily. Geoffrey helped him to remove his chain of office and heavy fur-lined robe.

  “At least it is a warm day,” Hastings added, “no man will be able to say I trembled before the axe.”

  Geoffrey thought he displayed incredible fortitude for one about to be judicially murdered, and resented him for it. He resented all such displays of courage, knowing himself incapable of them.

  “Shrive him, and be quick about it,” he ordered the priest, who almost dropped his Bible in the haste to obey.

  Hastings confessed to being a sinful man, and an innocent one. “I never uttered treason or conspired against the Protector, still less against my dear lord and king, King Edward V, God save him. God, I suspect, will need to be active on His Majesty’s behalf in these coming days.”

  He looked meaningfully at Geoffrey, who ignored it. To entertain such suspicions, to even think of them, was to risk death.

  “My lord,” said Geoffrey, “you must kneel, and place your head on the block.”

  Hastings duly knelt. Once an athletic figure, his body had thickened with age and debauchery, and the flabby curve of his paunch was visible below his shirt. His grey hair was thin and greasy, and there was a spreading bald spot on the back of his head. A shabby and pitiful figure, saved by the calm dignity with which he confronted death.

  “Sir Geoffrey Malvern,” he said softly, as though seeing Geoffrey for the first time, “I mind the first time we met, after the fight at Northampton. You came into the Earl of Warwick’s pavilion, with the blood of many a Lancastrian knight on your sword. That was a great day. I have been fortunate to witness many great days.”

  Geoffrey had heard enough. He signalled at the headsman to stand back a little, and bent down to whisper into Hastings’ ear.

  “The truth is, my lord, I hid under a gun-carriage at Northampton until the battle was over. The blood on my sword was from a corpse. I am a coward, a liar and a murderer, and have always profited from the deeds of better men. Lay down your head, my lord Hastings, and go to your rest.”

  Twin spots of colour appeared in Hastings’ pale cheeks, and he glanced up at Geoffrey with genuine shock in his eyes.

  “There,” said Geoffrey, delighted by his reaction, “I wager you thought this day could bring no more surprises, eh?”

  He stepped back, grinning, and gestured at the soldiers to do their work. They seized Hastings’ neck and forced it down onto the block.

  His lips were about to mouth a final curse when the axe fell and ended his troubles forever.

  Chapter 6

  The Tower, 22ndJune 1483

  Richard was alone in his chamber. He stood in front of a gilded mirror mounted on the wall and studied his reflection with disgust.

  The runt of the litter, Father called me.

  His father, the old Duke of York, had meant it in jest, but young Richard took it ill. He had been a serious child, painfully aware of his physical inadequacies compared to his big, healthy, vigorous brothers.

  Decades later, his father and brothers all lay quiet in their graves, but the mirror showed the same flaws. Richard’s lack of height, pale complexion, twisted spine, mismatched shoulders. His weak, almost feminine build, so unbecoming in a warrior.

  Richard staved off the inevitable onslaught of self-loathing and melancholy with bravado. “The runt is the head of the litter now, father,” he said aloud.

  His words met with silence. There was a dull, persistent ache in his skull. It had been there for weeks, ever since he received news of Edward’s death. On some days it was tolerable, others (especially if he had slept badly) it was like red-hot needles stabbing against the back of his eyeballs. />
  If only I could sleep a whole night. All I get now is an hour or two. Sometimes, not even that.

  He suspected Jane Shore, that accursed whore and notorious witch, of placing a spell on him. It was thanks to her black arts that he couldn’t sleep. The pain in his head could only be caused by her making a wax image of him and driving a needle into it. An old piece of dark magic, but effective.

  His efforts to punish Shore, to shame her before the world, had proved a disappointment. Soon after the execution of Hastings, he had forced her to walk barefoot in her petticoat through Saint Paul’s, carrying a lighted taper and singing hymns.

  Richard had hoped the crowds would greet the whore with the disgust and loathing she deserved, and pelt her with missiles. Instead the vile woman turned the situation to her advantage. Though almost forty, she was still attractive, and struck onlookers dumb with her show of meekness and humility.

  Well, be damned to her. I placed her in Ludgate prison, where she may think long on her sins.

  Richard had more pressing concerns than the fate of Jane Shore. Even as he stared at his reflection, a man named Ralph Shaw was preaching a sermon from the rostrum at Saint Paul’s Cross, to a packed audience of Londoners.

  Shaw was an eminent doctor of theology, a Cambridge man, learned and erudite. He had been commissioned to set forth Richard’s claim to the throne of England.

  Buckingham’s voice echoed inside Richard’s mind: insinuating, mellifluous, persuasive.

  “The King will never forgive us for what happened to Rivers. Edward loved him.”

  “Edward is still a boy,” Richard had replied, “time will heal his hurts. It always does.”

  He spoke without much conviction. Inside, he knew Buckingham was right. Edward was too much his father’s son to ever forgive or forget an injury.

  Perhaps I should have kept Rivers alive. Not the others, just him. At least until I could persuade Edward of his guilt.

  He chided himself. It was no use wishing away the past. Rivers, Grey, Vaughan and Sir Thomas Haute, another of their adherents, were all dead. The order to kill them had gone north just days after the death of Hastings. Unlike Hastings, they got a form of trial, with the Earl of Northumberland presiding as judge.