The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  “The chaff of his fellow turnspits will soon put all notions about being a belted earl out of his head!” laughed Mistress Goodyear, when she heard.

  “But I doubt if it will put the recurrent fear of pretenders out of your new King’s head,” remarked Jan Weaver, who had become quite an habitué of her comfortable inn.

  He had invited her and Dickon and Tansy to join him in a drink, and if the two younger people would have preferred to be alone, at least the prosperous-looking merchant was entertaining and the way he sought their company quite flattering. “You are probably right, Sir. It is unfortunate for him that the fourth Edward left so many relations,” grinned Dickon. And the thought crossed his mind that King Richard had foreseen this very possibility.

  “Well, at least one nephew, Lincoln, is now eliminated,” said Mistress Goodyear, who wanted only the kind of settled peace which is good for trade.

  “And Lord Lovell. Was he killed in the battle?” asked Tansy.

  “No one appears to know,” Dickon told her. “But it seems most likely as he has not been heard of since.”

  “And the poor, kind priest, Richard Simon?”

  “Kind, indeed!” bridled Mistress Goodyear. “Why, King Henry would have been perfectly justified in having him hanged, drawn and quartered. Enticing an innocent boy out of the country and teaching him to pretend to a lot of lies!” As the merchant rose with a shiver to pour himself another tankard of Burgundy, she added with concern, “Are you cold, Master Weaver?”

  While she beckoned to a passing pot-boy to throw a log on the early autumn fire, Weaver murmured something polite about her rooms always being pleasantly warm, and a nasty mist which had chilled him down by the river. But once fortified by her good wine, he added anxiously, “Will your King really do this to him, do you suppose?”

  “No. One of the City aldermen was in just now, and told my husband that, with his usual clemency, the King will only imprison him for life.”

  “Why does throwing a man into prison for life always pass for leniency?” demanded Dickon.

  “Just now you called this unfortunate tutor ‘kind’, Mistress Tansy? Do you know him?” asked Weaver, returning to his seat.

  Tansy told him how Richard Simon had allowed them to use his house when they were on their way from Leicester to London, and was clearly much distressed for him.

  “Yes, he is certainly kind, God help him!” agreed Weaver, staring down reminiscently into his empty tankard.

  “Then you, too, know him?” she asked.

  “I have met him,” admitted Weaver non-committally, and, taking his leave less loquaciously than usual, went back to his ship.

  He seemed to have been everywhere and met everybody. What puzzled Tansy was why he should drop in at the Blue Boar so often and seek her company. There were plenty of men who did, but they were mostly younger and of less consequence. Beyond the enjoyment of their laughter and the gratification of their compliments they meant little to her, and the kind of life she had led had taught her to keep them where she wanted them. Since she had grown to love Dickon her natural interest in other ’prentices and dashing young city gallants seemed to have died. Besides loving him, she respected him in a way which made even the lightest giving of the least part of herself to any other man unthinkable. And in her inmost heart she acknowledged, half-resentfully, that the knowledge that he was a King’s son made this still more impossible.

  “Does this man Weaver annoy you?” asked Dickon, one evening when Mistress Goodyear had been teasing her openly about the way in which their guest monopolised her.

  “No, not really. One cannot help liking him,” said Tansy. “But he keeps on deferring his sailing, and we are so busy. Often I feel I am neglecting something which the Goodyears want me to do, or thinking about something else. And they have been so good to me. It is as if someone kept putting other thoughts into your mind when you are trying to concentrate on some important piece of tracery for Master Dale.”

  “Do I not know, only too well! All this business about the rebellion, for instance. But, mercifully, that is over.” He went and took her hands in his, looking searchingly into her eyes. “Tansy, he is not trying to make love to you, is he? Because if so — ”

  She laughed and kissed away the threatening frown from his forehead. “No, no, Dickon,” she assured him. “It is nothing like that. He tells me about life in Flanders, making it sound so pleasant that I almost long to go there. But actually, we talk mostly about you. That is partly why I enjoy his company, I suppose. He seems very interested in you, and whenever we are alone he begins plaguing me with questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Oh, where you lodge. Whether you have any privacy there, which I know you haven’t, or he would probably come to see you instead of me. And things about your education. Whether you speak French, or can construe Latin. And — of all odd questions — where you were living during King Edward’s reign.”

  Dickon glanced quickly around at the crowded inn parlour. “You don’t suppose that he has met Gervase somewhere abroad, do you? That he suspects”

  “No. No. How could he? Don’t worry, Dickon. I only tell you these things so that you won’t get jealous.”

  “Jealous?”

  “You were about Tom.”

  “And shall be again — when he returns.”

  “But why? Did I not leave Leicester and everyone there to be with you?”

  “Not entirely. After all you had been through you had to get away from Leicester. But if Tom had come for you — ”

  “Oh, Dickon, why must you always think that?”

  “Because you two are more alike. Because you probably understand him better than a moody, plodding type like me. Because Tom has a kind of gaiety and brilliance — something which I envy him. Something which one is born with, but cannot acquire.”

  Tansy knew that he spoke the truth. That she still missed Tom’s light-hearted laughter. “I could have married Tom if I had wanted to — but I didn’t,” she said slowly, consideringly.

  “And life would have been much easier for you. Though I love you more utterly than he or any other man could, I expect I shall often be difficult to live with, my love. That again is something which I was born with — something inherited. And then, again,” he added, looking at her remorsefully, “I probably care too passionately about my craft to make an ideal husband.”

  Tansy went to him and put her arms about him. “I understand all these things, and I love you as you are,” she said simply. “Every day I thank God that I waited for you. Laughter is a lovely thing, but utter loyalty is rarer.”

  Dickon held her against his heart, knowing himself to be immeasurably blessed, and swore to conquer the thrusts of jealousy which, had he realized it, sprang from his innate humility.

  Nevertheless, the next time he met Jan Weaver in the Blue Boar he could not resist asking him pointedly when his ship would be sailing. “I noticed that the dockers finished her lading days ago.”

  “And a fine cargo of wool I am taking back for our weavers. But I have some private business to transact first. I will tell you about it. But not here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let us stroll down to the river.”

  “Why, what do you want with me?” asked Dickon surlily.

  Weaver put a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. “Say rather what I have to offer you. I am going on to Burgundy, and you might make your fortune there.”

  “Are the burghers of Dijon wanting some new bridges built there?”

  “Not that I know of. But the Duchess needs the services of a dependable young Englishman like yourself.”

  “For some stone-work on her palace?” enquired Dickon, rising to the bait.

  The merchant picked up his cloak and moved towards the door. “Let us get away from all this chatter and I will tell you. If you swear to keep your mouth shut?”

  “I am no babbler. As soon as Sir Walter Moyle’s house is finished I may be l
ooking further afield. If this commission is something secret, I swear I will not speak of it to a soul. Except, of course, to Tansy.”

  Weaver stopped short in the doorway. “Women cannot keep a secret,” he objected.

  “Tansy has kept one for years.”

  Having so far persuaded his quarry, Weaver gave in with good grace sooner than let him go. “You trust her very much, don’t you?” he said.

  “Every day and every hour I trust her with my life,” thought Dickon, who still half-suspected the wool merchant of knowing his own secret.

  He turned away to fetch her, and together the three of them went out into the darkness. “I will take you aboard my ship,” he offered, to Tansy’s delight. And after they had seen the lights of London from the decks of the trim little Dutch merchantman and looked down into her tightly-laden holds, they sat in Weaver’s little cabin, in exactly the privacy he needed.

  “After our meeting by the Tower gates, Broome, I gather you have little love for the Tudor,” he began, wasting no time.

  “None at all,” said Dickon, looking with interest at the smoothly fitted bulkheads of his unaccustomed surroundings. “What does the Duchess want?”

  “To knock him from his stolen throne, and avenge her brother’s death.”

  The stark words struck like a sword thrust in the confined space. Dickon swung round and stared down at the speaker as he sat on his narrow, wooden bunk. Tansy watched shock, satisfaction and excitement chase each other across her lover’s sensitive face. Expectation of royally commissioned work abroad faded from his mind. Suspicious caution took its place. “And how could I, a mere mason’s apprentice, help her towards that end?”

  “By impersonating a Plantagenet.”

  “And ending up as a turnspit?”

  “We mean to succeed this time. But even if you paraded your claims only before foreign courts, talk of you would still plague Henry Tudor. It is a nightmare to which usurpers lay themselves open, and Margaret of Burgundy lives to plague him.”

  Amazement held Dickon silent. Amazement that he should be involved in one of these intrigues sponsored in high places. That he, of all men, should be approached. That such a cruelly difficult choice should be offered to him. To him — dedicated mason and royal bastard — whose mind was so reluctant, whose heart so more than willing.

  “Tansy was right, saying how foolish it was to choose a pretender who looked so little like the man he claimed to be,” the Duchess’s agent was saying almost lightly. “We do not intend to make the same mistake again. You saw Lambert Simnel following with the servants in the King’s procession, no doubt?”

  “Yes,” agreed Dickon, who had not been able to resist watching.

  “And a sorry figure he looked,” admitted Weaver. “You must have felt that, even among the baggage waggons, you yourself would still have borne yourself so as to look the part.”

  It was so acute a thrust that Dickon reddened. He remembered very well how he had turned away from the Tudor and all his followers that day, holding himself proudly — thinking “If I couldn’t do better than that!” He had been ashamed of the thought. “Simnel looked a pleasant enough lad, but he is past history,” he said.

  “I noticed that day at the Tower that you could have passed for Warwick far more easily than he. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you have something of the Plantagenet cast of features?”

  “Warwick is here in London, alive, so the whole idea is played out.”

  “But there are others. Lincoln, for instance”

  “Everyone is sure that Lincoln was killed at Stoke,” said Tansy.

  “Then Richard, Duke of York. Rumour has always had it that he was smuggled out of the Tower by boat — ”

  So this was it. The thing which his father had warned him of was actually happening. “He is several years younger than I,” objected Dickon.

  Weaver rose with an expansive gesture and set wine before them … “Oh, it would not be yet, and time would make that less obvious. You would need to be trained. The Duchess would tell you all that King Edward’s sons might be expected to remember. Put you au fait with family jokes, and describe what his relatives and people about the Court looked like. We should need to lay plans — to get supporters.”

  Dickon heard Tansy’s sharp intake of breath and knew that she was frightened. “Master Weaver, you waste your time,” he said, setting down his untouched tankard. “I am a mason. I have put all I am into my craft. In a few weeks’ time I shall take my examination and hope to be received into my Guild. This is the life I have chosen. The only life for which I am fitted.”

  Jan Weaver looked up at him with his most persuasive smile. “A far more exciting one awaits you — both. Surely you are adventurous enough — ”

  “And I am going to be married,” added Dickon, unmoved by the jibe.

  “But do you not see, both of you, how your marriage would be made more easy? I imagine neither of you has much money. You are probably wondering how to buy yourselves a house. If you came with me you would both live in luxury — such luxury as you have never known — at the Court of Burgundy. There would be fine food — and lovely clothes, Tansy. Often you would travel about, the two of you. See Paris, perhaps. And other cities of Europe. Talk to kings. There would be no more slaving like a dog from dawn to dusk to finish some rich man’s house. No more waiting on tough drunkards and pert young blades for Tansy, And what do you stand to lose? You don’t seem to have many ties here. Has either of you any parents?”

  Tansy shook her head, half persuaded. “My father is dead,” said Dickon shortly.

  “All to the good,” commented Weaver. “It might not be so easy if he were alive.”

  “No,” agreed Dickon, smothering a sudden inexplicable snort of amusement.

  “What was he?” asked Weaver, quickly reducing him again to wariness.

  Tansy’s hand shook, so that she spilled some wine down the front of her gown. But Dickon looked him straight in the eyes. “A soldier,” he answered, with only an imperceptible moment of hesitation.

  “Like Tansy’s,” remarked Weaver conversationally.

  “They frequently fought on the same battlefields,” Dickon assured him gravely.

  “Which accounts for the way you two were drawn together in the first place, no doubt. And which should make you less afraid to grasp your interesting destiny, young man.”

  “I will think of it, Sir”

  “But never speak of it except among ourselves?”

  “On that you have my word.” And somehow, while saying that, Broome the ’prentice, looked a more likely candidate than ever. Almost as if he were not pretending to be a Plantagenet, but being one. “How warmly the Duchess will commend me!” thought Weaver, congratulating himself on his clever choice. And so anxious was he to please his patroness that he toyed momentarily with the idea of ordering the gang-plank to be raised to prevent his guests’ departure. But unwilling co-operation would be too dangerous, “Our overdue quitting of this berth begins to raise questions among the officials at the Customs house,” he said, accompanying the young couple on deck. “So we must sail by midday tomorrow at latest. With all my heart I hope you will both be on board, prepared to meet my friends in Flanders and Burgundy.”

  “I will think of it,” repeated the most convincing-looking pretender they were ever likely to get.

  19

  Dickon thought of it all night. In the apprentices’ long dormitory in Hurland Dale’s house, he lay sleepless among his slumbering, carefree fellows. Methodically, he tried to weigh the advantages of the Flemish merchant’s glamorous proposal against the disadvantages. On the tempting side ranged a chance to help the Yorkist cause, adventure, the luxurious married life which he would be able to provide for Tansy and the lure of a unique task which he believed that he could accomplish. On the other hand he set the uncertainty, his dislike of giving up his own identity and being used as a tool in other men’s hands, the probability of leaving Tansy widowed young, an
d — above all — the urge to excel in the craft for which he was already trained.

  The risk of doing as the Duchess and the Yorkist exiles wished would be great. Tansy, he knew, would suffer agonies of fear for him. For if he should be finally brought back to England impersonating young Richard of York, and the plot did not succeed, Henry Tudor would not make a turnspit of a second pretender. He would either kill him or imprison him for life.

  Dickon preferred to be himself and to wield his own tools. But it was his dead father’s words which decided him. He remembered them perfectly. “It is of such stuff as you — and even by means of chance likenesses — that pretenders are made. Get your apprenticeship arranged. Live the enviable life of an industrious craftsman, marry some kind girl of ordinary station, mix with the uncaring crowd and forget all that I have told you.”

  Before it was light Dickon walked quietly round to the back of the Blue Boar and whistled, as arranged, beneath Tansy’s window. “I remain a mason,” he sang to the tune of “Come, gather ye may buds”, and there was gladness in his voice because he guessed that she, too, must have slept little and would be much relieved. But at the risk of being late for work he could not prevent himself from running down to the river to take a last look at the Flemish merchant ship. All was bustle on her decks as her crew made ready to leave with the tide. “I could have sailed in her out past Greenwich and Tilbury to The Hague — seen the cities of Europe — savoured such adventures as fall to the lot of few men,” he thought. “And come back with an army, perhaps, as a bogus King of England.”

  He went back, instead, munching a chunk of bread hot from the baker’s ovens in Bread Street to join his busy fellow ’prentices, to be reprimanded by the foreman and to put the final touches to a fountain they were making in the forecourt.