Though Richard sensed his death drawing near, he accepted, even embraced, that knowledge. With eternity beckoning, how could his present life hold any allure? Death only opened the door to Jesus. From the moment he'd touched the shroud the hatred, ambitions, guilt, self-loathing—all the emotions that had been so much a part of him—had been replaced by love, the Savior's love for him.
Richard could not explain the mechanics of his spiritual transformation; he only knew that it had happened. Initially, he'd feared that the intensity of his experience would fade, that the old Richard who had died would be resurrected. That had not happened.
Only three people I would once again see. Edward, Phillip, and Maria. Edward because he is my brother, Phillip to obtain his forgiveness, and Maria? Because I loved her most of all.
* * *
September 17, 1327. From his narrow window, Richard glimpsed the sight of distant oaks beginning to flaunt the boldness of fall. This morning he'd spotted his brother walking in the courtyard of Berkeley's inner ward, which was shaped similar to a college quadrangle. Even a hundred feet away, Edward of Caernarvon appeared a broken man. The cut of his black serge was mean and cheap; the slump to his shoulders spoke more eloquently than a thousand words as to his sorry pass.
Richard heard a rattle of keys, a scraping in the lock. After knocking, Thomas Berkeley poked his head inside. "I am here to tell you I am leaving for a few days. I have been called away on business to Chepstow."
Berkeley's eyes could not meet Richard's. Something in his voice warned of danger. "What manner of business, Sir Tom?"
"I am unsure. 'Tis an emergency, or so I've been told." Berkeley ducked his head, pretending great interest in the hem of his tunic sleeve. "I heard Lord Thomas Gurney say that they might soon allow you to see your brother."
"I thank you for your past kindnesses. May God keep you on your journey."
Thomas hesitated, then, after looking over his shoulder, approached Richard. "Mortimer has uncovered another plot. The Welshman, Rhys ap Gruffyd, was scheming with several magnates to rescue you and your brother and remove you by means of the channel. Everything was set when Mortimer's lieutenant in North Wales sent word. I do not think Mortimer will risk another escape attempt."
Richard turned his eyes to the silver crucifix.
"Nor do I."
* * *
With Thomas Berkeley's departure, Richard and Edward were left at the mercy of keepers hand-picked by Mortimer—Sirs Gurney, Ogle, and Berkeley's brother-in-law, John Maltrever. Secretive faces appeared at the earl's door with an occasional tray of tasteless food. Thomas Gurney sometimes enjoyed taunting Richard, but he too, appeared preoccupied. Among his infrequent jibes, however, he relayed one interesting bit of information.
"Your brother has been removed to another part of Berkeley. To a room more in keeping with his changing station." The underlying insinuation of Gurney's words was disturbing.
"When will you let me see him?" Richard had asked the question a hundred times previously and always received the same negative response.
This day, however, Gurney grinned. "Soon, Bastard, soon!"
Richard turned away to kneel before the silver cross.
Grant me strength, Lord, to endure, he silently prayed. Death he did not mind. But pain—Richard was still enough a part of this world to be frightened by the very possibility.
* * *
September 21. Evil stalked Berkeley's halls. Richard sensed its presence as surely as the chill breath of darkness seeping through the castle walls. He had no doubt he and Edward would be murdered, perhaps this very night. On his cot, Richard slid in and out of terrifying dreams. Awake he tensed at the slightest sound—the baying of a hound below, the scampering of an invisible rat across the room.
Footsteps in the passageway. Jerking upright, Richard reached instinctively for a sword that was no longer at his side. Guttural voices stopped outside the door; he heard the click of a key. Thomas Gurney stepped into the room. Behind him huddled Ogle and Maltrever, carrying torches, their mouths set in ugly slashes.
"Come, Bastard," said Gurney. "'Tis time to see your brother."
Warily, Richard arose. He felt certain they were not taking him to Edward, but to his own death. Suddenly, every instinct cried to fight, to break for freedom. Better to die with a blade to the back than strapped to the rack, or enduring the hand-crushing pillliwinks.
Richard inhaled deeply and a calmness descended; a gentling touch soothed away his fears.
He followed his jailers along narrow vices and ill-lit passages, having no clear idea where he was, where they might be headed. Of one thing Richard was certain, though—the increasing stench. A rotten smell that had at first soured in his nostrils, and now revolted his stomach, all his senses.
When the fetor grew so overpowering that Richard swallowed back the urge to vomit, they reached their destination. Maltrever unlocked a narrow door and motioned him inside. Richard stepped into a tiny room. First he noticed a rude table scattered with remnants of a meal, and beyond, a crucifix attached to the rough stone wall. A fire blazed in a narrow fireplace; a poker rested, tip inward, among the glowing coals. In one corner he spied a gaping pit.
The dungeon, as it was called, was Berkeley's charnel house. Here were thrown the rotting carcasses of cattle, bones, entrails, and moldering, maggot-ridden heaps of garbage. The odor emanating from the pit literally made Richard's eyes water. Fear knotted his stomach. Sometimes prisoners of low birth were thrown in charnel houses and left to die. If such was his jailers' intent, they would have to kill him now. He'd never allow them to toss him down that hellhole.
When Richard turned to Gurney, his eyes caught a figure slumped on a cot thrust against a shadowy wall. The man's head rested in his hands.
"Brother!"
Edward raised his eyes. The deposed king's face was sunken, his unkempt beard looked as if it had been hacked with sheep shears. Tattered serge clung to shoulders that had once worn velvets and brocades, matted hair to a forehead that had worn the crown of England. It was Edward's eyes, though, that had most changed. Vacant, hopeless eyes, red-rimmed, staring. Eyes that did not immediately recognize Richard. Then, with a strangled cry, he rose. Immediately, Richard was at his side. They embraced.
"Oh, Ned!" Richard whispered, drawing back. "What have they done to you?"
Edward's eyes misted; he clung to his brother. "They have been so cruel. Isabella used to write to me at Kenilworth, you know, and send me fine clothes. But now I never hear from anyone." He choked back a sob. "When they captured me they never let me stay in one place. They made me shave with ditch water brought to me in a rusted helm. They made me sit in an ant heap."
Edward buried his face against Richard's neck. Richard patted his back, struggling to breathe in the fetid closeness and warmth of the room, to ignore his brother's rags and filthy hair, the lice-ridden bedcovers piled atop his sagging bed.
"I can see but a tiny patch of courtyard with slimy paving stones and crumbling wall," continued Edward. "They haven't let me walk in days, and the stench, I swear, is killing me by inches." Pleading eyes met Richard's own. "Help me, Dickon," he whispered, reverting to a nickname unused for twenty years.
"Come!" Richard eased Edward down on the rude bed and sat beside him. Stroking his arm, Richard murmured soothing nonsense that seemed to momentarily calm his brother.
"Now I'm here, and naught will harm thee. I promise you." Empty words—if Edward knew how empty...
"Here, drink this." Standing over him, Thomas Gurney held out a cup of wine.
Richard shook his head. Edward shrank against him. His hands clawed Richard's forearm. The blackguards had physically abused his brother, of that he was certain. What had they done to so reduce a strong-willed, physically powerful man to little more than a sniveling boy?
Gurney shoved the cup in Richard's face.
"Nay!" Richard slapped away his hand. "Leave us be!"
Red wine splashed across Gurney's fing
ers, and stained his light-colored sleeve. "Drink, Bastard! Or I'll pour it down your treasonous throat."
Richard's head jerked up; his eyes probed Gurney's own. The wine contained something—a sleeping draught, poison, what? Would they drug him to unconsciousness before killing Edward, and then perform a second murder? One thing was certain. His jailers did not intend for either man to view another dawn.
"Drink, Dickon. They gave me a nice meal tonight, and the wine tasted like what we used to enjoy at court..."
Edward's voice trailed away. He wiped his nose on a filthy sleeve.
Angry words threatened to erupt on Richard's tongue. How could these men do this to their king, to his brother? Again the invisible restraining hand. Hadn't they done worse to Jesus?
The wine cup was now less than half filled. Richard gulped down the contents and threw the empty cup against the wall opposite the charnel shaft.
Gurney laughed low in his throat.
Poison. God grant that the end is quick.
"Now leave me be with my brother." He slipped his arm around Edward's shoulder.
"You know what they did to Hugh, don't you, Dickon? They daily tell me, over and over, torment me with the memory of his execution."
"Do not think on him. He is long in the arms of the Savior."
"I did try to rule well, I did." Edward began sobbing. "Dickon, Dickon, how did we come to this?"
Richard had no answers. He opened his mouth to make reply when the room suddenly pitched downward; the hearth fire seemed to burn in his stomach. The floor leapt upward. Righted.
"I would have been happy to have plowed the earth and designed ships, to have been a gentleman farmer or a yeoman. I did not ask to be king of England."
Richard stumbled to his feet, lurched forward. He must reach the cross on the opposite side of the room, must make ready for his journey to his Savior.
"Dickon!"
Staggering to the cross, Richard managed to kneel. The room pitched again. Knives stabbed his stomach. He slumped on his side.
Noise, movement. The dinner table was suddenly in mid-air. Plates fell, food splattered, utensils bounced, goblets shattered. Ogle and Maltrever were holding the table atop a thrashing Edward, pinioning him to the bed.
Richard tried to rise but could not move. The guardroom wavered, swam. He saw double. He blinked, and as his vision cleared, he saw Edward's flailing legs and arms, Gurney hurrying from the fire, a long pipe made of horn in one hand, a glowing poker in the other.
"No! No!" Did the scream remain locked inside? Pain sliced Richard's stomach, a thousand times fiercer than before. He was retching; he could barely lift his head above his own vomit. Sweat chilled his forehead; he began to tremble. Again, he tried to stand. He must stop Gurney.
Gurney bent over Edward, threw back his gown. Edward, crying, struggling; Maltrever and Ogle throwing all their weight to the table to keep him trapped.
Gurney jammed the horn against Edward's twisting buttocks. Into the horn he thrust the iron-tipped poker. A brutal shove and Edward was screaming, screaming. The smell of burning flesh cut above the charnel stench. Richard sucked the smell of his brother's burning insides into his lungs as he retched again. Screams shattered his eardrums, but Richard could not discern whether they were Edward's or his own.
Chapter 36
Westminster
Isabella left Parliament with her head held high, her hand grasping her lover's arm. The questions put to them by the Privy Council had been brutal and persistent. The lords had been unnerved by Edward's demise, but when word leaked out that Richard was also near death, panic had gripped the Council and Londoners had rioted. Isabella knew the only way to stop the rioting and the gossip of detractors was to tell the truth.
"There was no foul play in Edward Caernarvon's death," Roger Mortimer had insisted, facing members of the Privy Council. "And did you not all read the letter sent by Abbot Thokey of St. Peter's in Gloucester, exonerating us? He stated that he rode immediately to Berkeley, and said prayers over Edward's body. He said there was not a mark of violence upon it."
Young King Edward shot Mortimer a look of naked hatred. He'd accepted the death of his father as natural, or so Isabella assured herself, but what about Lord Sussex? Did anyone really believe that he had come down with a sickness to the lungs on the very night of his brother's death? Isabella knew that the two mishaps must be a bizarre coincidence. But still, while one death could be interpreted as fortunate, if Richard died, 'twould be a scandal.
"What about Richard Plantagenet?" spoke up Edmund of Kent, Isabella's brother-in-law. "Is he really improving? Who is caring for him?"
"My personal physician," Mortimer replied haughtily. "He daily sends reports. He assures me the earl of Sussex will recover. He said the wind blows cold off Bristol Channel; 'tis not unusual for it to attack a man's lungs."
"In the fall, Lord Mortimer?" King Edward asked, his voice edged with contempt. "And a hearty man of thirty-four?" When Mortimer did not respond, he said, "If he is strong enough, bring him to the Tower. I will have my own physicians tend him."
Isabella and Mortimer had left then. Isabella's body trembled with the effort of maintaining an unruffled exterior, though Mortimer seemed unconcerned. While walking across New Palace Yard toward their apartments, she noticed that the white lion of Mortimer seemed to be everywhere. Roger's troops were out in force and armed. He was taking no chances with disgruntled Londoners.
Church bells began calling out vespers. Isabella started before quickly composing herself. Following Edward's death, every church, from mighty St. Paul's Cathedral to the smallest, had joined in an endless wrangling of sound, rolling through the streets, accompanying her every waking moment, intruding even into her restless sleep. Always the funeral knoll—as omnipresent as God, and as accusatory.
But we did nothing wrong. We have the proof. The abbots said that the physicians...
"There goes the she-wolf and her lover," someone shouted. "Murderers both."
Isabella's eyes swept the staring faces; her nails dug into Mortimer's arm, though he didn't even notice. His thoughts were twisting like a serpent. Events had not gone according to his design. He had planned to announce Edward's death, and months later, when his power was more solid, an indifferent public would hear of the Bastard's unfortunate demise. As ill luck would have it, the poison had not done its work.
Or mayhap 'tis a good thing. At this moment two deaths is one too many.
Once safely inside their apartments, Isabella dismissed her servants, seeking privacy. She intended to discuss Edward's death and Sussex's sickness, to obtain certain concrete assurances, but when she opened her mouth, Mortimer said, "I detest you in mourning black. Take off that damnable widow's barb. It makes you look like a nun."
Isabella obediently complied. Mortimer turned his back to her and fed bits of chicken to one of his falcons, lashed to a nearby perch.
"My lord husband really did die of natural causes, did he not, Roger?"
Mortimer laughed.
"It seems such a strange thing," Isabella continued. "God must truly be on our side." She twisted her hands together. "We must not hide anything, for 'twill make us appear guilty. Our hold is yet tentative, and my son grows daily more silent. I know not what Edward thinks, but sometimes I am certain he despises you."
"I quake in my boots at the very thought of his wrath. Really, madam, how could I fear someone sprung from the loins of Edward Caernarvon?"
"He is my son, as well." Isabella began replacing her widow's barb. "I think you are shortsighted to treat him with such contempt. As you also treat me."
Mortimer threw back his head and laughed so loudly the startled falcon thrashed its wings. "I can treat you any way I please, Madam. We are wedded, you and I. Wedded by blood and ambition and tied as certainly to each other as this hawk to its perch."
Isabella moved away from him, to her dressing table filled with pots of sheep fat, cochineal paste and other beauty aids. Blindly, sh
e worked the stopper on one of her creams.
I hate you. You are callous, greedy, and incapable of kindness. I wish I had never become your lover.
Isabella sighed. But the past could not be changed, no more than the future could be seen. And Mortimer was right. They were inextricably linked and nothing, save death, could sever that link.
Chapter 37
Canterbury Cathedral
The interior of Canterbury Cathedral was a crowded and brilliant sight. The walls and soaring ceilings were brightly painted; cloth hangings drooped from overhead rods. Usually the quarrelling or gossiping press of people, the lords and ladies ambling about with hawks on glove, lent the cathedral the aura of fish market rather than house of worship.
But not today.
Today the assemblage flanking Trinity Chapel and spilling out past the Norman Nave to the cathedral precincts was silent. Expectant faces were turned toward the chapel that contained the shrine of Thomas Becket. The minster bells began tolling a funeral knell. From the south aisle of Trinity Chapel appeared six prelates, flanking a barefoot woman wearing a hair-shirt. Afternoon sunlight from the stained glass miracle windows danced across the woman's unbound hair.
Maria Rendell kept her eyes locked to the mitered head of the man in front of her, Henry of Eastry, Prior of Canterbury. Behind her walked John Fyndunne of St. Augustine's Abbey, the man from whom her lord Sussex had once negotiated the sale of the Leopard's Head. Since they'd begun discussions regarding her public penance, Fyndunne had been kind to Maria, though sometimes she imagined she read hatred behind his gaze. Which was ridiculous, of course. Why should the abbot feel anything for her save concern over the state of her immortal soul?
Weeks ago, following Richard's transfer to the Tower of London, Maria had decided to undergo a public penance in the manner of King Henry II. All of England knew that ancient tale: how Henry had undergone a barefoot trek through Canterbury's streets and a public scourging following the murder of Thomas Becket, who'd been assassinated right on the altar steps, not far from where Maria now stood.
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