We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (30 page)

‘Good fellow, there are times when one goes where no other should penetrate,’ and with that smile there was something in the back of his eyes that perplexed me utterly; that, coupled with the really mischievous look, man to man, which he gave me. I had never seen him with a woman; his habits were not those of the King and Clarence, both of whom had bastards all over England; then I remembered talk of Richard and a woman of Bruges, whom he had got with child.

Eastchepe was crammed, redolent of food and filth. I whacked the cook-knaves aside as they clutched with foul hands at us both. The Gild had prohibited the practice of soliciting, but they still did it. ‘Hot sheep’s feet!’ they yelled. ‘Ribs o’ beef!’ I saw a grease-smear on the Duke’s velvet cloak, and, surreptitiously sponging at it with my glove, wished I had never been born. A ragged band playing harp, pipe and psaltery impeded us—they sang of ‘Jenkin and Julian’. The fishmongers shouted their melwell and mackerel earsplittingly. Even the oaths sounded worse in a prince’s presence. The window overhead flew open and a wife, with careless cry of ‘Gardy loo!’ hurled the contents of her pot almost on top of us. A dead dog, maggot-white, stank in the gutter. This was my Eastchepe, and, for the first time, I felt shame for it. ‘Good lord, excuse this foulness,’ I said, and was angry with myself as soon as the words were out.

‘Is it all of your making, then?’ he said, with a cool dark look. ‘Southwark is also somewhat unsavoury, but it has a fine inn.’

‘The Tabard,’ I said eagerly.

‘Yea, Geoffrey Chaucer’s tavern. All one hears is Chaucer. He has still an ardent following, and rightly so.’

‘His works would fit Master Caxton’s skill,’ said I, fawning. Kiss-your-arse Patch, I was. Am.

‘Of course you’re more familiar with such gestes than I,’ he said, and I caught the hint that he thought I could be more honourably employed than amusing the court with my fellow joculatores. But his wit was only slightly barbed and we talked culture. Of course he knew more than I, yet we enjoyed the same things, and as we walked, he recited ‘The Love Unfeigned’, and very well too; and when he came to the line
This world, that passeth soon as flowers fair,
I wanted to weep, as ever, and came near liking him. But then we neared the cook-shop and, remembering who lay within, I thought the title of ‘Dan’ Chaucer’s poem, coming from him, in poor taste.

My mother’s shop, as we approached, looked a rather pitiful sight, and I would fain have hurried him past, but he slowed and looked up at it. ‘Whose place is this?’ he said, and squirming, I told him. I knew he would now think I was serving him for a reward and I felt like Judas Iscariot already without the thirty pieces being added.

‘She should have compensation,’ he announced, and I said that the Gild had matters in hand. He said ‘Hmmm,’ and was loath to drop the affair, but the next minute we were at our destination.

I went first, and the haughty mistress stepped from behind her counter unsmiling, but when Richard of Gloucester darkened the doorway in his velvet and jewels and with his eyes like arrowheads, she swept to the ground, all her hauteur gone. As Gloucester only stood and looked about, I enquired of the mistress where the young lady might be found. Speechless, she pointed aloft, and I hung back as Richard strode through the shop. To my great dismay, for I had thought my task was done, he beckoned me from the foot of the stairs.

‘Give me a watch while I talk with the Lady Anne,’ he said, and turning, I saw the popping eyes of the cook-knaves. They were creeping imperceptibly towards the stairs, leaving their pies to catch at this latest entertainment. The owner was gone, I assume, to fashion an explanation for George of Clarence.

I followed Gloucester upstairs. ‘Dismiss her servants,’ he said, then sharply asked me why I laughed and I told him; the lady’s status was not now what might be expected of Warwick’s daughter, and he would find her much altered. He swore a most fearful oath, and struck the door a rap with the hilt of his knife. My heart went into my boots as Anne opened the door. Now I have witnessed many executions, and taken my due lesson from them, as is intended. I have seen the faces of those about to be hanged, disembowelled and cut up, burned in barrels, and beheaded. They have a mingling of abject terror and resignation, patched over with a fierce bravado. This vanishes into mist at the first touch of the knife. Anne Neville carried that look. I knew better than any how Judas felt.

Richard said, ‘Wait here;’ then: ‘Let none come up,’ and I saw Anne’s little white face, with the blonde hair dull from grease and her white coif smudged with dirt, blotted out by the Duke’s dark shadow, as he closed the door behind him. The servants were grouped at the stairfoot. They were straining to hear like a pack of hounds at a treed quarry, but in vain. I, on the other hand, had no wish to know what went on behind that door. But it had great cracks where the oak had shrunk, and I could hear every word.

At first I thought on Daniel Fray and his lust for my mother’s livelode, and wondered if that old play would be performed within, before realizing that lords do not, as a rule, chase women round tables, although the Maiden once told me a fantastic tale about King Edward threatening Elizabeth with his dagger at Grafton Regis. Well, the King was one on his own.

There was such a long silence that I was full of anguish. If he harms her, I said to myself, trembling fiercely, I will knock and enter, asking if they wish for wine. I will risk his wrath. Lord Jesu, keep my tongue still.

His first words were shockingly clear.

‘This is an unseemly place to find you, my lady.’

He got no answer to this, so he said: ‘Are you well, Madame?’

Had he no eyes? He could surely see she was far from well. Again she did not reply.

‘I have come to fetch you away.’

‘I thought you would come,’ she said.

‘You heard that I was seeking you;’ he continued. ‘Why did you not send word of your whereabouts?’

She coughed. She said, very fast: ‘I was warned of you, my lord.’ Then, more softly: ‘I was afraid.’

‘Warned? By whom? By Clarence?’

No answer.

‘Yea, by my brother,’ he said. He laughed harshly. ‘Lord, how flown are some with ambition, how unbelievably cunning and devious...’ Then, less bitterly: ‘And you? What of your feelings in this… this conspiracy?’

‘I was not consulted, your Grace,’ she said, her voice battling with tears.

‘He brought you here by force,’ said Richard.

‘Nay, not by force. He said it would be better...’ her words started to run away, tripping over each other ‘...that you were so full of spleen, so hot in your desire for my mother’s estates... so full of fury because of my treasonous marriage you wished me ill. I was afraid,’ she said again, and changed it. ‘I am afraid.’

Do not weep, I thought. Support your soul before him, for the love of God.

‘The day I called at his manor he would not let me see you,’ Richard said. ‘He told me you were sick—was this the truth?’

She was silent.

‘Three days I waited, close by,’ he said inexorably. ‘Then I returned, to learn you were so ailing you could not be disturbed. And then you were vanished, utterly. I’ve journeyed miles to find you.’

‘And now you have,’ she said wearily. ‘What do you wish of me, my lord?’

‘Why, to have you with me, of course!’ he cried. His voice dropped as he said: ‘We have been apart too long.’

‘There has been too much blood shed,’ she said sadly.

The boards creaked as he started to walk about the room.

‘’Tis true, that in his Grace’s service I rode against your father. Of your husband I will not speak, but you know well my one-time affection for Richard Neville. That foolish, gallant knight,’ he said softly.

Her voice trembling, she said: ‘Did you see him die?’

‘Oxford had fled, Montagu was cut down. The Earl of Warwick made for Wrotham Wood and the Barnet Road. He was pursued and slain. Once, through the fog, I saw his standard, then I was unhorsed. My esquires were dead—I was still embroiled in the fray. Then I saw his standard flew no more, but I heard only of his death when I was in the surgeon’s tent.’

‘’Tis hard for me to brook these thoughts,’ she said, in great sorrow.

‘And for me. I too remember Yorkshire, and happier days. But you, my lady, have been constantly in my mind.’

‘The last time we met was after Tewkesbury,’ she replied. ‘You had a terrible aspect. You did not speak to me.’

‘I was too overmatched, Madame. And, unlike my brothers, I am unlettered in fair speeches. I could but look at you and love you. Be sure of this, I shall not let you go again.’

‘When we were children,’ she said slowly, ‘I thought you loved me... but that was long ago.’

‘At Middleham,’ he said. ‘My feelings have not changed. Anne, come to me.’

‘I will not wed you, my lord,’ she said. ‘And I’m too good to be your leman.’

Her voice was that of proud Warwick’s daughter. I was seized by a fit of horrid mirth, for these last words were the very same used by Elizabeth Woodville, when the King’s desire ran high, as told to me by the Maiden.

‘As you wish,’ he said coldly, and exhaled his breath in a long sigh. The floor squeaked under his pacing, then suddenly he gave a great cry. I broke into a sweat.

‘Blessed Mother of God!’

‘Oh, what is it?’ she said terrified.

‘Anne, your hands! Your little hands! O Lord, to think that things should have come to this!’

Her steps neared the door as she evaded him. The latch lifted, the door opened a crack and slammed shut beneath the weight of his arm.

‘Let me kiss them,’ he said, and there was a taut silence, broken by a curious little noise like the last choking sob a child makes after bawling—full up with tears, struggling to scream again.

‘Don’t weep,’ he said fiercely. ‘Don’t weep, Anne. Ah, Anne, I love you.’

‘Your Grace,’ she cried. ‘I pray you, do not kneel to me. Do not kneel. Richard, get up.’

‘Your little hands, Anne, red and broken as a scullion’s,’ he repeated, like a madman. ‘I will restore them—before God, I’ll restore you. To Middleham...’

‘That was once my home,’ she said sadly.

‘Our home, Anne! Where I’ll give you every joy, I swear it.’

Another silence followed, then she said: ‘I am aweary of it all. Take me, Richard, do what you will. My mother’s possessions are forfeit. I feel but a chattel, a necessary part of the movables, past caring. The estates are yours, and so am I.’

‘To the Devil with the estates!’ he cried, and my skin tingled as I realized he could shout as loud as the King when he chose. ‘Anne, Anne, I love you. Love me.’

And then the silence grew longer and longer and was heavy-hung with dreaming, and I curled my toes and rolled about against the wall, feeling exceeding guilty for being there. The touch of her must have aroused old memories, for he said quite roughly: ‘I have had paramours, you should know this. I have also a son, whom I shall acknowledge. Will you be wounded if he lives with us in Yorkshire?’

She did not answer for a moment.

‘He is called John,’ Richard said. ‘He’s a fine babe.’

‘I love children,’ Anne Neville said softly.

‘I will give you children, Anne. God will bless us with many children. Brave sons. Sweet Anne.’

‘The Prince Edward of Lancaster...’ she began, and he said, his voice rigid again: ‘I would rather not know of that.’

She laughed gently through her tears.

‘Queen Margaret would not allow him alone with me. She swore the union should not be consummated until Lancaster was strong in England. Ah, Richard, he was an arrogant, fearsome creature—he spoke only of war and beheadings.’

‘I, too, know of war,’ he said. ‘Enough to long for peace and tranquillity with you for wife, and my friends about me...’

She was weeping now in earnest, and he said: ‘Come, my lady, my love. Let’s leave this dismal place. Lean on me.’

He opened the door so suddenly I was transfixed. However, he scarcely looked at me, only saying: ‘Bring round a horse, I pray you,’ and disappeared again into the chamber. My mother was out. I took her black palfrey without leave and brushed its coat. I hoped it would be a fitting mount for the Lady Anne. I tethered it outside the shop and ran up the stairs once more, into the upper room, with but a swift knocking and out again right hastily, red-eared. The Duke of Gloucester had Anne Neville close in his arms, and his mouth on hers, and in the moment of my intrusion I saw her lift her arms slowly and clasp him tightly to her, like a weary child who waits to be carried into sleep.

It was chill when we came out and moisture clung to our hair and slid down the carved beams and pentices of the houses either side of Eastchepe. Richard of Gloucester cupped his hands for Anne’s foot and tossed her up lightly into the saddle and laughed, a laugh which I had seldom heard and did not recognize. She smiled down at him and her face was rose pink; and already the lady of Christmas revels, merry and safe beside a strong man, was returning. I thought he would take her back to Westminster, but he did not. On the other side of the street I walked. I walked with them and yet away from them. Their eyes never wavered from the road ahead. Once he halted, took off his fair velvet cloak and wrapped it about her, where it draped her from neck to ankles as she sat the pony. Once she touched his hand and he bore her fingers to his lips. Yet all the while they looked ahead, as if they had no wish to glance behind as long as they lived.

We went slowly along Budge Row and Watling Street as far as St Paul’s churchyard and passed under the sombre shadow of the church through into Chepeside and towards Aldersgate until we saw the crenellations of the Wall. There, he halted the pony at the Sanctuary of St-Martin-le-Grand, and together they went in. He emerged alone after a little space; on his face joy and sadness gathered, overlaid with the look of one who anticipates a wearisome campaign.

My devil took flight and sped over the housetops, webbed black wings beating lustily: I never realized he had wings. Gone, no doubt, to plague some other wretch.

In a February-grey dawn I watched London, and Westminster, and all dear and familiar to me, vanish to the south-east. Coming up through Sheen, with the fingers of winter catching at my mouth, I watched it go. The Palace, and the river with its dipping cranes doing obeisance to trade, sank out of sight as we hit Watling Street, which was frost-foul. This was no May Day sally to entertain ducal households. Those were occasions spiced with good humour, singing through summer days with the minstrels and the bear loping behind on his chain, and, following, the children from every village dancing after for a league. Then I would be at the height of my power, jesting with a ceaseless cascade of fable and rhyme, and often, if time decreed, halting at a hamlet to entrap the peasants with my wit and skill. Thus had I once been myself enchanted, on the green at Stoney Stratford, by a child with hair the colour of ripe hazel nuts. I do not need to speak her name—to me, she was always but the Maiden, and save for a Queen, there was never her equal.