Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  Ralph hardly knew how to answer. This was London, and they were all being kind to him. He thought how his father used to beat him and how the girls in the village called him silly: and here I am, he said to himself, walking about London and making grand friends like a knight or an aider-man. I know what I’ll do, by St. Anne: I’ll get someone to write a letter to our priest to read to mother, telling all about the Duke of Clarence and the miracle and the fine life I’m living. I’ll find someone to take it, so it’ll get there before I’m home. A letter from London: mother’ll be in her pomp about it and all the village’ll talk for weeks. They’ll see then what a fellow I am.

  They had their supper on Saturday at a tavern in St. Botolph’s parish. Ralph asked Tom and an archer he knew called Hick Tanner, a silent, small Yorkshireman. The apprentice’s name was Ned Taylor, and he was bound to a silversmith in Cheapside. He was a decent, godly lad who blessed himself before he ate, and kept Lent, so they had no meat: but it surprised Ralph the wonderful fish that there were. They had broth of barley and fennel-seed and a pike stewed in wine and dressed with a sauce of eggs, sugar, milk of almonds and cream. Then there was a huge square eel-pie. When Red Tom saw it he shouted to Ned: “God bless you, lad. I love you,” and plunged in his hand to the wrist. Last of all they had stewed lampreys, greasy and hot, in an open dish. Ned ordered a quart of sweet wine and paid sixpence for it.

  “Master gave me a silver sixpence,” he said. “He’s a good master and all for the Rose of Rouen. You see, there’s several gentlemen of the party of York who owe him money. Now we’ve got the Rose again they may pay him, so he’s glad.”

  He told them how, when the news came that Edward was at St. Albans and had passed the danger of the great Earl, all the Yorkists in sanctuary at Westminster and St. Martin’s-le-Grand broke out and ran about the streets cheering for York. The Duke of Somerset left the City with his brother and the Earl of Devonshire. Some said they had gone North to join Kingmaker and some said they had gone West to meet Queen Marguerite. Red Tom took a long drink of wine.

  “Aye,” he said. “We’re not out of the wood yet. There’ll be a battle.”

  “But York’ll win it,” said Ned.

  “Please the pigs, aye. I hear the Bourchiers have come in with seven thousand tall fellows. That makes us above the twenty thousand. We can show Lancaster a thing now.”

  Ned wanted to hear all about battles and fighting. Ralph was picqued a little that he took so much notice of Tom; but Tom could tell wonderful tales for certain: about God’s great providence at Towton when, at the moment of the Yorkists’ advance, the wind changed, hurling snow in the faces of the Lancastrians and making their arrows wheel back in flight like peewhits.

  “And there was more red than white on the snow that day. The dead hindered the living from coming to quarters, they lay so thick. That was a field, by God’s soul. Let go the cup, lads. Aye, that was a field: and I’ll give you a piece of good teaching, young Ralph, since you’re new to the wars. I learnt it at Mortimer’s Cross when a dam’ Welchman nearly had me shent myself with it. Edward Longlegs’ first victory that was: a while ago. Here ’tis. If the field breaks and you find you’re alone and no man on each side of you, and you make a pass at a fellow with your pike and miss him, swing the butt round like a scythe and knock his legs from under him. Don’t try to recover and lunge again. Swing the butt round. That’s wisdom. I’ve handled a pike myself.”

  “I was at Mortimer’s Cross and all,” said Hick Tanner.

  “Were you, by the holy blood? I never knew that before. Short and sharp field, wasn’t it?”

  “Aye.”

  “D’you remember Owain Tydder, Earl of Pembroke’s father, being headed after; and the mad wench lighting the candles around his dead body and washing the blood off it? That was a queer game.”

  “It was that. I was on guard at his heading. I could tell you the last thing he said.”

  “Could you so, Hick; and what was it?”

  Hick narrowed his small, very grey eyes and said slowly: “He had a fine red velvet doublet on, and when they ripped the collar off it he said: That head shall lie on the block that was wont to lie on Queen Katherine’s lap. Those were his last words. I can see him now. They made quick dispatch with him. His head was off with the first cut. Clever headsman they had there.”

  Ralph was puzzled. He asked:

  “What’s that about Queen Katherine? I never heard tell of her.”

  Red Tom shouted to the drawer for more wine.

  “I’ll be gaffer this turn, lads. I’ll tell you, Ralph. That Queen Katherine, she was Holy Harry’s mother, wife to Harry of Monmouth. After Harry of Monmouth died — him that fought Azincourt — it seems she took up with the Welch fellow, Tydder; had two sons by him, I believe.”

  “Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Richmond that was,” Ned told them, nodding.

  “That’s it. Anyroad, our Edward had the head off this Tydder after Mortimer’s Cross, same as Hick and I’ve been telling you. That’s, oh, ten years back. Let go the cup.”

  The inn was packed tight with soldiers, men of Lord Hastings and the Duke of Clarence and the Bourchiers, drunk mostly and wearing white roses. They passed the wooden mazers from hand to hand, supping loudly like cows; belched and broke wind in sweaty, unharnessed ease. One of them was boasting that he had had three Flemish whores — strong, fat ones — in Cock’s Lane last night. He praised the second one, “Plump as a sow, like a featherbed”; gloated; moved his hands in the air, cupping curves. There was shouting singing of loud songs with nonsense choruses: “How, trolly-lolly!” The air smelt of woodsmoke, wine, fish, sweat and garlick. Two drunk citizens in a corner were playing a game of barter, one setting his doublet against the other’s dagger. Two or three dogs snarled over bones under the trestle-tables. A quack-salver in queer, parti-coloured clothes was trying to sell two of the Duke of Clarence’s men an infallible cure against swordcuts. The fat wife of the innkeeper talked to a sober fellow in a black gown about Queen Elizabeth, sentimentally nodding.

  “I’ll wager the King’s happy, bless his lovely face, seeing her again and the dear little Prince as was born in sanctuary. Wasn’t that a sad, wicked thing, him to be driven out so just when she was expecting: his firstborn son, too, the poor lady. Well, well, his misfortune’s all turned into bliss now. After sorrow, joy; that’s the course of the world. He’ll be comforting the Queen now, I make no doubt.”

  “And other ladies too,” said the man in black drily.

  “Oh, you naughty fellow: to say such a thing.”

  “Well, perhaps I’m in the wrong. Perhaps he’s only saying the paternoster backwards and turning the sieve and shears with his bosom-counsellors Friar Bungay and Mr. Dominic.”

  A man with the Duke of Norfolk’s badge of the white lion jumped up, staring and handling his dagger.

  “I’ll renounce God if we haven’t a lousy Lancastrian horse-thief here, accusing our Lord King of necromancy. You’ll take that back, master goodman, or I’ll shove it down your stinking throat, so God help me.”

  The man in black looked unhappy. All round the room mazers and tankards stopped on their way to men’s mouths, and eyes turned on him.

  “No, no, friend, you do me wrong. I’ll take it on my conscience to say there’s not a better Yorkist in this house than I am. I meant no harm. I was there in St. John’s field in Clerkenwell that day, ten years ago, when the Lord Edward was first called King. I shouted for him along with the rest. Aye, and I’ve been in service in his Grace’s household. I’m a proper white rose man.”

  The Norfolk man did not sit down. He said: “You don’t talk like one.”

  “Oh Lord, that was only silly gossip and a joke. Good King Edward does use astrology and geometrical arts, and what harm. It’s not sinful. Here, take a drink from my cup and be Christian. If I’ve offended anyone here I’m sorry; but if I thought I’d offended the King, by the Mass I’d go hang myself.”

  He handed his tankard t
o the man with the white lion, who took it; looked at him unsurely for a minute; said: “Well, if you say that all’s well. I’m a quiet one. I’m not quarrelsome; but by the Road of Bromholme I’ll not hear a word against York,” and drank.

  “That’s right,” said the innkeeper’s wife. “We’re all honest here, I’m sure. For my part, I never could abide that King Harry after the Good Duke Humphrey was murdered when I was a girl; and I’m sure the Rose of Rouen’s got the prettiest face in the world. So I’m for York.”

  A drunk man in a corner shouted: “What’s that, mother: the prettiest face or the …” but a noise stopped his mouth.

  Someone had brought in a blind gleeman, an old bearded man with a head like a snowed bush, and was calling for silence. The old man was given a drink of pudding-ale and drawn into the middle of the room with his lute and his dog. A man called out:

  “Hush up, lads. Here’s an old one knows the Rose of Rouen song. Let’s have it, grandfather.”

  “Yes, let’s have it.”

  “Come on, old Joseph with the long beard. Blessed be the time.”

  The old man nodded his blind head and grinned, tuning his strings and tapping with his foot. Then, in a shaky voice, he sang, and Ralph heard for the first time the ballad of the Rose of Rouen, telling how the terrible Northern army of Queen Marguerite broke the Yorkists at St. Albans and was broken by them at Towton, in the year that Edward was crowned King. The song went to a quick, swinging tune, the gleeman wagging his beard in time to it. Everybody watched him, and some shaped the words with their mouths, smiling proudly.

  “Betwixt Christmas and Candlemas, a little before the Lent,

  All the lords of the North, they wrought by one assent.

  For to ’stroy the South-country they did all their intent.

  Had not the Rose of Rouen been, all England had been shent.

  Blessed be the time that ever God spread that flower.

  “Upon a Shrove Tuesday, on a green lede

  Betwixt Sandridge and St. Albans, many men ’gan bleed.

  On an Ash Wednesday we lived in mickle dread.

  Then came the Rose of Rouen down to help us at our need.

  Blessed be the time that ever God spread that flower.”

  Ralph felt the quick proud tune get into him and liven his blood. I’m a soldier, he thought, and I’ve come, too, to help London at their need. I’m ready to fight. I’d like to fight. The soldiers were swaying their bodies and rapping the table with mazers and dagger-hilts. Their eyes were all fixed on the old man in a kind of haughty excitement.

  “The Northern men, they made their boast when they had done that deed:

  ‘We will dwell in the South-country and take all that we need:

  These wives and their daughters, our purpose shall they speed,’

  Then said the Rose of Rouen: Nay, that work shall I forbid!”

  “Blessed be the time that ever God spread that flower!”

  All round the room, people shouted the catchline and then leaned forward for the next verse. Fixed grins were on their hot faces and their eyes shone. Ned Taylor looked ready to cry. Tom was smiling into his red, short beard. They were all drunk with the tune and the boasting words. Even the man in the black gown was beating time with a hand that had a silver ring on it.

  “For to save all England,”

  sang the old man,

  “the Rose did his intent,

  With Calais and with London, with Essex and with Kent

  And all the South of England unto the water of Trent,

  And when he saw the time best, the Rose from London went.”

  Ralph shouted with the rest of them. Excitement was like a live animal in his chest,

  “Blessed be the time that ever God spread that flower!”

  “The way into the North-country, the Rose full fast he sought.

  With him went the Ragged Staff …”

  “Hey there!”

  “What’s that, a devil with it?”

  “Shut your mouth, you old addlewit.”

  Six or seven of them shouted and swore at once to remind the gleeman that the Earl of Warwick and his ragged staff were not on the Rose of Rouen’s side now. The old man turned his blind, yellow face, his lips wobbling, looking feeble and frightened suddenly. His dog dropped her tail and crouched down, knowing the noise of anger. Red Tom called:

  “No harm, old lad, only leave that bit out. Let go the cup, fellows. He’s all right. Sing up.”

  “The Northern party made them strong with spear and with shield.

  On Palm Sunday after the noon they met us in the field.

  Within an hour they were right fain …”

  “Bills and bows! Bills and bows! On, up there!”

  It was a great new voice crying from the doorway.

  “Bills and bows! Up, out of it!”

  He looked to the door. A man was there with his sallet on his head and the King’s own badge of the rose in the rayed sun painted on his steel jack. He stood with the April dusk behind him, a tall man, scowling; had not come to the inn for wine. The room suddenly was as quiet as a winter field. One or two men got up. He shouted again:

  “Come on out of it, you fatherless beggars. Come up, I tell you. God’s soul, don’t you know there’s a war on?”

  Hick Tanner stood up in his place and quietly, as he did everything, pulled his long dagger out. He said: “What’s amiss, then?”

  The man with the King’s badge looked at him.

  “What’s amiss? Kingmaker’s amiss, lying at Barnet Heath with thirty thousand. They’re all there: Oxford, Somerset, Montacute, the whole fry of them, thirty thousand; be on top of us to-morrow if we aren’t on top of them. The King’s commands: we muster in half an hour at Moorgate.”

  On the blank Moor a fog was shaping itself, clots and strings of vapour dropping down out of the white, low sky and beginning to crawl along the ground. Ralph watched the outriders disappear into it, trotting with a clash and creak of armour. The air was desolate and tinged with wet. A horse coughed and blew through noisy nostrils. On the road in front, a company of bowmen, Hick Tanner with it, was being drawn up in a strange formation of parallel short ranks facing all one way, making a square mass wider than the road. There were more outriders on the flanks, men-at-arms with demi-lances. Captains rode up and down, anxious-looking, giving their orders in sharp, nervous voices or reining-in to whisper to each other at the side of the road. The men did not talk. Sir William was there; began to form his people into a square like the archers: twelve columns of twenty men each, men-at-arms on the outside, pikes in the centre. Behind was more tramping and clattering, more clink of arms, then a loud order: “Forward-on!” and they were marching.

  Ralph did not think much or very clearly; was heavy with what he had had to eat and drink. He watched the man immediately in front of him: square shoulders in a stiff black leather jack, longish brown hair, tangled, escaping under the back of the polished sallet, pike sloped, a brass-studded belt with a dagger in it: just a man. He did not know his name. The mist and the dark were drifting steadily down on them. They were walking into the mist like walking out of the world. The thing he had begun privately to believe would never come was coming now; was in the mist ahead of them. They were going to fight Kingmaker.

  In blackness, after three hours, when they could see no stars, they came to Barnet.

  The village was dead asleep. Houses showed in the fog only when they were very close to them. Ralph could see three men: the man before him and the two at his two sides. Beyond that, fog was, and he was alone with these three in the world. They halted and they moved on, and he heard the noise of thousands who moved on in front of him and behind him; saw nothing. They were going uphill now: turf under their feet, slimy. He thought: This is the Heath. We shall fight here: now, or when?

  The dark grew a seed of light that blossomed — red, unsure patch made by torches held close together — and advanced upon him. They were halted again. There was no
thing but the yellowed blur, higher than a man’s height, coming nearer and growing, and the awareness of the men near him and a squelching of hooves. He was sickly tired. Then, in the middle of the torch-glow, he saw a gleam and a face: gleam of a steel basnet with the vizor raised, and inside it, deeply shadowed round the mouth and eyes, a firm-chinned, short face, looking as white as white cloth, looking through a bright hole in the fog: the Duke of Gloucester. The torches were upheld on either side of his horse; spilled a little light down as far as the gorget and pauldrons on his neck and shoulders; showed his horse’s pricked ears. He was still, in the dark that framed him like a portrait: a boy’s face with a string of steel and a halo of fire round it. His mouth was so shaded that Ralph did not see the lips move when he called gently for Sir William. From the fog there was the answer: “Here, your Grace.”

  “This is the place, Sir William. You can harbour here. Unsaddle the horses; but your men must sleep harnessed. I’ve posted a troop of horse under Sir Gilbert Debenham on your right. The rest of our wing will form on your left. Is all well?”

  “Aye, your Grace; but I don’t like this fog.”

  “We must content ourselves with it. I’m going on down the line now. Choose good sentinels. Goodnight to you.”

  “Goodnight, your Grace.”

  The torch-glow wobbled and went faintly away. Ralph watched the shine of the Duke’s basnet out of sight, and was walled up in fog again. After the Duke’s low voice Sir William’s sounded brutal.

  “Now then, lads, break your ranks, but don’t go wandering like sheep. Keep touch. Best get some sleep while you can: we’ll be busy to-morrow. Horses to the rear: unsaddle and hobble ’em, and hold fast by your arms. If I catch a man lying unarmed, by God’s mother I’ll brain him. Stop that garboyling noise there. D’you want the enemy to hear you? God alone knows how near they are. You bowmen, see you keep your strings dry. It’s a whorson damp night. Now keep quiet.”