Within the Hollow Crown (12 page)

   But realization came sharply. He separated himself from the rest of the congregation and followed Sudbury into the sacristy. It was true he had been shriven, but he was missing de Vere and felt need of more informal confession. So he stood around watching a clerk divest the primate of his chasuble until Sudbury, sensing his desire for privacy, sent the young monk away. Even then Richard lingered over the vestments spilling their gorgeousness from a great carved chest, so that his bright hair and the richly embroidered materials made a pool of colour in the dim, pillared gloom. Suddenly aware that he was being observed, he lifted his head and spoke impulsively, rutting out all preamble. "I was afraid yesterday in the barge—horribly afraid," he said.

   The clear-cut words seemed to echo almost startlingly against the stonework of his hardier ancestors. Sudbury laid down the jewelled mitre in his hands and smiled at him. "Who am I to judge you, my son?" he asked gently. "I, who was asked to stay in hiding."

   Richard waved his diffidence aside. "But you can tell me—not as a priest but as friend—was it ignoble of me to let them row back before my conference with these insurgents was completed?"

   The Archbishop found such grave, youthful conscientiousness very touching. It seemed so unfair, too, that this boy whose burgeoning ideas about statecraft had been so consistently ignored should now, for the first time, be left by his managing relatives to conduct his own conferences. "You had a woman with you," Sudbury reminded him, seeking to restore his self-respect.

   Richard let the cope he had been examining fall back across the coffer lid. "My mother
would come," he said. "For love of me
, probably. Or out of fear for John, because he is of the Lancastrian household. As you know, milord, she is much more courageous than most women. But when she saw the numbers of insurgents she nearly fainted. It
is
the numbers that are so terrifying, of course." He paused for a moment or two as if reliving his own sensations at sight of them. "Naturally, I was anxious about her. But I wanted to get back to save my own skin as well," he added, with meticulous candour.

   Sudbury had gone down to the Tower steps to meet them on their return. "Judging by their complexions there were older men in the barge who were not exactly loath to do so either," he pointed out dryly. "Although I noticed afterwards that most of them, at one time or another, made your lady mother their excuse."

   Richard knew this to be true, and when the Princess had retired to her own room and they had been discussing the expedition at supper he had hated them for it. "If they hadn't kept urging me I might have stayed to hear more," he admitted. "I wanted to. Actually, it was extraordinarily interesting hearing about life from a viewpoint so absolutely opposed to our own."

   "A rare experience for a king," smiled Sudbury.

   Richard drew near. He had been wanting to tell someone about it. Somebody who would understand like Burley. "Their spokesmen were quite intelligent and I feel we might have come to some real agreement. But it was difficult, shouting from a swaying boat and trying to understand their rough country speech. And unfortunately I missed a lot because people in the barge kept talking across me. Saying they could see dangerous-looking trained bands on the bank—crack shots as likely as not who had been at Poitiers—and what was the good of coming by water, anyway, if the men ashore had bows and arrows? Even my bargemaster whispered to me that he thought we ought to be going. Then one of my mother's ladies, who is very young but would come with us, screamed out that there was a man hidden behind one of those drooping willows taking aim at me." Richard stammered a little at remembrance of her embarrassing concern for him. "Though I think it was really Henry he was aiming at," he explained confusedly, "because some peasants were shouting 'Down with Lancaster!' and when I moved in front of him the man lowered his bow."

   Sudbury studied the fair, sensitive face which showed no trace of the Black Prince's hardihood. "You did
that
, Richard?" he said. "And you come and ask me if it was ignoble to be afraid!"

   Richard reddened uncomfortably. It sounded as if he had been bragging. "Oh, well, that was different. Things one does on the spur of the moment like that—"

   "Are usually the outcome of habit and therefore a true indication of character. But I always thought that you and he—"

   "There's no love lost between us, if that's what you mean. But we're all in this together and he's been more helpful than some of those wordy old Councillors. After all, he stands in as much danger as yourself; but he didn't get sent for by anxious relatives or—or find more pressing business elsewhere."

   If the Archbishop recognized a tinge of bitterness in the King's words and guessed at the cause, he was too wise a man to remark on it. And, as their import reminded him, he had enough urgent trouble of his own. "I am an old man now and prepared to die," he said, as they came out on to steps of the Keep and heard again that unappeased howl for blood. "But I too have been horribly afraid. Afraid of being torn limb from limb by those ravening wolves."

   Richard offered him his arm with charming courtesy. "I could have bought our immunity that way two days ago," he said. "But you are my guest, milord, and surely these walls are thick enough to reassure you."

   The people's hatred had come as a great shock to a man who had been wont to pray for them. "Then they asked for—my body?" he quavered, as they descended the steps.

   Richard nodded gravely. "Yours and Hales' and Lancaster's— which last is not in my hands, thank God!"

   Half-way across the courtyard Sudbury paused a little breathlessly, and in his preoccupation rested a hand on the King's shoulder almost as if the lad were his own son. "Richard, I have been thinking—"

   "Well?"

   "If Hales and I could get away, too, it would make it easier for you all, wouldn't it? When I was down on the watersteps yesterday one of the fathers from Crutched Friars was getting into a little boat. Taking Extreme Unction to some poor passing soul aboard one of those galleys bound for Venice, no doubt. And I wondered if I, too, could—"

   Richard was quick to take in his thought. "It is worth trying," he agreed.

   "Except that today the insurgents are all along
this
bank, watching," sighed Sudbury as they came through the privy garden to the royal apartments. "So that unless something should divert their attention—"

   "Don't worry, Sudbury. I will see that there is a diversion quite soon," promised Richard, unconsciously adumbrating his father's brisk decisiveness. "Before dinner, if I can get my own way, for once!"

   He looked back from the doorway so that the last the Archbishop saw of him was his bright, boyish smile, unclouded as yet by cynicism or distrust. "God keep him like that always," prayed the old man, "with his goodness shining out of him!"

Richard found most of his friends and relatives gathered in the Lantern Tower. From thence they could look down on a part of London. They seemed stunned by this invasion of the City and were herded together in anxious groups in one half of the bare, circular room. As if by common consent they had left the westward window to Henry Bolingbroke, who stood with his back to them staring at the dying flames which were all that was left of the Savoy.

   In spite of this fresh tragedy, Joan of Kent was seated at a little table breaking her fast. "You see how right I was about getting John away," she said as soon as Richard appeared at the top of the winding stair. He noticed that although Lizbeth de Wardeaux was spreading her a fresh slice of bread and honey the dear, inimitable woman spoke in a hushed whisper as if she were still in church—out of deference to her detested nephew, he supposed. He smiled and bent to kiss her, then went straight to Henry. Seeing that desolate gap in the fine river frontage for the first time was like having a bit of one's everyday life suddenly shore away. "I'm terribly sorry, Henry," he said. "It was one of the loveliest buildings in London!"

   Henry himself cared considerably less about its architectural beauty, but it had been his home; and a reflection of the conflagration shining in his dark eyes revealed his burning rage.

   "You're sure the Duchess got away safely?" asked Joan, rather ashamed of her preoccupation with her own loved ones. She never had liked the Lancasters, but at a time like this one couldn't help being sorry for them.

   "I hear she reached our castle at Kenilworth, madam," answered Henry. "But even up there feeling runs so high against us that I doubt if the Constable would dare to let her in." His words sounded wooden and callous; but the present duchess was only his stepmother—and part of a political bargain at that. For, as everyone knew, John of Gaunt had married her solely to substantiate his pretensions to the Castilian throne. She couldn't even speak English, and the upbringing of his first wife's daughters had been left to Katherine Swinford, the family governess.

   The name of Swinford must have reminded Joan of someone in the household for whom she
did
care. "How awful of us to forget about Chaucer's wife!" she exclaimed; and when the Port Controller came hurrying into the room she half rose in consternation as if this beloved servant were one of themselves.

   Chaucer had married Katherine Swinford's sister—a woman of gentle birth—and adored her. Perhaps the very fact that they had served in separate households had perpetuated the sweet flowering of their love. His finely chiselled features and normally freshcoloured cheeks were ashen, and tearing anxiety had dulled the kindly humour of his glance. Having lived with various members of the Plantagenet family for twenty years or more, he went straight to the King without embarrassment. "I have just seen the roof fall in," he said, without wealth of words and still panting from the turret stairs. "Philippa, my wife—as you know, sir, she is one of the Duchess's ladies—I believe they got away, but…"

   Richard stepped forward and took the blindly groping hand which had written so much lovely poetry. "For God's sake, Henry, give him what comfort you can!"

   Bolingbroke was sorry enough for the fellow, although of course he couldn't show it as Richard did. He rather despised poets, but this Chaucer was a man of parts. He had fought and even been taken prisoner in France, and the late King himself had ransomed him. So he hastened to assure him that his Philippa had gone north with her sister in the Duchess Constanza's train.

   Even while voicing relief and thanks, Geoffrey Chaucer was swift to realize that the room was crowded with distinguished personages with whom he was far less at home. He began to realize, too, that they were all avid for news. "It was hearing the screams as the roof fell in that was so awful," he apologized. "Some poor drunken wights must have been still in the gutted cellars, besotted with wine. Not being sure about my wife, I tried to land from my revenue boat. But the flames were too fierce. That fanatic Ball was there, shouting to his followers to throw the Duke's treasures into the water. One could hear his voice above the cracking of the rafters, telling them that all who possessed riches were damned. I saw priceless paintings floating like rags…"

   "And what about the wharves on either side?" asked Gloucester.

   Chaucer was becoming his normally coolly observant self again. "Our own they have spared, sir. But the Flemish wharves are a shambles. Even from midstream I could see the wrecked weighing sheds and every Fleming who had not escaped lying headless in his own blood."

   "How can a man who forbids looting allow murder?" demanded Richard indignantly, wondering how on earth he was to placate the Flemish government.

   "It seems they have got beyond his control," answered Nicholas Brembre, who had gone as far as he dared by road and come back to report. "Some faint-hearted citizens with more money than sense have been trying to buy favour by opening their cellars to the rabble. They forget that most of these peasants have never in their lives tasted anything stronger than cheap tavern ale."

   "And most of the great vats down in the Vintry have been broken open," confirmed Chaucer. "I was there only this morning, hoping to conclude the sale of my late father's warehouse."

   "Having moved up and up until you live over a City gatehouse and no longer need it!" laughed John Holland boisterously. He never could understand what his august relatives saw in the insignificant wine merchant's son to trust him with important offices at home and private missions abroad which he would have liked for himself.

   But Chaucer could afford to ignore him, and went on talking to the King with that happy blend of candour and respect which makes a family servant a friend. "They'd cleared out everything. The good Gascoigny and Rhinish that my father used to supply to yours, sir—and even your own favourite vintage."

   "My poor Geoffrey!" commiserated Richard, wiping out John's jibe with an arm briefly laid about a sensitive man's shoulders. He turned back into the centre of the room with a rueful laugh. "And to think that I've got to go out and talk to them while they're inflamed with my own Bordeaux!"

   He spoke with intentional lightness, but everybody stared at him as if he were mad, and Joan rose abruptly with a hand pressed to either cheek. "Oh,
no
, Richard!" she protested.

   He knew that both she and Lizbeth had lost their nerve since the Rotherhithe episode. "You saw how reasonable the peasants were yesterday," he reminded her. "This morning I propose to meet some of the Essex men, and Walworth says they're not nearly so savage as your Kentish toughs." He turned to his uncle and the rest, unaware of how slight a figure he looked in their midst. "I thought it might appease them if I offered to meet them all in that meadow at Mile End where the prentices hold their sports. How far would that be, Brembre?"