Within the Hollow Crown (33 page)

   "And Uncle Thomas knows better than his Bible, wherein it is written, 'Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God'," said Richard, who could afford to poke fun at him.

   Richard had ruled England for eight years now. And ruled her well. These were the years that Froissart and other chroniclers would probably pass over with a sentence or two, as all prosperous times and happy marriages get passed over. But they were the
raison d'etre of his reign and the true expression of himself. An
d they gave England that respite which she so much needed in order to re-establish herself, and give her population a chance to partake in the cultural renaissance which was spreading over the Continent.

   Richard had long ago signed a peace treaty with France, here he was offering lavish hospitality to the Scots, and he had even settled the ever recurring problem of Ireland. He had not only seen Ireland as a potential colony, as his grandfather had done, but also as a potential danger if used by invading troops; and so he had led a campaign there himself. After an initial show of force, he had treated the barbaric chieftains so reasonably and humanely that they had sworn friendly allegiance and ceased harrying the English within the settlers' Pale. And he had left young Roger Mortimer, his heir presumptive, as Governor.

   At home he had given Anne the kind of kingdom he had promised her. When he took over his inheritance he had been wise enough to retain experienced men who had served under his grandfather, and tolerant enough to take no revenge upon men like Gloucester and Arundel. And—to everyone's surprise—he had not endangered the hard-won tranquillity by attempting to recall Michael de la Pole and Robert de Vere. But the violence of baronial families was now being held in check, and cheating tradesmen brought to justice. Beautiful merchandise poured into the country, Gothic churches raised their graceful spires, colleges were founded and infirmaries built. And learning flourished so that the clerks could not copy all the books quickly enough, and began to experiment with mechanical devices for doing so.

   "I suppose England is too quiet for Henry these days," Richard remarked to his eldest uncle. "I hear he has gone abroad again."

   "I rather think he is the loser," smiled Lancaster. His own adventuring days were done, and all the connoisseur in him appreciated Richard's England.

   As they passed along the Strand and up Ludgate Hill he noticed improvements everywhere. A toll had been levied to lay cobblestones along that particularly vile bit of road so that one need not dismount and go by boat on muddy days to avoid splashing one's best hose. The new Clerk of the Works had been ordered to straighten the river bank and repair the sewers. Butchers no longer flung offal in the gutters, but had to do their slaughtering outside the city at villages like Knightsbridge or Stratford-le-Bow; and the public privies that had polluted the moat of the Fleet prison had been pulled down. There were far fewer maimed beggars by the roadside, and—best of all, perhaps—the warning bells of lepers were seldom heard. Richard had had proper lazar houses built for them across the water on Bankside.

   London had never looked more lovely. An early shower of rain had washed the gleaming spire of St. Paul's and made the Temple gardens verdant. And now the sun shimmered on a full, majestic river, making a bright parterre of warm brown sails and boatloads of sightseers in holiday garments. It garnished gay little tavern bushes and barbers' flamboyant poles, and twinkled on wrought-iron signs above the shops.

   "Let us linger a little while and look at it all," begged Anne. "I love it even better than Prague."

   Richard laughed at her indulgently and signed to his cavalcade to stop, and she reined in the white palfrey the Londoners had given her and sat on the top of Ludgate Hill drinking in her fill of their city.

   "No need to devour it as though you'd never see it again," teased Richard.

   She raised puzzled eyes to his adoring ones. "Why is it so specially beautiful today?" she asked.

   "Because it is June," he told her.

   "I wonder what will happen
this
June," she speculated, as they moved on again.

   "An unexpected visitor, perhaps," suggested Edmund of York comfortably.

   "Whom would you choose, milord?" asked Ralph Standish, who was in attendance.

   York thought it would be nice if the Queen could see her brother, the Emperor; and Lancaster tactfully chose the King of Scotland.

   They all made a game of it, idly, as they passed along Cheapside.

   "And you, Richard?" asked Mowbray.

   "Oh, Jehan Froissart, I think. He was chronicler for my father's wars, and must have known my parents when they were young because I am told he was at my christening. Besides, I've often thought how amusing it would be if he and Geoffrey Chaucer could meet."

   They crossed the bridge to the Southwark end, where a gaily decked stand had been erected for them. The Bridge gate guard sprang to attention and the watchman up on the battlements blew a fanfare on the huge horn which had been issued for calling reinforcements ever since Tyler's men had rushed the drawbridge in thirteen eighty-one. Along the dusty road beyond the closed gate as far as eye could see, all manner of laden country carts were held up, waiting till the tilting was over to pay their farthing toll to come in and feed the insatiable city.

   "Who is the venerable man in red with all the official buttons?" asked Anne.

   "The Bridge doctor," explained Richard. "He's supposed to examine everyone who passes through and turn back all the lepers and plague suspects. It's extraordinary, though, no matter what arrangements we make for them to be fed on the other side, they always try to slip past and come back into London somehow! "

   "I should think he found it difficult with all those crowds pouring in for the tournament yesterday," said Standish.

   Tom Mowbray was busy clearing the roadway and instructing the heralds. And soon Lord Welles and Sir David Lindsay were charging across the strange lists with couched lances, each using his utmost skill to uphold the prowess of his own country. The bridge shook beneath the pounding of their horses' hoofs so that York, whose weight was considerable, feared that the stand might collapse as had once happened in the time of his mother, Queen Philippa. Cheers and shrilling of trumpets filled the air, broken from time to time by Mowbray's crisp orders, or the shriek of some silly women in the packed boats below. The bouts grew more and more fierce, and the sun rose higher in the summer sky.

   Presently Richard felt Anne's head come to rest against his shoulder. "Tired, my love?" he asked, withdrawing his gaze from a particularly exciting thrust to glance down at her. It was so unlike Anne to make demonstrations of affection in public.

   "It is so hot!" she murmured.

   He sent a page for a cooling drink and took one of her hot hands in his, holding it on his knee. And she said no more, fearing to spoil his pleasure. If he knew how awful she really felt he would throw down the gold baton Mowbray had handed him and stop the combat—and it was the final championship combat of the whole week upon which everyone had laid their bets.

   But at last the contest was over. A roar of cheering roused her and Richard sprang to his feet, almost forgetting that she was leaning against him. Lindsay was the victor. Scotland forever! Red-bearded Highlanders and London prentices yelled in unison, Richard presented Sir David with a cup the Goldsmiths' company had made, and men began to take up their bets. Anne sat very still, resting her head against the tall back of her crimson-painted chair and gripping the lions'-head arms. It was not until the shouting died down and the crowds were preparing to depart that Richard noticed how white she looked.

   Her eyes were closed, but she felt him bending over her and smelled the pleasant perfume of his clothes. "Anne, my poor sweet, you really
are
tired. We'll go back to Westminster at once," he was saying; but somehow his voice sounded as if it came from a long way off. And when she opened her eyes the shimmering light on the water made her feel giddy.

   "Not to Westminster. Home to Sheen," she managed to say, through lips that felt stiff and swollen.

   "But, my darling, our guests…"

   She caught at his hands, and her own were burning. "Please, Richard…" She was aware of the two elder uncles looking at her anxiously—of her women loosening her dress. She hated making a fuss. But just as an hour or so ago she had wanted to drink in the happy look of London, so now her whole being yearned to be at Sheen.

   She felt too ill to notice how they got her there, except that she lay on cushions in a closed litter. And that Richard walked the whole way beside her, easing the stretcher with his own hands and cursing softly every time the grooms encountered a rough bit of road. And then at last she was being carried upstairs into her own dear, familiar room, and Richard himself was laying her on her bed. Her women were putting hot bricks to her feet and two of the King's physicians seemed to have appeared as if by magic out of the blackness that kept threatening to submerge her.

   The Queen was ill. Agitated servants ran up and down stairs with hot water, or huddled in whispering groups. The uncles stood respectfully in the ante-room, and her husband paced up and down outside her door. He had never seen her look like that. Suppose she were going to be ill all the summer? Illness had never touched them. He had never even been called upon to wait while she bore the agony of childbirth. But that would have been sharp and over in a few hours—and then such joy for both of them!

   Surely the doctors must have finished their examination. Why couldn't old Waldby come out and tell him if it were really serious? He went to the door and listened. The stillness in the room got on his nerves so that he bit his lip and was surprised to find it bleeding. Ah, at last someone was moving. He heard the murmur of professional voices. They would come out in a moment and tell him that Anne had caught a sunstroke or a chill. And then suddenly a woman screamed. Not in pain, but terror. The door was wrenched open from within and a very young, distraught lady-inwaiting appeared, banging it behind her as if she had escaped from something unspeakable.

   "It's the plague!" she croaked, staring straight into Richard's face with frightened, bulging eyes.

   Richard seized her by a wrist. "Keep quiet, you fool!" he whispered, flinging her aside. And then the door opened again, more decorously, and Robert Waldby, the senior physician, stood there, both arms queerly outstretched. "It is true, sir," he said.

   Richard stared at him stupidly. He was vaguely aware of shocked exclamations from the uncles behind him. "You lying old goat!" he said, with a crazy sort of laugh which cracked in the middle because he could see now by the man's face that he wasn't lying.

   He threw himself upon the physician and forced his way back into the room. He could see his wife lying motionless where he had left her, her long, unbounded hair and one open palm trailing pitifully over the side of the bed, and her face turned from him. "Anne!" he cried desperately. But she did not answer. And then a dozen hands seemed to seize him, and a barrier of bodies was pushing him from his beloved. "You can't, sir…Consider England…My dear Richard, it isn't as if you had a
son
." Bits of their agitated arguments penetrated his stunned brain. He knew that they were right. But it made no difference until, in his struggles, he found himself wedged against Gloucester. Gloucester, who raised no hand to stop him—whose mocking eyes said as plainly as words, "Go on in and be damned to you!" And because he knew that Gloucester hoped he'd catch the plague and die, perversely he stopped struggling and let them lead him away.

   Clearly, Anne's own women were useless. Richard sent Ralph Standish for Mundina. He knew that Mundina, in the strange way of women, did not love Anne, although her dearest hope had been to nurse Anne's child. But he knew beyond all doubt that anything that was dear to him Mundina Danos would fight for with all the strange strength that was in her.

   All afternoon he paced his room or flung himself down in prayer, bargaining desperately with the Almighty. He neither spoke nor ate, and suffered no one but Mathe to be with him. Only the dog's dumb sympathy was tolerable. But when the unending day dragged towards dusk Richard went out into the gallery and called for Tom Holland, telling him to have the cooks prepare some of the Queen's favourite frumenty, and to come back for a message before carrying it to her room. He and his squire were both of a height now, and still very much alike. Richard gave the order loudly so that several people should hear him, and purposely forebore to rate the servants because they had forgotten to light the torches.

   When Tom came with the stuff Richard changed clothes with him, putting on the plain green livery with the white hart badge. He told the young man to lie on the bed in the shadow of the hangings so that anyone entering would say, "The King sleeps. In the name of charity don't disturb him!" And then he took the bowl of steaming frumenty and went hurrying with it through the darkening passages to his wife's room.

   Mundina herself unbarred the door, as if she had been expecting him. His eyes searched hers and found no trace of hope; only a fathomless pity. "The Queen has been calling for you," she told him. She took the bowl from him and set it aside. They both knew that Anne would never taste frumenty again.

   Mundina had long since sent the frightened women away and eased Anne's pain with her own herbal remedies. And somehow, with her tall gaunt frame and glittering dark eyes, she had managed to intimidate the doctors so that they let Richard stay.