We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (15 page)

I walked to his writing table. Sheets of parchment lay strewn, and some had fallen to the floor. Pens and ink—a broken quill, and a pattern of fierce words leaping to my eye. I bent to read and saw with love, his signature... R. Gloucester; and three words, repeated over and over, the writing a fine Italic script growing wilder and ending with an ink-smear and paper torn by a savage pen. Very recent, that writing, the last line still wet. Three words only, time and again…

Loyaulte me lie
.

The fire spurted and hissed as it licked damp wood.

I went through into the adjoining chamber, for the door was open, and gazed at Richard’s narrow bed. It looked hard, though the sheets were damask, the covers edged with ermine. The White Boar, worked in silver thread, savaged the coverlet with its tusks. Above the couch shone a tiny light, steadfast and comfortable, illuminating the statue of St George. In silence I stared at the saint, and asked his blessing on Richard Plantagenet.

‘I wish he would come,’ said a small voice from the antechamber. I went back to the fire and was about to try to cheer the page, when the door opened, and he did come: all my joy, all my safety and all my bliss.

He entered smiling and he too had felt the cold, for he had thrown a long cloak of dark velvet about him. He gave me no time for any curtsey; he strode across the chamber and took my hands.

‘Mistress, I am happy to see you again,’ he said. His voice was as I remembered it. The joy became a pain, striking my depths.

‘Sir, you commanded my presence; I am happy to obey,’ I said softly. He must have felt the heartbeat in my wrist; beating, beating, like a song, like a tabor. But his glance swept to the page, and his smile faded a little.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded. ‘Harry, you are becoming hard of hearing now you are old and have fully eight years! I mentioned no word of command—I did but say you were to ask the lady.’

The page’s mouth opened convulsively as if to set up a bawling. Richard bent hastily and took him in his arms, setting him on the table, so that his legs dangled.

‘My lord, forgive my folly,’ whimpered the child. ‘I have a passing bad memory—I pray you, don’t beat me.’ And he shot a sly glance from under his lashes, cringing and fawning like a cur who begs morsels beneath the table.

‘Folly indeed,’ muttered Richard. ‘When have I beaten you, you knave?’

‘Never, my lord,’ said the page primly.

Then Richard laughed. ‘Well, sir, thanks for your faithful service this night. You look over-ripe for your bed. Be gone!’ and he tossed a coin up in the air which the page caught deftly, tucked into a pouch that a faery might own, and, grinning, twinkled his legs across the chamber and heaved the door shut behind him.

And we were alone; and the fire blazed and chattered on the hearth, and we stood looking at each other across a chasm of unspoken words and my thoughts that leaped and swooned and grew bright.

He was the first to move. He crossed to me and my heart raced swifter for I thought... I know not what I thought, but he took my cloak from about me and his glance fell on my hair and he paled slightly.

‘I pray you, be seated, mistress; be comfortable.’ He drew a chair for me with as much courtesy as I had been the Queen. He laid our cloaks together across the table. ‘I looked for you last evening,’ he said, but his voice did not reproach me. His tone was rather that of one who expects to be disappointed.

‘My lord, I would gladly have talked with you on the gallery again,’ I said. ‘But my lady of Bedford had need of my services.’

The look of kind politeness vanished from his face as if cloven off by a sword, and he gave a bitter laugh.

‘Ah, holy God!’ he said, and his quiet voice was even quieter. ‘It is wondrous mirthful, for even in this, as in all my affairs, that company conspires to thwart me.’

He turned, with his restless, trained walk moving over to where stood a flagon of wine and cups.

‘Will you drink, damoiselle?’ he said, holding up the crested flagon, and I sprang from my chair, for it was unseemly for him to serve me.

‘I will attend you, my lord,’ I said hastily, seeking to take the wine from him. He covered my hand with his own, and his dark eyes held mine as he smiled a half-smile.

‘You are my guest, mistress,’ he said. ‘Be seated, I pray; let us have no more folly. No posturing, no sham.’

Through my wild joy, he handed me the cup. He sat opposite me, the fire burning bright between us, and stretched his legs in the hearth, the time-honoured male gesture.

‘This is better than that chill nook where first we met,’ he said, and smiled at me over the top of his hanap. He drank, slowly, without taking his eyes from me. Then he whispered:

‘Jesu! You are fair!’

I sat and tried to be calm, feeling myself becoming fairer under his look.

‘Can you play chess?’ he said suddenly.

Surprised, I shook my head. ‘But I will learn, my lord, if that is your desire,’ I murmured.

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘It matters not,’ he said. ‘It is a good game, however, and one that all should know. It teaches a man strategy and tactics, and, by God, I vow that in this place one should be born cognizant of such matters!’

I longed to ask him more, help him unburden himself, but I knew I must wait until he chose to speak of that which troubled and angered him so much.

‘How do you find the court?’ he asked me, and I was sorely vexed for an answer.

‘The jewels and the dresses are wonderous fine,’ I ventured, and he hid a smile in his wine-cup, shaking his head, no doubt, at the light-mindedness of women.

‘But I see little of the court itself, my lord, for I am neither one thing nor the other...’ I babbled on. ‘I am greater than some and lesser than some, and to speak the truth, I have not yet found my rightful place. I am pulled this way and that by standards of society, for though I came from the Queen’s house at Grafton Regis, I am not of noble birth.’

He gazed at me, and there was that in his eye which reminded me of the falcon’s stare, looking right through and out the other side.

‘Noble birth,’ he said slowly. ‘Jesu, mistress, I have seen the humblest vassal conduct himself with more grace than some of noble birth! And I have seen those who, hiding their policies behind a lovesome smile, feign nobility as they were born to it. While their hands clutch power as greedily as any cutpurse in the street!’

I knew of whom he spoke, and I kept silence, though my mind shrieked agreement.

‘But we are talking of you, mistress,’ he said gently. ‘It intrigues me much to hear you describe yourself thus—neither one thing nor the other, for I too have known this feeling, and it is strong in me tonight.’

I spread my hands, assaying to make a jest of it.

‘’Tis the best I can do,’ I smiled. ‘Like Patch, in his motley; half red, half yellow! That is I.’

He set down his wine, and sighed. ‘And I,’ he said.

Let us merge the red and the yellow then, I thought in my heart. Looking at him, dark and gleaming like a raven in the firelight, I wondered if I could contrive to touch his hand; and instantly, he must have read my thought, for his fingers reached out and closed about mine. We sat motionless, while a loving ache from his touch crept up my arm and settled in my breast.

He was quiet for so long a space, I felt bound to amuse him with conversation.

‘We saw a passing marvellous sight, when we came by London Bridge,’ I said. ‘All the people were shouting and clamouring and everything halted for my lord of Warwick, as he rode...’

I bit my words off on a gasp of pain, as his hand tightened on mine like the steel of a trap. I sat enduring the agony, questioning the pallor of his face.

‘Certes, the people love Warwick,’ he said, through his teeth. ‘It was always so, for he won their hearts with his kindliness and courtesy—none was too lowly for his notice... all love him, as I did.’

It was the firelight, there could be no tears in his eyes; that was impossible, I thought, for he was hard and shining like steel; a royal Duke, a King’s brother, and such do not weep easily. Before I could decide, he had leaped from the chair, to lean against the polished sweep of the brass chimney-piece. He rested his forehead on his arm for a brief second. When he looked at me again, his face was so composed I thought I had imagined it. It was the firelight.

‘I loved Warwick,’ he said, and it was as if he spoke to an empty room. ‘He was like my father, and he trained me in the arts of war as bravely as I were truly his son. I cannot bear to think of those happy times at Middleham, but when I breathe the corruption down there’ he gestured fiercely in the direction of the Great Hall—‘then I mind how sweet were the cold moors of Wensleydale with their sharp cleansing gales and haunted mists. There a man could come close to God and know himself at last. Here... there is naught but greed and spite and lechery...’

He smote the chimney-piece with his fist, and it gave off a dull booming sound. I sat quiet, and trembled.

‘I wonder often, of a night when I lie sleepless,’ he whispered, ‘why I was blessed, or cursed, with a heart that knows one way only, and cleaves to that way as a priest to his breviary. It is easy for George—he was ever feckless and light- minded, and lets himself be swayed by the breeze of fortune whither it will. But I have cast my loves into the dust to honour my allegiance to his Grace... to my brother Edward. The Sun in Splendour, hidden now behind a foul cloud of locusts!’

His emotion rent me to the bone. His pain was mine.

‘Do not distress yourself so, my lord,’ I whispered. He did not hear me.

‘When I was fourteen, I attended a great banquet,’ he continued. ‘My lord of Warwick made much of me, and I wore the Garter. Warwick seated me with his ladies, the Countess, Isabel, and little Anne... I was so honoured and happy, until I realized what he was about. He would have me turn traitor to the King. I would not take his bait, so he washed his hands of me. Did you see what befell tonight?’ he demanded, turning his fiery gaze upon me.

‘Yes, my lord, I knew much sadness,’ I murmured.

‘Jesu!’ he muttered. ‘He called me... a Woodville-lover! I, of all people, who would rather have died than see my beloved... his Grace, netted by that loathsome brood. And then the Queen caused me to lose face, deliberately, before all!’

His colour came and went, frighteningly, with his fierce breath. I rose and stood beside him.

‘My lady of Desmond aided you,’ I reminded him gently, and his frenzy ebbed a little.

‘Yea, the dear Countess. She’s a good friend to me... and one who has suffered much at... at the hands of Edward’s Queen.’

As if he thought he had said too much, he glanced at me sharply. ‘I may not speak of it,’ he murmured. Then, in almost the same breath he said softly: ‘She is widowed.’ He looked at the fire. The leaping flames were red in the dark eyes. ‘And worse,’ he whispered. ‘The shedding of infants’ blood... Slaying women is bad enough, and no Plantagenet has ever done so, but the monstrous crime of takinng children’s lives deserves eternal torment.’

We were silent again, a long silence, broken only by the chirping of burning logs; and the falcon’s wings softly stirring in sleep. I knew that he spoke of some secret foulness of the Queen, and wondered if he remembered that I slept by Jacquetta of Bedford. In that instant he turned to me with a faint smile.

‘I will say no more,’ he said. ‘It is not that I do not trust your gentle face, for there is that in it which moves me to confidence. And the King knows I am loyal and would not let the Woodvilles harm me. But you are in the service of Elizabeth’s mother, and open to attack. So it is better now that I should teach you chess, if that would pleasure you.’

But we remained looking at each other, and he took my hands in that same tender clasp.

‘I would not betray you, my lord,’ I said steadily.

‘Suffice it to say this is why the Countess of Desmond and I talk together and sometimes dance in the Great Hall,’ he answered. ‘We find some little comfort in each other’s company. And I have need of such.’

I could scarcely catch his last sentence. With my heart I watched him, for I longed to keep his image with me for ever: his dark slenderness, his pale face. I marked every aspect of him; seeing that he looked worn now from his outburst of the past few moments; that his black brows were straight as if drawn by a steady pen; that his right shoulder was slightly uneven as against the left; that he was very unhappy. For all his polished manners and his knightly grace, he was young, and woefully unhappy, and I loved him, with a love sharp as death.

He still held my hands, and my gaze, with his own.

‘Have you known loneliness?’ he said without emotion. And I thought of Grafton Regis, after the old nurse died, and Agnes went away, and I nodded. All the time my limbs quivered, like branches under lightning—I was the tree, and he the storm.

‘I would tell you something now, that I have not said in this past hour of high passion which I fear has wearied you,’ he said. ‘I am glad indeed that I wandered up to the gallery the other night... it gave me much pleasure when I saw you there, so fair, so kind, and welcoming me with a sweet smile and outstretched hand. Indeed, I would thank you for that, damoiselle, and for the dance we had together, and for this night, when you have listened, and soothed me with your gentle words. I feel you are a good maid. I would you were my friend.’

‘I have done little, my lord,’ I murmured.

‘I was wroth with Harry this night,’ he said, above my head. ‘I did not command you to visit my apartments—that word tastes of the old
droit de seigneur
... I doubt not you thought I wished you here... to possess you, as if you were a peasant wench to tumble for an hour, when it was naught like that.’

And for all these bold and soldierly words, which could have come from the lips of Warwick himself, his voice shook slightly.

Slowly I looked at him, and, as I heard his breath quicken, knew that he would not dismiss me thus, without a kiss, and with only cool words of friendship. I shook my hair, so that it came free of my gown’s collar and streamed about me, a gleaming fall, the colour of the fire.