Thomas, late Marquess of Dorset, who, not fearing God, nor the peril of his soul, has many sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defouled, holding that shameful woman called Shore’s wife in adultery…
The common folk involved in the uprising were quite another matter to the treacherous lords. They were sheep that had been led astray; they need not suffer if they abandoned the rebellion and returned home. I sent our criers to inform them that that if they refused to fight for the rebels or deserted their cause, no harm would be visited on their bodies or possessions.
At the same time, I put a handsome price on the leaders’ heads—one thousand pounds or lands worth one hundred pounds for Buckingham, brought to me alive; one thousand marks or lands worth one hundred marks for the Marquess of Dorset and John Morton. Wealth often spoke to men, no matter who they claimed to serve or what noble ideals they claimed to have—its insidious lure blotted out the virtues of loyalty and probity. Such weakness in men’s hearts just might aid me now.
As it turned out, it was the weather the helped my campaign more than anything else…
As the army marched from Leicester to Coventry, where I conferred the powers of vice-constable on the northern knight Sir Ralph Assheton, the stable blue skies of the preceding weeks vanished. By the time we were on the roads headed toward the West, a huge storm had engulfed England, as if brought by the wrath of God.
Winds screamed like demons from the pits of Hell, tearing trees from their beds and hurling them about, upended and broken, roots coiling and writhing. Buildings were damaged, roofs shredded, tracks and roads blocked by fallen branches and other debris. Rain drove in, falling in vertical sheets, causing streams and rivers to flood and burst their banks. The sky roiled, dark and lowering, filled with the tears of angry heaven.
In my encampment, I sat chilled to the bone, the roof of my tent in danger of being torn asunder and flying off into the night. Rain drummed; the fabric leaked, small cold drops that hit the back of my neck. The tapers would not stay lit, killed by the drafts; the pages and squires were constantly rekindling them to give me some light as I dealt with the business of war and read the correspondence that arrived almost every hour.
Francis, having joined me at Leicester, entered my tent. Lashed by the storm, his fair hair stuck up as though a horse had dragged him through a bush. “I heard a rumour…” he began.
“I don’t want to hear any rumours,” I snapped, gaze fixed on the parchments I was poring over. “I’ve heard more than enough.”
“A good rumour, this time,” Francis said. “About Buckingham…”
I cast down the parchment, glanced over at my friend. “About Buckingham? That I will listen to.”
Frank smirked, rubbing his gloved hands together. “Men say that our ‘friend’ Harry is on the run.”
A flash of lightning lit up the tent; the flaps were battering the sides wildly as squires struggled to secure them. “Praise be to God, if it is true,” I said. “Wait with me, Frank, and let us pray together that definite news will soon come.”
It did, and soon. The rebellion was over without one blow being struck.
Voice stern and serious, I informed Francis of the details. “God has smitten the unrighteous with the power of His storm. The Severn has flooded; men say they have never seen the like within living memory. It was impossible for Buckingham to cross at any ford, and all the bridges were destroyed prior to his arrival by his own kinsmen, Humphrey and Thomas Stafford.” I allowed myself a grim little smile, thinking of the irony; Harry had betrayed his king and his kinsman; now his kin did the same to him.
“Maybe he should have tried swimming,” Frank mocked.
I pulled my thick fur cloak around me; the storm still gusted outside and it was freezing, despite the pages poking at the brazier. “Harry’s men gave up hope and deserted, leaving him for the safety of their warm homes. He was never much loved in Wales. Thomas Vaughan of Tretower set upon his castle at Brecknock, looting it and setting it aflame while the locals danced and celebrated!”
Francis looked shocked at the idea of wild Welshmen taking over Brecknock Castle. “What of Duchess Catherine, his wife? And their children?”
“They are safe, though in the hands of the Vaughan family. I have ordered that the Duchess remains unmolested. I would not have any say I make war on women and children.”
Frank suddenly glanced away, as if embarrassed.
“You don’t have to turn from me, Frank. I know what is being said on the street. That Dame Grey hides in fear of her life with her daughters. That I murdered my nephews so they could not rise against me. Who spread these rumours, I wonder? Certes, men pondered the children’s whereabouts, but to declare them dead and have so many believe? Harry and his cohorts, Bishop Morton and Margaret Beaufort…They are to blame, they are behind it.”
“You are certain about Margaret? She, a woman, involved in such intrigue?”
“She as much as any of the others. Maybe even more. ‘Tis said she met Buckingham on the road from Gloucester. I suspect she’d do anything for that unworthy son of hers. She will pay.”
“I wonder what nonsense Morton put into Stafford’s empty head,” murmured Francis bitterly. “Vision of endless wealth and even kingship, I should imagine. Forgive me, Dickon; I know you loved him well for a while, but the rest of us could see that he was…a man of straw and no substance.”
“I know,” I breathed. My breath was a cloud before my lips; I gestured to servants to pile more wood on the fire. “I misjudged badly and have paid greatly. But not as greatly as my brother’s son, Edward.”
“Where is Buckingham now? Do we know? And what about the pretender, Henry Tudor?”
“Harry fled, that is all I can tell you, and as for Tydder, his fleet was scattered by the storm. I nearly had him; his ship was close to shore, but at the last the coward sped away, back to Brittany. I have trackers in pursuit of Buckingham, men with strong swords and sharp-toothed hounds. They will not fail. Francis, I swear on my troth, I will not rest until Harry Stafford has been subdued and punished for his betrayal…and for the murder of Edward, sometime King of England.”
Francis clasped my hand. “Let it be soon, lord, so that the land may return to peace once more.”
Outside the wind continued to roar and shrill, making sounds like mocking laughter.
The Duke was captured. Dressed in peasant garb (that must have pained him, who loved his gaudy finery!) he had fled from Wales to Lacon Hall, near Wem in Shropshire. The master of the hall, one of Buckingham’s own followers, Ralph Bannister, loved him not so much as he loved the thousand pounds reward for turning him in, and the High Sheriff of Shropshire brought his forces to Lacon and arrested Harry as he tried to shimmy over the orchard wall.
Under heavy guard, the Duke was being taken to Salisbury, where I was hurrying with my army, first following the Fosse Way then taking smaller roads to join the Portway that led to Salisbury’s gates.
Buckingham would have no reprieve. He would die…a fitting punishment for that false traitor, that most untrue creature, hardly even a man in his lowly infamy.
Do it, Richard, he had whispered to me, the serpent in the grass, the devil at my ear.
I would do it. To him.
Salisbury’s cathedral spire poked the underbelly of the sullen skies. The winds had diminished but heaven still wept, and the gargoyles on the west front gushed rank water through gaping mouths. I had attended evening mass; without the Bishop, for the Dame Grey’s brother Lionel Woodville was one of the rebels, and one with a goodly reward for his capture.
Buckingham was in Salisbury too—but as a prisoner, locked up under armed guard in an inn known as the Blue Boar, which stood on the threshold of the Market Square. A scaffold was being erected, the carpenters noisily and cheerfully banging away, while townsfolk and villagers from miles around gathered to see Harry’s head roll.
It was the dying hours of All Saints, and tomorr
ow was All Souls and a Sunday. It was an unusual day for an execution, and a few eyebrows had risen in surprise when I announced my intent.
I had my reasons, and none but Henry Stafford and I would know them.
November 2 was the birthday of Edward, eldest of my brother’s sons. He would have been thirteen. It was fitting that Buckingham would think of him as he ended his own miserable life beneath the headsman’s axe, while the crowds of spectators jeered and screeched like beasts, waiting to smell the scent of noble blood.
Heavily I trudged from the cathedral door to my lodgings in a nearby house that had once belonged to the Abbot of Sherborne. The hot fire of my hatred for Buckingham had burned to embers, leaving my heart a heavy dull stone within my chest. I felt an old, wretched man—I had not long turned thirty-one.
Inside the hall, my principle lords were all waiting for me, seemingly in good cheer. The fire blazed in the fireplace; cressets lit up the ornamentation on fine vaulted ceiling. New tapestries had been hung; the floor gleamed, smooth flagstones and orange heraldic tiles. Smells of food permeated the air as the cooks in the great kitchen made ready to feast the King. Yet it all seemed…empty.
As we sat to dine, there was a rapping at the stout oak door, intent, insistent. Angrily I glanced up, resentful that I could not forget my troubles for even a few hours. However, my expression changed when I saw Sir James Tyrrell enter the hall. He had been responsible for bringing Buckingham to Salisbury and for guarding him prior to execution.
“What brings you here, away from your charge, Sir James?” I asked, more sternly than I had intended.
Sir James bowed. “If your Grace will have it, my words are for his ears only.”
A message of import then. Curtly I nodded and rose from my seat, wrapping a sable-lined mantle around my shoulders. Being but a small house, privacy was at a premium, so, despite the rain, I took Tyrrell out into the garden behind the dwelling.
Caught half in shadow and half in the orange-gold light flooding through the mullioned windows, we spoke: “Sir James, you can speak freely here.”
“My Lord of Buckingham begs a boon of you, Dread King,” murmured James, hanging his head.
My eyes first widened, and then narrowed with rage. “He gets nothing. Nothing at all. “
“He wishes to speak with you. He says he has information to help you, about those who have transgressed against you.”
“I know who they are; that is enough. I will not speak with him.” I folded my arms across my body, trembling in dank misery, as the anger inside my heart turned from red-hot rage to an icy coldness that made me as hard and brittle as ice itself.
“Your Grace, reconsider. He was at the heart of the rebellion….”
“No!” My voice was sword-sharp. “I will not, do you hear? Ask me not again, or feel my wrath!”
Dismayed, he backed away and inwardly I chided myself for my harsh tongue. James Tyrrell was a good man, loyal; I would not have trusted him with young Dickon, the most dangerous child in all England, otherwise. I wondered at my own reaction to his words; what did I fear, after all, when Henry Stafford lay bound in chains, helpless? Did I think, deep inside, that he could gull me again, tell me lies breathed through silver that I would swallow like some innocent? Did I fear I would forgive him his treachery even as Edward had forgiven George?
“No,” I repeated again, shaking my head. “I could not bear to see his evil, lying face.”
I realised I had exposed my heart in that moment, and that James saw it. His face was filled with sympathy, which almost made me hate him. I wanted to sympathy—I deserved none for my foolishness. Swiftly I changed the subject. “Sir James, what tidings of…the boy? Is he well?”
“He is well and seems happy enough, according to my good wife. He has been told not to speak of his former life and he has not. My servants believe he is just another page, a particularly well-educated one. He has a new name, Peterkin. Little Peter instead of little Dickon.”
“A strong name. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter.” I smiled ruefully. “He will need to be strong. A rock. Once the rebels are all dealt with and the blockade of ships by the French is dealt with, I will begin arrangements for his passage to the Low Countries.”
I bit my lip, gestured James into a shadow, away from the window, the lamplight.
“Have your henchmen found anything yet? In any of Buckingham’s manors?”
“Not yet your Grace. But he has many, and we are nowhere near done.”
“Remember that what they seek for must not be revealed. Dismiss the servants before you search, after putting them to the question.”
“It will be done. I am discreet.”
The severed head was brought to me in a basket, to prove that the deed had been carried out. The head and the hand, the traitor’s hand. I refused to look at either; the iron tang of blood hung bitter in the air and slow, dark droplets trickled through the basket’s weaving to patter on the tiles.
Sickness clawed my belly and then anger erupted. “Take it away!” I shouted. “See that he is buried with all proper rites within the nearest church of the Greyfriars!”
The Franciscans would take Harry Stafford’s corpse; I had no doubt of that. They ofttimes took in the bodies of those who had none to claim them, who were executed or slain fighting for the losing side in a battle.
While the bells in the cathedral and all the priories and friaries tolled on All Souls, and a mist came in and hung thick over Salisbury like a winding sheet, I said farewell to the city and to the man who had first raised me to eminence then tried to destroy me, who now lay, headless, on a bier in the Greyfriars, where the brothers would pray for his unworthy soul without ever realizing what he evils had committed.
No amount of prayers would ever be enough to redeem Harry Stafford.
The army travelled west, sweeping a stream of rudderless rebels before it. Reaching the coast of Dorset, a halt was called at the town of Bridport, known for the makings of sails and for stout hemp ropes, which the townsfolk stretched out to dry across the wide expanse of East and West streets.
I was welcomed by the Prior of Saint John the Baptist, a lowly religious house that stood on the edge of town beside the River Asker. Despite its humble appearance, the priory was clean as a House of God should be, with its floors scrubbed and a fire roaring in the hearth to greet weary souls.
Our arrival was rather unexpected, however, and the monks’ food and drink somewhat scanty for such a large party, so I immediately authorised purchase of local meat and cheese—and wine. Copious amounts of sweet imported wine to chase away the wintry chill and evil memories of betrayal.
Around midnight, James Tyrrell arrived in Bridport, windblown and shivering from the chill. Once I had felt cheered to see this faithful night—no more. By the expression on his face, I knew he had something to tell me about his search of Buckingham’s castles. Wordlessly, I beckoned him into the chambers the Prior had readied for my stay, driving out servants and squires in my wake.
“Speak, James,” I said, when we were alone, “and hold naught back that I need to know, no matter how painful it might be to disclose.”
Tyrrell heaved a deep breath; I had ordered a carafe of wine for him and I saw his fingers tremble on the stem of his goblet.
Then he spoke, his voice as thin as a reed, as if throat and tongue twisted with disgust at the tidings he brought.
Hours later, I made as if to retire, but I did not. I would not sleep at all that night; it seemed like years since I had a sound, dreamless sleep, and on this night, of all nights, not even an excess of drink would induce me to slumber. Slipping out of one of the priory’s side gates, wearing a plain black cloak to conceal my person, I wandered down East Street towards the heart of Bridport town.
With so many soldiers billeted in Bridport, the street was as busy as if it were daytime, but where they peddled fish and cockles and ropes by day, other sorts of night time trades were going on: drinking and whoring and se
lling stolen goods and smuggled contraband. Red-faced bawds, rough as the winds that scored those bleak coasts, capered around to the skirling tunes of pipes, hiking their skirts up high while the men gawped and threw them pennies. Some were being led off into the foggy darkness to private nooks in bleak alleys, where they pressed up against house walls and grappled with their paramours, indulging in fast, faceless lust.
A big man wearing murrey and blue and with a boar badge pinned to his breast, stumbled across my path, a frowzy harlot clinging to his arm, one saggy pap flopping out of her untied gown. “Who are you, in the dark ‘ood?” the lout mumbled drunkenly. “I don’t like the look o’ you, not when the King’s nearby. ’Oo’s to say you’re not one of those supportin’ the dead Duke of Buck or that Welch Tiddler feller…”
“I am the King’s friend.” My voice was muffled by my hood and by the fog. “They call me Master de Guise.” I smirked to myself. The Disguised Man.
“That’s a fancy name!” bellowed my inebriated young friend, not understanding the French meaning. “You’re sure you’re not one of them Frenchies old Tiddler is friends with?”
“’O course he’s not!” cawed the slattern he was hanging on to. “Din’t ya hear his voice? He’s English like us, you silly fool. Now let Master Degobby or whatever he calls ‘imself go about his business. We got some business of our own to conduct, remember? And you owe me two pennies.”
The two staggered away and vanished into a tavern.
I turned towards the sea, to the wind-battered harbour wall. Above me towered the building known as the Chantry; it was indeed the home of the local priest but served dual purpose as a lighthouse for ships nearing shore after dusk. A lantern burned upon its parapet even now, casting an orange glow upon the low-hanging clouds.
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 18
