Within the Hollow Crown (19 page)

   "Forget it!" urged Richard, with lovable enthusiasm.

"But your Grace's income—"

   "Is never enough to pay for all the people he invites to dinner!" laughed de Vere.

   "With this niggling Parliament I certainly need all the wool taxes you can rake in for me," Richard agreed ruefully. "But money can't buy golden words like yours."

   Chaucer's smooth cheeks grew pink with pleasure. Most of the martial nobles of the late King Edward's vintage regarded his literary efforts as so much time wasted from Government affairs, so that it seemed rare good fortune to serve a sovereign who, though scarcely twenty, really saw and loved the images one made. And to find at court an audience of young people, modern and good to look upon, yet not too full of their own exploits to hang upon a poet's words. Chaucer's mind moved nimbly enough with the times to see this as a crucial compliment. He quoted from memory some lines which might please the listening ladies. "What is better than wisdom?—Woman. And what is better than a good, wise, and fruitful wife? Nothing," he concluded.

   No one spoke until the poet had taken his leave. And even then his words seemed to linger in the pleasant room, long after him.

   "I'm afraid that last line about wisdom wasn't meant for me!" laughed Joan of Kent, who was reclining like a comfortable and comely Ceres on a damask-covered pallet, nibbling at a dish of comfits.

   "Nor the fruitful bit for me," smiled Ann, to keep her company. "Besides, I'm only a foreigner."

   "And Agnes and I are not even wives!" sighed Lizbeth, pivoting on her little carved stool so as to turn the full play of her lustrous eyes upon the King.

   "Not
yet
," agreed Anne, with the faintest little pucker of annoyance spoiling the neat serenity of her plucked brows. And because she
was
a foreigner she was careful to appeal to the mother-in-law whose importance she had in some measure usurped. "Richard and I must see what we can do about it, mustn't we, madam?"

   But growing infirmities made Joan loath to part with her devoted little lady, and so far Lizbeth had managed to elude her pack of suitors and remain where she could see the King almost daily. Richard himself avoided the issue. "I expect Chaucer was thinking of his own wife," he remarked negligently.

   Anne tossed a badly ravelled skein of silk into the Landgravine's lap, hoping that some occupation might keep
her out of mischief
. But Agnes Launcekron only encouraged de Vere to help her with the task until their hands were even more disastrously entangled than the silk. "Do you find
your
wife wise and virtuous?" she teased wickedly.

   "She is tall and incredibly virtuous," muttered the newlymarried earl, well aware that everybody in the room was watching him with covert amusement.

   It was the first time Richard had heard his friend's temper fray like that. He began to think his wise little wife was right. The sooner they made some matrimonial plans for Agnes, the better. He was glad when Anne pierced the little nut tree she was embroidering with a purposeful needle and remarked very distinctly that in her opinion Philippa, Countess of Oxford, was an extraordinarily nice woman. There was a quiet precision about Ann's remarks which matched the poised grace of her smallest movements.

   Richard glanced across at her approvingly. Since their marriage, life certainly had been easier. Even if Gloucester and Arundel irritated him on every possible occasion, there was respite for his rasped nerves at home. He found it pleasant and restful sitting in this sunny room with those he loved best about him. Mathe, grown into a stately hound, pressed against his knee and grew somnolent beneath the fondling of his hand. A set of designs for his new School of Heraldry lay beside him on the cushions. But John of Lancaster rose from his chair, a man consumed by restless enterprises. "Well, whatever the shape and disposition of our wives, we shall soon have to part from them!" he said decisively, going to consult the map which the King's invaluable secretary, Medford, had left ready on a table.

   "And set forth for Scotland," agreed Richard.

   "You seem only just to have come
back
from there, John, and I thought you had signed a peace treaty," yawned Joan, too inured to military preparations to protest against the partings

they presaged.

   But Anne looked up sharply. It was all very well for Lancaster, with his greying hair and a second wife whom he had married only in the hope of ruling Spain. But she, Anne of Bohemia, was still almost a bride. "Richard and Robert, and Tom Mowbray have been full of it for days. But why must you invade Scotland?" she asked.

   The Duke turned to her courteously, unrolling the map with fine white fingers. He had so much of Richard's manner that she always found it difficult to be angry with him. "It is less a matter of invading Scotland than of defending ourselves," he explained plausibly. "The French have made a landing in the Firth of Forth."

   Anne wrinkled her adorable nose in perplexity. "But surely that is the King of Scotland's business?"

   "My dear Anne," laughed Richard, "have you lived in this contentious country all these months without finding out that the prospect of a battlefield
anywhere
is inevitably the business of my uncles?"

   "Not your Uncle Edmund's," murmured Joan, with a sugared almond in her mouth. "He'd sooner any day be fattening capon at Langley."

   John Plantagenet of Lancaster surveyed his nephew quizzically—almost one might suspect, hopefully. "Of course, if you'd sooner stay and bear him company—"

   "God forbid!" expostulated Richard, turning sharply from the window. "I've never been to Scotland. Besides, don't Uncle Thomas and Arundel keep dinning into me that it might win back my popularity which they lost for me if I go to war somewhere?"

   "Surely you can afford to ignore their venom—after Smithfield?" suggested Simon Burley quietly, going to join them by the table. And Anne noticed how Richard slipped an arm through his onetime tutor's as they talked, and how the little flame of bitterness was instantly snuffed out. "Come over here, Robert," he called with his usual cheerfulness, "and get our route settled while my uncle John is here to advise us. I'm having you and Stafford ride with me, and perhaps Tom Mowbray. I hope the heather will be out on the hills!"

   "I thought we were supposed to be going to war," laughed de Vere, disengaging himself from the wiles of Agnes and lounging across the room.

   "Of course we must push the French back into the sea and teach the Scots not to endanger us so treacherously," said Richard, momentarily relapsing into his best Council Chamber manner.

   Perceiving that the men were aching to get down to crossbows and cannon, Anne stuck her needle into her work and rose. "I must go and be fitted for my new dress, Richard," she excused herself charmingly. "It is nice of you to lend me Jacot and I am afraid I have already kept him waiting an unconscionable time."

   Richard crossed the room immediately and began gathering up her scattered silks. "What colour is it to be?" he asked.

   "Purple," answered Anne bleakly. "I'm afraid it doesn't suit me at all. But it seems that for this Garter ceremony I must wear purple."

   "Yes, of course. And I must certainly see you received into the Order before I go."

   Anne stood with down-bent head and took the deftly arranged skeins he held out to her. Not for worlds would she have him guess how her whole body hungered at the casual touch of his hands. "How soon will you be starting?" she said softly.

   "Oh, quite soon. In a few days, I hope." In his eagerness for this fresh experience he scarcely noticed the forlorn drop in her voice, and because he looked so fit and radiant she hadn't the heart to remind him that it would mean months of anxiety and loneliness for her.

   But Joan knew all about women's part in war. She called Lizbeth to help her rise and to gather up her diverse possessions. "I will come with you, if I may, Anne," she said. "I adore new clothes."

   Anne waited for her gratefully. Richard had already rejoined his fellow campaigners and, looking back resentfully from the door, she saw them clustered about their precious map. Their four bent heads were illuminated by the late afternoon sun. Burley's white hair in sharp contrast to Robert's dark curls, John of Lancaster's distinguished iron-grey head rising from the high collar of his houppelarde and Richard's like a splash of eager copper. Their crisp, technical conversation seemed to exclude her. "In a few days this room—this happy room—will be empty," she thought, her soft brown eyes filling with tears.

   Joan laid a hand on her arm as they went along the gallery to the Queen's apartments. "One gets used to it," she said. "My other son, John Holland, will be going too. As Lancaster's constable."

   Anne was all compunction at once. "Of course, madam, it is twice as bad for you."

   "Thomas, the elder, hasn't been well of late. But John couldn't be kept out of any fight," boasted Joan, a shade too complacently.

   Anne was scarcely listening. She didn't care much for either of her husband's half-brothers. "When the Black Prince went campaigning he always took you with him, didn't he, madam?"

   "Yes. And that was sometimes worse. Richard was almost born on a battlefield," answered Joan, with her warm reminiscent laugh. "That is probably why he hates them so."

   Anne's eyes opened wide so that an arrested tear toppled over the thick fringe of her lashes. "But he doesn't hate them. Not for himself, I mean—and if they are necessary," she expostulated. "It's just that he hates unnecessary killing and brutality…Don't you see how glad he is to go?"

   They had reached Anne's apartments and Joan sat down on the first chair she came to. Exertion or the least emotion brought on unwonted pallor and breathlessness these days. Anne, in common with the rest of her family, was much concerned about it, but Joan refused to be fussed over. The thought of being treated as an invalid was wholly repugnant to her. "I don't think we need worry unduly about our men this time," she said, still panting a little. "They probably want to impress the Scots with the size of our forces and I don't suppose there will be any very bloody fighting as there was in France."

   Anne waved aside the woman whom she had called to open a window. "Then do you think that I could ask Richard if I may go too?" she asked eagerly.

   "You could. And, being Richard, he would probably say yes. But seeing that he himself hasn't suggested it, I think it would be scarcely wise—or kind."

   The Queen's little oval face went white as if she had been struck. "Kind?" she repeated. "Do you mean—he doesn't want me?"

   "I mean that this is a man's jaunt. And that he will have much more fun without you. Which isn't at all the same thing." Joan leaned forward with kindly amusement and took her daughter-inlaw's slim, restless hands in her own beringed smooth ones. "Don't you see, he's probably picturing it all in his own mind as some shining adventure. Living in tents, washing in streams and all that sort of thing. The austerity that a king so seldom gets a chance to taste. And when a young man's set on a thing, it's best to let him get it out of his system." Seeing that Anne still looked forlorn, she let go her hands impatiently, "Listen, my dear. I've had two husbands. And I can tell you this. The more lightly one lets them go, the more ardently they come back. And perhaps this time next year we shall all be rejoicing and the bells will be ringing for an heir."

   Anne's pallor turned to burning embarrassment. She knew that this was what all England waited for. And that somehow she had failed them. She turned away and sent her women to fetch Jacot and the material for her dress. But as soon as they were gone she came back to her mother-in-law and touched the undimmed gold of her hair wistfully. "When Chaucer was reading just now I was looking around at you all—you and Agnes and that de Wardeaux girl. You were all beautiful like the wives he described in those verses Richard liked so much—"

   "My poor child! You're terribly in love with him, aren't you?"

   Anne nodded dumbly. All her dainty pride was in the dust before this discerning woman. But she had to tell someone—turn to someone for advice. And instinctively she knew that Joan was built on too generous lines to betray her. With one of her swift, graceful movements the young Queen was on her knees beside the elder woman's chair. "I wouldn't mind his going so much, if only I were sure that I held his heart." With her two hands she made a lovely cupping gesture against her own. "As it is—he likes me, he is kindness itself; but then, he is kind to your grandson, little Tom Holland, or to Mathe…"

   "It is only that a woman is born years older than a man, and that he hasn't quite waked to maturity yet."

   "And when he does? He will live like other men, campaigning. Because he is handsome and a king, girls throw themselves at him—like your Lizbeth."

   Joan laughed at her, kindly and comfortably. "Richard isn't a philanderer like Robert."

   "No. But he is so devastatingly charming, and I have so little to hold him with. I wish—oh, I wish that I, too, were beautiful! "

   The sigh that accompanied the words seemed to flutter right out of Anne's heart, so that the woman whose beauty had been a household word was filled with understanding compassion. She tilted up the girl's dejected face, looking searchingly, critically, at the intelligent brow, the candid eyes and delicious mouth. She told no lies in the cause of kindness, but her gaze dwelt longest on the kindness of Anne's mouth. "If I were a man—" she began, rather as if words she had not intended to utter were being forced from her.

   "Yes?" breathed Anne.