CHAPTER V
The Feast of St. Nicomedes
In the second year of the reign of Richard II
(Friday 1st June 1380)
— I —
“HE SAID WHAT!” said Richard, finally sitting straight in his chair.
Tresilian smirked from where he stood some two paces distant. “Thomas Neville virtually admitted, your grace, that he and Bolingbroke have been working in concert with traitors here and abroad in order to usurp you from your throne.”
“I knew it!” Richard said, and sprang from the chair to pace back and forth. He had him.
“What do you mean, ‘virtually admitted,’ Tresilian?” de Vere said.
“Why question it?” Richard said, coming to a halt before de Vere. “We have all we need to—”
“Forgive me, your grace,” de Vere said in an obsequious voice, “for perhaps I speak out of turn. But, surely, until we have hard evidence we do not have all we need. Bolingbroke is too great a noble, and way too popular, to attaint on charges of treason without ironclad cause.”
Richard shot him a bleak look, then turned aside.
De Vere moved to stand before Tresilian, taking over the interview. “What do you mean, Virtually admitted’?” de Vere asked again. “Tell me fact, man, not wish, for your life depends on this.”
Tresilian’s face hardened in barely controlled anger. Dear Cod, how much longer must England’s nobles submit to the dominion of this ambitious arse-poker? “My lord,” he said,
“when I put it to Neville that he did indeed conspire with Bolingbroke, he refused to deny it.”
“There!” Richard said, swinging about and staring at de Vere. “You see?”
De Vere still held Tresilian’s eyes. “Did he sign a confession? Name his co-conspirators?”
Tresilian turned aside his eyes, wondering why it was he’d stopped the interrogation when he had. If he’d pushed …
De Vere’s lip curled and he looked at Richard. “It is not enough,” he said.
Richard’s face flushed with frustration. Curse Robbie. This was perfect! “Why not?”
“Where is your sense, boy?” de Vere said, shocking Tresilian who could not believe that Richard allowed de Vere to speak thus to him. “Lancaster and Bolingbroke carry almost half of the barons of England with them! If you accuse Bolingbroke without sufficient evidence, then you will cause civil war!”
De Vere paused, visibly struggling to control his temper, then continued in a more temperate tone. “But then, you would not live long enough to witness it, sweet boy, for if the commons of London heard that you’d arrested their beloved ‘fair Prince Hal’ they would storm this palace and rip you to pieces.”
Tresilian could see that Richard was torn between lashing out at de Vere for this public humiliation and capitulating entirely to what was an obvious truth.
Tresilian hoped that Richard would find the strength to put de Vere in his place. Come on, Richard/You are the king, not your pet, Robbie.
“But…” Richard eventually said, “but I want Hal… I want him stopped …”
Tresilian suppressed a sigh.
“Shush,” de Vere said, and stroked Richard’s cheek gently. “We will have him eventually. Do not fret.”
Richard leaned his tear-streaked cheek into de Vere’s palm and Tresilian had to turn away, sickened at Richard’s increasing dependence on this man. He suddenly understood why it was he’d halted Neville’s interrogation so precipitously: even then, unconsciously, he must have known England would yet have need of a man of Bolingbroke’s caliber.
He was just wondering how best to extricate himself from the repellent scene unfolding before his eyes—de Vere had just leaned down to kiss Richard full on the mouth—when the far door of the chamber opened and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, strode in.
Tresilian thought that, for an instant, just an instant, there was a flash of revulsion in Northumberland’s eyes at the tableau before him, but then it vanished as he drew close.
He bowed perfunctorily at Richard, and sent an unreadable glance at de Vere, before speaking.
“Your grace, there is great trouble to hand.”
Tresilian, who knew Northumberland well and respected him as he respected very few men, instantly realized that “great trouble” meant very real, extreme danger. His mind instantly began to run through the armed force Richard had about him at Westminster, and he frowned as he realized how small the number actually was.
Richard was completely unconcerned. “My lord, you are always mouthing about some great trouble or the other. I pray that this is indeed great trouble, for you have disturbed me considerably.”
“There is never a need to wish disaster upon yourself, your grace,” Tresilian said, if only to let Northumberland know that he had an ally in this corruptly tainted chamber.
“I cannot think—” Richard began but got no further.
“There is a rabble of at least one hundred thousand peasants converging on London as we waste our breath in speech,” Northumberland said. “They will have the city surrounded by nightfall.”
Richard’s eyes widened and his face went ashen. He tried to speak, but couldn’t, and his mouth dropped uselessly and foolishly open.
“What?” de Vere said. “Intelligence put the peasant uprising at only a manageable few hundred! What mean you, one hundred thousand?”
“Would you like me to name them one by one?” Northumberland said. “There are at least one hundred thousand. They come from Essex, and East Anglia and Kent, and from a score of other regions. They scream for a redress to their grievances, and they scream your name, your grace.”
Richard whimpered.
“Sweet Jesu,” Tresilian said. “We have almost no armed men in either Westminster or London, and the militias of the city are not enough to prevent—”
“Aye,” Northumberland cut in. “We cannot repel them.”
“You must!” Richard shouted. He had grabbed de Vere’s arm for support. “You must protect me! I am your king!”
De Vere ignored Richard and looked at Tresilian and Northumberland, all animosity gone from his eyes. “The Tower,” he said.
“Aye,” Northumberland said. “It is the only relatively safe place. Your grace, you must come with us. Now!”
THE NEWS of the approaching rebels was spreading throughout London when Northumberland strode into Richard’s chamber in Westminster. Even as Northumberland was organizing the king’s removal to the Tower, the markets and streets of London were ablaze both with fact and with rumor.
The Londoners greeted the news with a great deal of ambivalence. On the one hand, the majority of the men and women who lived in the city sympathized with the plight of the peasants. Most had relatives in rural villages, or were rural emigres themselves. Almost without exception, the Londoners loathed the poll tax as much as the peasants did, and hated the Church even more than the peasants did. The prospect of winning even greater freedoms with this rebellion also raised more than a few voices in heated enthusiasm— now was their chance to seize some independence along with their country cousins!
On the other hand, few Londoners cheerfully embraced the prospect of being invaded by one hundred thousand fit, angry men armed with iron pikes, shovels and hoes. The rebel mass moving toward London was as likely to not out of control as it was to peacefully present its
grievances to the king. More likely to riot, in fact.
And London burned so easily.
Most shopkeepers and craftsmen closed up their shops, bolting tight the shutters across windows and doors. Valuables were moved to safe hidey-holes, generally buried deep in the hidden spaces of cellars, cesspits and the secret walks of London’s sewers. Fires were damped down, and ovens left to cool. Children were moved inside, and told firmly to stay there. Some mothers bustled themselves, their children and a picnic supper into the nearest stone church, there to seek sanctuary from both the rebels and any conflagration. Men moved in tight, murmuring groups to join the watches to which they were assigned—the aldermen of most wards ensured that the fire watch was the first to be organized.
Not a few men, mostly wealthy merchants, or nobles who had somewhere to go and the wealth to purchase transport, quietly slipped down to private wharves and shipped themselves and their families out of danger. Foolishly, others thought to wait out the unrest within their London townhouses.
Despite the fact that so many families stayed indoors, the streets remained fairly crowded.
Most men, particularly the younger men and youths, sensed the oncoming tempest and preferred to wait out in the open—perhaps even hoping to ride the crest of the storm. After all, did they not have grievances? Their ranks were swelled with the dispossessed and the mischievous, who saw in the night ahead some chance to take for themselves what had been so long denied them.
By late afternoon people thronged the streets, and the working life of the city had ground to a halt. Although the crowds were relatively quiet, the atmosphere was charged with such a heavy expectation that it seemed ready to explode, even without the presence of a single rebel.