A Tapestry of Treason, page 16
What could go wrong?
King Henry was oblivious. No one would talk. The anticipation of victory ran sweetly through my veins. All that I had to do was withstand the Court festivities before bidding the conspirators farewell and good fortune. Nothing that any one of us said or did must awaken any suggestion that a plot was afoot.
* * *
We hunted in fine style. The gathering in a fair meadow surrounded with trees in the park at Eltham was a perfection of ceremonial in the hands of Edward, Earl of Rutland, who played out his role as Master of the King’s Game. His expertise was second to none when creating a display on the hunting field. The grass was spread with rich tapestries, while braziers were set to burn red to keep at bay the bitter cold of this first January day. And there we gathered, the great and the good of England, to drink hot spiced wine and eat meat and sweet pasties from gold platters. We stood or sat, conversing lightly while the lymerers and grooms returned with their stately lymer hounds to report on the close presence of deer that we would hunt.
And I was honoured. The Master chose me as the Lady of the Hunt since Henry had no wife to be so honoured. Bowing before me, Edward discussed the deer, their size and their probable speed, allowing me to give the decision of which direction to take to the finding.
It was a fine chivalric moment as I listened, assessed the scenting, and gave solemn judgement, enjoying the status afforded to me. And then as the morning wore on and the thin sun warmed the ground, we set forth. How magnificently at one we were. How richly clad, how brilliant in the clear winter light as the running hounds, greyhounds for the most part, ran, swift as water over a millrace, and we urged our horses in pursuit to be there at the finding and the ultimate kill.
When the horns called us to a halt to draw breath as the sun made its low progression to begin its descent, servants brought cups of ale and wine. We toasted the King and each other, voices raised in the still air in self-congratulation that the new reign had settled into what would be embraced as normality. No one could have guessed that beneath the satin and wool and leather of a significant number of those present beat hearts drenched in betrayal. Edward was at the forefront, directing the hounds. Thomas and Tom Holland passed the time of day and swapped hunting anecdotes with those who clustered round the King. The Duke of York, in blissful ignorance, stayed close to the King and gave advice whether it was needed or not. Huntingdon surveyed all with knowing dark eyes, while King Henry watched his Court with complacence. The usurpation had been an unprecedented success. Not a breath of treason, not a glance that could be misinterpreted beyond one of loyalty. No suspicious cliques of men who might be discussing a perilous outcome for this Court. All was high-spirited celebration of the good hunting to be found in these royal preserves.
But no, all was not as it seemed. Soon it would be Richard bidding his huntsmen to direct the hounds.
The smooth-skinned greyhounds and the alaunts loosed, a good fast run brought us to a covert where they brought down a fine-tined buck which was duly dispatched, the best parts reserved, the rest, the offal and the head presented as a reward to the hounds. A scene I had been party to all my life since the day my father deemed me capable of staying on my horse without embarrassing him. Joan, who had been riding towards the rear, had pushed her mare beside mine.
‘Why is it that men enjoy the spilling of blood, whether it be in a tournament, or the blood of that fine animal?’ she asked with a wrinkle of her nose.
‘It is in their nature.’
‘I care not for it…’ She turned her face away as the alaunts gorged on the remains of the buck, snarling over possession, their muzzles red and dripping. ‘I wish I had not come.’ Her face had paled above her furs.
‘You are rarely so squeamish.’
‘Not of this.’ She gestured to where the carcase of the deer was being loaded onto the back of a sumpter animal, the ground red with its blood. ‘It was just a thought…’
I waited. She leaned across to whisper: ‘What is it that is planned, in the coming conflict? Will it be as… as bloody as this?’
‘Hush!’ At least she was relatively discreet. ‘What do you think?’
She looked aghast. ‘I suppose it is the only way.’
‘Yes, it is the only way. There can be no doubt of it. Did you suppose Henry and his sons would be allowed to go free? That would solve nothing. You must have talked of it with Tom.’
‘Not in such detail…’ She shortened her reins to draw her mount away from the carcase, swinging lifeless.
I liked the thought of bloodshed as little as she but Henry could just as easily have had all our menfolk executed without a qualm. Would he not have Richard murdered if he thought it in his best interests? Richard’s release and safety could only be secured by Henry’s death, and his heirs with him. There was no room for squeamishness.
I turned my head to watch Henry… my cousin, a man I had known all my life. There was a cold weight on my heart, but we would not pretend, not even for Joan’s sensibilities, that Henry would be allowed to live, that the terms of his exile could be restored and he dispatched once more to a permanent sojourn in some distant country. It must be a complete and final denouement to bring Richard home and destroy those who threatened him.
‘Will Henry be put on trial?’ Joan asked.
Yet even I knew that this would never be. The King and his sons would be removed during the conspiracy.
‘No.’
‘So they’ll be put to death at Windsor.’
‘It is the only way.’ I repeated my previous thought.
Joan paused, staring at me. Then: ‘Have you no conscience?’
Conscience? It struck me like a blow from a hunting whip, fine and cutting. What was conscience? A jackdaw, picking up one shiny object, then discarding it for another, whatever would suit the occasion. Or haphazardly collecting one bright stone after another, until it had a whole array of glittering trivia in its nest. My conscience urged me to be loyal to Richard. How easy it would be to exchange that for an obeisance to Henry. How simple to replace one with the other. Conscience was all very well when it offered soft choices, bolstering fear with feather-filled cushions. Mine was all hard edges predicting pain and grief. All I could do was what seemed right.
Was that being without true conscience? Perhaps it was.
‘Have you no conscience that within a matter of days your cousin and those young boys will lie in blood, hacked to death?’ Joan whispered, the delivery as harsh as the accusation.
‘No, I have not,’ I said, of a mind to be obtuse since the image was so terrible, the stench of blood raw. ‘Edward has none either. Huntingdon certainly has neither conscience nor morality. As for Tom, only you know about your brother.’ I turned to look at her, reading the condemnation in her lips, thin-pressed as a summer coverlet. ‘And what about you? You are quick to condemn me. You were there when this was planned. Are you regretting it? I did not hear your voice raised in denial.’
‘What use in regret? I think you are beyond redemption. I will leave you to your bloodletting…’
‘Joan…’
But Joan yanked on her bridle and set herself to return home. I did not. I would see this hunt out to the end, as I would see out the conspiracy. There was no turning back for any of us. Whatever the dice were foretelling, we were well on the path to insurrection, and who could blame us? We had almost been thrown to the slavering wolves by Henry. Now we were the wolves, and we were hunting. Yet even I turned away from the blood-soaked ground, with the faintest shiver of distaste, or even guilt. It was not something I could enjoy, this leap from chivalric ceremonial to violent bloodlust.
I watched them, the men of my family. Did I believe them capable of killing in cold blood? The evidence was here before me as I turned every page of the past years. Thomas of Woodstock smothered in his bed, his son Humphrey done to death in Ireland. Huntingdon had killed the Stafford heir in a roadside brawl due to some misunderstanding or family feud. No, they would have no compunction. And were they any different from the rest of these great lords who would have shed our blood, if Henry had allowed it? All guilty.
Here was our one chance to remake our power. And if our phoenix must rise out of the flames of bloody murder, then so be it.
‘You look very severe.’ Edward loomed at my shoulder.
‘I find that conspiracy has that effect,’ I replied before touching my spurs to my horse’s side.
* * *
On the third day of January we made our farewells at Westminster. Ostensibly the men were en route to participate in the jousting at Windsor, their equipment sent on ahead with their households, apart from a small escort. Nothing to draw attention from the approaching ceremonies, they were clad in festive raiment, a splash of bright colour and rich cloth to clash against the tapestries.
‘It is all arranged as we planned,’ Edward said, enveloped in gloom, as thick as the velvet that proclaimed his rank, a strange melancholy for a man who had worked so hard to divert the course of this new reign. ‘God be with us in this venture. It’s a parlous undertaking that we have set our hand to.’
‘Are you not satisfied with what you have done?’ I asked, not understanding.
‘Yes.’ He pulled on his gloves with sharp gestures, as if there was nothing more to say.
‘We can’t lose.’ Thomas, already hatted, booted and gloved, was keen to be on the move, his eyes fierce with the prospect of action now that the waiting was over. ‘Our associates can be trusted to rouse their tenants across the length and breadth of England, and keep their mouths shut until the signal is given.’
Edward was already striding to the door, tugging the swathes of his chaperon low on his brow so that I could no longer read his expression.
‘You are in a hurry.’ I followed him.
Edward’s eyes did not quite touch on mine even though he halted and took my hand in a grip that crunched my fingers so that I winced.
He released me. ‘Forgive me.’ The hard lines in his face softened into a smile. ‘All is urgent now, and I have said that I will dine with my father before I leave.’
‘Will you tell him?’ I asked, curious as to whether he would keep our father in the dark.
‘No. I’ll not burden his ageing soul with this project.’
I could find no fault with it. ‘Then God speed and good fortune.’
His habitual placid humour was restored. ‘Good fortune indeed.’
I was left alone with Thomas, who surprised me when he wrapped his arms around me as if we were the young lovers we had never been, parting for many months. I had no recollection of his ever saying farewell with such emotion. He kissed me on the lips.
‘Do you wish me well, too?’
‘Of course.’ And I returned the salute. ‘I will pray for your success and that you will bring Richard home.’
Lightly, he touched my cheek with his fingertips. ‘We have not always been a tender couple. Perhaps I have neglected you.’
‘Perhaps you have.’
‘And you are very beautiful.’
‘And you have only just become aware?’
He tilted his chin, part challenge, part admiration. ‘No. But usually I am more aware of your sharp tongue. Today I see your lovely face.’
In spite of everything, I felt the seductive warm breath along my cheekbones, but I would not be wooed by a man who had treated me with such casual disdain for all the years of our marriage. ‘The prospect of success is making you emotional, Thomas.’
‘Say that to me when I return.’
‘I doubt that I will.’
‘So do I.’
I felt a brush of affection when he smiled and I saw the handsome man behind the raging ambition. No, we had not done well by each other, but Thomas had never shown any interest in what I might think or desire. Yet I would not condemn him for it now.
‘God go with you.’
‘And with you. What will you do?’
Which made me return the smile, but without humour, that at last he thought to ask. Any softness was swept away.
‘I will remain here. Huntingdon will stay in London too, until he hears of your success at Windsor. Then he can put in hand the seizure of London. I’ll do what I can to help, if necessary.’
‘There’ll be no need. An army of six thousand men, we are promised. Henry will not be able to withstand us. When they see our strength, the Londoners will clamour to join us. I wager the Mayor and aldermen will rue the day they opened the gates to Lancaster. When we return we’ll have Richard with us, I promise it. Our fortune has turned, sweet Constance. Our fortune has turned.’
I changed the angle of his russet-felt cap, pinning its jewel more securely, planting a kiss on his forehead. ‘Then go and seize it and we will rejoice at your homecoming.’
I walked with him down to the courtyard where his horse and escort were waiting, steaming in the cold air. I raised my hand in farewell, not a little moved when Thomas bowed low over his mount’s withers. It crossed my mind as he rode out that I had still not told him of the expected child.
* * *
What was left for us, Joan and I? What was always left for women. We took refuge in one of the side chapels of Westminster Abbey where we knelt to offer up prayers. A long moment of silence fell between us. The hunting episode had left a few unhealed wounds.
‘For whom do I pray?’ Joan asked.
I looked sideways at her, noting how the light through the stained-glass window of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin turned the colour of her own gown to a deep blue, as if she were the Virgin herself. Yet over Joan’s veil and face, the reflection of the blood-red Rosa Canina that encircled the Blessed Virgin’s feet, shifting as the clouds covered the sun, was unnerving.
‘Pray for the King,’ I said.
‘Which one?’
‘Pray for the King, and God will decide, in his mercy.’
Joan’s fingers clicked over her rosary and her lips moved in endless petition.
My thoughts were impossible to control. Would God listen to a foresworn traitor? Surely He must since Richard was His chosen one. I prayed for the King, for all those involved, for this child that had been conceived in captivity. I tried not to notice as the blood-red hue crept over my own gown and hands.
Back in my room, I gave in to temptation and tossed the gold dice, distressed when, again and again, a plethora of mismatched numbers tumbled onto my bedcover, offering me no consolation when I commanded the dice to show threes and sixes. The recalcitrant dice were beyond my interpretation. There would be no consolation until Richard was restored.
Chapter Ten
January 1400: Palace of Westminster
* * *
And so it began, and London was awash with rumour and noise that surged and eddied like a spring tide. Joan and I went to the Great Hall, ostensibly to discover what was afoot, but for me to be there at the centre of it all. We had conspired with great exactitude, had we not? I must be there to welcome the victors, even though I must acknowledge that it would be some days before Richard could be escorted all the way south from Pontefract. Our lords had set out as early dusk was gathering, intending to arrive at Windsor under cover of the night and do the deed, leaving London in the control of Huntingdon and the Mayor. What I did not expect was the vast milling of crowds in the streets. Or the rumours rife with truth and untruth. I knew not where Huntingdon was. Should he not be evident in his coordination of events in the city? The crowds in the street, surging back and forth on the bridges, were more mob than army.
And yet it held an air of excitement in the fervour, the clamour, enough to stir the blood with hope. Would Henry be escorted into London as a prisoner, as Richard had been forced to suffer that indignity? I thought that he would die where he faced the assassin’s blade at Windsor.
Black night fell. Torches flickered; a brave sight, but anxiety increased within me. Yet why be full of fear? I chided myself. All had been so well planned, the details known to so few.
Joan and I could find nothing to talk about, beyond:
‘Will we hear tonight?’ she asked.
‘Edward will send a courier with news.’
At last, there was Huntingdon appearing beneath the door-arch, confident and impressive, sword belted at his side as he conferred with the Mayor who wore his robes of office even at this late hour. They seemed undisturbed. Then they were gone.
A clatter of approaching horses, being driven along at some speed.
‘Constance…’ Joan turned to face the great door.
‘I hear it.’
Was it Edward’s long-expected courier come to report that all was well? Surely not. He could not have covered the ground from Windsor so quickly. And this was a troop of horsemen, not a single rider. We moved to the door to catch the first glimpse, Joan pushing ahead.
‘Can you see the heraldic devices?’ I asked.
Joan shook her head.
Something whispered a warning in my mind as the horses halted. This was wrong. It was pure reaction to some unseen danger that made me draw back into the shadow of the wall where the lights could not reach us, my hand closed around Joan’s arm, pulling her with me. Now there was no need to struggle to see the device on the pennants, all royal lions and fleurs-de-lys. Henry. It was Henry striding in. Henry here in the Great Hall with the four boys. The Mayor, last seen in Huntingdon’s company, was suddenly at Henry’s side, bowing and scraping. Huntingdon was nowhere to be seen.
