Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  “You’re looking hale yourself, George.”

  “Meaning I’m fat, too: well, I’d rather be fat than have a corpse-candle colour on me like yours. Yorkshire’s not put any red in your cheeks.”

  Duke Richard, lying back on the silk cushions, twiddled a ring on his finger and did not appear put out. He said: “It’s lonely up there, George.”

  Duke George laughed; was feeling a little more himself now. Since they were children he had never wholly been at ease with his younger brother. He was afraid of Edward, his immovable mastery of other men even when they were cleverer than he was, his killing tempests of anger; but he was comprehensible. One knew what he would say. Richard said and did nothing that was expected of him, as though he left matters coldly to one’s own conscience. Where Edward bellowed, Richard only looked, and not angrily or contemptuously, but with a serene and penetrating inquiry, seeing through one. Why do I always think of how they look when they are displeased with me? George wondered. Why can’t I think of the good days we used to have? Richard is easy and friendly now. Let me be.

  “Want me to come up to Middleham with you and hold your hand?”

  Richard smiled dumbly and shook his head.

  “Because we’ll all be holding each other’s hands in France next year, if it comes to that. Look, Richard, Edward should give us French titles if it falls out well. He should make me Duke of Normandy and you Count of Aquitaine.”

  “Hardly, George.”

  “Why not, pray?”

  “Those are both crown titles.”

  “Well, he’ll be King of France then. What more’s he want? Must he have everything?”

  “In any event, I question whether it will be next year, or even the year after. For one thing, we’ll want more than fourteen thousand archers. For another, we must have good firm treaties with Burgundy and Brittany. Charles the Hardy can put eighteen thousand in the field, and if Duke Francois could be relied on for twelve and we for twenty, why, then …”

  “Then God have mercy on Louis Valois.”

  “Even so: fifty thousand should cook his goose as Harry of Monmouth never cooked it. We’d not leave him so much as Dauphiny to call his own. But we must have that wavering Duke Francois with us for sure.”

  “Rivers seems to ’ve done no good there.”

  “Rivers has most damnably wasted his time, if all I hear at Court is true. What induced our brother to send him on that errand? Hastings was the man: the most skilled ambassador since Kingmaker’s day.”

  “Twenty thousand devils, Dickon, but you’ve become a silly Yorkshireman if you don’t see the fly in that milk. Edward would have sent Hastings, but the Queen’s Grace stopped it. If such an honourable mission was going begging, then her precious brother was the only man for it. By the Sacrament of the altar, when I think of the labour I’ve been at to put a yellow-haired whore — two yellow-haired whores now, by Christ’s cross — back among silk cushions …”

  Duke Richard lifted his hand sharply.

  “Watch your tongue, will you, George? If you must talk like that, do it in your chamber with the door locked.”

  “I renounce God if I will. It’s time Edward himself heard some plain speaking on that score. He’d listen to me, after all I’ve done for him, everything I’ve sacrificed. I’ve been making investigation in the matter of these same Wydvylles, Dickon. Some fine tales I’ve heard. You remember the heading of the Earl of Desmond in the year ’sixty-eight. Well, I’m credibly informed that Edward never ordered it. The Queen heard Desmond was offended at her marriage, and so she forged a letter to Tiptoft of Worcester ordering his head to be taken off, and when she and Edward were in bed, she rose early and took the Privy Seal out of his purse and signed it with it: and that was the end of Desmond, our father’s intimate friend. A sweet story, and not the only one: I’ve had a glimpse of something darker, something so very strange you’d hardly put faith in it.”

  “Not here, George, for the last time: you’ve said too much now. I’ll not listen to you.”

  “Have it your own way, then: but I’ll surprise you in the end.”

  “How is your Lady wife?”

  “Well enough, but our little son’s loss is a grief to her.”

  “Surely; it was a grief to me, George.”

  “You’re very kind. Well, we’ve time yet. I’ll show Edward he’s not the only one who knows how to plant his garden.”

  The barge was tying up. Evening fog had closed over the river and torches preceded them to the door of the Duke’s mansion.

  “I’ll take you up to Isobel,” said Duke George, and they climbed a narrow stairway to the solar, where the Duchess of Clarence sat over an embroidering-frame among her women. At the sight of the two royal Dukes she got to her feet, thick velvet skirts swirling, a flush on her face. “Dickon!”

  “Isobel, dear Lady.”

  They kissed fraternally. The Duchess was happy and talkative, sending her slow-footed West-country girls scurrying for wine and wafers, tidying away a strand of hair under her coiffe, dabbing the cushions. There’s never this babblement when I come home alone, thought Duke George. His wife gave him a quick, mustering glance under her eyelids, and he knew she was looking to see whether he was sober.

  “What good wind blows you here, Dickon?”

  “To see my brother and sister, what else?”

  “It’s good of you. You’ll be busy, this Parliament-time.”

  “Parliament’s prorogued and I’ve come for a gossip. Is this malmsey? Then I’ll take water with it, by your leave.”

  Now I must water it too, thought Duke George, or Isobel will stare at me; and I’m poxily thirsty. If Edward gets a skinful — and he does often enough, by God — the Wydvylle bitch daren’t look askance at him. They pledged each other formally and sat down before the pinecone-scented fire. Duke Richard helped himself to a wafer and ate it in small nibbles.

  “I’ll send my women away,” said Isobel of Clarence cosily, “and you shall have your gossip.”

  The finely-dressed girls sulked out of the room with backward looks at the small figure of Duke Richard. Duke George guessed they had heard stories of him — his courage and unholy luck in battle, his work in Yorkshire — and were curious of him. He has that whey-face and mim-mouthed look that legends grow about, he thought. Some fool once asked me was it true he was born feet-first with teeth in his mouth.

  “And when is the French King to be taught his lesson?” asked the Duchess.

  “Not for a year or two, in my opinion, as I was telling George. It will want long preparing. But we’ll do it.”

  “I never liked the slyboots,” said Lady Isobel.

  Damn her, thought Duke George; need she remind Dickon of when we were at the French Court with her father? He had a sudden vision of the Christian King’s long, yellow, foolish face and his shabby dress. It would serve him right to lose his kingdom, shambling, shuffling, hypocritical dog-fancier.

  “We’ll show him a thing,” he said aloud.

  “That we will,” agreed his brother. “Whether he poisoned the Duke of Berri, as they say, I don’t know: but the murder of Jean of Armagnac’s enough to damn him. I seriously think it is God’s will that we should punish his crimes.”

  “I had a letter from our sister Margaret,” said Duke George. “When Charles of Burgundy heard how Armagnac had been done to death at Lectoure he came near to having an effusion of blood. He’s getting more choleric than ever, she says.”

  “Lord,” said his wife.

  Duke Richard gave a twitch of a smile.

  “That’s hard to credit, if he’s still outside the Bedlam. It must have been a sad stroke to him, though, that clever counsellor, de Commynes, slipping over from him to Louis as he did.”

  “Bribed, of course, the dirty rat.”

  “Of course, but I think he felt Charles was too fond of bidding him run risks as well.”

  “Coward, then.”

  “Certainly that: well, God made us all.” />
  “You’re as much of a theologist as ever. Always half a priest, weren’t you, Dickon?”

  Duke Richard pursed his eyelids and looked ahead of him.

  “I think,” he said deliberately, “that if I had not been a prince I might have been very happy as a monk.”

  “Not you,” said the Duchess, “you’d be wanting an axe in your hand.”

  “That’s only habitude,” answered the Duke quickly. “I learnt war as a child, and now I love it. If I had never learnt it I’d be content enough: and that puts me in mind that I’ve been doing Christian work. Your mother, Isobel …”

  Damnation and devils, thought Duke George, what’s in the wind now? He’s been sniffing around again: first Anne, now my mother-in-law, damnation and devils.

  “Oh, Dickon, yes?”

  “She has been more than a year in Beaulieu sanctuary.”

  “I know, Dickon, and she’s petitioned the King and so have I, and I thought George might have done something, but it seems he can’t.”

  “Edward is rather bitter in the matter, but I have done what I could. In time, I think — only in time — he might be brought to show her grace. Edward is not malicious: no man less so. But these last years have made him very wary. Still, I promise you that I’ll do all I can.”

  “Oh, Christ bless you, Dickon.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Duke George in a voice that he hoped did not sound as shaky as it felt, “to take such care for the poor outlawed creature.”

  Duke Richard continued to look at Duchess Isobel. He used his gentlest voice.

  “You well know, Isobel, that whatever has happened to divide us, I have always felt kindness and nothing but kindness for the Nevilles.”

  The Duchess, to her husband’s extreme exasperation, began to wipe her eyes.

  “You’re a good man, Dickon. Few people would have thought of poor mother, if they were in your place.”

  “I wish I could do more, and not only for her. Isobel, I would give all my castles in England to know what has become of little Anne.”

  There it goes, thought Duke George, just as I thought. He made a final and only half-hearted effort to control his temper; lost hold of it.

  “Thank you, Dickon, grand merci. I know why you came to see me now.”

  “That wasn’t the only reason,” said Duke Richard, with the atrocious frankness that infuriated his brother even more than his customary two-edged manner of talking. “You are my brother, and I’m very fond of Isobel.”

  “Yes, and you’re still fonder of Anne, and you’re fondest of all of those castles in England that you were gabbling about. Middleham and Pontefract: that’s all I’ve got to say to you, my dear little brother who ought to ’ve been a monk. They’re Neville property, and they’d be mine now if everybody had their own. You’ve filched them, and by God you think if you marry Anne you’ll be able to filch some more. You’re right. You ought to ’ve been a monk. You ought to ’ve been a damned great fat-bellied, land-grabbing thief of an Abbot. That’s what you ought to ’ve been,”

  “George!” said his wife.

  “Don’t George me. I know Dickon and his soft-handed ways. I’m not his brother for nothing.”

  He was feeling wretched now. In a moment Richard would answer him and make him ashamed, laying cold words one beside the other like stones in a wall, showing him what a boor he made of himself. Damn him, damn him, thought Duke George. He’s younger than I am. Why can he make me feel like a boy letting his breeches down for the rod? Why can’t he and Edward leave me alone with the castles I want and the land I want, and we can all be friends again? If Edward had given me my due in the first place and made much of me, instead of giving everything to those damned Wydvylles, I’d never have listened to Warwick or turned Lancastrian: and now Dickon’s even trying to gowk me of half I got out of that.

  “George, I often wonder how you’re my brother, you talk such trash. Will you forget whatever painted Vice in a play you’ve concocted out of me in your foolish imagination and remember I’m Dickon? Will you do that now?”

  It was not the line of approach Duke George had anticipated; and his brother’s smile was real. He felt silly, but not as ashamed as he had expected; muttered:

  “Well, what?”

  “This” — Duke Richard leaned forward in his chair and began reckoning like a schoolteacher on his fingers — “imprimis, supposing her mother to be outlawed, even, half of the Warwick lands belong, under the King, to Anne, married or not married, and never to you. Secundo, the girl’s not your enemy, and if you are hiding her — as, to speak the plain truth, I think you are hiding her — then you are treating a helpless virgin very unkindly, and that’s not the tradition of our house. Tertio, we are brothers and very good friends, George, and I love Anne. Will you not help me to her?”

  To speak the plain truth, I think you are hiding her. To speak the plain truth, I think you are hiding her. The phrase repeated itself over and over again, with great rapidity, inside Duke George’s head. But I am not hiding Anne, he thought. That puts me in the right of it. I have said I am not hiding her, and it is true. I don’t know even where she is. I am telling the truth there, but he won’t believe me. Me, Clarence, the turncoat, people will not believe even when I am telling the truth. Every word I say, if I say that it rained yesterday, is suspect. They look at my words when my back’s turned, fingering them as a Jew fingers a pledged garment, peeping for holes in them; will never believe what I say, lies or truth. He hurled himself out of his chair like a man stung; stood clutching his two hands together, bleeding with wounds of humiliation and defeatedness.

  “Now I do perfectly understand you,” he said in a thick voice. “Because I once turned Lancastrian and then turned back again, you think you’ve a licence to disbelieve every dying word I ever tell you. You think you can call me a liar ten hundred times a day. That’s what you think. Well, you’re wrong, you clever fool. You’re wrong from the letter A. George the liar is telling the truth this time. I don’t know where she is. Do listen carefully, in case you shouldn’t hear me right. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead. I don’t know whether she’s in England or France. She can be in the seraglio of the Sultan of Syria for what I can tell you: and by God’s passion, if she were in the next chamber to this I’d rather have my tongue tom out than give you news of it. Brothers and very good friends of mine, Richard. You and Edward always despised me: Edward the great, grand eldest brother, the King of England; Richard the clever little boy, so loyal to his big brother. Not much room left for brother George? By the five wounds of Christ, if ever I injured either of you you’ve got your cursed selves to blame.”

  The Duchess had dropped her embroidery, and was fixing her husband with the cold, spear-point Neville look that usually clapped his mouth to like a box.

  “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, George,” was all she threw at him.

  “You shut your damned mouth, you trollop. Hell and thunder, am I the Duke of Clarence or not? Be silent when princes of the blood royal are talking. You listen, Dickon, and remember I’m older than you and I’ll say what I please. I know what’s always in the back of your mind when you look at me. You say to your prim heart: He’s a traitor — he betrayed Edward. Well, if I did, it was Edward’s own fault. If he’d treated me as I deserved, as the first nobleman in the realm — and that’s what I am, you can’t deny it — I’d not have betrayed him. I can be as loyal as you. I can. We all know Loyaulte me lie’s your precious holy motto; but I wonder how long your loyalty would’ve bound you if you’d always been slighted the way I was, and I didn’t betray him in the upshot. I left my great father-in-law to stand by him. I fought at Barnet and Tewkesbury as well as you, even if I didn’t have a ward of my own to command, and what do I get for it? Two good castles that ought to be mine filched off me and given to you; you preferred over me, set above me: and then you think you can ask me to find your damne
d wench for you when it means leaving half my inheritance. You think you can play with me as you please. I’m only the turncoat, the tool. Do what you like with me. Well, I’ve fooled you this time. It’s you and Edward, always despising me, made a turncoat and a schemer out of me. Then, by God’s passion, I’ll be a turncoat and a schemer, and the whorson pair of you can make your market for it. Now go on and call me what you’ve a mind. Go on. I defy you. Call me it: turncoat, turncoat, turncoat. Call me it, you undersized little prig.”

  Sobs made an end of his speech. The tears, he suddenly discovered, were pouring out of his eyes so fast that he could barely see. All his self-mistrust had disappeared in a thick bog of misery and need of pity and encouragement and certainty that he would never get it.

  “I don’t call you turncoat, George, and if anyone else presumes to do so in my hearing he will need very strong harness to protect him from the consequences.”

  Duke George sat down again and began wiping his eyes on the edge of his sleeve like a schoolboy. Talking to Richard brought one into a waking world of nightmare; was like clambering onto a continually rolling ball that turned beneath one, shooting one off again.

  “But that’s what you think I am. That’s what you all think I am.”

  The Duchess Isobel got up. She gathered her velvet skirts round her in a way that seemed to send a draught through the whole room.

  “You may have patience with May-games of this sort, Dickon,” she said. “I am too accustomed to them. George will start swilling presently. He always does when he has been talking of his wrongs. If you can anyhow discover what he’s done with Anne, for God’s sake let me know. If not, and if you’ve any kindness left for the wretched pair of us, stay with him till he’s drunk enough for the servants to put him to bed.”

  She went out.

  Duke George clasped his hands to his face and wept again. He tasted his new humiliation luxuriously, licking it as a man licks a painful tooth. Presently someone jabbed his shoulder and pushed a cup into his hand.

  “Drink that and be cheerful,” said Duke Richard vaguely.