Death Be Pardoner To Me: The Life of George, Duke of Clarence (10 page)

It all changed. I know now nothing is as constant as change but as a young boy I sought permanence, not constant upheaval. My lord father came home, to great accolades and much happiness from all of us. Our lady mother radiated her joy and that infected all of us. Whether it was all our lord father needed to make him try and claim the throne of England by right of his blood line, or whether he planned all along to do that, I cannot say. What I do know is, his efforts failed and after lengthy acrimonious discussions, a compromise was made, one that suited no one, especially my lord father. The moods were black indeed and we were discouraged from going near him, as if we dared anyway. Those words were wasted on us, for we knew from the time we could walk we did not approach the great duke unless he held out a hand to us. The times he did that were able to be counted as often as the sun dropped out of the sky and burned a hole in London. My lady mother’s affection for us was displayed as often as snow in August but that had been known to happen, according to some seers, and so it was possible to say it happened. Ah, my brother of Gloucester, I look back down the years to when we were small, when all life seemed to be on a constant tidal flow of good fortune/bad fortune and all we had to cling to was one another. Where are you now that I need you so much? Back in the north, in the land you love so well, where the wind is keen and the people as sharp as the wind that scours their land and their personalities? What is it that draws you to the north, my brother? What is it that holds you in landscape that has ever seemed to me to be desolate, no, more than that, lonely?

Ah, the truth emerges from the drunken part of the brain which is not affected by whatever it is that is causing me so much pain. What eats at me, I ask myself, is it some insect which has burrowed its way in, or maggots hatched from eggs laid in their passing? Or has the drink damaged the interior of my skull and it is fighting its way out? I have fanciful thoughts even as I know, oh how I know, what it is and that it will end my life if my brother the king does not end my life first. God willing, that will happen!

Clarence, stop this endless, senseless rambling. Come, you talk of your life, so talk of your life, foolish drunken man!

I ask now, to whom do I speak? Who is listening to this babble of thoughts, reminiscences, twisted thinking and outright admissions of regret and sadness? Are there spirits around me, angels even, here in this room, ones I cannot see and cannot sense? Are we not taught that the Lord sends His angels to guard us? I wonder who needs most guarding at this time, myself, getting ready to walk into eternity, or those who will be left to –

Ah, the questions. Left to what? Grieve? Regret? Dismiss my passing as no more than a date to be recorded in the endless papers which are kept of such things? The one thing that will not be mentioned is the hell I am going through.

Loneliness. Who needs the hell of devils with pitchforks and endless flames and endless pain when there is, in this life, the hell of loneliness? Who needs to fear Purgatory when here is aching emptiness, here is the ever-present need for a love that will overcome everything? Where was and is the woman who will love me not because I am – I was – a handsome wealthy duke with many estates and many homes, who will hold my head when I weep with pain, who will laugh with me in the sunshine and in the bitter cold winds that sweep across this country of ours and bring the bite of northern lands with it, who will lie with me for no reason other than comfort and who will not turn away when I reach out for that comfort in the middle of a dark endless night?

I never found her.

Damn it to hell, I thought I had, twice I thought I had and both times it failed.

I know now, from sitting here in this cold cheerless chamber, Royal apartments indeed, my brother the king should try being closeted here for days on end if he thinks these are Royal apartments! That the reason it failed – twice – is that I did not give, I only took.

If You are listening, Almighty God, to the prayers of a doomed man, twice doomed, under sentence of death from without and from within, if You are merciful as they say You are, grant me another chance to show I can give as well as take, let me have a chance at love once more. I care not if I have to live a life over again, many times, if the seer I spoke with once was right, if I can carry with me the memory of a true love and learn to give true love in return.

Enough! Wallowing in self-pity will not help my state of mind. Where did I divert? Oh yes, my brother of Gloucester, named for a southern area, who became Lord of the North. Became a man of stature there, revered, they say, treated like a king. Well, it’s as close as he will come to being King whilst my brother the king is alive and then there are countless of his brood to take on the mantle when he goes to his eternal rest. Mantle? Crown, the crown of England, that which was promised once to me and which was taken from me when my brother lusted after the hair and the face and the bosom of a buxom widow who was as sharp as a northern wind and knew if she kept my brother the king from her bed she would draw him close to her. The wiles of women; they do it endlessly and men endlessly fall for it. None learn from the mistakes of others, each thinks they have found that One Woman who will love them forever and eternally and endlessly and all the time men buy their affections with jewels, with land, with titles and properties and estates for the hangers-on masquerading as family and all the time they know somehow they will tire of the hair and the face and the bosom and they knew deep inside in the place where truth lives and no lies can ever be told that another’s face, hair and bosom will do as well if not better when the first one becomes too familiar to the lips, the arms and the rest of the body.

Ha! Cynical Clarence! Was it not ever thus with me? Did I not desire Isobel and did I not realise in a short time that I married for power and not for love? And that she married because her father wished an alliance and acquired that which he wanted, as always?

And the second time … ah, does the memory fly back now to the second one. Not for me the adventuring outside the marriage, not for me the guilt of adultery, for all that marriage disappointed me, I made vows and I stayed within them. But when ‘freedom’ came, when my wife faded away before my eyes, became a walking skeleton of a figure that hurt my very eyes to see, when I longed for Death to take her and end her suffering, when she was finally taken to her eternal rest, then did I turn to another for comfort and for consolation and for that which I sought as a man with natural desires, a willing body which would match passion with passion.

I thought I loved her. I thought this time I had found that which was missing from my marriage, I believed – really believed – all was well. But I know now she loved me and I used her. How hard it is to face the truth! How hard it is to stare into an empty mazer - God knows I would wish it were full again – and say in truth, I used her. At night her face vanished from my mind, her scent, her touch, gone like early morning dew from the espaliered trees I loved to tend and which, like everything else, has been taken from me now. If I loved her, she would not have vanished, she would have been held in my mind, I could have relived every strand of her hair, every crinkle of her eyes as she smiled, every dimple in the skin, but I did not. I could not. I know now I am a cold man when it comes to love; I take and do not give. Ever was it thus with me, I know, I heard it in the condemnatory words of my brother the king, ‘ever do you take, Clarence!’ he stormed at me when we fought over property. Clarence. When he was not favoured of me, it was always Clarence. When we were brothers together, it was George. So much said in a change of name. So much said and not said and that which I should have said will remain silent for even if I wished now to express anything, this foolish brain, so eaten away, would not put the words together.

I leave behind a lasting legacy, of a kind. One no member of the York family knows of. A secret - and ever did I love secrets. She told me with shining eyes and a smile that was so different from the one she gave when in the throes of ecstasy, that a child would be born of our union. I gave her money; I gave her money for the child, for I knew then that the sands of time were running out fast for this once proud great duke but told her nothing of it. My condition was my other secret, one I kept to myself even with her, she who loved me full well.

Is she yet delivered? Is the child well? Does it prosper? Will she talk of me to the child of our love? Who is there to know of this secret and bring me the news I so desire?

None. Nor ever will be. If there is another life after this, then I will know from the security and safety of that world, once I am out of Purgatory and into the Lord’s Heaven, if He permits me to enter, that is. Until then, I am left to wonder. And hope.

Chapter 11

The small ship tossed on the turbulent seas, throwing cargo and people around indiscriminately. Its sails were torn, flapping wildly in the violent wind, the waves smashed against the hull as if determined to break through and snatch the heart from the vessel.

None of this was more turbulent than the thoughts being thrown around in George’s mind.

Exile. Bereavement. Loss. Upheaval.

John Skelton, their tutor and friend, had come to the two boys in haste, insisting they dress warmly and pack a small bag – where had he heard those words before and did they not mean the same time thing as last time?

“For your safety, Lord George, and that of your brother, too.” And so the clothes were chosen in haste, the bag was packed in haste, no squire to help, only John Skelton himself fastening the cloak clasp and ensuring his boots were firmly on his feet. “A battle comes, Lord George, I am ordered to take both yourself and Lord Richard from London.”

The words meant little. A battle, where? Why could he not go and fight in the battle? Did it involve Ned or his lord Father? Who were they fighting, the dreadful Lancastrians again? Was there to be no peace from them?

He was hurried down the stairs and out into the courtyard, where his chestnut gelding waited, alongside Richard’s darker coloured mare, both animals saddled, harnessed, ready. A sharp bitter wind blew and he tugged his cloak closer around him. He was glad of his thick leather gauntlets, for it would be a cold ride, wherever they were going. Apprehension clutched at his stomach muscles, made sharp bile rise in his throat and he was on the point of gagging with it until it subsided and he was able to look calmly around as if it mattered not to him that he was once again being forced to leave home.

John Skelton turned as if to shout, but at that moment Richard rushed out into the bailey and mounted his horse. As usual he was a silent, brooding child, not a thought given away. If he was frightened or outright terrified, none would know it. George sat squarely in his saddle and watched as the escort mounted up, listening to the jingle of harness and the muffled orders. No one appeared to want to make much noise, as if the enemy was close and did not need to be warned of their departure. What enemy? What problems had beset his family now?

“Could I not have a moment to say goodbye to my lady mother?” George leaned over to speak to the squire who was going with them, it would seem, by the load he carried.

“No, Lord George. Tis best to leave your lady mother to her thoughts and prayers at the moment.”

The group set off, buffeted by the bitter wind. Gorge brooded, feeling uprooted, outcast. He had to know what the reason was this time.

He reined the horse back until he was riding alongside John Skelton.

“Why are we going?” he asked bluntly. “Why, not where.”

He watched as Skelton went through a variety of expressions, from grief to blankness, as if he wished to blot out the thoughts he carried. Finally he sighed and nodded.

“You have a right to know. Your lord father is dead. He died at Wakefield, in a battle with Lancastrian forces. Your brother Edmund of Rutland was murdered on the battlefield. Your uncle Salisbury is gone too. Your lord father’s head and your brother’s head are on spikes at Micklegate. Your lord father’s head wears a paper crown. Ever does the Lancastrian queen mock the House of York.”

Words are often sharper than weapons, sharper than knife thrusts and sword impalement, sharper than lances designed to knock a rider from his horse. George clung to the saddle, shocked to his core. He turned to see the blood had drained completely from Richard’s face. He had ridden close enough to hear.

“And so…” Skelton continued, “for your safety, Lord George, Lord Richard, I am commanded to take you to Europe where you can stay until the matter is resolved, one way or the other. Even now the Lancastrians are approaching the city. Your lady mother will write to you when you are safely out of the way. I am sorry to give you this news, heart-sore sorry but someone had to tell you.”

The great duke dead, the golden Edmund dead. On a blood soaked field his beautiful brother, so young, so talented, so promising, had been murdered. Somewhere a spike held the head of his lord father, adorned with a paper crown. The proud duke, mocked and scorned and dead. The handsome Edmund, a corpse on a battlefield. Somewhere a woman was gloating over the blood which had been shed and the lives which had been lost whilst in London the duchess was left to mourn her husband and her son. Left to mourn alone for her young sons were not permitted to stay with her. For their own safety. Sometimes, he thought, it would be better to stay and be killed than be separated from her yet again. There were no tears. What tears could be shed in front of an armed escort, of squires, of a tutor, without looking like a weakling, despite the immensity of the news? The tears burned inside, though, hotter than any fire, along with a grim cold determination for revenge. One day, somewhere, somehow, he vowed, there would be revenge taken by the Yorks for this appalling act of killing. He sent prayers flying to Heaven for his lord father’s soul and for Edmund’s soul, for the comfort of his mother, for the easement of his brother Richard’s mind, for the safety of Edward, who was gone, it would seem, somewhere in the country, perhaps? Mr Skelton had not mentioned him. That meant no one knew where Edward was hiding. It was better that no one knew. Edward was big enough and strong enough to take revenge. It just needed time, George knew that. But oh the need to strike back! The need to hit something, very hard, to take out this anger, this bitterness, this grief, on something rather than hold it inside his young body.