I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  Malvern Magna was surrounded by great, dark hills; shadows flowed from them, and in the early morning, the sun spread golden rays over their slumbering heads. I took Anne up into the foothills, for there was a holy well upon their green slopes near the ruins of an old monks’ cell, and the well was named for Saint Anne. There on her knees amidst the offerings of the afflicted, Anne wept for her sister, drank the healing water and prayed to her namesake, and her heavy heart began to heal.

  So when it came time, she did not weep that we should be parted. Isabel was gone, but Anne was alive and growing strong again. We bade each other fond farewell, stole kisses behind the monks’ great ironbound door, then she went north, back to our little son at Middleham, and I, uncharacteristically late, rode hell-bent for leather to London to attend Edward’s Great Council.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE MADNESS OF GEORGE

  London in February was still dank and grim after the worst of the winter. Freezing mud clogged the gutters, mixing with ordure and other wastes while the Thames was a flat, dim streak, reflecting the sullen cloud-layer that hung above it. Even the banners fluttering above the Tower could not brighten the dismal scene.

  It was cold; my breath puffed in a cloud before my lips as I strode across the bleak castle bailey and mounted the steps of the White Tower. I would have liked to change and bathe but I knew I was already late.

  Entering the council chamber, faces turned towards me, not all of them friendly. My brother the King sat before me looking, as seemed to be the case every time we met, more dissolute. His once alert, bright eyes, that could charm any maid into his bed, looked small and glazed; redness marred his complexion and his hair had lost its luster. He was sporting a scanty reddish beard, such as he had never worn before, which startled me, for Ned had always been meticulous in his looks, bathing and having his hair washed once a week—a practice I also follow—and being shaved each day. Beards were for older men, like Thomas Stanley, who was giving me a measuring look with his hooded eyes. Ned was not old yet…though he was beginning to look it.

  Lord Hastings nodded in my direction. “My Lord of Gloucester, welcome. You look cold, though I dare say London is balmy compared to that frozen wasteland you inhabit.”

  A mutter of laughter coursed through the nobles. My lips pressed into lines, as I took my place near Edward’s right hand. An unnecessary jibe toward the place I made my home and I would not answer it. No doubt, if I protested, Will Hastings would claim he was but jesting…teasing the all-too-serious younger brother of the King. Aye, for life was one big jest for Will when he was with Edward; a round of painted strumpets and excess drink and dining into the early hours of the morn. I knew not if it was true, but had even heard a disturbing rumour that Edward had grown so gross he purged himself after meals with an emetic, like the orgy-loving Romans of old, so that he could glut himself on delicacies umpteen times a night.

  As I tried to make myself comfortable in my seat, the chamber door burst open again and the Duke of Clarence was announced. If Edward’s appearance was a shock, George’s was more so. Isabel’s death had affected him greatly. Gaunter than I had ever seen him, violet circles ringed his eyes and his hair hung in lack- luster curls around his shoulders. The reek of stale drink reached me even from where I sat, and although he was dressed in the greatest finery, the opulence seemed to overwhelm him, making him look bleak, dowdy, and faded. One of the flowers on the York tree; this white rose was withering.

  Edward did not speak to him, not even to offer condolences for Isabel; I presume he had already done so. George scarcely glanced at our brother, but flung himself down in a chair and stared forward, his breathing abnormally rapid. Claret was poured for him; he reached to snatch the goblet then suddenly shied away from it, shaking his head.

  The meeting passed much as I suspected it would. Standing up before the gathered lords, I spoke of taking harsh action against Louis the Spider King. “He has no intention of keeping promises, nor did he ever; Louis will carve up Burgundy and then he will move again us. We should strike at him first, and strike hard before his power grows too great and he destroys the healthy trade England has with the Lowlands. Surely, Your Grace,” I looked solemnly at Edward, “you want the 50,000 crowns he pays…and Lord Hastings wants his share even more.”

  Despite the gravity of my speech, another low murmur of laughter passed through the council chamber. Thomas Grey, Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest son and a man I despised, smirked for a moment before erasing the expression from his haughty face and replacing it by one of bland innocence. He did not like Hastings; the two fought for Ned’s favour and quarrelled over his cast-off mistresses. It was the one thing we had in common, a dislike of my brother’s best friend, though truth be told I found Dorset by far the more repulsive of the twain. Many men were coarse like Hastings; at least he was loyal to Ned and was a proud warrior, so he had some redeeming qualities. Dorset, however, was a snake.

  As I expected, however, Edward and the rest of the council had no stomach for war. They did not want to oppose Louis and ignite hostilities with France. “We will write to Charles’s heiress, Mary,” said Edward thoughtfully, “and offer her our support in this troubled time. As for the Universal Spider, I am sure some arrangement can be brokered without the need for arms. Perhaps a solution would be to extend the truce between our nations till the end of our natural lives?”

  He sounded unsure; my brother, the warrior-king, who had crushed his enemies on so many fields. He glanced around the room; there were muffled murmurs of assent. I would not meet his eyes, stared upwards at the roof boss of a cobwebbed angel holding a gold shield.

  The council meeting stretched on, interminable. No one seemed pleased to hear what I had to say, and George said naught at all, but sat scowling, refusing drink and meat, clearly there only because he dared not defy Edward’s summons.

  At last, the meeting was over and we were dismissed. I could only see future woe, but the likes of the Woodvilles were clustering about the King, congratulating him for his cool head in this time of crisis. Will Hastings was suggesting they retire to the King’s chambers to dine.

  “I am most hungry,” said Edward with a belly laugh, placing his hand on his expanding middle. “And Jane…where is my lovely Jane?”

  I shuddered, tried to keep my distaste from becoming too apparent. While I had no particular love for Elizabeth Woodville, it rankled me to hear my brother calling for some lowborn harlot in front of all men. I had heard of this Jane, men said he loved her and would never give her up, for she was bright, amusing, and fair. Knowing Edward’s taste, she doubtless had breasts the size of cannonballs too!

  She wasn’t his only leman, naturally; he often spoke of his three harlots, the holiest one (who by Christ was that? Once I had a nightmare in which it was Margaret Beaufort!), the most learned one (again, a mystery; Ned normally liked them rather stupid), and the merriest one, Jane, his favourite who, so legend had it, was kindly and good-natured despite spending most of her days on her back. She’d had a husband once, who she accused of impotence when she wanted to free herself up for a much better prospect; Jane got her annulment and then got the King.

  There was a tugging on my sleeve. Turning sharply in annoyance, I saw George behind me, a pallid shadow, stinking of the road and old wine. “Richard, Richard,” he croaked, his voice hoarse. “I must speak with you in private. Come, come out to the garden.”

  With sinking heart, I followed him toward the Tower stairs that led down into the bailey. We looked like conspirators, departing together with George clinging grimly to my arm, but Edward still had trust in me; he appeared not to have noticed George’s antics, or was deliberately ignoring them. He was leaving the council chamber through another door, with Hastings and his fawning followers around him.

  Out in the Tower grounds, night had fallen. Moths fluttered around flambeaux bracketed to the walls and beat their filmy wings against our faces. The stench of the river hung strong and pungent, dung and dead thi
ngs co-mingled. George hauled me away from revealing patches of torchlight into the unlit gardens around the base the Garden Tower. No flames here and no one out wandering; nothing grew at this time of year and there were merely scrubby bushes and trees amidst the empty herb-beds, untouched by even the barest hint of spring.

  “Richard.” George looked at me; his eyes had a weird, strange sheen, like a wan moon. It made me shiver. “They are out to kill me”

  “Who?”

  His lip twisted. “Who do you think?”

  “I have no idea, George. You’ve offended so many in your short life you surely have a long list of those waiting to stick a dagger in you,” I said wryly, only half jesting. No…truth be told, I was not jesting at all. Many did hate my brother; I’d hated him myself, when he tried to ruin my marriage by spreading his foul rumours. If he had forced me to part from Anne, I would have been first in line with that dagger.

  “You do know, I know you do. And they’ll be out for you next Richard. They will.”

  My uneasy glance strayed toward the ghostly block of the White Tower, its lighted windows glowing like unfriendly eyes in a bleak skull.

  “George, I fear you are not well.” I licked my lips. They were cold, bone dry. “Have you seen a physician? It has been hard on you, to lose a wife and son.”

  “Physician? I see no one, trust no one. And yes, it has been terrible to lose Isabel and my son in such a manner. They were poisoned, Richard, I swear to you. Poisoned!”

  The world lurched. “Surely this cannot be true. I had assumed Isabel died of childbed fever and the babe was weak…”

  George shook his head in agitation. “The physicians told me that…but it’s a lie. Isabel was awake, smiling…The babe—Richard—I named him for you…” (He was lying, I knew that; trying to arouse my sympathies.) “He was well too. And then…” He reached up, frighteningly quick, and smashed a big white moth between his hands. “They were snuffed out, one after the other. And I know on whose orders. That fucking Woodville whore. The old Lancastrian witch who, along with her damned mother, used sorcery to enchant our brother into marrying her…”

  His voice was rising, and my innards roiled with fear lest he be heard by anyone out in the bailey. A household of over one hundred dwelt in the Tower; servants or God knows who else might be abroad that night and listening in.

  Fortunately, his outburst was muffled by bellowing, honking and braying from the King’s menagerie, founded of old by King John and today a source of delight for the King’s visitors: a collection of lions and leopards, a lynx, some apes and an ugly camel that delighted in spitting at everyone. I presumed Ralph Hastings, the menagerie warder since the 1460’s, was seeing that the beasts were given their nightly feed.

  George leaned over, grasping my shoulders. I could feel his hands shaking. “They’ll come for you once they kill me. Richard, how can you not see it? Do you want Anne dead? Your little Edward? Do you?”

  “Shut up, George!” Thrusting his hands from me, I pressed my arm across his mouth to silence him and shoved him without ceremony into the flimsy concealment of a leafless bush. I hoped no one spotted our moving figures and came to investigate; they might think treachery was afoot, or, worse, that two sodomites were consorting in the garden!

  Despite being shoved into the middle of a shrub, George’s voice rattled on. “The Woodvilles would love those northern lands of yours. Make no mistake. Oh yes, dear Anthony Woodville would greatly enjoy the books you have stored at Middleham….”

  “George, you’re raving. What you speak of could never happen.”

  “Oh really?” His eyes slitted. “I have a dead wife, rotting in a crypt in Tewkesbury. A dead babe at Warwick. And if you don’t believe they were murdered…what about Fitzgerald and his children? You know about that, don’t you?”

  Agitated, I bit my lip. Years ago, Edward had been friends with the Irishman Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond. Drunk one night after carousing with Edward, Desmond had admonished the King in his choice of a bride, and foolishly told him men called the Queen ‘the King’s Grey Mare.’ Edward laughed it off, despite Desmond’s presumption, but word reached Elizabeth and she was furious; men whispered that she never forgot a slight. Shortly after the insult had been made, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, then governing in Ireland, accused Desmond of giving horses and arms to the Irish. Tiptoft had him executed at Drogheda, murdering two of his young sons at the same time. Edward was reported to have grieved at the death of his friend and was most displeased, yet no punishment was given to Tiptoft, nor was he ever questioned for his actions. Tiptoft, cruel as he was by nature, had not acted alone. And if Edward had not countenanced the death of Desmond, there was only one other…

  “Yes, you listen to me…” George’s unpleasant breath blasted into my face. “She wouldn’t hesitate, that witch. By God, we must get her before she brings down the House of York.” He suddenly began to laugh, to babble. “I have my plans though, yes, I do. Margaret will help me…Margaret always believed in me. She wanted me to be King, she told me so…. Now Mary, her stepdaughter, is a rich heiress. If she were to wed me, I’d be rich, as powerful as a king! I could challenge the King…or should I say Blaybourne.”

  “George!” My voice came out sharp as the crack of a whip. For many years, men unfriendly to our cause had whispered that Edward was not my father’s son; that Dame Cecily had slept with a lowly archer called Blaybourne while my father was on campaign. They pointed to Edward’s great height and beauty as proof and to the humbleness of his Christening in comparison to that of Edmund, who was the second born. They counted on their fingers, and nodded sagely as they deduced my father the Duke was away when conception took place.

  It was nonsense, of course. My mother would never have sullied herself with a lowborn archer, even if she had not loved my father (which she did; there would be no remarriage for her after his death but a life spent in religious contemplation.) Edward was exceptionally tall, a giant among men, but there were other tall men amongst both Nevilles and Plantagenets. Our distant ancestor Longshanks was one. As for Ned’s Christening, it was subdued because, after losing several babes, my parents feared this much-wanted son might also die. The date of conception? The sneaking gossips did not take into account that my sire was the type of man who would ride a hundred miles to spend the night with his wife, who had followed him all the way to war-torn France when she could have been safely and comfortable in England…

  “It could be true about his bastardy!” sneered George, “You know it could be. And that would make me the rightful King of England!”

  “Be silent, you not only speak treason but you sully the memory of our father and the name of our mother!”

  George suddenly made a choking sound and began to weep. If women’s tears were hard to deal with, so much more were the tears of a man. Uncomfortably I patted him on the shoulder. “Come, George, let us leave this gloomy place and find our lodgings. You are still grieved, as well you might be, over the death of Isabel.”

  “Forgive me, Richard, I have not always been kind to you…” (I thought of all he had done to keep me from Anne and silently agreed) “but underneath, I have always loved you well. Do you not have any affection for me? Remember when we were just little boys and were sent to Burgundy, and you held my hand so tightly because our father was dead and you were in a strange place and afraid? Did I not look after you then, when there was no one else? That is what I am doing now, Richard. I am trying to protect you from them.”

  I mostly remember him pinching my wrist and hissing in my eight-year-old ear that I was such an annoying crybaby. However, I did not remind him of that.

  “You are my brother,” I said. “And you know, despite our differences over our wives’ lands, that I have ofttimes spoken well of you to Ned, no matter what. But this…this is madness, George, and will lead you into trouble such as you have never known before. These accusations…” I shook my head in despair.

  His tears ceased, swi
ft as they had come, and he glowered at me. “I will trouble you no more then, Richard. You know nothing about our brother, though you think you know Edward well. I know everything, secrets few others know.” He began to laugh, almost maniacally, white teeth gleaming in the dark. I felt suddenly afraid, not of him, but for him…for his sanity.

  George stopped laughing and wiped his hand across his mouth, removing the spittle that had gathered there in his outburst. His voice came again, a poisonous hiss in the gloom: “And when the time comes, you will see that I have been right all along…that the Queen and her affinity will want to destroy you!”

  Flinging his cloak around himself, he shoved his way out of the winter-bleak shrubbery and stalked across the Tower bailey without a backwards glance.

  George did not marry Mary of Burgundy as he wished to do. His suit was promptly turned down by the shrewd young woman, and her stepmother Margaret did not intervene on George’s behalf, no matter her misguided affection for our malcontent brother. Getting wind of George’s plans, Edward had forbidden the match anyway, even before Mary’s curt refusal reached England. However, he added fuel to George’s rage by offering the widowed Anthony Woodville as an alternative husband for Mary. Fortunately, the young lady declined him too.

  Despite our angry parting after the Great Council, George wrote to me at Middleham several times to tell me of these events and to air his long list of grievances with Edward. I burned those letters, full of treasonous talk as they were, and eventually they ceased to come. Would it be too much to hope that George had regained his senses and would soon find a decent heiress to wed instead of dwelling on imaginary enemies and real or imagined slights upon his person?