We Speak No Treason Vol 2 Read online

  ‘Perchance he likes well her body,’ I said gently.

  ‘He petitioned the King. Tib told me.’

  ‘Yea, he petitioned his Grace,’ I answered.

  ‘What a fool! What hope!’ she snapped. ‘She is destined to rot and die in Newgate. She wrought great treason against the King.’

  ‘Certes, that she did.’

  ‘Well?’ she said angrily. ‘What think you of that?’

  I summoned my strength. Tall, strong Margetta, I pulled her down beneath me, and bared her twin roses.

  ‘What breasts! What paps!’ I murmured. ‘There were never such in the whole realm... Jenny Shore is an empty gourd compared with this... and this...’ the robe slipped further... ‘and there was never such a Mount of Venus in the world... not even in Bruges’ (Satan on my tongue) ‘where the women are wondrous fair.’

  ‘At least I am not a traitor.’ She gave a little whine.

  ‘Nay, lady,’ said I. ‘Yet even an you were, the King would pardon you. For’—holding her tight, arms pinioned—’King Richard has written kindly to the Bishop of London regarding Jane. He would see his Solicitor-General content, and thinks that Jane has suffered over-long in gaol... He has had her removed from Newgate, to the care of her father, and says that if good Sir Thomas is still so inclined... he... shall... have her.’

  Therewith, feeling and not feeling her little rageful hands beating my back, I did such that made her cry shame, and made me exceedingly well content.

  ‘You live in the old times, sweeting. For it is surely no longer sin to love one’s own wife!’

  ‘I am a wicked, envious woman,’ she said, beginning to weep.

  ‘Come, be merry,’ I said. ‘What of my children?’

  ‘The one you gave me that kept me long in York... well, you can hear him, bawling for his sire.’ And sure enough, little Richard, for so I had named him in the King’s honour, was cutting the nearby air with lusty cries.

  ‘Josina is well. She can read better than I. But Edmund—’ here she sighed.

  ‘Tall, strong, handy with a bow already,’ I said happily.

  ‘My lord, he is past eight years,’ she said, frowning. ‘’Tis full time that he left our home. I spoke with my lady of Norfolk lately, wondering where best to place him.’

  ‘Does he still cough?’ for Edmund had a grinding in his breast that I had heard before, during the sad hot-weather days of Queen Anne. A thought grew in me, how that Anne waxed pale in London, strong in the north. The King had manors away from all dirt and disease, where henchmen were ever welcome. I began to count off Richard’s strongholds in my mind. Sheriff Hutton—his bastard John lived there, young Warwick too, and John, Earl of Lincoln, son of Richard’s sister, Elizabeth of Suffolk. Then there was Middleham, wild and beautiful; Pontefract, and Barnard Castle, where, men said, the singing-boys excelled. Edmund had a fair pure voice—he could do well.

  I called Edmund and the nurse brought him. His hair was Italian black; he looked foreign. His eyes were grey and looked through me.

  I told him he was going away.

  ‘Where, sir?’ he asked equably.

  ‘Barnard Castle, an the King sees fit.’

  ‘Yea, good Father,’ he answered, and glanced up, with the straight square look of a bowman.

  ‘Shall you speak to King Richard?’ Margetta asked.

  I deliberated.

  ‘Brackenbury has lately been made Constable of Barnard Castle as well as of the Tower,’ I said. ‘He shall speak for me.’ I looked sharply at Margetta, who was, by her countenance, ill-pleased again.

  ‘Does it not content you?’ I asked.

  ‘I was thinking about Jane Shore,’ she said. ‘Husband, is the King altogether wise? To pardon that strumpet who has wrought him such ill—to approve her marriage with such a great knight. And Stanley! See how he cherishes him, making him Constable of England in lieu of Buckingham, while it was that wife of his who worked this latest mischief. By God, he should hang them all.’

  ‘You would have made a passing fierce monarch,’ I said.

  ‘He has not even punished Lady Beaufort,’ she said. ‘Only bound her to be a good a-bearing in surety of her husband. Tib told me.’

  ‘Tib should be an agent of the Crown,’ I said a little bitterly, for some days I seemed fogged by ignorance of what was afoot.

  ‘Tib thinks the King is over-gentle,’ Margetta said, with a curious look.

  ‘Tib thinks overmuch. Tib will have her tongue in a brace,’ I said, angry.

  ‘He’s not like Edward,’ Margetta said meekly.

  ‘Does Tib know the King?’ I shouted. ‘Do you know him, my lady? Because he does not milch the City with benevolences—because he does not punish and slay willy-nilly—because he does not lie with every mercer’s wife in Bishopsgate—does he displease you? God’s Bones, lady, do you know the King?’

  Margetta raised eyes, diamond-bright.

  ‘Do you, my lord?’ she asked.

  ‘My horse!’ I shouted, and a page leaped from the hearthstone. It was because she, my wife, had touched off voiceless doubts lying ever in my mind that I shouted. She might as well have called Richard weak, and I had seen him fighting on the field, a superhuman strength within that frail body—so I was powerfully angered at her insouciance.

  ‘I will sup with Sir Robert Brackenbury,’ I said, and while she bent again, smiling, to some pretty tapestry of hawks and saints, the echo of my own anger beat at me, for who does know a King? As I rode through London, its pavements slimed with dead leaves, I thought to myself: Do I know him? Truly?

  There was a mist rising from the river, full of November rot. The tower, all four hundred years of it, hung ghostly and tall, its feet in fog, its crenellated heights almost gathered into the dark. There was a knot of common people standing beneath the walls of Garden Tower, craning upward as for a visitation. I rode on past them and dismounted at the postern gate, through which a dim red light shone. My second rap brought the sentinel peering through the bars. I asked for Sir Robert.

  ‘He is not here,’ said the guard unceremoniously.

  I knew these knaves, suspicious, well-flown with pride from sitting in their little brazier-lit cavern, jangling their keys, and kings in their own right.

  ‘Open,’ I commanded, raising my shield so that my quarterings were visible.

  He disappeared in a cacophony of creaking wards as the great lock yielded. The door groaned open, revealing familiar sights: scurrying henchmen, great hounds tearing at a bone, a fool with a popinjay, a boy sitting cross-legged, mending a shattered hauberk. A couple of pages wrestled in one corner oblivious of the fury of two Augustine friars poring over a sacred chronicle. The Constable of the Tower was absent, in truth.

  I thought of Sir James Tyrell. He would bear my message, to Sir Robert, if not to the King himself.

  ‘Not here, sir,’ said the guard.

  Well, where, then?’ I asked hotly. ‘And where is Sir Robert?’

  ‘Ridden out,’ he said, and looking down, began to whittle a piece of wood.

  ‘Take a message,’ I said, my impatience rising.

  ‘Mayhap,’ he said, not looking up.

  ‘It is important,’ I said, between my teeth.

  ‘Great knight,’ he answered, ‘I know not when Sir Robert will return. He had pressing business in the... realm.’

  The fellow was concealing something. On whose behalf I knew not, but it made me angrier. I jerked him close to me, and he stared me out, unfeared.

  ‘Do you know me?’ I asked.

  ‘Nay, sir,’ he said, still staring.

  ‘Why did you open?’

  ‘You are King Richard’s man,’ he said simply.

  I let him go. He was broad as a bull, and seemed twice as dumb. Yet his eyes were crystal clear.

  ‘Can you give this message to Sir Robert on his return?’

  ‘Yea, if he returns,’ he said.

  ‘It concerns my son. Tell him I would place him as a henchma
n. He is eight years, full strong in body and wit. Sir Robert has the wardship of Barnard Castle.’

  ‘None shall enter Barnard Castle,’ he said, swaying a little on his feet. If ever I saw one repeating a lesson, here was he. ‘There is no room for pages there. It bursts at the seams with boys, Sir Knight.’

  Fate was against me, then. This man knew more than I, it seemed. He and Tib would have made a fine pair.

  When I rode out the sky towards Westminster was flushed with red as the sun went down, and the little gathering of people still stood with their quiet talk, beneath Tower wall, pointing upward. I reined in by them, following their gaze up to the empty battlements almost completely shrouded by dusk. They talked in low tones: a carter, an old hag and a young wench who lacked only the gown of ray to play a harlot. Standing a little apart from them was a cowled monk. I caught the tail of their talk.

  ‘Up there they were,’ said the carter. ‘Each day of last Mayor’s term I watched them, shooting at the butts. And a beautiful loose had the little one; he always won.’

  ‘It’s not true, certes,’ said the young woman, and I heard her start weeping. ‘An it is, poor, poor little knaves!’

  ‘Yea, a-playing and laughing they were, lovesome and young,’ grindled the old crone. ‘Like his father, was Neddie—tall and straight. A-playing and a-growing, unto St Michael near enough.’

  The carter spat. ‘Aye, ’twas Michaelmas I saw them last—then I saw them not, and thought it naught, till this night when the brother here...’

  I saw the monk’s face, a thin arrow of white beneath his black hood. Then suddenly he spun on his heel, drew fast his robe and went with a steady measured lope across the strip of green, over the cobbles and down to the watergate, whence came presently the plash of oars, fading.

  ‘And never gave us his blessing!’ said the carter indignantly.

  They saw me, and were a little taken aback. The carter hung his head. The young wench ogled me nervously, but the old crone cried for alms, spreading her ragged skirts. I spun a groat into the darkling air.

  ‘It grows late for sight-seeing,’ I said.

  ‘Sir... we were looking for a glimpse of... King Edward’s sons.’

  ‘And did you see them?’ I asked pleasantly enough.

  ‘Not for a full moon,’ said the carter stoutly.

  The old woman came and took my stirrup in her filthy claw. She looked at me with the horrible knavish confidence of the ancient. I felt her spittle-spray.

  ‘The good brother knows,’ she whispered, fondling the coin I had thrown her.

  ‘He that was here lately?’

  She glanced down towards the dark river. ‘Yea,’ she muttered. ‘Terrible things he told—ah, tales bloody and black. He knows all manner of privy things. About the King...’

  The carter, tugging, was at her elbow. ‘Come home, Meg,’ he said, with curses. ‘Good my lord, she’s old, ale-fuddled. Now she’ll drink more, through your lordship’s aid. Dame, come away,’ he said angrily, prodding her like a sheep.

  ‘What of his Grace?’ I said. It was no longer damp, misty, chill November. It was dead winter, and I was in its grip.

  ‘Naught, sir, naught,’ said the carter, hauling Meg away.

  She struck at him, tripping on her kirtle and turning with a swift aimless rage to bawl the last of her precious message.

  ‘The shedding of infants’ blood!’ she cried, and went flapping across the green.

  So was I left, with a piece of ice in my chest and trembling so much that my horse trembled, and the young strumpet stared at me, saying: ‘Heed her not, sir,’ and looking uneasy: ‘’Twas the holy man who turned her with his talk.’

  I looked upon the river and the closing blackness.

  ‘I would speak with yonder holy man,’ I said.

  She laughed, twisting her hands together. ‘He is from afar off. Some land surrounded by water, so he said, where run the blessed streams of righteousness.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘I have never been out of London, sir.’

  My mind took up her words as a man takes up a rotting apple, and spat them out. I thought on Richard Plantagenet. My King. My wife’s voice beat at me from the shadows: ‘Husband, do you know him? Truly?’ How, in God’s Name, shall one know a King... there have been many Kings, men who lived and squandered and laughed, Kings who wept and prayed and went mad, little Kings deposed by Fortune. King Richard, in glory. All that splendour, at Westminster, in York. All counterfeit? The rarity of his smile. Did that sombre quietness mask a heavy soul? His lenience, his rich bequests—could they all be made null and void by one dark aching voice? The look upon his face when young Harry spoke of the boys... his stillness, his slow but powerful anger, his swift deeds of retribution; no less, and no more, certes, than King Edward’s... his mercilessness to the traitor Buckingham, who would in truth have shown him none... mercilessness even so; his mercy to the Stanleys, Rotherham, Jane Shore... ah, Jesu! who should know a King!

  As to Edward, the once and never King and his brother the meek Lords Bastard... For deposed Kings had been slain before my time. Dickon of Bordeaux had met his end at the hands of his uncles—yet Dickon had defied them, had struck Arundel bloodily upon the mouth in Westminster Abbey, struck him in insult over the corpse of dead Queen Anne. Dickon had died. Men said it. And now men said the Princes were no more. So groaned the treadmill of my thought.

  The wench was staring at me. I could not answer her, or myself.

  That was the evening of the first whisper. I rode home, wounded most grievously, in the chill dark.

  ‘Do you know the King, Margetta?’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Would you know him?’

  She little guessed how lustily I owned that longing. For I now watched Richard with a great unbelieving fear, a hope and then a sadness, seeing his quiet, quiet countenance, remembering him when he had caught at my heart in his black mourning on White Surrey—when he had known my fault, had pardoned me. I scanned his face as closely as I were his leman, anxious for any sign that might give me the knowledge I feared, the release I longed for.

  And I would with all my heart that we were again brothers in exile, that he were Dickon and I were Mark Eye, and I could lean over the table and ask him, with my branded hand on his:

  ‘Are the Lords Bastard safe, my friend?’

  I took my daily walk around the Tower, and there were at most times little idling crowds, upward-looking. Two days before Epiphany I heard another whisper. My ears were strained for such murmurs, as for an ambush. Two friars it was this time. One was counting the day’s gettings, and his words were punctuated by the sharp rattle of coin. ‘I had it on good authority,’ he said. Clink.

  The other crossed himself, his lips moved in a novena, while he looked envious at the other’s purse. He was stout, like Hood’s henchman in the ballads. His voice was like a draught of oil.

  ‘Tell me, tell me. What method did they use?’

  ‘Oh, that I know not,’ said the counting friar. ‘But he is wise, my friend, and vows they are no more.’

  ‘Crushed to death?’ said the stout one quizzically. ‘Strangled? Sancta Maria, what wickedness rules us now!’

  ‘Man was ever cursed,’ said the other. ‘Pray for their souls.’ Clink.

  ‘Ah God, yea,’ babbled the fat one lugubriously. ‘For they went violently and all unassoiled!’ Then, thinking so hard that a crease threaded his plump brow: ‘I would have staked all that... hm, hmm, that he was a devout man. I would not have deemed him one to leave any without Dirige and Placebo—whatever the deed... say, tell me again, who spoke you of all this?’

  ‘A monk of Calais,’ said the other, counting still. ‘A Cluniac, well schooled and born in Paris...’

  ‘A Frenchman,’ said the fat one doubtfully.

  The other dropped a mark, retrieved it with creaking joints.

  ‘Men say,’ he murmured calmly, ‘men say the princes are no more. In France they sing of it. And in the fen country wh
ere English live and die...’ Clink. ‘They write of it. It is the truth.’

  ‘Shall we wager on it?’ said the fat friar wickedly. The other snapped his shoulders, cast a glance up at the Tower ramparts.

  ‘An you will,’ he said. ‘Five marks they are not seen again’—he pointed—‘where once they played so merrily.’

  It was January when I asked Margetta would she know the King, and I took her to the special Court in the White Hall, which Richard had initiated to hear solely the pleas and grievances of the commonalty. Me, I had no mind any more. I watched my wife as she listened to the requests and to the answers they received at the King’s signet.

  ‘... that Robert Bolman, under-clerk in the Privy Seal office, has been overpassed in the promotion list by one Richard Bele—who by gift of money and by corruption of the other clerks has unlawfully attained such promotion; that this stranger, never brought up in the said office, should be ordered to stand down, and Robert Bolman succeed to the post, for his good and diligent service. Richard Bele, however, to be granted a clerkship at the first vacancy.’

  ‘...that the Prior of Carlisle being hard pressed to meet the £8 fee to Chancery for his royal licence... let the Clerk of the Hanaper return these monies gratis.’

  ‘...that the Vicar-General of Paynton, Master John Combe, shall promote Master Rauf Scrope to the Vicarage, which Master John Combe has presented himself by crafty dealing and to the undoing of Master Rauf...’

  ‘An annuity to our faithful minstrels, John Green and Robert Hawkins, who have served us well.’

  ‘The sum of forty-six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence to the repairing of the Church of Creyke, County Norfolk, lately destroyed by fire.’

  ‘...that Edmund Filpot of Twickenham, a bricklayer, who by misfortune had all his thirteen tenements, his dwelling and his goods suddenly burnt to his utter undoing, and who kept in his household a great degree of poor creatures much refreshed by his generosity—a Royal protection requiring of alms for the rebuilding of same.’

  ‘To one Master John Bently, clerk of poor estate, four pounds to defray his expenses at Oxford University...’

  ‘Know you the King?’ I asked Margetta harshly, as we left the White Hall.