“Damn you, Mowbray, answer him. All of you speak, all of you. I won’t be left alone to this.”
Norfolk fixed his eyes on the tapestried wall opposite to him and said to it:
“His death would be our security. My Lord Rivers is right. We cannot afford to leave him alive.”
Duke Richard’s voice was as cold as a school-teacher’s.
“You surprise me, my Lord of Norfolk.”
Norfolk fell to tapping his teeth again and gave no answer.
“You, Fogg?” said the King thickly.
“Kill him, Sire.”
“Do not say kill,” said Duke Richard. “Say murder.”
“William?”
William Hastings put both hands in front of his face. With an inarticulate noise the King was out of his chair; seized his wrists and dragged them down with such force that the Chamberlain, turning a white look on him, was almost over-balanced.
“Will you speak?” said Edward through his teeth. “You’ve heard the others. Now speak.”
“Christ,” said Hastings weakly. Then he twisted in the King’s hands and faced Lord Anthony, his dark eyes staring. “The devil put this in your mind. You’re right; and I think you’ve damned yourself and the rest of us. Sire, Henry is better dead, but I wish to all the saints this thing had never been spoken of. We shall be dishonoured as long as men have memories.”
The King dropped his hands.
“Perjury and murder,” was all he said.
With the speed of some dangerous small animal, a weasel, Duke Richard flashed out of his chair and across the room to him. Even now, his face did not explain what was the chief impulse in his mind. His expression was not indignant, anxious, distressed; was merely intent. He caught his brother’s arm and looked up at him.
“Let me alone, Dickon. For Jesus Christ’s sake let me alone.”
“Edward, you know whose the disgrace will be. Your brother-in-law and all the rest of them can hide behind you. Lord Rivers is thinking of his skin, not yours. He’s making you his butcher. Do you allow that?”
The King jerked himself away and turned his face to the wall.
“Let the Lancastrians revolt,” went on Duke Richard. “Is a harmless fool in prison as good as a weapon to them as a cry of murder? God has worked two miracles as a sign of his favour to us, because our cause is the just one. When we desert justice, he will desert us.”
The King threw up both hands as though to snatch some thing and tear it. His breathing was plainly audible. Stanley and Duke George watched him. Hastings sat miserably with his hands between his knees and his eyes on the floor. Norfolk was plucking at the collar of his doublet as though it irked him, and cursing under his breath. Sir John Fogg looked at Lord Anthony, who gave him a tiny nod and got to his feet. One last throw, he thought, and I have my game.
“Your Grace, we must all fear the judgment of God, but the actions of Kings when they defend their thrones and assure peace are not judged by God like those of subjects. England and your son are in question. God will forgive you this because it is for the prosperity of England; and your son will bless you for it.”
Edward, over Duke Richard’s shoulder, turned eyes of profound distress on him.
“You win, Anthony,” he said in a smothered voice. “But you shall be my butcher. I order you to do it yourself, to-night.”
*
Forty thousand devils, twenty thousand thunders, hell, death and corruption, scourging and crown of thorns: George Duke of Clarence was riding home to his mansion in the Strand after the Cabinet Council and, being rather drunk and furiously angry, was keeping time to his horse’s steps with an interior rhythm of curses. His anger was large, wide-embracing, and sprang from several causes. He had not forgotten that he had had a chance of being King himself last year. His late father-in-law had been perfectly serious about it. But that ill-dressed little dog-fancier of a French King, whose soul God rot and wither in endless fire, had put a stop to that. I will not lend you either a fishing-smack or a Paris sol to make Duke George King of England. Duke George, a mediocre horseman, tugged his hackney’s mouth as he remembered the words. The abused beast jibbed, and he damned it at the top of his voice for the next hundred yards. His head was hot, and he felt as though a sow had farrowed in his mouth. After the disappointment in France he had at least expected the Lancastrians to treat him well, considering that he had actually deserted his brother to be of use to them: but the pestilent, unthankful villains had hardly been polite. The cold-shouldering he had received last winter at King Henry’s patched-up Court had been more than flesh and blood could bear. Really no Christian soul could blame him for having deserted them for Edward again, especially since blood was thicker than water. Indeed, if his sister Margaret of Burgundy could be believed, they had even been plotting to do away with him. Bloody murderers, the pack of them: served them right that their old idiot of a King was going to be put under ground to-night.
In deserting to Edward he had at least been sure of one thing: that with his father-in-law dead or in exile (better dead, the affair at Barnet had been most satisfactory in that respect) he would inherit in his wife’s right the vast Warwick estates, the castles of Middleham and Sheriffhutton, the manors and parks and chases and warrens sewn broadcast over all the counties of England. That was worth something; would make him the greatest royal Prince since John of Ghent. Now, hell, devils and martyrdom, it seemed to have gone over the dyke too. Little Anne, although she had actually married Marguerite’s detestable son, was not going to be outlawed, after all. She was going to be admitted to mercy; and the next thing would be young Richard would marry her and poach half the inheritance. Duke George had no delusions upon that score. Richard and Anne had been in love with each other since they could talk, almost, and though Richard — hypocritical little prig — had a couple of bastards to his credit now, they were probably still as mawkish about each other as ever. In any case, love or no love, Richard would have to be a greater fool than he took him for to peep between his fingers at such a dowry. Dowry: the word sent a fresh wave of blood throbbing painfully to Duke George’s head. As a sailor sees a pitch-black squall pop up over the horizon and come hurrying down the sky toward him, he saw exactly the course events would follow. Holy Harry of Windsor would be with the angels to-night, helped to the place for which all his earthly life had been a preparation by the sword of that jumped-up coxcomb Anthony Wydvylle. To-morrow Edward, with a smarting conscience, would have one of his fits of clemency. Pardons and amnesties would fly like hail, thick and threefold. That sentimental poseur, Hastings, and that bloated bullfrog Stanley, were both related by marriage to the Nevilles. One or other of them would make formal intercession on Anne’s behalf. She would be commended almost with tears to their affection and care. Then Richard would arrive like a knight-errant in a ballad, there would be a Papal dispensation — since they were cousins — a wedding-feast and a settlement; and that settlement would be half the fortune and half the lands that Duke George had fully expected to enjoy in undivided happiness. God damn and blast Anne Neville, Richard Plantagenet, Harry of Windsor and Louis of France in one heap to eternal blazing hell and all devils, amen.
It was unfair, Duke George repeated to himself with increasing conviction. It was unfair. No one would stir a finger to get him his rights, see that he was rewarded in full for his return to the Yorkist fold. Richard was liked by Edward, admired by Hastings and the old nobility. Edward was loved by all of them. He, George, only was friendless, looked at sideways by Yorkists almost as much as by Lancastrians: Clarence the turncoat, the man who had sold his brother to his father-in-law and his father-in-law to his brother. They would all laugh if at the end of it he lost his wages. No one trusts me, he told himself, and felt his eyes prickling with the intensity of his conviction of wrong. I’d be a different man if people trusted me, if people understood me. I’d be a different man.
He had arrived at his own gate. Porters swung the iron-studded oak leaves apart, and i
n the cobbled courtyard a page held his stirrup. He dropped to the ground, jarring his headache to life again, and went up the steps to the main door. The obsequious major-domo bowed to him. Would his Grace be pleased to dine?
“Go to the devil,” said his Grace, “and send me a pottle of sweet wine into the presence-chamber.”
“At once, your Grace, and may it please your Grace …”
“It doesn’t,” snarled the Duke, and banged the door of the presence-chamber behind him.
The room was large, rather cheerless, and hung with painted cloth, once the property of Kingmaker, which displayed the exploits of Guy of Warwick. At one of the oaken tables a dark-dressed, dark-haired man with a close mouth was writing. He stood up respectfully. This was Mr. Stacy of Oxford, the Duke’s secretary, a man born to be someone’s jackal, and with the look of it on him.
“Good-day, your Grace.”
The Duke unclasped his cloak and held his arms out. Mr. Stacy disembarrassed him of it and fetched up the best chair. Duke George dropped into it and clasped his head, eyes shut, until a cough at his elbow announced the wine.
“Fill the cup, leave the pottle and get out,” he told the page.
The boy obeyed; coughed again from the door and said nervously:
“Please your Grace, the Lady Anne desires …”
Something twanged like a lute string in Duke George’s head and he sat up.
“Stacy,” he yelled, “see that little bastard gets a whipping to-night. Didn’t I tell him to get out?”
The page got out, whimpering, and Duke George put down two cups of sugary Greek wine, tasting of resin, before he said:
“The Lady Anne, the Lady Anne indeed: Stacy, there’s the devil to pay.”
“My Lord?”
The Greek wine was making Duke George feel worse instead of better. He belched, but without experiencing relief.
“They’re all against me, Stacy, sneering, plotting, all against me.”
“No, no, your Grace.”
“All against me: and they’re murderers. Holy Harry’s going to be murdered.”
Mr. Stacy pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.
“In the Tower to-night; that Rivers is going to do it: bloody murder.”
“Things will be safer, no doubt, when he is gone.”
“Safer for Edward: Holy Harry gone and that little beast of a Prince gone — shouted to me for succour: I’d give him succour — and then where are we? You remember the agreement with Marguerite we drew up. You remember it?”
“Well, your Grace.”
“Good, you remember it. When Holy Harry was dead and his son was dead, I was to be King. That’s devilish funny.”
Mr. Stacy glanced round him.
“The world has changed since then, your Grace.”
“It’s changed. By the sacrament of the altar yes, it’s changed. Nothing for poor Clarence now: he can go to the devil. Nobody minds him. Now d’you know what they’re going to do to me, after all I’ve done for them?”
“What, my Lord?”
The Duke told him. It took a long time, because he was beginning to feel that he might be showing his drink a little and had, in order to counteract this, to use the longest and gravest words at his command, some of which he repeated more than once, for greater clarity. Mr. Stacy helped by occasionally finishing a phrase for him and by clicking his tongue and looking outraged.
“If only we could hide her,” concluded Duke George. “You know. Hide her. Put her away, so Richard wouldn’t find her. All the trouble I took to get hold of her after Tewkesbury: and now I wish to God I’d let her alone. If we could hide her somewhere …”
Mr. Stacy fingered his lip and looked cunning.
“That would be difficult,” he said, “if the King’s seeking her. We could hardly force her against her will.”
“Damned obstinate little bitch,” shouted the Duke, feeling that some observation was required of him.
Mr. Stacy tucked his hands into his sleeves and appeared to go into a doze. Duke George helped himself to more wine, spilling a good deal of it. There was a dull interval. Finally the secretary said:
“The only way I see, my Lord, is to make the lady willing to hide herself.”
“You’re a silly fool,” said Duke George. “You’re a damned silly fool. How the devil are we to make her want to hide herself; hide herself from little peeky priggish Richard? She wouldn’t want to hide herself from Richard. You don’t understand, you silly fool; must be thinking of somebody else. I just told you she’s in love with Richard. God damn you, what are you such a silly fool for when I’m talking to you?”
“I try to be of help, your Grace.”
“That’s right, Stacy; good Stacy! You be of help. That’s right.”
“After all, your Grace, there’s no need to tell her that the Duke of Gloucester is in search of her, or that the King’s inclined to mercy.”
“That’s right.”
“She is a captured rebel. Suppose — only suppose, your Grace — that she were in terror of King Edward’s severity. Suppose she expected nothing but harsh treatment, humiliation. You have befriended her; might bear her a timely warning that King Edward’s bent on extremes. You heard it in the Cabinet Council this morning; can protect her no longer. Her only chance — escape, flight, hiding; even disguise or a change of name.”
“Sanctuary: she’d only go into sanctuary, and then little whorson Dickon’d go and get her out again. Come out, little Anne, and I’ll marry you and have half the Warwick lands, and poor goddam’ George can hang himself. That’s what: poor George.”
“Not sanctuary, your Grace: but that could be avoided. The King has got himself a certain name as touches sanctuaries. There was that very questionable piece of dealing after Tewkesbury. It would be easy to tell the Lady Anne that the Church could not protect her any more than it did Edmund Beaufort.”
“Tewkesbury Abbey had no right of sanctuary, though. Abbot told me so himself; told Edward so: quite different.”
Mr. Stacy sighed loudly and clicked his fingers.
“The Lady Anne doesn’t know that. We’re not debating what’s the truth, but what we can make her think’s the truth. Listen to me, my Lord.”
“I am listening,” said Duke George indignantly.
“If we can persuade the Lady Anne that neither your protection nor even the liberties of the Church can shelter her from the extreme vengeance of the King; and if, that done, we leave the door open and look the other way, what will she do? She’ll run: a brave, high-spirited young lady, not afraid of a small risk to save a greater one. She’ll disappear.”
“Clever,” said the Duke heavily, “clever: but what I want to know is, how do we persuade her in the first place?”
Mr. Stacy pondered that, his hands in his sleeves again.
Duke George’s sensations of discomfort were lodged in his stomach now, leaving his brain a little clearer. He stared at his long-toed shoes for some time and compared them unfavourably with the jewelled pair he had seen on Edward’s feet that morning: a dressy fellow, Edward, with his silks and enamels, a vain dressy peacock of a fellow, always thinking of the ladies — a wencher.
“Holy St. Catherine!” yelled the Duke suddenly.
Mr. Stacy jumped violently. Duke George pointed an uncertain finger at him and shut one eye.
“Edward’s a wencher,” he said solemnly. The information did not appear to convey anything, so he repeated it. “Edward’s a wencher, lecher, an evil liver. No decent woman’s safe from him. Elizabeth Lucy, Lady Elenor Butler: he played a very naughty game with them. No woman’s honour …”
A slow, beatified smile, like the smile of a cat, dawned and widened on the tight-mouthed face of Mr. Stacy.
“Subtle,” he said in a small, satisfied voice, “subtle — oh, very cunning!”
“My sister-in-law’s honour,” said Duke George, twisting a thick tongue round the words, his eyes closing, “my sister-in-law’s honour: I must warn
her. Fly, hide, save herself, not to be dishonoured.”
*
Anthony Wydvylle, Lord Rivers, hesitated on the stairs leading from the banqueting-hall. The night was cool and clear, with few clouds, and a great gout of moonlight slithered, bland as milk-of-almonds, down the square, despotic mass of the White Tower, making the blind fortress that Bishop Gundulph built for the Conqueror four centuries ago ride like a ship before the eyes. The rest of the party who had supped that evening in the Tower of London were ahead, following the small figure of the Duke of Gloucester. The Duke had abruptly suggested a turn in the fresh air after they had discussed the armament he was taking to Sandwich in the morning against the Bastard of Fauconberg. Lord Anthony watched them. They had turned left toward Tower Green, and might be proposing either a circuit of the Inner Bailey, bringing them back to the point from which they started, or an emergence upon the riverfront to watch the few barges of night-roysterers sliding home to London and hear the water-men singing. They were at the foot of the Garden Tower now. Perhaps they only meant to stroll round the little enclosed pleasance and pick some fruit of which Duke Richard was notoriously fond. But no: the Duke had stopped for a second to speak over his shoulder to someone, and now they were all trooping like sheep into the Outer Bailey. Lord Anthony, conscious of a certain tickling in his midriff, turned and beckoned into the shadows behind him to Sir John Fogg. The disappearance of that little figure, clearly etched by moonlight at the head of its troop of larger followers, had made the whole situation realler, more immediate for him. He and Sir John Fogg walked quickly onto the Green and, without ceremony, pushed open the door of the Lieutenant’s lodging. Richard Hawte, the Chief Warder, had been waiting for them; was just inside the door. His tanned face was stiff except for the mouth, which moved a little.
“They’ve gone into the Outer Bailey,” said Lord Anthony.
Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III Page 16
