We Speak No Treason Vol 2

  ‘We ride to seek Henry Tydder. Once he is slain, their cause is lost. Let us make an end to this slaughter. Sirs, will you ride with me?’

  They came forward, a swift mounted line, closing visors, tightening harness. I felt young Harry’s colt bump against my sorrel; he whispered:

  ‘Sweet Christ! would I can cut the Dragon’s claws!’

  Richard heard him and, grimly chaffing, said:

  ‘Nay, touch him not! He is mine! My booty, my prize!’

  They gave him his axe. He weighed its balance, marked approvingly its cruel, wafer edge and, on White Surrey, led us down the slope. To our left, the battle tossed, a troubled sea, broken by cliffs of slain. Harry’s steel-muffled voice tapped at my ear again.

  ‘’Tis wondrous strategy: once he sees us victorious, Stanley will follow!’

  I rode after the rider on the white horse. The sun was growing high.

  ‘He wavered ever, my lord Stanley,’ said Harry, faint and far.

  We descended unnoticed to the plain. At the hill foot, the ground sucked at hooves where a spring, rainswollen, bubbled over lichen into a mossy cup. Richard dismounted and, wondering, I did likewise. He knelt beside the water. He set helm and crown upon a little rock.

  ‘I have a terrible thirst,’ he said.

  I filled my own casquetal from the stream, watching while he drank deep, bathed his face, poured the clear drops over his head.

  ‘A penance,’ he said, into the pool’s dark eye. ‘For those I am about to slay.’

  The water ran down his face as he looked up. ‘What did we once decide? That the span of a life is like a sparrow’s flight?’ He smiled, suddenly gay, rose, donned his helm. ‘Let us see how fast this sparrow can fly!’

  He glanced back at the little gushing stream.

  ‘May this for ever be known as Dickon’s Well,’ he said mockingly. He climbed from my cupped hands into the saddle and rode to where his Household waited, taut as hemp.

  One glance at their tight battle order and he raised his hand. The trumpeter spat, clamped his lips around gold and loosed a fierce, valiant call, and White Surrey sprang forward, the air beneath fluttering his housings, the flaying breeze above filling the standards so that they lifted at last and streamed above the King like the sail of a fighting ship, and the Boar ramped and snarled upon his azure field; a bloodfleck from Richard’s spur dappled my sorrel’s coat, and the torrent of battle to our left was past and gone already. For we rode the wind, that day, across the plain; we rode the turbulent ocean, coming on in the wake of a white horse, to the screaming triumph of clarions and the mail-rattling roar of ‘Richard! Richard! Richard!’ and England’s own voice, the snap and flame of the great standard, the leopards and lilies quarterly, the tug and stream of the bloody Cross of George held high, and the sun itself, bright-hot, reeling in heaven to see this madness, yea, madness it was, glorious insanity, a handful of men thundering to guard England, to the song of ‘Richard!’ and ‘Loyaulte me lie!’ Shapes ran towards us from where the Dragon stood, and the banner of Cadwallader came wavering down borne by a horseman, without the Tydder, though, by Jesu, for him I still had between my steel-slits and he cringed and seized the arm of another who stood beside him with gaping mouth. Beside me, John Kendall sang over the thunder of our ride: ‘King’s men! King’s men!’ and I too cried out with a giant’s voice, and my eyes filled with the puny creatures that ran and rode into our ranks, fools they, to meet with Richard Plantagenet. His axe was whirling in a terrible arc. Two of them, with broadswords, broad faces, came at him and fell shrieking as he sliced the head from one, the arm clean from another—a mounted man clashed with him—was borne back by White Surrey’s deathly striking hoof, took Richard’s axe between neck and shoulder while I made a roaring chicken of one fellow, spitting him through harness on my lance and breaking it, feeling for my sword and smiting one who would have stabbed Ratcliffe, busy with another—and there was young Harry, idiot-bold, helm open the better to cry his challenge, but thrusting like a wise old warrior... and the drone of fury from behind Brackenbury’s visor as the rabble came upon him and he buffeted them, one, two, three, till their brains burst white on his sword, and there, of all men, were you, Brecher, and your son, come to the King’s service on stolen horses across the field... maiming and killing with the strength of ten. And we were sweeping on, on towards the man who cowered by some thorn bushes, wringing his hands, one gauntleted, one bare, I would strike at that bare hand, nay, I would not strike, for he was Richard’s prize, to lighten his darkness, he was for Richard, cutting a swathe through rebel flesh with his terrible axe, while the crown clave to his helm and Harry Five would surely have smiled upon this day...

  Frantic, The Tydder’s guard were trying to form a line, from which came one horsed and snarling to meet our advance, with bull’s horns blazoned on his surcote, Sir John Cheney, twenty stone of him; and he marked the golden circlet and the. man on the white horse, flinging himself forward, an oak to crush a sapling, but the crowned sapling raised his steel, shattering Cheney’s weapon with a blow, shattered the arm that held it, milled his justice in a fierce fall of light, and Cheney’s dying weight dragged down his own horse so that both lay pooled in death.

  Here was the Dragon’s standard, and charging down upon us, its bearer, William Brandon, with the red teeth and claws flying above, and Richard there to meet him, killing him stark dead with one sweep, and White Surrey’s hooves pounding the painted Dragon into the marshy ground, as Richard rushed on to slay his fleshly counterpart whom I saw again, so near. I saw his craven pleading and laughed joyfully, for but a few parted him from Richard Plantagenet, whose might none could withstand. But even as we rushed up the little slope towards him there was a crying at my left hand, not of joy but of despair, and staggering through the ranks came Gloucester Herald—leading fresh horses and screaming above the tumult: ‘Your Grace! Fly! For the love of God!’ and I looked to where his hand pointed and saw through a haze of fear, the red-coated army of Sir William Stanley, mailed and mounted, hundred on hundred of them, bearing down upon us at a gallop.

  The golden crown marked him clearly. They made straight for him, a silent, gleaming host, while Lovell and Ratcliffe and I tried desperately to shield him. I took a heavy blow on the side, felt my horse go down, speared through the heart, saw Ratcliffe clubbed backwards amid a fountain of blood. I was pinned underneath my mount among the trampling death.

  Then someone cried: ‘Richard!’ despairingly and I saw him, unhorsed, straddling the neck of dead White Surrey, laying about him with his axe, killing and maiming still... a club struck the helm from his brow and the crown flew in a golden arc, tumbling into a clump of bushes; I saw his face, one cheek gashed open, saw his axe smitten at last from his hand by a score of Stanley’s men, who surrounded him, beating him to his knees, cutting his harness to pieces with their sharp hate. I saw his bleeding face, his broken sword raised once—heard his last, anguished cry:

  ‘Treason! Treason!’

  Then he was gone, lost beneath a stabbing, striking wave, a foam of anger that hacked at him as if he were all the evil in this world, to be utterly exterminated... Thus he died, fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies, to the great heaviness of us all.

  I lay wounded, trapped, weeping. Near me Brackenbury was down, two Breton oafs kneeling on his hapless body. They wrenched his visor open and shore his face with hatchets, again and again. Not far from my mount’s corpse lay John Kendall, his head half severed, arms outstretched, in an oddly suppliant gesture... and young Harry. The bright sun stung my face. The marsh seeped cold through a rift in my harness. The sun should snuff out, the marsh dry up.

  The sun was scarcely at noon, and Richard was dead.

  Through mist I saw them; they struck my face and made me look. They were all there, Reynold Bray, even Morton, for where else would he be in this great moment? There was now a fine colour in the Dragon’s cheeks, the thin mouth smiled. Nuncle Jasper stood close, with
satisfied hands. And, O God, Northumberland, come at last from his rearward post.

  Through tears I saw them: Lord Stanley, plucking the crown from a tangle of hawthorn. The crown of England, a little bent and misshapen... He placed it on the Dragon’s head.

  ‘Thus ends Plantagenet! The Devil’s Brood!’

  You are wrong, my base-born lords, I thought. There are still Plantagenets. The rich blood of Edward surges in their veins. They still could rule...

  They were shouting, around Richard, as if the cry had been bottled in their throats for years.

  ‘Drag him through Leicester! Let them see their King! He who shed the blood of infants!’

  They were stripping him of his harness. He was clothed only in blood. They looped a felon’s halter about his neck, and they threw him crosswise, over a trembling mule. I turned, vomiting grief. Their cries beat in every vein of my heart.

  ‘Display the accursed!’ they chanted. ‘God was with us this day!’

  And God was silent.

  The long waiting is ended, and we are glad of it. The saints reward you, Brecher, for your comfort of me, these past days. For now I admit, it was you that cheered me, Brecher, t’other was self-delusion. For Tacitus wrote that it was sin for a man to quit the field alive, once the leader was fallen. Yet we are to be hanged for our loyalty, and that’s a warming thing. Tacitus wrote much. Caxton used to talk to him; Caxton will go on; inky and mild, printing great works, the lives of saints and martyrs, and kings. What will they write of Richard?

  I shall not read those books, but they cannot lie. His honour and his fame they cannot touch. They would need to invent a devil in human shape, so great was his glory. I shall never know.

  Pray Jesu Brampton had a fair crossing...

  They are coming for us. They laugh; and outside, I hear the growl of people, ready to enjoy our torment.

  I am afraid. Jesu, Jesu receive my soul.

  O Richard! Is there a place for me beside you, above the stars?

  HERE THE MAN’S TALE IS ENDED

  * Author’s Note: Although most churches were by canon law sanctuaries, Tewkesbury had neither royal charter nor papal bull to this effect.

  * Author’s Note: This bill is extant.

  Part Four

  The Nun

  Whatever befall, I never shall

  Of this thing be upbraid:

  But if ye go, and leave me so,

  Then have ye me betrayed.

  Remember you wele, how that ye dele;

  For if ye, as ye said,

  Be so unkind to leave behind

  Your love, the Nut-Brown Maid,

  Trust me truly that I shall die

  Soon after ye be gone:

  For in my mind, of all mankind

  I love but you alone.

  The Nut-Brown Maid

  There is a malady peculiar to such as we. I have known this mingling of boredom and melancholia; Dame Johanna, who was scornful and cruel, called it ‘l’accidie’. She misused me but once and thereafter deemed I had power and became afraid. Power! pitiful that, pitiful me, who never realized the strength in a word, a name. A name of riches. A rich name, unspoken.

  I broke my vow of self-counsel, though, in Yorkshire, shocked out of vigilance by Patch, come dripping rain and folly, off the moor and out of the past, and I, loving and hating him for that reason, saw his loonish eye flicker, felt his wide lips upon my hand and longed to scream: ‘What of my lord, Sir Fool? What, what of my love?’

  I did not ask straightway. Instead, we talked of apostasy; it was meet that I could do so, not being professed myself...

  They came and took me, and they were silent men but kindly for all that they wore the livery of Jacquetta of Bedford, and they rode hard with me through the night, day, night, and I kept my own arms clipped tight beneath my cloak to guard that which I held most dear...

  Apostasy we talked of, the apostasy of love, while Patch mocked with his eye and feigned a tear.

  ...North they brought me, and so I vanished as though I had never been. And I think Dame Johanna was passing glad of me for she took the hand-to-hand gold purse from the man who had ridden at the head of our company and looked me over, saying right loving: ‘I would not have priced her so high,’ and one of those who stood with us peered just as hard at that douce and sinful face under the rich wimple and fingered his hose, breathing little ugly words. She was a knight’s daughter and I remember her but vaguely. For as life has taken me, shaken and slain me and restored me to a half-life which in itself is peace, the middle years are less clear than youth and childhood; mercifully even these are something veiled. I say mercifully, for if all that were to come again so sharp and clear I could not support the remembrance of what followed after.

  I have descended into the depths of Hell. I have tasted the grave’s earth. I have died, yet I live: a witless old nun with words half-listened to, and always, always forgotten. Truly, I have known death, and am risen, not to glory but to a plain of calm shadows. Folk are passing kind to me, I have my daily bread and ale; I have my herbs and my garden and the everliving consolation of Him who died on Tree, whose agony I am well-purveyed to share. I know the tormenting ache of His Side, the fierce pain of His Wounds; I know the colours of death, the flavour of grief, as surely as if I had sat beneath that long sundown shadow, with Mary and the Harlot.

  Merry Patch, do you live yet? I spared him the full tale of the one who cast herself into the well, for he would not have got my drift. I did but touch on it and he cocked his head, interested, for I spoke of love which was ever his prerogative (in a silly mocking way to speak, making fair foul and what was bright, unclean).

  ...They took me, those strong men who lusted for a comely nun, to a wild place, a cold cloistered realm of bells and secrets. There were never such vigorous bells as in that house in Yorkshire; they frightened me. It was as though their clangour would shroud all that took place within, unseemly for the sight of God. Their wildness struck at the flourishing elms, sent the pigeons clapping high around the taut vibrating tower, shivered the reeds crowding the stream that ran northerly through the cloister-garth. Constant were those bells, like the heart of a true maid, and the only loyal entity in that corrupt house; sweet Edyth tolled them, doubtless that was why. Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, Compline. My heart hung heavy on each stroke.

  I was not put to sleep in the dorter. An abject of the Queen’s will, I had a cell in the guest house, with a low pallet, a deep window at which I stood that summer evening, staring at the dark trees and the night-greying sprawl of the frater and chapel buildings. There were no stars, nor were there tears left in me. I had three gowns: a journey-splashed blue silk, a black dress of muster-develers and God! O God! Jacquetta’s orange satin, which the flames had scorched.

  I remember casting wildly about me, to divert my mind. A small figure of Our Lady hung over the bed and I flung myself before her; I caught up my beads and began, feverishly, to tell them, but with the first touch of the coral I became heretic for I cried not on the Virgin’s name but on another, one of such richness that the cell seemed to throb and glow from its sound and the walls to weep in concert with my cry, for there was water trickling somewhere near, the spring which fed the troutstream and the lake, though this I did not know. Right outside my window it ran and, low down in one corner of the room, where a stone had been plucked out by storm, moisture lapped sadly through, like a little, flickering tongue. A patina of damp lay on the floor, and mould grew up the feet of the bed. How long since I shared a silken bed? How long since I nestled in sleep by Elysande? Hot and secret and trusting, sharing with her the most precious of my heart’s estate; a slack and loving fool, dreaming while she schemed.

  I thought on Elysande with sadness, marvelling at her treachery, and heard once more her soft voice, while she was still my friend... ‘But, sweet, you do but kiss, and where’s the harm?’ and my own silly trembling answer, and the hawks flying high over Fotheringhay. She, in our small privacy, c
lipping me close and murmuring that she too had lost her maidenhead when twelve years old and none the worse... gripping the bedstead with its sheen of tomb-rouge, I prayed that she had not watched me too closely through those final days, that she knew naught of the pledge he had left within me; so thinking, I rose quickly from the stone to honour a silent voice that said guard yourself.

  My whole heart enveloped the child full lovingly.

  The child. Am I to finish the tale, then? It will give me a plenteousness of woe. Ah, now it comes, clearer than I would wish. Child. Pray for me.

  My eyes, when I touched them, were swollen and burning, and my mass of hair seemed to drag at me, sapping my strength; I thought—now I suppose they will cut it off. My hair, my only beauty! for I knew not the limits of their power, nor indeed, in whose power I was. I knew only that here was the end to dreaming and to glory, that this severance from my own heart’s liking, my own true knightly love, was sharp as the knife they would need to shear away my hair (for that, in all its nut-brown show, could have no place in cloister). And I thought to save them the labour, turning and turning again in the cell, spying for any glint that might betoken a blade, or a mirror. There again: no mirrors in cloister! though to reflect the past, ghosts aplenty. Each thought conjured them from the shadows. Images, and words...