Treason

by Meredith Whitford

  ‘Let them sleep, tell them in the morning... ’

  ‘They would never forgive it. Besides, it’s hardly an hour to dawn, and word will get around the castle, I had to wake the doorkeeper and servants to get in, they know I wouldn’t come like this in the night for nothing. Wake them now and tell them before they have time to think it is a normal day.’

  ‘Yes.’ I began to pull on my bed-gown, realised it was a gay affair of green and gold, and found a dark, plain one. ‘Innogen, come with us, they will want to hear it from you. You were there, you must tell them.’

  ‘Oh, Martin. No. Don’t you see, I am the last person they’ll want to hear this from, the last they’ll want near them. I’m pregnant, I’ve got a clutch of healthy children, I’m the mother of Richard’s great flourishing bastard son. They won’t want me.’

  Richard and Anne always shared a bed. They looked so sweet, so young, curled up back to back, Anne’s hair coming loose from its night-time plait, Richard lying with his cheek on his hand. Gingerly I shook his bare shoulder. Years of campaigning had given him the ability to wake instantly, his thoughts collected. He swung over and sat up, pushing the hair out of his eyes. Like me his first question was about invasion.

  ‘No, Richard. No, my dear friend.’ He stared at me, then at Rob and Joyce. All the colour drained from his face. Beside him Anne blinked awake, murmuring a sleepy question. Joyce slid her arm under her, lifting her.

  There was no easy way to do it.

  ‘I have come to bring you the worst news in the world. I have come to break your hearts.’

  Anne cried out, then shoved her knuckles in her mouth. ‘No! No... Richard!’

  ‘No,’ he echoed her. ‘No... ’

  ‘Yes. I am so very sorry, but yes, it is your son. The Prince of Wales. Your son Edward is dead.’

  Anne screamed, not a hysterical shriek but a deep primeval wail that held all the grief of every bereft mother since time began. So must the Virgin have wailed, so must Hecuba and Niobe.

  Richard gazed at us, ashen, desperately hoping it was not true. ‘Martin?’

  ‘Yes, my dear.’

  He let out a long breath, not a sigh, not a sound, then turned and grabbed Anne, pulling her hard against him. She clung to him, so tightly her knuckles shone white.

  ‘Tell us how. What happened. When. Who told you?’

  Cleverly we told our lies, and they were bad enough. Tears began to seep from Richard’s closed eyes. ‘I see. Thank you. Thank Innogen. Later we will... Please go away now. Thank you, but go away, all of you. Do what is necessary. Leave us alone.’

  I didn’t think we should, but Joyce caught my eye and nodded. ‘I will stay in the outer room,’ she said. ‘Call me at need. No one will disturb you.’

  And that was all we could do for them at first: leave them alone with their grief.

  ~~~

  And there was more grief, for me. My wife miscarried. She should not have ridden down from Middleham.

  But when later that day Richard and Anne sent for her, she did what was necessary, she drank a cup of that smoky spirit the Scots call uisquebagh, and she stayed on her feet while she told them of their son’s death and answered all their questions.

  ‘Of course we had a doctor. Yes, I was always with him, and his nurse and Lady Warwick. He died in his grandmother’s arms. No, not the sweating sickness, I don’t think, it was not like that. Fever. It burnt him up. Very quick, too quick. No, no pain after the first onset, he was unconscious so soon. He didn’t suffer. Of course the Mass, the vigil, and he lies in the chapel at Middleham, his grandmother watching over him. He didn’t suffer.’

  Joyce had slipped a sleeping drug into the wine when she finally persuaded them to take drink. They were in that half-dreamy state where although they took everything in, nothing was quite real or had the power to hurt. Anne said vaguely, ‘It was kind of you to come yourself, Jenny. We had to hear from someone who was with him. Kind. But you shouldn’t have ridden, aren’t you having a baby?’

  ‘No, love.’ With a fine pretence of embarrassment she said, ‘I wondered, back in London, but it was merely – you know.’

  ‘Oh yes, I see. Thank you for coming to tell us. You and Mother were with Edward all the time?’

  ‘All the time. I loved that little boy. I was with him. So was his grandmother. He had people with him who loved him.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Anne’s eyes drifted shut. Richard picked her up and carried her back to the bed.

  Quietly, intensely, he asked, ‘Is all that true? Innogen? It wasn’t a – a bad death for my son?’

  ‘It’s true, Richard. His suffering was short.’

  ‘God be thanked for that at least.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Innogen, and kissed him. I made an excuse to get her out of the room before our structure of lies fell apart.

  I had no sooner closed the door behind us than Innogen said, ‘Martin...’ in a strange little voice, and I was just in time to catch her as she collapsed. I swept her up in my arms and hurried to our bedchamber. There I shouted desperately for her waiting women, yelled for a doctor, for help. Much as I liked Anna Lovell I had always thought her too timid to say boo to a goose, but it was she who stepped up to me and said, rolling up her sleeves, ‘Martin, be quiet! Innogen needs rest, you must go away. This is women’s business.’

  ‘But she’s unconscious! Anna, look, there is blood on her skirts!’

  ‘That’s normal. It means little. I was with her this morning when the miscarriage happened. Of course she should have stayed in bed, but there is nothing to fear. Martin, I know.’ The pain in her honest black eyes reminded me that, yes, poor Anna knew; she had never carried a child to full term. ‘Now go away, Martin. Leave Innogen to us.’

  I let her push me towards the door. Innogen’s voice stopped me. ‘Martin. Don’t worry. Only tired. Martin – John. John ’n Kath’rine. No one’s thought.’

  Ashamed, for I too had forgotten about Richard’s other children, I went back to the bed. Innogen was ashen pale and too weak even to lift her head. Softly I kissed her limp hand. ‘I’ll find them, I’ll look after them. But my dear...’

  ‘I’m only tired. Don’t worry. Find John.’

  Then Anna and the other women bundled me out of the room.

  ~~~

  The castle was at sixes and sevens, of course. Servants stood in whispering knots, all normal business suspended. Women wept – and not only women. I passed Rob Percy sitting at the foot of a stair, tears flooding down his face. He was cursing aloud and hitting his fist against the stone wall beside him. I left him, for I had no comfort to spare. No one knew where John and Katherine were; when I asked for them, people stared as if I had spoken in a foreign language. At last I had the sense to try Will Huntingdon’s rooms.

  He opened the door a crack, as if to protect what was behind it. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Yes. I’m looking for Katherine and John.’

  ‘I wondered when someone would remember their existence. They’re here. I suppose you’d better come in.’

  He had a fine, big room with a windowed bay at the end. On the seat under the window John and Katherine huddled together like puppies. Two pairs of sodden blue eyes stared at me with hostile, defiant grief. I had never seen much likeness between them, but sorrow had hollowed their cheeks and defined the strong York bones. They were Richard’s children, and they had been left alone to mourn their brother.

  Helplessly I said, ‘Your father has to stay with Anne – ’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. We understand.’ John looked away as he spoke, and I did what I should have done at once. I knelt down and put my arms around them.

  ‘My darlings, I’m so sorry. I loved that little boy too, but he was your brother, it is worst for you two. Worse for you than for anyone but Richard and Anne. Poor Anne, at least Richard still has you.’

  ‘We know he won’t want to see us. Everyone must be thinking, why couldn’t it be me who died? A king needs a legitimate son. Now he
has no heir.’ John tried so hard to say these things flatly, without rancour, but his voice was breaking and the swoops from childish treble to a man’s baritone gave his words unintentional pathos.

  I tried to think of something to say, and could not. Will Huntingdon said, ‘And since that’s the flat truth, we might as well look it in the face. Martin, sit down. You’ll have a drink?’ He kicked a stool towards me. It was the first time he had called me by my name, and it reminded me that he was not much younger than me. He poured four cups of wine and sat down beside Katherine, trying to smooth the tear-stuck curls from her face. He had a little daughter, I remembered, from his marriage to Mary Woodville. Odd to think that he would have been a king’s uncle-by-marriage, and soon would be son-in-law to another. ‘Come, sweetheart, drink the wine. You need it.’ She shook her head, but gave in to his coaxing. I noticed she had bound her hair with a black ribbon and tied another around the sleeve of her blue gown; probably she had no black dress, and had not wanted to put herself forward by asking for one. Poor little lass, she had done her best. John had found a black jerkin, but it was old, and his wrists stuck out below the cuffs.

  I had a crashing headache, the kind that starts at the back of the neck and sinks iron claws right through your brain. The wine helped a bit, it cleared my fogged mind enough to think what to say.

  ‘I’ve no brothers or sisters, but when our son Peter died we wanted you, John, and all the rest of our children. Give your father time. I’m sorry it seems no one has thought of you, but... John, there is something I have to tell you. Your mother was expecting a child, and she miscarried this morning.’

  A sudden flush of red mantled his pale face. Back at Christmas I had caught him with a girl – oh, it was innocent enough, just a kiss, but we had had to have a very frank talk; but one’s parents’ lusts are another matter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Is – is Mother all right?’

  ‘She is in no danger, but she’s weak and very tired. Richard and Anne asked to see her, to ask about – about Edward. Now she’s in bed. That’s why she couldn’t come to you. Nor could I, till now. By the way, your father and Anne don’t know about the miscarriage, and they mustn’t know.’

  ‘Indeed no,’ Katherine was quick to understand. ‘My lord, how did Ned die? No one has told us.’

  Glibly I rattled off the agreed story. The children believed it, but I caught Will Herbert’s eyes fixed on me in a doubting half-frown. I met his look with a commanding one of my own, and he nodded and slid his arm around Katherine.

  ‘I’m glad it was – wasn’t bad,’ she said. ‘But oh, poor little Ned.’ Her fingers were pleating a fold of her skirt. With a sorry little look up under her lashes she said very quietly, ‘We wondered... It’s what John said: now the King has no heir... There are so many people who would like to overthrow him, there are plots and rebellions all the time... We wondered, we thought... the old Queen and her daughters leave Sanctuary and come to terms with Father, then his son dies... ’

  The same thought had been in the back of my mind. But Innogen had said it seemed a natural death. Still, how could we be sure? Could a poison simulate the illness she had described? Was the timing of Edward’s death pure happenstance, or something far more evil? John and Katherine were fourteen, and in our world they were adults, yet they were too young to have to face the idea that their beloved brother, a child of not yet ten, had died for political advantage.

  I was glad when Will said robustly, ‘Come now, Kate, that has to be sheer fancy! Oh, I understand why you would think it, but ask yourself who? How? Ned was Prince of Wales, he was protected and well cared for.’

  One name was in all our minds. Katherine gave it voice, only to dismiss it. ‘Not Bess, of course. I never thought that. I don’t know her very well, but well enough to know she never, never would. She’s good, you know, and kind. Besides, she didn’t go to Middleham. But other people might think what we did. Could one of the Lancastrian lot, someone who’s for that man Tudor –?’

  ‘Hard to see how,’ Will said, and it crossed my mind that he must know a good deal of what the Woodvilles were capable of. ‘No, Kate. Don’t burden yourself with fears like that. This dreadful thing has happened, and it’s not only heartbreaking but a dire political blow... That’s enough. Of course,’ he assured me, ‘this is only among us. We would speak of it to no one else. And I hope no one is wicked enough to suggest it to the King.’

  In silence we finished our wine. Will re-filled our cups. Staring down into the drink John said, ‘We weren’t sure what to do. We want to tell Father and Lady Anne that – you know. But they probably won’t want to see us. We don’t know what is right to do.’

  ‘Give them a little time,’ I repeated. ‘Later, send in a message – ’

  I stopped, because John was staring past me with a look that made the hairs on my neck stand up. I spun around, and I crossed myself, because I give you my word I thought I was seeing the old Duke of York’s ghost.

  Then Katherine said, ‘Father!’ and got to her feet.

  Richard came silently towards us – silently, because he had only bedroom slippers on his feet. He wore a long gown of black, crookedly buttoned. His pupils were wide and dark from the drugs they had given him. He had left the door open, and outside people clustered, whispering, uncertain what to do. Will slipped past him and shut the door.

  ‘I couldn’t find you, then I thought of coming here.’ Richard sat raggedly down on the end of the bed. ‘Anne’s asleep, you see. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted my children. Poor Anne. At least I have you. That helps, I find.’ Katherine and John went to him. He put his arms around them, drawing their heads down on his shoulders. ‘I know you loved Edward too. I’ve lost so many of my brothers and sisters. Poor children. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you before. Where’s Innogen, I thought she would be with you, John?’

  Will and I exchanged a glance. It was hard to tell from his vague and dragging talk how much Richard was really taking in. Smoothly Will said, ‘I gather she is resting.’

  ‘Oh yes. She had a long journey from Middleham. She always did travel fast and hard. Remember, Martin, after Tewkesbury, at Coventry? We didn’t even know she was in the country, and she had heard you were dead or was it wounded and came to find you. I remember how she came bursting in with her hair flying and the baby under her arm – that was you, of course, John – and no attendants but one groom because she’d travelled too fast for them. When was that, Martin?’

  ‘After Tewkesbury. Thirteen years ago.’

  ‘Oh yes of course. Back when all we had to worry about was winning a battle. And telling Mother about John. Oh and the Scots, of course. Always the Scots. And telling Edward I wanted to marry Anne. Poor Anne.’ He started to laugh, weirdly and harshly, then broke off as if by an effort of will. ‘So many deaths. And now my son. But at least I still have my other son, and my daughter.’

  ‘If we can do anything,’ John hesitantly began.

  ‘Oh, just be. Stay with me. For there’s no other comfort now.’

  Katherine wound her arms around him, and over his bent head gave Will and me a look. In silent signal she jerked her head towards the door. We rose, and John nodded. We left. There was nothing else we could do.

  ~~~

  I still cannot bear to think of that time. Of the rest of that first day I remember only Kendal weeping as he wrote the official letters, and Anne collapsing during Mass. Poor girl, she went suddenly from icy control to convulsive sobs, crouching helplessly back on her heels, weeping as if her heart would break again. In front of everyone Richard held her in his arms, but his attempts at comfort went for nothing. She hardly seemed to know he was there. After an agonised moment the choir’s training held, and they sang valiantly on while Anne’s sobs battered against the walls. We carried her away to bed, and there she curled up with her knees hard against her chest and her arms wrapped around her shoulders, and nothing could stop that dreadful weeping. Joyce said to let her cry, th
at it was better now than later. But she cried all night, slept a few hours at dawn and woke to weep again. For all my love and pity I would have given anything to stop that crying – and if I could not bear it, what was it doing to Richard? For he never left her, he lay beside her on the bed, enduring it and suffering his own grief.

  After two days Anne seemed better; at least, Joyce reported that she slept all night without drugs, and she rose up next day pale, haggard, shaky, but resolute. Not for nothing was she the daughter of Neville and Beauchamp, not for nothing was she Queen of England. But she had changed, oh, she had changed. Poor Anne. And poor Richard. Without a woman’s easy release of tears he simply endured.

  ~~~

  At the end of the month we moved north, making our way to Middleham. The north had always been home, but now it brought no comfort. Anne, who had always ridden, always been a superb horsewoman with no patience with invalidism or self-indulgence, had to travel in a litter. She kept the curtains drawn as if to shut out all reminders that this journey, always before undertaken with joy, led only to misery. At Pontefract she could hardly walk up the steps of the castle, and Joyce and Innogen put her immediately to bed.

  I think Richard needed the same, but no sooner had we arrived than outriders galloped in with news of a foreign visitor come to see the King.

  ‘Ambassadors?’

  ‘No, Your Grace – a private visit from a Bohemian gentleman.’

  ‘From Bohemia?’ For the first time since his son’s death some faint interest crossed Richard’s face. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Sire, his name is Nicholas Von Poppelau.’

  It meant nothing to anyone, but Richard said, ‘Well, I daresay I’ll see him. Yes. Have him brought to me.’

  It was an extraordinary figure that entered. The only Germans any of us had ever seen were of the Hanseatic League who in London skulked behind the regimented walls of the Steelyard, and a few mercenaries in Edward’s army in 1471. This man was something quite different. Not tall but immensely strong in the body and richly dressed in the German style, he strode forward, beaming, and made his bow to Richard. He had letters of introduction from his Emperor, and he delivered a formal address in Latin, speaking of the amity between our two peoples and his delight at being received by the English King. Richard replied formally in Latin, to the visitor’s evident pleasure – but it soon became apparent that Von Poppelau had only a few words of English and had pretty much shot his bolt when he had said ‘Good day’. It seemed the whole thing would have to be conducted in Latin, but we discovered French was another common language, and Innogen did wonders with her smattering of German. Von Poppelau was rich enough to travel where he chose, for interest alone, although the Emperor Frederick had used him as ambassador to Russia. Hard though it is to tell in a foreign language, he seemed a likeable fellow: educated, travelled, interesting.