We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (38 page)

‘So Richard shall have Anne,’ said Gloucester. ‘To me, that augurs well for future joy.’

‘Did you go in a ship to Scotland?’ said the Duke of York. ‘Have you many ships? I went in a ship once... to a big place and there was a lady...’

‘That was a barge,’ said Prince Edward wearily. ‘On the Thames. But I too would dearly love to sail the sea. My lord, when did you first take ship?’

Gloucester looked at the small boy, suddenly serious. ‘When I was your age,’ he replied, and his voice was quiet. Thomas Grey cleared his throat.

‘My Prince, tell his Grace what you have learned of Cicero.’ Edward remained, staring at his uncle. ‘Sir, shall I be a soldier and captain like you?’ he asked. At this, Gloucester looked straight into Earl Rivers’s eyes, saying: ‘The finest, good Prince. But better than I. Like the King your father, who raised the great Sun banner and was rewarded by God, in snow, in fog, and in foul country. Skilled in war and courage, as well as in verse and music.’ The way he said these last three words made me cringe, and hide my lute behind a cushion.

‘What’s necromancy?’ asked the Duke of York, loud and sudden. Earl Rivers and Grey both moved forward at once.

‘Come, my lords, it grows late.’

Obediently the Prince Edward gave his hand again to Earl Rivers, smiling up at him. But little York lingered, staring at my lord, on whose face there was a trace of the old grimness.

‘Where’s my uncle of Clarence?’ the boy demanded suddenly.
‘He
makes me laugh. Where’s he gone?’

‘Come, my lord,’ said Thomas Grey. ‘Your brother waits,’ adding to Gloucester, with a charming smile, ‘They are inseparable.’ Dickon of York stumbled over his robes in the doorway. This seemed to unleash a tide of passion in him, and we listened to his diminishing shrieks. ‘I want to see my Uncle George!’

‘Here’s a new rhyme,’ I began, wriggling in anguish.

Neither my lord nor his lady paid any heed.

‘He’s Edward’s age,’ whispered Lady Anne. ‘He cannot comprehend all.’

Richard rose slowly, white as a skull. ‘Give me your prayers, my lady,’ he said, and strode to the door. She stretched out her hands to him, but he was gone, marching through to the King’s apartments in a fury of decision. I fidgeted, watching her. She was very thin, and sad.

‘Read the letter,’ I said, and soon she was lost in it again, murmuring little thoughts like beads. ‘Dirick has made him new shoes. Green, silver buckles. Medcalf and Pacock took him to Aysgarth lately—they guard him well, those men.’ So I left her and stole away. For that day was the Eve of St Nicholas the first night of the revels, and I had plans for a spectacular entrance. I would leap from the minstrels’ gallery on to the shoulders of the Vice Titivillius ‘who snares neglected prayers, words dropped at Mass’, and hoped they would pick a sturdy fellow for the part. I had some measurements to make; it would be a mighty leap. So along the passage I went and into the gloom of the small recess, bumping over lecterns and scattering sheets of music. I leaned over the rail to study the drop, and there below, within spitting distance, was proceeding a play, a tragedy by the look of it. In the deserted Hall, the King held court. He had just returned from the chase; there was snow on his boots. The dull gold of his head throbbed in the twilight as he lay wearily in his chair. Richard of Gloucester knelt before him, gripping the sovereign robe by its hem. The Queen looked on. Her hand lay on the back of the King’s chair, close to his neck. Her pointed pale face was in shadow but I saw the gleam of her little teeth as she chewed her lip. Edward’s voice grated on my ear.

‘I have shown mercy,’ he said. ‘He has betrayed me. Not once but many times, and I have pardoned him. No more.’

‘Your most noble Grace,’ said Richard, very low, ‘does not our Saviour say: forgive not once, but seventy times seven?’

‘My lord,’ Edward answered heavily, ‘I have spoken my mind. The traitor must be punished. It is God’s will.’

Elizabeth’s soft voice from the shadows said: ‘Yea, my lord, the King’s grace speaks wisely. For my children are not safe while Clarence lives.’

The King raised his hand, touched white fingers lightly.

‘Soft, Bess,’ he said gently. ‘I have promised. None shall harm our blessed heirs.’ She slid away in a rustle of dark satin and diamonds. King Edward rose from his chair, and Richard from his knees.

‘Edward my lord,’ Gloucester said, ‘will you not hear me? Have you forgotten all we have known together? Have you forgotten we are of one blood?’

The King was not wroth. He leaned and kissed Richard, but his tone was stern.

‘He is a traitor,’ he repeated. ‘He has called me bastard and practiser of witchcraft. He has sown death, and shall reap it. Leave me now.’

‘Your Grace, he is my brother!’ Gloucester’s cry chilled me.

‘He’s mine also, Dickon,’ the King said wearily. ‘Go from me.’

I watched Gloucester quit the Hall. The Lord of the North—tears poured down his face. Quiet in the gallery, I thought many things as the King sat below, his head cupped in his hand. It seemed plain that the name Woodville had brought a deal of dolour to the Court, this way and that. A jest leaped to mind. I could not shame the Queen and live, but there were others. Edward was calling for wine.

‘And I am dispirited,’ he told the page. ‘Summon Mistress Shore.’

I crept out.

The King was drunk early that night. Lord Hastings saw to that; he plied him with wine as if he gained more pleasure from double drunkenness. They shared a void with Jane, vowing that her lips gave added sweetness to the drink. St Nicholas paraded with his crook and mitre, and the Vice Titivillius was there, a strong lad, with his long pouch full of
Glorias
and
Misericordias
and all the other bits the priests gabble over. But I had a better entrance than the one planned previously. I waited patiently until Anthony Woodville was present. Behind the screen there were gasps at my costume; it was lewd in the extreme. The coat reached only to my middle and the hose—well, they would not be delivered of me uncut, for they revealed all: in plain words, my privy parts, so close were they shaped. The points of my shoes were long enough to stretch half across the Hall. In my hand I bore a marsh pike, and so I entered, to screams.

The King was not so flown; he blinked at me as I neared the cloth of estate.

‘Ha, Sir Fool!’ he said. ‘Why this guise?’

I took a full breath, for a loud voice.

‘Upon my word, Sir King,’ said I, ‘I have been absent from court too long. For I trow, the Rivers are so high in your realm, I could not hope to ford them without the help of this staff.’

Thinking back, ’twas a feeble jest, but they were ripe for it. All the old nobility whose noses had been disjointed by the Queen’s kin bayed like dogs. Elizabeth froze. King Edward looked a little hard at me for a moment, startled to tremble, then opened his mouth with the fair white teeth and his wonderful rich laughter came pouring forth. He threw back his head. The portly chins vanished, and he was, for a brief space, the Rose of Rouen once more. All the company was mine, from that instant, and I would not let it rest there. All night I pranced in my shameless garb, tripping past Earl Rivers with my nose in the air, crying: ‘High, high! By my loyalty, they are high!’ It was a fair victory. As for the Queen’s brother, he bore himself well; he smiled adequately though he was very tight of countenance. Once I caught him gazing at Gloucester, who had also raised a smile at my folly. I believe there were some who congratulated him on having such a clever fellow in his household. Those such as I wax fat on praise, and I listened afterwards to the comments. Lord Hastings had helped the King to bed and folk were dispersing, dizzy with wine and food, as I kept my ears wide in nook and cranny and torch-lit corridor. Thus it was I heard the opinion of Earl Rivers; he seemed displeased. He stood round a bend in the passage, the wind blowing chill on his shadow and that of his companion.

‘It was but a harmless jest, my lord,’ said Doctor Morton soothingly.

Rivers laughed sourly. ‘Harmless indeed,’ he said. ‘The King took pleasure in it.’

‘Do not trouble about the humour of his Grace’s brother, my lord,’ said Morton. ‘He has doubtless grown unfamiliar with our culture, living his rude, far existence.’

Instead of comforting the Earl, this seemed to enrage him further.

‘Yea, by God!’ he said violently. ‘He may have a tame popinjay to pipe his insults, but I have a prince in my schoolroom.’

‘Soft, my lord,’ said Morton uncomfortably.

‘One day it may be Gloucester who needs a marsh pike to ford the realm,’ said Rivers, and their voices grew fainter, and went away.

If a man stood in Petty Wales, between Billingsgate and the Tower, he could watch royal retinues issuing from the fine apartments. He could laugh heartily to see them fuming in the moil of traffic that barred their way. The carters did not care: they carried on; foul-mouthed, whipping their horses through spaces too narrow, upsetting drays laden with flax and rope, thread, grain and fish. A man could also listen for news of those who lay within Tower gaol. Whenever there was an execution, I found that the quickest way to gain the truth of the matter was to enter a cook-shop in that quarter, for within the hour all would come to my ears. It was simpler to chaff the tidings out of the wife of a loose-tongued under-warder than wait to be told in formal proclamation at Paul’s Cross. The Tower in those days was like a beehive, heavy with gossip. Not so now; they are not such a jolly crew, and less informative. Or less informed.

I left behind a London that was partly scandalized, partly amused by the marvellous novelty of Clarence’s demise. My friends at Middleham were inclined to disbelieve me, until I elaborated.

‘He was drowned in wine,’ I said. ‘The doorway of his cell was too small, so they took him to the butt instead, trussed like a fowl. The malmsey was of the finest, and his favourite.’

‘I would rather have my head struck off,’ said Dirick the shoemaker. ‘For I know I would try to drink deep, and be defeated.’

‘Well, it was at his own request,’ I said, feeling rather sickly. For I remembered Clarence: fair, jocund, lovesome traitor. This last gesture had in it a jesting princeliness, a snapping of the fingers at death. I could not help but wonder what became of the malmsey, after they drew out the dead Duke. Then all my frivolous thoughts fled away. From the chantry came a file of monks and priests and poor men from the village, all clad in sombre mourning. The great cross at the head of the procession caught the winking sunshine, the requiem bell tolled in time with each step. Behind the smallest pair of singing-boys came the lady Anne, holding her son by the hand, and last of all, my lord of Gloucester, in black, his eyes swollen with weeping.

The King had agreed to Gloucester’s wish that he should found two colleges, one at Middleham, the other at Barnard Castle; and ceaselessly the bells were sounded at both establishments. Each day the priests named in solemn obituary those of the House of York who had gone: my lord’s father Richard, his brother Rutland, his uncle Salisbury, and, latest in this company, the fair, foolish George of Clarence.

Gloucester went no more to court, but kept himself within the northern territories. He was often away from home, for King Edward kept him busy. So for the amusement of the lady Anne I wrote poems about him and his fierce punishment of the heathen Scots, and these gave her as much pleasure as her lord’s martial exploits did the King. For King Louis had persuaded the Scottish James to violate his truce with England, and for want of the loving words I could not pen, I gave Grace the news in my southbound bills.

‘Right well beloved wife, it may be that you will receive my fool’s cap with the head yet inside of it, for we are to be besieged by those false kilted creatures north of us and I know not what will befall. I leave all in the hands of my lord of Gloucester, and through Him that sits higher than all earthly princes, we shall prevail. I read what you say about the tax which the King’s government has levied upon our livelode; may the Saints attend his Grace’s wisdom and may the pinch be worth the penny.’

In truth I only wrote thus to affright her, and in hopes perchance of a kind word or two, for I had no doubt whatever of Richard Gloucester’s strength and strategy. His blistering assaults upon Dumfries and Berwick, and his capture of Edinburgh without the loss of a single man; well, these are still talked of today, albeit softly. King Edward was full with his brother’s success. He himself did not come northward; he had not the humour, he said. He wrote to his Holiness the Pope thanking the Giver of all good gifts for his most loving brother, whose proven success was enough to chastise the whole of Scotland.

‘Right worshipful husband, I have taken as a parlour boarder the kinsman of Master Fray. He is a man skilled in penmanship and will help me with the accountancy. You will know that Calais was attacked lately; it is as well that your Duke of Gloucester has subdued the Scots though never did I think to see the day when England could call on those for aid, which state you say his lordship has brought about. Hogan sings loud as ever, he did say the Bull would swim and the Boar would triumph. Item, Louis of France has broken his son’s troth with our Princess Elizabeth. This day I saw her, and she was more fair even than yesterday. She was merry. Yet marriage is a blissful state is it not? The price of hogs has risen.’

Elizabeth was not sad when she was young; not even when the Dauphin was withdrawn from her by his devious father.

Yet my Queen looks sad today. She has that look of anxious love familiar to me from the days with Lady Anne Neville. When Edward ailed and my lord was away she had a moonbeam look troubled by trailing clouds. I think it is Arthur who grieves my lady, and he has the look of Anne Neville, too white, too rosy. Life is full of paradoxes. Each mirrors the other.

I saw his Divine Majesty eye me last evening. I thought he was going to say I was too old to earn my money, but he did not. None the less, I tried to put on a younger aspect—then I thought he might say I was too wise. One must either be young and silly, or wise and feeble. I am what I am. I live in past and present, then suddenly both come together with a fierce clash like an axe on armour and I am shaken into confusion—ah, this white mist over my eyes...