Northumberland stopped in the doorway and turned about. “Yes?”
“Is there… has there been any news of Surrey’s militia approaching the city? Any militia?”
Northumberland stared a long moment before he replied. “No,” he said, and turned and walked through the door.
Richard muttered a foul curse, looking around at the mayor, Wadsworth, and wondering whether he was a potential traitor as well.
Wadsworth was fidgeting with a button on his tunic and, as he saw Richard glare, smiled halfheartedly and dropped his hand to the dagger at his waist before deciding that was a bad idea and moving it back to the buttons of his tunic.
There was a movement at the door, and Richard’s eyes jerked that way, opening his mouth to shout at whoever had disturbed him.
Instead he whispered, almost pathetically, “Robbie!”
De Vere smiled, bowed, and walked over to Richard. He touched Richard’s cheek, whispering
soft words that brought a blush to the younger man’s cheeks.
“Where is your cloak, Robbie?” Richard said. “The morning is chill, and you must not ride without it.”
“I shall not be riding with you—”
“What? What? I demand that you ride with me!”
“Your grace,” de Vere said, then dropped his voice and whispered an endearment. “I would that the glory be all yours,” he continued in a ringing tone. “I would not dare intrude upon the majesty that will undoubtedly be all yours this day!”
Wadsworth made a grimace, turning his face aside lest de Vere or Richard saw it. “I want the glory to be all yours” indeed! No doubt de Vere had a rowboat awaiting him at the Watergate.
Richard blinked, unsure of how to take de Vere’s fine speech. “But… but…”
De Vere took Richard’s shoulders in his hands. “You will ride out there and impose yourself upon your subjects,” de Vere said. “Never doubt it.”
Richard’s eyes cleared and his back straightened. “Yes! I will do so!”
“You must not allow the rabble to dictate to you. You are the son and grandson of kings, descended from the great warriors of Troy and the line of David. You will prove the greater in this encounter!”
Wadsworth had to give de Vere credit for bolstering Richard’s resolve, but he wondered how long Richard’s assurance would last.
What would happen the first time Richard had a pike thrust in his face?
Richard nodded. He waved at Wadsworth. “Come, my Lord Mayor, the horses await. Why do you linger?”
As Wadsworth walked for the door, Richard leaned close to de Vere. “I will tell you all about it when I return triumphant!” he said.
And de Vere nodded, his smile only faltering when Richard had left the chamber.
In the stairwell leading down to the entrance of the Keep, Northumberland was listening to a soldier whispering hastily in his ear.
As Richard stepped down to join them, Northumberland turned and whispered as hastily in the king’s ear.
Richard visibly relaxed, then he smiled, a tight, cold expression.
LANCASTER WAS very close to death. All night his breathing had become shallower and harsher, and all in the chamber—Bolingbroke, Neville and Margaret—could hear the death rattle grow stronger.
Yet still Lancaster lingered, with a clarity of mind that must, indeed, have been Christ’s gift.
“I must be shriven,” Lancaster said as dawn broke. “I must have a priest.” “There are no priests within the Tower,” Bolingbroke said. “The rabble murdered the last one a few hours ago.”
“I—” Neville said, but Lancaster instead turned his face toward Margaret.
“Will you shrive me, sister?”
Neville’s mouth dropped open. Margaret? He would have objected—no matter what he felt for his wife, a woman was not the one to take confession from the dying—but he saw the expression on Lancaster’s face, saw the need there, saw an understanding there that he, Neville, did not and could not share, and so he closed his mouth and made no objection.
Margaret looked taken aback, but after a slight hesitation she moved forward and sat down on the bed beside the duke. She took his hand in hers. “I will be greatly honored,” she said.
WHEN RICHARD, Wadsworth, Northumberland and an escort of some twenty squires and men-at-arms arrived at the gravelled space of the Inner Ward they saw that the majority of the peasant force that had been there the previous night had, in fact, gone. Remaining was a man who introduced himself as Jack Straw and perhaps sixty peasants, armed with pikes and swords and arrayed in surprisingly ordered columns.
Having introduced himself, Jack Straw cast a wary eye over the king’s escort.
“You carry weapons,” he said.
“You would have us march into a murderous rabble without weapons?” Northumberland said.
“We are not murderous—”
Northumberland laughed.
“—and we are a ‘rabble’ only to those who seek to enslave us,” Straw said. “But, very well, if
you think that your king’s words will require swords, then bring them by all means.’
He shifted his eyes back to the king, who looked calm and controlled.
I hope be hears us out, thought Straw, for we are dead if he decides to despise rather than embrace us.
True, their numbers might carry this day, but unless they could change Richard’s heart they would eventually be beaten back into complete servitude.
“Where is Bolingbroke?” Straw said.
“I meet my subjects on my own,” said Richard. “I do not need the advice or company of my more rebellious nobles.”
And then he added, without any thought of what the consequences might be, “I will not have Bolingbroke take any of the credit for what happens today.”
To one side Northumberland very slightly shook his head in disbelief. The fool!
And then he wondered how he might get word to his son Hotspur, still encased about Orleans. Whatever this day might bring, the ponderous shifting of allegiances had already begun.
Every one of the peasants arrayed behind Jack Straw heard their king’s words, and every one of them would, by the end of the day, have repeated them to a score of comrades.
“I HAVE sinned,” Lancaster began, but Margaret reached forward and placed a finger briefly on his lips.
“Have you tried to do what you thought right?” she said.
“Aye,” Lancaster said, “but—”
“Then how can you have sinned?”
“I have left so much undone,” Lancaster said.
“Have you loved?” Margaret said.
“Yes, of course. Blanche, and the son she gave me,” he turned his head very slightly to smile at Bolingbroke. “Constance, a little, for despite her gravity she could make me laugh, and our two daughters. Katharine, more than anyone, for she is my soulmate, and our son and daughter. My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, my—”
Margaret laughed. “Then what a blessed life you have had, and what love you have given!
Your family, your wives and your children have all had of you what they should: your love and your care. Embrace your passing with joy, John, not with thoughts of sin.”
Lancaster lay in silence for a little time, thinking about it.
“Aye,” he said, “I have been blessed, and blessed that you should be here now to shrive me, Margaret. You have said better and more potent words than could have any priest.”
Watching, Neville turned the scene he had just witnessed over in his mind. Was love all that was important? Not sin and thought of eternal penance? Not retribution and vengeance?
He frowned, perplexed.
STRAW AND his sixty peasants led the king’s party through the Garden Gate into the Outer Ward, then through the series of gates that protected the drawbridge across the moat.
The road leading to Tower Hill and then to East Smithfield was lined with thousands of people, Londoners as well as peasants. As they moved through the six-deep ranks of silent watchers, Northumberland thought he could feel death closing in about him. His hand seemed to have its own mind, for it desperately wanted to stray to the hilt of his sword, but the earl clenched his teeth and kept it fastened securely about the reins, for he knew it would be his death if people saw his hand stray to a weapon.
God, how were they to get out of this day?
He glanced upward at the soldiers standing atop the bastions of both inner and outer wards.
They saw his glance, but they made no sign, and Northumberland took a deep breath and tried to quell the growing fear within himself.
Peasants and Londoners swarmed over Tower Hill as the party turned their horses east for the small gate in the city wall that led to East Smithfield.
The field was entirely gone, lost under a seething tide of humanity. All England must be here!
Northumberland thought, wondering what had gone so wrong with God’s ordained society that it should rise up against His word like this. Again he glanced at the bastions of the Tower.
The watch there made no sign.