Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  Trumpets brayed again for the entrance of two roast peacocks, dressed in their full feathers, tails spread wide, nodding and shivering with the steps of the grooms who carried them. Behind them were borne grebes, dressed likewise in their plumage, capons stuck full of almonds and stuffed with apples and quinces, and a dish of partridges stewed to rags with ginger, cinnamon, saffron, sugar and plums. The servers carved whilst the butlers made their rounds again with the big wine-jacks.

  “The new Princess — she that was born in April — is sickly, I hear,” said the Earl.

  The Duke raised his eyebrows but did not speak.

  “The Prince of Wales grows like a tree, though.”

  “Loved be God.”

  “His Grace says he has a certain assurance, on which he relies, that his next child shall be a son.”

  “A certain assurance?” said the Duke interrogatively.

  “Those are his words.” The Earl dropped his voice a little. “By prophetic arts,” he explained with a certain look of deprecation.

  The Duke again lifted his eyebrows and said nothing.

  “Who was the prophet?” asked Lord Lovel coolly.

  Northumberland shrugged.

  “Friar Bungay, I suppose. I know nothing of such things — less than nothing.”

  “That big-bellied mountebank: God send he’s speaking the truth for once in his bad life.”

  “Amen,” said Richard of Gloucester.

  “What like of a man is he?” asked Lord Scrope. “I never set eyes on him.”

  “A great fat hog of a friar,” said Lord Lovel warmly, “with the insolence of a hound, and thievish with it. He may be a prophet, but it’s hard getting fair water from a foul pipe. I think he hides cropped ears under his hood.”

  “Can he transmute metals?”

  “No, that’s Mr. French’s mystery. He’s the fellow that’s forever cracking about toads and phoenixes and the Mouth of Choleric.”

  “Whorish nonsense.”

  “Can we be certain?” said Duke Richard. “My brother Edward is not a fool. He has studied alchemical and geometrical arts, and the casting of horoscopes, and he does not find them nonsense. If we make brass from copper and tin, why should we not make gold from sulphur and mercury?”

  “But that’s near to …” Lord Scrope chewed his lip “ … to witchcraft, devilishness.”

  “It is not. If it can be done, it is done by skill and art, as books are imprinted or caps fulled in a fulling-mill. Witchcraft we all know of. To doubt that men and women can, if they are so mad, make an alliance with the fiend” — he crossed himself — “is heresy. But this alchemical art is another matter.”

  “It would be a blessed day for this realm, certainly, if gold could be made like glass.”

  “It would be the worst day we ever saw.”

  “Nay, why? To be the richest …”

  “We should not be rich. If gold could be made like cloth, then it would be worth no more than cloth, and my brother’s rich crown would have no more to commend it than a cadger’s bonnet.”

  “By God,” said Lord Scrope when he had thought a little, “but that’s true. To hell with alchemists, then: I’d hang ’em all.”

  “And witches, too,” agreed Ratcliffe.

  “Witches should burn. God’s blood, think of it: to damn your soul to all the devils of hell for the sake of craft and cunning. It’s horrible.”

  “Aye, but what crafts do they get from the devil, when all’s said?” asked Sir William Parr.

  Lord Lovel took a drink of Rhenish and leaned forward.

  “A Frenchman told me of a beastly fellow they burned at Cambrai some ten years ago. He had a familiar devil that foretold the future and helped him to get goods as a prophet and to brew love-philtres to seduce honest women. He was so swollen with sin that when they ordered him to do penance he threw down the blessed crucifix and broke it.”

  “They did well to burn him,” said the Duke. “But I do not think all prophecy is devilish. When a thing is certainly coming to pass, then a wise man may see the tokens of it by science.”

  “That I believe,” said Northumberland. “In my country they tell a strange tale of James I of Scots, him that was murdered by the Earl of Atholl. They say that when he was crossing the Water of Leith a prophetical woman of Ireland called to him: ‘My Lord King, if you pass this water you shall never turn again alive’: and that was true, for Atholl stabbed him two days after. And they say that Atholl had heard a prophecy, too, that he should be crowned in the sight of all Scotland; and so he was. When they had him on the scaffold they set a crown of white-hot iron on his head.”

  “Now, that,” said the Duke with interest, “was certainly a devil’s prophecy to deceive Atholl into the sin of murder and then mock him with the outcome. The devil is very cunning in such sleights, giving gifts with one hand and taking them away with the other, and the soul with them. I have read of an old heathen King who inquired of an oracle if he should invade the realm of his enemy. He was told that if he did he should break down a mighty kingdom, which was true, for his enemy defeated him and took all his realm.”

  Again, a loud sennet of trumpets broke the air. The roast meats were coming in. A young boar stuffed with march-pane and sugared chestnuts and garnished with sausages and blood-puddings stood upright in the first dish, its brown flesh turning golden under the flare of cressets and tapers. A whole roast lamb, coated with almond-paste, knelt in a meadow of green jelly stuck with candied flowers. A Norwegian bear’s ham drowned in a thick sauce of red wine, treacle, white ginger and nard followed; and behind came the exotic titbit of the feast, a roast porcupine stuffed with garlic and truffles. The butlers brought in flasks of Burgundy and white Gascon wine. Pantlers, servers, pages and grooms made haste about the Hall. The Earl of Northumberland helped himself to a pinch of blanched almonds and related how the strange people of Iceland, dwelling in the North of the world, sold winds to sailors.

  “And I’ve heard,” he added, “that in those parts they are able to catch live devils and make them do useful work to men, as rowing boats and sweeping out stables: but I do not believe it.”

  “Neither do I,” said Duke Richard.

  “But men can be killed by devils if a witch desires it,” said Lord Scrope, “and that I do know. The witches make a figure of wax or lead and burn it, and the man wastes away.”

  Duke Richard beckoned a server and told him to carve a slice of the porcupine and carry it to Mr. Wrangwysh. The yellow-haired Yorkshireman got on his feet, bowing and blushing at the compliment. The Duke nodded and raised his cup to him; turned to the Earl.

  “And what is the talk at Court about the French journey, my Lord?”

  “The French have recalled the troops they sent to Normandy, thinking we should land there this summer; can see for themselves we don’t intend to. Lord Rivers is still in Brittany, trying to tie Duke Francois down to some sort of alliance. If he’ll succeed or not, the saints know. You’d ’ve thought that damned Duke would be willing to do something definite after we’d sent him two thousand archers.”

  “My Lord Rivers,” said the Duke reflectively, “is always out of England these days. Last year it was a pilgrimage, and now an embassy.”

  “Strange about the pilgrimage,” said Lord Scrope, finishing his portion of lamb and beckoning to a server to bring him some roast pork: “he left almost as soon as he was back in England, you might say. Just after Harry of Windsor died, I think it was. Someone told me there was a matter of his private conscience that he wanted to purge.”

  “For my part,” said Lord Howard, “he may stay abroad as long as he likes.”

  Duke Richard gave him one of his slow, level stares that might mean anything or nothing.

  “I heard a bad report of those archers who were sent to Brittany under Lord Duras,” he said. “Have you heard anything of them?”

  Northumberland coughed and stroked his chin.

  “There were people saying that so many of them
are dead of the flux and other epidemics that the remnant should come home. But then I daresay it’s not true.”

  The Duke lifted his cup. His pale eyes were fully open for a second, like a surprised cat’s.

  “Gentlemen, we’ll drink to a meeting with Louis Valois and a hunt through all the parts of France till we blow our horn and relieve our hounds.”

  They drank.

  “All the same,” said Lord Lovel, “we’d be best to drink to the Parliament next month, now that we’re drinking. Money we must get out of ’em somehow. The King’s Grace himself was saying this would be the costliest French war ever waged from England.”

  “It will be repaid,” said Duke Richard.

  There was a pause now in the service of dishes. A single trumpet sounded a queer drawling theme, and through the screens at the South end of the Hall appeared Duke Richard’s jester. He was a tall man with a dark face and thick, restless eyebrows; walked with an air. He wore the conventional fool’s motley of two-coloured jerkin and hose and hood with ass’s ears, and carried a gilt bladder strung from a stick, but there was a lute slung on his shoulders. He lounged up the hall, one fist on his hip, his bauble tapping his calf, his dark lizard’s eyes flicking; then, with a sudden standing jump and a whoop, landed himself neatly on a cleared space in the middle of the lower table; glanced round him, dignity recovered, like a nobleman, and burst into a quick string of patter. He seemed privy to all the happenings of the day; spied the master of the pages near the end of the board and hallooed the rhyme the page had made up about him that morning; bounced his bauble off the Auditor’s head and asked after his rabbits.

  “Rabbits for God’s poor, marks for God’s poor: if you’d keep your place here never lend a mark to God’s poor, I give you warning.” His eye found Mr. Wrangwysh and he bent down and kissed him mercilessly on both cheeks. “The Yorkist from York, gentlemen, as I live by bread, the Yorkist from York: here’s a man, pretty gentlemen, that lives in York and loves the white rose. Who’d ’ve believed it? Kind Mr. Yorkist, lend me a mark and I’ll teach you to set a trap to catch porcupines. Don’t listen to that strong thief beside you that calls himself a Secretary. I’ll tell you a thing. Never repeat it. He’s a Scotsman. Holy saints and all charity, I forgot the grand noblemen!” He shaded his eyes with his hand toward the high table. “Oh, oh, oh, I see you well enough, but that I’m a trifle gravel-blind and suffer with sore eyes. Wait till I get my spectacles on. Now wait, will you? Don’t be off. It’ll be fine presently. Ah, ho, yes, I see you. I see you. God have pity upon me, I see you. Oh blessed charity, look at my Lord’s bonnet.” With a bound he cleared the heads of those sitting at the lower table. Another got him into the dais, where he bowed and broke instantly into a spate of budge verse.

  “The great Lord Percy came riding down

  With true-lovers’-knots all over his gown

  To kiss all the women of Middleham town.

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “But the sweet Lord Lovel beside him came.

  At sight of his lips every Middleham dame

  Cried: ‘Jesus, oh tell us the little lad’s name.’

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “Sir Richard Ratcliffe is stout and grim.

  If a maiden cast amorous eyes at him,

  Cock’s body, he’d eat her up limb by limb.

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “Lord Scrope of Bolton he hunts the deer,

  And he’s hunted ’em now this many a year,

  And his shafts afright ’em they fly so near.

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “The great Lord Howard’s is ancient blood.

  His folk were in England before Noah’s flood,

  But where were they whilst Adam was still in the wood?

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “Sir William Parr is a white-rose man,

  He kept the rose when the cowards all ran

  As close as he keeps his gob to the can.

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “Stout Sir James Harrington holds by Sir Will

  So long as they’ve rebels and traitors to kill

  Or pottles to empty or bellies to fill.

  Oh-ho, Middleham town!

  “Amen, pour charité.”

  There was great laughing. Lord Lovel opened the embroidered pouch at his belt and threw the jester a half-royal. The man caught it in the air; kissed it; made it vanish between his fingers and found it again in Sir James Harrington’s sleeve. Sir James took the hint, giving him a handful of groats and pence. Other coins were thrown him, and with a twinkle of legs he was gone from the dais and leaning on the shoulder of the Auditor, demanding to have his money reckoned. Mr. Auditor was simple enough to comply, and the jester immediately emptied his wine-cup for him, swept the money from the board, sprang back to the daïs and unslung his lute.

  “A French journey, sirs, I hear babble of a French journey. You must all learn to speak French fairly and clearly after the manner of Paris, my little Lords. Godon! Brolanbrigod! Baisemecu! Still, still, be still there. I shall school you. Oh, you’ll be scholars presently, I promise you. You must first understand that in France they have the Free-Archers, brave, honest, sober souls as ever robbed a henroost. What, have you not heard the epitaph of honest Pernet, which is sweeter than the sweetest verse of my Lord Rivers?

  “Ci-gît Pernet le Franc-Archer

  Qui ci mourût sans démarcher,

  Car de fuir n’eût oncques espace,

  Lequel Dieu, par sa sainte grace,

  Mette aux cieux avec les âmes

  Des Francs-Archers et des gens-d’armes —

  Arriere des arbalestriers.”

  Lord Scrope’s yell of delight made the flames of the tapers wince. Lord Lovel clapped his hands. Even the Duke chuckled, though he had heard the rhyme before. Everyone at the high table knew the municipal regiments of Free-Archers, established by Charles the Well-Beloved, for the most useless rabble in the French army. But before the laughing had stopped, the jester, with a long swing of his arm, sent his bauble flying down the Hall and began to tune his lute. His face changed and became sad and sleepy. He tried the strings, cocking his head from side to side; began to sing in a startlingly sweet pure tenor.

  “Oh, the white and goodly may,

  Oh, it is a goodly tree,

  And oh, when wilt thou return

  My own true love to be?”

  No one moved or said anything. Duke Richard had dropped his chin on his jewelled chest. His mouth was tight and his hands, joined on the board in front of him, were busy with his ring.

  “Oh, the thrustlecock sings sweet

  And he sings both soon and late,

  And oh, when wilt thou return

  For to be my own dear mate?”

  There was a moment’s silence before the applause. The Duke did not move. Light caught the pearls in his cap and the gold and silver on his gown. His eyes were contracted into slits no wider than the edge of a dagger. Presently, he motioned a butler to give the bowing jester wine; joined his hands again in front of him.

  The next course was trumpeted into the Hall: hares stewed in spiced malmsey and milk-of-almonds and stuck with cloves and mace, a fowl-custard, yellow with saffron, served in a sugared tart, an enormous pie with the Percy crescent and the silver boar in icing on its raised crust, full of snipe, plover, woodcock and larks. They were followed presently by a host of little dishes: cockscombs in batter, soused herrings, sausages with almond sauce, quails in aspic, ducklings powdered with sugar, frogs’ legs, spiced lambs’ tongues, snails with garlic, slices of sturgeon with green sauce. The guests’ cups were charged with malmsey or black Cyprus wine. Lord Lovel, after a glance at the Duke’s profile, began to talk with his neighbour, Lord Scrope, about the fortunes of the campaign Charles the Hardy of Burgundy had been waging that spring on the East borders of France. More details were to hand now. It seemed it was a dirty, ugly kind of war. At Nesles-en-Vermandois the Hardy had strung up the French
garrison like fruit on a tree and cut both hands off those few that he had left alive: a vile business. Lord Scrope asked whether it was true that King Louis’ brother, the Duke of Berri, who was known to have Burgundian sympathies, had died rather opportunely and mysteriously. Young Lord Lovel shrugged. Quite true: the Hardy swore that Louis had poisoned him, and that was very likely.

  “Sooner we take charge of the realm in France the better for everybody: I mean, holy Mary, we’re honest. That Louis is simply a tyrant; leaves no place for right, justice or religion. Murder, treason, poisonings: it’s horrible.”

  “And yet the strange thing is,” said Lord Lovel, with a straight face, “that the poor, deluded people of France have some affection for him. When Charles of Burgundy invested Beauvais this spring, the very women of the town joined with the men to beat him off the walls. They must somehow have misconstrued what he did at Nesles-en-Vermandois.”

  “Burghers and commoners,” said Lord Scrope, “what do they go for?”

  Duke Richard seemed to wake up from his abstraction, come to life again.

  “They go for a great deal,” he said expressionlessly: “more than we even think. My Lord Scrope, why am I here, away from my brother in these North parts? It’s not to hold down a land that’s hostile to the house of York. You and my Lord of Northumberland and our other loyal friends would do that. It is to end the hostility itself. I know. You were for telling me that there is no hostility. But there is; and whilst there is, my brother will not be content. He has not forgotten how the commons of his own Duchy of York opposed him last year, to his intense grief. I am here as his ambassador to the North to show these very burghers and commoners you despise that the rule of York is a good rule, and one against which there is no need for them to rebel.”

  “If the proud-stomached swine were taught that rebellion is a sin, we should do better. I’d like to see the good Statutes of Labourers in full force again. The commons to-day are too rich and they’re too proud. Take their wealth and you take their insolence, I say. Things were never merry in England since Jack was as good as his master.”