by Mary Lide
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘No names I beg. The walls have ears. I serve like any common trooper, no need to explain who I am. As for speaking.’ He was gazing at a space above her head, looking out into the distance, almost as the duke had done. ‘What can you have to say to me, or I to you, that has not been spoken of by men of higher rank? What can you want of me, that this great court cannot give?’
The questions were dry; the tone ironic. Beneath the irony ran a bitterness that was new. She felt rather than saw it twist the generous mouth beneath the mask, and make the eyes hard. ‘You have learned court ways fast enough,’ he was continuing. ‘You have no need of me.’
She felt the conflict in his voice, she felt the reproach. ‘It was not my choice,’ she cried. ‘I only came here as a last resort. It was not my plan to serve the princess. Nor did I wish to dance with the king. I would have avoided him if I could. It did not please me to be noticed by him. It was . .
He seized her arm to put a stop to these indiscretions and hustled her away, searching for some private place. The corridor was lined with rooms, most small and empty, used probably by court officers for official rendezvous. Opening one door at random, Richard shouldered his way inside, slamming it behind him fast as if to keep the world at bay. ‘Mother of God,’ he cried, ‘I have not been confined to quarters all this while, kept in a pen like a caged bear while my wounds healed, only to be tossed aside when I get out, like an empty glove. Is this the way you keep faith? See these scars. I cannot put them off as a glove is put.’
Then calming down, more formally, ‘You once were kind enough to say I saved your life. Have you no sense, to throw it away? Well, risk your own safety if you wish, but for what? To persuade a king to help you instead?’ The room was dark and quiet; its thick walls blocking out the distant revelry. The only light came from a pale moon reflecting through the high window, and Richard’s tall outline loomed against it, blocking it menacingly. ‘That is a game you cannot win,’ he was continuing, every word deliberate, as if to force the idea into her head. ‘You match with a king whose appetite is endless. One gulp, he will swallow you and spit out the bones.’ He seemed to be working himself into a fresh rage.
She thought, anger is better than silence. Let him rage; he will regret it in time.
‘I will tell you what the king wants,’ Richard was continuing. ‘Did you take him for a fool? Do you take me for one? Here, I will show you what he was looking for, in the dark with you.’
And as if goaded beyond endurance he tore off his mask, tore off hers, took her face between both hands and forced his mouth on hers.
As kisses went it had little of love or loving, much perhaps of jealousy and lust. ‘There,’ he was repeating; every embrace could have been a blow, every blow a caress. ‘When the king has had his fill, when he has begot the heir he is desperate for, princeling or bastard, what matter which, he will throw you to his hounds. Are your lands worth the name of whore? Or did you think he would give them for free?’
She struggled with him as she had struggled with the king, but it was the words she fought not him. The more she struggled the fiercer he became, the harder his mouth, the tighter his arms, until she thought she would suffocate. But although she bent under him, she would not break.
When at last he let her go, and stood panting, wiping his mouth, ‘Only you knew me,’ she told him in her open way that he had not forgotten. ‘No one else. Why should I put you at risk; you are the only friend I have ever known?’
She suddenly tore off the cloak as if it burned, and threw it to the ground, along with the last shreds of the mask, grinding the pieces with her feet. ‘I never thought to be called a whore,’ she said, ‘not by my stepfather, not by you. It is a lie. And you know it is.’
Her voice was low but vehement. ‘I stamp that lie out,’ she said, ‘I stamp out my hopes for us.’
Lord Montacune had stooped to disentangle the rose-coloured silks that had hooked themselves about his spurs. His voice came out strangely muffled. ‘I came to Richmond because I was ordered to. I hoped to find you here, but not like this. I hoped to . . .’ but he could not finish the thought because he did not really know what he had hoped to do.
‘And do you think I wanted to be found like this?’ she cried. ‘Why do you not trust me? Why should you think the worst of me? I love you.’
Her words rang out like a clarion in the silence that followed them.
He straightened up, twisting the silken threads, running them through his fingers. He was aware of every inch of her as he had never been aware of anything. He wanted to stretch out and take that pale face between his hands and smooth the lines of grief away. He wanted to smooth the web of hair that spilled down her back springing alive from the bones of her head. He wanted to stroke the small ears underneath, and the wide cheek bones, the slender neck, the shoulders with their slanting thinness, that made her seem so vulnerable. ‘Oh God,’ he whispered almost to himself, all anger gone. ‘Oh God, come here.’
He drew her to him so that her reply was lost. He reached his hand down to tilt her chin or did she raise it to anticipate him? His touch was contrite, perhaps ashamed, but running hot beneath its gentleness. He wanted to cover that red mouth and dip deep. All that he had suspected the king of doing, furtively, with jaded touch, he wanted to do himself, but gently, without rush, here in the soft and glowing dark. He wanted to feel the moisture of the lips and the warm skin with its glow of youth. He wanted to swell the buds of breasts into his palms so that the nipples rose, to run his hands down the spine and up the long white legs, parting, searing them. Palm to bone, cleft and shaft, back and forth, until she sank upon him like a bird, and he surged against her, confident. ‘So,’ he said, ‘hush now, my love,’ the endearments easy too, each whisper a stroke, each word a touch, hot and damp, fire and rain.
In this fashion, laving away the king’s lusts, restoring delicacy and balance, he gentled her, teaching her how a girl may be wooed by a man and a man may woo a maid, until she began to tremble as he remembered from the past. Reluctantly then he stood back, wanting to disentangle himself, not wanting to. ‘Gently,’ he whispered at her ear, but to himself as well. ‘We go too fast. Softly now my love. Wait a while.’ But she clung to him, hands entwined in his black curls, her body stretching up to his, alive in every part, the current between them running strong. ‘Not yet,’ she said.
Pressed along her body’s length, he bore her down, taking the weight upon his own. He drew off her clothes that hampered him, threw off his own, together they lay, naked flesh to flesh, until he came to the quick of her and she let him in.
After a long while, he began to smile. ‘So this was what you came to London for,’ he whispered. ‘Shame on you Mistress Philippa, to have wasted time. You could have had it that first time, there in the fields with me.' He stroked her mouth, running one finger along the lower lip. ‘And now I have found what you want, you have no need of anyone else.’ He watched the play of light upon her skin, stroking it in graceful curves, encircling it, tracing out its shape. She shivered beneath his touch as if cold but he knew that she was not cold, not with his own body’s heat to cover her. Her skirts were gone, her legs were bare, the inner folds of flesh spread to his touch. ‘There,’ he said, ‘does that please you my love to touch you there, does that satisfy you?’ And she gripping him, matching his movements with her own, wider and deeper and faster, whispered back, ‘Not yet.’
So they led each other on, matching stroke for stroke, equal at last, until the short night was done, and the early dawn began to brighten the window sill. He rolled over on his back, one arm still wrapped around her waist, while with the other he began to reach for his shirt. ‘What shall we do with you?’ he asked. He almost gave a groan. ‘I cannot regret it my love,’ he said, endearments he seldom used before coming readily to his tongue. ‘But what of you? With the king gone could you stay here? Would it be too hard for you? The war will soon be done, I promise you, a little skirmish or two
, a great rattling of swords to soothe his pride, we shall be back again. But how can I leave you, alone, so far from home? How can I take you with me?’
For answer she came close to him, as if burying herself into the shelter of his arms. He watched how the expression of her face changed, one moment full of hope, the next sad, as her mood changed. Fear for her made him helpless, and helplessness was new to him. ‘Come sweeting,’ he made himself whisper, ‘it will not be for long. And if you do not let me go how shall this war begin?’ He glimpsed a trickle of moisture on her cheek where the light caught it. ‘Nay, never weep for me,’ he said. ‘I bear a charmed life. And when I return, shall we not ride north to Netherstoke?’ He tried a smile. ‘As castles go it is small and old, but it satisfies me. When I am rich enough to rebuild its walls and restock its barns, when I can re-seed my fields, would it please you to go there with me?’
He smoothed her cheek again. ‘You would like it there,’ he told her. ‘It is a rougher country than these southern parts, with wild moors, good for hawking and not much else. But the air has a taste to it, like wine, and there are small trout streams. And in the distance you can see the border mountains.’ He said, ‘My mother would welcome you, and bid you stay.’
She let him talk. She knelt beside him as he dressed, trying to help, his sword and belt too heavy for her to lift, the elaborate lacings of his shirt defeating her.
‘I wish I had some gift for you,’ she burst out suddenly. ‘I wish I had something to bring you luck.’
‘Only yourself,’ he whispered. ‘And that I take without restraint. Wait for me. I promise to come back.’
These whispered confidences, these half promises, half wishes, these lingering farewells were slight things to hold on to, but when he left they surrounded her with their warmth, as strong as any medallion of faith. Outside the window she heard the sound of horse’s hooves, as sharp as if they struck through frost. Once more she knew herself alone, with only her wits to rely upon.
And as he returned to the world of men and war, he took the touch and feel and taste of her, locked away in his secret thoughts for his own pleasure and comfort when he was alone. And for the first time cursed the soldier’s life that now would keep them apart, although for so long he had sought it eagerly.
The king had no such reservations. During the next days, Philippa was to see the full glory of his departure, all show and pageantry. In his armour and white surcoat, surrounded by the yeomen of his guard, Henry resembled some crusader off on Holy War. He rode one of his Flemish stallions; before him marched his trumpeters, with scarcely breath left to blow; behind him came his little drummer boys from his new music school in their blue coats. Each of these is armed, Philippa thought; from all over England a real army is converging on the coast, in their thousands. A little skirmish. This king means his invasion to succeed even if all of them are sacrificed.
The queen and princess were to bid him farewell in equally flamboyant style, riding with him to the coast and staying to watch him embark. But when they had wearied of their waving to the empty sky they too returned to Richmond in a different frame of mind. The queen surrounded herself with her Spanish confessors whom she kept at a distance when the king was home. The Princess Mary, seating herself by the window, began to chatter aimlessly. Perhaps the view reminded her of past pleasures which might never return; perhaps she thought of the favour she had given to the duke without receiving his thanks, perhaps she thought of a farewell that had had nothing of intimacy for her.
She suddenly looked about her. ‘Go to, go to,’ she cried, to the listening ladies. ‘You look like crows, harbingers of doom. How dare you seem so mournful.’ Petulantly she threw off her golden cap and kicked at her skirts with her pointed boots. ‘Are we at a funeral?’ she cried. ‘Of course the king will win. What about those three hundred ships my brother has? And those guns. Why does he call them his “Apostles” if he does not expect to convert the French with them? He sailed in the flagship, the greatest warship in the world. And the Duke of Suffolk sailed with him. What if our enemies know our plans; the more valour for us to attack them; what if our allies betray us, we fight alone. The duke told me that the French king is old, so sick that he cannot move from his bed let alone lead his army in the field. Like Mars, my brother is the god of war, and the duke will lead his army’s van.’
But thought of what that war might also entail sent tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks. ‘He will be safe,’ she screamed. ‘He will, he will. God must grant us victory.’ But which ‘he’ she meant her ladies did not speculate, clustering around her in dismay. Philippa, standing apart, knew which man she herself was praying for. Yet as she prayed a picture kept coming into her mind. It was painted on the church wall and had puzzled her as a child, an old painting, smoke engrimed, of a group of dancers. They sped along on nimble feet; the musicians played; their cloaks swirled, they laughed and gambolled in their finery. Riding along with them, unnoticed by them, unheeded, a black clothed skeleton kept time with them. The dance of death, as then, so now. And only God could tell who would be spared.
But as trickles of news began to seep through the court, detailing the king’s every move, she welcomed them. Each day’s advance meant one more day closer to her love, each day’s halt one day longer away. Wait for me. When I return shall I be your champion? Shall we ride to Netherstoke? Those were the things that seemed real and that she clung to.
But summer was over and the beech trees in Richmond park burned like flame against the sky before the king won the victory he was looking for. The ladies, equally longing for glory, had been disappointed too, descriptions of hunts and feasts, and minor skirmishing near the coast reassuring perhaps, but not exactly examples of martial bravery. The messenger who now came galloping towards them was obviously bearer of more important concerns, and, seeing him, the ladies stood still, like statues frozen into place, models of expectancy.
The queen and princess, wrapped in mantles of squirrel fur, had been strolling along the gravel paths that day, feeding the swans, while behind them page boys romped, gathering up chestnuts to pelt each other. Philippa had been walking in their company, never exactly joining in the ladies’ talk, never exactly excluded from it, when the sound of horse’s hooves had made her turn. The horseman who rode over the leaf-strewn grass was mounted on a grey mare that had recently been groomed, and his own person, fresh-bathed, fresh-shaved, seemed to exude excitement. He was young, his blond hair straggling beneath an enormous cap, his stout body so stuffed into a French doublet that when he stood up in the stirrups (to give himself height) his coat bulged at the seams. He flourished his hat enthusiastically as the ladies waved back, and pulled up among them with a display of horsemanship that would have done justice to a cavalry charge. But Philippa was among the first to suspect that all was not as simple as it seemed, more by what he did not say than said, as if he were holding something back; as if he were nervous what to present first, good news or bad.
He started with the good news. In flamboyant phrases, reminiscent of the king’s own words, he reiterated Henry’s constant and pious intent: namely, to seize the throne of France for himself. Then followed a list of small actions, minor events, in which the army had distinguished itself, and so, by degrees, he arrived skilfully at the king’s own part. The army was on the march at last, he said, despite the autumn storms (which the king’s critics claimed would bog them down). The king himself had forged ahead and reaching a flooded stream, had been the first to ford it, forcing the army to follow him. This manifestation of royal bravery caused the ladies to sigh with relief and clap their hands. But it was only an entr’acte, preface to a greater theme, which the messenger’s duty now was to reveal. Philippa, who had continued to watch him as he spoke, noted how, as he came to the next part, he shifted uncomfortably in his ornate saddle with the Tudor crests, and how the moisture glistened on his pink cheeks. True, the day was close, without wind, and under the trees the gnats still bit. But it was not
heat or insect bites that made him twitch.
‘The king sends greeting,’ he was continuing, in the same correct tone, although he eyed the ladies nervously, as if dubious that they too might bite. ‘He bids you know that once his army made its move, it won two victories in quick record: first, the battle known as Spurs; second, the siege of the town of Tournai.’
He wiped his forehead as the ladies pressed around him eagerly, overwhelming him with questions where these places were, wanting details of both engagements. Again Philippa watched as he explained how Spurs came to be so called (because the French name was deemed impossible to pronounce), and how Tournai was occupied. Tournai itself was ancient, he explained, a fortified market town, whose maze of buildings were surrounded by miles of walls. Only the king’s great guns could have pierced those walls, and so the king had had his cannon, his ‘Apostles’, brought up, to ensure their collapse. This had immediately occurred, enabling the army to pour inside. These descriptions of attack and counter-attack, this talk of bombarded redoubts and shattered gates, obviously were gratifying, and he would have lingered there had not the rest of his message still burdened him. ‘And so, my queen, the king, your loving lord, would have you rejoice with him,’ at last he made himself bring out, stiff as the brocade upon his coat. He wiped his forehead again. ‘Our soldiers occupy the town, thanks in part to the bravery of Suffolk’s men, with whom I myself was proud to serve. The king, our master, has entered in, and the French have submitted to him; in short, the enemy, abashed by their loss, have offered friendship and begged for peace. Which, in his mercy, the king has granted them. He has ordered our so-called allies to withdraw (for they never helped us much anyhow) and alliance with them is at an end.’ He gave a cough, to hide embarrassment. ‘The betrothal of the Princess Mary with that would-be emperor is not renewed, and she is to put thought of him aside. As reward for gallantry the Duke of Suffolk is sent to Lille, chosen suitor to the Duchess of Austria (his own widowhood having occurred). Those of his men who fought so bravely in the siege are rewarded, as I am, by being made messengers to the crown. And thus I bring my message to its end, God save the King.’