Katherine

by Anya Seton

  Richard sat pale and stiff upon his brightly caparisoned white horse. His crown was no more golden than his long curls, and in Cob’s eyes and those of his fellows Richard’s royal beauty shone round him like a halo. “God bless our King!” they cried. “We want no King but thee, O Richard!” All bowed their heads, and many genuflected humbly.

  The King smiled at them uncertainly and waved his hand in response, as Wat Tyler rode up to him for parley.

  A dozen nobles were gathered behind the King - those who had been with him in the Tower: the Lords Warwick and Salisbury and Sir Robert Knolles, grim fighters all three and of proven courage in war, but this aggression from a mob of despicable serfs and peasants was so alien to their experience that they had floundered this way and that, quarrelling amongst themselves.

  The King’s beloved Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, had drawn apart from the others and watched from beneath raised eyebrows, which were finely plucked as a woman’s. With delicate fingernail he flicked a tiny blob of mud off his rose-velvet cote, and as Wat Tyler approached them, de Vere sniffed ostentatiously at a scented spice ball that dangled from his wrist.

  The King’s uncle, Thomas, Earl of Buckingham, was there too, his truculent black eyes flashing, his swarthy face suffused with impotent rage, but even he had sense enough to hold his tongue and stay his sword arm until they saw what might be accomplished first by guile - and by a further measure which was even now in progress back in the Tower.

  Sudbury’s and Hales’ attempted escape by boat had gone awry earlier, ill timed and clumsily executed. The archbishop had been recognised by rebel guards on St. Catherine’s Hill and had regained the safety of the Tower just in time. But not for long. As the King left for Mile End, Buckingham had issued certain orders, not mentioning them to Richard, who was often oversqueamish. Buckingham had decided that the safety of England and the crown should no longer be jeopardised by two cumbersome superfluous old men.

  The little King gave no sign of fear as he nodded graciously to Wat and, after listening a while, readily gave the verbal agreement his advisers had told him to. The abolition of serfdom and a general pardon for all the rebels - these were what the tiler demanded first, and “Ay - it shall be done!” cried Richard in his high, pretty, childish voice. “The charters shall be prepared, ye shall have them on the morrow.”

  This was not all that John Ball and Wat had drawn up as their requirements. It did not answer their demands for the abolition of private courts, for freedom of contract, disendowment of the clergy, land at fourpence an acre rent, but Wat thought it better not to press for too much at once. These other matters could wait, since the greater part of their glorious goal had been so comfortably achieved.

  He seized Richard’s hand and kissed it vehemently. Then he jumped on his horse and standing in the stirrups shouted to the silent straining mob, “The King has agreed there’s to be no more bondage!”

  “Free?” whispered Cob, swallowing. A shiver ran down his back. No more hiding in the forests or the City. No more heriot fine, no fines, no boon-work. He could go back to Kettlethorpe and do as he pleased on his own croft. He could keep his ox and earn money for his labour. A freeman.

  “I didn’t rightly believe ‘twould ever happen,” he whispered. He put his knuckles to his eyes, and a sob rose in his throat. All around him men were leaping, laughing, crying, so that it was hard to hear what else Wat said, but the tall ploughman passed it on.

  ” ‘Twill take a little time to get our charters, the parchment what’ll prove we’re free. Wat says we’d best wait on St. Catherine’s Hill.”

  Cob nodded, for he could not speak

  He and many others took their time about wandering back to the City. The sun shone on them, the earth of the road was brown and warm beneath their feet, and the brooks gurgled joyfully through the meadows. The leaping wild excitement died down and they smiled at each other quietly, their eyes shining. Some sprawled upon the grass apart, thinking with fast-beating hearts of the manors they had left, the anxious waiting wives and children, and how it would be when they got home, free and safe. The King had said so.

  Cob heard the martial beat of music as he reached their camp at last and crowded up to watch. A procession came through the postern gate from Tower Hill. John Ball led it on his mule, Wat Tyler and Jack Strawe followed on their horses, and behind them came seven proudly grinning members of the fellowship, each bearing a dripping head set on a pole. They marched triumphantly to the blithe rhythm of the pipes and tabors, and they held the heads high so all could see.

  Cob wormed his way up to the front and gaped with the others. The first head that went by had belonged to Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury. You could tell that, for they had jammed his jewelled mitre down over the grey tonsure, and fastened it to the skull with a long nail.

  “How’d they get him?” Cob cried startled; several of the new-comers echoed him.

  A Kentishman behind answered them: “We got the old rat in the Tower chapel - when we broke in an hour back. And there’s Hales too.”

  The treasurer’s head was mangled and still bled profusely. “That cursed prior sold his life dear,” said the Kentishman, “we’d trouble with him.”

  Four other heads passed by, then Cob stiffened and squinted. “Ah, I know that one,” he said pointing to the seventh. ” ‘Tis from yesterday at the Savoy.”

  “Ay,” said the Kentishman, laughing. “They say ‘twas John o’ Gaunt’s own Grey Friar and leech. Some daft broke-jawed weaver had it, and wouldn’t give it up, but Wat recognised it and said since we didna get the Duke, we must show off his friar instead.”

  The rebel camp that Friday night was happy one. A few charters of freedom began to be delivered from the King, and most of those who received them set off at once for home.

  John Ball spent the night on his knees before the cross that was placed on St. Catherine’s Hill, thanking God for the victories they had won.

  The King too and his meinie spent most of the night in prayer, but it was no prayer of thanksgiving.

  Richard had cried out in horror when he found what had happened at the Tower in his absence at Mile End, he had wept for the gentle old archbishop and been frightened for his mother, whom the rebels had bespoken roughly but not hurt. She had fled to the royal wardrobe in Carter Lane near St. Paul’s and here Richard and his nobles joined her, in gloomiest pessimism.

  True it was that some of the rebels had gone home as they received their charters, but not nearly enough of them. Thousands still roamed the London streets looting and butchering according to their whims. And a messenger from Wat Tyler made it clear that there were still many points to be discussed, and new concessions to be granted.

  On the next morning, Saturday, Richard and his party hurriedly breakfasted in the wardrobe’s small congested Hall while they held yet another worried conference.

  “Your Grace will have to meet these accursed ribauds again, I fear,” said Lord Salisbury gravely. “We’ll never rid the City of them else. We must still play for time.”

  The Princess Joan threw down her wine cup and set up a wail, clasping Richard feverishly to her dishevelled bosom. “I’ll not let him go out to those fiends again. How dare you ask it, my lord? See how white he is and how he trembles. Jesu, would you kill your King?”

  “Nay, Mother,” said Richard wanly, struggling out from her smothering embrace. “I’m weary, of course, and sick at heart, but there’s no cause to fear them. They love me,” he said with a faint proud smile.

  “God’s passion!” cried Thomas of Woodstock, clenching his hairy hand on his sword. “That we were strong enough to wipe them all out now, and have done with them!”

  Richard gazed distastefully at his uncle, whom he loathed, and thought that if his eldest uncle, John, were here, matters might not have gone so badly for them as they had. But that it was equally fortunate that Edmund had sailed for Portugal before the uprising, for Edmund was a muddle-headed ass.

  �
�We might risk open fight,” said Sir Robert Knolles, knitting his jutting grey brows, “but ‘twould be safer to put it off a day or two until we can raise more men. This has come to us so fast-” He shook his head.

  “Blessed Virgin, but how fast!” cried the Princess, beginning to weep again. “Only two days of this terror and it seems - dear God, I can scarce remember when it started.”

  She wrung her hands, remembering the first moment that she had felt fear, Thursday morning, when she had looked from her turret window in the Tower and seen the Savoy on fire, and then fires everywhere - in Southwark, in Clerkenwell, in Highbury.

  “Ay, Your Grace,” said Salisbury decisively to the King. “You must meet the rebels again, this afternoon. We’ll tell them to come to Smithfield this time, ‘tis nearer.”

  That afternoon Wat led his men towards the new rendezvous at Smithfield. He had been temperate these past days when he knew so much depended on clear thinking, but now, with complete victory all but won, he had been lustily celebrating, drinking mug after mug out of a cask of rich vernage that some of his men had taken from a Lombard’s cellar.

  It had been impossible to continue enforcing the prohibition against all thievery, or to keep a watchful eye on so many men. Besides, the Lombards like the Flemings didn’t count. They were lucky if they kept their heads, let alone their wine.

  Wat had made himself fine for this second interview with the King. He had donned a fashionable red-and-blue-striped tunic that had belonged to one of the decapitated merchants and a golden velvet cap furred with ermine, such as only lords were allowed to wear; and he carried in a jewelled sheath at his girdle a nobleman’s dagger. For now that all men were to be free and equal, a tiler could dress as he pleased to do honour to his King, and his own leadership.

  Wat and John Ball rode from the rebel camp at the head of their forces, but Jack Strawe lay sodden in a tavern and did not appear. Wat traversed the blood-soaked pavement of the

  Chepe and turned up towards Aldersgate and Smithfield. The sun beat down hot, and his face dripped beneath the velvet cap, but the wine bubbled pleasingly in his veins and he began to sing:

  The mill is now alight!

  It turneth full o’ might

  Wi’ will and wi’ skill

  We swinked at our mill

  Till it goeth right, right, right!

  “Good times be a-coming for all, m’dear,” cried Wat exuberantly, turning his flushed face on John Ball, who rode silently beside him.

  “Ay, as God hath willed it,” said the priest solemnly. “Wat, ye’re something drunk. Have a care now how ye handle yourself with the King.”

  Wat grinned. “King and me’s good friends. We understand each other. Mayhap King’ll dub me a lord this day. Lord Wat I’ll be. Lord Walter o’ Maidstone.” He chuckled happily.

  The priest shook his head and said nothing.

  They rode on into Smithfield, where horse markets and tournaments were usually held, and the peasant forces poured in after them to line up in rows along the western side.

  Cob was in the vanguard. He shinned up a little apple tree that stood on the edge of the great parade ground, for he was determined to see all that took place this time, and have a good look at the King. That would be something to tell them in the alehouse at Kettlethorpe. With luck he’d be the first one home with the glorious news. “You’re free, men, all o’ ye, and I saw the King twice when he said so!” To be sure, nobody from the northern counties had got any charters yet, but Cob didn’t see the need of writing to confirm the King’s word. He had almost started for home last night, but had waited to see the meeting today when Wat was going to get for them a lot more liberties. Game and forest laws were to be abolished, so everyone could hunt where he pleased; all outlaws were to be pardoned, and a lot more wonderful things that a man had never dared to dream of.

  Richard had sixty men with him today, knights and lords in flashing armour, and as he rode to the east side of the field near St. Bartholomew’s walls, his heralds’ trumpets sounded with a flourish. Then the King, wasting no time, rode out to the centre of the field, accompanied by Mayor Walworth and a squire. The mayor beckoned to Wat, who trotted up blithely and, dismounting, bobbed his knee to Richard, before seizing the boy’s hand in his great hairy workman’s paw and shaking it vigorously.

  On the edge of the field the watching lords stiffened at this effrontery, and the mayor tightened his grasp on his sharp three-edged cutlass.

  “Brother,” cried Wat, beaming up at the King, “be o’ good cheer, lad, here’s near forty thousand commons I’ve brought to ye, for we be staunch comrades, you and me.”

  Richard withdrew his pale small hand from the tiler’s sweating clasp and said with childish earnestness, “Why won’t you all go home to your own places?”

  Wat drew back and swaggering a little said, “By God’s skin and bones, how can we go home till we all get our charters? For sure ye see that, King, don’t ye? And there’s more grants we must have too!”

  “What are they?” asked Richard quietly.

  The tiler drew himself up and ticking each off on his stumpy fingers rehearsed all the demands that he and John Ball had been discussing for weeks.

  When he had finished, Richard inclined his small, crowned head and said quickly. “You shall have all this. ‘Tis granted.”

  Wat drew a great exulting breath, yet uneasiness penetrated his fuddled wits. The King’s young face was unsmiling, the bright blue Plantagenet eyes were narrowed, and not as friendly as Wat had thought them.

  “Now I command that you shall all go home,” said Richard sternly.

  “Sure, sure we will,” said Wat, but he was dismayed. The comradeship, the equality had somehow disappeared, and he tried to recapture them. He mounted his horse, so that he should be on a level with the King. “Me throat’s dry as a bone, King,” he cried. “How about a spot o’ wine, how say ye? Shall we share a drink to seal the pact?”

  Over Richard’s delicate face hot colour flowed. He gestured to his squire, who ran and dipped water from a well near the priory and bringing the dipperful back to Wat, held it out to him with sneering insolence.

  “Water? Phaw!” cried the discomfited tiler, seeing that the King had drawn away from him. Wat glared at the squire, slobbered up a great mouthful and with a vulgar noise squirted it out again on to the dust.

  “By God!” cried the young squire. “This greatest knave and robber in all Kent, look at the respect he shows the King’s Grace!”

  Wat started and his hand flew to his dagger. “What was that ye called me?”

  “Knave and robber!” shouted the squire.

  Wat pulled his dagger, and kicking his horse, charged - not at the King as it might seem - but past him towards the squire, who ran.

  The mayor had been waiting for a chance. He spurred his horse, crying, “So, ribaud, you’d draw steel against your King!” and with his cutlass slashed sideways down at Wat, carving deep into his shoulder. The tiler staggered, plunging his dagger blindly at the mayor but it glanced off the coat of mail.

  Richard’s horse reared and snorted, and the boy pulled him in and away from Wat, who lay thrashing on the ground, while Walworth and the squire hacked at him with furious blows of sword and cutlass.

  “What’s happening?” cried voices from the rebel side. “Wat’s down, what is’t?” And someone else, seeing a sword flash, cried, “The King is knighting Wat!”

  Cob from his tree saw differently. Soon they all saw - Wat’s terrified horse galloped across the field dragging the tiler’s dying, bleeding body by the stirrup.

  “Christe, Christe!” cried John Ball in a voice of agony. “They’ve killed Wat!”

  The rebel army stood gaping, paralysed. The lords across Smithfield drew back white-faced and murmuring. Richard sat his horse stiffly in the centre of the field. Then there was a ripple of movement down the rebel line. Here and there a bowman unslung his bow uncertainly and drew arrow from his quiver. No one else moved. T
hey waited for some signal, but none came.

  Richard looked at the bow-tips that twinkled in the sun, the arrows being slowly notched and pointing down the field at him. He flung his head back and dug the golden spurs of knighthood into his horse’s flanks. He galloped straight towards the rebel lines and shouted, “So now I shall be your leader, as you wished me to!”

  The bowstrings slackened. The rebels looked at one another, at Wat’s body and up at the shining crowned youth who beckoned to them.

  “Ay!” they cried. “Our little King is leader! Richard! Richard! We hold wi’ you, Richard!”

  A bondsman from Essex ran out from the crowd, cast himself to his knees and kissed Richard’s foot. The King looked down at him and smiled.

  The mayor had galloped up behind and pulling his horse near said in a low voice, “Lead them to Clerkenwell, Your Grace, and keep them there, I’ll soon be up with reinforcements.” He spurred his horse and headed into town.

  “Follow me, good people!” Richard called. “Follow now your King!”

  The peasant army gazed up at him with confiding trust. Had he not given them their freedom? Had he not shown himself their friend? Richard wheeled his horse and started off up along the Fleet towards the open farmlands, past the smoking ruins of the treasurer’s priory that they had fired.

  When Walworth and Sir Robert Knolles arrived later with troops and the hastily summoned citizenry, the mayor also bore with him Wat the tiler’s head mounted on a pike. The rebels stared at Wat’s head in terror and turning again to the King begged for mercy, which he sweetly granted, looking like the young St. George himself as he smiled at them all and accepted their homage.

  The peasants’ great revolt was ended.

  They dispersed fast and were permitted to leave, most of them exceeding joyful, for they had their charters and the King’s word that they were free; and when they understood that Wat had drawn a traitor’s dagger against the King, they conceded that his death had been inevitable. Nor did those who lingered deem it unfitting when they looked back and saw that the King was knighting Mayor William Walworth.