Within the Hollow Crown (31 page)

   Anne slid down from the great four-poster and ran barefoot to where he stood, putting warm, bare arms about his neck. "I will make them love you again, Richard," she promised.

   He held her tight, remembering how uncomplainingly she had shared his misfortunes. "And I will give you a lovely, peaceful England. A place fit for a wonderful queen to reign over," he swore. "Sooner than you think, perhaps." His face kindled as it always did in his enthusiasms, and he held her at arm's length, all the artist in him considering the porphyry loveliness of her nude body almost as impersonally as he might have studied the perfection of a statue. "Anne, I want you to look queenly today," he said urgently. "I want you to put on that silver dress stitched over with pearls."

   "I can't put on
anything
unless you go away and let my women come in," pointed out Anne.

   Richard let her go. "They can come in now," he said, obligingly clapping his hands for them.

   "But, darling, you know how shocked old Mother Techsen is because you
will
wander about my bedroom while they're dressing me," objected Anne, reaching hurriedly for her wrap.

   "Shocked? The prim old Hussite! But I sleep here, don't I?"

   "That's different," explained Anne, furling the extravagant garment about her slender hips. "They're not here then."

   "Good God, I should hope not!" ejaculated Richard, scowling horribly as they all trooped into the room bearing towels and perfumes and stacks of feminine gear. He bowed frigidly to the hawk-eyed duenna in charge of them. But by the time he had reached the door a happy thought had restored his good humour. "Landgravine Techsen, the Queen and I invite you and the other Bohemian ladies to come to London with us this morning—in your best dresses," he said graciously. "My late mother's state charette will be at your disposal."

   They all looked much elated at the honour, and even the landgravine preened herself at the thought of riding in the grandest equipage in the stables.

   To Anne, Richard kissed his fingertips, adding in very bad Latin, "The scarlet hangings are moth-eaten and it jolts like a pack horse!"

   So they rode out from Sheen, all in the summer weather— Anne radiant in a gown studded with precious stones and Richard wearing the floreated ducal coronet which he had redeemed from the moneylenders for the occasion. And by the bridge gate at Southwark was Whittington, the Mayor, waiting for them with a splendid gift of two white horses for the King and a little white palfrey for the Queen. Richard loved the horses, of course, but was not placated. Like a good wife, Anne tried to cover the stiffness of his thanks with her own genuine enthusiasm, and watched the sulky set of his lips with foreboding. Unfortunately, the worthy Whittington saw fit to accompany the gifts with a long, boring speech sprinkled with hints about the return of his City's charters and the influence of gentle wives.

   "It was clever of you to think of the horses; he loves them so. And I will do what I can to persuade him," whispered Anne, pleasing the perspiring Mayor immensely by riding beside him.

   And on London Bridge the fates were kind to their collusion. Crowds followed them from Southwark and crowds swept forward from London to meet them, and close behind them pranced the startled white horses. And in all the confusion and press of people the brightly painted charette full of Anne's women wobbled on its worn wheels and overturned. Bohemian ladies rolled out of it, best dresses, horned headdresses and all. Prentice boys jeered and cheered and worthy citizens, hurrying to their assistance, found themselves too shaken with laughter to help. And Richard and Anne, hearing shrieks and foreign voices raised above the pandemonium, looked back to see the narrow roadway strewn with scarlet upholstery and inebriated-looking ladies.

   "Oh, my poor dears!" cried Anne, thinking of the river racing through the narrow arches below.

   "I'm sorry! I'd no idea the old hen cart was as rickety as that!" spluttered Richard, trying to look repentant. But the sight of Old Mother Techsen's skinny legs sticking through the side window was too much for him. "Tell her how shocked I am," he tried to say severely. "Bare to the thigh, and
not
in the privacy of her bedroom!" But at sight of his wife's anxious face he stopped grinning and turned to the Mayor behind him. "For God's sake, Whittington, go and see them properly packed in again," he ordered. And there on London Bridge he forgot all about his royal dudgeon, and made his entry into London, enjoying himself enormously in the middle of a laughing crowd. And if Anne were hurt because her countrywomen were the target of their ribald mirth, she was too wise to show resentment. Her love for Richard was such that she would have been glad of any event that seemed so happy an augury for him.

   They feasted in the Guild Hall. The Cheapside conduit ran red wine, and bands of musicians made harmonies about St. Paul's. Down Ludgate Hill the royal party rode, between tall houses hung with gold and silver tapestries; and out from the Wardrobe gatehouse came Mundina to kiss their hands. As they passed under Ludgate and clattered over the Fleet, bevies of golden-haired girls dressed as angels showered them with scented flowers, and at the Temple barrier they drew rein to watch a pageant which included lions and dragons and even a Garden of Eden serpent, and must have cost the repentant magnates hundreds of pounds.

   "Peace be to this city; for the sake of Christ, His mother, and my patron St. John," said Richard, kissing the gemmed crucifix they gave him. And because he was obviously moved, others besides Anne saw that light of inner grace about him.

   The apartness of his kinghood was still upon him as he ascended his throne in Westminster Hall. But he led Anne to the throne beside his own and, still sitting, addressed his people. Richard never made long speeches and what he said was always spontaneous, his beautifully modulated voice carrying even to the crowds standing in the sunlight outside the great open doors. "I will restore to you my royal favour as in former days," he promised, "for I duly prize the expense you have incurred, the presents you have made me, and the prayers of the Queen." He knew that their tumultuous cheers were even more for her than for himself, and gave them time to exhaust themselves. "Take back the key and the sword," he said, taking the symbols of their freedom from his squires and handing them to the kneeling Mayor. "Henceforth avoid offence to your sovereign and preserve the ancient faith. Keep my peace in your city," he added sternly, "and be
my
representatives among the people."

   Anne was eaten with pride in him. In that rich setting, with the gorgeous banners of his knights and ancestors as background, he bore himself so much a Plantagenet. But beneath all the romantic ritual of his public personality he was still her own everyday Richard, and as the scarlet-clad aldermen filed out she heard him say to York with irritable realism, "Today's show must have cost them every groat of a thousand pounds. Why, in the name of common sense,

couldn't they have lent it to me in the first place?"

   A few minutes later he was immersed in plans for the new roof, poring over parchments, listening to the suggestions of Hugh Hurland, his beloved carpenter, and walking about the hall with unflagging energy to view the possibilities from all angles.

   But when the experts from the College of Heraldry were admitted he rejoined Anne on the dais. "One gets a better view from here," he whispered, preparing to enjoy himself.

   The body of the hall was all animation at once. Nobles and knights—anybody who was anybody at all—crowded round the long refectory tables upon which the designs of proposed badges were being spread. Obviously, their
amour propre
was very deeply involved.

   "Let Thomas Holland choose first. He is a sick man," Richard ordered, across the rising din of their contentious voices. And his elder half-brother, who hadn't long to live, chose—as everyone had expected—the hind from his mother's quartering.

   "Which heraldic beast are you going to have for yourself, Dickon?" he asked, from the chair in which his servants had brought him.

   "Something fierce, symbolic of his bloodthirsty Cheshire archers?" snickered Gloucester.

   "Forty thousand of them, weren't there?" grinned Henry Bolingbroke, behind his hand.

   "Presumably, you will choose the lion, sir," York hastened to suggest. Since Radcot Bridge, he considered young Bolingbroke was growing too big for his boots.

   "No, I am leaving that for Uncle John," said Richard, flicking them with a reminder that the mighty Lancaster was on his way home. "I will think for a while, while the rest of you choose."

   Tigers, panthers, foxes, bears, fierce cockatrices, wild boars— they parted the whole menagerie among them. Fiery cressets were hot favourites. Lions rampant and lions couchant they haggled over. They were quite unaware that their young king and queen were laying bets on them with suppressed laughter. And presently Richard strolled down to the table. They made way for him and he stood among them, lifting first one design and then another, looking at each consideringly. Anne felt certain that all the time he knew exactly what he meant to have, and that he was only amusing himself keeping them standing there, watching him. "I think I will choose this," he decided at length, holding up an exquisite drawing of a little white hart.

   Obviously some of them thought he was joking.

   "A white hart—for the King of England!" exploded Gloucester. "Have you no pride, Richard?"

   "After Crécy! And with the three leopards of the first Richard on your shield!" snarled Arundel.

   "A
chained
white hart, I think," went on Richard, as if they had not spoken. "You could easily add a collar, couldn't you?" he asked, turning to the hovering draughtsman.

   Even Edmund of York, who had chosen an inoffensive falcon, was vaguely shocked. "My dear Richard, at least add a sunburst or a broomscod or something," he remonstrated.

   "You think so? Well, perhaps the collar can be turned into a crown—worn round the poor creature's neck. And I think two chains," he added, staring gently at Gloucester and Arundel, "to lead it by."

   None of them knew how to take him, and their discomfited glances followed him as he turned aside to arrange about a coat-ofarms for Chaucer. Really, when he looked round the hall, Geoffrey Chaucer seemed to be the only friend left out of his old life. And, after all, Philippa Chaucer's family had borne arms and her sister, Katherine, was Lancaster's mistress. "Trace it through Mistress Chaucer's father, Sir Payne Roet," he told Surroy King-of-Arms.

   Anne, of course, was delighted. But before he went to attend a full Council meeting she drew him apart to scold him gently.

   "You just try to provoke them!" she whispered, straightening the buckle of his belt.

   "Did you see Warwick oozing disgust, and Henry's popping eyes!" Richard chuckled reminiscently.

   "But why did you have to choose a white hart? Was it just a joke?"

   "No. There are some things one doesn't jest about." He was

suddenly serious and, seeing his squires waiting to conduct him to the Council Chamber, he explained in low, hurried tones, "Just before the peasants revolted my mother tried to keep me with her in Canterbury. I know now that she must have been worried about my going to London. She tried to persuade me…She had even had some stuff specially woven for me for a new hunting coat. It was covered with little white harts. I never had that coat. It seems so churlish now…"

   Anne was pressing his hand in hers, unobtrusively because of the waiting squires. Her eyes were wet. "She must be pleased," she whispered hurriedly, by way of atonement. "And I believe Gloucester and Arundel and Henry are half afraid of you when they're not sure if you're making fun of them or not."

   "Splendid! Perhaps that's another good augury," he said. "Wait for me here. Please, Anne! Don't go home to Sheen until I come."

   When she looked up his eyes were bright with excitement like a man going into battle, and he strode away hurriedly to his meeting.

   His uncles and the rest had gone before him to take up their places. The scarlet of the Lords Appellants' cloaks was like a strident field of poppies against a paler cloud of bishops. For once their babble of argument was hushed completely when he came in. He went swiftly to the state chair at the head of the table and motioned to them to be seated. But he himself did not sit down. He just stood there absently shifting the pile of documents awaiting his signature, and smiling a little to himself.

   "Are you still thinking about that ridiculous contretemps on London Bridge?" ventured York, his own lips quivering at the recollection.

   "Well, no. As a matter of fact I was thinking of my very good friend, Charles of Valois…"

   "Your
friend!" exploded Gloucester. "Are we not at war wit
h France?"

   "We
were,"
agreed Richard mildly. "But now I have had a reasonable peace treaty drawn up for Charles's consideration, and I think that the French will be as glad of it as ourselves."

   The Earl of Arundel rose in wrath. "You mean you have had a peace

treaty drawn up without consulting Parliament?" he demanded.

   Richard ignored him and, putting down the sheaf of parchments, looked straight at his youngest uncle. "How old am I?" he asked, shooting the question at him with apparent irrelevance.

   Gloucester, never much interested in family matters, glanced at his elder brother for enlightenment. But Edmund of York appeared to be smiling at something rather pleasing. And, for the matter of that, so did a number of other people. "Twenty-two, I suppose," replied Gloucester sulkily, after a few moments' consultation.