Parchment and quill were duly brought. I thrust them under Strange’s nose. “Here, take them. And write. Tell your father how he must come to my aid as soon as possible…or…” I gave a meaningful shrug.
George Stanley snatched the pen and began to scribble madly, the sweat from his freckled brow mixing with the splotches of ink upon the parchment.
The King’s army moved out from Nottingham castle just after the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, winding down from the rock in a sea of banners and with trumpets sounding and drums booming, shaking the circle of towers above. Some of my advisors had counselled me to hold off, telling me I should wait for all my supporters to arrive, but impatience gnawed at me, driving me to action. Waiting could prove disastrous too; Tydder might try to bypass me and march straight to London in an attempt to capture the city. I needed to stop him long before he got anywhere near the capital. Capture London, you captured the country.
I could not count on London to stand for me, either; treachery was rife. When I called upon Sir Walter Hungerford and Sir Thomas Bourchier to join me from their headquarters in the city, the unhappy news came that they had defected to Henry’s side. Perhaps I should have expected it, Hungerford’s family were long time supporters of Lancaster and in my first official role in 1469, on Edward’s behalf, I had overseen the execution of Hungerford’s father at Salisbury.
Nonetheless, my army was mighty, one of the greatest ever seen on England’s shores. Jockey Howard was on his way from Norfolk, surrounded by a massive contingent; Northumberland was marching with from the north with a great force, though more slowly than I would have liked—and I was highly displeased that the Earl had not contacted York when my summons was first sent. Lords Ferrers and Zouch were set to meet me at our rendezvous point at Leicester, while my old friend Brackenbury had arrived from London the day before with a force of loyal men. Frank was not with me, but couriers had arrived telling me that he was riding pell-mell from the coast at Southampton.
As I rode behind the groaning baggage carts with my cavalry gathered around me, their armour reflecting the hot August sun and the brightly-coloured plumes on their helmets splashed like vivid paint daubs against the sky’s blue, a sudden sense of gladness, a wave of relief washed over me.
Soon the conflict would be over. All over.
Reaching Leicester, the army crossed the small bridge that rose before towered Northgate. Every entrance gate in the town had such a bridge, for a low moat, reeking in the heat, circled the entire expanse of the walls, which now slumped in poor repair, the stone having been quarried for use in other buildings.
Passing the workshops of cloth-dyers and fullers in the northern suburb, I proceeded with my knights down busy Highcross and then turned in the direction of the castle. Through the streets the people of Leicester swarmed, wild and merry as revellers at a fair, clamouring to se the King pass. Piemen screeched from street covers, flogging their greasy wares; old dames hawked ribbons and gewgaws from rickety stalls, beggars swirled by in a flurry of rags trying to pick the pockets of the merchants and tradesmen.
A man shouted; a young cutpurse with a dirty face ran right out in front of my war-horse, White Syrie, with his ill-gotten gains, a merchant’s bulging moneybag, dangling from his hand. Horse and boy collided; the young thief was thrown into the gutter by the impact and was dragged screaming into the crowd by a party of youths eager to beat him. Such was life in this faded town.
Shaking my head in dismay, I journeyed on, slow, stately, with the trumpets ringing and the banners fluttering and drums booming out a martial tattoo.
Many of my men would be staying in the White Boar Inn, a hostelry in the centre of Leicester. However, I had chosen to continue to Leicester castle, still the most fitting spot for royalty despite its poor condition. Last time I had stopped there, much of the castle had been uninhabitable, with only the hall and a few apartments fit for use. I’d had no time to order improvements, and the thought hung had in my mind: What use? The world is changing….
Once within the castle, my bed was lifted from the baggage and carried to my chambers, where it was hastily assembled for my use. Great men often travelled with their own beds, but I had special reason for bringing mine—I slept poorly in strange beds, even more poorly than normal, and sometimes a lumpy or hard mattress caused my back additional pain that would require an elixir from Doctor Hobbes. I could not risk such on this journey to battle.
Leicester Castle stood almost directly opposite the church of St Mary Castro; a man could exit the castle, pass under a timbered gateway and enter the capacious churchyard. A fine church, with an eminent spire, perhaps tallest in Leicester, it had special relevance for me. My father, Richard Duke of York, had been knighted there as a youth, along with the infant Harry Six, during the infamous Parliament of Bats, where the lords of the land, dispossessed of their knightly weapons, armed themselves with clubs and sticks in the event of a fray.
I decided to attend Mass in St Mary’s instead of the castle’s cramped, bare chapel. It was as if I somehow sought the presence of my dead father… Since his reburial at Fotheringhay, the Duke’s image, always blurred in my memory, had grown even more obscure, faded, like an old church painting too long exposed to the sun. Yet in the last few weeks, strangely, I had dreamt often of him, riding out to Sandal from London, though I always saw him from the back, never facing me, and his voice was strange, an echo with words I could not catch. I saw his helm shining in the winter light and his surcoat with the Arms of England, and a banner above him bearing one of the most powerful mottos of England’s Kings, Dieu et mon droit.
“God and My Right…it should have been his right but now it will be mine beyond any doubt!” I murmured under my breath as I passed through the Norman door of St Mary’s, with the gargoyles above leering and frolicking on the roofline. “Of all men, I have followed my sire’s path most strongly. Ned I loved, but in truth, in the end he let me down, let us all down…”
Inside the church, I knelt to pray. The tiles, their bright colours rioting below my knees, were cold as the grave, eating into my flesh. Behind me, the worn carving of a little page, centuries old, ran across a pillar; like the lost boys who had been knighted here, another Richard, doomed never to be king, and another Henry, who became king but was doomed by his own feeble mind. Dust motes whirled in the eventide light filtering through the painted windows.
It was mad, but I longed for moment’s brief touch, a sign…but there was nothing. Just dust, floating down like dead dreams. I shivered and drew breath, my silent prayers broken.
Above my head, the little stone page on the pillar ran on, into eternity.
Perhaps I was seeking assurance from Our Lord that night, I do not know. If so, I had not received it. Even after Mass I could not rest, prowled my uncomfortable chamber like a wild beast, complaining to all and sundry that the walls were damp and I could smell the castle latrines.
“You could have stayed at the White Boar,” Rob Percy said ruefully, trying to calm me, but saying completely the wrong thing. “Nothing wrong with a King staying at an inn. Ned used to. The ale’s always good.”
“Off you go then, Rob. Farewell,” I snapped at him and sent him off to stay at the inn himself, with others of my household. With shadowed eyes, I watched him clank off down the hill into town, despondent after my chastisement.
As a crimson sunset began to bleed all over Leicester’s church spires, St Martin’s, St Margaret’s, St Nicholas’, and the bells clanged the hour from Greyfriars, Blackfriars and the House of the Augustinian Canons by the river Soar, I donned a dark cloak and continued on a minor pilgrimage, if you will, to the Newarke compound at the foot of castle hill. Seeking, still seeking, in the face of what was to come.
Beyond the battlemented stone gate that gave entrance to Newarke stood Trinity Hospital and the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, both surrounded by a vast stone wall. The church had been intended as a Lancastrian mausoleum, but I had no
care for its past—the Lancastrian cause was dead, no matter how Henry Tydder postured with his dubious claim.
Inside the church, a holy relic stood upon the High Altar, and it was that I desired to see before I engaged in battle. A thorn from the crown that had scored Christ’s brow. A symbol of suffering and yet, of hope and renewal. A symbol that meant much to me.
Leaving my attendants waiting outside, alone I entered the Church of the Annunciation. I came simply clad, as a pilgrim might, in plain unadorned raiment and with head bare. It was a brighter building than many churches I had visited, being of more recent design, with rows of tall, wide-arched windows that permitted the rich evening light to fall upon the floor.
In the choir a series of tombs lay outstretched, glimmering through the fog of candlesmoke—the white, restful effigy of Mary de Bohun, mother of Harry Five, and the brass of John of Gaunt’s wife, Constance of Castile, who was my own distant kinswomen—her sister Isabella was my great grandmother, wife of Edmund of Langley. Their mutual father had been Peter I of Spain, called ‘The Cruel’ by some…but by others ‘The Just.’
I smiled wryly at the thought—would men remember me in the same vein as my forebear Peter, with some dwelling only on supposed misdeeds while others lauded the laws I made for the good of all? My smiled faded as I recalled that Peter had been treacherously stabbed to death by his own usurping brother, Enrique—another Henry.
Passing the graves of the slumbering queens, my gaze fell upon the blessed Relic adorning the High Altar. A solitary thorn, set upon a plinth of pure gold. Such a tiny thing, but of such beauty, such holiness, perfect and blessed in its tragic simplicity.
Marvelling, my head bowed in reverence, I walked towards the altar expecting to feel awe, a sense of veneration and devotion, and I did…for a moment.
And then the light changed, as the setting sun dropped toward its nightly rest below Leicester’s steepled skyline. The church’s east window fell dark, the relic on its golden stand dropped away into gloom. The great arched windows in the nave filtered in a sickly light, a dying light, while from the west came a final ray of the conquered sun, burning through a pane of painted glass, and drenching the tiles at my feet with a sullen red.
Just in that one spot.
A blood-red smear the length of a man’s body.
Shudders ran through me, my face burned hot and then cold and an awful sense of sadness, of loss, of unchangeable destiny swept over me, as if here the crossroads of time melded with each other, clashing, revealing. And then the unsettling sensation was gone, and the twilight proper came and the pale candleflames all around nave, chancel and choir became flickering points of light.
Light to chase away eternal darkness.
In haste, I left the Church of the Annunciation, any ease I had hoped to find lost forever to me.
Overhead, a burnt-rust summer’s moon sprang up over Leicester like a baleful eye.
That night in my none-too-comfortable apartment in Leicester castle, I had another of my fretful dreams. This one was somewhat different, though.
I dreamed of Anne.
Anne.
I had never dreamed of her before, not even in the immediate aftermath of her death, when many folk say they see the faces of the departed in their dreams.
She was hovering over my bed, not the wasted wraith of her final days, lungs rotted, breath pestilence, but sixteen-year-old Anne, my young bride, sweet and beautiful. Her hair glowed like a halo as she reached out to me with a lily-white hand. I was reminded of those happy times when the High and Mighty Prince Richard Duke of Gloucester returned from months away on business, and became just young Dickon Plantagenet again, and the Duchess just plain Anne Neville, and we would go hand-in-hand, to find a private spot where we would touch and kiss and slake our desires after long separation. How we had laughed as we made love in those days, drinking wine from each other’s goblets as we lay in bed in Middleham, our hair snarled in lover’s knots, our legs twined together, and the sweat of our ardour cooling on bare skin…
“Come with me, Richard.” Dream Anne was stroking my rigid, unfeeling fingers. “It is time you came with me.”
I could not feel her touch. Indeed, I could not move at all; I lay there, on my back, like a felled man. A stone. I wanted to touch her back; could not.
“Richard, please, come with me.” She smiled, implored.
I managed to reply. “Anne, I cannot. That life is done. I am sorry. I am to marry Joanna of Portugal.”
She glanced at me sadly. “You will never marry Joanna.”
Panting, I woke up, sweat running down my bare chest.
I prayed I was not getting Thomas Stanley’s reported sweating illness….
The Angelus bell was ringing. Outside the dawn sky held the faintest hint of brightness. Rising by dim candle light and seeking a chair, the barber shaved me, and I was dressed in the finest hose, a velvet doublet lined with satin; dutifully I went to Mass in the unadorned castle chapel and asked Lord God for strength and for victory.
After Mass, I walked through the castle bailey, inspecting the troops who were preparing for the day’s march. Beyond the fragmentary walls, the sounds of life returned to Leicester after the brief night: hooves clopped on cobbled streets, town criers bawled their news, the hawkers, knowing where the royal army would pass, began calling out blandishments to buy their wares. Somewhere a smith clanged on an anvil, the repetitive sound like a tolling bell, and from the nearby houses a cockerel crowed, heralding the burgeoning day. On Leicester’s walls the night watchmen would soon be opening the gates to admit traders and to allow others to pass out upon their business in the wider world beyond.
It was time to leave. Returning to my apartments, I was divested of my ordinary clothes and donned highly polished whyte armour. I wore no helmet but a small ceremonial crown, plain gold. In my baggage, under armed guard, another crown was stored, much older, priceless in value. It would have its part to play—but not here in Leicester.
It was the Crown of England.
The streets were packed with onlookers. A sea of ironclad men with the sun reflecting off their armour marched down from the castle and out from the hostelries where they were billeted. Banners striped the cloudless skies, and pikes reared up like silver-tipped trees. Trumpets roared and brayed, while all the church bells were set ringing.
Sir Percival Thirlwall, a trusted northerner, rode ahead of me proudly bearing my standard aloft. It streamed out in the fresh morning wind, the great Boar snarling as it snapped its jaws at heaven itself. Near it, others banners flapped and fluttered—St George, the Virgin Mary, the White Rose of York.
Mounted on my favourite steed, White Syrie, a great pale destrier with powerful shoulders and a proud head, I made my way slowly through the crowds. The noise of the mob was deafening, faces blurring into a red haze on either side. Guards held them back when the crush got too heavy; children were squealing and men shouting and bawling.
The procession filed down the cobbled hill from St Mary Castro and curved towards Bow Bridge with its grey gateway and the river Soar crawling below its arches, slow, low and muddy sunken in the summer’s dry spell.
Even deeper crowds were clogging the bridge, eager to catch a glimpse of the King departing the town. Some silly trollop with uncovered hair and immodest dress threw a posy of flowers, which struck Syrie’s neck and broke apart, sending a spray of cornflowers and dandelions slithering down his flanks, vivid blue and yellow against his whiteness.
Ned might have appreciated such a gesture from a wanton girl, I did not. Never did I feel less like my brother, and for once, I revelled in it. I was not just Edward IV’s younger brother any more…I was Richard III, the rightful King, who would prove that right in honourable battle. Proudly I spurred Syrie on.
The parapets of Bow Bridge rose up, with hordes of onlookers clinging to them, buzzing like a hive of bees. Pikemen thrust the unruly mobs back, forcing a path for the passage of the army and the King. Shrieks sound
ed as some bystanders, dislodged from their perilous perches on parapets and rails, tumbled over the edge into the shallow water below. Their comrades laughed at them, pelting them with anything that came to hand—fruit, pebbles, dung.
Halfway over the bridge, there was a sudden commotion in the crowds ahead. Ducking under arms, scuttling like a half-crushed spider, an old woman managed to avoid the pike-wall and leap out onto the road before me. Clad in grimy rags, she was as evil looking as a woman could be, her hair a mass of grey snarls and her withered face massed with weeping sores. One eye gazed out of her skull, partly covered by a caul—the other socket was a crusted, oozing horror. Her mouth was open and yammering sounds emerged as she flailed her arms at heaven, as if trying to batter God Himself.
“What, by Christ, is going on?” I drew back on Syrie’s reins before the crone could touch me. I was virtually pinned against the bridge’s balustrade, my right spur striking against the age-pocked stone, drawing a spark. “Who is this mad woman that accosts me?”
One of my guards glanced up, drawing his sword. “Shall we dispose of her, Your Grace?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, man.” I glared at him. “I do not kill aged and infirm crones! Put your sword away…but get her off the bridge so that I may pass unhindered!”
The guards acted at once, seizing the old woman’s thrashing arms. She began to laugh, the wild, stuttering ululation of the moonstruck. “Agnes Black be my name! Once an anchoress, then a woman fallen from grace, but through penance and the mortification of my sinful flesh, now given the gift of Sight! One eye I have, O great King, you see my one eye? It gazes back into the past, and it sees the future ahead. Long ago it saw the rise of three Suns, but yestereven a sunset which will never come to dawn. And lo, in my vision …there was a rose stained with blood, red on white, clutched in a man’s mailed fist, and the golden broom dying on the heath, long barren of its sprigs…I see a spur striking ancient stone, as yours smote upon Bow Bridge…and I see your head, dread King, smiting the same stone when next you come to Leicester town!”
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 40
