Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  “Hell and damnation!”

  Sir Richard Ratcliffe planted an arrow in its neck and it stumbled and went slowly down onto its knees; tried twice to rise; dropped flat. A huntsman ran up and slit its throat, keeping a wary eye on the copse in case the appearance of another hart should start the arrows flying.

  “I bungled that like a tailor,” said Lord Scrope bitterly, “but by St. Hubert the huntsman, your Grace, you’re a most marvellous shot.”

  “Luck,” said the Duke shortly.

  He had not loosed at the second hart.

  “It went over as it had been hit from a crossbow,” added Ratcliffe. “If you lay your ordnance with as straight an eye as that, my Lord Duke, I don’t wonder you believe in artillery.”

  “I never lay guns with my own hands,” said the Duke, with the twitch of a smile. “I remember the fate of King James of the red face who blew himself up to heaven — or so charity would have us think — at the siege of Roxburgh.”

  “What is your favourite weapon, your Grace?” asked Ratcliffe. He was older than the Duke by perhaps fifteen years, but he asked like a boy.

  “An axe,” the Duke told him: “one so seldom has to hit twice with it.”

  The third hart was long in breaking cover. It came at last, and was bowled over by Lord Scrope. Ratcliffe went wide of it, and again the Duke did not shoot. There were no more, the beaters said. Duke Richard apologised shortly for not showing his guests better sport.

  “Come again and we will hunt over Jervaulx way and sup with the Abbot. He keeps a noteworthy cellar.”

  They rode home without much talking, and were met at the gate by the news that Sir William Parr had arrived and was in the Chamber of Presence. The Duke went up the great stair of the Keep, and his guests, following him, saw that he took the man who had fought by him at Barnet in his arms and kissed him on the mouth. Sir William Parr was wearing a fine new suit of orange velvet and a tawny-coloured gown furred with beaver. He glanced a little oddly at the Neville blazonings on the roof and walls.

  Dinner was served in the Chamber of Presence. It was a light meal of bream stewed in white wine, cold roast capon and a sugared pastry stuffed with goose-giblets, with cherries and sweet wafers for dessert. Sweet Touraine wine was served with the fish, Burgundy or claret with the capon and hippocras with the dessert. The Duke mixed his Burgundy with water and refused hippocras. He did not seem to relish Sir William Parr’s talk of Barnet and what happened there; turned the subject. He hoped for news, he said, when the Earl of Northumberland arrived, of the King his brother’s projects for a war with France. The Earl would know all that was going on. England, handfast to Charles of Burgundy, was bound by honour as well as profit to send letters of defiance to Louis Valois. The Christian King had had a long run and a long tether; should feel the rope jerk at his neck soon.

  “For nearly sixty years,” said the Duke, “we English have prated of the day of Azincourt. My royal brother intends to hold such a meeting with Louis that Azincourt will be a skirmish to it. ‘A hen’s turd to a dunghill’ were his exact words.”

  The others spoke up eagerly: “We should get Normandy and Maine at any rate, all Anjou perhaps.” “All Anjou, Christ help you? We should get Poitou and Guienne, aye, and Armagnac.” “Burgundy’ll have to have Champagne, of course.” “Not a doubt: but we ought to get the Bourbonnais.”

  The Duke said: “There is an old rhyme, gentlemen:

  He that France would win

  Must with Scotland first begin.

  That looks like work for us here in the North parts.”

  “All the better,” said Lord Scrope: “God damn and confuse all Scots, anyway.”

  They drank to that.

  “There is the matter of Berwick,” went on the Duke. “I long for war with France as I long for — well, for few things. But still more do I wish to see that English stronghold in English hands again.”

  “By God,” said Sir Richard Ratcliffe, “now I see we’ve a governor over us in the North who thinks as we do.”

  “I am pleased to hear you say it. War with Scotland — unless they keep this last treaty, which I do not think they will — seems certain one day. Sir William Parr, you and I may ride together in a charge again.”

  “I ask nothing more, your Grace.”

  A servant was bowing at the door of the Chamber. Mr. Wrangwysh of York had ridden over with a letter of credence from the Mayor and Aldermen and most humbly implored the favour of an audience.

  “Take him into the Privy Chamber. Say I will see him presently.” The Duke smiled at Lord Scrope. “The City of York courts me these days. They seem to have forgotten an occasion last year when my royal brother and myself had difficulty in getting them to open their gates to us.”

  “Disloyal scum,” said Lord Scrope shortly.

  He was a sincere Yorkist, as all his house had been since the judicial murder of their kinsman, Archbishop Scrope, by Henry Bolingbroke. Duke Richard shrugged.

  “No, my Lord, not disloyal, only frightened: these have been hard years for the small folk of England. How were they to know which side to hold by when their betters changed sides every day?”

  “By God’s bones, but that’s true. Was there ever such a country as England for turncoats? When I heard that Kingmaker had betrothed his daughter to Marguerite’s bastard …”

  The Duke got up quickly. “You’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I must attend to the worthy Mr. Wrangwysh. Treat my Castle as yours if you love me.”

  Mr. Thomas Wrangwysh awaited the Duke of Gloucester’s pleasure on the extreme edge of a chair in the Privy Chamber. This room was as large as the Chamber of Presence, which it adjoined, and fully as splendid. The arras of its walls was bright French work showing hunting scenes and fine ladies amusing themselves among arbours of tight little flowers. All the furniture was of the grandest — tall oak buffets, many cushioned chairs and painted coffers. The ceiling was red and blue with golden suns encircling silver roses. The floor was not strewn with rushes or even flowers, but entirely covered by a thick silk carpet. So much softness and richness disturbed Mr. Wrangwysh and made him look nervously at his boots to see if they were clean. The plate on the buffets was all silver and silver-gilt — massive cups, embossed dishes and candlesticks worth, if Mr. Wrangwysh was any judge of such matters, every last groat of two hundred pounds. There was a large press of books, too, bound some in silk and some in coloured leather with jewelled clasps. On a table near Mr. Wrangwysh’s chair a book was actually open, displaying bold lines of black writing and pretty initials of blue and red. Mr. Wrangwysh got up to look at it more closely. It was not written, he saw, but printed in the new German fashion: a Psalter. “Judicabit,” he spelt out at random and with difficulty, “afflictos populi.” He shall judge the hapless among the people. He hoped the words might prove an omen.

  “You care for books, Mr. Wrangwysh?”

  The Duke had come in so quietly that he had not heard him.

  “Your Grace, pardon me!”

  “For nothing.” The Duke held out his hand. Mr. Wrangwysh kissed it. He had been told that the Duke, whom he had never seen before, was small and pale: but he had not expected anyone quite so tiny, with a face quite so bloodless or with such strange lines about his eyes and mouth. Confused, he broke into a babble about condescension, intrusion and kindness. The Duke perched himself in a big chair and waved a hand on which four rings shone. “You may be seated, sir. It’s a long road from York.”

  “Your Grace is too kind.”

  “You were looking into my Psalter. It is from Mainz, where they have the new engines for making books: not such handsome work as a good scribe can do, but there’s no question that the device will multiply books and spread learning, and that is a very blessed thing.”

  “Yes, indeed, your Grace.”

  “The craft is practised in France and Burgundy now. I hope the day will not be long before we see it used in England.”

  “I hope so, your Grace. If your Grace wil
l forgive me for intruding a matter upon you, there is a letter of credence I have from the Mayor and his brethren.”

  The Duke glanced through the letter, a formal request to accept the bearer’s word as that of the Mayor and Aldermen, and asked Mr. Wrangwysh whether he had dined.

  “Oh yes, your Grace, many thanks.”

  “Well, you will take a cup of hippocras with me whilst you tell me your business.”

  He rang a silver bell beside him. A servant, much better dressed than Mr. Wrangwysh himself, came in.

  “Hippocras, fruit, wafers,” he was told.

  Mr. Wrangwysh blinked. He knew that bad manners were out of fashion among the nobility nowadays, but he had not expected the Duke’s courtesy to go further than offering him a chair. When he had drunk, the Duke, who had been sliding his hunting-knife up and down in its sheath, smiled in an expressionless fashion and asked his errand. Mr. Wrangwysh drew a deep breath and began to talk about illegal fish-traps.

  Half-an-hour later he was still talking. An hour later, Mr. Secretary Kendal was sent for and Mr. Wrangwysh invited to state his case all over again. When he had finished, the Duke stood up. He walked the length of the room, head down, his hand at his knife again; turned round and faced his visitor.

  “Mr. Wrangwysh, we must not be precipitate. What you tell me shows that these garths and weirs fill rich men’s pouches and empty poor men’s bellies. That is enough. They must go. But we must be sure the law is with us. Mr. Kendal will search the records and advise us how we are to set about our work. I must go back to my guests now. You shall sup here to-night, and we will find time to talk of this again. Attend to him, Mr. Kendal.”

  The door shut after him. Mr. Kendal and Mr. Wrangwysh looked at each other.

  “Lord,” said Mr. Wrangwysh.

  Mr. Kendal gave a bark of a laugh.

  “Five years’ work you’ve put on my plate, Mr. Wrangwysh. There’ll be the confusion of hell before we get the rights and wrongs of this settled. Probably it’ll need to go to the King. But you may tell the Mayor of York that the day of unlawful fish-garths is past its noon. I know the Duke.”

  Duke Richard found his guests in the bowling-alley in the East Ward. Sir James Harrington had arrived. The Duke kissed him; apologised for business that had kept him away; stood by impassively whilst they finished their game. Then he joined them in a fresh one. The woods clicked and trundled happily about the smooth turf. Birds twittered in the mulberry-trees that over-arched the alley, and from the smithy they could hear a musical and regular cling-clang of hammers. It was four o’clock when a trumpeter on the Watch-tower suddenly spilled a long chain of notes down through the greying air. The Duke dropped the wood he was aiming and straightened up.

  “My Lord of Northumberland is in sight. We can play again to-morrow, gentlemen.”

  Middleham village saw the pageant it had been waiting for since morning. The last sound of the trumpet from the Castle was crossed by a faint ironical lilt of pipes. Four pipers appeared up the sloping village street, blowing on the small, sweet-toned Northumbrian bagpipes. Behind them rode twenty mounted men-at-arms, with sallets, breastplates and demi-lances. Some were badged with the Percy crescent and others with the Lovel dog. Henry Percy of Northumberland, Lord Francis Lovel and Lord John Howard rode together on smooth-coated hackneys. Northumberland’s great charger, sheeted to its fetlocks, so that it looked like a walking bail, was led behind them, and at its tail rode a dozen gentlemen and pages, and the Earl’s confessor on a white mule. Thirty sumpter-horses, each led by a groom and carrying their Lordship’s baggage, two falconers with their hawks, four leashes of mastiffs and greyhounds and forty men-at-arms on foot closed the procession, which had been straggling its way North from London for the past month.

  In the Castle they were received with ceremony. They entered between two files of spearmen in the crimson-and-silver livery of Gloucester. Pages and grooms ran forward to take their horses. The senior gentleman of the Duke’s household held the Earl’s bridle as he dismounted. Duke Richard was waiting for them on the steps of the Keep, his other guests grouped behind him and more spearmen lining the steps up to the door of the Great Hall. The Earl of Northumberland had been a guest at Middleham more than once when Kingmaker was its lord; but he could not remember being received more pompously.

  The newcomers were served with claret and demain bread in the Chamber of Presence, to recruit them a little after their journey. Meanwhile, their horses were being unsaddled, their mails unpacked, and their followers lodged wherever room was to be found for them — in the East Ward, in the basement under the Chapel, in narrow and inconvenient chambers in the three great towers. The drawbridge joining the two Wards sounded under the hooves of their sixty-seven mounts. Men staggered beneath kegs from the brewhouse and trays from the bakehouse. There was great shouting and chivying and contradiction, quietening slowly as the froth crumbles and quietens on a pot of beer. Pages appeared to lead the guests to their chambers and the baths prepared for them, and in the great vault below the Chamber of Presence naked kitchen-lads tended the fires, whose glow reddened their breasts and arms and was reflected in bright trickles of sweat zigzagging down their flanks.

  In his own chamber, the Duke of Gloucester suffered his grooms to strip him out of his green hunting-suit and draw back the white silk curtains of his bath. He sat in perfumed water, soaping himself leisurely from neck to heel, whilst Mr. Kendal, squatting on a stool outside the curtains, reported his preliminary research into the law concerning fish-traps. Swathed in warm sheets, he moved across to his own stool before the fire and continued the discussion whilst a page, trained expressly in the business, pared his nails with a sharp knife. His festival clothes were gayer than his common wear. His hose were of fine violet silk and his purple shoes embroidered with gold thread. Over a purple velvet doublet sewn with six rows of pearls and amethysts he wore a magnificent gown, very full in the sleeves, of violet silk embroidered with golden suns and silver bars. It was reversed with ermine and its short skirts were tucked into a jewelled belt. When his hair had been combed and scented, a groom hung the Yorkist livery-collar across his shoulders and set a purple velvet bonnet, trimmed with ermine and pearls, at a slight angle on his head. A page slid his jewelled gloves and his gold rosary into their places in his belt, and he was ready for Vespers.

  The little Chapel was packed, for none of the guests cared to offend a notably pious prince by absence. The tapers made much of a thick clot of double velvets, brocades, satins, coloured cloth-of-gold picked out with jewels. The Earl of Northumberland wore a superb new gown of tawny silk embroidered — rather incongruously, for he was a meagre-faced little man with nervous eyes — with true-lovers’ knots in silver. Lord Lovel’s black sleeves were lined with thick white bear’s fur to emphasise the slimness of his wrists. All stood and knelt patiently through the office, and came out at a sober pace, after the blessing, onto the stairhead. It was dusk now, and the stairs were lined and the Hall door flanked by servants with wax tapers. A trumpet announced supper, and they moved in due order into the Hall, the pages and gentleman-attendants trooping up the stairs and turning in behind them.

  The wall behind the high table was hung with a cloth of estate and the guests sat, on one side of the board only, facing down the Hall. The Duke had the Earl of Northumberland on his right and Lord Lovel on his left. The Secretary, the Auditor and Mr. Wrangwysh, who looked nervously happy, sat with the Earl’s gentlemen at the lower table. As leisurely as a snake, the complex ceremony of the meal unfolded itself. The high table was spread with white linen of Rennes. Silver-gilt candlesticks alternated down its length with bowls of marchpane, blanched almonds, ginger and candied fruits. The dais was thick, under the guests’ feet, with strewn flowers. The senior gentleman of the household, bearing a white wand, appeared from the pantry, heading a procession of servants with damask napkins on their shoulders and gold salts and silver knife-baskets in their hands. Ewers of rose-water came in, and the guests
rinsed their fingers. The Earl chatted to the Duke about the dogs that he had bought in London, and the Duke spoke with annoyance about the outbreak of mange at Pontefract Castle. Grace was sung. Sack came in crystal glasses, and the Earl spoke of a cure for mange that his kennelman used and the prayer to St. Hubert which must be said before applying it. Trumpets bawled, and pages served two kinds of broth, one of chicken flavoured with coriander-seeds and one, porridge-thick, of venison and raisins with sweet wine. The panders sliced fine white bread and dealt it round on their long knives. All crossed themselves and began. From the screens at the South end of the Hall a procession of covered dishes made its way. Roast eels, carp stewed in white wine with bay-leaves and rosemary, and pike stuffed with chestnuts and garnished with a sauce of almonds and seagull’s eggs were the fish-service. The butlers poured Rhenish from enormous conical wooden jacks. The Duke drank to his guests in turn, and asked Lord Lovel what was the news from Cornwall.

  “Why, have you not heard, sir? John Vere’s taken.”

  “Taken? That’s very good. How was it contrived?”

  Lord Lovel chuckled. He was a thin-faced, handsome boy, with very red lips.

  “It’s an old saying that a castle that speaks and a woman that will hear, they will be gotten both. The King’s officers parleyed with Vere’s men and promised ’em pardon. They surrendered. I hear the King’s Grace means to pack Vere over to Calais or Guisnes and lock him up there.”

  “It is better than extreme measures.”