The Tudor Rose Part 2

That was too much for Richard. Feeling himself to be the only man of the party, he evaded his mother at last and ran to join them, clambering on to the window-seat. "Uncle Gloucester certainly can march!" he exclaimed, his nose flattened against a window-pane.

Elizabeth helped her mother to rise and went to look. "Are you sure they are his men, d.i.c.kon?" she asked, peering through the trickling raindrops.

"See the boar on their badges!" pointed out Richard conclusively. "And, look Bess, there is Uncle's old groom, Bundy, who taught me to ride my first pony. Over there, standing in the light of a torch."

So it was true. Gloucester had reached London.

"Come back, Richard!" called their mother.

The boy obeyed reluctantly, and Elizabeth could not help feeling that to be singled out for such express anxiety was bad for so imaginative a child.

"The yard is full of them. Do you suppose they are trying to surround us?" asked Cicely, beginning to be scared.

"They cannot harm us, foolish one. Not all the soldiers in the land can make us come out from here," Elizabeth reminded her.

"But they could prevent anyone else from getting in," pointed out Richard, the quick-witted.

"You mean they could starve us?" groaned Cicely, to whom no worse calamity was conceivable.

"Oh, for the love of our Lady, be sensible, all of you!" exclaimed Elizabeth, shooing the two smaller girls back to their dolls. "Why should Uncle Gloucester want to starve us? Probably he will ask leave to come and see us soon and bring you all some sweetmeats. Do try to remember that he is in as deep a grief as we are."

"He will go to his precious wife first," muttered Cicely, pouting at her sister's unaccustomed rebuke.

"And why not?" asked Richard. "I like Aunt Anne."

"It is one of the nicest things about him that he loves her so," reflected Elizabeth, feeling that so human a trait made him more like the rest of them and therefore all the less to be feared.

But the Duke did not beg leave to come and see them. Perhaps he was worn out with forced marches, or-as Richard suggested- had not had time to change his dusty armour. Or perhaps it was just that he avoided as much as most men the edge of an angry woman's tongue.

Instead they had a visit from their host, the Abbot. "The Protector is back, Madam," he announced, having been bidden to sup with the Queen.

"The Protector?" The t.i.tle, if not the news, stunned her.

It being Friday, the Abbot helped himself to fish. "He styles himself so," he said, not liking to tell her that he had already by common consent had the t.i.tle thrust upon him.

"And fills our peaceful courtyards with soldiery!" The poor Queen had scarcely eaten for days, and even now, in spite of her daughter's anxious urging, only picked distraitly at some fruit. "And what of Edward?" she asked immediately.

"The Duke has taken him to lodge the night in the town house of the Bishop of Ely."

Tears rose to her tired eyes. "Not with me, his mother," she said.

"Dear Madam," soothed the Bishop compa.s.sionately, "they say the young King was overtired from the long journey and needs immediate sleep."

"One is scarcely surprised after the shock of seeing his favourite uncle, who was appointed his tutor and who has always done everything for him, arrested like a common traitor. Surely, too, it was enough to kill him, coming across England at that pace. I would have you know, my dear Abbot, that for all his st.u.r.dy looks he is not so wiry as young Richard here." After brooding on her wrongs a while the Queen added with inconsistency, "To-day is the fourth of May. He was to have been crowned this day."

"The heralds have given it out in every ward of the City that his Grace will be crowned as soon as he is rested."

"And who told the heralds?" demanded the widow of their late master.

"Milord the Duke."

"The Protector?" She laughed shortly. "Heaven send he proves to be one!"

"But is he not the most obvious person?"

"We will see what milord Hastings has to say about that. At least there will have to be a Council-meeting. I shall tell them-"

"But, Madam-"

No one present dared to remind the Queen in so many words that, having withdrawn into the sanctuary of the Church, she could no longer expect to attend Council-meetings; but during their embarra.s.sed silence she sat realizing the possible results of the one grave mistake she had made. Everything must depend upon Hastings now. Being loath to admit the disadvantages of the situation, she changed the subject. "How did London welcome my son?" she asked. And all young Edward's family hung upon the Abbot's words.

"With every possible show of deference and loyalty, Madam," he a.s.sured her. "They brought the late King's cloak of purple and ermine for him to wear."

"Was it not horribly heavy?" asked Richard, leaning eagerly over the back of his mother's chair.

"Indeed it was, my little Duke," agreed the Abbot, with a twinkling smile for the boy who had always been his favourite. "But his uncle had a thought for that and bade old Bundy arrange it so that most of the weight fell upon the flanks of his Grace's little white horse. Gloucester rode bare-headed beside him, Madam," he went on, "and the Lord Mayor tells me that every now and then, wherever the crowds were thickest, he would make a motion towards the lad with his cap as if to say 'Here is your King,' and then reined back his great charger a little so that the cheers seemed only for his nephew, and not at all for his own victorious campaign in Scotland."

"That was well done," conceded the Queen. "And how did Edward bear himself?"

"As became your husband's son, save that he looked grievously tired. The children threw white roses in his path and many of the women wept."

"Wept?"

"Because he was so young, I suppose."

"I would we could see him!" sighed the Queen, thereby giving her host the opening for which he had been waiting.

"If you wish it, there is nothing easier, Madam," he a.s.sured her. "Milord Duke sent to me the moment he arrived. He entreats your Grace to return to the Palace and to bring the children with you so that you may all be reunited."

"Oh, Madam, and it please you, may we not go?" begged Cicely, putting a coaxing arm about her.

"No," said the Queen, her thin clever mouth set straightly and her gaze on Richard as he tried, laughing, to teach his new wolfhound pup to beg for sc.r.a.ps.

The learned Abbot glanced round his cluttered room and lowered his voice persuasively. "I have also had word with Lord Hastings, and he thinks that perhaps your Grace's coming here was ill-advised," he ventured. "He feels that the late King's brother is the man of the moment and that you insult him unnecessarily by so much display of distrust."

The Queen was clearly tempted. She enjoyed the exalted surroundings that were due to her, all the more so because she had not been born to them. "You mean the spiritual lords who have been so loyal to us feel it would be wise for me to return?"

"They think it would be more politic both for your Grace's sake and for their own," said the Abbot. "For you must know how hard their lords.h.i.+ps are having to fight of late to retain sanctuary rights at all."

The Queen rinsed her ringed fingers in the bowl a young monk had the honour to hold for her. "Then let Gloucester free my brother first," was her ultimatum.

And so the days pa.s.sed and the children became cramped and irritable. They missed their rides in the royal parklands and their pleasant springtime expeditions by barge. Even Richard's gay temper began to be affected by the mother's anxiety on his behalf. News filtered in that Edward had been taken from Ely Place to the royal apartments in the Tower, and Gloucester, instead of a.s.serting himself by staying in either palace, was lodged at Baynard's Castle, the home of his dictatorial old mother.

They were days of anxiety and uncertainty which played havoc with everyone's temper; and they were not lightened for the Queen when the Archbishop of York came imploring her to return to him the Great Seal. The Protector had need of it so that the young King could issue sundry doc.u.ments, he said, and it was as much as his own life was worth not to be able to produce it.

"The first doc.u.ment he will persuade that poor innocent child to sign will be a royal recognition of his protectors.h.i.+p!" prophesied the Queen bitterly.

"There are so many orders to be signed," the Archbishop excused himself evasively, "now that the Duke has fixed July the fifth for the coronation."

That preparations were going on on a lavish scale no one could doubt. The hammering of carpenters erecting stands for spectators echoed around Palace and Abbey from morning till night, and carts rumbled in from the country laden with all manner of food. The tailor who was sent for to supplement Richard's single hurriedly made suit of mourning declared that he dared not undertake to do it, because even with these long May evenings he and his workpeople were still sitting crosslegged by candlelight to finish the fine new clothes ordered for his brother, the King. And one morning, while wandering among the roses in the Abbot's peaceful little garden, Elizabeth caught sight of the Duke of Gloucester himself crossing a courtyard towards the Star Chamber, accompanied by a posse of important people. "They must be making final arrangements for the fifth," she reported to her family.

"I wish that I could see the procession! I wish that I could ride my horse again!" fretted Richard.

All morning the great doors of the Chamber remained fast shut, but, the day being warm, the windows stood open, and lay brothers working in the Abbot's garden could overhear voices raised in angry debate. And before noon it began to look as though, after all, Richard would have his wish. For after the meeting many of the clergy came to wait upon the Queen. This time it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who led them, and the Primate's face was grave. "The peers of the realm feel it to be only fitting that his Grace the Duke of York should be present at his brother's coronation," he told her without preamble, as soon as he had given them all his blessing.

"But surely you forbade it! Are we not under your protection here?" cried the Queen.

"No one can touch you, my daughter. Neither you nor our two elder Princesses, who are young women and of marriageable age," he a.s.sured her. "But in spite of milord Hastings' objection and of all our arguments it has been decided in council that the term sanctuary cannot apply to children who are too young to sin. With a great hair-splitting of legal deduction it appears to have been proved that since they are incapable of guilt they stand in no need of the Church's protection."

The Queen sprang to her feet white with fury. "It is a trick! A dastardly trick to get Richard into his uncle's hands. And only one brain could have conceived it," she declared.

"Perhaps only with the very proper purpose of having him ride in the procession, Madam," suggested John Morton, Bishop of Ely, trying to calm her.

"Once Gloucester has him he will not let him go," she countered. "Is not his purpose clear? Do they bother to ask for Ann or Katherine or my baby Bridget?"

"Gloucester is now free to take him by force," the Archbishop reminded her.

"He shall not-the child is sick," lied the cornered Queen.

"But we of the Church want no violence," he went on, ignoring her desperate mendacity. "And should your Grace give in with good heart to the Duke's wishes he is the more likely to deal leniently with Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey."

"You mean that I must be reduced to choosing between the safety of this or that dear one?"

"He has not said so," admitted the Primate. "Come, Madam, I think you are sadly prejudiced against him. In this matter he has common sense on his side. For apart from the fact that the people would want to see the Duke of York at the coronation, I pray you consider how heavy a burden and how great a loneliness our late Sovereign's death and your removal here have laid upon the King, who himself is little more than a child. Milord Protector, who visits him every day, says that he languishes for his brother as a playmate."

Elizabeth, who so seldom put herself forward and who had accounted her mother's extreme suspicion as foolishness, found herself rus.h.i.+ng in in loyal support. "Can no one else be found for him to play with? What of the young Earl of Warwick," she suggested. "Would he not do as well, being our late Uncle Clarence's son?"

The Archbishop ceased to be solemn and shook his head smilingly, for, unlike her mother, Elizabeth had no unfortunate knack of annoying people. "Apart from the fact that he is up in Warwick Castle, I fear your brother would find him but poor company," he said. "For as you know, my dear Elizabeth, he is but simple in the wits, having been born in that bad storm at sea."

"More likely because his treacherous father was fuddled with malmsey when he was begetting him!" scoffed the Queen. "I would not have my poor son lonely, but surely, as my daughter says, some other lads of his own age can be found for him. He might even be more contented so," she added, searching feverishly in her mind for yet more excuses, "for it is a known fact that children quarrel most with their own kindred."

"Oh, Bess, when did Ned and I ever quarrel?" whispered Richard indignantly, drawing his sister away from their arguing elders.

Elizabeth smiled down at him, knowing his sweet disposition. And understanding how bad it was for him to hear himself being the bone of so much contention, she went with him to join the other children. "All the same," he added apprehensively, "I no longer want to go."

"But you will have a new doublet and hose and ride in the lovely procession, d.i.c.kon, and see the City all decorated," said Ann enviously.

"Probably Bundy will bring you a new cob and you will ride next behind Edward with Uncle Gloucester," said Elizabeth.

"And when you get back to the Tower you will be able to see all the lions and bears and tigers in the menagerie there," added Cicely, goodnaturedly gathering round with the others to cheer him. "Don't you remember telling us how Dorset took you and Edward to see them fed and even showed you how the keepers shot the bolts of their cages?"

"Why, yes, it was as interesting as the printing press, and there was an ingenious kind of master bolt that could be worked from outside in case they turned savage," recalled Richard, his alert young brain being easily diverted by such things.

"You said they were called the King's beasts, so they must be Ned's very own lions now," lisped Katherine, round-eyed with awe.

"Yes, poppet, but I don't suppose he is allowed to go and look at them. Our half-brother isn't Constable of the Tower any more," remembered Richard forlornly.

"Why not?" demanded Ann, who had entertained hopes of being taken to see the fearsome lions herself.

"Because one of the first things Uncle Gloucester did when he reached London was to relieve Dorset of his command and to put Sir Robert Brackenbury in his place," Elizabeth told her.

"Well, Sir Robert is very kind," said Cicely. "Perhaps he will show them to you, d.i.c.kon."

The idea seemed to cheer him for a while, but their mother was still arguing with the beautifully arrayed churchmen. "Brothers have been brothers' bane, so how can nephews be sure of their uncles?" they could hear her contending in that penetrating voice of hers. "And I have such deadly enemies."

Whatever they thought, it seemed they were too pitiful to remind her that she herself had made most of them. "Madam, though this forward generation may nibble at our privileges, Holy Church is not without considerable power," the Archbishop comforted her.

"I know well your good intent and believe you can keep them safe if you will," agreed the Queen at last, with a profound sigh. "But if you think that I fear overmuch, take care that you, milords, do not fear too little!" She called Richard to her and, placing a hand on either of his shoulders, gave him a little push towards them. "To your care I commit him-Richard, Duke of York, the late King's younger son-and of your hands before G.o.d and man I shall require him again."

Frightened by her anguish and by the churchmen's solemn faces, Richard felt the budding manhood he had clung to so desperately deserting him. He turned his back on them and caught at her dress. For weeks her foolishly outspoken fears had been playing upon his sensitive nerves, sapping his courage; and now some nameless terror was being conjured up before him. She held him tightly to her, his head against her heart. "G.o.d send you good keeping," she prayed, the tears raining down her face. Then, cupping his troubled face in both her beautiful jewelled hands, she bent to kiss him with prophetic pa.s.sion. "Kiss me before we part, my sweet son, for G.o.d knows when we two shall kiss together again!"

And because she wept Richard wept too, and they clung together so that the gentle Abbot had perforce to part them. The Queen turned away, covering her eyes with a dramatic gesture and leaving the boy sobbing alone in the midst of them. It was one of those devastating scenes which the Woodville Queen seemed almost involuntarily to create.

After a moment or two the Archbishop of Canterbury cleared his throat. "Your uncle is waiting in the Painted Gallery to welcome your Grace with all kindness," he told Richard, and at the gently spoken words the boy straightened himself. Uncle Gloucester, like his father, was a soldier and would stand for no womanish tears. His sister watched them go down the long hall to the door together, the prelate with an arm about the young Duke's shoulder so that his splendidly embroidered vestments seemed to be covering him like a protective wing.

And suddenly all the Queen's foreboding sprang to life in Elizabeth's heart. She would have given anything to hold him back-done anything to keep him. Seeing how bravely he was trying to play the man, she wanted desperately to say something to comfort him, to tell him how dearly she loved him. But no adequate words came to her. It was as if, surfeited with the prodigality of her mother's emotion, all expression of her own were d.a.m.ned. "Don't forget the lions, d.i.c.kon!" she called out cheerfully as he pa.s.sed her.

He did not answer her, and she could have bitten her tongue for producing such an inanity. The great oak door at the end of the room was thrown open. A shaft of sunlight from outside shone all about her small brother, glinting on his red-gold hair and making a charming silhouette of his slender figure in its sad black velvet. And in the doorway he stopped, disengaging himself courteously from the Archbishop's protective arm. And to her great joy he turned and smiled at her, answering the unconscious fervour of love in her eyes.

Then there was the sharp thud of pikes as the guard outside sprang to attention, and, although the warm spring sun still shone, he was gone.

AS THE DAYS WARMED to high summer the hammering ceased. London lay decked and waiting for a coronation. The spectators' stands were all set up, the merchants' gabled houses draped with richly coloured damask, the civic banners bravely flying. And in the Abbot's quiet garden out at Westminster, among the red and white roses, paced the two sad women who should have been the most radiant figures in the coming pageantry.

"All this preparation is for himself-for Gloucester, the false usurper!" raged the widowed Queen. "Did I not warn you?"

"You were right, Madam, and I a blind artless fool," admitted Elizabeth.

"He never intended to have young Edward crowned. It was all lies, lies!" The Queen's black skirts swished angrily against the low box borders, stirring a bitter sweetness from their sun-drenched greenery. "The moment those credulous clerics had wheedled Richard from me, what did the fiend do but have my brother and my first husband's son executed at Pontefract? My poor brother Rivers was so handsome, so brilliant...Gloucester was always jealous of him."

"My father would never have believed this of Gloucester," mourned Elizabeth. "It is bewildering to recall how he trusted him."

"And now the unnatural creature dares to justify himself by calling your trusting father's children b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! You, Cicely, Edward-all of you. Trying to strengthen his case by reminding the world that the King and I were married secretly."

"It is only the legitimacy of Edward and Richard that really matters to him." Elizabeth of York sank down upon a stone bench and drew her mother down beside her so as to put an end to the distraught pacing. In the noonday heat the combined scent of box and full-blown roses almost made both women swoon; but neither of them could bear to be cooped up with prying attendants within four walls. They had to voice the thoughts which were tormenting them. "Who was this Butler woman whom they now pretend my father married first?" asked Elizabeth, who had never dared to speak of so intimate a thing before.

"One of the King's earlier loves," shrugged his widow, inured to his infidelities.

"Was she-long before you?"

"Only a few months. She was just Joan Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury's daughter, when I first knew her. She was very pretty and Edward very ardent, no doubt. If he could not get his way he may have promised to marry her."

"But at the time of your coronation surely the Council satisfied themselves that you were his wife?"

"They saw my marriage lines," stated the woman who had been enterprising enough to insist upon more than promises.

"And you had witnesses?"

"Only my mother and two waiting-women. But the testimony of my mother-Jaquetta, d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford-cannot be lightly set aside. That is why, for all their talk of secrecy, the only hope of my enemies is to prove that the late King married Joan Butler first."