The belling of the lymer told me the hart’s whereabouts had been located; sensing the excitement of the riders, the horses surged forward and the dog relays were let loose—the Chase had begun.
My horse dashed on ahead of my fellows’; I let the beast have its head and it ran fleet as the wind amid the chaos of hounds, the swooping branches, the deep ferns that hissed underfoot. The hoof beats of the others’ horses drummed loud as heartbeats in my ears as they thundered along behind me, while horns brayed and sang out through the primeval wood.
Dipping into a birch-lined gully, I caught sight of the stag; a proud animal, its horns glowing with an almost preternatural light as the sun forced a passage through the verdant canopy above. The greyhounds and alaunts were harrying the beast’s flanks, snapping at its heels; the alaunts were so fierce they could even bring a boar to bay, never mind a hart. Panicked, the deer spun this way and that, pawing the ground, froth whitening its nostrils. Its eyes, wide, frenzied, almost seemed to glow with a deep reddish hue.
As if to prove its courage, the stag suddenly lunged forward and its antlers caught one of the circling dogs, flipping it away into the bushes. The handlers drew their hounds back warily; the alaunts grinned, waiting for commands. Some already had muzzles that dripped red. The hart stood, with its heaving flanks shining under a froth of sweat and blood. It shook and I thought a lesser beast might collapse upon the spot; but legend said a stag grew a magical curved bone through its heart that prevented it from dying of fear.
A strange connection grew between the cornered animal and me; hunter and hunted, yes, but far more besides. Kindred, man and beast, both caught in bloody battles not of our choosing. A beast with a curved bone through its heart that gave it courage in the face of death—a man with a curved spine who had pushed on through all adversity despite the imperfection of his body. Two creatures who would go down fighting, standing their ground until death.
I pressed my knees to the sides of my courser, drawing closer to the cornered stag. He was large, far older than the required five years, a rangy great beast with muscles rippling beneath his red pelt. A King of the ancient forest brought to bay before the King of the Land…
As I drew nearer, those deep, reddish-brown eyes seemed to draw me in, whirling pits of darkness redolent of the grave. More than a beast’s eyes. Stags were seen as holy animals, blessed in God’s eyes, the bearers of destiny; St Eustace had converted to Christianity after he saw a hart bounding through the forest, a crucifix shining between the rood-tree formed of its snarled antlers.
My companions were looking towards me now; as the King, it was my right to bring down the beast. I could not linger, watching, I must act; but I almost wanted to let the beast live, so magnificent and powerful did it seem in that fatal moment.
But I could not. The die was cast. I must do what I had set out to do.
“Spear!” I called, reaching out with a gloved hand for a weapon. A knight of the body hastily handed me a sharpened spear, its tip winking in the forest’s gloom, deadly, the hue of obsidian.
Die well, and with no fear, brave beast, I thought, and then I drove my courser straight towards the cornered hart and thrust the spear-point into the creature’s breast, aiming for the heart with that unshatterable bone of courage that kept it from breaking in twain.
The deer bellowed, writhed, twisting in death agonies. I gripped the haft of the spear, burying in it deeper to make the animal’s suffering more brief. It went down on its side with a resounding crash that echoed throughout Beskwood, and I leapt from my steed and drew a sword to bring it across the hart’s throat and finish it.
“A good kill, your Grace!” cried Catesby from the back of his mount. Dick Ratcliffe was nodding assent at his side. George Lord Strange, accompanying us in his friendly captivity, had turned an unmanly shade of green and was mopping his brow with a sleeve.
I glanced down at the fallen stag, blood running from its wounds to be drunk by the earth. Its majesty had fled, the light in the dark eyes vanished; already a fly alighted on the surface. It was nothing, its spirit gone. Food for my table, no more.
I gestured to the chief huntsman and the park verderers who were taking control of their dogs. “The Unmaking,” I said. “Take what is rightfully yours and leave what is rightfully mine, as your lord King.”
The huntsman set to work on the deer with a small curved knife. He hewed off a shoulder for himself; gave the other to the chief verderer. The haunches were presented to me, and the scraps of innards thrown to the hungry and ever-grateful hounds.
The horses were uneasy through all of this, made nervous by the scent of blood.
“Let us go back to the Lodge and feast,” I said to my friends and companions. “It has been a good day.”
We turned to leave. Behind in the gory grass lay the discarded pelvis of the slaughtered stag—the customary tribute to the wild things, the blood offering to the crows.
Dawn had broken; I attended Mass and assuaged my hunger with simple bread and sops. Leaving my lords within the Lodge, I walked early and alone in the woodlands, desirous of solitude. I needed no guard, not here in this closed off sanctuary, patrolled by the verdurers with their mighty longbows.
Breath fogging before my lips, I breathed out. There was the vaguest smell of winter in the air, cold and crisp, and above my head the edges of the shuddering leaves were just beginning to discolour, the summer’s deep verdant hues becoming tainted by splotches of gold and brown. Summer was passing to autumn; in a few months green would turn as gold as a king’s crown and then blood-red. After that, in November’s chill, there would be naught but skeletal boughs clawing a grey sky, till spring returned to the earth again.
“Your Grace!” I whirled as unwelcome voices shouted behind me, sending crows flying from the tree branches into the summer’s sky above.
“What is it?” A messenger stood upon the path, wind blown from a long ride; some of my own advisors accompanied him, grave-faced.
“News!” the man panted. I noticed he was wearing the device of my son-in-law, William Herbert.
Excitement started to curl within my heart. I knew. I knew.
“Speak!” I ordered.
“Henry Tudor and his army have arrived!”
“Where have they landed? The fact that you are Herbert’s man tells me it is not Southampton as we thought.”
The man shook his head. “Alas, no, your Grace. Tudor has brought his fleet to Wales, near Milford Haven. They say he went down on his knees, made the Sign of the Cross and kissed the sand, saying "Judica me Deus et discerne causam meum."”
“Look kindly on me,oh Lord, and favour my cause,” I murmured, twisting my rings in agitation at the thought of Henry posturing as if he were some angelic avenger and not a son of bastard line pretending to be royalty. “He’ll need all the prayer he can get when he comes face to face with me. But ill news that he did not engage with Lord Lovell in Southampton, which would have held for me; what news about Tydder’s reception in Wales? Have the lords there remembered their vows, their sworn oaths?”
Herbert’s messenger stared at his booted toes, obviously ill at ease.
“Come now, I don’t cut off messenger’s heads if they don’t tell me what I want to hear, man! Tell me the truth without delay.”
The man glanced up, bitter. “Some went to Jasper Tudor’s side almost at once; they had been loyal to him from olden times.”
I folded my arms. “Some losses are to be expected; Jasper always had many allies. What else? What about Rhys Ap Thomas, my lieutenant in that region? What has he done to repel the invader?”
“Your Grace, I know not how…how to tell you…,” the man stammered, clearly finding the words difficult.
“He swore loyalty to me,” I said in a low voice, without waiting for the messenger to finish. “He swore he would allow Tydder to cross his lands only if the pretender rode over his body.”
I cast my mind back on the stocky, flint-eyed Welshman Rhys Ap Thomas.
I had never trusted him much, had even suggested that I hold his infant son at Nottingham in surety for his actions—but he had begged me not to because of the boy’s tender age, shedding tears while on his knees before my feet. I am not such a monster as some men would have it—I took pity and allowed the child to stay in Wales, and a seemingly grateful Ap Thomas had sworn his allegiance. (He was being paid good money for it—40 marks a year.)
The messenger took a deep breath and finished imparting his news. “Highness, Rhys Ap Thomas lay beneath a bridge while Henry Tudor and his company rode over it. He then rose and pledged to join with Henry, saying his vow to you was now fulfilled.”
“Bloody sneak!” I spat, but a cold shudder ran up my spine. How many more like him, and with the Stanleys dithering?
No! I could not let myself doubt. I had Strange; Thomas Stanley was not fool enough to think his son would survive if he did not come to my summons. He would come…
I strode toward my waiting men. “It is the time for action. I must write immediately to the Duke of Norfolk and to York. I will also write to certain others…” I narrowed my eyes, let them fall on Strange, standing amongst my advisors, “telling them that once victory has been gained, if they are not known to have supported me in the coming battle, they will be in peril of the loss of all goods and possessions, if not their very lives.”
***********************************************************
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MARCH TO LEICESTER
When I returned to Nottingham Castle from Beskwood after receiving word of Henry Tydder’s landing in Wales, I was not in a very happy mood. After my initial joy that my foe had finally arrived, ending months of uncertainty, the fact that he had now marched more or less unimpeded through Wales was worrisome. Now he was crossing the borders of England, and Shrewsbury had opened its gates to him without much persuasion. To add to my woes, York had mysteriously procrastinated in sending the men I requested; my courier had arrived on the Feast of the Assumption, and the city fathers had done nothing about my summons until the following day—then sent the messenger back to ‘find out more information’!
Then there was the ever worrisome Thomas Stanley. A letter had arrived. He was seriously ill. Confined to his bed and in peril of his life. It was the sweat, the dreading sweating sickness that could kill a man in a single day. He had passed the worst, but he was no longer young and hearty, the doctors said he must stay abed or he most surely would not survive. If God willed it, the illness would soon pass and he would still reach the battlefield in time, though he would not make it to Nottingham for my departure. He was loyal; surely I knew that; I had his son George, after all, as proof….
After discussing the situation with my ministers in a long, drawn out meeting that lasted well into the night, I retired to my apartments, still in a less than pleasant mood. I had not been long abed, tossing and turning fitfully on the fresh linen sheets, when a loud noise outside my bedchamber woke me with a start. Disoriented in the gloom, I reached for my dagger and held it close to my chest, that comforting cold steel, more reliable than any man or any beast.
Somewhere within the castle, an alarum bell was ringing, frantic with warning. Outside my chamber door, armour clanked and swords rang as they were drawn from their sheaths. Feet began to pound in the corridors and men to shout.
“Up, up!” I called to my boys, who ran from their hearthside pallets to light some tapers and to dress me. Recently I had taken to wearing a tight garment with metal struts bound inside; men thought it was an adjustment to a common arming jack and meant to keep me from an assassin’s hand, but in fact, it was a device recommended by Doctor Hobbes—he had measured my back and told me the twist in my spine had worsened. That my armoured jacket might turn a dagger was just an added benefit
The squires pulled my uncomfortable jacket on, tightening and binding, then threw a loose robe over the top. With my dagger unsheathed, I yanked back the bolt on the door and hurtled out into the corridor. As a king I was perhaps reckless, but a life of action made me ready for any possibility.
Racing down the hallway, the squires in hot pursuit, I spied Lord Scrope running through the gloom, a party of armed men charging after him. “Scrope!” I shouted. “What is happening?”
“Your Grace, it is Lord Strange!” Scrope was flushed, his hair flying in his eyes and a naked sword in his hand.
“What about him?” A sick feeling seeped over me.
“He stabbed one of the guards stationed outside his chamber then ran off. I fear he is attempting to escape the castle!”
“Christ!” I spluttered. “The stupid fool. Are the guards in the outer wards aware of his escape? Has the portcullis been lowered?”
Lord Scrope nodded. “Action was taken immediately. The portcullis is down and all gates into Nottingham barred. But we do not know where Strange is! Hiding, I have no doubt, in hopes of slipping out come morn when the gates must open. I would advise you to retire, Highness. You need not trouble yourself with this unpleasant matter; we will capture him.”
“I want to be there when you find him,” I said grimly. “He will have to answer some hard questions from his King.” I began to pace. “Where can the miscreant be? Hmm, if he has realised he cannot get out the gates, he will try to find another way out of the castle, perhaps through the caves below the keep where supplies are stored. He might hide in an empty barrel then make his escape when the supply barges dock below the Watergate.”
“A distinct possibility, your Grace.” Scrope’s eyes narrowed. “Let us go now and find this faithless rogue before any more damage is done!”
As I had guessed we might, the search party came across Lord Strange in the warren of passages carved from the living rock of the hill. He was a pathetic sight, the freckles standing out like pox sores over his snub nose as he stood guiltily, shoulders slouched in despair, in a grotto where the castle panterer stored cheeses on long wooden racks. The place stunk to highest heaven but I fancied the smell of fear was even stronger from Lord Strange.
None too gently, the guards dragged him by the arms into the corridor. At the end of the passage I stood watching the scene unfold, my robe and hair blowing back in the cold drafts that always chilled that subterranean lair. Strange quailed at the sight of me, stumbling against his captors in his terror.
He must have thought he had been dropped into hell early and I was the devil waiting for him. He might well be right.
Lips drawn into a hard line, I marched in his direction. My breath was rasping through my teeth; an angry agitated sound. I played with my dagger; its edges glinted dully in the meagre light of the torches bracketed to the tunnel walls. “George, what a surprise!” I greeted Lord Strange with mock cheerfulness. “Could you be thinking of leaving us?”
Strange’s mouth worked soundlessly.
“Not really a good idea, George. Not at this time. But you know that, don’t you? Explain yourself!”
My men were searching him, pulling sword and dagger from his belt. “Mercy, your Grace, mercy!” Lord Strange was gabbling. “Don’t hurt me. I will tell all, I promise to tell all!”
“Yes, you will.” I stepped up to him, struck him across the face. “That is for seeking to betray me after you ate at my table and was even allowed into my confidences. Now, divulge, or it will go the worse for you.”
George Strange was nearly weeping now, his teeth gritted as he struggled for control. “My uncle, Sir William Stanley…he has been plotting with Sir John Savage to join Henry Tudor’s forces. That was why he was so desperate for you to give him leave from court.”
“Faithless traitor!” I spat. “I suspected he might try to shirk his duties to his sovereign, but it grieves me that he would support Tydder’s shaky claims.”
“In truth he does not,” said George Strange. “He supports the claim of the Lady Elizabeth. He would see Tudor on the throne with Elizabeth of York beside him as Queen.”
“The man must be bloody mad. Does he think such an arrangem
ent would benefit him? He’s more likely to lose his head than gain great good from Henry Tydder.” I moved in even closer to Strange, the tip of my dagger hovering near his throat. “And what of yourself; where were you going? To your father, Thomas Stanley, or to Sir William…and Henry Tydder?”
His eyes darted around helplessly. “Not my father, no, not my father, He is loyal to you, Your Grace! Loyal, I swear it! He will come to you as soon as the worst of his illness is past, I swear it, I swear it!”
“So you admit you are a traitor, George Lord Strange?” He stared at the flagstones. “You know penalties faced by a traitor, do you not? You perfidious dog!”
Strange began to beg again, “Have mercy, please, I implore you, your Grace! I was led astray by my uncle William. Misled, horribly misled!”
“Oh yes, for you are such a little boy of tender age—Christ’s sake, you are a man of similar age to me! Oh but don’t worry, you are not to be hanged, drawn and quartered—because I have another use for you. I still don’t trust your father, not one shred. You might be more useful to me living than dead, if he has any care for his feckless son. I want you to write him a letter, George.”
“A…a letter?” George’s eyes bulged.
“Aye, you heard me, a letter. Men, bring this renegade back into the castle.”
Strange was dragged roughly down the corridor. His shoes came off; his bare feet thudded along the floor. Castle residents stared in shock and surprise from chamber doorways; some of them hissed and spat at the traitor as he was hauled past.
In the Great Hall, I nodded to the guards and they flung the prisoner down onto a bench and stood in a circle around him, weapons drawn. “Bring parchment! Quill!” I shouted to my servants. “Lord Strange is about the write an important missive to Lord Stanley. The most important missive of his entire life.”
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 39
