He Who Plays The King

by MARY HOCKING

  There were other considerations, the thought of which now darkened his mind. Yesterday he and his wife, Anne, had been to see his nephews in the Tower.

  Edward was nervous and kept probing his jaw; when he was not doing this he held his jaw cupped in one hand as though it would otherwise fall out of place. The jaw was red and swollen; the rest of the boy’s face was like a wet, grey dough. He looked unwholesome and Richard thought, ‘This is no kin of mine!’

  The younger boy, although by nature the livelier of the two, looked all the while to his brother for a lead as though he had no will of his own.

  ‘Have you the toothache?’ Anne asked Edward, trying to keep the sharpness from her voice; she was impatient of her own sickness and doubly so when she saw it mirrored in others.

  Edward shook his head, sullen as well as sick. The younger boy momentarily transferred his eyes to Anne without turning his head; the eyes travelled down the length of her gown from the cloth of gold trimming at the neck to the tips of her shoes pointing out from the hem of the skirt, and back again, to rest momentarily on her face. His eyes registered that intense hostility which only children are prepared to display unmasked.

  ‘How long have you had the swelling?’ Richard asked, wondering if it was contagious.

  ‘I don’t remember.’ Edward moved his jaw with difficulty, either because it was stiff or because he did not wish to be communicative, it was difficult to tell which.

  ‘I will send my doctor to you.’ Richard tried to make it sound as though he was giving the boy something which no one else would have thought to offer him.

  Edward said, ‘Thank you. Sire.’

  Anne said, ‘And I will send you some grapes.’

  The younger boy’s mouth twitched in a sneer. She could have struck him. The coronation had taken a heavy toll of her and she had not the strength for too many complications in her life now. All her resources of love were centred on Richard, she had no concern to spare for others. The children aroused nothing in her but anger for being in the way; she would have been as angry with her own son had he tried to tug at her weary heart at this time.

  Richard said, ‘This is an oppressive place.’ He leant towards Edward. When Edward was a child at court he had taken him by the hand and tried to reassure him; he remembered the childish fingers gripping his hand, holding to someone known and safe. He wanted to win the boy’s trust again. ‘I myself dislike London,’ he said. ‘I am never easy here. It would be better for you to be far away from London . . .’ He broke off.

  Edward’s dull eyes had brightened, but it was fear that brought them to life. Richard, looking into those eyes was as shocked as if some terrible obscenity had been revealed to him. His face went red, and then slowly drained of colour. Anne, looking at him, stretched out a hand and held it poised just above his sleeve, not daring to touch him. Edward sat transfixed by terror, but the younger boy, quicker and more alert, jumped up and whirled out of the room. As he ran down the corridor he shouted to someone whom he recognized and it was the urgency of his cries that brought Richard to himself

  ‘We waste our time here.’

  He and Anne went out of the Princes’ chamber. At the end of the corridor, in the half-light, they could see the younger boy huddled close against the robe of a priest. Richard walked slowly towards the man who remained still, one hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘Have you charge of these children?’ he asked the priest, a gaunt man with a sardonic face that spoke more of concourse with the Devil than God. The priest bowed his head.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Dr Christopher Ormond, Sire.’

  ‘Who appointed you?’

  ‘The Bishop of Ely.’

  ‘The Bishop of Ely!’ Richard exclaimed, thinking that it was a mistake that any appointment of Morton’s should have continued in contact with the Princes. He said to the priest, ‘Your charges do you little credit! They suffer from nightmares and start at shadows.’

  The man gazed down at the boy huddled beside him; there was no humility in his face and Richard, looking at him intently, had that same impression of something evil which he had so recently glimpsed in Edward’s eyes. Here, perhaps, was the source of that evil. He would have this man investigated.

  ‘Take the child back to his chamber and leave him there,’ he commanded the priest. ‘I will see that he is attended to.’

  He and Anne watched while the priest walked quietly with the boy to his chamber; he went inside and stayed perhaps for only as little as three minutes, but long enough to make Richard the more suspicious.

  ‘I have seen that man before.’ Anne searched her memory but failed to identify Ormond, just as Ormond himself saw no connection between the haggard Queen and the little owlet fugitive whom he had once pitied.

  ‘He has some hold over the children,’ Richard said to Anne. ‘They will be better once they are away from him.’

  But the sense of evil was not so easily dispelled. That night he dreamt that his nephews were dead and he cried and tried to revive them and woke crying for his own dear son.

  The day following, Buckingham came to him wanting instructions about arrangements for the Princes while Richard was on his progress; Buckingham was now Constable of England and seemed to feel that this made him responsible for everything that happened in the realm.

  ‘Edward is not well,’ Richard said. ‘And neither is it well that he should be seen so often. The sight of him and his brother aggravates an already inflamed condition in the people of this city.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What do you see?’ He looked at Buckingham with eyes that were dark and not friendly.

  Buckingham said, ‘Why, simply that your nephew is not well.’

  Richard continued to stare at him. Then he said, ‘He has some childish ailment from which he will no doubt recover. Perhaps I will move him to the north where the atmosphere will be better for him.’ It was not possible to guess what was going on in his mind, but it was apparent he was uneasy. He said wearily, ‘We will not talk any more of this.’

  ‘But others will talk, are talking in fact . . .’

  Richard said, ‘I will not talk of this now.’ He was angry. ‘I have much to do.’ Presumably as evidence of this, he left the room.

  So, Buckingham thought, he has taken no decision; his uneasiness and ill-temper were proof of that. It was not easy to guess what his eventual action might be. Buckingham stood by the window, not trying to guess. One thing was certain, whichever way things went and whatever path he himself might take, nothing could be resolved while the Princes lived.

  Richard was angered by his nephews. He was angered because their eyes told him he had earned their fear. He knew that to delay a decision regarding their future was to endanger their lives; yet he delayed and let strange thoughts hover on the fringe of his mind and at night he dreamt again that the children were dead. And so it went on.

  Buckingham watched and waited. The day came when on the morrow Richard would set out on his progress. There were other matters to discuss beside the Princes.

  Buckingham had been made Constable of England and Great Chamberlain and was promised considerable grants of land. Richard had raised him high. But others had also been given great power, in particular John Howard, now Duke of Norfolk, and Henry Percy, Duke of Northumberland. Buckingham was liked by neither of these men. Norfolk was too close to Richard to be criticised openly, but Buckingham took it upon himself to warn Richard of Henry Percy.

  ‘You have made him Warden of the Scots Marches; yet he shows little pleasure at having been raised to such great power.’

  ‘Nothing would ever please a Percy,’ Richard smiled. ‘And as for being “raised to such great power”, I have no doubt he would remind you that it is only the restoration of a small part of the power once vested in his ancestors.’

  Percy, had he chosen to speak, would have gone further than that. He would have said that nothing would please a Percy while a king sat o
n the throne who exercised any power over the North, which he considered to be as much the inheritance of the Percys as Richard regarded the throne as the inheritance of the Plantagenets. Percy, however, had departed north having said very little, and Richard had more immediate problems to deal with, namely the government in London while he was on his progress. John Russell, the Bishop of Lincoln, now the Chancellor, was to be in charge of the group of councillors who would stay behind in London.

  Buckingham begrudged Russell this power, not because he wanted it for himself, but because power granted to any other man diminished him. Richard had valued him above all others and had rewarded him accordingly. But the old loyalties had struck deep roots and already Buckingham was aware that there was an understanding between Richard and men like Norfolk and Lovell which needed no words or fine gestures. Buckingham stood outside this harmonious circle. He was as uneasy as a spoilt child who can only assess his value by the worth of the gifts bestowed upon him and who, therefore, demands a never-ending supply of gifts. He could even be jealous of Stanley, who was to accompany Richard on his progress.

  ‘Do you think it wise to have Stanley at your side?’

  Richard laughed, ‘Better at my side than behind my back!’

  Buckingham toyed with a ring on his finger, his dissatisfied mind flitting here and there. Presently he said, ‘It is Stanley’s wife to whom you should look. I hear she is in touch with her son, the so-called Earl of Richmond, exhorting him to declare against you.’ He had no certain knowledge of this but was prompted by a desire to talk about the Earl of Richmond who increasingly occupied his thought.

  Richard shrugged his shoulders. ‘It would be unlikely were it not the case, knowing the determined character of Margaret Beaufort.’

  ‘And her son?’

  ‘You think that Henry Tudor intends to invade the country in order to restore my nephew to the throne? It could be so; certainly he has reason to be sympathetic to bastards.’

  Buckingham had not intended to raise the issue of the Princes again, but now Richard himself had spoken of them he said, ‘If it is not Henry Tudor, it will be someone else e’er long. They have only to show themselves practising archery on the Green, or looking from a window, to attract interest. And that interest will soon stir someone to mischief.’

  Richard said slowly, ‘I have been thinking about them. I do not intend that they should remain behind while I am out of London. It would be wiser for them to be transferred to Pontefract.’

  ‘Pontefract has an evil reputation.’

  The two men looked at each other. Buckingham thought of Richard the Second who had met Death at Pontefract; it was hard to tell what Richard the Third was thinking, his face was inscrutable. ‘Then this will be an opportunity to amend that reputation,’ he said quietly. His eyes held Buckingham’s, dark and still. He, too, has Death in his mind, Buckingham thought. Richard looked away. He said, ‘The arrangements I leave to you.’ There was silence in the room. Afterwards, when he looked back on that scene, Richard would maintain that he regretted not having given Buckingham explicit instructions. Yet in that silence he was as close to Buckingham as he had ever been.

  Soon after this, the two men parted. Buckingham, going out into the night air, felt the wind gentle against his face and marvelled how providence will suddenly throw a gift to a man. He was not the man to refuse a gift.

  So Richard went on his progress and Buckingham was left in London. Life had lost its savour, it was flat and stale. He was at the beginning of his power yet there was nothing ahead of him. As he rode through the city he found people bustling about their business just as before. It was amazing the way the common people went on with their mundane lives as though great events were quite irrelevant to them. Buckingham would not normally have noticed this, but now he was so empty that alien thoughts filled his emptiness. They came in bewildering succession, these thoughts, like a charade played out within him by a troop of players, rascally characters, some of them.

  Gradually, he became aware of the plots and counter-plots being hatched in the city, whose people were not so uncaring of great events as he had thought. It was like a heart-beat sounding again, a pulse bringing him back to life. He could not have enough of rumour and would take it from any who proffered it.

  Buckingham used the rumours as an excuse for discussing Richard with other powerful men. He was interested in assessing the strength of Richard’s position. There was no questioning the loyalty of men like Norfolk and Lovell; but others might be less unwavering in their allegiance. Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, and now Chancellor, had served Edward the Fourth well, but the example of Hastings and Morton showed that those who had served Edward were not necessarily friends of Richard.

  ‘How little one can rely on the people of London,’ Buckingham said to Russell. ‘Already there are rumours abroad that treachery is planned.’

  The Chancellor, a man with an invariably benevolent smile and bright, shrewd eyes which missed little, said gently, ‘There were the same rumours in Edward’s reign. It does no harm. As long as rumours are allowed to circulate we all know what is happening.’

  Buckingham, who only thought men dangerous if they showed their steel, said, ‘Do you think the Londoners will support Richard as they supported Edward?’

  ‘They didn’t always support Edward.’ Russell was beaming now, his fingers steepled under his chin as he recalled the situation in those days. ‘They only supported him at the end, when he owed so many of them money they would have lost all hope of repayment had he been defeated.’

  ‘And Richard? Does this apply to him?’

  ‘Hardly!’ Russell was gently disapproving, as though rebuking a dull pupil. ‘He is concerned with justice and good government. He doesn’t understand yet that they have to be paid for; Edward always provided the money and Richard thought it grew on trees. But he’ll learn. He’ll never be as artful as his brother, but he’s no fool. Given time, he’ll learn.’

  Had that ‘given time’ had a sinister ring? Russell’s bright eyes were without guile.

  Time, Buckingham thought: years stretching ahead while Richard masters the tedious business of financing his tedious reforms! It was not a future that appealed to Buckingham, or one in which he saw a place for himself.

  Russell did not see a place for Buckingham either: an unstable man who would shine brightly for a short while and then fizzle out like a spent firecracker. This was another lesson Richard would have to learn.

  Buckingham, having gained little from his talk with Russell, was soon to find a man who could offer something better than rumour. Robin Prithie came to him with a new and rather more likely tale to tell. It was said on good authority that the Earl of Richmond was reluctant to move while the young Princes lived. As he listened, Buckingham felt energy flow back into his body; he could have embraced the rapscallion who stood before him. How foolish to have imagined it was all over, this business of kingmaking! The future was his: Richard had provided him with the key and Henry Tudor bade him use it.

  Late that afternoon, he went to see Sir Robert Brackenbury, the Constable of the Tower, and took the opportunity to talk to the young Princes. Their meal had been provided in their chamber. Edward, who ate very slowly, was still at table. The younger boy was standing by the window moving pieces about on a chess board and making nonsense of any game which had been set up. The two children regarded Buckingham warily, as they regarded all visitors now.

  ‘Well, now, what is this!’ Buckingham strode across to the chess table. He knew little about the game but had never allowed himself to be daunted by lack of knowledge.

  ‘It isn’t anything,’ the young boy said indifferently. ‘Dr Ormond set the pieces, but he is not allowed to see us any more, so it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Did you like Dr Ormond?’ Buckingham asked.

  ‘Yes.’ The boy replied so wretchedly one might have thought him desolated by the loss of Ormond; whereas the desolation lay in the fact of having no one to li
ke save the unattractive Ormond.

  ‘You may see him again soon,’ Buckingham improvised. ‘As you know, you are to move from here and he will be waiting for you at Pontefract.’

  The boy looked at Buckingham doubtfully, biting his thumb nail. At the table, Edward had put down his knife and was staring at Buckingham. Buckingham moved away from the chess table and gave his attention to Edward. He talked about the arrangements for the move and the advantages of life at Pontefract. His nature was such that once embarked on any discourse be believed what he was saying, and was now so taken up with winning the children’s approval to the move that he quite forgot that they would never reach Pontefract. Edward was still chewing some meat. As Buckingham talked, the boy moved his jaw in an awkward, brutish fashion and gravy ran down the side of his mouth. The jaw was swollen and this distorted his face unpleasantly. Depression dulled his eyes, and to Buckingham it seemed that the last spark of intelligence had flickered and died. He was shocked and thought there was something monstrous about the boy. The younger boy, still standing by the window, was at present without blemish; but how soon would it be before this evil marked him, too? As Buckingham talked to the children, the last of his compunction ran out with the dwindling daylight.

  He went to see Sir Robert Brackenbury to tell him of the move. Brackenbury, a blunt, thick-set Yorkshireman, appeared not to have noticed anything monstrous about either of his charges, and even spoke of them with rough affection.

  ‘I wouldn’t want any bairns of mine cooped up here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to see them go. They’ll fare much better up north.’ He shared the view of all Yorkshiremen that the south was a treacherous place and that a man could only be expected to thrive in a bleak landscape with a bitter climate. Buckingham was not disposed to argue with him. He talked briefly about the arrangements for the move and then left the Tower.