We Speak No Treason Vol 1 (21 page)

‘The King’s Grace is taken,’ he sobbed. ‘I am so afraid.’

‘Don’t weep, Harry,’ I said, as bravely as I could. ‘All will be well.’

‘My sweet lord,’ he whispered through snuffling tears. All my heart’s blood massed in a red, icy knot.

‘What say you?’ I cried.

‘He was wondrous kind to me,’ he choked. ‘Men say he has been slain.’

I rose and staggered on my feet, bruising my back against the carved pillar. Then I started, witlessly, to run, seeking the street, to seize the stirrup of the nearest courier and demand he give this terrible news the lie. I stumbled, and arms caught me; arms that I fought, screaming into a lined face no longer merry.

‘God’s Passion,’ said Patch. ‘Must all fly about like slaughtered fowls?’ He held me fast. ‘Sweeting, calm yourself.’

‘Patch,’ I cried. ‘Patch!’

He grinned. His face looked strained and meagre; a skull-like face.

‘Mary have mercy!’ he said. ‘I thought you had more courage than to cry havoc with the rest. So the King is taken! Was he not warned, time and again? Why all this wonder, that the great Warwick seeks vengeance on the Woodvilles?’

‘Pembroke and Devon are headless now.

More necks will bleed ere long, I trow.’

He made a little jingle out of it. Then for a brief moment his face crumpled with grief, he crossed himself, said: ‘Christ preserve the King,’ and pulled me down beside him on a window-ledge.

‘Ah, I love you, maiden,’ he said, and I could have struck him for jesting at such a time, but felt too weak to raise my hand.

‘Give me the news,’ I said, trembling. ‘Who is beheaded, who slain?’

‘The King’s favourites,’ said Patch calmly. ‘Sir Richard Woodville, John Woodville... Warwick will have the whole family’s blood. Clarence stands at his right hand, now that Isabel is his bride.’

‘George of Clarence—has wedded Warwick’s daughter?’ I cried. Patch nodded, and winked and said: ‘In Calais, lately.’

‘They will destroy the Woodvilles?’ I gasped.

‘In all ways possible,’ said the fool. ‘Tend well your mistress, maiden, for she’ll need your prayers.’

I knew not what he meant, but when he started babbling again about love, and he still could not tell me where was Richard in all this, I sprang up and flew to Elysande, but she was nowhere to be seen. The Duchess’s chamber was bolted from the inside, while two men stood without and spoke her name, sternly. They had a small retinue of henchmen, who wore the Bear and Ragged Staff, Warwick’s livery. They stayed a few moments, then quit the chamber purposefully, while the gentlewomen huddled like terrified pigeons. Snatches of their speech crept to my ears.

‘Redesdale’s Proclamation likened his Grace to Richard the Second, Harry the Sixth,’ said a shaking voice. ‘All deposed monarchs...’

‘Yea, and Edward the Second,’ said Anne Haute, in horrified tones. She was deathly white and I remembered that she too was a Woodville. Then I thought of the King, and Richard, and of poor, unnatural Edward the Second, with his bowels burned out at Berkeley, and my stomach came up into my throat. When the blackness faded into light, Elysande was with me. She was not smiling when I opened my eyes, but as soon as I was sensible she kissed me, a loving sister. Her red gown hurt my gaze. The voices whispered on.

‘The Archbishop of York... is in the Palace...’

‘A Neville!’ hissed another.

‘Yea, and Clarence sits on the Council...’

‘Warwick has summoned a Parliament...’

‘The Duchess!’ someone murmured anxiously.

‘Who were those men... What have they done to her?’

Their whispers flew like arrows, rebounding on to bafflement.

Suddenly the Duchess came out from her chamber. She was yellowish, and her grim jaws were clamped together. Angrily she waved her hand at the gibbering group of women. She leaned firmly on her ivory cane, white-knuckled.

‘Leave me—all of you!’ she snapped.

Yet Elysande and I flew to her side, for we feared she might collapse, as the others rustled out hastily, with many a glance behind.

Ignoring me, the Duchess glared at Elysande.

‘You failed me in your duty,’ she said icily, and Elysande was out of countenance for a moment, and her eyes gave off sparks.

‘Sweet madam, I wrought all I could, but the source ran dry,’ she said, and I was bemused by her strange words.

‘Where is Hastings?’ asked the Duchess, and she uttered the Lord Chamberlain’s name as if it were a poison on her tongue.

Elysande shrugged, as the French do.

‘And young Gloucester?’ My heart leaped in my throat. Before Elysande could reply, a stout knocking came on the outer door. The same two men returned who had waited to speak with the Duchess. They had waited vainly and now they would not be gainsaid. One said his name was Thomas Wake.

A panic fire had started somewhere down the street. I could hear the cracking of timber and the surging shouts from the crowd. Smoke drifted under the window.

The two men were courteous. They bowed to the Duchess, then one of them placed a parchment between her fingers.

‘Madame, we will attend your presence in answer to this charge,’ Thomas Wake said formally. Swiftly they left, walking clean and upright. One of them was dark and pale, like Richard.

The Duchess’s fingers were stiff and curled, and the parchment dropped from her hand, so I bent to pick it up. There were many long words, and one of them was ‘necromancy’.

‘Holy God,’ whispered Elysande.

‘Ask her Grace to come,’ said the Duchess firmly. I marvelled at her composure.

Elysande left and returned shortly with the Queen. For the first time ever, she came without her retinue of gentlewomen, servants, chaplains. On my knees, I glanced up at her. She was ivory-faced, but it became her, against her black dress with the jewelled girdle and the priceless reliquary Edward had given her. I wondered if she wept and feared for him as I did for my love.

‘Madame, they have taken Master Daunger,’ said the Duchess. And at the name I saw again, clear as crystal, the whey-faced clerk sitting at table on May Eve with the unquiet Elizabeth Woodville; galloping on May Day to Grafton Regis.

‘So I am informed,’ said the Queen. She also was serene, though less so. She frowned at the old woman and swept into the inner chamber, beckoning her mother to follow. Elysande and I waited. Low murmurings came from behind the closed door. I looked at my friend, and her eyes were yellow, like a wolf’s eyes.

‘They have Daunger,’ she said, and looked at me. I said naught. I was trying to collect my thoughts, straining my ears for the cries of men bringing news of the rebellion; news of Richard.

‘How fortunate that he is their only witness,’ she said musingly. And then I felt afraid. The voices within were louder, raised in anger... that was the Queen...

‘Even if they have his feet in the fire?’

‘He will not say aught, my daughter...’ And it was Grafton Regis all over again when she said: ‘It is written, it is written… he is a stubborn man, and clever.’

‘So there is naught to fear,’ said Elizabeth, the door now ajar.

As they came out, I sought to exchange comforting glances with Elysande. She gave me a right lovesome smile. Then she stepped forward with a deep curtsey before the Queen.

‘Your most noble Grace,’ she said softly, and despite this formal address there was a certain familiarity in her tone as if she had known the Queen years ago, in France, mayhap, when Elizabeth served Margaret of Anjou. The Queen looked at her expressionlessly.

‘Madame, there is one here,’ said Elysande slowly, ‘who speaks of necromancy, and sorcery... I know naught of it myself, for I am loyal and love your Grace. But one has told me tales of moonlight on the last day of April... things seen and heard. I am your servant and would safeguard you.’

She took the Queen’s hand and kissed it gracefully, and Elizabeth laid her own white hand on the shoulder of my dear friend, Elysande.

They all turned and looked closely at me, while I stood shaking, and it was as if their three faces were one, with the same cold hard glance, ruthless, appraising, as if I were a pear to be plucked, a stone to be priced, a sheep to be butchered. The Duchess spoke first.

‘And what folly does this one say, mistress?’

Elysande smiled. ‘All, Madame. Something about evil rites and words, and ravings about fickle men and “
the other
”.’ She finished with the casual air of one who imparts the insignificant. The Queen’s ivory face turned to chalk.

‘Jesu, mercy,’ she said quietly. Then, in the next breath and as if I were not there: ‘She was but a child...’

‘She would never withstand an inquisition,’ said one of them, but by now I was falling into a black tomb and did not know who spoke.

‘She is of little importance... she will not speak.’

I opened my mouth, to swear eternal silence.

‘She may already have spoken,’ said a voice, and knew it by its sweetness to be that of Elysande. She came and stood beside me. I caught a glint of her red gown through a fog of fear. And Elysande said, in a voice like running water:

‘Know you not, your Grace, that this one’—she indicated me with a slender sleeve-swish—‘this one lies o’night with my lord of Gloucester, and doubtless bears many a pretty tale?’

It was what Richard would have called a flank attack. While I was engaged with the dangerous enemy before me, she had come down out of a mist of smiles and lovesomeness to destroy me. It was now that I knew she was truly a Woodville-lover and always had been, despite her provoking words in my presence, her soft mocking of the sleeping Duchess. She had betrayed me.

I fell at the Queen’s feet.

‘You should thank me,’ Elysande said. She was at the window, watching the reflections of the mob fire. Dark was falling. The glow lit up the great chamber like blood. They had been waiting for the night, for they were going to dispose of me. My mind ran rings of terror; the Tower yawned; nay, I thought, Warwick would examine all prisoners now that he was in power, and I would be of use to him.

The Queen was in Sanctuary; Elysande was on the point of joining her and the Duchess.

Ah, holy Jesu! I thought. They will kill me. They will murder me, as they did Desmond’s boys. A small cry broke from me.

‘I have saved your life,’ said Elysande, and mayhap she did not want my blood on her slender hands, for she continued: ‘The King loves Gloucester, and you are his harlot.’

I felt tears spring to my eyes at the word, for such were they who lay in long grass with soldiers, and did not give their whole heart and love to one alone.

‘Young Gloucester has no power; yet if you died, and he complained to the King, Edward would be angry... the risk is too great. Thus you will live, cursed and forgotten.’

‘He may seek me,’ I said through frozen lips.

Elysande laughed, throwing back her head. ‘He will not wish to seek you,’ she said gaily. ‘You will have vanished from the sight of men; and you have betrayed his confidence.’

‘I have never betrayed him,’ I whispered, shaking.

‘You have spoken of him to me,’ Elysande said. ‘Doubtless he will believe you have carried tales of his policies to Jacquetta of Bedford. All know there is no love lost between Richard and the Queen’s kin. Has he not spoken to you of things other than love?’

I thought how I asked him about Robin of Redesdale—in his eyes I would be a Woodville spy. I thought of his swift disdainful anger and the way he had toyed with his knife at my cloaked anonymity. My tears began to fall. Elysande went on, softly:

‘He will think you to be a witch; that you had part in the rites and this is why you are no longer at court... a dangerous witness... a necromancer. One who helped secure the King for Elizabeth Woodville.’

I asked her: ‘And who shall speak such foul lies?’

‘Whispers wax fat,’ she said, her favourite expression.

‘He will seek me,’ I said, and I knew I lied for comfort’s sake, for there was none to succour me.

‘Others will soon replace you,’ she said, and watched me carefully, enjoying my anguish. ‘And anyway that witless loyalty of his will destroy him... all the Woodvilles are scattered but Warwick’s men are everywhere. I doubt not they have cut him down already on the road, together with his followers.’

‘Warwick would never slay him!’ I cried. ‘They were as father and son!’

‘Jesu! what a fool you are!’ she said contemptuously. ‘In war, men slay their own kin.’

And I thought with sorrow of Richard who, if he still lived, would need to ride against George of Clarence and the great Neville, and my tears turned inward, and shrouded him.

Then I heard the tramp of boots, the voices of men.

‘Now all the dresses and the praises will be mine,’ said Elysande, softly smiling. Outside the steps halted, and a key turned.

‘You have sold me for a gown?’ I cried, and she shook her head, the smile gone. ‘I bore you no real malice, for I thought you want-wit, harmless, until one day,’ she murmured. ‘Yet you have flown exceedingly high, and striven to ape your betters, and may God have mercy...’ and I knew she spoke of Elizabeth Woodville and the King, and Richard and me.

So they came and took me. They were silent men and we passed quickly out through the teeming streets, with the citizens with brows clubbed bloody, and here and there the glow of a fire gilding the leaning house gables. We left behind the heaps of filth and ordure which steamed and stank on the cobbles, while far above them a hundred spires pointed to Paradise. And the great Tower faded, all faded, behind the veil of my tears, light as a spider’s dwelling on a May dawn; and I heard them speak of the north parties of the realm, which phrase I clung to, Yorkshire being part of my lord, and therefore of me.

I wished that I had learned to play chess as he had tried to teach me, for as he said, one should be born cognizant of strategy and cunning in this world. Therefore I kept my own counsel ever afterwards, and the only words I spoke during that long rough journey northward through danger were but to ask them not to ride so fast. For I had something to protect. Under my cloak I kept my arms crossed tight, safeguarding one last small and secret joy.