The Dragon and the Rose (12 page)

When Henry turned off the road into a little knoll of woods, however, Brandon really woke up. "Sire, you cannot think there is a boar in this wood. It is no more than a marker between fields."

"I do not think there is a boar in any wood hereabout, Will. You and I have killed them all."

Henry slid down from his horse and, under Brandon's startled eyes, began to undress. He threw off his rich cloak, pulled the sleeves loose from his brigandine and cast away boots and hose. One servant was gathering up and packing these items; another offered replacements in coarse homespun with a servant's tunic to cover all. Then a fine chain-mail shirt was unrolled from a saddlebag.

"Stop gawking, Will," Henry laughed. "Do you want to be sent back to England and lose your head? Well, I do not. Nor is it to my taste that the traitor Landois should grow fat on Richmond's revenues. We fly for France. Now, off with that cloak and on with the mail. You are a gentleman traveling with five servants. You visited me, found my court too poor and are taking yourself to Landois, if anyone asks. Come now, do not look so aghast. You are the only weapon I brought. Can you see me safe into France, William?"

"While blood and breath are in my body, I will see you safe into and out of anywhere—hell included, my lord."

Henry laughed aloud. "Onward, then. Be you sword and shield to me."

Actually, he expected no trouble. It was nothing uncommon for him to ride out hunting and return only late in the evening. They had probably a full day and possibly even a day and a night before Landois's spies would grow uneasy and report his absence. By then they should be safe in France. Henry, however, had counted a trifle too much on Landois's caution and too little on the eagerness of Richard's envoys. It was not difficult to extract a letter from Francis demanding Henry's presence to comfort him. His muddled mind had forgotten the envoys and the danger and longed for his fosterling's soothing voice and calm manner. Perhaps the duke even dimly understood he was almost a prisoner and felt that Henry could save him.

Armed with this missive, which Henry would not dare disregard, Landois's men had entered Vannes just about the time Henry left by another gate. It did not take them long to discover that the quarry was gone. Had they been Francis's men, who half accepted Henry as their next master, they would have sat down to wait his return. Landois, however, was too clever for that. The troop were mercenaries in his own pay, their captain a clever, suspicious man whose swift inquiries established that neither dogs nor huntsmen had accompanied Henry. Poynings's assurances that Henry's clothing and valuables were still in his chamber went for nothing. If Henry was hunting, no harm could be done by joining him to make sure he returned; and if he had tried to escape, they would certainly be able to capture him.

CHAPTER 7

Henry Tudor raised his head from his arms. The accounts on the table seemed to be muddling his brain even with his eyes closed. He stared out through the narrow window. Did the sun never shine in France, even in the spring? Henry looked down at his hands, which had always been thin and beautiful; they looked like emaciated claws, and his normally brilliant eyes were dull as he stared at them. It was nearly a year since he had escaped Landois, and the horror of that ride, twisting and turning, backing and hiding, without food, without sleep, day after day, was nothing to the horror of this past year.

At first it had not been too bad. He had been welcomed so warmly that his distaste for asking help from France had almost been removed. It seemed that he would have little to do but get his men safely out of Brittany and that money, ships, and more men would be showered upon him, ensuring his success. But Henry, who thought he understood court factions and intrigue, found he had much to learn. Francis's court was small and the plotting of the Breton nobles a childish game compared with the war of words and policies in which he was now enmeshed.

The first lesson came when Francis recovered sufficiently to understand what had happened. His steady affection was displayed at once by releasing Poynings and Woodville from what nearly amounted to a state of siege, sending money to them and giving his permission for the small army to join Henry in France. Instead of stimulating French fervor, this piece of good fortune gave it a sharp check. Henry realized that the French cared little who sat on the throne of England so long as that country continued to be torn by civil war. They would help him, but not to an overwhelming victory.

Henry changed his attitude skillfully. He had been trying to convince the French council of Richard's weakness, his own strength, and his ability to win a swift, sure victory. Now he exhibited uncertainty; Richard was strong in the north, he confessed, and it might take a long time to bring the country to heel. He would need French help—perhaps for years. His pleas for that help and his protestations of gratitude stuck in his throat so that he could not eat and was constantly sick at his stomach.

The maneuvering, however, brought a piece of good fortune—the best he had had in a very long time and one that lasted his entire life. Henry had bowed gravely and turned away from a conversation with the duke of Orleans, the leader of one of the political factions, when he was approached by a man of about his own age clad in sober priestly robes.

"My lord of Richmond?" the man asked in English.

"Yes?" Henry replied rather curtly. He could little afford another refugee in his tail, especially a priest who could not fight and had no power.

The priest smiled. "I do not desire your help, my lord, but wish to offer my own to you."

"Then, I thank you," Henry said more pleasantly but still noncommittally. Help was seldom offered without a price, and the price was usually more than the help was worth or Henry could afford. "But to whom do I speak?"

"My name is Richard Foxe. It will mean nothing to you now, my lord, but I think you will remember it."

The assurance made Henry turn his full attention on the speaker, but Foxe did not flinch under that searching stare. "Indeed I may," Henry murmured. Then, smiling, "And what help would you offer, Dr. Foxe."

Foxe's hand stroked the furred facing of his gown. "You know the orders of the church, it would seem," he said approvingly.

"Enough to recognize the gown of a doctor of canon law. What do you know of secular law?"

"I have made some study of it," Foxe replied, pinching his lower lip with his fingers in a way that Henry soon learned was characteristic of amusement.

"Then riddle me this riddle. Is any act of parliament valid regardless of its wording, and does it supersede any previous act on the same subject whether or not it refers to that previous act or is in direct contradiction of it?"

"You must give me exact particulars, my lord, and even then I will answer you only with more contradictions, evasions, and reservations. When has a lawyer done otherwise?"

Both men now smiled. A test had been offered and passed, since Foxe was in little doubt of the subject in Henry's mind.

"Very well," Henry said. "In the time of Richard II,
my great-grandfather was legitimated by act of parliament—merely legitimated, without reservation. When my great uncle Henry IV came to the throne, the legitimation was affirmed by act of parliament, but this time a reservation against receiving the crown was inserted. Since the second act stated it was an affirmation of the first yet changed the wording, is that second act valid or invalid?"

"It is of no importance," Foxe said and held up one finger to check Henry's speech. "You can come to the throne only in one of two ways—by conquest or by a request from the parliament that you do so after Richard has been deposed. In either case the parliament will pass an act naming you king. Now, if an act of parliament may be invalid because of pressure of circumstances and the act naming you king may be, for that reason, contested as invalid, why, then, the act of Henry IV is also invalid, since it was also passed under pressure of conquest. Then the first act, that of Richard II, is valid and you have the best hereditary claim to the throne and may take it by right. "

Henry nodded, but Foxe's finger went up to keep him silent again.

"But," the priest continued, "if any act of parliament is valid, whatever its wording or circumstances, then the act naming you king will be valid and will supersede the act which denied your family the royal dignity. Thereupon, you will be king by law and none may contest that right."

The answer was as full of holes as an old sieve, but since the Yorkist claim was equally full of holes, resting on a line broken twice by females as well as on deposition, murder, and conquest, it was good enough. Henry liked Dr. Foxe, enjoyed his cynical humor and took pleasure in a mind at least as sinuous as his own. He entrusted him with small diplomatic commissions, then with more important and exacting ones. Their mutual admiration and esteem grew. Richard Foxe was more cosmopolitan than any other man in Henry's entourage and less inhibited by hereditary hatred of the French. When even Edgecombe's diplomatic smoothness was marred by distaste and distrust, Foxe never failed.

However, neither Henry's winning ways nor Foxe's agile reasonings were able to break the deadlock between Regent Anne and the duke of Orleans. Both professed themselves eager to help Henry win the English throne, but neither could agree on ways and means or, for that matter, endure that the other should have a scrap of credit.

Their obstructiveness nearly destroyed Henry's health but also brought him another piece of good luck. In the seven long months of argument, the earl of Oxford, whose connections were wider and whose family was more powerful than Courtenay's, convinced his Yorkish jailor that Richard of Gloucester was a monster and that Henry Tudor was the hope of England. Prisoner and jailor who had, despite their positions, become close friends in the ten years of Oxford's confinement, fled to Paris. Another wedge was driven into Richard's hold upon England.

With the acquisition of Oxford, however, the pendulum had reached its apex and began to swing backward. Richard had time to work upon the gullible dowager queen, and she sent messenger after messenger to her equally volatile son, Dorset. Seeing no sign of movement in Henry's favor at the French court, Dorset was easily convinced that his best chance lay with Richard.

With the ingratitude and lack of loyalty characteristic of the Woodvilles, Dorset deserted, stealing out of Paris at night to ride for the coast. The action did not catch Henry unaware; Dorset had given away his uneasiness and his intentions in myriad ways. Jasper went thundering after him and brought him back before news of his defection could get out and do harm. Under strict commands from Henry, Jasper smiled and spoke sweet words, but murder glared from his hot eyes and Dorset returned meekly, uttering glib excuses and protestations of loyalty.

Henry turned his eyes from the window to the papers strewn on the table, but the figures on them were blurred by a mist of unshed tears. Dorset was the first; all too soon there would be others. His men were weary of exile and poverty. The hope upon which they had fed was proving to have little nourishment in it, and their spirit was steadily failing. The mercenaries had long since been dismissed; Henry had no money with which to pay them. England seethed with discontent, but there was no one to organize that discontent into active rebellion. If he invaded England now, Henry thought, would they not surely fail if they had failed when supported by a man like Buckingham? Yet if he did not move now, he would soon have no support at all.

"I am afraid," Henry whispered to himself, "oh, I am so afraid. If I fail, I will die."

The word hung on the air, and Henry considered it with slowly rising anger. Had Edward left him in peace, he would never have been a threat. He could have been won to loyalty. Had Richard permitted Edward's son to rule and resisted the temptation of making a bloody shambles of England's nobility, he would have married Anne of Brittany and lived in peace. What sort of life had the men of York left him? Even if he renounced his claim, would Richard cease to persecute him? To die was better than to live in fear. Henry opened the door to the antechamber of his room and told the servant to summon his council—except Dorset, he added thoughtfully.

"Gentlemen," he began after kissing Jasper affectionately, "we can do no more here. As long as we linger in Paris, Orleans and the regent will block each other and do nothing. More important, the spirit of the men fails and the hopes of those in England become weaker. It is time to risk all, for soon we shall have nothing to risk. This, at least, is how it seems to me. Do any of you have reason to believe otherwise?"

From Brandon, Courtenay, Pembroke, and Oxford there were sighs of relief. The negotiations had tried their martial spirit. Poynings, Edgecombe, and Guildford muttered approval. Foxe alone spoke.

"I think if you begin to act, my lord, we will get some help from the French. It will not be what we need—we will never get that—but it will be something. "

"Money?" Guildford and Edgecombe asked together. "Ah, yes. Well, that outlook" Henry gestured toward the account-laden table "is not overly bright."

"I can pledge my lands," Oxford offered. "Since they are not now mine, that will not bring much, but some banker will surely risk a few thousand crowns."

Henry smiled. "You do not speak often, Oxford, but when you do you say something."

There was no need for anyone else to speak. All were busy stripping off every item of value that remained to them and piling the things on the table. Henry knew that their winter furs, their extra clothing, everything but arms and armor would soon be in the hands of the moneylenders and the coins would come to swell his meager treasury.

"I will get what I can from the men," Guildford offered.

Foxe sucked his thin lips. "You may count on twenty or thirty thousand livres upon my part. You have friends, my lord, and we priests"—he smiled—"are experts at extortion."

"And I think I can have the same, or more, from the French," Henry said.