The Devil in Ermine Page 4

  The servants removed the dishes from the board and the cloth, sullied with gravy, was whipped away exposing the naked oak shining like a Carthaginian’s well-oiled skin in the firelight. Lovell returned, sent for his lute and curled himself in the window seat, and as we began to give our attention to his music, Ratcliffe prowled in and sat down beside him.

  Was Lovell’s song a warning? I do not think so. Judging by his expression as he sang and his nimble fingers on the strings, it was one he knew well.

  There is none so wise a man

  But he may wisdom know;

  And there is none so strong a man

  But he finds equal foe;

  Nor there is none so false a man

  But some man will him heed;

  And there is none so weak a man

  But some man shall him grieve.

  Rivers lolled in his chair as he listened, stretching out his long legs, but Gloucester sat tight-lipped and concise in his mourning clothes, staring into his winecup like a man who bore the sorrows of all Christendom upon his shoulders. He sat so still, as if a heart no longer beat beneath his sable mantle; his face as pale as the pearls upon the brooch on his hat. I looked away, knowing he mourned where I did not, that he had travelled far longer than I to this time and this place.

  ‘Pox take it, Lovell, that’s far too sad,’ exclaimed Rivers, his voice fisting into our reverie. ‘Play something to liven us up! Ned would not want us to be in the dumps and I swear he would say as much, were he to be looking at us now.’

  Rivers was probably right. ‘Ned’ would have slapped his puny brother around the shoulders and clashed his wine goblet into ours, but I saw Gloucester flinch – the telltale twitch of muscle beneath his left eye – as though on Rivers’ lips, the shaping of his beloved brother’s familiar name was a blasphemy.

  ‘Your grace?’ Lovell leaned forward.

  Gloucester stirred. ‘I daresay Lord Rivers is right.’ Only the corners of his mouth lifted. ‘After all, you shared more leisure time with him than I did, my lord.’ And I swear Rivers did not note the ambiguity, for his Woodville sense of self was higher than any spire.

  ‘Know The Cricket and the Grasshopper, Lovell? Play that.’ Rivers straightened and raised his cup. ‘To Ned! May God take him to his bosom.’ The Devil morelike, I thought, but I touched my goblet rim to theirs.

  ‘Now this is supposed to be a true story’, began my brother in law, ‘save it was told to me by an Irishman. There was an English bagpiper went over to Ireland with the army of Richard of Bordeaux and one day he decided to slip off on his own for a bit and travel about the country. Anyway, off he went with his pipes slung on his shoulder and just as he was sitting down to have his dinner in a wood, three wolves began to accost him. He threw some meat to one and some cheese to another, hoping they would go away but still they slunk nearer and nearer. He was so afraid that he grabbed his bagpipes and began to play to give himself courage. The moment they heard the noise, the wolves ran away. “A pox on you!” he shouted after them. “If I had known you loved music so well, you should have had it before dinner.”’

  ‘Hmm,’ I applauded dryly. ‘An’ if I had been one of the wolves I should have made off too for I cannot abide such pig squeal either.’

  ‘No, you never did have much feel for music, did you,’ Rivers observed. I hoped he was not going to dredge out the story of how he and his brothers had slipped a mouse in the lute that my mother had sent me, when I had been summoned to play before the Queen and her ladies. Elizabeth and Cat had been in the jest as well.

  ‘I did not think they ever had wolves in Ireland,’ said Gloucester with an innocence unlikely to offend. He could do that skilfully and before Rivers had time to argue or even weigh up whether it was a slur, my cousin turned to me. ‘I am surprised at you saying that about the pipes, Harry. I am sure it is because you cannot have heard them played really well. Holy Paul, a good piper can almost draw the soul out of your body.’

  ‘You’ll not convince me,’ I insisted. ‘I have not your ear for music.’

  ‘Harry would not know the difference between a thrush and a crow,’ muttered Rivers silkily but Gloucester ignored the interruption.

  ‘Lord Howard poached a wondrous piper off Lady Margaret Beaufort. I’ll have a word with him when we reach London and see if he can arrange some entertainment for us.’

  Well that would be something to look forward to. I changed the subject. ‘Well now,’ I asked with innocuous cheerfulness. ‘What are the arrangements for tomorrow?’

  ‘We talked about it before you arrived,’ replied Cat’s brother. ‘We can all leave together tomorrow morning. There’ll be no need for an early start. His highness was not feeling well and I should like him to sleep in. One of his teeth is nagging him and, of course, this has all been a huge blow to him.’ He crossed himself. ‘As to us all.’

  My heart to testicles and shoulder-to-shoulder gesture was perfunctory. ‘And tomorrow he will be surrounded by uncles he hardly knows,’ I murmured.

  ‘Hardly that, Harry. I have told him all about you.’ It was a pinprick deftly given. ‘Would you be offended if I leave you now, dear brothers?’ Without our agreement, he pushed his chair back and towered over us. ‘I am – if you will pardon the crassness – as sore-thighed as one of the Bishop of Winchester’s pretty geese after a busy night.’ Gloucester’s lips tightened disapprovingly but Rivers did not appear to notice. ‘May you sleep well, Dickon.’ Dickon! Even I had never spoken to my cousin so familiarly.

  Gloucester escorted Rivers to the door where, the one so tall, the other so slight, they said good night with a shake of hands.

  ‘Goodnight, Harry,’ my brother-in-law called out to me. Not bothering to rise, I raised my winecup to him in valediction. To your damnation, Rivers!

  ‘What o’clock is it?’ asked Gloucester, stretching and wearily drawing his fingers down his cheeks to his chin.

  ‘Nine has not yet struck,’ replied Ratcliffe. He picked up the wine jug, offering to refill our cups. My cousin shook his head.

  ‘I should let you find your bed.’ I scraped my chair back, ready to rise.

  ‘No, no,’ answered Gloucester, gesturing me to remain. ‘Cast your eye over this.’ He stooped and fetched out a wooden box from beneath the table. I guessed what it contained and sure enough, he lifted out a book swathed in soft cloth. As soon as he unwrapped it, I could see instantly that it was one of Caxton’s, for I recognised his device with its lozenge borders exquisitely tooled upon the cover. Gloucester set it before me and I unfastened the gilt clasp with reverence and turned to the first page. It was Rivers’ translation of The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers, printed at Westminster twelve years ago. It was impossible to get such a book now; no one parted with them. I fingered it in awe.

  ‘A priceless gift.’

  ‘He brought it with him,’ sighed my cousin, with the tone of a man who had just accepted a bribe against his conscience. ‘I already have a copy. Would you like it, Harry?’ Indeed, I would, but such generosity made me hesitate. ‘No, truly, take it,’ he said, waving aside my thanks.

  I turned over the first leaf that boasted more lozenged artistry, and read Caxton’s introduction.

  ‘See, even William Caxton does not know what to make of Rivers,’ I snorted and looked up to see if Gloucester agreed. ‘He is a very learned fellow and yet…’ I let the silence speak before I added, ‘There was little sign of the hair shirt tonight.’

  My cousin grinned. ‘Not on the outside, but if Purgatory is waiting for him then his underclothes should manage to strike a few years off the punishment.’

  ‘Like a night of adultery and a good flail in the morning?’ I suggested.

  ‘Some people do both at once,’ cut in Ratcliffe, and we all laughed.

  ‘My masters, it is getting late,’ yawned Lovell, leaning his fair head against the neck of the lute. I swaddled the book and pensively slid it back into its case. What was truly going on in Gloucester’s mind? D
id he suspect Rivers and I were in league, ready to crush him like a flea, between our thumbnails? Had he believed that supper had been but a mummers’ entertainment and reality would be a cold breakfast of daggers?

  I had had enough of side-stepping.

  ‘Before you retire, Richard, I should like to talk with you about tomorrow.’

  The hammer had struck the anvil. It sparked a sharp look from him.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would.’ He touched Lovell’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for the music, Francis. Get you to bed.’ Then he raised a questioning eyebrow at Ratcliffe.

  ‘I’ll be within call,’ growled his human hound and, with a curt inclination of his head to each of us, Ratcliffe followed Lovell out. At last there was just Gloucester, standing before the hearth, and myself at the table.

  I stayed seated. My cousin was the runt of the Yorkist brothers. I was a nearly a head taller than him and I wanted him to feel comfortable and superior as he listened to me. I scrubbed my finger across the moist circle left by my cup upon the wood, wondering where to begin.

  ‘So, tomorrow?’ Gloucester sighed and once more put his hands in the small of his back and stretched. Since puberty, his spine has become curved and I know it pains him greatly at times.

  ‘I am not sure what is going on in this place,’ I declared honestly. ‘I do not know what you believe of me either, Richard.’ I had not called him that since boyhood, but I was the second duke in England after him and I needed him to remember and respect that.

  He looked round at me, his thoughts a locked door. ‘What would you like me to believe?’

  I took a deep breath. How do you convince a man you had no hand in his brother’s execution when it was your mouth that sentenced him to death?

  ‘I should like you to know that although I sat as steward at George’s trial – the only office I was ever given, I might add – I did not support the death sentence. Unfortunately, we were given no choice. The King and Queen wanted him dead.’ Edward and Elizabeth had made that clear.

  Gloucester’s mouth was a tight line. He came back to the table and poured us both another drink. It was some moments before he spoke.

  ‘He was a risk to the succession, Harry. If Edward had died earlier, George would have tried to take the crown.’

  His opinion surprised me. Not just his stern conclusion but his calm in discussing it. At the time of his brother’s imprisonment, he had been vehement in George’s defence even though the man had been a ranting drunkard.

  ‘Your brother was his own worst enemy.’ I leaned my head upon my hand remembering the bitterness that had raged. Condemning a fellow duke to death had made me feel vulnerable. I felt vulnerable now.

  ‘Yes,’ said Richard of Gloucester. ‘A taste of blood is dangerous. Once there is a failure to respect the value of human life…’ He drew a downward spiral in the air.

  ‘Especially a duke’s,’ I added. ‘We are supposed to be inviolate. I think we should close ranks.’

  ‘Do you indeed? And you think me at risk, I presume?’

  ‘I know I am,’ I replied gloomily, dropping my gaze. ‘I have had a bellyful of the Queen and her kin and they know it. I have been kept standing in the corner of the schoolroom for far too long, cousin.’

  He smiled. ‘St Paul has the truth of it: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” I do not think Edward treated you decently either, Harry.’

  Oh, he was kind, so kind that I wondered if he was going to be able to sidestep the grave the Queen was digging for him in London.

  I cleared my throat. ‘To speak plainly, I was wondering if you would consider betrothing your son to my little Bess.’ Looking up to see his reaction, I found nothing in his face to reassure me.

  ‘Ah, so it seems I have to purchase your loyalty, after all.’

  Damnation on my frank words! I should not have rushed the matter.

  ‘No,’ I said irritably, showing him that he had bruised my honour. ‘It is just something I have been thinking of for a long time. I want the best for her.’ This was not going the way I wanted. The catlike way he was watching me, I felt I was already arraigned for treason. ‘Clearly, you believe I am in league with the Woodvilles and this is a trap,’ I muttered unhappily.

  Then to my astonishment, he laughed. ‘Get off your high horse, man. No, I can guess why you are here although I have not completely fathomed Rivers.’

  ‘I should think—’

  ‘No, not yet,’ he hushed me. ‘We are talking about you, Harry. Why are you here? Revenge?’

  I stared evenly back at him. ‘Partly.’

  ‘No, do better than that. Revenge is not enough. I want other reasons.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ I stood up, warming to my purpose. ‘It is time the old nobility reasserted itself. There are others like me with ancient titles yet we have been denied our rightful place at the royal council table by the Queen’s creatures. I want my rights, cousin. I have waited long enough.’ I paced to the shuttered casement and back. ‘Besides, you need me tomorrow.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘If you imagine Rivers came back to—’

  ‘Kiss my hand? You are doing a tailored job as well, I might say.’ He was leaning against the table watching me. The candles lit his face from below. Cynicism had its tendrils into him like lichen on granite.

  ‘So, Harry? The Prince’s company could have reached St Alban’s by now thinking me lullabied into sleep by Rivers and your worthy self.’ Well, he would have been a fool not to suspect me. ‘For all I know,’ he continued, ‘the Queen may have offered you Wales and the chancellorship of England.’

  ‘Yes, she could have, Richard, but she didn’t. God’s truth, cousin, do you want my loyalty or not?’ The room was silent save for my fractured breath. ‘Hastings asked me to support you and here I am!’

  He came across to the table and ran a hand across the case that held River’s book, his expression pained.

  ‘Forgive me for saying this, Harry, and do not take offence, but you’ve never fought in a battle, have you?’

  ‘No, cousin, I have not. Do you doubt my combat skills?’

  ‘Not at all. That’s not what I’m trying to say.’ I watched his fingers slide wearily across his cheek bones before he spoke again. ‘Battles are a savage waste and I never want to fight another one.’

  Was he suddenly lily-livered?

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if the Prince should reach London ahead of us and be crowned before you are sworn in as Lord Protector, Elizabeth will become Regent. Once that happens, she will find some way of arraigning us for treason. You and I shall be hauled to the Tower to have our heads chopped off and she will make sure our sons shall be kept as powerless as I was.’

  ‘You forget the Royal Council, Harry.’

  ‘The Royal Council is already stacked, cousin. You know that Hastings is having a hard time of it. I tell you they will make Elizabeth Regent. And if you think England will be better for it….’ I shrugged, fuming.

  He sucked in his cheeks. ‘You think I could make a better task of ruling England?’

  ‘By Heaven, yes!’ With me to help you. ‘You could arrest Rivers tonight to be sure.’ There, it was spoken at last.

  He made no answer. The room was growing cold. I crouched to poke the dying embers and set two small logs across them but maybe I had left it too late.

  ‘There has to be evidence.’ The words came from behind my shoulder. ‘If one acts without evidence, it is tyranny. I need the Royal Council’s approval not their disgust.’

  ‘I can see that.’ I straightened, brushing my hands, certain now that he and I would be arrested tomorrow like a pair of hapless poachers. I had thought him a strong man but I was wrong. His inopportune sense of justice was making a eunuch of him.

  He crossed to the casement and glanced out behind the oiled cloth that hid the street.

  I was angry. Was there any
use in arguing further? Looking at him now with shadows of weariness cradling his eyes and his lank hair, dull as tarnished copper, I glimpsed how the Londoners would see him after the glorious, towering Edward, and my soul began to ache. I had thought that my change of fortune lay with Gloucester, but God had been mocking me.

  I drew breath to take my leave when there was a loud rattle of an outside latch, the growl of voices and the clank of armour in the passageway.

  ‘What the—’ My stomach panicked. Was it Rivers’ men come for us? But Gloucester was watching me, his gaze narrow.

  Christ’s mercy! So he had suspected me to throw in my lot with Rivers. I was to be arrested.

  Jesu! I had not even a dagger to defend myself. I eyed the poker but Gloucester stood once more before the hearth. There was nothing I could seize to hold my enemies at bay except the book box.

  Ratcliffe burst into the room. Two armed men in white boar surcotes were behind him, escorting a fellow in a servant’s tabard. It was stitched with the Woodville magpie device.

  Gloucester seemed hardly surprised. Was the man being brought in to make false witness against me? I hugged the box against my breast and tried to stay calm.

  ‘Your grace.’ The fellow tumbled to his knees, clearly exhausted. Had he tried to outrun Gloucester’s dogs? Would he grovel for mercy? No, something else was going on here.

  Gloucester was smiling. ‘Be seated, drink first and then speak freely. This gentleman with the bookbox is his grace of Buckingham.’

  Feeling stupid, I put the damned thing down and waited, albeit still tense as a loaded crossbow.

  The man drank almost to the dregs and knuckled his lips. ‘It is like this, your grace. The Prince’s retinue have orders to leave early tomorrow morning without you, and Lord Rivers is here to delay you. It is certain they intend to crown the Prince the moment they reach London and prevent you becoming Lord Protector.’

  ‘How many of them are there? Have the Queen’s men from London arrived yet?’

  ‘Aye, they came in this evening under Sir Richard Grey’s command.’