We Speak No Treason Vol 1

by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

  ‘You speak much of my lord of Gloucester and his fair dealings with the northern citizens. There is like talk here, for some men of York were at my cousin’s to dine and full of your good lordship. One said he offers good and indifferent justice to all, gentle or simple—would then that the sheriff of this ward had his ear, for Master Fray came before sessions two weeks gone and—’

  I threw the letter away and leaped up, smote the stone wall a violent blow with my fist, then strode about nursing the pain. Dan Fray had been acquitted. Lack of evidence, wrote Grace, but her careful, blotched characters hid the truth. Secretly I had feared this outcome, but had bargained on my mother’s testimony together with that of the cook-boys to secure Fray’s conviction. But Fray had done men service in his time; lords who dabbled in this and that, and whose night-walking heralds were taciturn and cloaked. Wretches hang that jurymen may dine, indeed, yet should the wretch know the right words, the jury... I wept with rage.

  ‘Why so wrathful, Sir Fool?’ asked Gloucester, quietly behind me. His swift eyes caught the discarded roll of writing. ‘Has mischief befallen you, or yours?’ His tone was the same soft emotionless one I had heard him use on the occasions when, from a quiet niche, I watched him preside at the Council of the North. Wherever the Council met, whether at Sheriff Hutton, Pontefract, or Middleham, the scene would be the same—with Master John Kendall standing, pen poised, behind, Richard would sit in the chair of estate, his red robes a bright flood against the oak. His hands would be gently folded on the table, his eye keen and intent. When he heard news that pleased him, such as the repairing of Holy Trinity Priory at York, a lightning smile would cross his mouth. When he learned at Pontefract of a poor wife dispossessed by the land-hungry overlord, he drew off his ring on his last finger and replaced it, over and over. His face betrayed little; his hands were the heralds of his distress. Once, I had thought it anger that moved them. Long hours I studied him at these council meetings, sessions that left me with a strange feeling of ignorance. In plain words, he educated me in morals and philosophy, and to judge by the startled faces of his fellows, I was not alone. Often I smiled at the dropping jaws of Lords Scrope and Greystoke and the northern justices of the Peace, when Richard, confronted by a wrangling knot of citizens, pronounced a judgement so wonderful in its simplicity that the problem, whatever it was, seemed never to have existed. While I thought on this, he still stood by me waiting for my answer. But mine was too small a matter, I thought.

  ‘My lady writes of bright green popinjays, your Grace, and I am jealous,’ I carolled, thrusting out one red leg.

  ‘How does your mother, at the cook-shop?’ he asked, without a smile, and I was afraid he was in league with the devil and could read my thoughts. I dropped all folly on the instant.

  ‘The villain who fired her shop walks free as air, and that displeases me.’

  ‘A corrupt jury,’ he said instantly.

  ‘Yea, bought and sold,’ I answered.

  ‘Ah, holy God!’ he cried. ‘It displeases you, friend, but, by Our Lady, it angers me. ’Tis like a cursed, creeping plague that weakens the whole structure of our justice. Would that this matter had come before my Council!’

  Then he asked what else, and I read on, the part not digested, and had ado to conceal a sour grin.

  ‘Fray’s nephew died in gaol,’ I said. Then the satisfaction vanished, for I had no quarrel with the three yeomen and a knight, likewise chested through the same prison-fever.

  ‘The charge was but flimsy,’ wrote my betrothed. ‘But they had lain in Fleet for three parts of a year so God took them, they being frail from poor diet. They will come before a higher court.’ She had a keen and sarcastic wit, my lady. Richard was looking at me, pensively. He said: ‘Sir Fool, what think you of this notion? If money can be exploited to sway justice, why should it not also serve to lighten the lot of those awaiting trial?’

  ‘Pay for their victuals in gaol, my lord?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Nay—take them from prison—rather have them stand surety in a friend’s bond. Thus relieve the dreadful press within the gaols.’ He looked sharp. ‘Have you seen inside Ludgate, or the Fleet?’

  ‘Never imprisoned, save by a lady’s smile,’ said I.

  ‘Once I went out of curiosity,’ he said softly. ‘The sights stayed with me for days. It is a bitter education.’

  I gaped. His reasoning had lost me long ago. Prisons were for felons; if you lay within, that was your bad fortune. An esquire came in to say the horses were ready.

  ‘You are for London, my lord?’ I asked, in a panic. They seemed to be on the point of departure, and I had not composed my reply to Grace.

  ‘We ride to Nottingham, and the King,’ he said, and gave a peculiar smile. ‘A little private business,’ and left me wondering.

  He also left me to amuse his lady and her companions. We sat on the warm green slope with the Castle behind us and a flourishing oak for shade. Idle days, in the sun, with the fantail doves strutting like tiny peacocks at our feet. ‘My lady,’ I would say, ‘it is your turn to play.’

  I would stare at my hand for the best part of a quarter-hour, until I knew each card by heart. I also knew what Lady Anne held; she had poor cards but I was determined she should win. She was dolorous, far away in a dream. She was ever like this—worse perhaps when he went to Scotland to investigate the regular outbreaks of fighting there. She gave a long sigh.

  ‘Dick... my lord has been gone five days,’ she announced, as if I were a wayfarer newly come to the estate.

  ‘I doubt not he has many pressing affairs for King Edward’s ear,’ I said lamely. There was no point in jesting with her. When he was gone, she was like a flower out of water, dying by inches. It was as well he never remained absent long.

  ‘He said it was something that would please me,’ she said woefully. ‘A surprise. A secret, one I would have shared.’

  ‘Oh, my life’s sovereign pleasaunce! your good lord had his reasons!’ I said, remembering he had hinted about folks in durance and wondering what it was all about. Then she asked me did I know aught of love? I knew not if she spoke of love of God, home and family, country, or of man to woman, so I diced on the latter.

  ‘Yea, “Dan” Chaucer’s “dreadful joy”,’ I said softly. Now that the sharing of our livelode was settled and Grace’s dower decided, it was time I set the marriage date. The Maiden had dismissed me. ‘We shall not meet again.’ My turn to sigh now. How could she be so sure?

  ‘I do crave oranges!’ said Lady Anne.

  A gasping cry of delight rushed round the circle of gentlewomen. The Duchess’s face was sweetly comical in its innocence. I conjured a bright fruit from my sleeve to please her. Next week it would be lemons, no doubt, or pomegranates. My mother had been the same while carrying my youngest brother—

  ‘Little Blaise

  Lived but eight days.’

  I thought of Isabel Neville’s stillborn babe, and resolved an extra fervent prayer for the Duchess’s safe travail when her time came. Like a child herself, she sat dabbing at the orange-drops that had splashed on her gown. Lady Harrington knelt beside her.

  ‘Now you have a secret for your lord, dear mouse.’

  ‘Marry, she has her lord in a cleft stick,’ said I boldly; I was glad they would leave Anne to tell the Duke herself. I anticipated his joy. There was already a child at Middleham; John, Richard’s little bastard son. Lady Anne had asked for him, complete with wet-nurse. She cuddled him often—he was a lovesome boy, though not pretty; the Plantagenet features were overstrong in the small face and he seemed to have inherited his father’s seriousness. Watching her with this product of a gay or careless hour, I had longed to see her with a child of her own. So my day was lightened by an orange-feast.

  John was called John of Gloucester, later. Years ago, I watched him go to the block, still serious, still strong of face. He died at twenty, brave Plantagenet. Traitorous dogs shall not rise against a King.

  The
Lady Anne’s secret was very evident before my lord of Gloucester revealed his private business to any of us. He chose to surprise his wife at a great banquet one evening. The Great Hall was bulging with guests. Wreaths of poppies and roses trailed along the damask tablecloths. Pipes of hypocras and malmsey were borne in from the buttery, with baked swan and pheasant, roast capon and sucking-pig, doucettes and subtleties, and a great White Rose fashioned of frosting and honey. A barrowload of fragrant gillyflowers had been mingled with the rushes underfoot. Outside, against a greenish sky, bats dived and swooped past the window arches, and a drowsy thrush chortled. Anne Neville concealed her proud secret behind the high table; it was strange to see her so round, elsewhere she was exceeding slender. I teased her gently, saying I knew it would be the fairest babe ever, and in all virtues like her Grace, save in the ‘very, very thing’ for I knew Richard longed for an heir. He had given us all an increase in wages.

  We had an honoured guest that evening: one whose shadow cast itself over my lord’s affairs constantly: Lord Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Grim and arrogant, he had sworn before King’s Council to respect Richard’s superiority in the northern marches. Richard had likewise taken oath to be his good and gracious lord and give him due considerations in all matters of policy. My lord often entertained this awkward nobleman, made him joint arbiter in the disputes arising among the barons, and spoke him fair. Yet the vice Envy gnawed, and my master never touched Northumberland’s heart. I capered and mocked and declaimed great double witted praises on the noble earl and his ancestry which I fancied he might be too slow to grasp, while John and Robert twanged and bugled in the gallery. Lord Percy fed on roast heron and sugared violets, while Richard discoursed with him upon the Scots wars and Middle March jurors, listening cordially to his opinions, firm and cool. Lord Percy could be offensive in a careful, veiled way, but Richard never showed a flicker. There they sat, these two great men: the young, royal Lord of the North, and Henry Percy, whose family had ruled that same North for generations with a heavy hand, and in whose belly this new arrangement lay right sour. Richard, however, had got him laughing when I looked up once from the floor of the Hall. I felt jealous; this was my job. Then I heard Gloucester say: ‘They are late.’ One of his henchmen leaned down from behind the cloth of estate and whispered. Richard smiled and turned to Lady Anne, pointing to the door, through which strode Sir James Tyrell, dusty from riding, and beside him a frail, ageing lady.

  Richard rose and came down the steps to embrace the Countess of Warwick. Sciatica made her hobble at every step, her face was drawn. He kissed her on each cheek and led her to the vacant seat beside her daughter. I had mused about that empty place all evening. Anne was weeping. All she could say was: ‘Ah, sweet mother!’

  ‘’Tis all thanks to your good lordship,’ said the Countess of Warwick wearily. Richard leaned to wipe up tears with a napkin, signalled to me to start a jape, while the servers came forward with food for the fragile old dame.

  This then was his well-kept secret. I found out afterwards that King Edward had taken some persuading. None knew why he was so reluctant to release the Countess from Beaulieu Sanctuary, but Richard’s pleas at Nottingham had finally succeeded. And he had his reward in the one burning, loving look from his little wife. I would like a woman to look at me like that, if only once. But then, I am not Richard Plantagenet. I am of no importance, and alive.

  ‘It is four winters since we plighted our troth,’ wrote my lady. ‘I find you a false wretch, as false a knave as ever my eyes beheld, for you say you cannot come to London and I could not support the cold of the north, without that I had a gown furred with the red fox and a dozen pairs of warm shoes, and such an unfeeling creature as yourself would seem ill-disposed to furnish me therewith. I trow you are without a heart.’

  Lord! how she did rail! But to good cause, I admit, for over the sweet, fleeting years at Middleham I had become a craftsman in procrastination. None could hiver-hover like I. Yet I looked forward to her letters, for she still spoke of the King and the weather of policy in and around the capital, furnishing me with precious news.

  ‘Since my lord Oxford found himself adrift on St Michael’s Mount, he showed good sense in throwing himself upon the King’s mercy. My lord Clarence is full proud and lusts for this and that supplementation, and maybe more than just added livelode. The lady Isabel’s boy, now Earl of Warwick, thrives and will be the same age as your Duchess Anne’s child, bearing the same name, that of his Grace. Katherine my sister is with child again and bound for Calais to succour her lord who received grievous wounds. His wool-ship was plundered by the heathen Scots three days out of Dover. I have a new brachet, bought me by an old friend, you do not know him, he is a gentleman. My lord Clarence left the King’s Parliament lately right joyous now that he has Clavering in Essex and the manor of Le Herber, that which Earl Warwick used to own. It seems that the King has one thought and that only for his brothers to be at peace together.’

  At one juncture it had seemed that Gloucester might lose Middleham. Anxious days those, while Clarence agitated again for the redistribution of the Warwick estates. Lady Anne had wept in the arms of her gentlewomen.

  ‘Why must he have these cravings?’ she sobbed. ‘Can he not live in harmony?’

  ‘There, dear heart,’ said Lady Lovell uneasily.

  ‘My lord thinks as I do. Today he said, “Why can he not be content as I?”’

  Thereon I had burst into the room with mad grimace and silly song, and dried their tears within five minutes. Yea, the Church may frown on craftsmen like myself, but I vow there is virtue in folly at times. Then, Dame Jane Collins brought in her precious charge, Edward of Middleham, with his playfellow, and their sport together put mine to shame. For when Edward bumped his head, little John it was that bawled.

  I will speak now of Edward, for he is as clear in my mind as the red rose I wear in my cap today. He was, as I had forecast, the fairest babe I ever saw: light and delicate as a rainbow, with the gentle features of his mother, and Gloucester’s dark blue eyes. He wore a white velvet doublet and a tiny dagger, blunt as an old man’s wits, and he played the soldier, challenging little John and besting him, for all that he lacked a year of his age.

  ‘Item,’ wrote Grace. ‘I hear that by the means of the Duke of Gloucester my Lord Archbishop Neville has come home. It passes my understanding that your lord should so concern himself with one who has laboured so treacherously and should have other deserts. I saw the Archbishop leaving ship at St Catherine’s. His time in prison has made an old man of him—he could scarce mount the steps. As for you, right worshipful and well beloved, I am likewise waxed frail in your absence, and would wear your ring soon for naught lasts ever, neither beauty, nor money, nor kindness, and my humours change daily, as the moon wanes and waxes. Let no earthly creature see this bill.’

  I was about to tear it into shreds accordingly, when her scratched postscript caught my eye. ‘Item, your mother is sick.’

  Just that. If Grace had wanted to get me to London, she had chosen the right halter to lead me. The letter was a sennight old and the packman who brought it north must have been riding a snail. Not so the courier who arrived at Middleham an hour after I had finished reading my lady’s hard words.

  His horse was dying. It staggered on its feet, keeled over and lay with blown belly. The rider, a young harnessed knight, strode clear of the kicking hooves and made for the castle steps. He came swiftly, clutching his dispatches hard against his side and doffing his helm with its dark blue mantling. He was not one of the Middleham knights, but was gently born with the right to bear arms of the bend sinister, like Gloucester’s John. I did not recognize the other charges on his tabard. Besides I was taken with his eyes. Cold eyes, the colour of ice, and a black ring round the pale candle, like the eyes in a mad horse. There was excitement in him—folk could smell it—they came hastily: the horse-leech and the slaughterman, the grooms and two of the guard. Then more sedately, a chantry priest and m
y friends Robert and John, fresh from the delightful toils of music. ‘What news?’

  The young man’s eyes, when he smiled, were not cold at all.

  ‘History in the making!’ he said. ‘I have gained the north in four days from London. Five spent horses and one squire weeping by the road without York! As for the news, you will hear it from his Grace. Where’s my lord of Gloucester?’

  The guard pointed across the drawbridge. In the long distance, two horsemen were approaching, tiny figures.

  ‘The Duke rode to Rievaulx this day. Is that he returning?’

  The strange knight stepped forward a pace. He looked for a long moment into the far blue and green of the spring day. ‘Nay, that’s Lord Percy’s man,’ he said finally. ‘He bears the silver crescent on his shield.’ He stared longer. ‘And the Earl’s son, Sir Robert, rides with him. He’s smiling.’

  No man had sight like that, I thought. I made up my mind that he was a braggart and began to chaff him delicately with riddles, while all the time the riders grew closer and closer and came up over the drawbridge and dismounted, hastily, with the same elated air as this keen-sighted gentleman at arms. And they were Robert Percy and his esquire, of the silver crescent and the smiling face.

  ‘We are for France, and war!’ they cried.

  So it came that I did not ride London-ward alone. At first we were an hundred, then double that number, and by the time of reaching York walls, our band had burgeoned to five hundred northern men; armed knights, archers and swordsmen, on foot and mounted. They wore brigandines, spiked pauldrons at the shoulder, heavy greaves on the leg; they sported jacks and sallets, carried bright swords and bills and leaden mauls; and if the mail sat on some better than others, or there were weapons that had lain idle overlong, it was nevertheless a heartening sight. From Northallerton and Boroughbridge and Knaresborough and Pontefract they came, and at York the column swelled to a thousand and then five hundred more. I could not fight, but I could sing, and so we did, with lewd jests against King Spider, to be wound in his own web, and praises sung for Charles of Burgundy, awaiting at St Omer the flower of England’s invading host. Their fathers had taught them the Agincourt song, and now was the time for its airing. So they rode to war, these men of the north—hard and swift of ire and slow to laughter, and they raised their steel-framed eyes often to the standard that flew above the long, glittering file: the snarling Boar of Gloucester.