“I know. That’s very near where … very near us. If they heard anything?”
“We must do it quietly, then.”
Sir John Fogg pushed softly past Lord Anthony’s shoulder. The light from inside the lodging showed up his face with the disproportionate cheekbones and the glistening lips. He said in a wet whisper:
“Have you a sword?”
“Here,” said Richard Hawte, who was himself girt with one. He stepped back into the narrow lobby and brought out an unsheathed two-handed sword; passed it over. “I sharpened it.”
“Good,” said Sir John Fogg. He tucked the blade under his arm as a schoolmaster would his ferrula; tapped Lord Anthony gently. “Time we were moving, sir: not long to waste.”
“The sooner the better,” said Lord Anthony, swallowing. Why the devil isn’t there a sheath to that sword, he thought: carrying a naked blade like that, advertising our purpose to everyone. I argued for it this morning against them all, and now don’t like it: the craziness of what we wish and what we get, contradiction; Fortune always wrying the opposite way from us at the last minute.
A warder challenged them at the foot of the Wakefield Tower. Richard Hawte stood in front of him and said calmly:
“Bring your fellows down here to me, everyone out of the tower, quickly; and make no noise.”
The man’s eyes showed in the moonlight. He went up the tiny staircase, and there was a wait. Lord Anthony’s silk-sheathed legs began to quiver. Then broad shoulders of men bobbed out of the narrow doorway, one behind another.
“Now your keys,” said Hawte softly.
Something jingled and was given him by someone. Lord Anthony had turned to look at the White Tower again, not meaning any of them to recognise his face. Footsteps went away quietly, the men not talking. Hawte’s voice said:
“They are gone now, my Lord.”
This is the way, thought Lord Anthony, up this dark stairway, with the King’s permission, so that no one may question us, so that all England must keep its mouth shut. This is our safety, mine, Elizabeth’s, all our house who are secure only in the King’s security. He found he was at the top of the stairs and before a door.
“Remember,” he told Sir John Fogg, “not till I say.”
Hawte’s face, in the light of the spitting and stinking flambeau at the stairhead, worked obscurely. He licked his lips.
“You’ll be rewarded for this,” said Lord Anthony.
“I’m in your hands, sir,” said the Chief Warder, and unlocked the door.
The room was very simply furnished, and only a rush-light, doubled up so that both ends burned, showed the plain table, the buffet with a pottle of wine and pitcher of water beside a wooden cup, and the low truckle-bed. Some books stood on a small clothes-chest in the window alcove, and opposite was the arch, contrived in the thickness of the wall, of a little oratory. This was well furnished. Gospels and Missal, their illuminated pages showing in the poor light as puddles of colour, were open on the cushioned prie-dieu, and above them, in painted alabaster, Christ bled between the two Marys, who held up folded, resigned hands, whilst on the one side God, the bearded Father, received the corpse into his lap, and on the other the Holy Ghost, a golden dove, swooped down upon the twelve Apostles. Candles were on a pricket below, not lighted yet. The smell of the room was close and old.
In a chair by the table, his hand propping his head over a book, sat the man Lord Anthony had seen more than once before and did not mean to see again, Holy Harry of Windsor, Duke of Lancaster, recipient from the Pope, for piety, of the Golden Rose, once King of England and France and Lord of Ireland. He wore a plain frieze gown to his ankles and there was a knotted cord round his waist. He did not move at once, but presently, with a slowness that gave the movement some false air of cunning, he turned his face. Yellow-grey tangles of hair sprouted uncertainly round his small mouth. His face was long, chinless, the forehead low and the eyes wandering, unable to focus themselves certainly on anything.
“You are welcome, gentlemen.”
His voice was unnaturally high, toneless, and as inexpressive as a bird’s cheep. His whole personality affected Lord Anthony, as it had always done, with a sense of distance from reality, from the live world. Lazarus, he thought, might have looked with such unmeaning eyes, and spoken so. Lazarus had lived and died and lived again; and Holy Harry, in the real world of men and policies, had also risen from the grave for a little, and must be put into a surer grave now.
It was Sir John Fogg, surprisingly, who answered the greeting as though he had not a drawn sword under his arm.
“We wish you good evening, my Lord of Lancaster.”
He spoke with the suavity of a tooth-drawer at a country fair. It shan’t hurt, I promise you. Open your gob a trifle wider and trust me. Holy Harry of Windsor appeared to consider his words a moment; then said:
“There have been lights, music, one of those ceremonies they made me attend. I would rather be without them. This is the Tower, I think. Who is in the Tower to-night?”
“The Duke of Gloucester.”
All the muscles in Holy Harry’s face moved, as though trying to produce some human and comprehensible expression. He dropped back in his chair; crossed himself.
“No,” he said urgently, “no, Gloucester is dead. My Lords and commons — and you, my Lords Spiritual — I call all of you to witness I am innocent. They say he was murdered, but it is a lie. He died of palsy. Truly, truly, I would never have consented to put him to death.”
With a chill of complete horror, Lord Anthony realised that Henry was talking of his uncle, the Good Duke Humphrey, who had died mysteriously in prison twenty-four years ago. He said, scarcely aware of his own words:
“No one accuses you. Gloucester of York, Duke Richard, Edward of Rouen’s brother, supped here to-night. The title has been conferred again.”
“He was a loud-voiced man,” said Harry of Windsor, looking nowhere: “hurt my ears, shouting: but I never meant his death. It is written, ‘Blessed are the merciful.’ They blame me for so many things: and Gloucester was always an accursed Dukedom; does not prosper. But, sirs, I have hated bloodshed all my life. The brave Suffolk: they struck his head off over a ship’s side like a common pirate, and my cousin Somerset; and Bishop Aiscough; they stoned him. Oh, sirs, what wickedness that was, to kill a priest of God.”
“The commonwealth is at peace now,” said Sir John Fogg.
“I know. The angels told me. I heard guns last week, the mortal noise of them, killing men, displeasing our Lord God. Then two angels came. They were all in very pure white and under their feet was like fire, and they told me there would be no more killing. Donum Spiritus sancti est pax. They told me, and they stayed with me more than an hour, to comfort me.”
Behind Lord Anthony, Hawte was praying softly under his breath. The hair, on Lord Anthony’s neck prickled and his fingers shook. Harry of Windsor, in his meaningless voice, went on:
“They are not angry with me because I am King of England. The angels are not angry with me. My father and my grandfather were Kings, anointed; and if there has been blood shed in my time, my Lords, truly I am not to blame. Sitis homines benevolentiae, I told them, et caritatis, sicut filii patris uni, qui est Deus, Dominus noster; but they do not listen to me as they ought to, gentlemen: rash, violent men, full of pride and anger, quaerentes quem devorent. Are we not told that bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days? But the angels were not angry with me.”
None of the three visitors had moved from his original position by the door. Hawte said aloud, like a man at the end of his strength: “Christ!”
Harry of Windsor heard him and blessed himself again.
“In Him only is our salvation,” he said. His vague eyes turned on them and showed momentarily like the eyes of a sane man, aware of what they saw. “But you are not angels,” he said slowly. “Why do you visit me?”
Lord Anthony gulped for words. His tongue and throat were perfectly dry and
the roots of his hair wet. Again it was Sir John Fogg who got command of his voice first. “We have come to hear you say your prayers.”
Harry of Windsor got very unsurely onto his feet. He was a small man, his back so bowed that he looked dwarfish. He peered from one of their faces to another, pleased, smiling and nodding.
“It is always good to pray, gentlemen. I take it kindly of you: a Christian thought to join an old man at his prayers. I have prayed mostly alone these many years back; but it is written that where two or three are gathered together our dear Redeemer will be with them. You are kind.”
He picked up the rushlight in its iron stand and went shakily across his prison. His feet slurred and dragged and he went very slowly; paused once or twice to nod and smile at them over the flame of the light, with the look of a dog that knows it is performing the trick wanted of it. Lord Anthony felt as though the thudding in his chest would spring his ribs apart. At that moment, to kill even an armed man with his bare hands would have been easier, he thought, than to give the sign for falling upon this insane, humble little monster, this quite unhuman thing that went, so pleased and obedient, to the shambles, and so feebly, with such patience in its feebleness, lit candles at the feet of the holy images, sparingly pinched out the flame of the rushlight, got down with difficulty onto its knees. The candles were of fine wax and burned up clearly. In their light the cold alabaster trunk of Christ, ribbed and meagre, took a more human colour. A streak of scarlet blood hung like a banner down the pierced side. The head was thrown back in the last pains, and big blood-drops like tears spattered the cheeks.
“Dilexi, quoniam exaudiet Dominus vocem meam …” said Holy Harry of Windsor clearly. Sir John Fogg had worked his way round the table and stood over him, the sword clasped in both hands. Richard Hawte, his face as white as paper, was moving with slow steps toward the pair of them. Lord Anthony’s breath roared into his lungs. Sir John Fogg’s pink-rimmed eyes were fixed on him.
“Circumdederunt me funes mortis, et angustiae infemi invenerunt me …”
“Now,” groaned Lord Anthony.
Sir John Fogg’s sword flashed like a fish in the candlelight. Richard Hawte swiped sideways, not taking aim. There was a miserable thin scream like a rabbit’s, and Holy Harry, his hands clutching the ledge of the prie-dieu, tried to stand up. “Again, you fool!” shouted Sir John Fogg, and chopped down at him. Lord Anthony saw a thin hand tossed up, empty and open, like a drowning man’s. Then Richard Hawte, with a sob, whirled his sword back. There was a crash as the blade caught and overturned the pricket of candles. Shadows flapped like a blown cloak up the walls of the room and closed into darkness full of Hawte’s voice screaming: “Oh God, God!”
God was not there. Lord Anthony, with the darkness pressing itself on his wet face, felt as though God, even the anger of God, had left the Wakefield Tower when the light left it. Only the devil was there now, moving among them who were turned over to him. Lord Anthony felt his close moving presence in the dark, like a cat’s presence, and cried out, pushing his hands forward. Then there was red blazing light and, as he turned round, a face in the light as though it were the face of punishment. Duke Richard of Gloucester, holding a torch plucked from the stairs, was looking at him.
Sir John Fogg was by the prie-dieu, his lips drawn back like a weasel’s and his sword on guard, blood weeping in slow drops from the point of it. Hawte had his arms crossed on the wall and his face buried in them. Harry of Windsor lay on his back. Lord Anthony saw the black, plaintive gape of his mouth and the twist of one hacked arm. Blood spread from him. Duke Richard saw too. He moved forward, spilling light round him, and found an iron ring in the wall; fixed his torch in it; came back to the body. Without looking at the others he knelt down and, picking up the dead hands, joined them together. He remained kneeling, his own hands folded, his lips whispering; and for a long while the only noises in the Wakefield Tower were Hawte’s sobbing breath and the low, rapid sibilation of prayers. Then the Duke blessed himself and got up; came across the room to Lord Anthony. Even in the warm light of the flambeau his face was colourless, and his screwed, narrowed eyes looked out of it like points of swords. Lord Anthony went back until the wall stopped him.
“You have won a great victory,” said Duke Richard, “I will not stay to spoil your pleasure in it.”
Lord Anthony’s eyes fell, and he saw the Duke’s right hand with four splendid rings. It was smeared and dribbling with blood from what he had just touched. Duke Richard looked at it. Then his left hand shot out like an adder striking. Lord Anthony felt himself caught by the breast of the doublet and jerked brutally forward.
“This blood should not be on me,” said Duke Richard and wiped his hand deliberately, twice, across Lord Anthony’s face.
CHAPTER FOUR
MIDDLEHAM
(England: 1472)
I will abide till she be ready,
I will her sue if she say nay,
If she be reckless I will be greedy,
If she be dangerous I will her pray:
If she weep, then bide I ne may,
Mine arms been spread to clip her me to.
Cry once — I come: now soul, assay.
Quia amore langueo.
English devotional poem:
fifteenth century.
THE Widow Wrangwysh picked her teeth and debated her recurrent Saturday evening problem: whether to send round the corner for the chantry-priest or shout down the staircase for her little cookmaid. Her Saturday evenings constituted the chief remaining pleasure of the widow’s life. Old age had plucked the articles of her faith from her almost as lavishly as it had her hairs. She had never believed in God, and did not now believe in the saints either. But she retained a certain affection for the Blessed Virgin, as a married woman who had known the pains of childbed. Having buried three husbands and thirteen children (her one surviving daughter was in a convent), the widow could appreciate those things, and Saturday being the day sacred to God’s blessed Lady, she always over-ate herself on Saturday evenings, and then looked round for entertainment. This, during the past six months, had taken one of two forms. If she felt like talking bawdy, she would send out for a flagon of claret and the chantry-priest. If she wanted to discuss politics, she had up a half-gallon of pudding-ale and her little cookmaid.
The weekly debate between these two prospects gave her Saturday suppers a new relish. She even caught herself wondering whether perhaps our Lady herself might not have guided the little maid — her name, oddly enough, was that of our Lady’s mother, Anne — to knock on her door asking for work and lodging. She had been, she said, in the kitchens of the Duke of Clarence’s house — which was a recommendation — and one of his pages, whom the widow knew, had suggested her home as one where she might be able to find quieter employment. The Ducal kitchen was too rough and rowdy for her. She certainly looked a delicate little thing, with her mousy ways, her pale face rather flushed over her cheekbones, her light-brown soft hair and her short upper lip. The widow, who was not straitlaced, overlooked the very odd informality of her application and took her on for fourpence a month and all found. But young Anne — nobody ever learned her second name — had not been in the house a week before it became patent that she was no more a cookmaid than her mistress was an Abbess. In the first place, she knew precisely nothing at all about cooking. If hers were a fair sample of his household’s skill, then the Duke of Clarence was more indifferent to the pleasures of the table than the widow, who had seen him, had any reason to believe. Again, her hands were small and almond-white; did not at all give the impression of being accustomed to sossing and possing in greasy water, scouring trenchers and drawing fowl. Her speech was too clear and gentle for a plain woman; was by a long way more courtly than the widow’s own: and she knew French. A lousy Breton pedlar had arrived at the door one day, jabbering ten words of French to one of English, and little Anne had answered up to him as pat as a clerk. The fellow was delighted; jabbered faster than ever; packed ou
t all his gaudy trash ware, and finally said something that, judged by his grin, was an impertinence. What followed astonished the Widow Wrangwysh as much as if her pet cat Gib had metamorphosed himself into a crocodile. The mousy little Anne appeared to grow six inches taller. Her eyes narrowed and she said something that sounded like the swish of a sword in the air. The grin fell off the pedlar’s face and left his mouth gaping. He stammered what was evidently an apology, and got two more words that sent him backward through the door sweeping the dust off the step with his bonnet. Anne did not wait to see him go. She turned her back and marched off with her small chin jutting. The Widow Wrangwysh was fat and lazy and inclined to tipple, but she was not a fool. She barred her maid’s way.
“And where did you learn French, my girl?”
Anne’s face changed all over again. She reddened. Her eyes were big and unsure and she twisted her fingers together, stammering.
“Why — I was in France, mistress — with the Duke’s household.”
“Hum,” said the Widow Wrangwysh, “come up into the solar.”
She grunted her way up the stairs into the sun-parlour on the first floor, Anne following, and lowered herself into the best chair. Then she folded her hands on her stomach and looked hard at her.
“What your trouble may be that makes you hide here, I don’t know,” she said, “nor who you are nor where you come from. But one thing’s certain. You’ve no more been in the Duke of Clarence’s kitchen than I’ve been in King Edward’s bed. Now I don’t say I’ll be unkind to you, but you’ll be best to tell me the truth.”
Then, with hesitancies and lip-biting, but without tears, it all came out. She was not a cookmaid; came of gentry, a knight’s daughter, and had been one of the maids-in-waiting upon the Duchess Isobel, the Duke’s wife. There was someone at Court, a great person, so powerful that even the Duke of Clarence could not offend him, and an evil liver. She had been frightened. There seemed no escape from him; and she had run.
Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III Page 17