“This is a most extraordinary writing, Sir Thomas,” he said with a careful air of being stern, “and I am in two minds what to think of it.”
Sir Thomas Vaughan, whose black eyebrows, in contrast with his hair, gave him rather the appearance of a mountebank, made a little grimace.
“My Lord Duke, I am here to interpret it so far as my poor wits will allow me.”
“Very good: then let me ask you, Sir Thomas, why my Lord Rivers dreads and hates the Duke of Gloucester?”
That will knock him out of his saddle, Duke Henry thought as he said it. That will unhorse him: a direct question when he expected covertness. Sir Thomas Vaughan took the buffet without flinching; leaned forward as though pleased to have the game played in the open.
“Because we live in a changed world, your Grace, and the case is altered with us.”
“The case is altered.” Duke Henry leaned his elbows on the oak table that separated them and joined his hands under his chin, using his eyes, which he knew had the facility of startling people, in an attempt to break the Welchman’s guard: “How is it altered? Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi. Why is the world changed so fearfully?”
To his annoyance, it was the Welchman whose spear slipped inside his now.
“Your Grace, you are familiar with the affairs of Court. You know the private hates and grudges which the virtue of our late master, whom God assoil, kept within measure. They are all broken loose now. Our new King, your nephew, is a child, not crowned yet; and I who know him tell you that he is a child that can be ruled by the bend. Someone must govern the realm, and the question my Lord Rivers asks you is: Shall it be Richard of Gloucester?”
“Why, sir, should it not be that virtuous Prince, richly endowed, I may say, by Heaven with all the skill and courage necessary for the guidance of a kingdom, a prudent and valiant nobleman and the one surviving brother of our late Lord Edward, God give him peace?”
“Why you know that too, your Grace: because the Lord Protector hates the Queen’s Grace and my Lord Rivers and all their affinity beyond words or measure. My Lord Duke, why play a game with me? You know. You know that since that day five years ago when you were created Lord High Steward of England for the sole purpose of condemning Clarence to death when they attainted him, there’s been no room in the same world for Gloucester and Wydvylle. I say you know it: and you know that now King Edward’s gone to God things have come to the crack. Your Grace is allied in marriage to the house of Wydvylle. If Richard of Gloucester reaches London next week and is acclaimed Protector, then there’s an end of the power of your Lady wife’s kin. The Duke won’t eat by day or sleep by night until they’re stripped, broken, dead for what I know. He hates them as the devil hates charity. You know all this. The Duke of Gloucester is a dangerous man, your Grace, and we’re in dangerous times. Why should you pretend to be deaf — I speak without offence — when you can hear as quickly as any man?”
“I’ve heard a great deal: perhaps too little, perhaps too much,” the Duke answered carefully. “Our ears are as treacherous as all our senses, and many an honest man has gone to ruin, or run into great dangers, through no more than listening. What you say is true, or for all I know it is, but how does it concern me? Answer me that, Sir Thomas Vaughan. You have come to me, God knows, without my seeking, and have talked dangerously. Our Lord King that was appointed his noble brother to be Protector of the Realm and guardian of our Lord King that is. Am I to cavil against his dying commandment, spoken at that dreadful moment we must all know one day, when the soul makes ready to quit her earthly lodging? God forbid.”
Sir Thomas Vaughan uncrossed his legs and crossed them again; bit his lip with dirty teeth. He looked as though something had slightly but not seriously annoyed him. He said patiently:
“My Lord Duke, we ought to see things as they are. Richard of Gloucester may be a virtuous Prince and our late master’s brother, but with our late master’s death, Christ have mercy on him, the world’s turned upside down. Everything’s now possible, look you: and it’s a Trojan hate there is between him and the house of Wydvylle, and has been since the death of the Duke of Clarence that you passed sentence on.”
“As an officer and not as a judge.”
“You passed it: and Gloucester’s never forgotten or pardoned his brother’s taking-off, as you very well know, and you’re married into the house that took him off at the very time when Gloucester was softening the King to pardon him.
The impudent bastard, thought Duke Henry parenthetically. Sir Thomas Vaughan went on:
“Now, your Grace, I bear a message from your brother-in-law, my Lord Rivers. Here’s what he says. This is the time, he says, between a King and a King, where scores will be paid. He knows a score that’s owing to him from Duke Richard, and owing to his sister the Queen and you and all of us, my Lord Duke. Why wait for it to be paid? he says. Why not strike first and let us have no Protector, but a Council of Regency of which your Grace will be one, he says, and all of us secure and England merry again?”
“Murder?” asked Duke Henry as casually as he could contrive.
Sir Thomas Vaughan leaned over the table to him, looking pleased.
“We hope not, your Grace. We mean nothing extreme unless we’re forced to it: but the Duke of Gloucester must never reach London. The house of Wydvylle are unloved there. Once he’s in London and has the mastery of our Lord Prince, we’re shent. So he must not come as far. Somewhere on the road we must prevent him; charge him with treason, rebellion, witchcraft, anything. He must stay behind. Either as a prisoner or a corpse he must stay behind, and then we ride to London with our Lord Prince and tell our tale there.”
“That is a perilous scheme, as God sees me, that you are talking of now. How many men has the Duke?”
“Not more than six hundred, your Grace, reckoning priests and pages, and he moves slowly; stops in every town to order Masses for his brother and have the notables of the place swear allegiance to my Lord Prince. It’ll be Sunday before he’s even as far South as Nottingham. We have two thousand at Ludlow, and arms. We’d ’ve had more but there’s been trouble in London.”
“How, trouble?”
“Lord Hastings: he never loved my Lord Rivers since my Lord tried to have the Lieutenancy of Calais from him. He told the Queen’s Grace that if we came up more than two thousand strong he’d retire to Calais and arm the garrison there. He’s frightened.”
“What plans have you for London? You may tell me everything, man. By my faith I am not one of those who would go about to destroy men that put their simple trust in me. I am open with those who are open; give plain answers; and the answer I give you now is: I will not forget the tie of wedlock between me and my Lord Rivers.”
“Loved be God, your Grace. That’s sweet hearing, yes indeed it is! We have our plans for London, your Grace, you be sure. The day we leave Ludlow, the Marquis Dorset will seize the Tower. Sir Edward Wydvylle, my Lord Rivers’ brother, will take charge of such shipping as he can find. We shall have the Treasury, too, and the Queen herself will take charge of the Great Seal. We’ve negotiated with my Lord Chancellor Rotherham for that. Why, your Grace, nothing whatever at all can stand against us if we go the right way to work.”
“And what part am I to play, then, in this scheme? It seems you have everything so perfectly arranged that there is no need of helpers.”
Sir Thomas Vaughan showed his bad teeth again. He seemed very cheerful and cunning now, flashing his black eyes at Duke Henry and sharing secrets with him.
“Your part, your Grace, is to muster as many tall fellows as you can, defensively arrayed, and join us on our road to London. Northampton would be a good place. There we shall wait, or thereabout, until his good Grace of Gloucester comes up with us. With your men and ours, it will not be hard at all to have the better of him. We will send him to Ludlow to cool his heels. The coronation is for the fourth of May, and once our Lord Prince is crowned and we’ve held a Parliament and set up a Council of Regency, we
might let him go again: why not, indeed? His teeth will be drawn then: and look you, my Lord Duke, we shall all be rich. England’s a fat prize, for sure: something for all of us.”
To Duke Henry’s utter astonishment, the table that was between them had begun very slowly to move toward him. He stared at it for a second, wondering if his eyes were affected; then realised that he had clenched his right hand with all his strength on the leg. Had the Welchman noticed anything? He had not. He opened his hand, feeling an aching welt on his palm; rubbed it secretly against the silk of his hose and said:
“I take it kindly that my Lord Rivers has been so plain with me. I’m a young nobleman, far from his experience in great affairs. It is generous of him to promise me advancement through his kind offices. You have my answer already. I will not forget the tie of wedlock between me and my Lord Rivers. Tell him that, and that I will be at Northampton with three hundred men.”
“By God’s mother, your good blessed Grace, that’s very excellent hearing indeed. We …”
The Duke lifted his hand, enjoying the sense of authority and power the gesture gave him.
“Leave me now, if you will. I shall have a great deal of business, and that must be my excuse for not entertaining you as I should otherwise delight to do. You are riding back to Ludlow to-day?”
“Yes indeed, your Grace, immediately.”
“Command everything in my Castle, if you love me, sir. Go with God.”
“God bless and prosper your blessed Grace.”
“Good day.”
“God give you good day.”
The door shut after him. Henry Stafford of Buckingham stood up. A sensation was coming over him that he had felt once or twice before: a feeling of lightness and constriction in the head and commotion in the midriff. Something as warm as blood was bubbling and rising up in him, shaking his belly and making his lungs prickle. It was laughter. Laughter clutched at his throat and prised his jaws open. He had to throw back his head and let it out, burst after burst of it, until he thought it would conspire with the tightness round his brain and kill him. He belonged to a strange house, very old, inheriting the blood of Plantagenet and Bohun; sometimes thought there was a curse on him. His father had died in the brawl of noblemen at St. Albans and his grandfather had been cut down before Holy Harry’s tent outside Northampton. Himself had been a book-lover and hater of battles ever since he could remember; had crept down passages of stone castles, close to the wall, with a big manuscript under his arm, and found a sunny place on the leads of a tower, pigeon-visited, reached by a forgotten trapdoor, where he could read. This was the life from which, when he was twelve years old, virgin, King Edward and the Wydvylles had called him up to do their injury to him, marry him off to Katherine Wydvylle, twice his age, so that she, being the new Queen’s sister, might be Duchess of Buckingham. He had not thought about marriage, one way or the other. They were welcome. But being Duchess of Buckingham by name was not enough for Katherine Wydvylle. A boy’s untaught body and his fears had been a new excitement for her.
The loud, rattling laughter stopped with a click when he remembered it, and he began to knuckle his forehead with both hands. He had always to make some such gesture when he thought of his wife Katherine. God damn her, God corrupt her body, God wither her skin, he repeated under his breath his invariable impotent litany. God consume her and all her kind in horrible hell. He sat down presently, his arms shaking a little; jangled the old-fashioned brass bell on the table and continued to jangle it until Ralph Banaster, his personal gentleman, scratched very demurely at the door and came in.
“Ralph.”
“Your Grace?”
“Have you seen to that fellow Vaughan? Has he gone off yet?”
“Not yet, your Grace. He asked for food and that his horse should be saddled in half-an-hour.”
Ralph Banaster was small-nosed, short, with a somehow impudent mouth and tow-coloured hair. He wore his smart clothes badly and held his shoulders stiff, letting his arms droop.
“Get pen and paper, Ralph. I’m going to write a letter. As soon as the Welchman’s gone, Persal or one of the others must ride day and night, kill his horses, until he gives it into the hands it’s meant for.”
“I’ll see to that, your Grace. Whom would it be for, your Grace?”
Duke Henry felt the laughter forcing itself up inside him again. He had to squeeze it down before he could say:
“Duke Richard of Gloucester.”
*
Like an enchanted spear driven into the road to stop an army, Queen Eleanor’s Cross stood up and told Lord Anthony he was near Northampton. Delapré Woods, on his right, were dusted over with greenish-yellow of buds and patches of full leaf. There was a lark grinding out its rattle of song, mounting higher and higher on the spiral of its own voice. The fields had revived from winter. Lord Anthony, who had left the Prince fourteen miles farther on the London road, at Stony Stratford, and was riding back to Northampton to meet the Duke of Gloucester, settled the pin of his cloak and sighed. The Duke had gained on them, his southward and their eastward paths to London intersecting here: but the Duke of Buckingham was in Northampton with three hundred men and Lord Anthony had five hundred. It would be enough. They would talk courteously to Duke Richard for a night; seize and arrest him on the way to Stony Stratford the next morning.
They rode on up the gentle ridge past Delapré Abbey until they were looking down to the green links of the River Nene, where there had been a notable Yorkist victory twenty-three years ago. Lord Anthony thought of the men who had had part in that victory and were dead now: the old Duke of York, borne down and cut to rags at Wakefield; Kingmaker, left cold by the side of his horse in Wrotham Wood; Edward Earl of March, the Rose of Rouen, Edward IV of England, who won his spurs there and whom they had buried pompously at Windsor eleven days ago. Remote on the Welch Marches with the new King, he had not said good-bye to Edward of England; had simply heard one morning that he would not see him again. At the beginning of April, too fat for other sports, the King had gone out fishing; had caught a chill. He coughed and wheezed and swore and took wine to drown it; complained of a devil’s pain in his side. They put him to bed; let blood; purged him; let blood again. He suffered from shortness of breath and they suffumigated him with crushed amber. That was fatal, and priests began at once to crowd into the room where the King lay like a whale driven ashore by storm, a vast and magnificent monster suddenly pushed, in the midst of its unsuspecting lustiness, into a strange element. He made a good end. When they had heard his long confession, assured themselves of his penitence to God and charity to men, they anointed him, not as at his coronation, but with the oil that cleans and closes the gateways of physical sense, making way for the soul to go out and be met by angels and archangels and all the host of heaven. But the King would not die. He wanted his courtiers round him now, after the priests had done what they had to do; had something to say to them. Dorset with his silvery-yellow hair, Hastings, crying unashamedly, fat Stanley, John Howard, Francis Lovel, Sir Edward Wydvylle, handsome John de la Pole of Lincoln, Arundel, William Bourchier, Sir John Fogg: they all came in, and King Edward, propped up on many pillows, spoke to them. They said, those who were there, that a frightening change had come on the King after he had been given absolution, that the gross face, blue with death, had fined down to something nearer what it used to be. He made a long speech to them, gasping between words, talking of things he had never shown an instance of caring for in his lifetime. They hated each other, all of them. The Court was split with jealousies: the open loathing, as it was now, between Lord Hastings and Lord Anthony, the contempt of Howard and Lovel for almost all the Court habitués. He told them they must be friends now, for his son’s sake, lest their quarrels pull England back into the old swamp of blood that he had ridden through from Mortimer’s Cross to Tewkesbury. No one who remembered the Bloody Meadow could have expected that he would cry out, putting his fingers up to his blued lips like a terrified child: “If I c
ould have foreseen; by God’s blessed Lady, I would never have purchased the courtesy of men’s knees with the loss of so many of their heads.” Perhaps he was thinking of swords in the Wakefield Tower or poisoned malmsey in the Bowyer. His last sensible words were: “For the love you’ve borne me, for the love I’ve borne you, for the love that our Lord bears us all, each of you love the other.” The Rose of Rouen, who had never taken kingship seriously whilst he was on his feet alive, had spared a good half-hour of seriousness to it now he was dying.
His last words might come in useful, Lord Anthony considered. One could hint that the King had foreseen trouble from the Duke of Gloucester; and that would give them all a plausible reason for serving him as the Beauforts, in Harry of Windsor’s day, had served the last holder of his unlucky title. On the face of it, a few months’ honourable imprisonment on a charge of conspiracy, just until the Coronation was over and the Council of Regency allowed by Parliament, would be enough. He could be turned loose then. No danger that he would ever get office or favour under the young Prince: Lord Anthony had taught the forward little boy too much about his uncle of Gloucester’s grim ways and merciless ambitions for that. He might go back to his North parts — lopped of some of his castles and nearly all his offices, though — or they could even send him over to Ireland as Deputy-Lieutenant, to reside there. That should be enough, so far as the mere policy of the matter went: but with a little juggling, thought Lord Anthony, trotting his horse down to the bridge in the thin April sun, with a little juggling a more satisfactory end could be put to the business: an end on a scaffold. Treason was a much easier charge to bring than to disprove. It could be said the Duke of Gloucester had written secret letters, even before his brother’s death, to stir up the old nobility against the Queen and her relations; that he was aiming at the throne.
Why am I frightened of him? Lord Anthony, the speculative philosopher, asked himself. Why shall I not be happy until he is under the ground? Because I killed his brother, used the royal warrant to put him away quickly before he softened the King’s pliable heart? A little, to be sure: because of how he looked at me that infernal night with Holy Harry’s blood dropping off his fingers? That’s more of it. But I have never lied to myself. Neither of them is the true final reason. I hate him because I dread him, and I dread him because I could never be his master. Well, he shall go. There is not room for both of us in the realm of England, and I have climbed too high now to climb down again. I will be Constable and Admiral myself, before this year’s turned; and there should be pickings from his estates as there were from Clarence’s. I might have the wardship of his son, too. Thomas is making a fat matter out of Clarence’s children. Treason, my Lord Duke Richard of Gloucester: who would have thought that both King Edward’s brothers, one after the other, would be guilty of high treason? Who would have thought it, my Lord Duke? Middleham is a fine Castle, I am told, and it is time I had a seat in the North. Or shall it be Pontefract? They say the country there is very lovely. What was it you said to me when you heard that George of Clarence had died so suddenly? My Lord Rivers, I begin to think I owe you a debt. That was all you said, very politely, with your snake’s eyes on me. You fool, you shall pay your debt, I promise you, to the last groat: but in coin of my choosing.
Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III Page 38
