Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  “What my brother the Marquis has done I cannot say: but I can answer for my Uncle Rivers and my step-brother here that they’re innocent of any such matters.”

  Duke Henry had had his chance then. Kneeling once more, with great reverence, he said in a sure deep voice: “They have kept their dealings in these matters far from the knowledge of your good Grace.”

  It was true, too, but the boy naturally had not believed it. They rode back to Northampton again, Duke Richard silent, and the new King, as might be seen in his face, sulky and frightened at the same time. England, reflected the Duke of Buckingham, could find two hundred thousand fighting-men if the need were great enough. She is the seat of two Archbishops, and Calais, Ireland and Wales are vassals to her. Her royal revenue is almost one hundred thousand pounds a year: all in the hands of this brat when he shall have reached sixteen.

  They sat at supper now, and Duke Henry beguiled himself by imagining what the cook’s expression would be if he were suddenly arrested for high treason in having attempted to poison the King and his two premier noblemen. The presence of the new monarch in person had finally unhinged the landlord and all those about him, so that the Duke of Gloucester’s retainers had had to take charge of the business, rigging up an old altar-cloth borrowed from the nearest church as a cloth of estate, begging or stealing waxlights from the same source to replace the rush tapers; appealing at once to the loyalty and Christian charity of the Mayor for some drinkable wine. They had made a fair job of it; but oh God, thought Duke Henry, might they not have taken charge of the kitchen as well? The meal was in every respect a nasty one. King Edward V sat in the raised chair that they had placed for him, with his uncle of Gloucester on his right and his cousin of Buckingham on his left. He was a handsome lad, Duke Henry saw, with his long, delicately-boned face and lovely hair, but the viciousness of his mouth and the cunning cock of his eyebrows were not reassuring. He had been kept, during the last years of the Rose of Rouen’s life, embosomed at Ludlow in the thick of his Wydvylle kin like a young Turk in a seraglio, Lord Rivers’ transparent excuse for the game being that, the Welch Marches having grown wild, the authority of the Prince’s presence would restrain ill-disposed persons from the boldness of their former outrages. Everyone in England but the King had recognised this as a device for keeping him wholly under the influence of his mother’s family: and to all appearances it had been a successful one. The boy was Wydvylle to the ends of his hair, if obvious pertness and slyness were signs to go by.

  A dish of pigeons was the best thing on the table tonight; at least did not taste as though the Northampton cooks belonged to the same guild as the Northampton cord-wainers. He bent politely forward toward the King.

  “Has your Grace deigned to try these birds yet? They are very tasty.”

  The boy’s too-small blue-green eyes flicked sideways at him with a look between fright and dislike. His cheeks flushed.

  “No, they’re not.”

  “As your Grace says.”

  “Nothing’s tasty in this horrid kennel. We had good food at Stony Stratford.”

  “Indeed I fear the fare at this poor inn is not worthy of your good Grace.”

  “Well, then, why did you bring me here? Why have you come and spoiled everything and meddled and taken my Uncle Anthony away?”

  “Alas, my dear liege, it was necessary for the welfare of your realm to do these things. Your Grace will understand and thank us one day. We shall convey your Grace up to London as soon as may be, and there you shall have everything that becomes a King.”

  “I want my Uncle Anthony, and I’ll have him, too. You daren’t stop me. You’ll be sorry for this when you get to London. If you’re taking me there, why have you brought me back to this hateful town? It’s a dungheap. It’s a dirty dungheap.”

  “It is a poor place, I know, your good Grace, but for your own sake it was necessary that you should pass to-night here.”

  “And I wonder you dare to show yourself here, my Lord of Buckingham. I’ve heard this is where your old traitor of a grandfather was killed fighting for the Lancastrians against my father the King.”

  Christ, thought Duke Henry, if for five minutes this brat could cease to be King and for those five minutes I could have a birch in my hand. Duke Richard of Gloucester had been sitting quite silent during their talk. Now he turned toward the King to say in his persuasive voice:

  “But all the same, your Grace has not tried these pigeons yet and they are really very good.”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “You are very right not to over-eat, nephew. Never eat more than your belly asks for, however good the food is. Though God knows, the food’s poor enough here. Sir James Tyrrel” — he crooked a ringed finger toward the thoughtful-looking young man at the lower end of the board — “Sir James Tyrrel, take a dish of pigeon up to my Lord Rivers, if you please. Salute him from me and tell him he must not despair. All will be well enough, yet.”

  Sir James Tyrrel bowed and went out, followed by a servant with a heaped plate. Duke Richard spoke to his nephew again:

  “Your Grace, I know you are angry with me and your cousin of Buckingham, because we’ve had this ugly duty of arresting men who are dear to you. You are right to be angry at first. It is a Prince’s duty to protect his friends. But my dear nephew, won’t you believe me, your uncle, when I tell you that we have only done what we must do? You can see now I bear your Uncle Rivers no malice.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Think a moment, nephew. You have a good wit of your own. Use it like a King. Kings must know how to read their subjects’ minds by their acts. If I had any malice against your Uncle Rivers, I could have done what I pleased with him this morning. I could even have taken his life.”

  “You couldn’t. You’d ’ve been afraid of me and my step-brother at Dorset. When we get to London he’ll punish you. I’ll tell him to punish you. I’m the King.”

  “You are the King, your Grace. You are my liege Lord, the King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, Prince of Wales, Duke of Lancaster and Cornwall, Earl of March. Do you know what that means?”

  The boy hid his face behind the rim of the vast silver cup, big as a helmet, that he was drinking out of. He had insisted on taking the rough heady Burgundy that was the mayor’s best liquor, and had had the cup refilled twice. He took another gulp and said:

  “Yes, it means you’re my subject and I can punish you.”

  “It means that, certainly, nephew: but it means more too. It means that tens of thousands of very brave men have died terribly — shot with arrows, stabbed, crushed, broken to pieces — in order that you, at twelve years old, may sit at the head of this table under your cloth of state. You do not remember your grandfather, my father. I only just remember him myself. He was a small man, as I am, but with yellow hair. He was a wonderfully brave captain, and he was killed fighting in order that his children and grandchildren might have the crown that was rightfully theirs. The old Queen, Marguerite of Anjou, and Black Clifford besieged him in his Castle of Sandal. My father could have stayed safe behind the walls until your father, God rest his soul, came up from the Welch Marches and rescued him. But instead, he chose to fight in the open, and was killed. My brother Edmund of Rutland was killed with him. Almighty Jesus, grant them and all my brethren who are now passed unto thee the light of thy mercy.”

  He spoke the last words in a quick mutter; crossed himself and went on:

  “But that was only the beginning. English blood was shed in seas and rivers before the white rose of York could flower. You have been told, perhaps, that I am a captain who loves a field. God forgive me if that is true. Those who have seen fighting know what fighting is, and I do swear by St. Paul it was never any happiness for me to see dead Englishmen, whether they were Lancastrians or Yorkists. It is a miserable thing when men of one race kill each other. There is no glory in it, nephew. When you are a man you shall fight the French or the savage Scots. For a King to punish his people�
�s enemies and protect his realm from them is honourable and according to God. But these civil battles that we have had too many of in old England: they are of the devil. It’s right enough that the leaders and chief doers, the false noblemen who rise against the King’s dignity, should be punished for their treason. But think of the common men, nephew, who follow a great Lord’s banner, perhaps not even knowing whom they are to fight or for what cause: the twenty-seven thousand dead of Towton and the poor souls the great Warwick captained to their undoing at Barnet. They were your father’s subjects, your subjects now. Have you never heard, have they never taught you, the noble words your father said to the commons of England at his first Parliament?”

  “No,” said the boy sulkily, “I never heard them.”

  “Then hear them now. For the faithful and loving hearts, and also for the great labour, that you have borne and sustained towards me in the recovering of my right and title, which I now possess, I thank God with all my heart; and if I had any better to reward you withal than my body, you should have it: the which shall always be ready for your defence, neither sparing nor letting for any jeopardy. I know these words of his by rote, nephew, and you certainly should know them. Those were your father’s words, Lord Jesus rest him; and that is what it is to be a King: to defend with your very body, and whatever more than your body you can anyhow command, the peace of your subjects.”

  The boy shifted in his chair, scowling, his mouth drooping.

  “What then?”

  “This then: an infinity of good English blood has been poured out to make you King. See you to it. See that no more needs to be poured out to keep you King. Let no affection of yours, no hatred of yours, begin a civil tumult again. Defend your realm against its cruellest enemies of all: the wicked men who would take advantage of your callowness, for their own private profit, to stir up discord. Your Grace, I have told you I mean your Uncle Rivers no harm that can be avoided. But he and certain other persons, God amend them, grudge because your father made me Protector during your infancy. They have plotted — and my Lord of Buckingham can give you proof of it — to start the old madness of civil war afresh, to kill me and the other noble men of the old blood and to throw this realm back into the miseries of Henry of Windsor’s day. They told you nothing of it. What did you know of the Marquis of Dorset’s insolence in seizing your own fortress of the Tower Royal, of the barrels of harness hidden in the very baggage that came up with you from Ludlow? Your Grace, I tell you that yesterday, though you, the King, were as ignorant of it as a monk in a cloister, your realm of England was on the edge of civil war again. You are King to no other purpose but to prevent that. You are to prevent it, at whatever cost to your own affections, as your most sacred duty to God and your father’s soul.”

  Duke Henry of Buckingham almost shouted applause. Eloquence and the fitting together of words were the chief interest of his days, and he could admire them in another as well as in himself. Duke Richard’s soft winning voice had kept him so attentive that the food had congealed on his plate. If any man can put an honest purpose into this brat, he thought, then it’s his uncle. Can even he, though? The puppy’s been so guided by his mother’s relatives that he talks and acts as though he were five, not twelve. No will, no wits: and in four years he’ll be of age. The saints help England then. The boy was not flushed now; was pale and looked more frightened than ever. He opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking. Then Sir James Tyrrel was bowing at the Duke of Gloucester’s elbow.

  “Your Grace, I conveyed your message to Lord Rivers and he thanked you, but required me to carry the dish to his nephew, Sir Richard Grey, with the same message for his comfort. He thinks he has more need of comfort, as one to whom such adversity is strange: but he himself has been inured to it all his life and can bear it better.”

  Duke Richard nodded: but then the young King’s voice broke out, as shrill as a yelp.

  “You see, dear uncle, my Lord Anthony knows you too well. He’s not blinded by pretty talk. I suppose he thinks you meant to poison him.”

  Duke Henry gasped. Sir James Tyrrel, standing impassive as an image in his black mourning-clothes, tightened his lips. But Duke Richard twisted a ring on his finger and smiled sideways at his nephew.

  “And so sends the poison to his nephew to swallow? That’s a bad uncle. No, your Grace, I do not think Lord Rivers is so silly or so unchristian as to suspect me of poisoning.”

  “Who are you to call your anointed King silly and unchristian?”

  The boy was nearly crying with temper. There were tears in his eyes. This time Duke Henry could not control himself.

  “Your Grace is not anointed yet.”

  “But I shall be: and then you’ll all be sorry. I’ll take your titles away from you. I will. I’ll have you beheaded. You’re both traitors, traitors, traitors.”

  The tears had left his eyes for his cheeks. Duke Henry turned his face away; was blushing. The whole scene had become horrible with embarrassment. The King of England, he repeated over and over to himself, turned twelve and howling like a baby, only twelve and drunk in full sight of his servants: Lord God, what sort of a realm will England be in his time? Wouldn’t I be serving my country if I put my dagger into him at this moment? Harry of Windsor’s reign will be the Age of Gold beside what he’ll bring on us. For the first time that night he heard the Duke of Gloucester’s voice with an edge like a sword’s on it.

  “Your Grace is making a spectacle of himself in front of his subjects.”

  There was a gulp and a shuffle, very loud in the silence that had descended on the inn-hall. Duke Henry could not bring himself to look round yet.

  “Fill me another cup of wine.”

  Duke Richard’s voice was persuasive again.

  “Your Grace, you have drunk all you need. This Burgundy is very strong stuff. Try a little claret and water or some syrup.”

  “Fill me a cup of wine. Do you hear, groom? Fill me a cup of wine, damn you to hell.”

  He was shouting at the top of his voice again. Duke Henry heard a stir behind his shoulder and saw a groom lean forward unwillingly with the big wine-jack. He was about to pour from it when Duke Richard’s hand stopped him.

  “Take that wine away and bring some cordial syrup,” he said evenly.

  Then it happened. The King’s face was flushed crimson now. His greenish eyes goggled, swimming with tears of temper, and his teeth showed. He grabbed for the wine-jack with both hands, rising in his seat, but at the same moment Duke Richard’s one hand caught it whilst his other motioned the groom away. They were posed in a strange group: The young King in his blue velvet and jewels tugging and wrestling with both hands against the one hand of the Duke, who sat rigid in his chair, his fingers round the neck of the jack and his narrowed eyes fixed on his nephew. Every muscle in his face showed under the blenched skin and his whole stiff, small body jerked slightly in its seat with each tug of the infuriated boy’s arms. As he struggled with him the King was shouting in a voice that must have carried beyond the room:

  “God damn you, you whorson, God damn you, God damn you. Traitor, pig, you conspired with Clarence against my father. You damned dirty hunchback, I think you had my father poisoned. You’re a traitor, hunchback, bastard. You’re a bastard.”

  Duke Henry of Buckingham was on his feet too. He swung his hand back to the stretch of his arm. In another second, King Edward V would have taken a whirret on the ear that sent him flying. But he let go the jack in time and, with a concluding sob of “Hunchback,” flung himself down the hall and out of sight up the stairs.

  There was entire silence, so that rain could be heard prattling in the puddles and gutters of the courtyard. Everyone in the room was looking his own way, avoiding others’ looks. Duke Henry lowered himself into his chair again. The sinews at the back of his legs felt weak. After a very long while he said in a voice that he hoped might sound comforting:

  “Only an impudent boy, your Grace, frightened out of his wits: drunk too.
”

  Duke Richard did not answer. His puckered eyes and lips were barely marks in his shrunk face. He was staring at his own hand on the table in front of him. Wine had been splashed on it and trickled from his jewelled fingers in drops like blood.

  *

  It was quite dark in the room where William, Lord Hastings, entertained Jane Shore, whom he had lusted after for ten years. Curtains of double velvet shut out the London street over whose cobbles traffic no longer battered. A scent of musk and powdered violets thickened the unlit air. In the baffled exhaustion of spent appetite he moved his hands toward her under the sheets; touched her skin, which was smoother even than he had imagined it; with a tensed finger traced the miraculous line of her backbone from neck to buttocks; cupped a hand round her knee, pulling the leg towards him. She gave a small sigh, like a dog, and her head bent to his shoulder so that he could feel the harsh silkiness of hair. He had fallen like Lucifer. Ten years ago he had seen the yellow-gold hair and small firm bosom of Shore’s wife, King Edward’s concubine, and something had rolled over in him like a wheel. He knew that she would be what the other women, the dozens and scores of them, had not been. Even whilst he walked behind the six-horsed chariot that carried the dead Rose of Rouen from Westminster to Sion House, he had been thinking that Jane Shore would want a fresh protector.

  Like Lucifer: the news came last night, a mud-splashed man hammering him out of his sleep to say that the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham had uncovered a plot. The Earl of Rivers was at the head of it; had been sent North to prison with his confederates. The Queen even at that moment was flitting, with her daughters and younger son and all the valuables she could lay her claws on, from Westminster Palace to Broad Sanctuary: proof she had something ugly on her conscience. The Marquis Dorset and Sir Edward Wydvylle had bolted like rats from a threshed rick out of the Tower and ridden God knew where.

  He stood in his bedgown, shivering in the sharp May night, and heard the best news told in England since the day of Tewkesbury. The detested house was down, gone at a breath. The Wydvylles, who had flourished like the bay-tree, were pulled up, and less blood spilt in the business than would have come from a cut finger. He breathed loudly. Somewhere in the cold North, with his legs bound to his stirrup-leathers, his continual enemy was jogging away from power and worship into oblivion. Somewhere along the Thames, in the London dark, the Queen he abominated was flapping and scurrying like a frightened hen; had got a whiff of the fox at last. Everywhere in England profound sighs of well-being would go up and men would stretch and smile and look each other in the eyes again. It was a tardy miracle, all the more marvellous because, after nineteen years of impotent loathing, a dozen headings and four bloody battles, it had come suddenly and without sword-strokes.