Treason

by Meredith Whitford

  Richard was standing against the far wall, his hands pressed flat back against the stone. His face was ashen, his eyes dilated black. Neither he nor Edward seemed aware of us, then Edward turned like a baited bear and said, ‘Get – out,’ with such menace that I nearly obeyed.

  I hand it to Rob. Saying, ‘Your Grace, you can be heard. It will not do, Sire,’ he stepped up to the King and took the chair-leg from his hand. Edward took two great shuddering breaths, and the red madness faded.

  I edged past him to Richard. When I spoke his name he stared through me. I had once seen Lady Warwick slap a girl who had had bad news and gone blank with shock like this; I made do with gripping Richard’s arms and shaking him. Slowly his eyes fixed on me, and he slumped forward to lean his head on my shoulder.

  ‘Martin. Christ, my dear, Martin.’

  We righted the one bench the King had left intact, and made them sit down. They perched there like two whipped schoolboys, and after a moment Edward slid his arm around his brother. Rob opened the door a crack and asked for wine, and we made them drink.

  ‘Can we help?’ Rob asked. ‘Is it something you can tell your friends?’

  Richard downed his wine in a gulp. As if continuing a previous conversation he said, ‘It is Warwick, you see.’

  In relief, for I had been afraid it was the Duchess of York or Margaret, I asked, ‘Dead?’

  ‘No. Would that he were! God forgive me, would that he were!’

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘Made alliance with Margaret of Anjou. He’s gone over to the Lancastrians.’

  Rob cried ‘No!’ and clapped his hand childlike over his mouth. I simply gaped, beyond speech.

  ‘He has,’ the King said. ‘His father’s head rotted with my father’s on a traitor’s spike at that bitch’s order. His father and brother died, with mine, fighting that bitch. He was driven into exile by her. Yet now in his hubris he has made alliance with her.’

  ‘George too,’ Richard said. ‘Martin, George was at Ludlow, he stood with us and waited for that army to take us, he listened to Queen Margaret rating our mother like a whore, he was bundled onto that ship with us when Queen Margaret’s army was attacking London. Warwick, yes, because he never really understood, he sorrowed for his father and mine but it meant glory for him, he couldn’t be king but he could control one, then found he could not. But he never understood, and I knew it. It’s George I cannot bear, that he’s done this. He’s none too bright, and he’s greedy and proud and untrustworthy, but he’s my brother and I never thought he could betray our parents.’

  ‘Warwick and Louis dangled a crown in front of him,’ Edward grunted.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Are you so sure you could resist?’

  Richard looked at him as if he were barking. ‘At this cost, yes. Anyway, do you think I haven’t been offered it?’

  ‘What?’

  I thought, if Edward was genuinely surprised, no wonder his judgement was often so poor. He and Richard stared at each other in mutual disbelief, and Richard said slowly, for the dullards down the front of the class, ‘Ned, I have lost count of the clever schemes to put George or me on the thrones of England, Burgundy, Zeeland even... Nor was it always Warwick making the suggestions, either – or he was only the conduit for them. Warwick wouldn’t have cared much whether he used George or me, so long as he overthrew you and made one of his daughters Queen...’ He flinched at the words. Gripping my hand he said, ‘Martin, they are marrying Anne Neville to Queen Margaret’s son.’

  I felt as if he had hit me in the gut. ‘Can’t be...’

  ‘They are. You see, Warwick has promised to make Henry the Sixth king of England again. Anne is the price and guarantee for both sides.’

  ‘Restore Henry the Sixth!’ It was high summer, but I shivered as if in snow. I had, suddenly, an abominably clear memory of my mother trying to fight the men who had raped and killed her.

  Head in hands Edward said, ‘Well, I’m sorry about Anne, she’s a dear little lass, but it’s not as if she’ll come to any harm. But don’t you see, this makes George superfluous? Irrelevant? No one is interested now in making him King. From Warwick’s point of view, Anne will be Princess of Wales and Queen one day. George is to succeed if Anne bears the Prince no heir. From Louis’s and Queen Margaret’s point of view, old Henry will be king again, then his son. No place in that for George, don’t you see?’

  ‘Of course I see!’ Richard snapped, and slammed out of the room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Edward asked, bewildered. Well, I thought, where do you start? Then his brows drew down in a glower and he said, ‘Back at that Christmas feast Richard looked far too interested in Anne Neville for my liking. Is he?’

  ‘Sire,’ said Rob with more courtesy than I could have mustered just then, ‘he has said nothing about Lady Anne. But she’s his cousin, he grew up with her, as did Martin and I. We are all very fond of her and hate to think of her being used like this.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, I hope that’s all it is. Because you can tell him from me that Anne Neville is the last person I will ever let him marry.’ He stood up, casting a glance around the room. ‘My mother then my tutor tried very hard to train me to control my temper. On the whole they did well. But it’s as Richard said: this treachery.’

  ~~~

  In the middle of September the ships carrying Warwick and Clarence and their army broke the English blockade and landed at Plymouth and Dartmouth. We were still in the north when the news came, for John Neville had sent word that he was unable to put down the latest Yorkshire rising. Whoever took London first would have an inestimable advantage, and with the rebels moving rapidly eastward Edward wheeled his army about and raced south, leaving John Neville to catch him up.

  I dreamt I was at Middleham – no, on board ship and – I woke to find Richard shaking me. ‘Martin, wake up! Get up!’ His sinewy hands closed on my arms, dragging me to my feet. ‘Wake up!’

  ‘Mawakestopshakingmewhere are we?’

  ‘Still at Doncaster, you idiot. Come on!’

  Exhausted from the day’s march I had fallen asleep in hose and shirt, a cloak huddled around me. Richard was forcing my arms into my doublet, Rob thrusting boots onto my feet. A single candle flared in the draught from the open door. Men were running full-pelt down the corridor. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘John Neville has turned against the King.’ Richard pushed my coat of brigandines into my arms. ‘He couldn’t betray his brother after all, poor sod. One of his men broke away, he’s loyal, he has just come in with the news. John Neville is coming down on us fast and he has twice our numbers. We have to get out of here, there’s nothing else for it. So hurry up, Martin. Five minutes, in the courtyard.’ He latched a buckle on my brigandines, kissed me, and strode out, a baggage roll over his shoulder.

  I plunged my face into the icy water in the basin, shook myself like a dog and started to pack. My two books; my cloak, spare shirt and hose; soap, razor, comb. Hell, what else? Candles. Tinderbox. Money – I had three marks in my belt-purse and my emerald ring. The stale taste of sleep was in my mouth, and because I wasn’t really awake it seemed important to clean my teeth. I had barely dipped my finger in the saltbox when Richard raced back in.

  ‘What are you going to do, smile at them? Come on.’ He bundled me out and down the stairs.

  The courtyard was seething with men. Panicky shouts and the neighs of frightened horses rose on all sides. The flickering torches lit the King’s golden head, and Anthony Woodville’s paler one beside him. They were already mounted, the King holding the reins of Richard’s horse. The gates crashed open, we threw ourselves into the saddles and were off.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I shouted to Richard.

  ‘Don’t know. East. Warwick is to the south with his army.’

  We had done this a year ago. But this time there was no question of letting the King be taken, things had gone far beyond that. We galloped on eastward, because Anthony Woodville owned lan
d around Lynn. We took boats across the Wash, but at Lynn there was no safety, merely a breathing space in which to take stock. The rebel armies were closing on us fast. The county of Norfolk was hostile. There were only about a dozen of us: Hastings, Rivers, Richard, a handful of us squires. We had no arms but our personal weapons, no money, no supplies.

  ‘Burgundy,’ said Edward. ‘There’s nothing else for it. We have to buy time. Duke Charles won’t dare not support me.’ No one had any better suggestion, and he went away to arrange our passage. The best he could find were fishing boats whose masters would take us, at a cost. We pooled our money (I kept quiet about my emerald ring, for it was all I had of my father) and Edward gave his fur cloak to one of the masters to make up the fee.

  As the boats cast off Edward halloo’d from his boat to Richard.

  ‘What?’ Richard bellowed back. In the morning mist we could just make out the King’s figure. He waved solemnly then cupped his hands around his mouth again.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ he called.

  He was right. It was the second of October. It was Richard’s eighteenth birthday.

  And so we went into exile to the sound of those two royal lunatics laughing.

  ~~~

  They told me afterwards that it was an exciting voyage. Our boats had been chased by ships of the German Hanseatic League, whether on general principles or because they somehow knew the English king was aboard, I don’t know. For my part, I would have begged the Germans to take us and put me out of my misery, for I hadn’t grown out of my childhood seasickness, and Richard dragged me ashore at Alkmaan more dead than alive.

  To assume it was Duke Charles who rushed to our aid, would be wrong: it was the Seigneur Louis de la Gruythuuse whose ships chased away the Germans, and he saved us, housed us, succoured us. Governor of Holland, he was immensely rich, a cultured man who, fortunately for us, was firmly Anglophile. While Duke Charles temporised, waiting to see which way the political cat would jump, Gruythuuse opened his heart and his house to us. And what a house it was: the finest in Bruges, a palace crammed with beautiful and extraordinary things from all over the world. Not in any English castle have I known such comfort and such luxury. Gruythuuse liked novelties and jokes – toys, automata, books that puffed dust in your face when you opened them – and, a learned man with an interest in all things modern, he supported Master William Caxton’s printing press. (Although I didn’t remember it, I had met Master Caxton in ’61.) Gruythuuse gave us clothes, we had only to ask his treasurer for cash, he opened credit for us to wage soldiers and buy arms, horses and ships.

  Meanwhile, back in England, Warwick and Clarence had entered London on October the sixth, promptly whisking King Henry out of the Tower and parading him through the city in what came to be called his ‘Re-Adeption’. Warwick’s brother Archbishop George was restored to the Chancellorship, Parliament reversed all the attainders on Lancastrians. And, to popular disapproval, Warwick made an alliance of peace with France and promised King Louis to join him in attacking Burgundy.

  At this, Duke Charles saw the light. His only hope of keeping his beloved country from the munching jaws of France was to restore Edward to the English throne. He coughed up fifty thousand crowns, and we set about provisioning ships and recruiting an army.

  Our chances were given another fillip when news came that the Queen had borne a son. When Edward fled England she had scurried into Westminster Sanctuary and there, in November, she at last produced a Prince of Wales. The child, called Edward, of course, was reported to be healthy, and Edward gave thanks upon his knees.

  In February I went with Richard to visit his sister Margaret at Lille. I think Edward did not go because Duke Charles was still hesitant about giving him too open recognition as rightful King of England, and wished to avoid anything that smacked of a state visit, but there could be no objection to Richard paying a private visit to his sister.

  Margaret had a pretty little palace, and we were taken to a room that for rich and elaborate furnishings made Westminster look like a cottage. It was also, unlike Westminster, beautifully warm. We were inspecting the closed stove that heated the room when the doors were flung open and a steward announced the Duchess of Burgundy.

  She came towards us with her arms held out, saying, ‘Dickon, my dear! And Martin!’ but I could hardly credit that I had once called this awesome woman Meg. She was dressed in the high Burgundian style – a gown of blue velvet and silver tissue, with ermine lining its full hanging oversleeves and bedecking its hem and neck. The under-sleeves were silver tissue embroidered with pearls and diamonds, and the buckle of her silver belt was solid sapphire. She wore that curious ‘steeple’ headdress, a slender cone near two feet long, with an embroidered gauze veil falling to the ground. Her earrings and the rings on her fingers were diamonds, pearls and sapphires. Round her neck she wore a necklace of marguerites, her namesake flower, fashioned of white enamel and pearls. Her scent was intoxicating, and her lovely face, more beautiful even than I remembered, was subtly painted.

  We bowed, of course, but she laughed at us and swept us into her arms to kiss us. ‘So good to see you!’ she said, and had to dab away some tears. ‘But whoever would have thought we would meet like this! Come, sit down, we’ll have wine.’ She gave an order in her new language to the servants, then dismissed them. ‘Now we can talk,’ she said as cosily as any ordinary good-wife. ‘Tell me everything.’

  By ‘everything’ she meant not politics or war but home gossip: news of her mother, whom she clearly missed; was it true their sister Elizabeth was having another baby? She’d had a letter from the other sister, Anne, who sounded none too happy with her second husband Sir Thomas St Leger; what was this she heard about Richard peopling the world with bastard children? Oh, all sorts of things. We did our best for her, but I think she knew more than we did of recent events in England.

  ‘And you, Meg?’ Richard asked at last. ‘Are you happy here?’

  ‘Oh yes, never doubt it.’ But her eyes shadowed a little. She and Duke Charles seemed to live apart more often than not, and I had heard all sorts of scurrilous gossip: that he preferred the love of men; that she had other lovers; that on their marriage he had declared her experienced and complained he’d been wed to the greatest whore in Europe. I knew Richard had heard the same tales, although of course we never discussed them, and when Margaret spoke of her longing for a baby his glance crossed mine. ‘Still, it’s early days yet,’ Margaret said valiantly, ‘although I can’t help remembering that Anne only ever had the one child. Though who can blame her, married to Exeter!’ Richard laughed, but Margaret had been married more than two years, and I knew we were both thinking of their mother’s twelve children and their sister Elizabeth’s growing brood. It was clear Margaret was deeply fond of her stepdaughter Mary, and it seemed they shared an interest in learning and in Christian provision for the poor and sick. Poor Meg, I thought, having to make do with another woman’s child.

  By supper – which we took in another deliciously warm private room – we had exhausted our small talk, and with a sigh Margaret spoke of George. ‘I’ve had letters from him. He is unhappy.’ Richard raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘And don’t look at me like that – he is.’ Richard said, more or less, that it served George right and he could go to hell in a handbasket for all he, Richard, cared, then they both appealed to me for support and we squabbled for a few moments as we had done at Fotheringhay, as children. Very refreshing it was, too. Then Margaret said, ‘Handle him carefully and he will desert Warwick and his coterie. Write to him, Dickon. I tell you, I know our George. Forgive him, Dickon, and tell him so.’

  ‘Yet you were with us at Ludlow, Meg. If it hadn’t been for Somerset keeping some sort of rein on that Anjou woman we could have been killed. You and Mother could have been raped. And George has allied himself with them.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’ She shivered, remembering. ‘Warwick’s been leading him by the nose – ’

  ‘With promises to make George k
ing; and it is only because that has not come to pass that George is having second thoughts!’

  ‘You used not to be so hard, Dickon.’

  ‘No, well, I’ve changed. I have had to.’

  Margaret sighed again. ‘And so I see. I hardly recognised you two when I came in – I had expected the two boys I said goodbye to, and here are two hard, experienced men. But I tell you this, Richard – you speak of Ludlow and what could have happened to us there... but I remember our mother stepping forward to meet who- or what-ever came into that courtyard, and I remember George, a boy of ten, and terrified, going with her and holding his head high as he took her arm.’ Richard nodded, his mouth tightening. ‘Write to him,’ Margaret gently urged. ‘He is our brother. He loves you. You won’t say you no longer love him?’

  ‘No,’ Richard admitted.

  ‘Then write. Do it now.’ She rang a bell and when servants came she asked for ink and paper, and made Richard write the letter there and then.

  Despite the private nature of the visit we were allowed only two days. It was a little island of luxury in our existence as exiles, and a taste of home for all that Margaret was so emphatically Duchess of Burgundy now. We would have stayed if we could. Kissing her goodbye I wondered if we would ever see her again – if we would live to see her again – or if our exile here would be forever.

  ~~~

  A few days after our return Edward called a conference. ‘It is nearly time to go,’ he said, looking soberly around at us. ‘We have all the men I can raise here, and while fifteen hundred isn’t marvellous, more will come to us in England. The thing is to go, and go soon, before Warwick can get a real grip on the government. Anjou is holding off, she won’t risk her darling son till Warwick has secured the country, but Louis is pressing her to go. Can we be ready to go within a month?’