The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Lady Westmorland was aware of sudden tears in her eyes. 'I came to tell you I do not give any credit to the stories about poor Eleanor. It is all a farrago of nonsense, I am sure, and you will soon have her home again.'

  'I don't know,' he said, 'I know nothing any more. I've written to her many times, but whether she has ever received my letters I can't tell. If she has they've not allowed her to answer.'

  'That is cruel. I'll speak to Henry about it.' She looked up into her nephew's face. 'Humfrey, you look ill. I hope you are not spending all your time shut in your library. You must keep your health.'

  He gave her a wry smile. 'I have a watch dog in Elys. He drives me out at least once a day to walk here or ride in the park, but the days are long. I don't seem even to be able to lose myself in my books.'

  She could not keep the tears from running down her cheeks. 'We are all doing what we can. When my cousin York was home from Normandy he spoke to the King, he told Henry not to listen to the venom your enemies dropped in his ear. Indeed I thought he would come to blows with Lord Cromwell if my brother had not stood between to cool tempers.'

  'What, the Cardinal acting on my behalf?' Humfrey queried. 'How very strange.'

  'I don't know about that,' Joan said honestly. 'I know he has never been your friend, but it was Lord Cromwell who was offensive and Richard told him so too.'

  'Richard is a good friend.'

  'And you have many others. You will see – all will be righted.'

  Her optimism cheered him and he walked with her to her barge, grateful for the loyal affection that had brought her. The poet bowed over his hand and wished him well, for once bereft of the right words, but as Humfrey walked slowly back to the house he was less than sanguine. He had too many enemies for much hope.

  A special commission to try the case was set up in the autumn and a few days before the trial on a misty autumn afternoon he was sitting alone in his library when a barge drew up at the landing stage. The Archbishop alighted and came hurrying up towards the house in great haste. Humfrey went to meet him.

  'I have told them,' he began, dispensing with any greeting, 'I have told them all, the King as well, that I'll have no part in it. I was named to head the commission as you know, but we have been friends too long, my lord Duke, for me to turn my hand against you now.'

  'Thank you,' Humfrey said unsteadily. They were still standing on the steps to the great door. 'Tell me, how is it to be done?'

  'The trial is set for next week,' Chichele added reluctantly, 'My lords of Suffolk and Stafford and Lord Cromwell are to sit in judgement.'

  'My most determined enemies! Good God, they are not wasting their chances.'

  'And they have found that woman, Margery Jourdemayne. Everyone knows her for a witch and she it seems will testify that your lady consulted her often.'

  For a moment the steps heaved beneath Humfrey. He caught hold of the door jamb to support himself and then with an effort said, 'But I am keeping you in the cold, my lord. Come in and take some wine to warm you.'

  He brought the old man to his favourite book-lined room and they sat before the fire while George Ashley poured wine for them and then discreetly withdrew.

  The Archbishop looked weary and anxious for the hurried journey had tired him and he was finding his office a burden these days. He sipped his wine, holding the cup in skeletal fingers; his episcopal ring was too large now and he was perpetually having to slide it back over his knuckle. 'I cannot begin to tell you how grieved I am,' he said, 'I can only say, my son, that no one who knows you believes you in any way tainted by those dreadful accusations.'

  'No?' Humfrey gave him a wry smile. 'Perhaps not, but my enemies will use them to finish me. They have been despicable enough to bring me down through my lady.'

  'If she is cleared –'

  'Do you think it possible?'

  Henry Chichele sighed. 'No, my lord, I fear not. The case is black, the witnesses there, but if there is nothing too positive it may be that she will be given no more than a nominal sentence. A woman persuaded by evil men, by a known witch, may gain some mitigation.'

  'Oh God,' Humfrey said, 'I pray so constantly. Yet I am afraid. Only He knows how I fear.' He raised his face to the Archbishop's. 'Is it my sin that has brought this on us? Am I being punished?'

  'For what?' Chichele asked gently.

  Humfrey looked down again into the crackling flames of the fire. 'So much. My past has not been to my credit, I think. I left Jacqueline to her fate – I know now I never wanted to go back; once I had Eleanor I cared for no one else – and before that, there were many women and wild nights, and I was greedy for feasting and seldom had my head out of the swill pot. And much of what I have done as a Prince of the realm I did for myself, though I always made it seem as if it was for the people's good.'

  The Archbishop set down his glass and his voice grew even more kindly. 'My son, you must not over-abuse yourself. You see your faults clearly and that is the sign of a true penitent, but you have done much that is good. Would so many love you as they surely do otherwise?'

  Humfrey sighed. 'Will that avail me now? I think not.'

  'But I at least have made it clear where I stand in this. Your enemies know that I condemn them for their treatment of the Duchess.'

  'I am grateful,' Humfrey said, 'God knows how grateful I am, but it is hard that such misfortune should strike us now. Perhaps Suffolk and my uncle and the rest have but waited their chance. Certainly they have never forgiven me over the business of Orléans' release. Will the King do aught to help us?'

  Chichele shook his head. 'He pities you but he says he cannot interfere.'

  'He would have made a better monk than King,' Humfrey burst out and then fell silent, his head on his hand. The Archbishop said nothing but sat contemplating this man whom he had always loved – impulsive, rash, often unwise and sometimes short­sighted, nevertheless Chichele saw the generosity, the genuine kindness, the eagerness to study, to patronize men of learning, to give poor scholars a chance to rise. He saw much that was good to outshine the obverse side of the coin and when presently he returned to his palace it was to spend a long time on his knees in petition for his friend.

  But the Archbishop’s protest made little difference. The men who were determined to control the King and the Council had set the wheels in motion and now nothing could stop the process of law. When the morning of the trial came, cold and with a low mist hanging over the river, Humfrey rose from his sleepless bed and stood by the window looking out. He could hear a boatman's voice calling his trade but eerily he could see nothing, a tree seemed to be growing rootlessly out of the swathes of whiteness, and the only other sound came from a few gulls wheeling above. For a moment he leaned his head against the stone window embrasure. Dear God, how was he going to get through today? How was he going to sit in comfort by his fire while a few miles away Eleanor faced her judges in peril of her life? They had refused to let him be present – he had hardly expected otherwise – and he could not face riding to Westminster and the humiliation of waiting outside a closed door. Was he failing her in that? He did not know, yet somehow he sensed she would not want for either of them the shame of being kept apart by an armed guard. That would be the last satisfaction for their enemies. He gave a heavy sigh and called for John Patrick to shave and dress him.

  All day he waited, alone in his library. He could take no food, only a little wine; he tried to read but the words meant nothing. In the afternoon Antigone came for a little while. She was heavily pregnant and had promised her husband she would return before dark, but she sat for an hour beside her father on a small stool, her head against his knee. She was a quiet girl and said little, but her love comforted him and he sat stroking her hair in silence. After she had gone he felt even more alone, the house empty without Eleanor's vital presence, and it was almost dark when at last he heard the sound of hooves outside. He rose, steadying himself with one hand on the magnificent chimneypiece where his shield was carved in
stone.

  Elys came in and Humfrey asked, 'Is it over?'

  'Aye, my lord.'

  'And the verdict?'

  Elys stood by the door, not knowing how to break the news. All during the ride through the dank afternoon his head had been drumming with the day's hearings, relayed to him by a friendly clerk. His honest mind revolted from all that had been said, from the accusations listed by Master Adam Moleyns, clerk to the King's Council – witchcraft, heresy, blasphemy, treason, things from which he had all his life turned in horror with a hasty signing of himself. Obversely, hardly knowing why, he began with what his lord least wanted to know.

  'Bolingbroke is to be hanged and quartered, sir, and may God curse him for the day he brought his foul arts into your house. Master Southwell too. And as for the woman Jourdemayne, she is to be burned for the witch she is.'

  'For God's sake!' Humfrey felt nauseated, dizzy. 'Tell me –'

  Elys came forward. 'I pray God,' he burst out, 'that they all suffer eternal damnation for what they have done to your lady. Oh, she stood straightly before her judges, my lord – so my friend Peter told me – she would not deny she had had recourse to magic, but she said it was never to encompass any evil. All she would yield to them was that she was willing to submit to the judgment of the Bishops.'

  'Oh Jesu!' Humfrey thought again of the Maid, of the mean eyes of Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, the sternness of his own brother John.

  'What will they do to her? Not the fire – Jesu, not the fire?'

  'No, no, my lord,' Elys said hastily. 'She is to do penance, in three different places in London, to Paul's, I think, and then Christchurch in Aldgate, and after that St Michael's in Cornhill. Only simple penance, on foot with a lighted taper.'

  'And then?' Humfrey's voice was no more than a croak.

  'Then –' Elys lowered his gaze, compassion ousting all other feelings. Of all the things he had done for his lord, this was the hardest, and yet he was suddenly glad that because of the long years of friendship it was he who stood here with him in this perhaps the worst hour of his life. He tried to give comfort, 'She is to be imprisoned, sir, for life, but do not give up hope. At least she will be safe and in time, surely –'

  Humfrey put up a hand to his head. There seemed to be a swirling noise in his ears and the floor was heaving. The suspense, the dreadful anxiety coupled with lack of food proved too much. He clutched at his chest and then reeled over at Elys's feet.

  The scandal of the trial, the tales told there, the burning of the Duchess of Gloucester's accomplices rocked the country. No one at Court talked of anything else, except in the King's presence for he forbade any mention of it. He had read Humfrey's impassioned letter pleading for his intervention, for the royal prerogative of mercy, but merely sent a verbal reply that offences against Holy Church were not under his jurisdiction. Humfrey did not leave his bed at Greenwich and the King was at Windsor when two weeks later, Eleanor walked in penance through the streets of London. The city was seething with curiosity coupled with sympathy for their duke, and they packed the streets to see his unfortunate lady pass by.

  Elys and Arthur and William the herald were there, crammed into a corner by a tavern door at the foot of Cornhill. It was cold, the November day raw and both wished themselves elsewhere, but they had come at the Duke's request.

  Arthur shivered and blew on cold fingers. 'I don't like it that we seem to be here to stare at such misfortune.'

  'Nor do I,' William answered, 'but there is so much sympathy for our lord in the city that I doubt his lady will have to suffer as we've seen some do.' He thought of a harlot whipped at the carttail, of a tailor in the stocks for cheating and pelted with rotten eggs and filth, of a man hanged for stealing, and the jeers and taunts of the crowd. Surely it could not be like that today? Maybe the feelings of the crowd were less kindly towards the Duchess who was inclined to be arrogant towards them, but even so their love for their Duke must surely restrain them from adding to his Duchess's pain. He leaned against the wall, arms folded, and an elderly fat woman squeezed between him and Elys.

  'Make a bit o' space for me,' she demanded and grinned, showing broken teeth. 'We all want to see.'

  'Then keep a civil tongue in your head,' Elys retorted. 'God save us, is it you, Betty?'

  'Aye.' She peered at him. I remember you! Elys Foxton, isn't it? Duke Humfrey's man? Ah, the old days – when I was young and kept my bed warm for the Duke. I haven't seen him these many years, except once when he rode by. Is he much changed?'

  'Older,' Elys said, 'and tired and hurt. And he has been ill. This is his son.'

  Betty turned her rheumy eyes on Arthur. 'Oh, yes, I can see that, my young fellow. You are very like him. What pretty whore bore you, eh? I know he has none by either of his Duchesses.'

  'My mother lived in Canterbury,' Arthur had flushed, 'and she was no whore. The Duke was her only lover.'

  Betty cackled. 'Then she managed better than I did, or worse, depending on how you look at it.'

  She came closer, leering up at him. 'Is it true the Lady Eleanor made an image o' the King and drew out its hair and thrust pins into it?'

  'No,' Arthur said violently. 'That is a lie, a wicked hellish lie.'

  'Then for why is she doing penance for all to see?'

  'Because there are men that hate our master,' Elys snapped and then regretted his harshness, for how should she understand?

  There was the sound of a drum now and a rising hubbub in the crowd. Everyone craned forward and Arthur being of a good height and able to see better than Elys said, 'They're coming – there's the Sheriff.'

  A slow procession had turned the corner, the Sheriffs officers going in front to clear the way. It was led by a single drummer beating out a dull rhythm, and then flanked by two priests came the Duchess. Her long dark hair was unbound and covered only by a white kerchief. She wore nothing but a white shift that fell to her ankles and she walked barefoot over the cold stones. Sometimes she shivered so much that her teeth chattered and the heavy two pound taper shook in her hand, its flame flickering uncertainly, but she walked steadily, her head erect, her eyes fixed on the drummer's back. Behind her half a dozen choristers sang the Miserere – Have mercy on me, 0 God – their voices high and thin and the sound of their chant mingled with the beating of the drum caused Betty hastily to sign herself.

  'Poor lady. Jesu, to have to walk so in the cold and with folk staring! I pity her.'

  Eleanor stumbled and Elys saw blood on one foot but her pride would not let her cry out. He thanked God his lord was not here to see it, for it would not be an easy sight to forget. He had a sudden picture in his mind of Eleanor at the supper table, entertaining the highest in the land, everything of the most costly – and now she was come to this. How he had hated her. Yet even he had not visualized such an ending. She stumbled again and one of the priests steadied her. Still looking neither to right nor left she drew level with the little group by the tavern. And then as if by some instinct she turned her head slightly and saw them. As recognition came so too did a question show in her face. Elys stared stonily back but William shook his head in reassurance, knowing she had not wished her husband there to witness her punishment. Arthur could keep back neither his tear nor the desire to comfort her. 'He is better, lady,' he called out, 'but he misses you sorely. God give you strength . . . we will try to –'

  He stopped because Elys had reached out and put a hand over his mouth. 'Fool! Would you put us in the Clink? What use then would we be to our master?'

  Arthur brushed his arm across his face as one of the Sheriff’s men came close, waving his drawn sword menacingly and ordering their knot of people further back. 'I can't bear it,' he said, 'to see her thus.' And even Elys at that moment could not keep back a grudging admiration for her spirit as she straightened her back and despite the biting cold for one so barely clad, the anguish of her bruised feet, she walked on to mount the steps of St Michael's.

  'They offered him a seat in
the church,' Arthur said hoarsely. 'Did you know that?'

  'Aye, I knew,' William watched as crowds of onlookers tried to force their way through the church door. 'It was my lord of Salisbury's herald who brought the message. If it were not for our code I would have beaten him for his insolent manner. They lose no chance to wound the Duke. Thank God Abbot Whethamsteade is with him today.'

  'Don't you see what they are trying to do?' Elys said in a low voice. 'My lord of Suffolk hates him and Salisbury too who's a mean grudging man, they hate him because he stands between them and the King. They hate him for trying to stop them squandering what men died to achieve, and as for Cardinal Beaufort, I'll swear he was behind the commission who condemned her to this.'

  Arthur asked miserably, 'Has my father no friends left?'

  'Friends, aye,' William nodded, 'but none in the right places this time. And,' he lowered his voice, 'the King is so pope-holy he turned his royal nose away in case he should catch a whiff of brimstone.'

  'What's that?' Betty had caught the last sentence. 'The King's his nephew. Couldn't he do something to save the Duchess from this? I thought a King could do anything.'

  'You know nothing about it,' Elys said shortly.

  'I may know naught of high affairs,' she retorted, 'but I know the Duke's a good man.'

  'Aye–aye.' Voices around took up her words. 'The Good Duke . . . He's not accused . . . God save Duke Humfrey . . . God pity his poor lady . . .'

  The crowds were chattering now, waiting for the Duchess to come out. Sellers of hot pies and sweet pastries were doing a fine trade and the tavern across the street was packed with men seizing quick refreshment before the rest of the spectacle.

  Violently Elys began to push his way towards an alley. 'I've had enough. Do you two stay?'

  Arthur shook his head and the herald said grimly, 'Not I,' but Betty caught hold of Elys's sleeve.