We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (37 page)

‘You’re witless from fast London living,’ I said, stupefied by this.

‘Clarence vows it. He burst into the King’s council chamber while his Grace was at Windsor and said all manner of terrible things. How that the King, the Queen and her kin had plotted against him, had given money to the woman Twynhoe for this murder. And that a Woodville servant had slain his infant son.’

‘What else?’ Could there be aught else, I wondered. The cards were surely stacked against George now.

‘He has cast a taint upon the King’s lineage,’ he murmured. ‘He would have it that he is the rightful sovereign, his Grace of bastard stock. His men whisper that the King has dabbled in the Black Art,’ he said, crossing himself.

‘Say no more.’ This was treason of the worst kind.

‘He courts disaster,’ said gentle John, strangely bold. ‘I’ll say what I wish—there are no spies at Middleham. Not like London, where the Queen’s kin are everywhere, whisper, whisper in the alehouse, in church. How that Clarence seeks the downfall of those who lie at Windsor and at Ludlow, surely as the blood of Sir John Woodville and his father stains the Duke’s hands.’

‘Robin of Redesdale, do his archers shoot from the grave?’ I said, wondering.

‘But men also say there is some secret Clarence holds,’ murmured John. All this was too much for me. I got me to London, full as a plum with curiosity.

I bent to my wife’s lips, and she gave me her cheek. So be it, I thought, and kissed my son instead, who knocked off my hat in a loving fury, seized the feather and endeavoured to choke himself with it. My pleasure was only dimmed when I saw him treat my wife’s brothers in the same familiar fashion. I did not stay long; I was for the court, all agog to see the King again. The closer I came to him the more I longed to see his smile, his handsome face, and I asked Grace how he did, while clothing myself for the ride to Windsor.

‘Easier now that Clarence lies at the Tower,’ she replied.

‘In the royal apartments?’ I asked, lack-wit.

‘In a dungeon, dolt!’ she said. ‘The Queen’s kin did their work well. Guard your tongue, no man is safe.’ We had one thing in common, my wife and I: the name Woodville bred a hearty mistrust.

‘He’ll soon pardon him again,’ I said. ‘Blood is thicker than water.’

‘The King has a new leman,’ she said suddenly. ‘Mistress Shore.’

I burst out laughing. ‘Not Will Shore’s wife!’

‘She is beautiful—none can resist her. She laughs excessively, and is kind besides.’

‘I remember her,’ I said. ‘So it’s farewell to lovely Lucey, and all the other queans, for the mercer’s finest ware?’

‘Oh, he still has others,’ she replied. ‘The holiest, the fairest, and Jane, the merriest harlot in the realm.’ I hastened through the autumn noon to see for myself.

I met Anne Neville outside the royal apartments with her ladies and she gave me a pale smile; the journey south had wearied her. We had left Edward behind at Middleham, and I knew his little fair face haunted her. Richard was nowhere to be found. I had not yet seen the Rose of Rouen, but I had crossed swords with the King’s resident fool, and he had bowed to my greater experience. So we had made a pact that he should sing and I would dance, we would both tumble, and when one grew weary the other should relieve him. I was armed with a thousand new jests, suited in purple and green with silver bells on my boots and a longing in my heart to hear the sovereign laughter. The King’s laughter—he of the old royal blood. That evening Windsor Great Hall was the same, and the company therein, save for those who were dead or absent for other reasons; the hot perfumed air was as my dreaming nose recalled it. Queen Elizabeth sat lily-cool, and some witchcraft had chained the years at her door, for her beauty was untouched. Beside her, my King.

O Jesu! he was fat! he was well-nigh gross, and his complexion marred by threads of scarlet running down into the pouched flesh at his jowl. Those gem-like eyes were fighting for room above full cheeks. The rings cut into his fingers. No one had told me he would look like this. I had need to turn my grief into mockery, vowing that it was joy at seeing him which made me weep.

A printed book was being passed from hand to hand. Over the high wailing music I heard the remarks, and between the velvet sleeves of the Queen’s kinfolk saw the flash of gems on its binding.

‘What a mind! What a man! Truly the sayings of the Philosophers could have no finer translator. I felicitate you, my lord.’ This was Doctor Morton, Master of the Rolls. Barbed whiskers at his chin, he leaned at Anthony Woodville’s side.

‘Master Caxton has laboured well too,’ said my lord of Gloucester, in that emotionless voice. He had come midway through the revel, straight from Horton Quay where his Admiralty had been hearing a case. Soberly dressed, his plumage was markedly dull beside that of his companion. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who stood with his arm through Gloucester’s, was dizened like a peacock, with his device of the flaming wheel powdered on purple satin. At one time this young man had not excited my curiosity, being only the one wed to Kate Woodville so that the Queen’s sister should not die a poor spinster, and the Queen’s tears be staunched. Now he glittered, and Richard liked him. There was a lot of Clarence in young Buck, the same languid voice and fluent charm.

Earl Rivers bore his treasure to the King’s dais, smirking, and Edward pored over it. I turned and set off round the hall at a run, flattering the ladies outrageously, conjuring eggs and serpents from the sleeves of bemused lords, capering on the bounds of what was seemly. I leaped on a table and down again, head over arse. I brought two monkeys and staged a wedding. The company loved me. Jane Shore’s was a lovely name to juggle with. Better even than the princely stables and the King’s Grey Mare.

‘For Shore is gold a prince’s treasure
And shorely he should take his pleasure.’

Or:

‘I trow no sailor asks for more—
Than to come safely into Shore.’

(This last I kept for my friends.) She was fair, as Grace said, and there was much warmth in her. Rosy and round, a little thing, with elegant manners; much kindness did she for men, and her wit was almost equal to mine Still there were those who reckoned her last name should begin with W, not S, for varying reasons. She danced with Lord Hastings, and once brushed lightly against Gloucester as he stood with Anne and bright Buckingham. He bowed stiffly to her—his eyes were cold. He was sad that night—an Israelite in Babylon.

Some of the old faces had new husbands. Lady Margaret Beaufort was wed for the third time, now to Lord Stanley. King Edward had approved this gladly, so said my wife. For Margaret was Lancastrian as well as learned, and Stanley was loyal enough to curb these leanings.

‘She brought her son to court, a month past,’ Grace told me. ‘Dressed like a peasant, with scarce a word to say for himself.’

King Edward had received young Henry Tudor generously, while the court muttered a little at Lady Margaret’s effrontery. Some sniggered at his gaucherie and Welsh accent.

There are times when I feel I have lived too long, and seen overmuch. It makes an old man dizzy, the way the wheel spins.

Then there was the night we went down drinking in Southwark, and came out of the inn late, a little cup-shotten but not so mad with wine that we neglected to look well for the Watch or the special constables prowling the darkness. Robert was anxious lest he be locked out. John—well, I had ado to stop him singing. He reeled about and almost pulled me down, and some of his verses would have made the King roar and my Lord Gloucester look very sharp indeed. We rolled up the street, a fine uncaring trinity, being barked at by dogs and cursed by people already abed. It was I who had suggested this foray. Once again I was dolorous: not only because of the King’s looks, his loss of something beautiful and remembered that pained me still. Richard seemed full of gloom, his lady choked with anxiety about her faraway son, and Grace—I had had occasion that day to remind her that there were penances for scolds, rich and poor alike, and hang the disgrace of it. It was the hour between dog and wolf, and as the drink soured in my belly old sins kept me company. I should not have been amazed to see my devil, and I had just decided to become a monk when a dreadful, groaning yell convinced me I was too late in my good intentions.

‘O Jesu, what was that?’ whispered John. He dropped our light in a patch of snow. Cursing, we stood in darkness. I could not find my tinder; I was shivering so much. Robert snatched up the lantern.

‘You are a brace of old women,’ he said angrily, but the flint was damp. He swore and struggled, while my fearful ears strained for other manifestations of Hell. Feet were approaching, their swift thudding accompanied by the sound of gasping breath. There were two people—earthly at that, but in the blackness we could only discern vague shapes. We cringed against the wall. Robert got the lantern going all of a sudden. It flamed up as the shadows passed at a jog-trot; I got a flash of half-hidden white faces, black cloaks, and the dull spark of steel. Then they were gone. We breathed again, drunkenly comforted by the absence of ghosts.

‘Go carefully,’ said Robert. We sidled round the next corner in our little isle of light. The snow was dirty underfoot from the day’s traffic. I felt pity for a poor beggar lying in the gutter. He was rolled in a houpeland of fine cloth for such as he; his breath snored whistling through the filth of his pillow. As cup-shotten fools will do, we stood and contemplated him.

‘Friends,’ said John, ‘let us lay him against the wall or he will be trampled.’

‘Let him alone,’ Robert said. ‘Sleep’s his only comfort.’ And so, as is ever my way, I did the opposite and rolled the limp form an inch over the cobbles. I saw then that he had been stuck with a dagger; his fine wool doublet was sopped with blood all round the protruding hilt. I called Robert to bring down the light so I could see the face of this well-clad vagrant. It was Clarence’s mermaid, and he was not quite dead. The snoring stopped and he gave a bubbling cough. I had found him arrogant but he was after all one of my ilk, an entertainer, so I took his head on my arm and he opened his eyes.

‘Sir Fool, tell my lord,’ he said, in quite a strong voice. I remembered how beautifully he sang, and I felt great sorrow.

‘Peace, friend, lie quiet.’

His breath came quicker, horrible to hear.

‘I have done my duty,’ he gasped. Then he was babbling in a whisper, babbling and bubbling like a slaughtered beast, and my hands became sticky with his blood. He had a tale for my lord of Clarence, but Clarence was in the Tower, waiting on the abatement of the King’s rage. So I tried to quiet the wanderings of this grievous wound, which were a jumble of nonsense, words plaited in a wanton skein, among them being… ‘the house of the Carmelites’ and something that sounded like either ‘bastard whelps’ or ‘Bath and Wells’. I stroked his face with a chilling hand, trying to hush him, while he coughed and then became stark dead. We did not linger, of course. ‘Did you know those two?’ I asked, as we ran. Robert shook his head but John clutched my arm.

‘The one I know,’ he whispered. ‘He writes ballads. Sometimes he sings.’

‘Well, he has sung one there to death,’ I said, frozen to the bone.

‘He’s Earl Rivers’s man, I think,’ John gasped, running on.

Lady Anne Neville stretched out her hand. ‘My lord! Dickon, let me see the letter.’ With great reluctance he gave her the precious missive lately received from Middleham, and he smiled for the first time in weeks.

‘God be praised, he’s well,’ she sighed, reading. ‘’Twas a little fever he had. My sweet son!’ She kissed the letter as if it were Edward himself. Anne had a cough. She was not so well in London, and touched her amulet constantly; she wore it against her continuing barrenness. We had been gambling in my lord’s apartment; a nonsense game, for the Regal of France, the London Stone, and the Forest of Eltham, and I was winning all. While they both read and re-read the letter, their heads together like children, a rap came at the door, and quite a small company entered.

‘We are honoured, my lord,’ said Richard, rising. Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, was cordial in scarlet satin. Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, looked about him with a little contempt. With them came two boys, neither of whom I had seen for years. Prince Edward had grown fair as a maid, and pouted like one. Richard, Duke of York, was smaller, a swift bright bird. He tugged impatiently at his heavy state robes as if he would fain have put them off. His sleeves were too long—he pushed back the ermine from his wrists like one keen to deal out blows. I knelt before our future monarch, who leaned, languor-pale, on Earl Rivers’s arm.

‘His princely Grace expressed the wish to see you, Sir,’ said Rivers, and laughed rather unquietly.

‘My brother wanted to hear about the fighting in Scotland,’ said Prince Edward quietly. He stepped forward, but Rivers held his hand. There was no holding back the Duke of York, however. He nipped up and took the stance of a grown man, feet crossed, against the table where Gloucester sat. They gazed seriously at one another.

‘Sir! Have you slain many men?’ enquired the little Duke.

‘As many as was needful, my lord,’ said Gloucester, with a faint smile.

‘How many?’ asked Richard of York, and I could foresee a long conversation.

‘As many as would have slain my troops, had matters gone otherwise,’ replied Gloucester calmly.

‘Why do you not recite your verses to his Grace?’ asked Rivers, all hasty.

‘How many dead?’ said Richard of York. ‘How many, I say? Did you use guns? Bang! Bang! I have a new pony,’ he added. He darted closer to Gloucester, until he leaned on his knee.

‘My lord uncle, excuse my brother. He’s but an infant,’ said the seven-year-old Prince. He disengaged from Rivers’s clasp and came to stand by Richard. ‘He’s to be married soon,’ he said confidentially, as if this explained the Duke’s wildness.

‘Is the lady fair, my lord?’ asked Richard of Gloucester.

‘She is the Duchess of Norfolk,’ said Prince Edward.

‘She’s taller than me,’ said the prospective bridegroom.