Ah, very diplomatic.

Suffolk rubbed his chin pensively along his clasped fingers. ‘Supposin’ the crown does go to you and your heirs, Richard. Not wishing your son ill, but you’ve only got the one. God forbid anything should happen to him, of course, but you understand what I mean.’

‘Not at all, that’s a valid question, Will.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Then the crown would go to your son here. He’s my eldest legitimate nephew.’

Young Lincoln turned bright scarlet. ‘Me, your grace?’ He looked to his father for concurrence. I had forgotten Lincoln and there was I thinking that I would be next in line.

Well at least that brought the Duke of Suffolk and his affinity on side.

‘Oh, plainly this is in all our interests.’ Lovell’s cynical tone could have cut ice. ‘I should like to be Lord Chamberlain, Tyrrell would like to be Master of Horse. Why are we even bothering to discuss it? Half of London has already laid wagers that the boy will never be crowned.’

Richard winced.

‘Could Stillington be lying, your grace?’ Ratcliffe asked. ‘We all know you are open-handed to those who serve you well. Happen he is hoping for Canterbury or a cardinal’s hat?’

The arrival of a page to say the bishop was waiting outside halted further dispute, but before he could be summoned in, I set my hand on my cousin’s sleeve.

‘One matter further,’ I exclaimed, waving the page to disappear again. ‘The letter to York.’

Richard scowled, sucking in his cheeks. ‘Harry has advised me to send for more men.’

‘Devil take it, my lord!’ Ratcliffe rounded on me. ‘It will look as though his grace mistrusts the south.’

‘If he doesn’t, he should,’ I retorted. ‘The southern shires are all held by the Queen’s friends and we have only a few hundred reliable soldiers.’ There were mutters of agreement and I pursued my argument. ‘It is just a safeguard, gentlemen, while we present the legal evidence to Parliament.’ I swivelled to face Ratcliffe. ‘And I think you would be the perfect representative to convince the good aldermen of York.’

The man’s cold grey eyes examined me. Jesu! Here was a northerner who bitterly resented my influence on his master. Before he could argue, I added, ‘The sooner you return with soldiers we can trust, the better.’ Then I turned once more to my cousin. ‘May I suggest that you keep the lid on this pot until then.’

Howard nodded agreement. ‘This will take some careful strategy, my lords. You will need to get little Prince Richard out of sanctuary and into your hands before you declare both boys bastards.’ He was right. And he was being damnably self-seeking, too. If Prince Richard was deprived of all his titles, Howard, as the next heir, would become Duke of Norfolk.

‘And do we delay the coronation?’ he was asking.

‘The embroiderers’ guild will be sticking pins in wax images if we do,’ I retorted dryly.

Richard grabbed the reins of the meeting once more. ‘All in good time, Jock. I pray you all listen to the bishop’s evidence first. For my part, I cannot sit through this again.’ He stood up and we all rose to our feet. ‘Dick, come with me now and I shall sign the letter,’ and with Ratcliffe reluctantly whistled to heel, he left us.

’I wonder how long this will take,’ muttered Howard. ‘Is it true, I wonder?’

I pulled a wry face as I rose to let Stillington in. ‘My lords, to put it in a nutshell, what matters is not whether the bishop’s tale be true or false but what we make of it.’

 

I HAD invited guests for dinner next day, but Pershall drew me aside before I entered the great hall to greet them.

‘Your strumpet’s back, your grace.’

I smiled through clenched teeth. ‘Call her a strumpet, dear Pershall, and I’ll whistle in every stinking dog in London for you to lather.’

‘Very well, the virtuous lady that slept in your bed all night.’

‘Hmm, I hope no one saw her come in.’

‘No, my lord. I put it about that she was my doxy like you requested. In fact they believe that she granted me favours on your bed.’

‘I’ll strangle you later,’ I murmured sweetly, cursing that instead of making love, I must welcome Mayor Shaa Alderman Billesdon, Master John Russhe and several other merchants – all worth cultivating.

Poor Meg! There would be no way I could excuse myself from the table for several hours.

 

OF COURSE, she was irritable at waiting so long. She thrust her chin high at me the moment I entered my bedchamber.

‘I'll not play the whore to you again,’ she hissed, her veil bobbing with anger upon its precarious wires. ‘How dare you send me this!’ and she flung at me the necklet that Bannaster had delivered to her lodgings on my orders. ‘What was I supposed to do with it? Wear it when my husband comes home? Pawn it like a whore? Do you think I have no honour?’

I laughed at her fierceness and dropped the offending trinket into the purse on my belt.

Such irony. I might have thought myself a kingmaker but here was fiery Meg, waiting to carpet me like a disgruntled wife.

She stood glaring at me with knuckles on her hips and tendrils of hair escaping from her satin cap. ‘Did you think I lay with you only to coax you into freeing my father?’ There was no ‘my lord’ or ‘your grace’ in her conversation.

‘Did you?’ I teased tritely, although I dreaded her answer.

‘Ha!’ she scoffed. ‘You took advantage of my distress and I’m to be paid off. Go and find a queue of virgins to deflower. I hope the pox gets you and the moths eat your ermine and if you don’t stop blocking my way, I shall resort to what my mother taught me.’

No woman had ever made me laugh so much. I reeled back against the door.

‘You are wonderful,’ I exclaimed. ‘Worth at least a golden necklace.’ I was ready for her fist as it shot out from her side and caught her hand. ‘There is something I have to say to you,’ I whispered, drawing her with me towards the cushioned window recess, ‘and I want you to calm yourself and listen.’ Something in the seriousness of my expression exacted her grudging obedience. I tugged her onto my lap.

‘I will be honest with you,’ I stroked a finger over her wrist and up the silk of her inner sleeve. ‘I find you delightful company but you are someone else’s wife and I am a man of state, a busy man, so busy that lust, like food and drink, is hastily dealt with.’

‘Ha! Either I am obtuse or you are verbose, my lord.’ She struggled to stand up but I held her tight.

‘No, sit still and listen. Love, sweet Meg, demands courtesy and gentleness. Love demands time. The contemplation of the beloved…’ I turned her face to me, ‘to the exclusion of all else and I do not have that time. In other words, I am resolved to send you home to your children, ladybird.’

‘You are not my keeper.’ Her lips crushed into a pout. ‘’Sides, I am not a bad mother, if that is your game to make me feel so. My babes are well cared for by their nurse and my mother, too. And you forget why I came here.’ She grabbed my chin. ‘I am intent on staying so long as you keep my father a prisoner, else my mother will not forgive me.’

‘He is not my prisoner, Meg, and your mother puts too much faith in you. Loathe as I am to lose you, you-must-return-home.’

‘Say you so.’ The she gave me an arched look, and clasped her hands to my cheeks. ‘Are you afraid of Gloucester finding out?’

‘I am a grown man, sweetheart.’

And then the minx began her own games, diving her hand between her skirt and my short cote, feeling for my cock, which began to crow and rise upon his perch. She twisted round and undid the flaps of my codpiece to seek him out.

I groaned with pleasure as I felt her hand ease his comb back and forth.

‘I have a meeting with the Hanse merchants at suppertime,’ I gasped.

‘How unfortunate,’ she whispered. ‘Then I cannot let you forth in such an unresolved state.’ I was so hard I could have hung my hat upon my member.

‘Meg,’ I groaned as she scrambled away from me, but she was only gathering up her skirts to mount me. She pushed me back into the cushions of the daybed and rode me so deliciously that I could only think of her darling cunney encompassing me and when at last I poured my seed into her, it was like heaven on earth.

She disappeared behind the garderobe corner to cleanse herself and came and mopped me too so there was no spoiling of my hose. ‘There,’ she murmured retying my flap and tugging down my doublet. ‘Go to your meeting.’

‘You are a little witch,’ I complained, sitting up, feeling around for my hat.

‘If that is so, you, my lord, are my broomstick.’ She found my hat for me. ‘Can you sup here tomorrow?’ Her pretty green eyes both beseeched and promised.

‘I am not sure.’ I resisted looking at her further and ran my fingers along my hat brim. ‘The Gloucesters and I are invited to Lambeth Palace. This is what I mean, Meg. This is my work.’ I stood up and she nestled against me, wrapping her arms about my neck and teasing her fingers through my hair .

‘Then I shall steal in here before curfew.’

I could not forbid her though I knew I should. ‘Do so, but be very careful, sweetheart,’ I whispered, undoing the garland of her arms.

 

RETURNING next evening, I let my attendants disrobe me before Pershall brought Meg in. I opened my arms to her, lifted her veil and kissed her thoroughly.

‘My beautiful love.’ I unclasped her belt and freed her of her gown. We scarcely made it to the bed. Afterwards when I was spent, we lay together between the sheets. For a while, I cradled her head against my shoulder in a husbandly fashion and then she wriggled up and leaned herself upon her elbow, twirling a lock of my hair between her fingers.

‘Ha – rry, I…I have been to see my aunt.’

That sluiced the lethargy from lovemaking clean from my mind. She meant Elizabeth. Jesu! Now she would be on Captain Nesfield’s list. The instant Ratcliffe returned from York there would be questions.

‘Did you give your name to the guards?’

‘Not my real name, no. Why do you ask?’

‘No matter.’ I raised myself on an elbow, too, to read her face the better. ‘So tell me, was there room to sit down among the coffers? You know she’s gotten half of Westminster Palace stuffed in with her?’

‘She looked well enough. Pale, of course, from too little sun, and thicker in the hips from want of exercise.’

‘Well, that’s no one’s fault but hers. What did she have to say?’

‘That Gloucester is a greedy dog and covets the crown, and that you love no one but yourself and hang like a dag upon his arse.’

‘Very loquacious of her. And you believe that?’ I ran my hand down the lovely slope of her back and thigh. ‘As you see, my walls are mirrored with looking glasses.’

Her cheeks dimpled with laughter, as she glanced at the scarlet tester above us and the tapestry of Lancelot and Guinivere on the wall.

I smiled. ‘Lady, I need no mirror but your eyes.’ I kissed her with finesse for some time and then I asked, ‘Was Mistress Shore there at the sanctuary?’

Nothing showed in Meg’s face but beneath my fingertips her body tensed.

‘Mistress Shore is a free spirit, Harry. I know naught of her comings and goings.’

‘Yes, she flits all over the place. A regular butterfly. I hear she has moved in to comfort Lord Hastings.’

‘I know—’

‘Naught,’ I finished for her. ‘Never mind, Meg, I’ll not question you further.’

‘Is the Duke of Gloucester hungry for the crown?’

‘I know—’

‘Naught. I suppose I should not ask.’

‘No, you should not,’ I said sternly. ‘This bed is free of faction and I’ll not have it defiled with foolish gossip.’

‘You are calling the Queen of England a gossip?’

‘Why not? If I am “vain”, she can be a gossip! But Westminster Sanctuary is hardly Cheapside. She must feast hungrily on any scraps that visitors feed her. I hope you did not tell her about us.’ She gravely shook her head, thank Heaven. ‘Do you carry messages for her?’

There was no subterfuge in her face. ‘Oh, I do a few errands. I took her in some Paris thread.’

‘So you have been there before?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She stroked a finger down my chest. ‘Harry, why would she call you “vain”?’

I rolled on to my back. ‘Oh, because there is not a scrap of liking between us. I was made her ward for a while.’

‘But did you not have family of your own?’ I did not answer. She shook me. ‘Har–ry, I am interested.’

‘My Grandam Buckingham sold my brother and I as wards to King Edward in order to get her lands back after Grandfather Buckingham’s attainder.’ My lips must have tightened.

She sensed the hurt stoppered up in my breast. ‘It might be cleansing to tell me more.’

I stared up at the brocade canopy and remembered being led up to the scarlet and gold canopy in the Painted Chamber at Westminster Palace and the two huge glittering figures awaiting me. The terror and the humiliation. Imagine this giant of a man turning you upside down for sport in front of a creature who seemed all jewels and soaring headdress, except for her eyes; I remember those eyes, eyes like a goshawk’s.

‘My younger brother and I were in my Lady of Exeter’s household to begin with, but she was having an affaire de coeur and the King gave me as a ward to the Queen.’ I gave a deep sigh. ‘Let’s leave my past alone, Meg.’

Stirring those embers gave off noxious vapours, vapours that made my belly panic as though I was a little page at Westminster again. I had done everything wrong. I fell asleep at Elizabeth’s coronation, complained about having to marry her sister, and after that her claws were out.

Then there was the mortification of my wedding when I was eleven years old. The Woodvilles had mocked me before they put me naked in the marriage bed to touch legs with eight year old Cat. Truly, I have more scars on my soul than beggars have scabs.

‘My memories are not good,’ I lied. ‘Let us stow the matter, Meg, please. Your father and your cousins, the Greys, were never kind to me.’

She snuggled into me. ‘What happened to your brother?’

‘Died before manhood. I do have some half-brothers and sisters but I hardly know them. My mother fell in love with an esquire called Richard Darrell, quite below her, so they were never were invited to court and I hardly saw them.’

‘My poor Harry, you must have been very lonely, but you had Gloucester as a friend.’

‘No, actually I hardly knew him until a few weeks ago. He was in Warwick’s household up in Yorkshire. That’s where I should have been, instead of fetching your aunt’s gloves or cleaning dung off her shoes. But whenever Gloucester and I coincided at Westminster, he was always very amiable to me. We used to talk about things like boys do, horses or hawking.’

Now my pretty questioner leaned on her elbow as though she might discern more secrets from my expression. ‘My aunt the Queen never liked him either, did she?’

‘Your aunt was jealous of the King’s great love for him.’ Yes, Dead Ned had shooed the Woodville jackals away from his little brother but he let them maul me.

‘So you spent your entire time at the court after that?’

‘Yes, save for a brief while as esquire in my lord of Pembroke’s household at Raglan. I was very happy there and his lady and daughters were gracious and kind. Lady Margaret Beaufort’s son, Tudor, who is now an exile in Brittany, was an esquire there as well. She visited him once or twice.’ Hardly at all, but more than my mother ever did. ‘She was married to my uncle in those days.’

‘Hmm.’ Meg stroked her finger through the hairs on my chest. “So why could your uncle not have been your guardian?’

‘Don’t you understand how it works? I was worth too much as a ward. Now are you done raking through my past? Remind me to recommend you to the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower as an interrogator.’

‘Thank you, I shall look forward to his offer. So you remained with my lord of Pembroke until you took over your own household?’

I shook my head. ‘Warwick put pay to that. When he rebelled against King Edward, his men slew my lord of Pembroke and I was back in your aunt’s household again.’ I found her hand and carried it to my lips. ‘I cry you mercy. Can we be done with this?’

‘Not yet. Don’t you see it helps me understand you better?’

‘Don’t probe too deep, my dear,’ I warned her, kissing her shoulder. ‘You may find I am just a rainbow bubble of vanity. A pin’s prick and pfft!’

‘I don’t believe that for an instant, Harry Stafford, and do not try and distract me either.’

I groaned and flopped back heavily against the pillows.

‘Ha – rry.’

‘What you have to remember, Meg, is that your aunt and your father did not treat me with kindness.’ Never in a million million years, would I have imagined myself lying naked with Rivers’ daughter, telling her such a thing. ‘At Westminster it was French nods and calumny, never honest trust. They taught me to love beautiful things but not how to love.’

‘Are you saying that you have never fallen in love, my lord.’

‘Yes, of course, I have. There was a milkmaid at Raglan. Ouch!’

‘My father knew how to love.’

Ha! Rivers was one person who did understand vanity.

‘Father would have married my mother had he been free.’ I did not correct her; all married men say that.

‘And is your mother married to another?’

‘Indeed not, there has only been my father and she is still deeply in love with him. It is for her sake just as much as mine that I want him pardoned.’

I did not want to ride down that bridlepath again. ‘I daresay your mother’s parents were none too pleased.’

‘Oh no, Harry, they supported her decision. After all, being the lover of the Queen of England’s brother is better than being the wife of a nobody.’

‘I suppose so.’ I wondered if her husband Poyntz would agree with that remark.

She leaned over and kissed me. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘Yes,’ I lied, running a finger along her lower lip. Much as she delighted me, I would not tell her anything that could be useful to her aunt.

‘Do you think you could love me like my father loves my mother?’

‘I think I might manage that.’ The only way to deal with a woman when she is delving too deep is to kiss her. They cannot kiss and talk at the same time.

 

CHAPTER 8

The Royal Council met in Westminster Palace at ten next morning. My cousin and I were hoping to gain their permission to fetch Prince Richard from Westminster Sanctuary. It was crucial that we had possession of both the princes before I made my arguments to Parliament that Gloucester should by right be king. What point in deposing the older prince, if the Queen still held the younger?

It proved to be the stormiest session of the Royal Council that I had ever attended. On the surface of it, nothing could have been more reasonable than my cousin’s suggestion that Prince Richard should attend his brother’s coronation. No one argued with that but we spent an infernal time debating the question of extricating the boy from sanctuary against his mother’s wishes. Richard was determined to send Chancellor Russell to negotiate with Elizabeth, however, he made it quite clear that if that failed, force might be the only way.

At that suggestion, all the bishops puffed up their feathers at the idea of sacrilege, and the old story about St Peter manifesting in person to consecrate the abbey was dredged up. It is incredible that the imagination of some drunken fisherman out on the dusky marshes hundreds of years ago should affect the decisions of grown men in this day, but there it was. It annoyed me so mightily that I made the first of many speeches that were to direct events within the realm. What loosened my tongue was Russell blethering about Elizabeth’s fears as a mother.

‘Womanish fear!’ I exclaimed loudly. ‘Don’t you mean womanish perversity, chancellor?’ I stared down the board at where he sat with the other bishops. ‘I dare swear by my very soul, my lords, that she does not need to fear anything, either for her sons or herself. There is no man here who wants to got to war against women.’ I smiled and added smoothly, ‘Would to God some of her kinsmen were women, and then we should have some peace.

‘However, what does concern me,’ I continued after their chuckles had died down, ‘is that if Russell’s golden eloquence fails to convince her, she may well try to smuggle the child out of the kingdom, and what fools we shall all look then if she succeeds. The little prince will be at the mercy of the King of France or any foreign prince who desires to see our country riven by civil strife once more. I say we should get the child out by any means rather than have him slip through our fingers.’

Russell cleared his throat. ‘Even assuming you may be right in the long term, my lord of Buckingham, nothing will make me change my mind about breaking into the sanctuary.’

‘And do you suppose that I , Lord Chancellor, would dare what no one else has dared? I have no argument against the rights of sanctuary but I’ve never heard of children needing sanctuary. Has this little boy committed any crime? No, of course not. By the law of this realm, he has neither claimed sanctuary nor has it been granted to him and I think if the child was asked to make the decision he would tell you that he would rather not be cooped up in there with no room to play.’ I warmed to the crux of my argument. ‘So, my lords, if Prince Richard has not asked for sanctuary, it is not breaking the law to remove him.’ I subsided feeling rather red-faced but saw to my amazement that they agreed with me. Even Hastings did not argue and that made me mighty curious.

Russell actually smiled. ‘I congratulate on your arguments, my lord. Put in those terms, I see no difficulty, but let us try my way first.’

 

WOMEN are so unpredictable. The Queen agreed to Russell’s proposal but begged that her son might stay with her a few days longer because she was nursing him through a bad cold. Russell was so relieved that he accepted the compromise gratefully, not suspecting as I did that Elizabeth might be planning to move against Richard in the next day or so. I knew full well the only thing she ever nursed in her entire life were grievances.

Russell came to tell us the good news while we were dining with Prince Edward at Aunt Cis’s board. The Prince was pleased and while he was safely distracted showing his grandmother the tricks of the monkey his Uncle Richard had given him, my cousin the future king drew me aside. We agreed then that we should double the guard around Westminster Sanctuary and widen the net we had set to snare Mistress Shore.

Sweet Mistress Shore! Our men had been waiting to intercept her since the day Hastings had quarrelled with me. But either he was being cautious about who shared his bed or she had been indisposed with her monthly course. But at the end of the week, at last our patience was rewarded. On Thursday just before curfew at nine o’clock Richard’s men followed Shore’s pretty butt to Beaumont Inn, Hastings’ London house, and kept watch until my men took over from them just before daybreak.

It would not be easy to arrest so famous a woman for treason. Not without a hubbub. That meant we had to plan our interception carefully. Her practice had been to go by boat from Beaumont Inn, where Hastings lodged, to Westminster Palace steps and then up to the sanctuary. Usually a couple of Hastings’ servants preceded her to the quay to whistle up a wherry. Hastings never gave her the use of his barge; that would have been too public.

That day there was the usual early morning business at the house, servants going about their chores but something more – a rustle, if you like – in the house’s undergrowth. When Hastings’ retainers reached the river, my officer and his men arrested them. Arrested? To be honest, it was more like a few well-directed blows on their heads, then my fellows stripped them of their surcotes and put them on. The lovely Shore did not suspect anything as she left Beaumont Inn. No doubt she was hazily languid with the night’s ardour and it was not until the boat was in mid-stream and heading downstream towards the Tower that she realised. Apparently, the moist cherry lips opened and her bosom rose as she took breath for a scream but my officer clamped his palm against her mouth and his companion held a dagger to her ribs. Her hands jerked up to hurl the basket of sweetmeats she was carrying into the Thames but her aim was miserable and they fell about the bottom of the boat. My captain retrieved every sticky one of them, thank God, and kept them in his lap. It was gusty out there on the water so he made no attempt to search the basket there and then.

I was waiting at the Watergate of the Tower. Mistress Shore glowered at me with a mixture of hatred and fear as my men hauled her up the steps. I was sure she was as guilty as Hell.

‘Today is Friday the thirteenth,’ I told her as we threw a cloak over her head.

 

A QUARTER of an hour later I made haste up the lane, past the Wakefield Tower and across the grass to the White Tower, brushing the sugar from my finery. It was beginning to rain, as I remember.

I had not been idle. There was no time to question Mistress Shore but I dissected each of the sweetmeats. Then I left her gagged and shackled in a room above the Watergate. My men were sworn to deny access to even the Lieutenant of the Tower. All we needed was to keep news of her arrest from seeping across to the upper floor of the White Tower, where the joint meeting between the councils of the Lord Protector and the Prince had already begun.

The cobbles were slippery in the drizzle and I was breathless as I arrived at the foot of the outside wooden stairs to the keep. I paused as if to catch my breath, taking off my gloves. It was the pre-arranged signal to Tom Howard, who was in charge of Richard’s escort that morning. He was with two of Richard’s northern captains, Pilkington and Harrington and some dozen White Boar men outside the royal lodging. They were laughing and talking as if nothing was untoward, but he was watching for my signal and came across instantly.

‘Good morrow to you, my lord.’ His voice carried cheerfully. I nodded at the question in his eyes.

‘It is a very good morning.’ Then I said softly, ‘I want you and your men up outside the Council Chamber in a few moments. No fuss and no noise, you understand?’

Tom was no fool; he wanted to inherit a dukedom. ‘Leave it to me, my lord.’

Meanwhile I hurried ahead up the narrow twisting stairs as fast as I could. The meeting was already in session. The guards would have let me through instantly but I gestured to them that I wished to recover my breath. I was listening. Hastings was there. I could hear him telling the others some tale of how he had met an old acquaintance by chance on the Tower’s wharf, and that the last time they had met he had found himself in some sort of danger.

I thrust the halberds aside and burst in. Hats and mitres swung round on me with an array of amazement and disapproval.

‘My lord of Buckingham!’ exclaimed Richard, like a schoolmaster, interrupted by the arrival of a late miscreant pupil. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ I could see concern in his eyes, concern that a rising had broken out, that we were already outnumbered.

‘Gloucester, I must speak with you!’ My voice was passionate.

He turned courteously to the long table of faces. ‘Excuse me for a few moments.’

Outside the chamber, he almost had a fit at the array of soldiers clogging the stairs and crowding into the antechamber. He glanced at Tom Howard and then at me.

‘What in God’s Name—’

‘We have the evidence we need. Read this!’ I said, pulling the small drawstring bag from my doublet. Spread wide, it revealed the tiny scrap of vellum surrounded by the broken honeyplum. Richard took the tiny ball wonderingly, opened it out and scanned it twice, dismay growing in his eyes. It was a promise in Hastings’ hand. A promise of reassurance to Elizabeth. ‘We arrested the harlot Shore this morning,’ I told him. ‘She was taking that message to the sanctuary.’

Richard’s gaze was hard now. Immediately, he swung about to one of his secretaries who was in attendance in the antechamber. ‘Ask Sir William Catesby to come out here.’

Catesby came through the doorway, took one look at Richard’s stern visage and the armed men beyond, and swallowed hard.

‘I want a second opinion,’ snapped my cousin brusquely. ‘Is that Hastings’ handwriting?’

Catesby’s fingers shook as he examined the tiny scrap of vellum. He nodded nervously but we needed to creak the words out of him.

‘I should say so, yes.’

‘But could you swear it?’ demanded the Lord Protector. Catesby’s Judas eyes met my cousin’s hawklike scrutiny.

‘Yes.’

‘So be it,’ replied my cousin, biting his lip. There was no time for reconsidering. In a low voice, he gave Tom curt instructions, then he and I returned to the meeting. Catesby hung back, preferring to wait outside.

We took our places with obvious heaviness of spirit. Hastings watched me with dislike and I could not resist licking my sticky fingers, but he seemed unaware of the cannon shot about to explode around him. Richard looked ill as he faced them, as grey as he must have looked when the news of King Edward’s death had come to him at Middleham.

‘There is a plot to destroy myself, my cousin of Buckingham, and those amongst you whose friendship I hold most dear.’ His gaze swept sorrowfully over them but his eyes probed for signs of guilt. Bishop Morton raised a surprised eyebrow, Archbishop Rotherham shifted uneasily and sweat dribbled down the forehead of Lord Stanley even though that it was a cool, damp morning. At the end of the table Doctor Oliver King, the Prince’s tutor, peered at us above his spectacles and swallowed hard.

‘Who are they then?’ prompted Hastings. He always hated silences. ‘Let them be justly punished.’

Richard looked at him in sorrow. ‘The Queen, her son Dorset, her brother the Bishop of Salisbury, my brother’s harlot, Shore, and others.’ Hastings dropped his gaze to the table. ‘They have tried to paralyse the proper form of government in this land and they have sought to countermand my brother’s will. You, Morton, Stanley, Rotherham and Doctor King are bloody traitors.’

Morton had spine. Indignation quivered in every fold of his jowls but Stanley could not help looking to Hastings.

‘What have I done to injure any of you?’ shouted Richard. ‘Hastings!’ The cry was wrenched from him. ‘You were my friend. How have I offended you?’ He flung the message scrap before him.

Hastings’ eyes never left my cousin’s face as his fingers blindly found the leather scrap. As he lowered his head to read it, his eyes flew wide in horror.

Outrage and anguish laced my cousin’s voice. ‘Hastings, Hastings, how could you side with that witch Elizabeth and that strumpet Shore against me?’

‘No, no!’ exclaimed Hastings, shaking his head vehemently as he recoiled from Richard’s fury. ‘I am no traitor!’ But under cover of the board, we did not know he had drawn a dagger. ‘If there be a traitor here, it’s you!’ He lunged at Gloucester.

‘Treason!’ I roared.

Lord Howard leapt up to grab Hastings’ mantle. Tom’s men burst in, swords drawn and there was a fine old scuffle because we had not made it earlier clear to them who they were to arrest, and everyone was yelling, with myself bawling orders at Tom, trying to make myself heard above the din.

Hastings drove the rondel upwards but Richard managed to swerve and grab his forearm, forcing the blade away, though it took all his strength and being shorter, he was at an awkward angle. I was too far away to help. It was only when Lord Howard managed to get his arm round Hastings’ throat that Richard was able to force the dagger from his grasp. The guards seized Hastings, pinioning his arms behind his back.

My cousin righted his chair and collapsed in it, gasping. ‘Take him away!’ he commanded huskily, pointing at Hastings. ‘I never want to see his face again.’

‘You heard!’ I ordered.

‘You!’ Hastings’ venom fell on me. ‘You fucking spawn of Satan, this is all your doing.’ I gave a nod to the soldiers and they dragged him out towards the stairs.

My cousin’s shoulders sagged. It was over. His brother’s friend had betrayed him. His anger was spent.

‘And what of these, your grace?’ asked Pilkington, prodding Morton none too gently to his feet. Stanley had been grabbed from beneath the table and looked quite foolish, his hat over one eye and his cheek bleeding. Rotherham’s face was furious. Either arm held, Oliver King politely requested that one of the soldiers find his spectacles. Morton was humming, as if he did not care a jot. A pity Dead Ned had never set the precedent for lopping bishops.

From his chair, Richard studied his prisoners like a weary god on Judgment Day and then he straightened his head, turned his face to me and said with a cold loftiness. ‘Cousin, will you see that these traitors are taken away and closely kept?’

‘With pleasure,’ I smirked, overseeing the hustling out. ‘I’ll have the Lieutenant of the Tower find you the best quarters, gentlemen.’ I gave Master King a slap on his thin back that sent him staggering. We still could hear the curses coming from Hastings further down the stairwell. It would have been a dog’s job getting him down and right hazardous. The stairs twisted like a rope and he was not a small man.

I came back brushing my hands. Richard had subsided onto the carved chair and had buried his face wretchedly in his shaking hands. Lovell’s hand was on his shoulder, and Howard was declaring what everybody needed was strong liquor. I grinned and hurried downstairs after the clanking guards. I caught up with Hastings’ escort in the guardroom on the ground floor where they were waiting for the Lieutenant of the Tower to allocate a cell.

‘Find a priest to shrive ’em and fetch the executioner!’ I barked.

Hastings flung continual obscenities at me while Stanley shook and wet himself. The priest arrived in a hurry.

'Get this traitor outside,’ I growled. ‘He can say his confession in the rain. It won’t make any difference, will it?’ The priest gave me a furious glare and followed the struggling Lord Chamberlain.

I turned my attention to Stanley. My fingers grabbed the opening of his cote and jerked his large bulk towards me. ‘You fool!’ I sneered. ‘Shall you be next?’

He spluttered and writhed within my grasp, begging for his life.

‘Your life!’ I flung him away from me into his escort’s clutch with an oath. ‘Well, you shall have it. I shall intercede with the Lord Protector on your behalf. Loose him.’ They dropped him and he sagged between the soldiers. ‘You are lucky that you never came so close to Gloucester, Stanley. He finds it easier to forgive his enemies than his friends.’ I jerked my head meaningfully towards the door they had dragged Hastings through. ‘See that Lord Stanley is more comfortably housed than the others,’ I ordered. Stanley beseeched God to shower blessings on my head.

I pulled my mantle about me and stepped outside.

Across the cobbled yard on a strip of grass, Hastings was kneeling before the priest, his face sour with something that was not repentance and he scowled at me as the chaplain murmured absolution.

‘Finished? Good. There should be a block of wood over there that will do us nicely.’ I pointed towards a pile of building materials. Two of the men-at-arms ran across. They attempted to carry a wooden block but, finding it beyond them, one of them began to kick it with his foot. The headsman came hurrying out with a huge axe in his hand.

‘Make haste!’ I bawled at him. It had to be done quickly before Richard had second thoughts. Ratcliffe, the only man likely to have had the presence of mind to stop me, was on his way to York. Grand Aunt Cis would have wished me to advise my cousin to hold Hastings for trial but that was not what I wanted.

The anger in Hastings suddenly subsided. This was the end for him and reality had at last driven the sharp knowledge home like a blow in the belly. With dignity he knelt down once more on the muddy grass and two of the soldiers dragged the block into position. It was scoured and criss-crossed like a cook’s chopping board.

‘Have you a last wish, traitor?’ I asked.

He did not turn his head, his eyes were taking in the unfeeling clouds and the summer leaves on the cherry trees close by.

‘Yes, I have,’ he said softly, his blue eyes growing watery. ‘Ned promised me that I might be buried at his feet. I was ever at his side in life and I would be loyal to him in death.’ Tears ran down his cheeks or was it merely the rain?

‘I shall tell his grace,’ I promised.

‘And one thing more, Buckingham. I curse you.’

‘At least you no more pity me. Are you done now?’

‘Yes. Yes! In God’s Name, strike hard!’

 

LONDON did not give Richard any time for inner flagellation. The news ran fast as a summer grassfire. The Lord Mayor came galloping into the Tower, white-faced, expecting the worst and my cousin gave him audience among the debris of the meeting chamber.

It took me a while to compose myself before I could face my cousin, for although the soldiers had swiftly bundled Hastings’ headless body into canvas and slung it into a cart, the ruddy puddles had churned my belly and I could not leave the garderobe in the royal lodging for a while .

As I returned to the keep, I met Howard halfway down the White Tower’s spiral staircase. Unfortunately the torches of the stairwell lit my face.

‘Not like dancing at Westminster, is it, lad?’ Was that sympathy or an insult?

I swallowed. ‘I never realised there would be so much—’

‘Blood?’ He finished for me. ‘Never been on a battlefield, have you?’ One sideways shove to where the step petered to nothing and he could have sent me tumbling down to my death. Instead, he retreated to the small recess above to let me pass.

‘Harry.’ The soldier’s edge to his voice had softened. I looked back down on him. ‘You’ll not be the only one with a conscience tonight. Do not blab to Dickon that you know, but he has just sent off Assheton with an order to Ratcliffe for the execution of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan. To punish Elizabeth, I imagine.’

I clambered on up like a blind man.

I had been readying myself to endure Richard’s self-recrimination and to carry the full blame for Hastings’ death, prepared to quote precedents to justify myself, to point out that like Henry II before him, my cousin had made a statement that was easy to take literally. Instead, I passed the soldiers and entered the chamber in shock. My cousin was as guilty as I was.

Christ forgive! How would I explain any of this to Meg? There was still time to send a counter order to save her father. But looking at Richard’s face in the antechamber, I already had my answer.

He looked haggard enough to convince a dozen lord mayors that there had been an attempt on his life, but he was fully in control.

‘Draft a proclamation,’ he was saying to Kendall. ‘Set down that there has been a conspiracy, an attempt on my life by the Queen’s supporters, and that the Lord Chamberlain…’ He looked hard at me, ‘is dead. There is to be no need for any panic. Everyone should go about their business as normal. Say that Hastings and the Queen plotted to overthrow the Royal Council, mention that Hastings was an evil councillor to my brother, that last night he lay with Shore, one of the conspirators, et cetera.’

It sounded like a fabrication although it was the truth, and his secretary’s expression told him so. ‘Do what you can with it, John. Ask Lord Howard’s advice if you need help. I wish Ratcliffe were here,’ he said, blaming me further.

‘Howard has gone. What are you going to do about Shore?’ I asked as Kendall bustled away to get an army of scriveners busy so that the whole city might hear the official news within the hour.

Richard looked at me sourly. ‘She’s still here? Oh, I care not, send her to Ludgate gaol. Let her do penance as a whore.’

‘In a shift with a candle! That should draw the crowds.’ That provoked a sullen lift of eyebrow. ‘If you will be advised by me, Richard, I suggest you send Morton away from the south as you have done with Rivers. I have a strong keep at Brecknock.’

He shrugged haughtily. ‘I’ll consider it.’

Encouraged, I overstepped the line. ‘We might as well flog this matter and get it over. Are you going to request Parliament to draw up an act of attainder upon Hastings?’

His face contorted like a mask of Rage.

‘Holy Paul!’ he roared. ‘You are as greedy as the fucking Woodvilles! And which of the late Lord Chamberlain’s manors does your grace have his eye on?’

‘No,’ I protested sincerely, backing away. ‘I mean, is it not usually—‘

‘Must we persecute a whole family because of one man’s failings? Oh, my God, it will be bad enough trying to explain to poor Aunt Kate why Hastings was executed without the proper process of the law! Oh, this was done ill, very ill.’

I could not answer him. His mercy in this instance shamed me but I was not going to buckle beneath his insults. If I stared back with arrogance, it was at his provocation. I had removed Hastings from his path, taken the ugly decision from him.

‘I am sorry,’ he muttered, storming away with an angry toss of his hands as though everything had slid out of control. When he turned round again, he was himself again, with a soldier’s backbone. ‘I am going to Westminster to see the Chancellor and make sure there are no misunderstandings. In view of this crisis, I am going to suggest the Royal Council send out writs postponing the coronation.’

I was not at all pleased. ‘That is madness if you want to keep the guilds on side.’

‘I did not say there would be no coronation, Harry, just a matter of whose. We need a few days for things to calm down. You can clear up things here. Tell Kendall to send out a summons to all the royal councillors for a meeting here tomorrow morning and you had better have your evidence of the conspiracy ready.’ I nodded obediently like one of his men-at-arms. Ha, should I have saluted?

There was, of course, little real conspiracy. He did crush it in the egg.

‘What about Stanley? Shall I arrange for his trial for high treason?’ That brought him to an abrupt halt in the doorway. He turned, his expression sarcastic.

‘Another beheading? I thought, Harry, that you had promised to ask me to be merciful.’

I raised my head up defiantly. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Catesby was on his way down just as Stanley was grovelling to you.’ His eyes challenged me to deny it. Catesby, it seemed, was springing phoenix-like from Hastings’ embers, anxious to be indispensable to my Lord Protector.

I slung my cloak over my arm. ‘Well, I have changed my mind. Stanley’s a plaguey time-server. He never got off his arse to draw his sword for your brother and he won’t for you either.’

‘Two things, cousin,’ lectured Richard, his hand poised on the door ring. ‘One, the Stanleys can bring several thousand against me in the field, and two, the realm is sufficiently purged, and if it is still sick then it is not worth the bloody fucking remedy. Good day to you.’ With a curt inclination of his head, he left me. The soldiers followed him and I was left alone.

I walked into the empty council chamber, and stood staring at the long candlesticks lying like fallen saplings across the overturned benches, and the ink puddles on the table, still dripping onto the floor. Hastings’ hat was lying under the table. I did not touch it. I wondered if his spiteful ghost was already watching me.

Over by a window where a scrivener had sat, I found a sheet of paper that had not been trampled, and retrieved a quill from the fallen pot. I set them on the part of the table that had not been sullied, righted the bench alongside and lit a candle from one of the torches in the antechamber. Outside the rain beat upon the windows and cleansed the yard. Inside there was no sound but the scratching of my quill.

Forcing myself to do the task was healing. I was concentrating so hard that I did not hear anyone come in.

‘Lord Howard said I should find you here.’ Uncle Knyvett quietly sat down beside me with his back to the table. ‘You do have secretaries, you know.’ He watched me wave the letter to dry the ink, fold it and drip sealing wax upon the overlap. ‘I heard what happened. Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘No,’ I answered. ‘I have just written to Hastings’ steward offering all the Lord Chamberlain’s men-at-arms service in my household. I want it to go to Thames Street straightaway.’

‘Of course,’ he said gravely, and thrust it into the breast of his jacket. ‘I’ll dispatch several men instantly to spread the word. Were you hurt in any way?’ I shook my head. ‘Everyone was in a real pother at the house, I might tell you, and your little wench came running in distraught. Thought you were dead at first. She’s waiting there now.’

I put a hand to my forehead and smoothed back my damp hair.

‘I do not know what to do next,’ I whispered. ‘I feel utterly spent, as though some brawny fishwife has wrung me out like a dishcloth.’

Uncle Knyvett put his arm about me. ‘Go out for a gallop beyond the city walls.’

I blinked around me at the chaos. ‘But Gloucester left me in charge.'

He urged me to my feet. ‘You just tell me what must be done here, Harry, and I’ll see the Lieutenant and sort things out.’

I rode back through Billingsgate and Candlewick with a score of men at arms at my back and it seemed to me the streets were deserted, and those few citizens that were about shrank back and touched their foreheads in fearful respect.

 

I DID not see Meg that day, thank Heaven. Pershall, on his own authority, had escorted her back to her lodgings and pretending to be a jealous lover, paid a local horse boy to bring him word if she left or entertained any visitors. His tidings that she had been lodging at Mistress Shore’s house had me furious.

‘Do you need spectacles, man, or would a new brain be better?’ I snarled at Bannaster, who had always seen her home before. He stood before me, staring at the knots in the floorboards, his mouth puckered like a child’s. Stout hearted, he could not add up a ledger but he could crack heads together like walnuts.

‘She allus said goodbye to me at Paul’s Yard so I never saw her dwelling. How wuz I to know it were important, my lord. You never worried abaht it with your other whores.’

I told him to piss off and then relented and gave him extra ale money. Even then he refused to let Pershall usher him out.

‘My lord, you know your manor of Yalding be up for a new steward?’

‘It is not a good moment to mention it, Bannaster. Today has been…somewhat fraught. Could you just go and get drunk instead?’ But he stood there stoutly, cap in hand.

‘It’s like this, my lord, the wife’s of a mind to leave the farm at Wem and move to Kent.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Too late, I fear, Bannaster, the new man’s already appointed. You can go and work for him if that’s your fancy.’

He curled his lower lip. ‘Wouldn’t suit, my lord. She allus wanted to be a steward’s wife.’

‘Next time, perhaps.’ I was not sure how long my temper would hold. ‘I should not want to lose you from the household, Bannaster, but now, if you do not mind…’ I walked my fingers in the air and he finally understood the message.

Yalding! I denied Bannaster’s wife Yalding! Oh God, if only I had known the consequences, she should have had every frigging acre of it the damned place and more besides.

All I desired at that moment was to drink myself to oblivion. What happened at the White Tower was repeating in my mind over and over and over. I barred my door and reached for the flagon and then I remembered George of Clarence and set it back down. Instead, I went to my private chapel but if I pleaded for heavenly absolution, none came.

 

I DID not want to return to the White Tower next day but there was no choice. I was glad I had kept a clear head the night before. My evidence was heard. But looking at the faces of my fellow royal councillors, I knew their acceptance of the triangle of treachery was based not on intelligent assessment of the facts but fear. Richard said not a word of his decision to execute Rivers. It was clear he was not going to tell me either.

The other matter that riled me as I strode down to By-Our-Lady Tower was that Catesby and Tom Howard, not to mention the Yorkshire henchmen too, were dogging Richard’s heels, begging how they might serve him, right ravenous for rewards. I knew I had to be mature and accept that the strength of his government would be spread over many shoulders, but in cutting down the Hastings lion, it seemed I had unleashed the jackals.

I decided, therefore, to look in on Stanley and chew the cud awhile. From Richard’s remark about him yesterday, I presumed that peace and reconciliation might already be gestating like healthy twins in my cousin’s mind and within a few weeks, the old weathercock would be free again. Maybe I should mend matters with them, too?

Stanley did not have much to say for himself but Bishop Morton did.

He was guarded by thrice the number outside Stanley’s quarters. Seated on a settle by the window with his slippered feet on a yellow footstool, he reminded me of an overweight dragon sitting on its tail. A small leather-bound prayer book rested on his paunch, supported by one podgy hand while the other snaked in and out of a bowl of strawberries on the small table at his elbow.

‘Are you actually the real Morton or a changeling?’ I mused aloud, leaning back against the doorpost, my arms folded languidly.

He smiled the sort of expression you see on the crocodili sea captains bring back in baths of water from Alexandria.

‘They do not make changelings in my size,’ he said ruefully. ‘As you see,’ he waved a hand towards the locked door, ‘I am amply protected from such eventualities. Can you tell me for how long?’

‘One never knows with you, bishop. Forever might be a good idea. Even if you were dead, I should put a guard around your grave and a couple of men at the far end of the churchyard in case you try to burrow your way out.’

Morton chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that made his bulk vibrate before the sound actually erupted, like the fire mountains that are said to lie off the coast of Naples. He gestured to the strawberries. ‘Have one! Fresh from my garden at Ely Place.’ I shook my head. The plump hand stilled above the fruit and then it chose the reddest, most perfect strawberry. ‘You know,’ he continued, talking with his mouth full. ‘I think we underestimated you, my boy.’ His use of pronouns made me curious. We?

I cocked my head on one side. ‘Gloucester and I?’

‘Fishing for compliments? No, I mean just you. I doubt our august Lord Protector could have managed on his own.’ I waited for something more but another strawberry disappeared into his mouth. He extracted its leafy coronet from between his lips and rubbed it free of his fingers onto the table. ‘A pity about Lord Hastings though. The dear Lord Protector will never get that blot off his hands, I’m afraid.’

Either he was ill-informed or he chose to absolve me. Very curious.

‘I must be getting on,” I said briskly. “I just came by to make sure you were comfortable.’ I straightened up and turned to slap my hand against the door for the guard to let me out.

‘Buckingham.’ It was the way he said my name.

I looked round slowly with studied hauteur. The ugly whoreson was not even looking at me, but down at his book as if reading. ‘There are two sayings in our Lord’s Book that may be useful for you to consider, your grace: St Luke’s Gospel, chapter 23, verse 42, and the second epistle of the blessed St Paul to Timothy, verse 5. Your chaplain will look them up for you if you cannot manage it.’

‘Not all dukes are illiterate.’ I glared at the tonsured head, angry with myself for rising to his jibe. He glanced up momentarily and beamed, his smile like Circe’s.

I rode from the Tower amused at his contumacious good humour but wishing that all fat bishops who grinned like stone devils might be wiped from the face of the earth. Curiosity nags at you, doesn't it, like an ache in the guts and as my chaplain was still on his sick bed, I sent Nandik to look up the two references and translate them into English for me. I expected a ‘pride goeth before a fall’ homily but Nandik read out:

‘“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” That’s from the letter of St Paul to the blessed Timothy, your grace.’

An ecclesiastical sermon obliquely given, far more tactful than accusing me of executing Hastings unlawfully.

‘And the verse from St Luke?’

‘Oh, I did not have to look that one up, your grace. It is the Penitent Thief at Our Lord’s Crucifixion. "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”’

Thy kingdom?

 

‘MY LORD of Gloucester has had Mistress Shore’s house nailed up and put a guard around it,’ Pershall informed me when I arrived back. ‘Not that I wish to worry you, your grace.”

‘Lord in Heaven!’ Richard being high-handed again. ‘Has he had any of her household arrested?’ My collar felt tight. Had Meg been carrying messages, too?

‘Apparently she-who-is-virtuous had the wit to remove herself, if that is what concerns you, my lord. My young informer offered her assistance and tells me she is now putting up at Blossom’s Inn in St Laurence Lane.’

I let out a breath, so relieved Meg was still at liberty for both our sakes. The last thing I needed was Richard’s suspicion, although after yesterday, he could hardly doubt me.

‘I want you to send a purse to her and the instruction that she is to leave London.’

Although it would pain me to lose Meg, I needed to keep her safe.

‘Very well, my lord. And your robes for the coronation arrived yesterday, my lord.’

‘Did they indeed! Why did you not inform me straightway?’

‘Because you were busy executing Lord Hastings, my lord. May I suggest you try the apparel on this morning, my lord, to make sure it is a proper fit and to give yourself some diversion from rearranging the government.’ My tankard hit the door just as he closed it behind him. Then he opened it again. ‘I have arranged for Mistress Poyntz to meet you at St Mary Bow at five o’clock this evening. I hope that meets with your grace’s approval. May I advise you wear something inconspicuous. The priest’s cassock again perhaps? Then maybe Cheapside may be spared the sight of her berating you.’

‘Berating me?’

‘She told me that was her intention, your grace.’

 

MEG was outside St Mary Bow, with a basket of Kentish cherries on her arm, feeling rather exposed, I imagine, for although she looked of testy humour, she was relieved to see me. The dusky skin around her eyes proclaimed she had slept ill.

‘You still stand out in a crowd,’ she complained, her eyes taking in every inch of me at the plain brown doublet and leather cap with flaps that covered my hair. I took her arm and then realised we were being watched from above. Standing on a balcony where fulsome bunches of herbs adorned the stone balustrade, was Dame Juliana Shaa, surveying the street like a Roman empress.

‘Devil take it! Quick! Round the corner.’

What a damned cursed meeting place! Right next to Tamersilde, a building used by the nobility to watch processions.

Meg let me drag her round the corner. ‘A rival mistress?’ she jabbed. Dame Shaa could have rolled me into thin pastry.

‘The Lord Mayor’s wife. I tup the older ones on Tuesdays,’ I growled and crossed myself with a prayer to St Jude that woman was myopic. A pox on Pershall! ‘I knew this was folly,’ I grumbled. ‘Why don’t I just stick my neck in the Cornhill pillory and let everyone in London hurl rotten turnips.’

‘Hush, I am sure she did not notice you. She must be planning the decorations for St—‘

‘John’s Eve,’ I groaned. I had already had my invitation.

Meg ignored my peevishness and peered around the corner. ‘Hush, she has gone in now.’

But I was not pleased. ‘Is there somewhere where we can talk without getting – uugh!’ A passing cart with its shouting occupants drowned my curse. My little shrew pointed to the door of St Mary’s.

‘I cannot talk to you in there.’ I growled.’ But she was already briskly leading the way into its gloom.

Within the chilly presence of numerous monuments to long dead haberdashers, we went through the ritual of holy water and lighting candles to Our Lady. Then Meg knelt and, putting her hands together, stared devoutly at the window above the altar and started praying. I settled beside her, seething with impatience.

‘Why have you not gone home to Gloucestershire like I bade you?’ I demanded when she was finally done.

‘To get rid of me, I know.’

‘No, curse it, for your own—’

‘What is going on, Harry? What about poor Lord Hastings? God rest his soul!’

I looked swiftly about me lest any had heard her. Was she a lunatic to rant at me so?

‘And I suppose Mistress Shore is murdered too?’

‘Do not talk such folly!’ I snapped. ‘No one’s been murdered!’

Her shoulders sank in relief, but as footsteps passed behind us, she crossed herself vehemently and began to finger her rosary. We both stared forward like a couple of stone mourners on a tomb.

‘She will survive,’ I muttered, when it was safe to speak again. ‘Probably shogging the gaoler by now.’

‘That is not amusing. Where is she?’

‘Safe in Ludgate and do not go near her!’ The swift jut of chin told me that she would disobey me. I should need to put a watch on Meg Poyntz. To shame me further, she made great play of praying for the whore.

I had closed my eyes, wondering why the Almighty had deliberately plagued my life with difficult women, when my sleeve was fiercely tugged

‘And what about my father? Did you persuade the duke to let him leave England. Harry, please, answer me?’

I tried to meet her eyes but I could not. The stained-glass Christ I was staring up at did not look sympathetic either. ‘It is not good news, Meg.’

‘Oh!’ She would have stormed away but I kept a tight hold on her, cursing my stupidity yet again for meeting her.

‘May I assist you, my children?’ An elderly priest had seen our quarrel.

I instantly buried my face in my hands and Meg put a hand on my shoulder.

‘My brother is troubled, Father. He has come to pray to the Lord Our God to weaken his anger against his enemies.’

‘Wrath is a deadly sin. Do you want to confess, my son?’

‘Thank you, not just yet.’ My voice was muffled. I did not dare look up. A dry hand descended upon my head and a benediction was uttered. The sandals shuffled away, and I was able to strip my fingers from my exasperated expression. ‘This is ridiculous. Let us go back to your inn.’

‘I am not at your perpetual disposal, my lord.’

‘For Blessed Christ’s sake, I did not mean that.’

‘Hush!’ she scolded piously. ‘You are in His House. And in His Name, answer me, you did intercede for my father, did you not?’

‘Meg!’ I groaned.

‘Tell me!’

‘I swear to you in this holy place that I have not been privy to any decision-making.’

But she was no fool. ‘Stop playing with words, Harry.’

‘Very well. He is to be executed, Meg. I was too late to stop the order. Gloucester gave it without consulting me.’

She clapped a hand to her lips. ‘Blessed Jesu!’ I thought for a moment that she might retch but she was winding up her anger. ‘I cannot believe this. You of all men had the power…’ She crossed herself with duty and speed – and fled.

I found her leaning her shoulders against the side of the church with tears pouring down her cheeks and splashing her bosom. I reached out my arms but she knocked them aside.

‘Don’t you dare touch me!’

‘Abuse your aunt not me, woman! Your father was hostage for her good conduct. Instead she conspired.’’

‘Conspired?’ she hissed. ‘What, to keep her children safe? Oh, I thought that you would help me. I trusted you.’ She was close to screaming at me.

I glanced behind me. A hairy old beggar was watching us, too far away, thank God, to hear our conversation.

‘Bridle your temper!’ I snarled. ‘Or, by Heaven, I’ll have you thrown into Ludgate alongside that gossip Shore!’

She spat. ‘You devil! You are…you are filth, my lord of Buckingham.’ She would have run but my hand was an iron manacle about her wrist.

‘If I deserve the gutter, so do you! By Heaven, you strumpet, I daresay you only lay with me to save your father.’

‘That’s not true.’ Her sobbing stilled and she glared up at me like a little girl, resentment mingled with guilt in the shiver of her lips.

I looked down into those beauteous green eyes, awash with tears, and dreaded to find treason in her. ‘Filth, am I? I thought for just one precious week of my life that there was more than self-interest in a woman’s embrace, that despite my part in your father’s downfall, that you liked me for myself.’ I raised my hands in instinctive supplication as if a perverse god was listening. ‘That some happy coincidence of the planets, some wondrous alchemy, made us more than bedfellows. Fare you well, Meg. Be advised and do your grieving in your mother’s arms, not mine.’

Contrition flared in her face. ‘No, you’ll not shun me, Harry. I love you, you fool!’

She reached a hand to my sleeve but I left her. The beggar rattled his bowl as my shadow fell across him and I put my hand up to hide my face.

When I reached the safety of my house, I sent two reliable men to find Meg and take her to one of the properties I owned off Cheapside. For her own sake as well as mine. She was becoming too great a risk.

 

CHAPTER 9

On the following Monday, the day Prince Richard was promised to leave Westminster Sanctuary, we drove the full weight of the Royal Council against Elizabeth. The entire council met at the White Tower and then we travelled together by barge to Westminster in full public view.

With a loud clanking of armour, the men-at-arms, who accompanied us, surrounded the sanctuary and lined the route the Prince would take to Westminster Palace. Lord Howard and my great-uncle of Canterbury led the deputation appointed to meet with Elizabeth at the abbot’s house, while my cousin and I, and the rest of the councillors assembled in the Star Chamber at Westminster.

We had held some of the full council meetings here but King Edward’s massive chair at the head of the board had not been occupied since his death and its emptiness still haunted my cousin. Even I felt Dead Ned’s absence keenly, for the palace, unused since April, was hollow without his laughter, and miserable without his splendour.

There we waited for damn nigh two hours while Elizabeth wrangled with the abbot and the deputation. I could not sit drumming my fingers any longer so I found myself a window onto the courtyard. It was cursed hot outside. The soldiers were cooking in their steel casings, and the commoners waiting for a sight of Prince Richard were competing for the shade of the archway. At last the trumpets sounded.

Westminster Hall with its high hammer beam roof was cool and sombre; Elizabeth had stripped the expensive tapestries from the walls and Richard had not had time to see to its refurnishing. The paraphernalia of the law courts had been stowed away so the floor of the hall could be packed with our retainers.

I took my place at the dais to welcome the boy on behalf of the Royal Council and my colleagues arranged themselves like an arrow shape on either side of me. The fanfares sounded, the heavy doors were swung wide and King Edward’s younger son, dapper in a mustard tunic with one leg matching and the other clad in black, stood blinking between Howard and the Archbishop, taking in the hushed hall of waiting faces. The roly-poly little knave was not at all flummoxed. In fact, he gave us a huge grin and everybody cheered. Then, hand in hand with the archbishop, he walked through the bowing ranks towards the dais. Uncle Bourchier conducted him up the stairs and I knelt on the second step down and kissed his hand and then to echoing huzzahs, I rose and kissed him on both cheeks.

Throughout my speech to the gathered lords, the child looked mighty pleased with himself and when I had done, he doffed his black cap and inclined his head graciously to the assembly. They loved him for it and there was further applause.

‘What happened?’ I whispered to Howard as he came alongside me with a triumphant sucked-in smirk.

‘A snivelling struggle from the Queen but your great uncle’s reassurances swayed her in the end. God’s Rood, the performance in kissing him goodbye and telling us he had an ague and must be kept warm, and all the while the little rascal was fidgeting to get away and have a taste of freedom.’

It was time to escort him to his other uncle and with my Uncle Canterbury on one side and myself on the other, church and state guided him to where the Lord Protector stood waiting at the door to the Star Chamber, wearing that expression of foolish indulgence that some mothers have for their babies. Perhaps being his namesake, Uncle Richard had a greater kindness towards this nephew.

‘Uncle Dickon!’ exclaimed the princeling with delight and then he realised he had forgotten the occasion so he extended his hand regally, saying grandly: ‘How does your grace?’ This brought guffaws of laughter. Prince Richard looked round at everyone with bubbling satisfaction and back to his uncle, who could hardly keep his face straight as he took his hand.

‘Your grace, I am in good health, and you?’

Prince Richard sniffed. ‘I have had a runny nose.’ Uncle Richard laughed, and flung his arm around the child’s shoulders.

‘Come on, Dickon,’ he exclaimed cheerfully. ‘Let’s take you to the king’s grace. Are you glad to be out of the sanctuary?’

The boy nodded vigorously. ‘There was nowhere to play properly.’ He looked up pleadingly. ‘Uncle, would you give me a bow and arrow, please? I started lessons before…before his highness my father died and I was truly improving and…’

‘Yes, yes, all right,’ laughed my cousin, sweeping him along. ‘We shall ask the Lieutenant of the Tower to have a butt set up for you and you can perhaps persuade your brother to do some practice too. He has spent too much time indoors lately and needs some exercise.’

The rest of us followed them back into Westminster Hall.

‘I wish this one were king instead, even if he is keeping me from being a duke,’ muttered Howard. ‘There is more of his father in him.’

‘Just as well he is not,’ I muttered. ‘Gloucester is finding it hard enough to consider deposing his brother.’

We had to remember they were bastards.

 

IF you want something made known in the swiftest time to the widest audience in London then the preacher at St Paul's Cross is your man. On Sundays, after early morning mass, crowds gather in the churchyard to hear the special sermon. There is always a famous cleric invited and often the speaker is a friar. Dominicans and Franciscans seem to attract the cleverest to their orders.

On the surface of it, my cousin was lucky that the preacher who had been engaged for Sunday 22nd June was Mayor Shaa’s brother, Ralph, who had a fine reputation as an orator and was likely to draw a good crowd. Brother Shaa was amazed when we summoned him to Westminster, but as the situation was made clear to him, his eyes began to sparkle at the prospect of mitres and benefices falling from the hand of a grateful king. He spent an hour at the abbey delving through the Holy Bible for a fit text and returned jubilant and incomprehensible.

“Spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas nec stabile firmamentum conlocabunt.”,’ he proclaimed, brandishing his notes. How I detest the bad breath of religious pedantry.

‘I missed the meaning of that.’ Richard told him bluntly.

‘Your pardon, my lord. “But the multiplied brood of the wicked shall not thrive, and bastard slips shall not take deep root, nor any fast foundation.”’ We still looked at him blankly. ‘“Bastard slips shall not take root”. Bastards, your graces! The Book of Wisdom, which follows The Song of Solomon.’

‘Ah!’ My cousin looked across at me.

‘Amen,” I said dryly.

‘Perfect, then.’ Relief shone in Richard’s face as though Shaa’s discovery of the verse had bestowed God’s absolution. Truly, sometimes my cousin thought like a village idiot.

 

I HAD survived many a sermon at Paul’s Yard in my youth by eyeing the London wenches. What I had also learned was that, firstly, it was wise to arrive early and, secondly, there was no use trying to charm my way up any petticoats when the girls had been listening to a two hour onslaught on sin and adultery. But the latter was far from my mind when I arrived at the cathedral that morning. Since there was no sign of the Gloucesters, I bade my retinue mingle with the gathering crowd and wholeheartedly accepted an invitation from my new friends among the city merchants to join them on their stand.

Brother Shaa had a sunny morning for his eloquence and consequently there was a large turn-out. St Paul’s Yard was wearing a very different face from its weekly appearance. The stalls that usually sprawled into the very nave of the cathedral had been cleared away. In fact, the poet who called himself Piers Plowman might have likened the scene to his fair field full of folk. Instead of the greasy-tongued touters and scabby beggars, the yard was packed with guildsmen squiring their wives and sweethearts, and clusters of apprentices. Around me, the merchants’ wives with their little spire caps and fluttering veils were all in holiday humour, showing off their finery, easing their necklines lower and biting their lips to make them cherry red. But for once I was more interested in the preacher. And, Devil take it, where was Richard?

Below the pulpit, Brother Shaa waited, grinding his jaw as the hour drew close. He tarried in mounting the wooden steps, clearly still hoping that the Lord Protector would arrive. The crowd began to fidget and when his brother signalled him to begin, the wretched man hurtled through his introduction like some green esquire galloping at a quintain.

Oh, it was a botched up business. The congregation, used to chastisement for coveting each other’s wives and asses, looked as obtuse as scarecrows at the mention of ‘bastard slips’. As for the peroration where Shaa was supposed to point to my cousin and proclaimed that he was the very image of his father the Duke of York? Well, Richard missed the important flourish.

When he did arrive, his servants noisily cleared a way for him to a position within twelve paces from the pulpit and Shaa, seeing him at last, halted in mid-sentence and went right back to the beginning of the ‘Richard is the most English of York’s sons’ and did the huge arm gesture bit all over again. The White Boar men around the duke cheered and so did my retainers, but most people stood with their mouths hanging open like nesting holes. I should have laughed had the matter been less sensitive.

The intelligent aldermen who understood were scowling daggers at the Lord Mayor for not letting them in on the matter earlier, and as those more canny amongst the crowd grasped Brother Shaa’s meaning, an unpleasant hush fell over the great yard. The faces of the wives so charmed by Prince Edward a month earlier turned stony, while the men looked at each other with ‘I told you so’ expressions.

Well, thank Heaven, London wives do not have a say as to who governs England, otherwise we should be ruled by whichever underdog takes their fancy, and a change of king every Sunday.

I knew my duty. Before the crowds slunk away, I led some of my merchant associates to meet Richard, and made a deep obeisance. His cheeks were a dull red with embarrassment but he greeted everyone blithely enough. While our retainers mingled with a loud show of conviviality, he drew me aside.

‘Holy Paul! What a fool I was to permit such mummery as this. I am now the laughing stock of London.’

‘Not that, I assure you,’ I answered cheerily. Tyrant, maybe. ‘Tomorrow is the important day anyway. Just leave Parliament to me.’

That did not banish his scowl. ‘I hope to Heaven you are right, Harry. By the way, Anne and I are moving over to Mother’s for the week so the people will know we have her support.’

‘Excellent! I applauded, patting his arm. ‘Now off you go to dinner and do not worry. Leave everything t—’

‘What is the matter, Harry?’

‘Nothing,’ I exclaimed, espying a woman who on first glance looked like Meg, and on second nothing like her. ‘Leave everything to me!’

 

MY HEART was galloping when I took my place on the front bench in Westminster Hall next day. It was my purpose to recommend that the House of Lords that Parliament should offer the crown of England to Gloucester but some would call it treason. My intent was known and I ignored Archbishop Rotherham’s glare from the benches opposite and smiled sweetly at Bishop Alcock. Stillington was almost hidden behind the bulk of my great uncle but at least he was there and I would have no hesitation in fishing him out from that pond of mitres to give evidence.

‘Blust me! You’ve drawn a fine crowd yonder. There are abbots come out from under their stones that I haven’t seen in years.’ My lord of Suffolk joined me and young Lincoln stepped over the front bench and sat down behind me. I was very glad of their company.

‘Hope it goes well, Harry,’ Lincoln whispered, a hand on my arm. ‘You all primed up?’

‘He’s looking tight as a virgin’s cunny,’ muttered his father. ‘How long do you reckon this will take?’

‘I’ve a lot of arguments to set forward, sir.’

‘’Spose you have. Look, if you see old Kempe over yonder nodding off, start winding up. He’s always the first to go. I remember one session when all the bishops except Lionel Woodville were snoring their blessed heads off. Well, you won’t see young Lionel here today, that’s for sure.’ Suffolk rambled on but I could hardly pay attention.

I was cold but the sweat of my hands was ruining the ink of my notes. Would everyone be able to hear me when I spoke? Even though we were all drawn up close where the crimson woolsack sat upon the dais, the hall seemed high and vast for one man’s voice to fill. Howard came to shake my hand and wish me well and so did several other Yorkist lords but the wars had thinned the ranks of noblemen. Hastings, Rivers, Dorset, of course, were missing. George’s son, Warwick, had the wits of a changeling and was too young. The Lancastrian lord, the Earl of Oxford, was a prisoner in Hammes and Lord Stanley was still mewed up in the Tower. Some had deliberately stayed away, not wishing to assent to the inevitable. The inevitable. Yes, so I hoped. Richard was relying on me.

Upon the appointed hour, the mace was carried in and Chancellor Russell took his seat upon the woolsack. When he finally called me to make my address, I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. But when you believe in what you are saying, when you are prepared and have the right words, when you have the courage to look them in the eye and forget your notes, the magic begins. There was no more rustle of chasubles and soon I could hear that wonderful stillness in my listeners and knew that I had them.

God knows how long I spoke for, too long probably – Kempe did nod off – but my arguments fell on rich soil and the congratulations afterwards were heady fare for a man who had starved all his youth for a kind word. Here at last was something I could do truly well. Ah, if only Elizabeth and the rest of their kinsmen had been there to hear me. That would have shown them that the boy duke they had tried to render impotent was now a kingmaker.

Of course, I still had to address the guilds and the Commons but what was concerning me as I rode home – drained yet high – to change my attire, was that this day was St John’s Eve. The streets would be full of bonfires, the Lord Mayor and his retinue would lead the procession and several thousand of the city watch would march in armour through London in a cresset-lit column carrying their weaponry. Since the watch was mainly made up of men who had seen service as soldiers, I was mighty edgy. If an armed rising was still in the offing, it would be tonight when there was no curfew and the entire city would be out carousing.

It was past nine and still twilight when I arrived at Tamersilde. I wished I might innocently enjoy the evening; instead I found myself studying the other guests, wondering if any might prove traitors. Certainly, Howard and Huddleston had made sure plenty of our men-at-arms were discreetly positioned around the building but it was useless ordering that every window within bowshot be closed or expecting that the old London archers, who would be strutting past so proudly, should leave their bows and arrows at home on wallhooks.

A goblet of wine made me feel better as I moved among the nobles and merchants but I still had a sense of danger. When Dame Juliana ushered me out to the balcony to join the Gloucesters, and I saw the bonfires being lit down the street, that sensation grew stronger.

My cousin looked utterly unperturbed. He was a figure of much splendour in a murrey doublet embroidered with tiny golden lions and roses. A reliquary hung from the collar across his chest and a brooch shaped like the special cross of St John was pinned upon his hat. He greeted me cheerfully, delighted that the Lords had agreed to him taking the crown.

We clinked goblets. ‘Set for tomorrow, Harry?’

‘Yes, so long as I do not lose my voice or drink too much of this.’ I swirled the wine. ‘You came prepared this time, I see.’ Just the glint of a rondel’s haft showed beneath his gold satin mantle.

‘What about you?”

I lifted my hands from my belt. ‘Ah, I am expendable.’

‘Hardly,’ said Lord Howard at my elbow. ‘And God preserve your speechwriter too!’

‘I have not got a speechwriter, Jock. Half a dozen lawyers, yes, and Chancellor Russell read my notes through on Sunday night.’

‘Then you make a wondrous good job of it, Harry. More tomorrow, eh?’ He clapped me on the back and disappeared into the throng crowding the inner room.

Anne, Richard’s duchess, came out with Lady Suffolk to join us and we kept the conversation light as the crowd grew thick beneath us. Above the gables, the night sky was spangled with sparks and we could not see the stars for the golden glow of bonfires. Thames Street was ablaze with lamps above the doorways and necklaced with candelabras hung on ropes between the gables.

London was in reckless mood. The thatch might catch, skin might burn but so long as the tables buckled with firkins of ale and roast meats for passers-by, no one cared. Where we stood, the smoky air was overlain with the smell of flowers. Tamersilde’s balcony and every nearby sill were garlanded. Bunches of fennel, St John’s Wort, green birch and creamy lilies hung upon the balusters and adorned every front door in the street.

‘I wish your father were alive to know what has come to pass, Anne,’ I whispered to her as we helped ourselves to sweet pastries. ‘It was always his dream to see you crowned.’

‘Yes,’ she said wryly, dabbing her lips with a kerchief. ‘I am sorry that Mother did not come down with me but we did not know that Richard would be made king when I left Middleham.’

‘Nor did any of us, Anne. Thank God, England will be secure again. Stony Stratford was a close shave, believe me, and as for last Friday the Thirteenth…’

‘Yes, indeed.’ She gave a little shiver. Then smiling, set her palms upon my sleeves and stretched up on the tips of her toes to sweetly kiss my cheek. ‘Thank you, dear Harry, for all you have done for Dickon. Our Aunt Anne would have been so proud of you.’

Ha! Grandam Buckingham, who told me to dissemble and bide my time. Grandam who did naught to save me from the Woodvilles. Nearly twenty fucking years, it had taken me to free myself.

I straightened up, my cheeks kindling like a maiden’s. ‘It’s not quite in the bag, my lady. There are still the guilds and the Commons.’

‘Child’s play for you but— Oh, our almost-king wants us back on to the balcony.’ I offered her my arm but she delayed, looking down and letting her fingers pluck at the golden collar about her throat as though arranging the words before she spoke. Then she looked up at me through her fair lashes. ‘What I am stumbling to say is that some men can only conquer by causing bloodshed, but yesterday you conquered the lords of England with words.’

I bit my lower lip, surprised at how delighted I was with her praise and carried her hand to my lips. ‘You know what, sweet cousin? Many’s the time I wished that your father had betrothed us, and given your sister to Richard.’ Lord, how she blushed. ‘Maybe our children shall make a match of it.’

Her blue eyes sparkled. ‘I should like that, Harry.’

‘Harry, are you flirting with my wife?’ He took her hand and drew her forward beside him. An apprentice on stilts was waiting to give her a nosegay of white roses.

I lifted my hat to the column of old soldiers passing below. ‘Of course. I shall be her highness’ most outrageous flatterer.’

‘And there I thought you were being sincere just now,’ teased Anne.

‘Of course, I was.’ We exchanged glances to tease Richard. ‘Nothing untoward then?’ I asked him, dispensing with frivolity and sweeping a keen eye over the faces below.

Anne’s eyes widened. She stared like Christ’s blind beggar suddenly realizing the array of armed men that could have been harnessed against us and her fingers flew to her lips. ‘Oh, Dickon,’ she exclaimed, seeking her husband’s arm.

‘Look merry, my love, for Heaven’s sake!’ he growled through his smile as he acknowledged the salutes. ‘The Londoners only need to smell smoke and there’ll be a fire.’

She obeyed instantly and turned a cheerful face upon the merrymakers, but I could see from the tension in her shoulders that she understood the danger. That was good. Let them both realise how much they depended on their friends.

She glanced round warily before she whispered, ‘How soon before the soldiers arrive from York?’

Richard met my interested stare. ‘I heard word tonight that they are on their way.’

‘Thank Heaven for that.’ She waved to the scarlet-cloaked constables marching past but her earlier spontaneity had vanished. There were acknowledgments but no huzzahs from the ranks. ‘It’s not like being in the north,’ she said, as though the burden of what lay ahead among strangers had at last sunk in.

‘No, my love,’ the future king answered grimly, ‘and this is just the beginning.’

 

I STAYED beside the Gloucesters on the balcony as a reminder to the city that I was very much a part of England’s governance. By Thursday eve, I hoped Richard would be king, suffused with gratitude, and ripe to give me my Bohun inheritance.

‘You have little to say for yourself tonight, Kingmaker,’ he jested, clinking goblets with me.

‘I was actually thinking you need a barber.’ I retaliated. ‘You’ll be lucky to get the crown on with that thatch. What do you say, Anne?’

‘Say you so? He’s worried he’s going bald.’

‘I am not!’

Of course three is a crowd. I wished that I had a wife – or a mistress – who would look at me so fondly. Mind, wives prattle and Anne was babbling about the move to Baynards to the mayor’s dame, so I stopped listening and thought about whether I should send Meg home with an escort or risk visiting her. I was still chewing on the matter when Lady Huddleston, with a lift of eyebrow at Richard, drew Anne and the other ladies inside. It was clear something was up for Lovell skilfully herded the merchants to the other end of the balcony, leaving Howard to insert himself between Richard and I. He flung a friendly arm around each of us.

‘I hate to concern you both, and there is no need for panic so let’s keep a lid on the pot, eh, but there’s has been a fire at the Tower of London.’

My cousin swore. ‘Don’t say my nephews—’

‘Nay, don’t wet yourselves. The Lord Lieutenant has moved them to By-Our-Lady Tower, but what happened, see, was some whoresons lit a fire as a diversion and broke into the royal lodging after the boys. One of the soldiers swears Dorset led the attack. Saw his face clear as day. Quite a skirmish.’

‘And did they catch any of them?’ I whispered.

‘No, Harry, three killed, the rest escaped over the wall and a boat was waiting for them. Very well planned. We may have to change the garrison.’

Richard’s knuckles gleamed white upon the rail. ‘Have you sent out patrols along the Canterbury Road?’

‘Already done, lads. The dogs are out and we are searching Southwark and Bermondsey but with the revels still going on…’

Richard nodded, chewing his lip. ‘I’ll go to the Tower tomorrow morning. I daresay this will happen again.’

To be sure it would. I knew I had to get my cousin crowned and anointed, and then maybe we could sail into calmer waters.

I felt my sleeve twitch. Delabere stood behind me with a small sealed letter. It was ill-timing; suspicion flared for an instant in my cousin’s face.

I lifted my hands in the air. ‘No daggers, Richard. I just give speeches.’

Instantly he was all contriteness. ‘I am sorry, Harry.’

‘Forget it, shall we? I need a good night’s sleep.’ I thrust my goblet into Howard’s hands and went to say goodnight to our hosts. I would return to the Red Rose and change to humbler attire. With the streets full, it would be my best opportunity to visit Meg without being recognised.

But my company was attacked on the way home. One moment we were avoiding a trestle table, the next it was flung across our path and some twenty carousers thrust off their cloaks and came at us with swords. I had never had to fight for my life before, let alone with no poxy weapons but my fists and a rearing horse. As God is my witness, I fought hard but the whoresons dragged me down, and one of them rammed a fist into my belly and brought me to my knees. Lord knows whether I would have lived if Uncle Knyvett and my friends had not risked their lives. Two of my men were killed, another slashed badly below the knee, Latimer had a bloody nose and Uncle Knyvett was wounded in his right arm.

‘God’s Truth, it’s like Brecknock after market day,’ chuckled Latimer as he clambered up from the gutter, with the help of the landlord who owned the adjacent tavern, but I was not laughing.

‘Did none of you catch the cut-throats?’ I gasped in disbelief as Delabere hauled me to my feet. A wall of frightened London gaped around us. Maybe a reward tomorrow would loosen their tongues.

It was not until I was ripping off my ruined finery, cursing that the money I had borrowed to pay for it was wasted, that I remembered the letter.

Gloucester’s arselicker

If my brother dies, so shall you!

How sweet of Elizabeth.

 

I SLEPT ill that night, not worrying that Elizabeth would send more assassins but angry that I was the scapegoat for Richard – it was not my signature on the warrant to execute Rivers. At least, my mirror showed me an unbruised face. Disgruntled but unbruised. I was grateful for that. Making a speech with swollen lips would not have been amusing. Or convincing!

Escorted by Lord Mayor Shaa, I entered the Guildhall that morning to the sound of the city trumpeters. His sword bearer preceded us and the mayoral retinue in their part-coloured worsted livery trooped behind us. The magnificence of the great hall and the huge number of merchants and guildsmen gathered there to hear me put me in better humour. It surely is one of the mightiest banqueting halls in Christendom, built at great expense to house the council of aldermen and the city’s law courts, and a wondrous place to speak. I felt a sense of history, standing there on the dais with the sun streaming through the stained-glass coats of arms.

They needed a strong king to defend their interests and safeguard Calais, I told them, and that argument moved them most of all. I was able to leave the dais, confident that Elizabeth had few supporters left.

As I rode back to the Red Rose with my retinue, John Russhe, a merchant about the same age as me, who was fast becoming one of my inner circle, declared, ‘I was going to ask you to dinner next Sunday, your grace, but you will not be available now.’

‘How so?’ I asked

‘I gather they are booking you for the next sermon at St Paul’s.’

Uncle Knyvett roared with laughter. ‘You know what, Harry, I even heard one guildsman say: “That lord spoke so smoothly that he didn't even pause to spit”.’

‘His grace has no need to stick his nose in the air,’ smirked Latimer. ‘The Londoners speak so lousily themselves that they think that anyone who can string a couple of sentences together is a blessed marvel.’

‘Hey now,’ countered Russhe.

‘Have done, you lowly commoners,’ I retorted, over my shoulder as we rode down Cat Street back towards Cheapside. ‘The speech only worked because I believed what I was saying. I used to spend hours as a child listening to how people used words.’

‘You certainly have a skilful turn of phrase and a pleasant voice, your grace.’

‘And you were pretty to look at,’ teased Uncle Knyvett. He gestured to my cap with its plume of dusted gold. I grinned, glancing down at my scarlet doublet with the Stafford knots embroidered on the black satin panels.

‘Rattled well, too,’ added Limerick, leaning forward and shaking my collar of sunnes and roses.

‘Look, if you have to listen to someone wittering on at you for two hours, it is less painful if the babbler is well dressed and pleasant to look upon.’

Uncle Knyvett chuckled. ‘Do not defend yourself, Harry. You did well, right well, and I hope our future king realises how much he owes you.’

Did he? I began to wonder why I was not doing this kingmaking for myself instead of Richard, if it was this easy.

 

WESTMINSTER Hall was crammed with shire knights next morning. My kingmaking speech to the Commons setting forth Gloucester’s claim is in the records. Again there was no opposition. Catesby followed the great roar of 'ayes' with the motion that a deputation from lords and commons should present a petition to Gloucester next day requesting him to become king. I was beseeched to lead it.

Chancellor Russell, who always weighed words with a miser’s care, shook my hand and said I should have been a lawyer. On reflection I am not sure if that was a compliment. Others were grudging in their praise. Catesby was overheard to remark: ‘Who does Buckingham think he is, the Angel Gabriel?’

The following morning was drizzly but our procession through the streets from Westminster Palace to Baynards was cheerful and loud with conversation. It would have been quicker and less smelly to have gone in barges, but public events need to be carried out with as many spectators as possible. By the time we reached Thames Street and the cook shops gave up their dead, we had a great tail of people behind us, and, despite the watchmen and men-at-arms lining the street, a riot almost broke out when we reached Aunt Cis’ portcullis, and the crowd surged forward, struggling for a view. I ordered my pikemen to keep a space of about ten feet around me. I would be damned if I had to do kingmaking half-choked. Then I drew a deep breath and gave the nod to my herald. He sounded a fanfare and the parliament trumpeters replied.

My cousin did not delay this time. He came out onto the gatehouse battlements with Anne hanging on his arm and his mother and chaplain flanking them in moral domesticity. Looking up at them, I felt like the commander of a besieging army about to parley with the enemy. Of course, we had planned it like that. Richard said he wanted to enjoy the feeling of being besieged with pleas to become king and it was the obvious way to do things.I dismounted and, snatching off my velvet cap, I swept my cousin a deep obeisance while behind me with a jingling of harness and a creak of leather, lords and commoners did the same.

Richard glanced at his wife. Gently disengaging from her, he leaned his hands upon the crenellations, a half-smile playing about his lips. There was colour in cheeks and exhilaration in the tilt of his head. Up there he looked a true Plantagenet and kingly too, as if the knowledge of our purpose had already anointed him with some mysterious, intangible charisma.

‘Cousin of Buckingham, my lords and gentlemen, good morning to you all. How may I serve you?’

‘Most gracious Lord Protector,’ I began, ‘we are here to present you with a petition from Parliament.’

Richard looked round at his family. Anne responded with a reassuring smile but Aunt Cis was sternly looking us over as if we might be about to drop horse turds on her cobbles. My cousin rested his arms along the weathered stone and stared down at me. ‘Then I shall hear it right willingly,’ he offered with great charm.

‘Your grace—’ The sudden shouting from the river was tiresome. Poor Anne gave a start of concern and Aunt Cicely disappeared to deal with the matter. I guessed its source: the citizens who had not been able to pack into the street behind us were piling into wherries to glimpse events from the river. ‘Your grace,’ I began again, raising my voice.

‘I cannot hear you,’ mouthed my cousin, cupping his ear. Then there was a scuffle in the crowd behind us and I had to wait for that hubbub to die down. It was as well that Richard had forbidden the carrying of weapons within the city or hasty tempers would have drawn blood.

‘For the love of God, get back there and shut them up!’ I snapped, turning on one of my captains. ‘This is becoming ludicrous,’ I grumbled to Speaker Gunthorpe, who was holding the petition. ‘I cannot make a public presentation of the damn thing if I cannot be heard.’

‘I’ll see to it.’ Mayor Shaa heaved himself back into the saddle and forced his horse through the cluster of dignitaries. The noise gradually dwindled to a testy mutter and he returned with a smug expression.

I took my hands off my hips and turned once more to crane my neck at my cousin. It was uncomfortable to keep looking up and I had strained my voice on the previous shout.

‘We are here, your grace, to petition you to resign the post of Lord Protector.’ A gasp shuddered out of the ignoramuses at the back. For an instant, Richard let outrage darken his features. Of course it was all play, but maybe it brought home to him that he was dependent on our good will for his survival.

‘In what way have I offended?’ he demanded in a voice that must have been heard above the battle noise on Barnet and Tewkesbury fields. His long fingers spread wide and his tone took on the just amount of indignation. ‘Name my offence and I shall answer for it!’

‘Oh no, your grace.’ My smile was as public as I could make it. ‘You have offended no man here.’

‘Only the women!’ called out some wag and squawked as someone clouted him hard.

‘My lord, we wish you to resign your stewardship of our beloved realm so that you may instead guide us as our loving king and lord, which by your royal lineage and most worthy person you deserve to be.’

This was the tricky part. There was a hush as the crowd waited for his answer.

‘You have a king already, my brother’s son.’ Richard flung a hand towards the turrets beyond the tenements of Billingsgate. A nice touch as the sunlight made a timely entry and lit the gems on his fingers.

‘Most gracious lord, it has been proven to the satisfaction of Parliament that your noble brother King Edward IV, whom God assoil, was not lawfully wed to Dame Elizabeth Woodville and thus the issue of that union is not lawful either. Their progeny cannot inherit nor usurp the governance of this realm. There is no one, your grace, with a better right to the crown than your most noble self.’

Except me!

I bowed again, hand on heart.

Lords and commoners watched the face above them lose all trace of cheer and charm. Richard showed he was aware of his wife watching him anxiously, of his mother primly observing the people as if she was some sightless saint hewn of stone. He was staring solemnly down at us, his mind taking in each of our faces, and inwardly savouring the rising glory. We waited patiently until he at last broke the silence, his voice carrying so clearly that no man had to strain to catch the words.

‘My lords, gentlemen, friends all, you offer me greater honour than any man may dream of, but I am utterly unworthy of the task so I must decline your generosity of spirit. Not only because I am conscious of my own failings but I know that if I agree, my name shall become synonymous with the term tyrant throughout all Christendom, and when all of us are cold earth and there is no one left to tell the truth, men will called me a usurper. I pray you, therefore, do not ask this of me.’

‘My Lord Protector,’ I replied, ‘we commend you for your modesty and your sensibility but we cannot accept your refusal. It has been proved to the Royal Council’s satisfaction that King Edward’s sons are bastards, unable to inherit, and that your grace is the rightful heir. If you refuse our request, your grace, then you compel us to look elsewhere, and there is another willing, who dwells beyond these shores and considers he has a right.’ It was right perilous mentioning Tudor but I could hardly suggest myself.

Richard went rigid. He had not been prepared for that.

Behind me, Gunthorpe gave a snort of disapproval. ‘That was hardly called for, my lord of Buckingham.’

‘He has no choice, Gunthorpe. Let it be seen he has no choice.’

Above us, Richard had recovered his composure and his response came loud and clear as if he wanted as many witnesses as possible to be able to testify to his words, as if he feared being in the dock on Judgment Day:

‘Very well, if it is truly the desire of the Lords and Commons then I shall accept, but be certain, all of you, that you want me for your king. Be sure, for without your loyalty and your love, such kingship as I can give you rests on air.’ He spread his long fingers wide in suppliance. ‘I have no wish to be king.’ There was a sudden jeer from the back. ‘Yea, by my immortal soul,’ he shouted, ‘I dare swear so, for it is true whether you would have it true or not. I repeat I have no wish to be king but in the absence of a legal claimant with better right than I, it seems I have no choice and must obey God’s Will and yours!’

Cheers broke out but he held up his hand for silence. ‘All I ask is that you remember it was you who wanted me for your king; and I swear here before Almighty God that I shall do my best to bring justice and peace to this troubled land.’

Well, thank Heaven, that was over. I flung up my hat and caught it with a shout.

‘God save King Richard!’ I yelled and knelt on the muddy cobbles. Richard’s friends tumbled to their knees and the courtyard rang richly with cheers, echoed by a roar of exclamation from the river and more huzzahs.

The new king reached out for his lady’s hand and drew her to his side as he acknowledged the applause with the tight sad hint of a smile. I almost pitied him. It would have been much easier for me but Dead Ned’s beloved brother felt every shout with anguish as well as pleasure.

As if conscious of the irony that her father had fought and died to ensure a crown for her, Lady Anne was clinging proudly to her lord and graciously enjoying the cheers. The Londoners had always loved her not just for her father Warwick’s sake but because they remembered how Dead Ned had paraded her as a captive after her father’s slaying.

Oh come, Aunt Cis, I chided silently. Stop standing there like a wooden chess queen! He is the only son you have left. The old besom melted at last, she kissed him on both cheeks and then with a half-curtsey carried his hand to her lips. The people clapped. Then Richard turned back to face us and held up his hand again and a hush fell.

‘What do you wish me to do now, my lords and gentlemen?’

I had restored myself thankfully to my feet and now with a bow, I gestured to Gunthorpe to kneel and proffer the petition, which he did with blessed conciseness: ‘We most humbly beg your grace to ride with us to Westminster where Parliament may proclaim you formally as our king.’

Richard inclined his head graciously. ‘I shall be with you directly.’

His mother took control. ‘My lords and gentlemen, I welcome you to my house to drink the health of the king’s grace, Richard III!’

There was vociferous agreement on that and while the new king and queen went to wave to the people on the river, I led the way into Baynard’s Castle.

After drinking his health, it was back through the city to shouts of ‘God save the King!’ The well-wishers were nearly all men, I noted. This time, it was ‘King’ Richard who led the way with Suffolk and myself at his stirrups. Elizabeth must have heard the noise as we arrived at Westminster Palace and I hoped someone had bothered to tell her why.

In the Great Hall, the judges and magistrates were waiting in their silks and ray robes. My cousin hesitated at the sight of the marble chair with its purple velvet cushion. I saw him swallow with emotion at the betrayal of trust he was committing so I stepped before him and gestured him to seat himself. Like the soldier he was, he took the final step, turned and sat. Applause crashed around us but I could see that for my cousin the moment was solemn, holy, and I realised he recognised, not my hand as having led him there, but the hand of God.

They were expecting a tidy little speech, merely appropriate thanks but they miscalculated. Richard, made sacred by their blessing, lectured the practitioners of the law, the self-assured judges, the clever lawyers and the burly sergeants at law on Justice. He told them it was to be the foundation stone of his reign, that men were equal were before the law, both lords and commoners alike; and that he would rule without prejudice or malice. As a gesture of his sincerity he ordered one of the sergeants to cross to the sanctuary and bring out the first of the fugitives he found there. We waited, amazed, like an audience at a mystery play wondering how this would turn out.

We heard the footsteps. All eyes swerved as the doors opened. Sir John Fogge stood on the threshold. He was a close relative of the Woodvilles and had been involved in the scandal when the Woodvilles had stripped a prosperous merchant of his possessions on a trumped-up charge. Here was testing indeed: there was no love between my cousin and Fogge.

There was fear in the twitch of the knight’s left cheek as he walked in the silence up to the marble throne and saw who sat there now.

King Richard rose and offered him his hand. ‘Today is the first day of my reign, Sir John, and your pardon is my first deed as king.’ Fogge went down on one knee, almost dazed. ‘I pardon this man as an example of the mercy and friendship I wish to prevail in this land. Let there be no more enmity among us. Sir John, you are at liberty. You may return home to Kent a Justice.’ Fogge kissed his ring, stepped backwards down the dais, bowed again and marched from the hall a free man and then the hall erupted in applause.

Richard’s solemnity vanished. ‘Let us to mass,’ he said lightly, touching my sleeve, and we filed behind him across the courtyard to where the Abbot and his monks waited bearing a golden cross and the abbey banners to lead us to te deums just as his brother had been led two decades before.

I hope Elizabeth was spitting.

 

CHAPTER 10

By Saturday, Howard was given the strawberry coronet of Norfolk, Tom Howard became Earl of Surrey and Catesby was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, an office that could be peeled from him as swift as a scullion can disrobe an onion. My advice, I admit. A man who can change his coat and betray his master might do so again. As for me? Since we no longer had Hastings, I had the organization of the coronation dumped in my lap.

Our new king was in testy temper. Sweaty Ratcliffe and my lord of Northumberland had turned up on the doorstep with an army of Yorkshiremen, who were no longer needed, and I was blamed for it. Not only was Ratcliffe damnably sulky that he had missed all the excitement but rudely outspoken about Hastings’ execution.

We rode out to Moorfields where the northerners were camped. They made a great circle around us and you could have heard their roar for King Richard back at London Bridge as he doffed his hat at them. Their affection made me envious as Satan. I had as much hope of the Welsh fêting me as fly across the Thames.

Richard was clearly purring at their devotion but inside he was seething.

‘Thank the Blessed Christ, they didn’t arrive last week. It would have looked as though I was seizing the crown by force.’

‘It was last week you might have needed them,’ I pointed out defensively.

He ignored that. ‘Yes, but what-do-I-do-with-them-now, Harry? Our enemies are going to make a meal of this.’

‘Simple!’ Ratcliffe butted in before I could answer. ‘Make them special constables for the coronation, because I tell you this, I am not friggin’ well escorting them north again.’

And while Richard was going round their campfires, shaking hands, dear Ratcliffe waited until no one was within earshot and then he had another swipe at me.

‘You might like this.’ With a superior face, he drew a folded parchment from his doublet. It smelled of sweat and horses.

‘What is it?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘A copy of Lord Rivers’ will, your grace. Since you are married to his sister and screwing his daughter, I thought you might like to pass it on.’

By Heaven, I nearly smashed my fist into his smirking mouth. ‘You have good teeth, Ratcliffe, I suppose you want to keep them.’

‘You have the King’s trust, my lord. I suppose you want to keep it.’

‘While you were messing around in Yorkshire, sirrah, I made your master king and with not a drop of blood spent.’

‘Really, my lord? I thought you personally dispatched Lord Hastings.’

I shook my head in exasperation and tried to be decent. ‘I do not understand why you are trying to make an enemy of me, Ratcliffe. I thought we were all on the same side.’

‘Aye, I hope so, my lord, but when I hear that you are all cosy with Rivers’ bastard, it makes me wonder if the King knows of it?’

‘You can wonder what you sodding well like.’ I strode off to join Richard. All my life I had strived for respect for my rank and my person. I did not get it from the Woodvilles and if the northern whoresons could not treat me fairly, I should show them they were making a mighty error.

 

‘IS HE pardoned?’ Meg hurtled down the stairs into me as I entered the house, where she had been safeguarded. ‘Tell me!’

I caught the shapely bundle of impetuous womanhood and turned her back towards the stairs.

‘No, he’s not,’ I whispered. I urged her back to the upper chamber where I could speak with her in private and thrust the door closed.

‘I don’t understand. The usurper pardoned Fogge.’

I plucked off my gloves and tossed them onto the window seat. ‘Fogge was fortunate, that’s all, and never call the King a usurper.’ Then I turned to face her and make matters clear. ‘Your father is dead, Meg. He was executed by the Earl of Northumberland three days ago, together with your cousin Grey. I warned you they were hostages for the Elizabeth’s obedience. Blame her!’

With her fingers clutched to her lips, she dropped onto the settle, her blue skirts settling around and tears trickling silently down her cheeks. Had I been an artist, I would have painted her in her beauty and her sorrow. Poor Meg.

I sat down beside her and made to put my arm about her, fool that I was, but she thrust me away. ‘I cannot believe this, that you…’ She fumbled angrily in her girdle purse for a kerchief. ‘You made that foul duke king, yet my father who was a good man—’

Good? A self-centred prick. Just because he was a handsome piece of brawn on the tiltyard and could manage a rhyming couplet.

I stood up, flipped open the flagon on the table. It was a weak perry. A woman’s drink.

‘Sweetheart?’

‘Don’t you sweetheart me, you lump of excrement! Have you come to brag, Buckingham, to impress me with how clever you are? “Look, Meg, I’ve made a king.” Well, any fool can put a paper crown on a pig.’

Excrement, was I? My laugh was patronizing. ‘Oh and what did your family do for England? Procreate, that’s fucking all.’ I sat down beside her again but she whacked the back of her arm into my chest and wriggled away as far as she could.

‘How can you be so remorseless, so despicable?’

‘Ask Elizabeth and your cousin Dorset. I am actually trying to be sympathetic.’

More cascades trickled down her cheeks and splashed on to her collar. She did not – maybe could not – answer so I waited, my hands clasped between my knees, waited as she sobbed for her father, waited, longing to hold her in my arms. Slowly her breathing stilled.

‘Am I still excrement?’

She nodded gravely, her little nose buried in the sodden, silk cloth.

‘Use your head, my darling.’ I who was supposed to be a smith of words fumbled to find the phrases and despaired. ‘Oh, Meg,’ I pleaded. ‘It would not have made any difference. I could no more have saved your father than St Peter could have stopped the crucifixion.’

‘You could have done it for me.’

‘And it would have been for the wrong reasons. Loved is not purchased. It either is or it isn’t.’

I was so afraid that she had used me, given me kisses and fondlings only to buy her father’s freedom, that the truth was gilded lead. Desperate, I strode across and plundered the aumery, unstoppering the flask there. It was empty.

‘It must have been easier, I suppose, not dying alone,’ she said at last.

I thought of Hastings.

‘Yes, there would have been comfort in that,’ I said wearily. ‘I’ve brought a copy of your father’s will. He asked for Richard to be his executor.’ That astonished her. ‘To be honest, I think he had a great deal of respect for Gloucester.’ She did not like that one bit and sniffed defiantly. I drew the folded papers from my belt, and laid it between us on the cushion. ‘I though you should have it.’

She mopped her fingers on the sodden kerchief before she picked the papers up. ‘But this is not his writing.’

‘It is a copy, Meg.’

‘Most of this is verses,’ she exclaimed in puzzlement, looking from one sheet to the other. ‘Some sort of poem.’

‘Yes.’ Five verses. Eight lines each. I almost knew them by heart.

It’s… it’s all about accepting his misfortune and…and apologising for some misdealings in property.’ She read the second page again, her frown deepening. ‘Bequests to the poor, something for his wife but there’s no mention of Mother or I.’

‘No, Meg.’

‘Why did you show it me?’

‘Should I have withheld it, then?’

‘No, Harry,’ she whispered, and more softly, sadly, ‘no.’

I sighed, knowing how much she was hurting. ‘Your father wanted the world to recognise him as a philosopher. Those verses are a gracious epitaph.’ I watched her fingers stroke along the lines as though she might discern some intimacy beneath the ink

‘But so selfish, Harry. Is this how he spent his last hours? Not thinking of us at all? My mother will be heartbroken. She ruined her honour for love of him. All her life it was nothing but him, when was he was coming to visit us, how many months and how many days until she heard his foot upon the stair, his voice in the yard? Every morning without fail, she lit a candle in the chapel and prayed for him.’ She looked round at me, her eyes bitter. ‘Compostela, Rome. Did he light candles for us?’

‘I am sure he did,’ I lied. At last she let me draw her head against my breast and I closed within my arms like a precious pearl.

 

WE lay together that night, our love-making a comfort and a giving. In the morning, I broke my other tidings.

‘I am giving you an escort to take you home this day. Some of the King’s informants know about you.’

‘Home,’ she echoed bleakly.

‘Your children need love.’ Her green eyes pleaded that she too needed love.

‘I grew up without love,’ I told her, ‘save for my nurse who loved me dearly, and then I was taken from her and sent to the court. I know now that her mind was a nothingness but she was sweet and kind and I missed her so terribly. You must be there for your children, Meg. Teach them how to love, teach them joy in everyday things, teach them with your passion and wrap your arms about them every day.’

‘Harry?’ She touched gentle fingers along my wet cheekbone. I carried her fingers to my lips and then I flung aside the sheets. ‘Don’t go!’ she pleaded. ‘When shall I see you again?’

‘I do not know, Meg, but I shall light a candle for you every day of the rest of my life.’

 

RICHARD’S coronation should have been a day of triumph for me, for I organised the most glorious ceremony that London had ever seen. All the receipts for who attended, what we wore, what we ate, the names of those who stitched our clothes or sewed our shoes are in the records of the exchequer. Maybe some day hundreds of years from now, some old chronicler may find them and see how civilized, how magnificent we were.

We practised the cushion-carrying on the Tuesday. Stanley was the worst at keeping pace, partly because he had only just come out of the Tower the night before and still had cobwebs in his brain. The ceremony of knighting the esquires took place on Wednesday morning at the Tower, followed by a banquet. In the afternoon Richard made the traditional journey through the city to Westminster Palace.

London cleaned up its streets. Garlands of white roses were strung between the gables and looped beneath the eaves. Lavender and scarlet arras rippled beneath the wealthy men’s windows and ribbons of murrey and blue bedecked doorknockers, hung in streamers and coiled in maidens’ loveknots. Some commoners had hewn boughs of hawthorn and cut ropes of ivy and honeysuckle from the hedgerows to decorate their doorways. Bells, trumpets, shawms, drums, taboret pipes, hand-organs, hurdy-gurdies pealed, blared, beat, fluted and sang to the gasping air. But serrating the streets in haphazard armour were the borrowed Yorkshire soldiers, boar badges in their caps, pride in their eyes and halberds in their hands. Poor devils, they were so unwelcome; the Londoners scowled at the vowels they could not understand and debated in glances why this new king must fear for his safety.

At first sight of his Yorkshire lads, my cousin delivered me a I-told-you-so scowl from beneath his canopy but he could fault naught else. In truth, even to the fickle-minded, he certainly looked as magnificent as his brother always had. Mind, the glory was all based on loans. Just reckon what the long mantle of purple velvet furred with ermine, the doublet of white satin shot with gold, and the Spanish leather knee boots that shone like polished ebony must have cost, let alone the robes for everyone else, but I digress.

There are plenty of ways to win hearts: seven small pages, shiny-faced and so well brushed that their heads gleamed like oiled wood, marched alongside the King with such precocious dignity (the first time they had behaved well) that the crowd cooed over them like a grandmother. And Anne had some honeyed ladies in her train. Their gorgeous smiles and low-cut bodices sweetened the note of tyranny and had the men all whistling.

To be honest, I was against the new queen riding in a chariot since it meant the crowds could not see her easily. But Anne stated flatly she was not even risking an ambler so she rode in a litter. Her gown was of white damask (just like her canopy), but shot with tiny threads of gold and edged in ermine. Of course, she did not have tassels (I teased her about that later) but she did have a dainty diadem of beryl and peridot that sparkled wondrously. And there were plenty of esquires to escort her, handsome young masters in murrey doublet and hose. After her came Richard’s sister, followed by all the noble ladies and maids-of-honour in blue velvet gowns purfiled with crimson satin.

And I? I was clad in a velvet doublet, blue and costly, embroidered with golden wheels of fortune with a diamond sewn into each blazing hub.

After the exuberant splendour of the day, the evening was as flat as a cake without yeast; Richard and Anne excused themselves early to indulge in bathwater followed by prayers and meditation in St Stephen’s Chapel, while I went over the details for the crowning with Howard and my uncle of Canterbury.

At seven o’clock next morning the White Hall was jammed with haughty peers tormented by their coronets and burdensome robes as they lined up for the procession. Judging by their belly rumblings, the whoresons were hungry, too. The only creature who did not complain was Richard, who was berthed beneath a canopy of estate on his marble chair in some spiritual world of his own. Perhaps the prospect of the being ladled with holy oil concerned him. God might still hit him with a thunderbolt or the ghost of Dead Ned might materialise in the chancel and spit at him.

I had been up at dawn to help him put on the special ceremonial garments: the white shirt that was open to the waist for his anointing and over that a crimson shirt of glistening tartaryn with silver and gilt laces. His hose were sarsynett (uncomfortable, I reckon; I had opted for fine wool). It took both Howard and I to fasten the train of purple satin with its weighty lining to his doublet. Just its great hanging hood of miniver and ermine would put a strain on his shoulders. He was muscular but not a broad man.

Once he was apparelled, I spent my time playing pendulum between the Great Hall and the White Hall to make sure everyone was in the correct order, and that the regalia were being properly guarded. I can definitely say funerals are simpler, a sword, a destrier, tapers and everyone in cheap mourning hoods.

The clergy were late and the lady most aggravated by the delay was my aunt by her former marriage, Stanley’s wife, Margaret Beaufort. She sent her page several times to plague me. Since she was the mother of Henry Tudor, a vagrant pretender to the crown, the wretched woman was lucky to have been invited let alone have the privilege of carrying Queen Anne’s train. If Richard had not been so insistent on a show of unity, both Margaret and Stanley would have been on bread and water.

I found Margaret standing apart from the maids-of-honour with her nose in her prayerbook, fanning herself. Oh, she looked sour. I suppose she was seething that God was putting the crown on Richard's head instead of her son’s. When she saw me, she tucked her book under her arm.

‘Ah, at last, Buckingham!’ The woman has small eyes that shaft you and a tongue like a poison dart. ‘How much longer do you intend to keep us waiting here?’

‘Now, now, Aunt Margaret, just a little more patience. We must not get ourselves hot and upset, must we?’ She sucked in her cheeks at me – a bad habit which always makes her look like an abbess with bellyache. I noticed then her cramp-rings as she nursed her left hand against her breast, rubbing the knuckles with her right palm. Aching, I suppose.

‘I have to say it, Aunt. You are looking magnificent in your scarlet.’ That made heads swivel. Mouse-faced, almost forty, she blushed right enough. Lying coxcomb, was I?

‘It might be better, Buckingham, if you had stools fetched for the Queen’s ladies instead of dealing out fulsome compliments.’

A just rebuke. I called out an apology to the pretty creatures, clapping my hands for servants to fetch out benches.

Anne, however, was very forgiving. ‘You’ve had enough to think about, my lord,’ she exclaimed generously. ‘I should have seen to my ladies’ comfort earlier but everything is rather an effort.’ She looked as anchored as Richard.

‘Mea culpa,’ I apologised, trying not to stare at the loose lacings of the red velvet surcote and purple kirtle across her little breasts. With her fair hair loose to her waist and a circlet of gold about her brow, she looked like a young maid from King Arthur’s court. ‘Hope they’ve warmed the oil for you, Anne.’ I gave her a brotherly hug about the shoulders to annoy Margaret.

‘Queen to you!’ she teased back with mock indignation as I straightened the circlet skewed by my presumption. ‘Yes, I shall survive.’

I went back and fussed over Margaret as I seated her. ‘The old joints playing up again?’ I asked cheerfully.

‘Unhand me, Buckingham!’ Then she added in a mutter over her shoulder, ‘Both your grandfathers would turn in their graves at this day’s enterprise.’

I leaned down. ‘Perhaps they would, Aunt, but where were you and my uncle when I needed an education in loyalty to the House of Lancaster?’

‘I hope you cursed well faint with exhaustion, boy.’ I had seen gentler smiles on she-wolves.

‘Are you all right now, Aunt Margaret?’ I boomed loudly in retaliation as though she was seventy. ‘Won’t be much longer.’ But the woman’s bent fingers had snared my billowing sleeve and she whispered: ‘If you had had any wit instead of a turnip for a brain, it would be you wearing the purple and maybe saintly King Harry’s soul would be avenged.’

I stepped back. The twin arches of her unplucked eyebrows rose in question, but I could not answer nor would she free me. ‘Cat got your tongue at last, Harry Buckingham?’

I wanted to move away but the small blue eyes had me pinioned like a butterfly stabbed upon a boy’s brooch-pin.

The words came at last, spun out of bitterness. ‘I did not see you waving a banner behind me, Aunt, or showing me the colour of your money.’

Her smile was warm as Circe’s. ‘If you do not throw in your cap in the ring, you cannot play. Enjoy walking in his shadow, child of Lancaster, before self-seekers like Catesby poison your name.’

She loosed me and I stood dazed.

‘Your grace!’ A small cough, and an anxious esquire piloted me off like a half-wrecked caravel to rope up at my cousin’s quay. Despairing, a failed sorcerer trapped between reality and illusion, I picked up my white wand of office.

‘My Lord of Buckingham, it is time.’ Like a playing card in his stiff, glistening tabard, with his trumpeters at his shining heels, Blanc Sanglier stood before me, while I, like some poor fool tasting the gift of poppies, struggled to breathe and nod.

So it began like a dream, no, more splendid than any illusion: the anthems and the fanfares, the banners of Our Lady and St Peter, the great processional crosses, the ranks of mitres, the heralds and the great noblemen of the kingdom. Glad that they had taken the time to practise, the lords bearing the Sword of Mercy, the Mace, the Swords of Justice, the Sceptre, the Orb, the Sword of State, one by one began their stately march. It was Howard, the newly minted Duke of Norfolk, who bore in his hands the heavy cap of maintenance with its jewelled arches rising to a golden cross.

At last my cousin came barefooted down the steps, his pages holding the heavy purple train which it would be my task to carry. As he walked past the bowing courtiers, I forgot his height and saw only the face of a man about to become a king. He halted where I stood waiting for him and I found myself bowing as deeply as the rest.

He could barely swallow. I could see that he wanted to embrace me and yet the rich robe dragging back his uneven shoulders made it too hard.

‘We did it, Harry.’

My jest tumbled out like a loving nursemaid’s warning: ‘Yes, now mind you do not trip.’

He waited while I acquired a comfortable grip on his train and we set off awkwardly for I was also carrying the wand. ‘Not so fast, your highness. I have never done this before.’

‘Nor have I.’

Russell and Stillington glided forwards, smelling like a couple of incense holders, to escort him to the door. After the muted light of the palace, the hot glare of the July morning after the muted light of the palace was a shock. I sensed Richard falter. Then it was my turn to be dazzled. The sun scorched me through my heavy silk robes; my hands sweated. I feared to drop his train and lose the sense of unity between us. And then my breathing eased. I set aside Margaret’s shrewish rebuke. Together, my cousin and I had won a kingdom and the roar of the people was glorious. I wanted to laugh exultantly and whoop so loud that Elizabeth would hear me. You underestimated me, you Woodville bitch. Well, World, take note! Here is Buckingham!

The air in Westminster abbey was rich with incense and holy with plainsong. My cousin was led to pray before St Edward's shrine while Anne made her stately progress from the palace. I knelt behind Richard and then, as Anne joined him, I was startled to find Margaret Beaufort lowering herself creakily onto the cushion next to mine. She ignored me, leaned forward to make a petal shape of Anne’s train and then she clasped her hands to pray. For what? Richard’s death and damnation? A turnip for a brain? Child of Lancaster? Thy kingdom? Morton’s words came to poke my brain with pitchforks as well.

I tried to pray. The words came. My mind obeyed, yet my heart felt unmoved, like the great stone beneath the coronation throne where Richard would soon be seated.

I rose mechanically. The royal couple were led to the high altar where, stripped to the waist, their bare skin was anointed with holy oil from the ampulla, the most vital and sacred part of the crowning, then they were clothed in robes of cloth of gold and seated on the thrones.

I cannot remember the sermon nor all the oaths Richard was required to swear save that they were in English so all men might know what he promised, but I remember the exquisite singing of the anthems and then the fealty.

‘I, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, become your liegeman of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth I shall bear unto you, for to live and die against all manner of folk so God me help.’

‘Is it your wish that ye have this man for king?’ asked my great uncle of Canterbury, lifting high the crown.

‘Yea!’ cried the abbey.

Margaret alleged later that I turned my face away when the crown was placed on Richard’s head. I was not aware of doing so, only of the black dog of despair suddenly slavering to sink its fangs into my brain again as I realised that the friendship I had shared with my cousin was over.

I felt utterly desolate. However much our cameradie had been laced with high ambition, there had been something fine and good about it all: Plantagenets, cousins, dukes, court exiles with common enemies, two men thrown into alliance. Where my irreverence had taken the edge off Gloucester’s piety, so his high purpose and trust had diluted my fear of myself. But now, he was crowned, anointed; now he held God's mandate to rule; now he was master and I, like the rest of his subjects, must always bow to him. Whatever he commanded, it was my duty to perform; whatever I asked of him was his privilege to bestow or withhold.

Is that friendship? No, that is a fairy tale for children! Harry Stafford was now obliged to do what King Richard ordered and in return he might hope for the gift of offices. He might only hope.

Sweet Christ, what was it I had dreamed of when I had left Brecknock? Revenge on Elizabeth and the desire to show the world that I was not an impoverished milksop, that I could snap a Woodville king in two and be another kingmaker? But, like every beggar, I always had the fantasy to wake up and find myself the king!

Was Margaret right? Had I abused my birthright, dishonoured my ancestors? Terrible thoughts possessed me. Thoughts that should have been bound with iron and buried deep. If God’s Will had compelled me to push Gloucester up the wheel of destiny, I could likewise give that wheel an extra shove and send him on a downward path once more. I, who had undermined all in setting my cousin on the throne, might now take to myself the crown, for the friendship that had redeemed me was broken now. I had lost the only hand upon my rein.

The fanfare crashed into my thoughts and I mechanically raised my coronet and lowered it again. A great shout broke and hundreds of voices chanted:

Verus rex, Rex Ricardus!

Rectus rex, Rex Ricardus!

Iustus, juridicus et legitimus rex, Rex Ricardus!

Cui omnes nos subjicio volumus.

Suaeque humillime iugum, admittere guernationis!

There! It was done. I could neither speak nor think, nor did I want to.

Anne’s crowning followed and then I had to bear Richard’s train as we returned to Westminster Hall. Now it was he who smiled at the crowds and I who appeared moved and introspective. The commoners surged forward as the last of the company reached the Westminster Hall and flooded in behind to gape as the ceremonial ranks broke with a unison sigh of relief. Our anointed king and queen retired to strip off the stifling gowns, the noble guests withdrew and I found myself left on the dais staring unseeing at the garlands looping the white cloths, and the great salt and platters borrowed from Crosby Place.

A friendly hand shoved a jack of ale at me. ‘You look weary, Harry. Take an hour’s respite.’ It was decent of Lovell but I shook my head. What he mistook for integrity was my desperation to escape the Devil’s whispering. ‘You made a magnificent job of things,’ he added. ‘I think our foreign guests’ jaws nearly hit the ground.’

‘Ah, so that was what the noise was.’

‘No, seriously, it will be hard to keep things up to your standard. As to where the money will come from…’

‘That’s for tomorrow, Francis. You will make a fine chamberlain. Go and see if there’s aught the King needs. I’ll hold the keep here.’

Nursing my ale, I sat down on the corner of a bench beside one of the marble trestles and watched the cutler arranging his knives on the nearest side-board. At the other end of the hall a sergeant-at-arms and the hall steward were trying to persuade the rabble to leave. The servants were growing angry, beseeching me to order the pikemen in and the situation was becoming ugly. I was just about to summon the guard when Howard returned.

‘Not having a rest, Harry? You looked a bit strained back there in the abbey.’

‘Yes, Jock, I nearly dropped the plaguey train a few times. Why did I have to carry that daft wand too? Didn’t know whether I was a sorcerer or a pageboy.’

‘Try carrying the crown. Almost smashed the blessed thing. You’ve done a grand job, Harry.’ That was generous. As Earl Marshall, these ceremonies were actually his responsibility save that Richard had given the task to me. ‘Yes, indeed, even old Hastings with his flair for such things couldn’t have bettered you, and young Lovell just wouldn’t have had the experience. Now, is there anything I can do?’ Tactful of him mentioning Hastings.

‘It’s going very smoothly, Jock, except for them.’ I jerked my chin at the growing crowd of intruders. There must have been already about two hundred of them cramming the entrance to Westminster Hall. ‘Do you think some men-at-arms will do the trick or are we likely to have a riot? It will ruin it for him if anyone gets killed.’

The new Earl Marshall stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully then he chuckled. ‘Wait on. I’ll deal with ’em. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

Few minutes? Ha! The weary servants were starting to get mighty angry, beseeching me to order the pikemen in. Like the damned in hell, the crowd was writhing and pushing forward, snatching the fresh baked bread from the nearest tables. Out of patience, I summoned in the soldiers and while I was instructing them, a shout from the steward made us turn.

‘Oh God in Heaven!’

Howard’s great war horse was draped from mane to hoof in cloth of gold and he loomed above it, a supernatural being in gold and scarlet, like a vision from another world. Visor down, he rode his horse down the steps and straight at the intruders. Instantly, the squirming mass ceased its gyration and gasped with one voice. In ducal tones, he commanded them to leave, and rode back and forth along forcing them back. His destrier caught the jest of it, delicately planting its hooves to miss the wretches’ feet by a seed’s length and as the rabble frayed away so the soldiers were able to push the great doors closed at last.

I was convulsed with laughter. Howard’s antics had driven away my devil too. ‘There you are, Harry, we shall not have to hold our noses while we eat.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ I spluttered, pointing to the fresh manure splashed across the flagstones.

 

THE BANQUET began miraculously on time on mopped flagstones (although there could have been some lost lice and fleas hopping around the great doors). Blanc Sanglier reappeared as though magicked to supervise the fanfares, and a grinning king sat down beneath the purple canopy of estate held high by his henchmen. He was now clothed in purple as befitted his rank, brocade threaded with gold and stitched with white roses and the garter insignia. Anne had given the robe to him as a coronation gift and it almost cost the eyesight of the Tailors’ Guild. Lovell and several chosen noblemen served their liege lord and lady from platters of gold. Thank heaven, I was not expected to play the page and kneel. That would have brought back ugly memories of serving Elizabeth.

Mind, being seated between my Uncle of Canterbury and my lady of Suffolk as they argued over what made the perfect latrine was not my idea of celebration. Certainly, I was as tired as an ass that had been roped to a treadmill all week but my demons would not let me be. Now that it was almost over, I felt as though the heel of God had pressed me flat. If only Meg had been waiting in my bedchamber. In her arms I might find oblivion. I longed to clasp her sweet body against mine again, bury my face in the perfume of her hair and forget the cursed world.

Applause broke around me. The King’s Champion, Sir Robert Dymoke, beautiful in snow-white armour, rode up to the dais on a charger caparisoned in red and white silken harness, and rasped out his challenge to anyone who doubted Gloucester’s claim.

I watched Margaret Beaufort’s lips tighten. Challenge? Yes, Richard, what are you going to do about Henry Tudor? About your nephews? A cup was proffered to Dymoke. He took one gulp and dashed its contents on the rushes, claiming the vessel as his fee.

We sat through fire-eaters, tumblers, dancers, a play by Norfolk’s troupe, songs from the royal chapel choir and last but not least a cursed bagpiper. I groaned inwardly and met my liege lord’s grin. It was a relief to rise from the table and not hard to infiltrate the circle of conversation where Margaret Beaufort stood as they cleared the trestles away.

‘Are you returning to Woking at the end of the week, Aunt?’

She gave me her why-should-that-matter look, but answered civilly: ‘No, I shall be staying in London a little longer. Stanley, as you know, is to accompany the King on his northern progress.’ Yes, I knew King Richard was not going to let Thomas Stanley out of his sight in a hurry. ‘I gather you are not going a-junketing?’ she added.

I spread my hands apologetically. ‘I have so many responsibilities in Wales now.’ Perish the thought of returning to Brecknock! It was amusing that just the mention of Wales riled her. The Tudors considered it theirs.

‘What a shame,’ she replied insincerely. ‘Still, I suppose it would be a waste of time you going north with him. They won’t be interested in you in York, will they?’

We were on the periphery of the cluster surrounding one of the Castilian diplomats and everyone was too interested in his exotic tales to listen to us.

‘You are unkind, Aunt.’ I whispered. ‘I cannot understand why you dislike me so. I never put a frog in your bed, did I?’ She shrugged. ‘And here am I with a genuine admiration for you and Jasper Tudor, keeping the flame of hope flickering for Lancaster these past twelve years. It shows not only tenacity and determination but patience, a virtue which you possess in abundance, though it flowed thinly this morning.’

‘You know I write to my son,’ she muttered crossly. ‘All the world knows it. I suppose you read every letter.’

‘Only the innocuous ones you deliberately allow to fall into our hands. “Dearest Son, I wish you were here. How is the weather in Brittany?”’ I watched her suck in her cheeks again. ‘Tell me, Aunt, what price would you pay to have your son here? Is it worth a throne?'

‘I do not understand what you mean.’

‘A purely academic question which I should not like to be misconstrued.’ She was not insensible of a few curious glances in our direction and forced her gaze into pleasanter creases. I lifted her hand from my arm. ‘Give it some thought.’

I moved along the tables, shaking a hand here and there until I reached Uncle Knyvett and Limerick.

‘The lads reported some tavern talk today that might spoil your indigestion, Harry. Do you want to hear it?’

‘Certainly.’ I shrugged and sat down. ‘Spew it out then.’

‘They are saying you have made Gloucester king so that you may later brand him usurper and tyrant and take the crown yourself. How about that one?’

‘Pah, and if he is a usurper, how can I take the crown while the princes live?’

Uncle Knyvett nodded. ‘Aye, Harry, but the whisper is that they will not live long. I warned you it was not kind.’

I shrugged. ‘But he is king legally, uncle. It is Parliament who has put the boys aside.’

‘All I’m saying is watch your back, lad, and you don’t want to be all charm with her ladyship Beaufort, neither. What if King Richard were to start believing the gossip?’

‘Yes, understood.’ I patted his arm in thanks. ‘She’s probably behind the slander. Or else Elizabeth is still meddling.’ A royal page bowed before me. ‘Looks as though I am wanted.’

I went up the steps wearily to where Richard and Anne were talking with the Suffolks.

‘My lord of Buckingham.’ Richard raised me from my obeisance, thanking me again for all that I had done, and embraced me. ‘I wanted to tell you that I have decided to make your henchman, Sir William Knyvett, Constable of Castle Rising, if you are in agreement.’

‘That is very generous of you, your highness.’ But why was my cousin grinning so broadly?

‘We also have something for you that we are sure will please you better than any other gift.’ He handed me a document, tightly rolled and wrapped by a ribbon of scarlet, its wax heavy with the imprint of the Great Seal. ‘It will be official when Parliament confirms it next week.’

I unrolled the parchment and almost wept. Richard had given me the Bohun inheritance, the lands that had been withheld from me since 1471. To him it meant a loss of royal income and a show of trust; to me it was my lawful inheritance and it added some fifty manors to my possessions.

‘And furthermore,’ laughed my cousin, ‘to show the world how much love and trust I have in you, you are to receive the offices of High Constable and Great Chamberlain of England.’

It took my breath away and I dropped to my knees speechless and overcome with shame. There I had been listening to Satan, and here Richard was being generous, trusting me, when I could not trust myself. I felt torn in two. No man had given me so much. No human being had ever shown so much unquestioning faith in me. God have mercy! All the deep laid plans, the childhood dreams, the stolen imaginings, the alternative within alternatives. But then…

I read no pleasure in his northern friends’ faces and as I kissed Anne’s cheek, I glimpsed Catesby and Ratcliffe watching me with contempt as though they found my courtesy and splendour risible. The former said something and Ratcliffe, looking straight at me, laughed. Despite the fact that I outranked them in every way, despite all I had done, they still found me something to laugh at.

Later when my expensive robes were chested and my coronet coffered, I stood alone at my bedchamber window looking across the moon-silvered rooftops. You beloved fool, Gloucester, I whispered, directing my thoughts to Westminster. You have made it too easy. You have created in me the most powerful subject that any English king has ever had.

The greater the trust, the greater the betrayal.

 

CHAPTER 11

‘I am making plans for the government of the south while I am away. Are you still resolved to return to Wales, Harry?’

I was standing with the King in the Great Chamber at Westminster staring uncomfortably at the image of Fidelity painted on the window jamb. He had decided to be away until October. The court would go by river to Windsor and then trundle in a royal progress up the spine of England, with some excessive crown-wearing and flourishes when they reached York. No one with any sense lingered in London in August, the month when the risk of pestilence was greatest.

‘It does nothing but rain in Wales,’ I answered gloomily.

‘But you are Justiciar of Wales,’ he pointed out, selecting a peach from a silver platter – there were a few valuables Elizabeth had missed.

I made a face, grinned, and helped myself to a Spanish apple. ‘Yes, but you don’t get these in Brecknock.’

The royal fingers aimed the peach stone at the upper window light. It missed and Loyaulté loped over hopefully. ‘I shall leave Russell in charge of the Royal Council and if there is any problem, he can send for Howard. You can control the west and he the east and if the Woodvilles try anything, they should be easily crushed by the pair of you.’

I made a pile of the orange peel on the sill. ‘What are you going to do about the Lords Bastard?’ I meant the princes.

Richard’s frown of displeasure snapped down like a visor. ‘What do you mean, do ?’ He glanced about us as though we were talking treason. On the other side of the chamber, two minstrels were playing for Queen Anne and her ladies and no one was watching us.

I spread my hands innocently. ‘My liege, I am High Constable and all the prisoners in the Tower are my responsibility. What do you imagine I meant?’

‘No matter. I am just racked with guilt still.’ His fingers played with the ring on the little finger of his right hand, a habit that was growing. ‘They are on my conscience the whole time, poor children. I can never set them free, can I?’

‘No, and they are causing a lot of interest, more than the Royal Menagerie, I can tell you. If you want my advice, I should take them up to Middleham or Sheriff Hutton, wherever your northerners can keep them safe.’

He relaxed visibly. ‘Much my thoughts also. I do not want to keep them caged so tightly, and up there they’d be freer. Young Ned is not speaking to me, of course. He may be difficult on the journey.’

‘But there is no reason to keep him by you. Have them modestly attired and kept in one of the wagons when you leave London, ah, and I shouldn’t make it known you are taking them. If Elizabeth thinks they’re still secure in the Tower, she will be a while planning another rescue. Keep it a close secret, hmm?’

He nodded. ‘Good advice, Harry.’

I folded my arms and leaned against the embrasure. ‘I have another suggestion to make with your royal grace’s permission.’

‘No ceremony, cousin, speak your mind.’

‘Wily old Morton is renowned for escaping. He has managed to slither out of the Tower before and I'll wager he’ll try it again while you are away. Let me send him to Brecknock. The keep is strong enough and I'll watch him like a December greybeard would a May wife.’

Richard pulled a face: ‘Hmm, a tad too close to some of the Tudors’ Welsh cronies for my appetite. Though you are right, he’d be safer in your keeping. The University of Oxford has sent me a petition begging me to set the old snake free so Brecknock would be a good compromise. That’s settled then, you take Morton and I'll take Stanley.’

‘What rapture!’ I put on a Cheshire dialect, mimicking Stanley’s round-shouldered stoop and the King gave a right royal groan.

‘You know, what that arse really wants is northern Wales,’ I pointed out, ‘and I’m in his way.’

‘And you are going to stay in his way, Harry. The only reason I’m being lenient to the old weathervane is because his plaguey kinsmen can whistle up a fair size army. Look, how about I dangle some of Rivers’ lands in front of him?’ He teased Loyaulté with an oatcake. ‘That might keep the growser happy.’

I watched the dog demolish the cake in an instant. ‘Ratcliffe seems to think Lady Margaret’s increased her letter writing of a sudden.’

‘So I am informed. All the more reason to keep Stanley by me. There, that’s all our enemies dealt with except dear Elizabeth, but she can’t do anything while I've got the boys. London should be safe enough.’

‘Quite so,’ I took up my gloves and riding crop. ‘I'll not delay you further now. With your leave, I am off to the Steelyard. I am thinking of investing in a couple of trading ventures.’

‘Excellent!’ He walked with me to the door. ‘You shall still go and see Catesby at the Exchequer tomorrow? I want you to understand the wheels and levers. God forbid I die before my son’s a grown man, but if I do, you will be Lord Protector.’

‘Perish the thought,’ I answered fervently, bowing over his hand.

‘One thing more. Anne and I wish you to ride with us part of the way to York. Say you will.’

‘I wish I could,’ I protested, ‘but I have so many responsibilities now that if I wore all my chains of office at once, I think the floor would give way.’

He chuckled. ‘You must come. Holy Paul, with all Anne’s chariots, we’ll be crawling along like a row of tortoises. Join us at Oxford and ride with us to Gloucester then you can hie off to Wales.’

I carried his hand to my lips. ‘Make it a command, Richard, and then I cannot refuse.’

His face saddened, ‘Don’t put it like that, Harry.’

 

THE King’s comment about Margaret Beaufort made me wonder if I had greatly underestimated her. The rumours that I had not planted, were they all from her?

Two days later, I cornered Ratcliffe in the palace guard room. He was as helpful as a beggar with his tongue cut out but when I pulled rank as High Constable, he muttered that the bitch was as closely watched as a harem of lovely slavegirls and would my royal grace mind my own business and leave him to do his job. Closely watched, was she? It seemed that if I wanted to hold another conversation with Aunt Margaret without Ratcliffe rearing up like an adder, it had to be with Richard’s full permission and before he left London.

I found him sprawled under a tree beside the combat yard watching Lovell being playfully slaughtered by Tyrrell. It was one of those sticky days that makes your hose cling and your armpits sweat, and Richard was in a sleeveless cote. He was leaning on his elbow, one hand idly caressing Loyaulté.

‘Watch your left, Francis!’ he shouted, suddenly sitting up and then groaned as Lovell failed to take advantage of his advice. I cleared my throat and he glanced round. The dog padded over to lick my hand.

‘Harry! I thought you were inspecting the garrison at the Tower this afternoon.'

‘I decided that could wait. I would appreciate a private word if your highness pleases.’ I took off my hat and used it as a fan.

‘Say on!’ he ordered, gesturing to his attendants to fall back, but his eyes still closely followed the swordplay.

I dropped down on my haunches beside him. ‘I have been thinking about your northern progress and who would be the greatest threat to you while you are gone.’

My cousin looked at me squarely. He was obviously not in the mood for such serious matters but he was too courteous a man to make light of my concern. ‘The Woodvilles, of course, and a few of the southerners who were enjoying the trough too long and resent my friends taking their offices.’

‘Well, that is all true but I believe that we ought to lure Henry Tudor and his uncle home. While they are still at liberty your Lancaster enemies still have a focus for rebellion but if they were out of the way, then their sympathizers would have to come to terms.’

‘Do you truly imagine Tudor is a threat?’ His smile chided me gently, then he sighed and returned his attention to the combatants, running a hand over his chin thoughtfully. ‘I was considering reopening negotiations to ransom him from Brittany early next year.’

‘That did not work when your brother tried it and it is far too costly. Give me your permission to try my persuasive powers on Lady Margaret.’

His mouth twitched with humour. ‘And what riches am I supposed to unearth from my empty coffers to entice the Welsh braggart home, pray?’ He groaned as Lovell missed another opportunity to break through Tyrrell’s defence.

I pulled a face. ‘Confirmation of the earldom of Richmond and your lovechild, Katherine in marriage.’ That winded him. He lost all interest in the combat.

‘Holy Paul, Harry, I'll not let my poppet—‘

‘Merely to bait the hook, your highness.’

He scowled, and took a draught from the goblet on the footstool at his elbow. ‘Do it, but let it be one of my nieces.’

‘Princess Bess?’

‘No!’ he snapped sharply. Bess, the eldest, was his favourite. ‘No, Tudor would not believe you. Offer him young Cecily. Ah, bad luck, Francis. Well fought, James!’

Lovell staggered up to us with the sweat coursing off his scarlet face. ‘I'll have to lose weight,' he lamented. ‘I've not won a bout all week. Do not laugh at me, Dickon. Time you got down to some practice otherwise you'll start getting podgy like me.’

‘What, our hero of Barnet and Berwick?’ panted Tyrrell, scraping his shirt sleeve across his wet forehead. ‘Never.’ But Lovell’s words had fallen on fertile ground. Richard sprang up and began to strip off his cote.

‘Come on, Harry,’ he exclaimed. ‘If anyone needs to lose a bit of weight, it is you. Ever since we've come to London—’

‘No,’ I protested, appalled at the loathsome suggestion. ‘It is too friggin’ hot for a start and…’ But Tyrrell was tugging away my doublet. Lovell pushed the practice sword into my reluctant hand. It was not manly to refuse.

I had been promising myself I would start daily lessons in sword play but I had been very slack in getting round to it. So, not at all prepared, I miserably saluted Richard before we stepped back and began to circle each other warily. Once the attendants scented what was in the wind, word spread and two earls, the Spanish ambassador and a handful of barons materialized from the buildings around the yard. Many of coronation guests had gone back to the country but there were still plenty of the northern affinity.

Richard’s thin lips were parted in calculation, and I felt my throat go dry. To know I would be ignominiously defeated was unbearable. My only consolation was that his preferred weapon was the battle axe so perhaps he would not be quite so adroit with a sword. He was waiting for me to make the first thrust but seeing I would not, he launched an attack which I was able to parry successfully. Anyone who has ever fought in single combat knows that your reflexes are of the utmost importance. You have to defend, anticipate, act within the umpteenth of a second. You have to watch your opponent’s eyes, his hand, his stance, in order to block the deadly blade as it mercilessly whips at you again and again and again.

I knew my cousin’s responses would be faster than mine; that, being lighter, he could move more lithely. It dawned at last on my poor beleaguered brain that he was being kind to me, deliberately slowing himself down to give me more openings to thrust at him. Sweet Christ, he was doing it so I should not make a fool of myself.

His loving kindness stung me into a fury. Was I a child that I needed to be protected? I launched an attack on him that was both swift and serious. The fight was real: Richard metamorphosed into Dead Ned, Rivers, Dorset, Hastings, Ratcliffe, everyone who had underestimated Harry Stafford. A mutter rose from his war-scarred veterans and I knew I was doing well. The King of England was retreating, his blade flashing defensively. I laughed exultantly then found the tide had turned. Wave after wave of blows drove me back, pain lashed my arm and the sword whirled from my hand. My head crashed back upon the dirt and a blunt combat weapon jabbed at my breastbone. A roar went up. Behind Richard stood Catesby and Ratcliffe. smirking at my defeat.

Richard flung the sword away and grinning hauled me to my feet. I was too breathless to speak and mustered as good-tempered a face as I could. All his affinity, save good-natured Lovell, were looking with smug delight at the straw and dirt clinging to my hair and hose. Reason told me that they could not do otherwise than cheer their royal master’s triumph but the serpent of jealousy writhed about my guts. Even though the royal arm was around my shoulder and Lovell was thrusting a cup of ale into my aching hand, I seethed against every one of them.

On my prie-dieu that night, I pleaded with God to dash the cup of ambition from my hands, to stop events playing so easily into my outstretched cajoling fingers but there was only silence. The Devil drove the memory of the day’s shame again and again into my thoughts and I was possessed of so great a hunger for the crown, that my guardian angel could not withstand its fury. My survival through youth had been kindled by the determination to crush the Woodvilles for their mockery. Now I felt the same about Richard’s henchmen.

 

Margaret Beaufort was not an easy person to find next day and when my duties permitted me some respite, I was forced to resort to asking Stanley where his wife was. I found him at his house, jabbing glumly at his dinner. Below the salt, his officers watched with interest as he invited me to join him. I sat down and agreed to a cup of wine.

‘Going north soon then, my lord?’

He nodded, prodding a brace of partridges with a gingery-looking sauce congealing over them. ‘You here to discuss travel arrangements? I didn’t know you were Master of the Horse as well, Buckingham.’ I ignored that sling-shot.

‘The King desires me to have a quiet talk with Lady Margaret,’ I told him.

‘About what?’ he asked, sorting a bone out of his mouthful with his tongue and spitting it onto the rushes. ‘Am I included or is it about needlework?’

‘You are not involved, put it that way. In fact, I’d stay out of it if I were you.’

He snorted morosely. ‘Happen I don't have much choice.’ He paused to extract another tedious bone. ‘Anyroad, she’s gone t’ Red Pale, lad.’ He raised doleful eyes to me and seeing my puzzlement, enlightened me. ‘The Red Pale at Westminster, that printer fellow, Caxton.’ He began once more to pick ponderously at his partridges.