by Robert Irwin
As the English coast is lost to sight, Edward begins to weep. After a stormy crossing in little boats, they land at Alkmar where they are greeted by Louis, Lord of Gruthuyse, an old friend of Edward’s, who escorts Edward to his palatial mansion in The Hague. Eventually the Lords Hastings and Say also find their way there. But they have far too few men with them for an invasion of England to be contemplated and Charles, Duke of Burgundy, does not respond to Edward’s appeals for assistance.
Anthony feels himself to be naked as he walks through the streets and squares of The Hague, for he has lost everything – not only his office, rank, estates and treasures, but also the fields, woods and hills that he took for granted, yet were part of who he was. Like Adam, he has been expelled from Paradise by God’s inscrutable decree and now he is a beggar in a foreign land. Once more he thinks of Scoggin doing cartwheels to demonstrate the wheel of fortune. Holland is deathly flat and even its sky is different from the English one. Anthony tries to find comfort in the words of Hugh of St Victor and fails. He cannot stay in this country. He thinks that he will seek permission from Edward to go on pilgrimage. He will travel to Venice and take ship to Jaffa and from there proceed on to Jerusalem, but he thinks that should not be his journey’s end, for he will travel on in search of the ruins of Babylon, the Island of Women and the Kingdom of Prester John.
Anthony usually avoids cripples. He, like many others, believes that cripples are branded by God with deformity as a warning, so that healthy men should shun them. Consequently he avoids the dwarfish strongman Chernomor and similarly he has had little to do with Richard of Gloucester until now. But in this small Dutch town it is almost inevitable that they should spend time together, even though Anthony guesses that Richard does not like him very much, while he for his part does not care for Richard. But Anthony has another reason for seeking Richard’s company. Soon after their arrival in The Hague, Anthony finds him reading under a tree in Gruthuyse’s orchard. Richard is sallow-faced, serious, and as ever, dressed in black. The book he is reading turns out to be The Visions of St Matilda.
‘Everywhere I have sought peace and have not found it except in a corner with a book,’ says Richard.
Whatever Richard’s faults, he is passionate in his faith in God and fiercely loyal to Edward. Warwick had tried very hard to win him over, but Richard had refused to follow Clarence in his treachery. He is bitter about Clarence.
‘I hate him. I hate disloyalty. I hate greed and extravagance. I hate sorcery. I hate all forms of evil. It is a fault in me, I know. I should not set myself up in judgement over evil-doers, for God will give them their requital. Moreover I know that I am not perfect and there must be some who hate me. I have many faults, which others have to endure. I have a more than perfect hatred of Clarence. He has betrayed Edward in the hope of becoming King. Yet Clarence would make a terrible King and Warwick will never allow that fool to take the throne. But perhaps Warwick will take the throne for himself…’
‘Clarence will never become King, nor will Warwick,’ says Anthony. ‘It may be that you will be the next King after Edward. The Talking Head spoke of a “Richard”.’
‘Ah, I did not know that. And Clarence? What will become of him?’
‘We did not ask that question.’
Richard is thoughtful, but then he says, ‘Why should I believe the word of a monster? It is absurd. It seems to me that prophecy is like a will-o’-the-wisp that dances brightly over a swamp with the intent to lead men to their doom. One should not seek to know what God has chosen to conceal and instead one should humbly submit to whatever He has ordained.’
Richard’s description of the Talking Head makes Anthony think of the draug and how it described him as a ‘Christian monster’.
A few days later, for want of anything else to do, Anthony accompanies Richard to a little village outside The Hague. Almost all the inhabitants of this village follow the way of the Brethren of the Common Life and devote themselves to good deeds and pious study. Richard conducts Anthony to the village chapel where a gloomy man called Hugo is painting a large altarpiece.
‘There is no man in England who could have painted this,’ says Richard. ‘It shows the world as it is.’
It is a jewel-bright triptych featuring the Nativity and it is near completion. It shows a winter scene in which there are no leaves on the trees. The infant Jesus lies naked on a bed of golden rays that doubtless keep him warm. Wealthy patrons stand or kneel in the wings of the triptych. They are bland-faced and perhaps even bored. In the central panel the Virgin looks down on the miracle to which she has given birth and richly robed angels kneel in prayer before the infant, but the scene is dominated by three shepherds, dressed like beggars, who crowd over one another in order to get a better look and strain towards the baby in fervent adoration. They have calloused hands, deeply lined faces and gap-toothed mouths and they are full of passion.
Though Anthony does not say so, he finds that the painting lacks decorum. It is unseemly that poor and ugly persons should so dominate this holy scene. Jesus is, after all, of royal blood. That is not Richard’s response.
‘I come here often to watch Hugo at work and I like to imagine myself in the picture that he has painted, so that I may find myself kneeling shoulder to shoulder in all humility with these simple peasants. The more humble a man is, the more at peace he will be with himself and his God.’Then, looking hard at Anthony, ‘Christ came for all mankind, for simple shepherds like these here depicted and even for the salvation of wicked lords like you and me. Then having entered the painting and having paid Lord Jesus proper worship, I imagine that I might go walking in the hills that you see lying beyond the stable and I might find some peace there.’
But Anthony thinks that he would not like to encounter these shepherds in a dark alley. Besides, must they not be Jews? And then he spots something that Richard seems not to have noticed. Nor have the shepherds seen what Anthony has seen. There in the darkest part of the manger, black, horned Lucifer is lurking. What is he doing there?
Edward and his miniature court in exile receive regular reports from England. Tiptoft failed to reach Norfolk, for all ways there were blocked. Near Huntingdon he and the few men who still followed him bought dirty old clothes from some shepherds and then used walnut juice on their faces and hands, so that they might also appear to be shepherds. But when Tiptoft sent one of them to buy food from a local farmer and a gold piece was offered for that food, the ruse was discovered and Tiptoft and the royal treasury were seized. He was arraigned at Westminster on the charge of treason and brought before John de Vere, the thirteenth Earl of Oxford. Since Tiptoft had overseen the death of the twelfth Earl, the outcome of the trial was never in doubt. A beautiful scaffold, hung with tapestries and carpets, was erected on Tower Hill. Tiptoft was made to walk from Westminster to the Tower. Priests surrounded him on the scaffold. One of them, a member of the Dominican Order, upbraided him, ‘My Lord, you are brought here today by reason of your unheard-of cruelties, especially when, desiring to put an end to certain leaders, enemies of the state, you killed also two innocent young children, urged on by the lust for power.’ But the Earl replied, ‘This all was done for the good of the state.’ He stroked his head one last time as if to reassure himself that it was still on his shoulders. Then he tipped the headsman generously and instructed him to carry out the beheading in three blows ‘in honour of the Holy Trinity’. The day of his execution was celebrated as a holiday in London. Even so, his body and head were honourably buried at Blackfriars. Anthony wonders if Tiptoft, in asking the Talking Head about his fate, had sealed that fate. Or was it perhaps the curse of the living goose? Anthony will miss Tiptoft badly. It is a fault in him, but he much prefers interesting people like Tiptoft and Malory to virtuous people like Richard of Gloucester.
As Warwick and his allies approached London, Queen Elizabeth fled from the Palace and sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey for herself and her new-born son. Warwick entered London and proceeded
straightaway to the Tower of London. Henry was filthy and shabbily dressed in a worn blue robe, but he was King once more and he happily took the hand of the Kingmaker and allowed himself to be led wherever Warwick willed. Messages were sent to Margaret and her son, Edward of Lancaster in France, urging them to join the Lancastrian court in London. One of Ripley’s agents reported that Henry seemed less a man than ‘a stuffed woolsack, a shadow on the wall, a victim of a game of blindman’s buff, a crowned calf’.
Then there is word about Ripley himself. Once again he had sought sanctuary in the Abbey, but George of Clarence found him there, and after some sweet talk and many promises, he persuaded Ripley to leave sanctuary and conduct him to the Talking Head (for Ripley had disregarded Edward’s message and had kept the oracle secure). After Ripley had fed the Talking Head, the brief interrogation commenced. Clarence wanted to know whether he would become King. The Talking Head told him that he would not. Clarence was already angry when he asked the Talking Head how he would die. For the first and only time the Talking Head laughed.
‘You will die like me,’ he said. ‘In a barrel!’
Ripley laughed too, but at this, Clarence in a great rage took an axe to the Talking Head’s barrel. The sesame oil came gushing out and the Talking Head expired, cradled in the arms of the grieving Ripley. Then Ripley fled back to the Abbey and took the head with him. Even though he would never talk again, he has had him embalmed, in memory of the days when he was master of the future. Once he was back in his holy sanctuary, he resumed his role as director of Edward’s secret agents.
One morning Anthony visits Edward in the Gruthuyse mansion and there he learns from Edward that he, Anthony, is not, as he supposed, in Holland, but in the Welsh mountains from where he and a band of zealous and bloodthirsty Yorkists are bringing death and havoc to the supporters of Henry of Lancaster and Warwick in Wales. Then, seeing the look on Anthony’s face, Edward roars with laughter and explains that Ripley is up to his tricks again. From his refuge in the Abbey, Ripley, like a spider at the centre of a web, has been employing a secret army of intelligencers to put about stories that are designed to spread confusion and demoralise Edward’s enemies. Anthony does not like to think of himself as being in Wales, since he understood that it was full of goblins and people who looked like goblins. But then he thinks that now perhaps he can travel to the Orient, while leaving the phantom Anthony to do what he likes in Wales.
Anthony is not the only subject of Ripley’s fictions. One of the best stories is that King Henry is even madder than he looks and has come to believe that he is made of glass. That is why he takes his seat so slowly and carefully. He is frightened that his bottom may break. According to Ripley’s agents, Henry is terrified of Margaret and it was her rages that drove him mad. Moreover, it seems that Henry’s son Prince Edward of Lancaster, who is still in France with Margaret, has inherited a violent form of his father’s madness. The Prince talks of nothing but cutting off heads or making war, as if he were the god of battle. He launches surprise attacks on his friends and tries to beat them up. Also he uses maidservants to practice his boxing on.
Another of Ripley’s stories is that the Earl of Warwick is negotiating to sell England to the French King for an enormous sum of money. Of course, Ripley has made a particular set against Clarence, and has spread the story that he is about to desert Warwick, for Clarence is reported to be angry that, under the agreement of Warwick with Margaret of Anjou, Henry has been put back on the throne and moreover Henry’s son, Edward, will succeed him as King, whereas, when Clarence allied with Warwick in rebellion, his understanding was that he would replace Edward on the throne and become King George the First. Now, disillusioned, he has begun secret negotiations to return to the Yorkist side. This story is close enough to the truth to be widely believed. Therefore Warwick regards Clarence with great suspicion and Clarence, for his part, senses the new coldness.
Thomas Wake has reappeared in Westminster and consequently Jacquetta has gone into hiding. There is one more piece of news. Sir Thomas Malory, as a knight of the shire, has taken his seat in Parliament. Le Morte d’Arthur is said to be finished, but Malory is looking for a new patron to sponsor the work since Anthony’s career is finished.
Antoine, the Great Bastard of Burgundy, arrives in The Hague. Edward is briefly excited and optimistic, but though the Bastard warmly embraces Anthony, he has bad news for Edward. He has come with a message from Duke Charles that Burgundy is not prepared to finance and supply an invasion of England, nor is he prepared to welcome Edward to Bruges, for Burgundy wants peace with France and England. However, Charles will provide generous pensions to Edward and his retinue of landless lords so long as they remain quietly in Holland.
Over dinner that night, the Bastard resumes the story that he had begun in happier circumstances on the evening after his great combat with Anthony at Smithfield. So this, the story of Kriemhild’s revenge, is the continuation of The Saga of the Nibelungs.
After the murder of Kriemhild’s husband, Siegfried, by Hagen at the behest of Gunther, Attila the ruler of the Huns sought her hand in marriage and she assented and travelled to join him in Hungary. In the castle of Etzelnburg she reigned in royal splendour. She soon bore Attila a son who was called Ortlieb. As the years passed Attila came to glory in the boy’s wit, courage and horsemanship. Thirteen years passed and yet Kriemhild still brooded on the murder of her husband Siegfried and the wrong done to her in Burgundy. She felt herself to be not a woman, but an instrument of fate.
Then she told Attila that she wanted to invite her beloved Burgundian kinsmen to Etzelnburg for a great feast of reconciliation and Attila agreed. When the Hun’s invitation arrived at the Burgundian palace in Worms, King Gunther was charmed and flattered. Hagen, though, was not so foolish.
‘Beware, my King. We must always fear Kriemhild, for I killed her husband with my own hand and at your behest.’
Gunther replied that he was not afraid of Kriemhild. Was Hagen so afraid? Thus challenged, Hagen agreed to accompany Gunther, even though he was certain that he would be riding towards his death, for he could not live with the reputation of being a coward. Three thousand knights and squires escorted Gunther towards Hungary.’
At this point Edward breaks in, ‘Lord Antoine, there is no need to continue with this story, for we all know how it must end. Gunther and Hagen and everyone with them will be slaughtered. The end is right there in its beginning.’
Lord Say disagrees, ‘No, in real life as in stories, we all know that we must die, but none of us knows exactly how he will die. I should like to hear how the Burgundians met their end.’
But Edward says, ‘Why should you be so concerned with the fate of Gunther and Hagen and those who follow them? Gunther and Hagen were murderers and they will meet the bloody end they deserve. We know they will die and we know they should die and so the story can end straightaway.’
Now Anthony intervenes and, turning to the Bastard, asks, ‘Could you not give your story a happy ending? Why not have Gunther and Hagen visit Attila and be reconciled with Kriemhild and then enjoy the feasting, music and jousting, before returning safe and sound to Burgundy? That way your story will have a happy ending that will surprise us all!’
But Edward objects that Siegfried cannot rest in his grave unavenged and the story will end happily only when Kriemhild has done what she is fated to do. Then Richard contradicts Edward and says it would be better for Kriemhild to repent, and having renounced all thought of killing Burgundians, she should retire to a convent. That would be a truly good ending.
The Bastard ignores Edward and Richard who continue to argue about this, and he tells Anthony that it is not his personal story that he is telling, for it belongs to the whole Burgundian people and consequently it cannot be altered. Though the Bastard is annoyed by the interruptions, he is still determined to finish the story, ‘When they reached the bank of the broad-flowing Danube, they could not find a ford or a ferryman. Whereupon Hagen volunteered to go
and look for a ferry, even though he was sure that, if they crossed the river, they would all meet their deaths. At first there seemed to be no ferry to be found. Instead he heard splashing and the sound of laughter. Then he discovered three water fairies bathing in the great river, floating like lily pads on its surface. It was a hot day. He crept up to the bank where they were bathing and stole their clothes. They were dismayed to discover that their clothes were in this man’s hands.
Then the first of the water fairies said to Hagen, ‘The shadow of the future stretches into the present. We have second sight. If you will return our clothes, we will tell how your visit to Hungary will turn out for you.’
Hagen was seduced as much by their beauty as by the promise of knowledge of the future. So he agreed to this.
Then the second fairy said, ‘If you cross this river and proceed on to Attila’s Kingdom, you will win glory and wealth.’
Then, after he gave them back their clothes, they laughed and the third fairy said, ‘My sister lied to you, because we wanted our clothes back. The truth is that you should turn back now, for if you proceed any further, you and all with you will link hands with death. Only King Gunther’s chaplain will return to Burgundy to tell the tale.’
At this point Edward interrupts again, ‘Why do prophecies in stories always come true? It is not so in real life. In my experience, astrologers, cunning men, wise women and weather diviners are always making predictions and they are lucky indeed if even half of what they predict comes to pass. But in a story like the one you are telling, if a water fairy tells you that you are going to die, then that is the end of the matter. Hagen might as well lie down beside the river and ask someone to wrap him up in a shroud. There is no point in him going to the trouble of travelling all the way on to Etzelnburg. Sir Antoine, forgive me, but it would be more exciting for those who are listening to you if the water fairy turned out to be undecided about whether or not Hagen was going to die.’
