A Princely Knave Read online

  “ ’Tis holy land,” said Ashley in his low, jeering voice. “You’ll find yourself on a heap of faggots, Master Heron, should the church hear such blasphemies. Here stands the home of St. Michael himself, his castle half on land, ’tis said, and half in the sea. With his own hands did the archangel build it while he paddled along the shore in search of the dragon from hell.”

  Heron glanced angrily at him, never being certain whether Ashley were mocking. “Fables,” he growled. “I know not a tester about St. Michael on this coast, but I’ve heard tell that the people worship St. Kenna, and that may well be another name for the fiend who turned serpents into stone. They have a wishing-well blessed by him. Or so they say.”

  “I’d believe any marvel of this bleak God-cursed coast,” said Ashley. “Is it not the fabled land of Lyonesse, that great and fertile plain now under the ocean where King Arthur and his paladins carouse in luxury when they’re not busy killing pagans? Often you must have heard the tale how Arthur will break out of sleep one day and win his kingdom back, England for Englishmen.”

  From under lowered wrinkled lids, he glanced towards the prince and noted with approval how the young man’s chin was up, his nostrils wide as though he sniffed hungrily the smell of the land approaching. There were occasions when he distrusted his leader’s resolution; but now that the moment for action was drawing near, the heroic gamble on which rested death or fortune, the lad showed that he was at heart a true Plantagenet, bristling for the fight. This was a different fellow from him who had followed Scotland's James into England. Then he had cowered in his steel, sad-cheeked and trembling; and Ashley had feared that he could be no son of York. How could one be certain on such a question? and did it really matter? Let him be the son of a commoner or of the converted Jew; so long as he saved England from the tyranny of the Welsh traitor, his lineage was of no consequence. After he had been crowned, others, wiser, more experienced and older than he, would take command of affairs, letting him roister after youth's fashion or lie snug abed with his queen or with any pretty wench who fired his fancy.

  “Would you have me act as a second King Arthur?” smiled the prince. “Arthur’s grey-bearded, a patriarch, hundreds of years in the tomb.”

  “His name remains magical,” said Ashley. “They are simple yet brave and cunning folk, I have been told, these Cornish people. They live mostly by piracy and murder and eat only fish, their soil being infertile. But they are fearless and they hate the Tydder.”

  The third among the prince's advisers, Richard Skelton, the tailor, plucked at Ashley's sleeve. “I have heard tell,” he said, “that they are troglodytes who lurk in caves and are black with Tubal’s iron-smoke so that when, as is their pretty custom, they steal out to cut throats at night, no witness can swear to the slayer.”

  “Tilly vally, tilly vally,” snapped Heron impatiently, “let's have no fables. I know these Cornishmen and they are hardy and resolute and hate injustice. Suspicious of strangers they are yet loyal to those they love. Poor men they may be, but our prince could have.no braver followers.”.

  Skelton smirked, stroking his lean shaven chin. “Are the women favourable, Dick?” he asked. “I have not been unsuccessful with the wenches in my time and am always prepared to taste variety, whether it be witch or bitch, Cornish or blackamoor. These Cornish wenches, so Master Barton’s sailors do tell me, are dark-skinned, active and tawny-eyed, bold in appearance and violent in jealousies while their husbands, knowing their salt tails, are ever prowling like cats at a mouse-hole.”

  “Have you no thought, damn you,” snarled Heron, “other than women, and you so old you creak when you walk! If, by God, this adventure should fail because of the itching tooth of a bandy-legged tailor, I’ll splay you and hang you from Paul’s cross as a warning to old fools to keep their fingers behind their backs.”

  “I did but jest, my sweet friend, good Master Heron,” scoffed Skelton. “Of course, being of the tailors’ company, a skilled add wealthy gild, mark you, I cannot be the equal of a mercer, even of a bankrupt mercer, a runaway mercer, not I! Is not the Virgin’s holy face the badge of you virtuous fellows? We poor tailors lie down only under the Lamb, like good Christians; and we ask not what lies under us.”

  “Friends,” said Ashley, laying a hand on either’s shoulder, “this silly quarrel betwixt you was a jape in Scotland, but it had best be drowned from now. Mercers or merchant-tailors, what matter which be the greater, as we are brothers-in-arms? When there is conflict amongst us on such paltry things, how can we advise our master and give wise counsel?”

  All three looked towards the prince. It seemed that he had not heard their testy argument. He stood, head back, eyes half-dosed, watching the coast of England take shape out of the mists. Then Heron coughed and touched his arm and said: “Your grace …”

  Sighing deeply, the prince turned and looked at them as though he had been roused from sleep; Over the left eye, which by some childish accident was lustreless, the eyelid drooped, but the right eye sparkled and was merry. In early youth, some unlucky chance had injured that left eye; that was the sole blemish in his beauty. Tall, blue-eyed, with golden hair now tangled in the wind, he stood, feet wide apart to steady himself on the slanting deck. Under the green jerkin with its short pleated skirts, his shoulders were broad,- and in the blue hose, his legs were powerfully muscled. Looking at him where he stood erect, smiling at destiny, it could not be questioned that he was King Edward’s son; and the fears of these three men, gnawing often at them when they were alone, were calmed when they found him in this confident mood. Would to God, they prayed, he were always in this mood …

  “Your grace,” said Heron, “within the hour we should be on English soil again.”

  “Ay, ay,” said the prince. “At last.”

  They had been afraid he might falter at this moment, and they were heartened to find that never had they seen him so self-assured. It was strange, they thought, that the moment of near-peril should bring valour to his stomach. Then Skelton saw, pulling herself up the rope-ladder to the poop, the Lady Katherine. Her cheeks were pale, he noticed, and he was surprised to see that she was trembling. Ay, her hand trembled on the rope! That was very strange, often had he wished that the prince and his lady, while keeping each their individual perfect shape, might exchange spirits in a kiss, so much more had the man seemed the Lady Katherine and so much more the woman had seemed her husband on occasions, such as during the Scottish onslaught into England when the prince had called to King James to stop the slaughter.

  “My lady!” Tenderly, the prince lifted her on to the deck and put his arm about her waist to steady her, “there, see, our kingdom runs to meet us. Look!”

  Shivering, she looked towards the land and saw the surf spat high in froth and she heard the continual growl and crashing of the waves. Since time began, those waves had been fighting that stone beating against England’s walls which still, uncrumbled, tossed them back. Yet her husband with his tiny following, these three advisers whom she did not trust and less than three hundred men-at-arms and archers in this and the other ships, thought to break through where the untiring sea continually failed. Such few men, mostly malcontents, the rag-tag of the White Rose with desperate adventurers, failures in everything save war, who were prepared to follow any leader that promised booty … how could this uninspired handful conquer where so many before them had failed?

  Away from the rocky coast she turned and saw the companion ship and the small pinnace, all their navy, tiny in the endless ocean under the endless sky — or endless, at least to her eyes, although she did not doubt that the palaces of heaven rose above the clouds — and her heart failed her. Tall Andrew Barton, a scruff of red beard on chin and plump cheeks, stood near, his chin up as though he were a dog sniffing for danger.

  “You will see, my lady,” whispered her husband, his face dose to hers, “once we’re on land again that your knight was no coward in the North Country. From pity
then, I stayed my hand; but those who would oppose me now are my enemies, although by blood my brothers. But I’ll show no mercy if they’re traitors. Ay, as black-hearted as Henry Tydder himself, I’ll leave only widows in my path. Then you’ll have no cause to think ill of my courage.”

  “My lord,” she said, “I have never questioned your courage.”

  “In the cabin you called me coward, or near it …”

  “To test you,” she said carelessly, looking away from him, “Bothwell told me many tales, mostly lies, like any man. I thought to sting you with them. That is all.”

  “Then you know that I am Richard?”

  “You are,” she said, “what you wish to be. In war, you were Warbeck, timid and merciful. I wait to see Prince Richard show himself.”

  “And, by God, lady,” he cried, “that you will see. I am the last of my race, save for poor Warwick in the Tower.”

  “King Henry keeps him prisoner,” she murmured, and sighed deeply. “It would be terrible to be kept like that, shut from the light, seeing no friends, nothing to do from dawn to dark; then the long nights … They must be terrible, those nights. They say that he’s mad, his wits driven helter-skelter-by silence and loneliness.”

  “I will free him,” said the prince. “He is my cousin and I love him.”

  She was silent, staring at the curve of sail painted with the cross, and her eyes showed no light, and her lips were loose, drawn down at the corners. Then suddenly she said, her voice sounding deeper:

  “My lord, I have been thinking of what we said below. I have money, no great fortune, yet it should suffice. Let us, before it is too late, seek house in Burgundy.”

  “What?” he stuttered. “What is that you say?”

  “Even if you conquered England, although the odds are all against you,” she continued quietly, “ay, even then, what would the capture be worth against your peace? I know what government means. Uneasy nights and fear of traitors with no friends to be trusted. I have seen my coz alone when he thought himself unwatched; then he looked unhappy, haunted, a lost soul. Besides, England is notorious. They kill their, kings like flies and quarrel over the corpse.”

  “Glory of God,” he cried, “would you have a man lose his honour? How could I live in shame and how could you live with me when I was pointed at as turn-coat Dickon? By God, lady, it seems you love me little, or is it … ay, are you lying again? O! which is lie and which is truth? Even if I could cut out your heart to read, I would not know, your woman’s duplicity lies so deep, else there could be no whores. So you still doubt me, think me Perkin Warbeck?”

  “I did not say it.”

  “You did not need to say it. One must look under your words to find their meaning. They are like coat-cards showing their backs on which you must wager without seeing their faces. You think me coward.” He caught her by the wrist and twisted it while she glared up at him, determined not to let him know that he hurt her. “Friends,” he said, swinging her round towards Heron, Ashley and Skelton, “did you hear what my lady tells me? She wants me to run off, to leave you like a cur and to hide my head in a dungheap, God save my honour from her handling!” He laughed, his voice breaking shrilly. “Perhaps she thinks me some base-born knave,” he jeered, “son of a Jew or of some merchant, Warbeck, or some such be his name …”

  “Pray, my lord,” she said quietly, “you are twisting my arm.”

  “A traitor in my wife who swore to be buxom in bed and at board, rib of my rib.” He laughed with fury, tossing his golden hair out of his eyes, the sinews showing in his strong throat. “My wife a traitor; are there other traitors? What prince can know who are his friends when once he turns his back on Brutus? She married me because … because she is a woman and I a man and both of us are young and lusty, yea, she married me for woman’s reasons, which is to say, for no reason beyond her own apple-eyes … but you, you are men. Master Heron, you, a merchant, a good man aged in commerce who knows without biting the good coin from the base, who needs no tallies while he can keep a debt in his costard … did you come under my banner in hope of plunder, or because you hated London that had sent you running from debt and you sought revenge? or because you loved my house?”

  “My lord,” said Heron, his fat face purpling and his grey eyes cold as frost. “Of my own will did I leave London. Those are liars who say I left with bad debts at my heels. I am no friend of Dudley who thinks himself the master of the mayor and spits at aldermen in their furred gowns, the dog; but enemies of Dudley are friends of London. For love of your father and your noble uncle, good King Richard, did I go to you. If you think me base, a runaway debtor, by God’s glory, say it; let me hear your thoughts, my lord, that I might defend myself against my enemies.”

  “And you, Master Skelton, why did you follow me?”

  “Why, but because I was your lusty father’s man, sire,” said Skelton. “I served your father’s and your uncle’s court and am of a most royal and loyal nature and doth love royalty, my fai’! Where I give my hand, devil damn me, I give my blood to go with it. Never have I refused credit to a man whom I thought honourable nor will I withhold my sword when I find a miser sitting where your generous father sat. But he has made the city a city of dolour with Dudley his wolf at the Guildhall. He will have liverymen dress in rags ere he’s done with us, he says.”

  “So you follow me,” murmured the prince, “because you didn’t like the lawyer Dudley’s rule of London?”

  “Nay, I told you, sire. I follow because you are your father’s son and I’m his servant.”

  “And you, Master Ashley, why do you follow a penniless prince with only dreams to offer, and with mayhap death at the rope’s end to reward your loyalty?”

  “I am not one to ferret after reasons,” said Ashley. “I am by trade a scrivener, a poor trade though a learned one, a writer of other men’s thoughts and sometimes of my own; and now I am your Mr. Secretary and for you I form letters with as fair a hand as Italy could show. I needed employment to equal my ambitions. Therefore, I follow you.”

  “None of you have answered me,” sighed the prince, looking into their eyes — small eyes of Heron glaring with ferocious loyalty, big eyes of Skelton wheedling for trust, and the smiling eyes of Ashley that seemed amusedly to challenge him. “Tell me,” he cried, “open your hearts and I’ll not take revenge or be angry, whatever you might say. Who do you truly think I am? I mean when each of you s alone in bed at night, by what name to yourself do you call me? Brampton’s bastard?, the half-Jew? or son of Warbeck of Tournay? or, open your hearts, my friends, or son of mighty Edward, Prince Richard saved from the Tower and Tydder’s murderers?”

  “A poor jest, my lord;” cried Heron. “Assuredly you are King Richard the Fourth, or I would not be here.”

  “I knew your royal dad, sire,” squeaked Skelton, “and you are his image in looks, in courage and in generosity.”

  “And you, Jack Ashley? You stay silent.”

  Slowly, Ashley smiled, his eyes wrinkling, and he hunched his. shoulders. “A discreet and honest secretary, my lord,” he said, “permits himself no thoughts other than his master’s. You are to me what you are to yourself; and to that opinion I stay loyal.”

  “To myself, I am King Richard of England.”

  “Then, sire, all hail to Richard, King of England,” said Ashley, bowing low. “Him do I serve until death.”

  “Yea, I am King Richard the Fourth,” said the prince, tightening his grip on his wife’s arm; yet he could not make her wince. “I promise,” he cried, “to prove that with more than words, should the usurper have the stomach for a fight; and in victory, I will be generous to all save my enemies and those that doubt me … ay, those that doubt me, those with the canker of mistrust to light mistrust in others, for such there will be little mercy, by my troth.”

  Still tightly smiling, he looked into Katherine’s white face.

  “There must be no traitors at hom
e,” he said.

  She did not answer, nor did she attempt to draw her arm away. Almost gladly did she accept the pain which rid her mind of terror, driving away thought.

  “Before a week is over,” he continued, speaking to his three councillors while watching his wife from the corners of his eyes, “we will have a mighty army to fight with us, the martyred people, wracked and taxed and tormented under the upstart. We will show England how to win where Flamank failed. He was a lawyer, poor Flamank, the Lord have mercy on his brave soul, while I, being a king’s son, have soldier’s blood in me. Ergo, we cannot fail.”

  “No doubt of it,” piped Heron. “My friends in London are waiting for the word to rush on Dudley in his Thames Street mansion, and on damned Empson who lives the back of him.”

  “I, too, have friends in London,” squeaked Skelton, “and others in Westminster; easy for them to break into the palace with a rope for hanging.”

  “I have few friends in London or anywhere,” said Ashley, “and I can make no promises, save that I am ready to die for my lord.”

  “Better to live for him, Jack,” laughed the prince. “And here’s my page, what say you, good Master Astwood?”

  “I?” said Astwood, a tall dark man with fiery eyes, “I, master? you will find me faithful, a very dog with teeth for Tydder and a wag for you. But try me, master, try me.”

  “Soon,” said the prince, “we will all be sorely tried. See, yonder! England comes to welcome us. See how she rises, a very Venus, from the ocean, eager for our tender rape, Cornwall stands waiting; I have sure intelligence of it. The country’s mad for vengeance after the death of Flamank and his comrades. His army might have been defeated but it’s gathering now to fight again … Do you hear me, wife? the Cornishmen are waiting for us, my army, England’s army …”

  Closer to him he twisted her, glaring into her eyes; and he was surprised to note how meek she had become, this royal falcon whom he loved and whom in his heart he feared. Meek as a beaten slave, she looked at him, eyelids half-lowered, while her mouth was pale and a little open as though waiting for his kiss; and he saw her bosom under the tight red cloth rise when she sighed.