To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (17 page)

He wished it wasn’t so. He wished to be reunited with his family, with his uncle Rivers. Come back under the authority of his mother. But as he repeated to Nell many times—as though to convince himself of it—he was king now, and could no longer indulge in childish thinking and boyish daydreams. There were serious matters at hand, and whilst he was rarely consulted on such matters now, the manner in which he disported himself in these early days of his reign would nevertheless be remembered in the long history of kings that he had once studied. Now
he
was someone to be studied by future men and monarchs. He wished desperately that he would be remembered for his courage and dignity in the face of adversity.

Just now Nell was writing to Bessie, wondering why there had been a break in her daily letters. She’d not had one for several days and was beginning to worry. The usual courier who delivered letters from Westminster Sanctuary brought the king correspondence from his family, but recently the packets had held none from the princess to Nell. She prayed that Bessie was not ill, but took pains in her missive not to sound alarmed.

“Just the hem, Majesty,” Nell heard the tailor say, “and then we are fini—”

Shouts and a loud scuffling outside on Tower Green silenced the tailor, and with a wondering glance at Nell, with the other two he moved quickly to the window. Nell knew at once what she was seeing, but the horror of it paralyzed her. She felt Edward clutch at her hand. His father’s dearest friend, Lord Hastings, was being dragged forcibly through the milling crowd on Tower Green by four guards. Following behind, walking side by side, were Uncle Richard and Harry Buckingham, their expressions black and scowling. A small company of soldiers followed to keep the tradesmen and castle servants from crowding the small procession.

No!
thought Nell.
This cannot be. There is no good ending to this
scene.
Indeed, the guards with their struggling prisoner had stopped at a thick log that lay separate from a pile of such logs, not yet milled for the building of a new bakehouse. The soldiers forced Hastings to his knees before it, and the foremost of the guards turned back to the dukes, who had stopped a dozen yards behind, waiting for the signal.
The signal. They are going to execute
Hastings, right on Tower Green!
A sword was drawn, but Gloucester was clearly hesitating. There was still time . . .

Edward began crying, “No, no! Stop, I command you!” He pounded on the glass so forcefully that Nell, fearing he would break it and slash himself, stayed his hand. The tailor, alarmed by the scene, fled. Edward’s voice, his royal command, could not be heard outside, since the glass window was fixed closed.

“Nell, what can we do? What can we do!” She looked round the room in desperation and spied the iron inkwell on their writing desk. Crossing the room she retrieved it and rushed back to the window. She could see Hastings’s body, still whole, lying prostrate, his neck stretched across the log. Edward grabbed the heavy inkwell and with a final “Nooo!” smashed it against the glass, shattering it.

The sound of his plaintive cry finally reached his uncle Richard, but the silvery blade was already slicing an arc through the air.

Nell saw Gloucester swivel to detect the source of the cry.

It was too late.

Edward’s loyal servant, once his father’s dearest friend, lay in two parts, his neck spurting an obscene fountain of crimson.

Edward doubled over and was sick, fouling his coronation robes with vomit. Nell crumpled to the floor, stunned by the horror of the scene. But a worse horror was dawning in her head.

The execution of Hastings meant that conspiracies were afoot, or at least suspected. And if any of them could be traced back to Lord Rivers, his life was in peril. Never had she felt so sickened or so utterly helpless. Edward collapsed next to her and, resting his head on her shoulder, began to weep.

Nell wept with him.

Bessie’s mother was bristling with indignation, but there was, underneath it, all-encompassing fear. News of Lord Hastings’s horrific execution for plotting the protector’s downfall had unnerved her. Clearly Richard of Gloucester was capable of anything. And now he had come to Westminster Sanctuary demanding an audience.

“What can I do but see him?” she said to Bessie as she checked her image in the looking glass. “If I do not, he will break the sanctity of the church, breach the walls, and come in by force.” But Bessie had heard the other side of her mother’s logic.

Afraid of the Duke of Gloucester as she was, she trusted him in one important respect. She believed that Richard would do
anything
to place his brother’s son on the English throne. And was that not what she herself wanted above all?

Bessie had begged her mother to allow her to be present at the audience, and appraising her eldest daughter quickly and finding the eighteen-year-old as much of an ally as she was likely to find, the queen had agreed.

“Let him come in,” announced the queen dowager.

And in he came.

Bessie had not seen her uncle Richard since the games at Ludlow. They had locked eyes momentarily when she’d draped her ribbon over the tip of his lance, and now, as he strode into their chamber, she found the pull of his gaze irresistible. Indeed, he acknowledged her with a nod even before he bowed to the queen dowager. Bessie wondered if he had the merest inkling of her feelings for him.

“Madam,” he said to Bessie’s mother. “I pray that you and your family are well.”

“Well as can be expected in this dreary prison.”

“You are here by your own choice. In fact, that is why I have come. To beg you to leave sanctuary and come out into the world.”

“I will not,” she said, and turned away to calm herself. The queen was trying desperately to bring a semblance of evenness to her features and steady her trembling limbs.

Bessie thought that aside from that terrible night of the move into sanctuary, she had never seen her mother so distraught as she was now.

“I will not force you to come out, Elizabeth,” Richard said gently.

The use of her given name seemed a further affront to the queen, and Bessie saw her mother’s back stiffen.

“But I must insist that you give me Dickon,” Gloucester went on. “His brother is in sore need of a companion. ’Twill be good for them to be together. They can celebrate the upcoming coronation. They can enjoy boyish games. Laugh. Feel a family again.” Elizabeth remained still and silent. Clearly she was relieved not to be held complicit in Hastings’s plot. Bessie wondered if her mother was even thinking about Richard’s demand to take Dickon.

“Please,” said Gloucester. “Let me take the boy.”

“I understand you’ve brought troops with you.”

“I have.”

“Then you mean to take him with or without my permission.”

“What I am told by the lawyers,” Richard said, “is that a child who has broken no law has no need to seek sanctuary. Therefore taking him from sanctuary breaks neither the edicts of men nor God.”

“Mother,” Bessie said, and went to her. She spoke quietly in the queen’s ear. “Let Dickon go with your blessings. He will be safe in Uncle Richard’s care. You know that.” Elizabeth Woodville was trembling with fury. First Edward taken from her control. Now Dickon. She was to be left with nothing—girls. But what choice did she have?

“I will not wait all day for your answer, madam.” It was the first hint of anger Bessie had heard in Richard’s voice.

“Oh, take him!” Elizabeth cried. “Take him and be done with it!” With an angry flourish she swept from the room, leaving Bessie alone with her uncle. She felt suddenly shy.

“Bessie—” Gloucester’s voice was gentle now. As gentle as it had been harsh a moment before. “Will you prepare your brother for coming to the Tower?”

“I will, my lord,” she said.

He placed his hand on her arm. His look was imploring. “I shall do him no harm.”

“I know that, my lord. Tell me, how is Edward?” Richard looked pained. “He is not ill, but I cannot say he is well. He’s not spoken a word to me since Lord Hastings’s execution. You must believe me, Bessie, the man was plotting treason against me.”

“I know he was,” she said quietly, unable to meet his eye.

“How brave you are to be so honest. I’m very grateful.” Bessie forced herself to look at her uncle.

“Your friend Nell Caxton is a great comfort to the king.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

“And I promise you this,” he said. “Dickon’s company will greatly improve your brother’s spirits.” This made Bessie smile.

“If
you
wish to come out of sanctuary . . .” he began.

“No, my lord. Thank you, but I will stay here with my mother.” He dipped his head, respectfully acknowledging her loyalty.

“I’ll fetch my brother now,” she said.

“Thank you.” The dark eyes were unexpectedly warm.

Bessie turned away so her uncle Richard would not see her blushing.

As the heavy west gate of the Tower swung open and the first of Gloucester’s guard marched through, Nell could feel Edward, standing by her side, barely able to resist rushing forward to meet them, or more specifically, the little prince whom they were escorting. The look on the king’s face as he saw Dickon break from the procession and run toward him was as ecstatic as the little Duke of York’s loud whoops of joy. The boys kissed and embraced fervently, but, aware that much of the Tower staff were watching, they refrained from tears and quickly regained the stately demeanor demanded of two brothers of royal blood.

Nell could see Gloucester and Buckingham coming through the gate now, watching the joyful reunion. Richard looked genuinely pleased, but Harry Buckingham’s face was stiff, unreadable. Nell could not help but see sinister motives in that bland expression. Handsome and magnetic as he was, she found him the most loathsome of creatures, and her blood chilled in his presence.

Edward and Dickon, arm in arm, were making for the royal residence. The king turned back to her.

“Nell, come with us!” he cried. We’ll have a celebration.” They slowed to let her catch them up. Each boy put an arm round her waist. “I shall call for a splendid supper in my rooms.

Just the three of us. And my jester.”

“And a juggler,” Dickon insisted. “And an acrobat.”

“Several kinds of sweets,” Edward added.

“
Only
sweets,” Dickon suggested. “I’ve always wished to eat a meal with neither fish nor fowl nor meat nor vegetables—only sweet pies and marchpane and pudding.”

Edward and Nell exchanged an indulgent smile.

“Any other requests, brother?” said Edward.

“After dinner, I should like to go to the menagerie.”

“Done,” Edward agreed.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dickon said, turning to Nell. “This is for you. From my sister.” He handed her a sealed letter.

Nell, with a queer feeling, tucked the parchment inside her sleeve. “How is Princess Bessie?” she asked the younger boy.

Dickon, his initial excitement suddenly sobered by the true circumstance, looked into Nell’s eyes. “Troubled,” he said.

“And missing you a great deal.” Then he brightened again, just as suddenly. “As I have missed my brother. But no more. We’re together again.”

Edward was smiling broadly. The pain and weariness had left his face and he looked for a moment a happy boy again. “Together again,” he said. “I shall call for the juggler.” The boys’ happiness and enthusiasm had been infectious.

Over their meal of sweets alone—the cooks had taken their king’s command to heart—and with the unremitting hilarity from the fool, a spate of jugglers, minstrels, and contortionists, there had been so much laughter and silly banter that Nell had been able to forget for a few brief hours her troubles and fears.

Now back in her room, she slid Bessie’s letter from her sleeve, broke open the seal, and read it by the light of a candle.

Dearest friend,

I write this in haste so that Dickon may carry it with him to the
Tower. How do I begin? With outrage? With pity? Despair? I was
privy to the plot that Hastings tried to hatch with my mother—one
that for all her earlier conniving, she had nothing at all to do
with—the one that lost him his head. I wrote to you about it on
the very night I learned of it, fearful of its consequences. But so
worried was I that the letter would be intercepted and our communication then forever disallowed, I gave it into the safekeeping
of not our usual courier, but Master Thomas, the old pensioner at
the almshouse, whose daughter Helen is your friend at the Tower
kitchen. I thought it a safer and more clandestine route to you.

Alas, with the most miserable of luck, poor Master Thomas
was set upon by thugs that sprang forth from a Totehill Street alley. They beat him unconscious and took the few pennies he had.

The letter he carried they cared nothing about, and it was probably trampled in the mud. ’Twas several days before I learned of
the man’s condition, for he lay in hospital, dead to the world, no
one knowing his name or residence, and by the time he returned,
black-and-blue and limping to Westminster, Hastings was already found out and cut down.

Oh, Nell, I am heartsick! My uncle Richard has grown insane
with his fierce protection ofmy father’s legacy for my brother. ’Tis
true that Hastings was plotting to bring Gloucester low and rein-state my mother as protector. But could there not have been a
proper trial for the man? And we have heard also that poor Edward
witnessed the atrocity with his own eyes. How awful for him!

Now, as you know, Richard has taken Dickon from us. Part
of me feels misery at losing him from our sight—he’s a lovely, 
merry boy—but another part revels with him at his freedom
from his grim sanctuary, more a prison than a safe house. He
shall have the company of his brother the king, the company of
my dearest friend in the world, and run of the fabulous palace
that is the Tower of London.