He Who Plays The King

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘We must hope he will live long,’ Henry remarked drily to his uncle when they were alone together. ‘But I doubt he is to be trusted even in this.’

  ‘He saved your life,’ his uncle said.

  ‘Having first endangered it.’

  ‘It would be well to bear no resentment since at present he is your only benefactor.’

  ‘Oh, I bear no resentment,’ Henry answered equably. ‘I merely note that he is not to be trusted.’

  He was no lover of his fellow men, but he was no hater, either. And he needed friends. This was but the first of many attempts to return him to his own country. It had whetted his appetite for the enterprise and he looked to a time when he might have more say as to how it should be accomplished.

  Chapter Eight

  1

  Anne, Duchess of Gloucester, sat at a window in Warwick Castle. It was January of 1477. She was alone with her brother-in-law, the Duke of Clarence. It was a forbidding day, grey, with a dark, implacable sky. She said, ‘It will be dark early today.’

  George regarded her with dislike. Her tone seemed to him to suggest that this early coming of the dark was a phenomenon peculiar to Warwick Castle.

  ‘In winter in the north, I am scarce aware of the light,’ he retorted.

  She looked at him, lips parted as though to speak, and then forbore. George thought that forbearance in a woman was the very devil; submissiveness was quite another thing, but this was not a submissive woman. He was in a particularly sensitive condition, aware of animosity even where none existed, and therefore acutely conscious of his sister-in-law’s disapproval. He began to stride about the room. His wife had died in childbirth only three weeks ago. ‘But three days short of our Saviour’s birth!’ The infant son had not long outlived her. George proclaimed his grief as though it was a personal injury for which some miscreant must be brought to justice.

  ‘But what justice is there? My brother is concerned only with pleasure, he is so besotted by Jane Shore that he thinks of nothing else, while affairs go from bad to worse.’

  Anne, noticing how quickly his mind moved from his grief to his grievances, did not reply. George, to whom silence was always hostile, grew more angry. His features were heavier now, and a colour that was always in his cheeks and a slight loosening of the lines of the mouth, hinted at excessive drinking. His thick hair had receded at the temples and as it retreated seemed to have pared away the superficial charm, revealing a face that was resentful and scheming. His anger did not effect that fusing of energy and passion which made Richard’s outbursts so deadly, but seemed to scatter his resources so that he was unable to bring his mind to bear on any one thing for long. Now, he was proclaiming inexplicably, ‘I tell you, there are things I have seen. Oh, I am not blind! I see these things, I know their meaning. There are those would do me great evil . . .’

  The light in the room had been growing dim for some time. A servant came with a taper; perhaps the man heard these last words, but whatever the reason, his hand trembled and he made a clumsy business of lighting the candles. A tremor of fear passed from one person to another. When the servant had gone, Anne said quietly, ‘Of what are you speaking?’

  ‘I know that people with evil powers have been introduced into my household. You don’t believe me? Yet my wife is dead, and my son, too.’

  She sat motionless, pools of shadow making her cheeks look gaunt so that she seemed momentarily a much older person.

  ‘They killed your father,’ he said, standing above her, looking down. ‘And now your sister. Have you no feeling for your own kin?’

  ‘You cannot think . . .’ She shrank back, disliking his nearness as much as his words; he was physically repellent to her. ‘No, that is surely not possible.’

  ‘Do not forget that I was declared next in succession to the throne after the son of Henry the Sixth, and that since his death I stand in Edward’s way. Yes, yes, yes!’ He tossed his head back, his hands clenched in petulant anger as he saw that she still did not believe him. ‘I stand in his way, I tell you.’

  ‘Edward would not spill his own blood.’

  ‘He is no blood of mine.’ He had said this before and on each occasion it had heralded an outbreak of violence and ill-considered action.

  Anne was spared the necessity of responding by the arrival of her husband. Richard had grave news. The Duke of Burgundy had been killed during the siege of Nancy on the fifth of January. Richard said, ‘This is a heavy blow.’ The Duke had been a strong, if erratic ally, and his death was a breach in England’s defence.

  Later, when they were alone in their chamber, Richard told Anne, ‘The Queen has plans for her brother. Earl Rivers, to marry Mary of Burgundy. Her ambition for her family knows no satisfying.’

  Anne was already in bed, but his resentment kept him prowling round the room. She watched him, thinking that his energy might be put to better purpose at this moment.

  ‘If Edward consents to such a marriage, it will not please George,’ she said.

  ‘Why should George be especially displeased?’ Something in her tone warned Richard that they were on a familiar battleground, and one on which she had proved to have the sharper weapons. ‘It does not please me, either. Rivers is a man for whom I have no liking.’

  ‘George means to marry Mary himself She settled herself comfortably against the pillows. ‘I saw it in his face when you told him that the Duke of Burgundy was dead.’

  ‘How mercilessly you examine us,’ he protested. ‘When we are out of humour we shall have to keep our faces turned from you.’

  ‘George was in humour. He was delighted, like a little boy who has found a treasure and only keeps quiet for fear it is taken from him.’

  ‘What fantasies you weave!’ He spoke lightly, but the set of his mouth betrayed the obstinacy of the man who does not mean to see something which is unpleasant to him.

  ‘Oh Richard, Richard, you are loyal to a fault, my dearest!’ His loyalties put down roots deeper than reason; were they ever to be torn up, what a bloody business that would be!

  He looked at her, his resentment tempered by concern for her health. Her sister’s death must, he supposed, have brought back many unpleasant memories in which George himself played no small part, and during their stay here she had become very strained although she had not complained. As always when her face became thinner, her eyes seemed unnaturally enlarged. He came to the bed and said anxiously, ‘What is it? Are you not well?’

  ‘It is you who are not well!’ She drew him down beside her and laid her cheek against his. ‘Can you not see how they will twist and tear you, these brothers of yours? My dearest, why will you not see? You would not go into battle so ill-prepared.’

  ‘I can only see that you are out of spirits.’ He took her hand; it was cold and the wrist was thin, but the bones were unexpectedly large, giving an impression of strength rather than frailty. ‘We shall be leaving here tomorrow. When we return to Middleham, you will be better.’

  She laughed because she invariably became merry whenever he talked of her health. ‘Not until we return to Middleham? Am I to remain uncomforted so long? Come! You can coax me better than that!’

  But he was preoccupied and it was she who must coax until he was roused and his energy flowed into her. Long after he was finished, she lay awake, breathing gently now while his gift spiralled lazily in her body. Her body was like a strange house which she had inherited and in which she moved about with a sense of discovery, aware of another woman, a strange, passionate creature who had lain hidden deep in darkness and would never have stirred had not Richard forced a way through to her. Had he had any idea of the wonders he was still to perform when he rescued her from Master Harbuckle’s house? She turned her head and saw her knight frowning in his sleep, his mouth slightly open.

  ‘Richard?’

  He made a protesting snuffle and turned away, burying his face in the pillow. She smiled and let him sleep.

  2

  Ankarette Twynyh
o’s maid had been to the Fair. She put the articles which she had purchased on the kitchen table, pepper, onions, sugar, ginger . . . Ankarette watched, paying more attention to the maid than to Christopher Ormond who had come to see how she had settled in her new cottage, and also to impress her with his lately-acquired importance. The kitchen door was open. Dust and pieces of straw swirled in the yard. It was one of those agitated April days when the wind can leave nothing alone; the maid’s face burned where it had caught her across the cheekbones. She was attractive in a coarse way.

  Ormond said, ‘Should Rivers marry Mary of Burgundy, I may not be in England for long. Burgundy is a country I should very much like . . .’

  ‘You’ve forgotten the cinammon,’ Ankarette said to the maid.

  ‘There wasn’t any cinammon.’

  ‘There’s always cinammon.’

  ‘There wasn’t this time.’

  Outside, trees swayed against a pale lemon sky and nearer to hand clothing on a line billowed out, dancing this way and that as though it had come to clownish life. The wind was raw, it was a cruel time, the spring.

  ‘She always liked a touch of cinammon,’ Ankarette crooned.

  She is going to spend the rest of her life talking about the Duchess, Ormond thought, instead of enjoying her retirement.

  ‘Three hours before she died, she said to me, “Apple tart and cinammon, ’Karette . . .” ’

  The rooks were gathering in the trees, their harsh cawing drowning all other bird song. The maid listened to Ankarette, arms folded across her breasts, rocking gently to and fro, thinking that this was an evening that stirred one up, all this wind . . .

  When at last the maid had been sent to get apples from the loft, Ormond had a chance to talk to his aunt.

  ‘Earl Rivers is responsible for the education of the young princes and I have sometimes given lessons to Prince Edward . . .

  ‘Earl Rivers is a Woodville,’ she said dismissively. ‘They’re not well-thought of, the Woodvilles.’ She was not prepared to recognize that anything of importance had ever happened outside the Clarence household.

  The maid was leisurely hauling herself up the steps to the loft. An old hen was scrabbling about in the yard, pecking diligently but ineffectually for grain. Ormond watched the maid; the wind parted her hair at the nape of her neck. It was no use trying to talk to Ankarette; it had been a mistake to make this journey. He watched the maid come slowly down the steps, carrying a basket heaped with apples. A noise of which he had been half aware now became more definite.

  ‘Horses!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fancy, more than one horseman riding this way!’ His voice conveyed his contempt for the dull life which Ankarette now lived. They both listened while the distant drumming became more distinct and metallic. ‘Fancy, Ankarette,’ Ormond said with heavy humour, ‘A fair and several horsemen riding by! And all in the one day.’

  ‘There is plenty to do here for those who are willing,’ she said touchily.

  But the horsemen were not riding by. Suddenly, they were there in the yard, four or five men, all well-mounted. Ormond and Ankarette, talking in the kitchen, were in the shadow and the men could not see them; one of them said to the maid, ‘Where is your mistress?’

  Ormond moved abruptly towards Ankarette, knocking over a stool. He took her by the arm. ‘What’s the matter, what are you doing?’ she asked querulously. As he looked at her, he saw her as he had known her when he was younger, plump and rosy, wearing a yellow kirtle. She had always been kind to him.

  Then the men were in the kitchen and Ormond was pushed roughly against the wall. He saw Ankarette slung over the shoulder of one of the men, her hair was wild and she was screaming. ‘Don’t let them . . . don’t let them . . .’ Her eyes seemed to stare right out of her head as though they were willing her body over these men’s shoulders into Ormond’s safe-keeping. He pulled at the man nearest to her, caught him off-balance and brought him to the ground. He grabbed a warming pan and belaboured the man with it as he fell. The other men rushed out. There was the sound of horses’ hooves. Ankarette was still screaming. Ormond went out into the yard. The maid was huddled on the steps to the loft, crying. Gradually, the screams and the beat of the horses’ hooves died away and only the barking of dogs and the distant complaint of cattle told of the intruders’ passage. The old hen crept out from the shadows and pecked around to see whether this disturbance had produced any grain.

  Ormond went back to the house. He was trembling. Something stirred in him, not the wind, but something as old as the wind. The man whom he had knocked down was easing himself up, still very befuddled. The warming pan was a few feet away from him. Ormond picked it up. The man looked at him and Ormond swung it with all his might, hitting the man between the eyes; he hit him many times until he was no longer recognizable as a man.

  Ormond looked about the kitchen. He thought, ‘I have killed a man.’ The table was up-turned and there were bits of pastry all over the floor. He opened the pantry door. There was pigeon pie left over from yesterday; he picked it up and sat on the edge of the up-turned table, eating ravenously. After a time, he was conscious of movement out in the yard. The maid had come to the door and was gazing in, her face white as flour. Ormond wiped pastry from his lips.

  ‘You’d best go away from here,’ he said. ‘Your mistress won’t come back.’

  3

  ‘How often do I trouble you, my lord?’ Queen Elizabeth asked.

  It was a formidable opening, betokening much trouble, and Edward, who had eaten well, had no stomach for argument. As others tried to repeat their triumphs in the lists when their greatness had passed, so Edward expected of his stomach gastronomic feats to which his digestion was no longer equal. His pleasures taxed him now. Some of his amiability had gone, he was often angry for no reason, and even when he was gay, irritation was there at the back of his eyes, waiting its moment. But he was still in control and now he mastered his annoyance. If there was one person whom he had learnt to respect, it was his wife.

  Elizabeth Woodville had thrown off youthful pretensions as though they had been an encumbrance. That air she had had of being aware of the pattern of her life and resolved to make the most of it, which had been rather daunting in a young woman, had found true expression in her middle years. She was a woman who would strike a hard bargain and abide by the consequences.

  Edward, who had had many proofs of her reliability in the matter of bargains, said warily, ‘If you have troubles, I hope I can help to resolve them. My own troubles, I must deal with as I think best.’

  ‘And how do you think it best to deal with this latest outrage committed by your brother George?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have found that it pays to ignore George.’ He walked to the window, hoping to dismiss the subject. April sunlight probed the room and outside the wind frisked across the grass and ruffled the feathers of swans, one of which was tapping with its beak on the kitchen grating.

  ‘And how has it paid?’ Elizabeth demanded relentlessly. ‘When Warwick rose against you, who was at his side?—George! When you were taken captive outside Nottingham, it was George and Warwick who held you prisoner at Pontefract.’

  ‘But not for long,’ Edward recalled, smiling at the imperious swan.

  ‘Nor was it for long that he was reconciled with you! By March, he and Warwick were stirring trouble in Lincolnshire, and with the purpose of putting George on the throne! They fled to France whence they invaded England. Again, he was reconciled with you—being no more capable of loyalty to Warwick than to any man. In fact, so eager in your support did he become that at Tewkesbury he despatched Queen Margaret’s son as he fled the battle, for all that he cried out for mercy. Did he recall then, as he does so frequently now, that the Lancastrians had named him next in succession to the throne after Prince Edward? Little wonder he showed the young man no mercy!’

  ‘These are but rumours.’

  A young man had come out of the kitchen, using the swans as an excuse t
o turn his back momentarily on pots and pans. How fine it was to be young in this green season of the year, and how ugly everything else was! He looked at Elizabeth, who was saying:

  ‘And is it a rumour that he took this woman, Ankarette Twynyho, who served the Duchess, had her charged and condemned for poisoning the Duchess, and that she was hanged last week? People are murmuring that if the King’s brother can behave in this manner, there is no such thing as the King’s justice, and every great lord will have his own justice as it was in the old days.’

  ‘How well you are versed in this matter.’ Edward sounded more indolent than ever, a sign of danger with him. ‘Can it be that your good brother. Lord Rivers, has reported in as much detail to you as to me?’ He turned reluctantly from the window.

  She ignored this reference to the campaign now being waged by members of her family, but sensing that his patience was wearing thin she attacked on another front.

  ‘It is for you and your good that I speak so. I think you cannot doubt my concern for you. Indeed, the proofs are not far to find! At court they laugh at my forbearance with Mistress Shore. Yet I have suffered this—nay, not even suffered it, but submitted gladly and with high good-humour! Can you deny that? Have you ever had sighs and reproaches from me?’

  Edward counter-attacked, ‘I married you because I could have you no other way, but it was the wisest thing I ever did, as I have proclaimed many times.’

  ‘And the wisest thing you can do now,’ she had no intention of being disarmed by sentiment, ‘is to put your brother where he can do no more harm. If you will not do it for me, then you must do it for the sake of your son.’

  There was silence. Then he said, in a different voice, low, and surprised as though she had cheated by introducing this new element into her old grievance, ‘My son?’

  ‘George has spread rumours that you are illegitimate. Perhaps you think this is of little consequence since he makes so many wild remarks. But if you were to die before George, can you not see what would happen? Your son would never come to the throne.’