We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (11 page)

The jester was babbling in my ear, and I could not answer him. With my whole heart I hoped that he might not be one too highborn to give me a glance. I longed to know that he was an esquire, mayhap the son of some lesser noble, or a member of his retinue. This, seeing the sumptuous fire of jewels on the restless fingers, the collar of suns and roses about his neck, I knew it all useless; my dreams but vapourings; and he on whom I looked with such love further removed than the topmost star. By rank more distant, and by riches far apart. Above all, by the way in which he stood, solitary, yet dignified by his solitude, among the noisy splendour.

In the face of this, I asked, trembling:

‘Who is that young knight?’

Patch was acting craftily. ‘Which one, madam? Madam, maiden, mistress, honeybee. Names, yea, names for one passing sweet, and she with many names would have a name to play with. Which name, my Venus, cozen and cuckoo-eye, which knight?’

A page was offering him wine. He waved it away.

‘The one who does not drink tonight,’ I said, and my voice was like a frog’s croaking.

‘Ho! a sober knight!’ said Patch, and peered to follow my slowly pointing, wavering fingers. He dug his sharp chin into my neck.

‘Certes, I had forgot you were fresh to the court,’ he said with a little laugh. ‘’Tis young Dickon.’

‘Dickon?’

‘Yea, the sad one. The scant-worded one. The one who beds with his battle-axe. If my eye be not crossed, you point to Richard of Gloucester.’

‘An Earl, a Duke?’ I whispered.

‘Both, and more besides. A prince. He is Richard Plantagenet, the King’s brother.’

I loved. I loved, and to my surprise, the world went on its way as usual. As Elysande had foretold, there was much groaning and head-holding in the morning. Many lay abed, including the Duchess, but the King was up betimes, and after hearing Mass rode out hunting with a large train of knights and nobles, some looking as if they would liefer have stayed quiet in their chambers, nursing the quantities of wine that churned about their bellies. But King Edward was fresh as a flower, calling his friends in a voice like a clarion, mad to spear the otter. Elizabeth was serene, smiling gently with downcast eyes as she wished her lord a successful chase. Her own chase had been wondrous profitable, I thought, as we watched the King, at the head of his entourage, gallop out between the guard and disappear beneath the toothed portcullis. Yet as soon as his back was turned, her expression suffered a brisk change. The matron of Grafton Regis returned, and soon the whole Household was flying about like souls in torment in pursuit of their various duties. Little was seen of her, but her lightest wish was keenly felt. Even so, there was space for gossip—down the corridors it crept, the arras shivering with whispers: who had quarrelled with whom last evening; whose bed had remained bare till dawning; and once again, I came on Patch, whose face served as a beacon in a bewildering world of stares that were curious, and sometimes hostile.

He looked unwell, and was wearing a hermit’s robe, all rags and tatters. ‘To mock the Church,’ he explained, and shook with laughter at my shocked face. ‘Tarry a moment,’ he said, catching my fingers in the passage.

I could scarcely bother to listen; my mind was floating high, my eyes burned with a memory.

‘I’ve been speaking to my cousin,’ he said. ‘Men say there will be mischief shortly.’

‘Oh, do they, Patch,’ I murmured.

‘You seem weary, maiden,’ he said inconsequentially. ‘Did you not sleep? I neither. My arse is sore. Did you see me fall last night? By St Denis, I thought my back was broken.’ On and on,
ad infinitum
.

‘Mischief,’ I reminded him, after a long space, in which he had his thoughts, and I mine.

‘There are signs in the heavens that England will have war again,’ he said. ‘At Bedford, two weeks ago, a dame laid out her bed linen to dry.

‘So?’ I said. A face crossed my mind, a young, noble, dangerous face; a face dark and pale; eyes of light and darkness, heat and cold, day and night. A face like the beginning and the ending of the world.

‘And lo! it came on to rain, but the rain was not rain at all, but gouts of blood which stained the sheets and bolsters beyond repair, and all about shrieked and knelt in prayer, for this is a dread warning of things to come.’

I said naught. I wondered where the prince was, what he did. I had not seen him ride out hunting, but there had been so many in the train I could have missed seeing him, though this was unlikely. Patch, bursting with his fanciful tale, looked wounded at my inattention.

‘By God’s bones!’ he cried. ‘I might as well have speech with yonder arras, for the holy men broidered thereon would at least listen better than you!’

‘Forgive me,’ I said swiftly. ‘Poor woman! Did she buy new sheets?’

‘There is worse,’ he said. His voice sank to a hollow groan. ‘In Huntingdon County, there was a woman great with child. And at about the time that the washing was be-blooded, she heard the infant in her womb sobbing and crying with a great roaring noise, and she was sore affrighted, for this means sure sorrow in this realm and dolour for all men.’

This time I felt a prick of fear.

‘Seek you to drive me witless with your tales, Sir Fool?’

‘It is truth,’ he begged.

‘Once, you sickened me with a bloody heart,’ I said, catching up my gown. ‘Now you fright me with falseness. I’ll hear no more.’ And I ran, and the image of Richard Plantagenet ran with me in my mind, looking worried, and I wondered how he looked when he did laugh, and reckoned him passing fair, laughing; and ran into our chamber and slammed the door.

‘Patch is like something possessed,’ I told Elysande, who was sponging stains off the Duchess’s red satin. I recounted the wild tales to her.

‘War, hey?’ she said, raising her plucked eyebrows, and went on sponging. Her calmness infected me and I put the whole matter aside. It was time to rouse the Duchess. I pinned on my sweetest smile as I sped to her chamber.

When night came, and all the upper apartments were deserted, and the merriment came loud from the Great Hall, I stole again to the gallery. Unseen, unheard, I gazed again at the bright scene below. Flattened against a pillar under the hissing torchlight, I stood for an hour. With my fingers I traced the carved faces in the embrasure, until the cold seemed to turn me to stone, as they were. I learned a great heaviness in that hour, for though the whole court assembled in glory beneath my eyes, all were effigies, without form or being. They swam like ghosts, devoid of colour or life. He was not there.

Patch came again midway through the evening, giving me sweet foolish words, snatching kisses on my cheek and neck. I smote at him as if he were a troublesome fly, and he called me cruel, so I gave him my hand to hold and together we watched the disguisings. Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight held sway on the floor below, the knight clothed in green branches, his horse also green, a little unsteady on its legs, but marvellously lifelike. I had begun to take pleasure in the play, when Patch brought back my dolour with a chance word.

‘I see my lord of Warwick does not grace the company tonight,’ he said. I do not care, I thought. They could all be missing, save one, and he alone would make for me a feast day.

‘And George of Clarence, too, begs urgent business elsewhere,’ went on the fool cunningly. ‘Could it be, sweet mistress, that these two fair knights sup quietly somewhere together and talk of a lady?’

‘What lady?’ I said dully.

Cautiously yet pleased, Patch murmured: ‘Men speak much before a fool. They think me truly
witless,
I trow, when they should but substitute an “n” for an “l”, and be nearer the truth.’

‘Go on,’ I sighed, my eyes on the court.

‘George of Clarence would wed Warwick’s eldest maiden,’ he whispered. ‘It would be a right wealthy match for him, and the great Warwick knows his mind. Isabel is the lure to draw this falcon from his royal brother’s side. And across the sea, waiting, sits an old spider, a French spider. King Louis...’

‘I know naught of these intrigues,’ I answered. ‘And in any case, are they not cousins, George and Warwick’s daughter?’

‘Dispensations have been arranged,’ muttered the fool. ‘The Curia is greedy. And ’twould be a weapon in the hand of Warwick, to have George as close ally. Warwick has never, will never, forgive Edward for his lowly marriage.’

I looked sharply at Patch. ‘What’s this?’

‘Did I not love you, maiden, I would not tell you all these secrets, for you and I could be thrown in the Tower for such whisperings,’ he replied, with a frightening grimace.

I pressed his hand. ‘Pray, don’t leave a tale in mid-air.’

‘Warwick had planned a great marriage for his Grace,’ Patch murmured in my ear. ‘He had arranged for him to wed the Princess Bona of Savoy, sister-in-law of Louis of France. Imagine his fury when your fair widow of Grafton Regis filched the prize from under Europe’s eyes! I trow the Earl writhed in his skin with rage. Think you, while we were at the May-Games that day, England was being set on its head!’

Yet I am glad, I thought, in my then arrant folly. Had all this not come about, I should not be here. I should not have seen what I have seen; should never have known this love, this love that tears my heart. I said: ‘So now he seeks to wean Clarence from his Grace? Treason?’

‘Of a kind,’ replied the fool. ‘Jesu! How the Earl must have fumed when he found his King was also a man, a frail man with a will of his own! No longer his mammet to raise to a height, to counsel and dangle...’

Suddenly, he stopped speaking, pointed down below. ‘Here enters Lord Hastings. A great fighter, loves the King well.’

Lord Hastings was tall and fair, and I saw him not. For another came with him through the door, and again my heart was rent like the temple veil at Our Lord’s Passing. There entered Richard, my soul’s liking, Richard Plantagenet, my beloved.

This night he wore an air less lonely and distracted, and for the first time I saw him smile. He smiled when the King beckoned him over to the dais, and throwing an arm about him, placed in his brother’s hands a little satin pouch or some such thing for holding jewellery. Richard opened it and drew out something small and shining, doubtless a Christmas gift from the King. A look of pleasure crossed his face. It was then I realized he was younger than I had thought; it was but his sombre expression that gave him years. He thanked the King, swiftly bent and kissed his hand, and Edward, cuffing him on the shoulder, roared with jovial laughter.

But the glad moment passed. I saw a pout forming on the Queen’s lips, and with one of her white hands she touched Edward’s sleeve. He turned from Richard in mid-sentence to gaze into Elizabeth’s face. He looked at her as one bewitched, summoned an esquire with impatient fingers. A rosewood coffer was laid before the Queen. I craned to see what she drew from it; the white fire of diamonds leaped into life. It was a reliquary worked in beaten gold with three pearls of price dropping like tears from the lower edge. Elizabeth held it up for all to see, and whispers of admiration came from those who stepped forward to praise this kingly gift. In its lace of black enamel, diamonds big as hazel nuts vied with the pale blood of rubies dividing them.

Elizabeth also kissed the King’s hand, but he kissed her mouth. Pages brought on the Christmas gifts, and Edward all but disappeared behind a veil of Woodvilles, bending the knee, kissing his fingers and the hem of his robe, smiling their thanks. Four of Elizabeth’s five sisters came trailing yards of silk and sarcenet; the Lady Katherine in green, Anne in crimson, Elinor in palest blue and Mary in deep saffron. Miniver and marten banded their sleeves and veiling fell from the peak of their hennins in gem-scattered mists. Behind them, like meek lambs, came their new noble husbands: the young Duke of Buckingham; William Bourchier, son of the Earl of Essex; the young man who was the heir of the Earl of Kent; and Lord Dunster. John Woodville led his aged spouse, my lady of Norfolk, to the dais. She whispered her Yuletide greeting and looked weary, as if she lusted for her bed.

I had a sudden vision of a pack of hounds descending on a royal stag, their yelling mouths agape with greed and joy—which was strange, for all about the royal pair bore themselves demurely, with gentle looks, and courteous, loving gestures.

And Richard? Utterly isolated now from his brother the King, he turned slowly and walked across the Hall. Katherine, Countess of Desmond, came to meet him. She was smiling at him; my heart grew sore with envy. He was showing her the King’s gift; she was admiring it, clipping it to the centre of the collar he wore about his neck. He looked down, fingered it, made some jest to her, and they laughed together. Then the minstrels began a French tune, the old
basse-danse
with its slow and gliding steps. The Countess was giving Richard her hand. I turned away. No more could I have watched them dance together than plunge my fingers into the torch-flame overhead. The tears filled my eyes. I knew myself possessed by some demon. Only a demon could have conjured the thoughts and wild feelings in me at that moment. I was lonely too, for Patch had returned below some time ago. I had only my cold stones for company, with the blind carved faces.

I glanced back again, anguished. The Countess looked at Richard as if she found him pleasing indeed. But the dance was over soon, and she left him, to drink wine with a group of ladies, and he was alone again. He cast an eye over to the King, but Edward was occupied, laughing, his head a spot of gold between the greying skull of Earl Rivers and the sleek locks of Anthony Woodville, who once more leaned close, talking, talking, with smiles and frowns and wise, nodding looks, while Richard toyed with his rings again, pulling off the jewel on his last finger and replacing it, over and over, a maddening gesture of disquiet and heaviness. His eyes swept the Hall as one who looks for an ambush. Over the music the Woodvilles’ laughter rose, as the dancing swirled about.

And he was solitary.

He was looking directly at me. I knew this could not be, as I was quite concealed in the lofty shadows, but it was as if our glances met through an arras of darkness, a tapestry woven of my dreams and desire. I made believe that he could really see me, and looked deep into his eyes, melting their coldness with the ardour of my gaze, playing a foolish game with him for my own comfort, before he suddenly turned and, to my sorrow, quit the Hall.