‘Yea!’ said Rivers heartily. ‘And noble Dorset too. At our fair sovereign’s coronation.’
‘Take care,’ said Vaughan. ‘Hastings may have got word to him of our contrivance. And Plantagenet is no fool.’
‘I will tie him in a true-love knot,’ said Rivers, then smote Grey upon the shoulder, saying: ‘Get you gone.’
‘Can you not make a potion of his wine?’ asked Vaughan, also a little unhappy at this change of plan. ‘Hemlock or mandragora?’
‘Like my grandam used lusty Edward?’ smiled Grey, his colour returning. ‘That five-leaf grass with Jupiter strong and the moon applying... amorous herb. Jesu! Clever dame! To send a King so want-wit that he wedded where he merely should have...’
‘Tongue, wanton tongue, get you gone, my lords,’ said Rivers, sword-sharp, and this I knew was something so black that it was unfitted for the ears of even a paid traitor like myself. Grey bit his lip and ran calling for his henchmen, and I followed, sick and dolorous, bought and sold, and prepared to join the pack of men whose mailed feet trod down the bailey’s green grass.
Through April rain and flickering sun we went. From every hedge demons leered acclaim for my weakness. Earl. Rivers had given me a gold collar when I came to Ludlow; it hung about my neck like lead. The little King sighed aloud, complaining of a toothache, and Vaughan cheered him merrily. I was both sorry and amused to hear the boy’s reply.
‘When I am crowned, my first command...’ he began, his voice jounced breathless by the pace.
‘Sire?’ smiled Vaughan, riding hard beside him.
‘To have my brother York as squire,’ cried Edward. ‘To keep him close by me again. His wit could ever chase away these gripings in my head and I have missed him sorely.’
‘It shall be as you say, O King,’ said Grey, with a sidelong glance at Richard Haute, who slept beside the boy of a night. ‘But God grant you will not cast us off, who love you so.’
We rode through Northampton and the townsfolk came out to stare. A few doffed their caps and held them on the heart, but in God’s own truth, we went so swiftly that they had scarce time to glimpse the King. And from each holy house by which we fled the requiem bell tolled out so that our ride seemed yet unseemly with Edward the Fourth lately entombed. Our hoof-beats splintered the cobbles of Stoney Stratford towards evening, and we were fourteen miles nearer London. Suddenly the surging line ahead of me wheeled to a halt. Leaving my own contingent rubbing their chafed thighs I rode up to the front of the train. The young King was near to tears, so thin and pale, the men about him grimly strong.
‘My lords, I can go no more,’ he said. ‘My accursed jaw pains me. I must rest.’
‘Your Grace, London awaits you,’ said Haute coaxingly. ‘Do you not long for your coronation? It will be splendid—all will bear you homage. There will be fine gifts, clarions alight with exultation...’
‘God grant me rest a space,’ cried the boy.
‘His Grace is weary,’ admitted Grey anxiously.
‘As are we all,’ I said. The first words I had spoken to them on that mad, treasonous ride. Behind, I could hear a grumble of assent. Grey pulled his horse near to mine. Two knights were helping escort the young King into a tavern; his knees buckled.
‘He cannot ride through the night,’ Grey said. ‘He will fall sick—he must be well for crowning. Tomorrow will see us in London.’
‘And the Hog will not ride by night either,’ Vaughan replied. ‘Even now, I doubt not your good uncle entertains him with delay.’
‘Anthony is clever,’ said Grey, then yawned. ‘I am bone-weary. Come! Tomorrow we will press on and leave our watchdogs on the road. Tapster, ho! Are there inns enough in this town for a king’s escort?’
There was a bed for me. My esquires had the floor. I was soul-sick. I threw myself into sleep.
I rode a lame-legged horse through a thicket where once holy rowan trees black and twisted resembled vicious spirits; then I was in a clearing filled with tall marguerites, their stems thicker than my arm, and each pretty daisy-face was Margetta’s face, all wet with tears, and my horse trampled the blooms and ground that lovesome face while every flower sobbed and screamed aloud. Then the darkness came before me again and a copse lay ahead denser than the first and I would fain have pulled my horse aside so as not to enter, but my hobbling mount walked on with iron neck and will unconquerable, into a glowering den of evil with Margetta’s screams behind me and a growing noise ahead. And came a whirl of blinding light and out of it a fearsome snarling Boar, with tusks like the unicorn’s spear and slavering bloody jaws; and about him the rattle of all the horsemen who had ever forged into war; and the Boar came at me and I heard my own desolate shriek as he caught me on his tusks and shook me, and a voice said: ‘My lord, awake!’
‘Sir, your harness, quickly.’ I felt them buckling on my cuirass and greaves, handing me my helm, the mantling limp from yesterday’s spring storms. Below the window there was a noise of horsemen, and dream-bewitched I said: ‘The Hog is coming.’
‘Nay, sir,’ said one of the squires comfortably. ‘We must make haste, though. Lords Grey and Vaughan are calling horse already. The day begins.’
Knights were lifting the young King into the saddle when I gained the street. Vaughan, Haute and Grey were horsed and impatient. The first detachment swung off down the road; their speartips caught the early sun. Behind them went trundling a score of loaded arms-wagons.
‘Gentlemen! Your Grace!’ said Grey. ‘To London!’
Young Edward had bluish rings beneath his eyes. He called for his pet hawk. Grey’s temper was shortening.
‘Sire, there will be no time for sport this day,’ he said, and while they argued my spirit shifted within me from great misery as I thought what evil this day would bring to a man I had not seen for full five years, yet with whom I had once sat in friendship, sharing wine and ladies’ smiles; and I heard one the squires say softly: ‘Sir, you have hurt your hand.’ I looked down at the flaming mark upon my flesh which stabbed and burned beyond belief for such an ancient wound, and a ghostly voice spoke in my mind.
‘Think on me by this brand,’ it said. ‘Remember... Remember...’
Then there came hooves, and those not of our own departing force whose steel pricked the air, but from the rear. And I caught Grey’s face in the candle of my eye as he turned, and Vaughan’s likewise, and all our captains’, and saw the mouths fall open clownishly as slackens the jaw of a corpse, and I twisted on my mount, and the old fear of witchcraft shook me to the bones.
Richard Plantagenet rode towards us at a steady pace. Clad entirely in black, he forked a great white horse, and he was very pale. Behind him there came riding a silent company, all unarmed, all in deep mourning, all quiet with a dangerous quietness. A black community cool and sad, and if these were the rusty yokels Rivers had jested about he was never further from the truth. Wildly I took in the quarterings, the faces. The arms of Neville and Northumberland, Scrope, Greystoke, Ratcliffe—he there in person, as was Sir Francis Lovell and William Catesby. The gentlemen of the North, come Londonward to mourn a King. The Lord Protector of England, riding south in requiem and duty.
His eyes held mine for an instant and I bowed my head, for had he spoken the words would have come no clearer. ‘You also,’ said the dark eyes in the lean pale countenance. Then, possibly: ‘How strange are the hearts of men!’
As one silent man, the gentlemen of the North dismounted to kneel in obeisance. The young King sat his horse nervously, waiting as Richard Plantagenet strode towards him between the bowed, black ranks. The Lord Protector was not alone. For one instant I thought that George of Clarence was back from the tomb; the man who walked proud at Richard’s side was cast in the same mould: flushed and sheen, with arrogant head held high, and a smile of goodly triumph on his lips. And I marvelled at the likeness, seeing then no wraith of a dead duke, but Harry Stafford of Buckingham, whom all had thought whiling away his days on a manor at Brecon. Yes, those were
Brecon foot-soldiers behind him....
The young King spoke, high and womanish and timorous, shifting on his horse.
‘Is it not my uncle of Gloucester?’ he said uncertainly. ‘We are for London. I... I had not thought to see you here.’
Richard Plantagenet did not speak. He went on his knees before the young King, taking the hem of Edward’s gown to his lips. Buckingham did likewise, with flamboyant grace. Vaughan and Haute and Grey were grave-quiet.
‘What means this, good uncle?’ asked Edward, shriller now.
Richard Plantagenet rose, his garments dusty from the ground.
‘My liege lord,’ he said, very low, so that only those near could catch his words, ‘I share your grief in this your noble father’s passing. And by his ordinance I offer you my heart and will. God grant I may show you a true and loyal protection. In every way.’
Edward turned, quivering, to Lord Grey.
‘What ordinance?’ he demanded. ‘You are my guardians; ’tis all settled. And where’s my Uncle Rivers? Speak, sirs, I pray you!’
Haute and Vaughan looked sickly at each other. Grey looked at the ground. Buckingham spoke, imperiously.
‘Your Grace, these gentlemen are no friends of yours. They seek to use you as a pawn in their own sport of kingship. Your uncle Rivers lies at Northampton under close arrest, guarded by my own true men. And this, my lord of Gloucester, is named Protector of your person by royal decree. Ha! they flew high, these counsellors of yours. Your Grace has been—sadly deceived, make no mistake of it...’ His voice grew louder. Richard Plantagenet gave him a swift look, reproving, oddly weary. Buckingham continued.
‘We shall console your Grace,’ he said. ‘The Lord Protector will advise you in the ruling of this realm, and I...’
Edward broke in.
‘My lords, my lady mother and the nobles of her court are pledged to support me,’ he said in a trembling voice.
Buckingham laughed. ‘Ruling is not for women,’ he said gratingly. ‘The Queen has no rightful authority, no more than did Joan of Kent or Katherine of France. Here is one of the old royal blood, as I am. The Lord Protector of England.’ He indicated Richard as a revels-master produces his most cunning player.
‘I knew of no Protectorship,’ said Edward, and then, like April rain, began to weep.
Richard Plantagenet frowned deeply.
‘Hush, Harry,’ he said with sharpness. ‘His Grace is weary and to me, looks ailing. My lord Edward, will you not dismount?’ He stretched out his arms for the boy, who shrank away.
‘Jesu, what have they told you of me?’ Richard said, very low. Then, to the young King: ‘My lord, listen. All that my cousin Buckingham has said is true. Those who nurtured you at Ludlow have also conspired to deprive me of the Protectorship. Your father’s will most treasonously overpassed. But loyalty bound me to his Grace and henceforth to you. Will you not be content with your own father’s ordinance?’
Richard Grey found his tongue at last.
‘My lord of Gloucester will not prevail upon our charge,’ he said haughtily. Buckingham was on him in a flash.
‘Hold your peace, my lord,’ he cried. ‘Soon you shall hold it for ever, traitor and knave. You! Dare you speak when you have laboured with others to destroy me and my cousin of Gloucester? Were it not for Lord Hastings we would be dead in our blood!’ And he raved at them for a space until the Protector raised his hand in silence. I grew a deep cold within me. I was young. I did not wish to die. And it was meet that I should. I had led men for Dorset. I was guilty as he.
Remorse surged over me like a sea wave, beating at my breast, my head, the flesh of my face, catching at my tongue, my wilful wanton tongue that had been so ready to swear allegiance to a bright smile and a fat purse. I am not alone, not alone, I whispered to myself. I looked at the other captains standing motionless around me. I am no worse, no better than they. But they have no brand upon their sword-hand—they gave no little pledge in secret, over a testing flame with fingers locked in those of a good man. Yea, a good man. Through all my wavering wantonness this sang clear, knife-sharp. I looked at him once more, Richard Plantagenet. He was lifting the sobbing boy down from his horse; he kissed him lightly on the brow.
I wished with my heart that my raison had been that of Richard Plantagenet. I looked at his gentlemen of the north: the broad, honest, fierce faces, and with my keen sight picked out the smallest page, dirty with travel at the end of the line. With my whole heart I wished I were he, in Gloucester’s service. Now I should do his will only upon the scaffold.
‘It is best that you ride in comfort,’ he was saying softly to Edward, who wiped his eyes.
‘Yea, a litter for his Grace!’ called Buckingham. Two esquires were already backing a moorland mare into the shafts of the barrel-shaped carriage. The young King said something in a low voice. Richard laughed.
‘No disgrace, good prince,’ he said. ‘My own son goes often in this fashion. When he is ailing.’ The laughter went out of his voice. ‘But then I tell him, rest easy now, and when he is grown, he shall ride my own White Surrey, a puissant beast in truth. No weakness this, my liege.’
Edward ascended into the swaying wagon, and all awaited the Protector’s next command. Many looked anxious. A stiff knot of Buckingham’s foot-soldiers surrounded the Woodville trinity.
‘To London, Dickon?’ asked Sir Francis Lovell.
The Protector shook his head gravely.
‘We shall return to Northampton. Rivers must be taken northward under close vigilance, like these three. But the people of London shall see the mischief he has wrought. Display the barrels of harness through the City gates.’
‘It shall be done, my lord,’ said the glowing Buckingham.
‘And send to Lord Hastings that all is well,’ said Richard, preparing to mount.
Now our fate, thought I. Our destiny, our well-merited doom. Behind, my men-at-arms stood like rock.
Mounted again, Richard turned and surveyed us. White Surrey lifted one great hoof and tore fiercely at the ground. I waited for the Protector to denounce us traitors. He was looking at me, once more straight into the eyes. There was no anger, only regret and a bitter kind of humour. He spoke with sudden swiftness.
‘This accursed livery and maintenance!’ he said—in itself an incautious remark, which brought a very faint whispering from some of his own followers, and a great jolting of the heart to me. He knew, he knew, how easy it had been.
‘Disperse your men,’ he said quietly. ‘Go to your homes, and be good a-bearing. All of you. And come Londonward for King Edward’s coronation, which shall be when Parliament decrees. Come, Harry! Your Grace, are you comfortable?’
They turned, they rode swiftly. They were disappearing in a cloud of dark plumage down the sunlit road. From out of my sight he rode, black on white. I loved him. I took Dorset’s standard from the limp hand of Long Wat beside me, and cast it in the dust.
I set spurs deep and rode after Richard Plantagenet.
He offered no word of reproach and there may even have been some gladness in his look as I knelt before him. He said little, only reminding me that we all had a duty to fulfil, and I was abysmally grateful. Deep within me I would lief have called him Dickon, but those days were gone, and I foreknew that never again would I see that lightness about him. We were no longer eighteen, and Flanders was a time and place far distant.
I overheard something that he said to Sir Francis Lovell on the ride south. Meant for Lovell’s ears only, it warmed me through, and rekindled my shame.
‘I must be a Protector in truth,’ he said, rather sadly. ‘Yea, not only of the lives and comfort of my dear brother’s children, but of this war-weary England. Poor England!’
‘She has bled long,’ said Lovell.
‘God aid me to steer this child’s mind into the way of peace. And’—he turned a hard bright look upon Sir Francis—‘there will be no peace if the Queen’s kin take command. The barons will boil. Certes, this seems like
another battle, and I thought I was done with them. A battle of a dangerous, insidious breed.’
Then I heard Lovell bid him take courage, the courage he had never lacked, and as we neared Barnet old memories waked in him, for he fell silent. Also on the journey he talked of Hastings, and at one little church hard by St Albans he dismounted to give thanks kneeling for his own deliverance from the hands of his enemies, and for the Lord Chamberlain’s foresight and fidelity. I fancied Buckingham misliked this; he grew very quiet, and wore a jealous mien. When we crossed Barnet Plain, Richard Plantagenet bade the young King look from his litter and hear of the mighty battle which his uncles had fought there, together with his father, whom God assoil. And how valiantly Lord Hastings had battled; and at Tewkesbury also, and reaching further back into the past, he recounted to the boy Hastings’s marvellous wit and cunning when they rode to rescue the captured King. Buckingham laughed, louder than the Protector, applauding his soft halting tale, flaunting in the sunlight. At mention of Hastings he waxed jealous as a woman.
‘What of my prudence and fidelity, lord?’ he asked. Richard, leaning, clasped his arm.
‘Good cousin, I give thanks to God also for your keen wits at this time,’ he said fervently. ‘And for your warlike aid.’
‘Then I need no reward,’ said Buckingham, turning up his eyes.
‘Yea, you shall be rewarded,’ Richard said, with a wry smile. Buckingham grew silent again.
Upon the City walls the populace craned and cheered the King and his entourage. Before us rolled the wagons of harness with the Woodville arms blazoned thereon, and the heralds cried of treason. I thought briefly of Rivers, heavy-guarded at Sheriff Hutton, Grey at Middleham and Vaughan at Pontefract. The air was infected with excitement, Buckingham bowed and smiled, but Richard was sombre, in his gown of coarse black cloth. The little King, horsed again, and in blue velvet, looked bewildered at the array which surged to greet him. Behind the Mayor and Aldermen, scarlet-clad, five hundred burgesses blossomed in violet silk. Grandly they came, and grandly pledged the oath of fealty to Edward the Fifth.
We Speak No Treason Vol 2 Page 10