The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  They seemed to appreciate only its cosy homeliness. Their minds were full of more important issues, “We shall want all your rooms,” they said.

  “Then you are travelling with a large party, Sirs?” surmised Rose delightedly, signing to Tansy to take their cloaks while her husband called across the yard for Jod to come and take their horses.

  “With an army,” said the older of the two gentlemen. “They should be coming in through the North Gate now. Best ride back, Critchley, and direct his Grace here.”

  The younger man hurried out and galloped up the street again. Tansy, with the cloaks still across her arms, stood stock still and stared. Her father, closing the door after him, swung round with shining eyes. “The King’s army!” he exclaimed proudly.

  The same pride was reflected in Sir John Hungerford’s face, drawn as it was with weariness. “Our men have marched down from Nottingham in the day with only one break.”

  “Like he made us march when he was Duke of Gloucester,” said Robert Marsh, reaching for a flagon of his very choicest wine.

  Sir John sat down gratefully in the high-backed chair which Tansy hastily pulled forward, relaxed for the first time and smiling over the sparkling Bordeaux which was handed to him. “Then you, too, mine host, have served under him? Which explains why you took his badge for your sign.”

  “And will serve him with my whole heart while his Grace is beneath my roof,” exulted Marsh, knowing that his inn would be famous for all time.

  2

  “The King — coming here!” gasped whey-faced Dilly in the kitchen, so frightened that she almost vomited in the sink.

  “I will have the best bed prepared,” bustled Rose, poppy-red with importance in the parlour. “Get out the swan’s-down pillows, Tansy, and the new linen sheets.”

  Tansy was half-way to the stairs before Sir John Hungerford stopped her. “No need, my girl,” he said, kindly. “His Grace never travels without his own bed. You will remember, landlord?”

  “Aye, ’tis true,” recalled Marsh. “A wooden camp bed that took to pieces and always travelled on a special baggage waggon in charge of a handful of his trustiest men.”

  “Who will bring it in and erect it in a matter of minutes, Mistress.”

  “And move the great four-poster that stands there now, I hope,” said Rose. “Our great chamber is big enough to accommodate both, Sir.”

  “Assuredly they will. The captain in charge of commissariat always sends them on ahead to arrange such things. I hear the creaking of waggon wheels now.”

  The whole street — the whole town — was suddenly alive with soldiery. With the clatter of hooves, the tramp of men and the shouting of orders. Heads were thrust out from every window. Families called to each other from the intimate proximity of over-hanging eaves and youths clustered on the steps of Leicester’s High Cross. Every housewife, either for loyalty or gain, was making up beds of some sort. The inns, which had been about to close, were all astir again.

  Tansy Marsh saw little of it. Hurrying from room to room with piles of bedding, trying to calm Dilly so that she would not spill the water pitchers, promising the flustered cook that she would go to market first thing Monday morning for more food, dodging soldiers who swore and sweated up the wide stairs with the King’s bed and his followers’ bundles, she shared in the excitement of her town only by coping with domestic chores behind the scenes, although she was there at the heart of it. It was her step-mother, animated and capable when she chose, who dominated the activities downstairs and finally helped her over-awed husband to receive their royal guest. It was russet-headed Rose who would be able to boast all her days that she had knelt to serve the King of England with wine. Admiringly, Tansy looked down from one of the courtyard galleries to watch her show dukes and lords up the outside staircases to their allotted rooms. But she herself caught only a brief glimpse of the King that night.

  The inn yard was a rare sight, packed with richly caparisoned horses ridden in under the archway from the High Street and pack-horses led in from the side gateway in White Boar Lane. Tansy was calling down to Jod to make room in her pony’s spacious stall for the King’s tall white charger when Dilly came tugging at her sleeve. “Come and see!” she urged, in an excited whisper, drawing her away from the gallery and into the huge master room to watch the baggage men set up the royal bed. Miraculously the headpiece unfolded from the wooden box-like base, and slender carved oak pillars were raised to support the light-weight tester. The panels of the head piece were painted in various colours and ornamented with golden fleurs-de-lys. The base formed a chest from which were taken bedding and the royal nightshirt. All was methodically done as if each man had performed his part of the act dozens of times.

  “Does the King always take his own bed when he travels?” asked Dilly, gaping at the rich colouring.

  “Always, except on actual battlefields, when he uses a tent like the rest of us,” one of them told her. “His Grace sleeps but ill, and more so in strange beds.”

  “But it is so grand!”

  “Yet very light to handle, and fits into a special waggon,” he pointed out, amused by her rustic amazement. ‘You should see his great bed at Westminster!”

  There were voices at the foot of the stairs. He and his mates hurried away, beckoning warningly to the girl to follow them. Someone below was saying something about there being no room for Lord Stanley and his followers.

  “Why can he not go to the Castle?” suggested someone else.

  “It has fallen into such a bad state of disrepair since there has been no resident Earl of Leicester.”

  “Then let him go to that large inn on the other side of the road. The Golden Crown, I think,” said a quieter voice, with an intonation which suggested that the speaker could not care less where milord Stanley went. And then the same pleasant voice added more quietly, as if confiding in some intimate at his elbow, “If he comes. Since Thomas Stanley is married to the Tudor’s mother, even though they live apart, I find it difficult, Francis, to trust him.”

  Although half aware of this conversation going on and of the voices coming nearer, Tansy, who loved beautiful things, still stood bemused at the foot of the bed. She leaned forward between the two slender pillars gazing at the exquisite carving of two small gold panels above the pillows. As far as she could make out each of them depicted a gilded doorway — a triumphal arch, perhaps, or some grand tomb. She wished that someone would explain them to her, and so intent was she that she remained unaware that two men had come in at the open door.

  “Those curious carvings represent the Holy Sepulchre,” explained that same quiet, pleasant voice from dose behind her.

  She started and turned. The speaker was of medium height and lean, with sharply cut features and remotely thoughtful eyes. Apart from a wide gold chain across his shoulders, he was plainly dressed in black velvet, and a flat-brimmed cap with a single jewelled ornament surmounted his straight brown hair. He looked sensitive and approachable. “How do people know that it really looked like that?” asked Tansy.

  He smiled at her unexpected interest, and some of the strained tiredness went out of his face. “A crusading knight, back from Jerusalem, described it to my great-great grandfather, who always wanted to go there himself.”

  Before she could thank him a mud-splashed messenger had come running into the room and, dropping on one knee, handed him a letter. Startled, and with thoughts distracted from the invaluable carving, Tansy became aware of a small group of armed gentlemen standing respectfully by the door — of the half-amused, half-scandalized expressions on their faces — and knew suddenly that she had been questioning the King.

  With fluttering heart and a spread of inadequate skirt, she sank down in what she hoped might pass for a curtsy. But he had forgotten her existence. Quick as thought he had whipped a dagger from his belt to slit the sealed ribbon and unroll a brief, urgent message. “Our surmise is correct, Francis,” he said. “Henry Tudor is marching towards London by way
of Watling Street, the straight old Roman road.”

  “What it is to have military experience and good spies!” gloated Francis Lovell, the good-looking young man nearest to him. “Norfolk here was so sure he would make more directly southward through Gloucester.”

  “Whichever way he is coming, the treacherous Tudor is making good time of it,” growled the Duke of Norfolk. “He could be here in Leicester in a couple of days.”

  “We want no butchering in Leicester. To-morrow we will march out westwards to meet him,” said Richard Plantagenet tersely. “If we must fight, give me flat open fields.”

  Greatly relieved, Tansy flattened herself through the crowded doorway and fled downstairs. Her step-mother was superintending the clearing away of their guests’ hasty meal. In the small room which served as office she found her father trying to reckon up his unexpected expenses and to make a rough draft of an account against the royal exchequer. “I have seen him!” she cried, excitedly.

  “Hay and straw for a score of horses — extra bread from Bakehouse Lane — say, one and a half gold angels. Two gold nobles for the meal,” Marsh muttered diligently over his spluttering quill. “That his Grace should have honoured me by eating beneath my roof!”

  “He spoke to me,” persisted Tansy. “He is not at all as I pictured him.”

  Not without relief, the honoured landlord laid aside his efforts at such large-scale accountancy. “And how did you picture him, my girl?”

  “Strong, big, fair and handsome, like people always describe his brother, the late King Edward.”

  “There is ten years difference between them. They are quite different types.”

  “Is he delicate?”

  “I have heard say that he was as a child. But it has never prevented him from living hardily and being the finest soldier of our time.”

  Tansy’s excitement had simmered down into sympathetic reflection. “His face is so full of suffering — ”

  “He has recently lost a loved wife, and his eleven-year-old son,” Marsh reminded her. “But I grant you he has aged too much since I last saw him. He certainly looks more than thirty-two. But then, look at all the heavy decisions he has had to make since King Edward died, leaving him Protector of England. Whether to declare the two young Princes bastards after Bishop Stillington of Bath told the Council that he had married Edward to one of his many loves before ever he met the Queen. Whether to have the Queen’s brothers executed for plotting to deprive him of his Protectorship. Having to get rid of traitors.”

  “And the poor young Princes themselves perhaps?” wondered Tansy.

  But there was little time for talk or speculation. Long after she had persuaded her father to go to bed she was helping to wash the platters and strew fresh rushes on the floors.

  “How long will all these grand people stay?” moaned Dilly, who had had to give up her bed.

  “When shall we get some sleep?” groaned the cook.

  But to Tansy, who had really spoken with the King, events were beginning to assume the bright tapestried pattern of a piece of history. Life, before his coming, must have been uneventfully dull, she supposed, although none of them seemed to have noticed it. “They are marching out to disperse the Tudor’s army tomorrow, and then we shall all have time to rest until they come back,” she told them. “And think how exciting it will be if they bring the invader with them and parade him through the streets.”

  “They may have killed him,” yawned Dilly gloomily.

  “More likely they’ll bring him in alive, an’ drag him at the cart’s tail to Lunnon,” predicted Cook, damping down the kitchen fire.

  “So us’ll miss all the drawing o’ his entrails an’ the quarterin’,” added Jod, with gruesome regret.

  Until long after midnight people walked about the streets, careful not to waken the snoring troops, and staring up at the windows of the White Boar. And when at last Tansy dragged her tired limbs to bed, a light was still burning in the King’s room. As she mounted the stairs she could see the glimmer of it beneath his door. “His Grace sleeps but ill,” the man in charge of his bed had said. A pity, she thought, picturing him pacing the great chamber in his rich scarlet nightgown, worrying. Before fighting for his crown and country, surely even the most experienced general must need a good night’s rest?

  Tansy forgot the horrible stories about the two princes in the Tower, and remembered only how kindly he had explained to her about the curious bed carvings, and how the Plantagenet charm had lit up his face when he smiled.

  And whether Richard slept well or ill, he was — like a good soldier — up and dressed right early. Not in the sober, travel-stained garments in which he had come from Nottingham, but resplendent in a ceremonial tabard emblazoned with the royal arms so that not even the most illiterate baggage follower could mistake who and what he was. He had broken his fast in his own room, with only a few of his gentlemen in attendance. But afterwards Tansy saw him standing by the long oak table where he had supped, giving orders for the day, and accessible to all.

  Dukes and lords stood about him, and he called the captains of his army by name. A rough map of the district was spread before him, and with a long ringed finger he pointed to the ruins of what had once been the Roman forum of the city when it was called Ratae. “The Romans must surely have made a road from here to join up with Watling Street by which our enemy is marching from Wales to London, and by which we could cut him off.” He looked up with one of those alert gestures which so belied his quiet, thoughtful aspect, and stopped the passing landlord who was hurrying about his own concerns. “Tell me, Marsh, do you know of such a road?”

  Robert Marsh thrust the pile of papers he was carrying into Tansy’s arms and sprang to attention with military precision. “Yes, Sir. A track which joins Watling Street at Mancetter.”

  “And if we go out by your West gate and take the bridge there over the River Soar, which is the first village we should come to?”

  “Bosworth, Sir. About fifteen miles to the south-west.”

  “Good, that is in the right direction. And there is flat open country between?”

  “Yes, Sir. Except for one small hill near the village. Our thick forests lie mostly on the other sides of the town. But to leave Leicester that way your Grace must cross two bridges.”

  “Yet I seem to remember that you have only one river which is your city boundary on that side.”

  “Yes, Sir. But just outside the city the Soar divides, forming a little island on which a small community of the Grey Friars have their canonry. And on the far side of the island is a narrow arched crossing called Bow Bridge.”

  “Aptly named, by the time all our bowmen will have passed over it!” laughed Lord Lovell. “Is the way easy to find after that, my good friend?”

  But Robert Marsh’s eager gaze was on the King. “’Tis only a lane, overgrown in places. And boggy, down by a little tributary called the Tweed. But if I might ride with your Grace as guide,” he suggested eagerly.

  Richard’s thin, clever lips curved into that too rare smile. “Nothing could be better,” he agreed, with the willingness to listen which had always made him so popular with his tenantry and army. “And these Grey Friars will be conveniently at hand to give us their blessing as we go.”

  In spite of his practical ability, he was a man to whom all auguring meant much. Had he not said at supper that staying at the White Boar seemed a good omen for success on the battlefield? He rose and beckoned to a page to bring him the crown of England, and Tansy, from the vantage point of the stairs and with her father’s hastily-fetched riding boots dangling from her hand, stopped awestruck to view the dramatic moment. She saw the King lift the golden circlet from its cushion and the morning sunlight from the latticed windows glitter on the jewels, and then the sudden commotion as the Duke of Norfolk almost stumbled forward to prevent him. “Is it wise?” he entreated anxiously.

  “Wise, milord Duke?” Richard’s eyebrows shot up, the gleaming symbol still half rai
sed.

  “I mean, your Grace would be instantly conspicuous. With far less chance than any of us. It is not as if your Grace will ever keep out of the battle. Any Welsh archer might take aim … ”

  Richard Plantagenet’s strong, slender fingers set the crown down firmly on his smooth brown hair. “Then if his aim be true, at least I shall die King of England,” he said lightly, apparently taking no chances of the former Richard’s fate.

  “And by the same reasoning,” he added in a different voice which none would dare to disobey, “go, one of you, and fetch milord Stanley’s son that he may ride with me.” His face was inscrutable so that not even his friend Lovell knew whether he had in mind to bribe the vacillating noble with an honour or to hold the popular young man as hostage for his loyalty. And almost immediately he led the way through the open doorway beneath the swinging inn sign to where his tall charger, White Surrey, was champing impatiently in the sunlit street.

  Ever since dawn, stragglers from the royal army had been coming into the town, and now gentlemen from manors in the district, each with his handful of followers, were arriving. “Give them some refreshment and direct them over the river towards this place called Bosworth,” Sir John Hungerford told Mistress Marsh, who was standing in the entrance of the inn to wish her guests God-speed.

  “Is it to be at their own expense?” she asked cautiously.

  “No, Mistress. Charge it to the King’s account, which we will settle on our return.”

  “And if they should arrive too late to fight?”

  Sir John was already fidgeting to be away. “We shall probably encamp in a few hours, but I do not think the King intends to join battle to-day.”