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THE RED TAVERN
[Illustration: "'Hast thou peace and provender for a wayfaring knight?'"
[Page 45]]
THE RED TAVERN
by
C. R. MACAULEY
[Illustration]
New York and London
D. Appleton and Company
1914
Copyright, 1914, by
D. Appleton and Company
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PROLOGUE 1
I. A WARRANT UPON DOUGLAS 18
II. ON THE WAY TO CASTLE YEWE 32
III. OF A NIGHT IN THE RED TAVERN 44
IV. THE INCIDENT OF THE WOLF-HOUND 59
V. THE INCIDENT OF THE CUTTING OF SAFFRON VELVET 81
VI. THE PAVILION OF PURPLE AND BLACK 94
VII. OF THE AWAKENING OF SIR RICHARD 104
VIII. OF A QUARREL AND A CHALLENGE 117
IX. OF AN AMBUSCADE, A DUEL, AND AN ESCAPE 133
X. OF A NIGHT IN A SHEPHERD'S HUT, AND A SURPRISE IN THE
MORNING 147
XI. OF HOW SIR RICHARD CAME TO CASTLE YEWE 165
XII. OF THE DELIVERY OF THE KING'S WARRANT 187
XIII. OF THE INCIDENT OF THE COBBLER'S FEAST 205
XIV. OF A SERIES OF REMARKABLE DUELS, AND DE CLAVERLOK'S PERIL 217
XV. OF THE GALLERY OF THE GRIFFIN'S HEADS 229
XVI. OF THE RETURN OF LORD DOUGLAS, AND THE COUNCIL OF JACKDAWS 250
XVII. OF A JOUST WITH BULL BENGOUGH, AND THE INCIDENT OF THE
KNIGHT IN BLACK 267
XVIII. OF SIR RICHARD'S MEETING WITH THE FOOT-BOYS, AND HIS
RETURN TO THE RED TAVERN 285
XIX. OF THE RESCUE OF THE MAIDEN 300
XX. OF HOW SIR RICHARD CAME TO THE SHEPHERD'S HUT, AND THE
RETURN OF TYRRELL 320
XXI. OF HOW SIR RICHARD LISTENED TO A STORY IN THE FOREST 335
XXII. OF HOW ONCE MORE THE YOUNG KNIGHT JOURNEYED SOUTHWARD 343
XXIII. OF A VISION IN THE FOREST OF LAMMERMUIR 358
XXIV. OF HOW SIR RICHARD PLAYED THE KING IN HIS LITTLE KINGDOM 369
XXV. OF THE END OF THE RED TAVERN AND ITS FITTING EPITAPH 382
XXVI. OF HOW A FLEDGLING DROPPED FROM THE CONSPIRATOR'S NEST 397
THE RED TAVERN
PROLOGUE
"S-s-st, there, good gossip, wake up, I pray thee! Hearest thou not
voices yonder in our lordship's tent? Methinks I can see between the
trees the glimmer of his council-candle. Even now he doth plan the
attack, whilst this cursed cross-bow is playing the very devil of a
traitor! The stubborn latch balks at speeding the string. Come--come,
wake thee, Jock! Spare me thy deft hand to its mending, or the first
peep o' day will discover me impotent to fly a bolt against our
crook-back enemy beyond the brook."
"Crook-back cross-bow--i' th' s-s-string----" muttered the one
addressed with drowsy incoherence.
"I tell thee, Jock, wake up!" the first speaker persisted. "Listen, I
say! Dost hear the hum of voices in brave Richmond's tent? Fix me this
damned cross-bow! Eftsoons it will come daydawn, man!"
"Daydawn, sayst thou?" returned the other, starting into broad
wakefulness and arising to a sitting posture. "Why, Dickon, thou canst
scarce glimpse thy five fingers before thine eyes; and the stars shine
as merrily in the vault as ever they did yestereve. What's the noise i'
the wood?" he added, sinking sleepily back upon his bent elbow.
"'Tis the sound of the rolling wheels of the crakys of war. Mark how
the blazing links of those who attend upon them weave fantastic shadows
amidst the trees. There! the cross-bow hath repented of its waywardness
and mended itself. 'Tis said of these shooting-cylinders in yon wood
that they can hurl a leaden slug of two score times the weight of a
caliver billet."
"Marry, Dickon," the other said, "and that be not the least part of the
weight of my nether stocks from lying knee-deep in this foul morass,
thou mayst dub me a shove-groat sword and buckler man. Where thinkest
thou," he added, "that King Richard hath gathered his forces?"
"I'll lay thee a round wager, friend Belwiggar, that the morning light
will find him across the brook," replied Dickon, disposing his huge
body for further rest upon the top of his cross-bow.
"I would it were not so," observed Belwiggar, yawning. "For here are we
with our bonnetful of men at the very tail of the triangle. 'Twill be
fight or die, comrade, and tyrant Richard deal with the hindermost."
Whereupon the speaker clambered to a higher point of ground and
prepared to resume his interrupted sleep.
Scenes and dialogues similar to the one here presented were being
enacted in every corner of the field. Especially did a spirit of
disquiet and apprehensive concern pervade that part of it so aptly
termed by Belwiggar "the tail of the triangle." All along the borders
of the morass, the banks of the creek, and within the dense forest were
to be heard anxious whisperings, mingled plentifully with muttered
oaths and threats of dire vengeance against a bitterly hated monarch;
and despite the earliness of the hour, within the leader's tent the
activities of a day destined to be so heavily fraught with historical
significance had already been inaugurated.
The interior of this pavilion was of a considerable amplitude; and,
in keeping with the manner of the period, was fitted out with every
necessary, together with not a few of the luxuries, of the toilet of
a prince of the royal house. Beside the couch with its silken covers
and damask canopies, whereupon the Earl of Richmond was reclining, was
a massive, carven table. Upon it stood a richly chased silver tankard
bearing a profusion of crimson roses. Within their center, singularly
enough, a pure white flower reared its beautiful head, the which served
admirably to enhance the royal splendor of its compeers.
Round about the plush-carpeted floor were seated John de Vere, Earl of
Oxford, Henry's chief of archery; Sir James Blunt, sometime captain of
the Castle of Hammes, in Picardy (the same who had connived at Oxford's
escape from that fortress); Sir Walter Herbert, and Sir Richard Rohan,
Richmond's boyhood companion, squire, and chief of horse. All were
armed at proof and full accoutered for the coming battle.
The last named, though but a youth of nineteen years, would without
doubt have arrested attention above any in the distinguished party.
The red crest of his helmet nodded quite two inches above that of
his tallest compatriot; his features were uncommonly trim and perfect
in the ensemble; and his every gesture abounded in that intuitive and
careless grace appertaining to exuberant health and spirits and a well
disciplined physical strength. As though to complete a picture already
approaching perfection, from beneath the rim of his head-piece a lock
of hair had escaped and shone golden in the mellow light of the wax
tapers guttering in silver sconces above his plume.
"Knowest thou not, Sir Richard," said Henry, bending above the roses
and inhaling their refreshing fragrance, "who sped to us these graceful
messengers?"
"I beseech thee, your grace," warned Oxford, "to observe some measure
of caution when breathing in their odors. 'Tis not impossible that a
deadly poison is lurking within their fair petals. It sits plain upon
my memory how poor Burgondy expired after the smelling of a nosegay."
"For the matter of that," spoke up the fair young knight, "had they
been laden with a secret poison I had not lived to bear them within my
lord's pavilion; for I sniffed of them a score of times whilst riding
hither."
"Then, certes, we are double safe," laughed Henry, "for their sweet
perfume, Sir Richard, hath filtered to our nostrils through thy good
body. But what like, say you, was the messenger by whom they were
bestowed?"
"It ill beseems me to say that I know not," the young knight replied,
"but such is the truth, my lord. I had but finished relieving the guard
at the further side of the wood when I heard a sound as of galloping
hoofs along the road from Market Bosworth way. Approaching, the rider
halted his steed where no ray of light from our blazing links could
reach to raise the veil of his identity. Then, calling my name, he laid
the flowers within my arms. 'For Henry, our noble liege,' he quickly
whispered, and rattled off down the highroad ere I could return word of
thanks."
"Saw you no cognizance upon his sleeve or upon the trappings of his
horse?" queried Blunt.
"Methought there was a rayed sun emblazoned on his arm," the young
knight answered. "Though, in truth, my lord, 'twas all done so quickly
I may not swear 'twas surely so."
"A Yorkist gift, by the rood! Marry, and this be true, my friends, it
is a good omen indeed," observed the Earl of Oxford, rising and going
to the table. For quite a space he leaned above it, gazing fixedly
upon the flowers, as though in the hope that they themselves might
unravel the mystery their presence had aroused. "But this," he added
presently, indicating the solitary white bloom, "doth sore defeat my
understanding. Wherefore, prithee, mingle the white with the red?"
"Methinks I have the solution of that enigma," spoke up Herbert, whose
form was merged in shadow, and who, until then, had taken no part in
the discourse. "I would crave his lordship's indulgence, however,
before adventuring my lame conjecture."
"Surely we would have thy answer to the riddle, Sir Walter," said
Henry, yawning sleepily. "My mind doth refuse to probe its baffling
depths."
"An I mistake me not," Herbert resumed, "my lord of Oxford in the
very profession of his perplexity hath reached a good half way to the
answer. Methinks 'tis meant to typify the peaceful mingling of the
white rose with the red."
"Why--body o' God, I see it now!" Henry exclaimed. "But first, by force
of arms, the red must overwhelm the white."
"Nay--not so, and your lordship, please," interjected Blunt. "But
rather, let us hope, a mingling through the milder expedient of
marriage."
"Ah! Princess Elizabeth!" cried Henry, assuming a sitting posture upon
the edge of his couch. "Sir Walter, thou hast given us a fair answer
and earned a guerdon for thy keen wit. But enough of soft speech, my
noble knights. And now, sirs, to the sterner business of the day! My
Lord of Oxford, where say'st thou camp Stanley's forces?"
"At a point equally distant from thine, most gracious liege, and those
of the infamous Richard. He desires thee to understand that his beloved
son's head hangs upon his dissembling devotion for yet a few hours to
the murderous hunchback's cause."
"Aye--I know. We may depend upon him and his three thousand horse,
think you?"
"With absolute certainty, my lord."
"'Tis well," observed Henry, laying aside his feathered cap and
stooping to allow his young squire to adjust a steel helmet to his
shoulder-guards. "Then do thou, my lord of Oxford," he resumed, "have
thy archers well in hand and ready against the first show of dawn. The
sun, standing in our enemy's eyes, should much confuse their aim. Bend
thy every energy toward staying their advance with a cloud of well
directed bolts. My good Captain Blunt, let our basilisks in the wood
fling their leaden hail above the heads of our kneeling archers. Sir
Walter Herbert, let thy mounted troop to the right and left be ready
for the final charge. And you, Sir Richard, faithful friend, bear upon
my right hand till the battle's done. Do thou each, noble gentlemen,
take one of these roses and entwine it with thy helmet's crest. What,
ho, guards! strip me this tent and bestow it with the camp litter
behind the wood. Now, thy brave hands, noble sirs; and God smile upon
our cause."
Into the dense vapors arising from the morass, which, in the gray light
of daybreak, were rapidly changing to a pearly mist, the leaders then
dispersed upon their several missions.
The droning of subdued conversation, the clanking of swords and steel
gear, the twanging of bow-strings undergoing preliminary trial, and the
tinkling of pewter flagons discharging their liquid cheer into parched
throats could be heard over all the field. Each armed host was alert
and ready, awaiting with tense drawn nerves the flaming signal in the
eastern sky.
From afar off a cock crowed a cheery welcome to approaching day.
"I would the blessed light would discover me an eye-hole across the
brook," one of the burly archers was saying. "I'd flick me a bolt into
its yawning center for God and a better king."
"Yea--truly. And any king, my friend, would be a better king," another
answered. "I would I could but fasten my aim upon the elfish-marked
monster himself. 'Twould be a mark worth finding, i' faith."
"My lord of Oxford is a brave and clever captain, lad. Were it not
for these leather guards our bow-strings would have been no whit more
useful than frayed rope's ends with this cursed damp. As 'tis, they're
fit to send a quiverful of white-hot billets into as many traitorous
gizzards. I, too, would that one of them might make its home within
the green midric of Richard himself."
"Hast heard the latest from the hunchback's camp?" another whispered.
"Nay. What is 't?"
"'Tis said by the outposts along the slough that there were heard wild
shriekings in King Richard's tent during the night."
"Ah! the foul fiends bidding him to their black abode. Mark you, Jock,
once he gets there he'll have the whole dismal brood hanged, drawn, and
quartered before the year's end."
"'Twould be his first gracious deed then, I give thee warrant."
From an opposite point of the compass a second cock crowed; and then
another and another. The day at last was dawning; the mist lifting,
dispersing. Slowly it thinned away, as though one after another of a
myriad of gauzy curtains was being raised from between the opposing
armies.
When eyes could penetrate from line to line hostilities began. A
pallid, ghost-like form, grotesquely exaggerated, would emerge from
the fog. Then would be heard a sharp cry, a groan, a horrible rattling
in an expiring throat, a flinging aloft of a pair of arms, and a
sinking of the spectral figure into the black mire above which it
seemed to have been floating.
These emerging shadows multiplied from one into a score; from a score
into a hundred; from a hundred into a thousand. There was no crash
of sudden onset and meeting. Rather there was that which resembled a
gentle crescendo of death. A blending together of two armed forces with
the melting of the fog. It was as though a peaceful entity had gently
risen to yield place to a warlike one.
By now, the din and crash were become incessant. Wading hip deep in the
reddening waters of the brook and in the crimsoning black mire of the
morass, the men of the opposed armies met and battled, hand to hand.
From the wood belched flashes of fire. Heavy smoke clouds rolled away
among the leaves. The thunder of primitive artillery reverberated
across the meadow, mingling its sound of a new kind of warfare with
that of the decadent.
Wherever a crescendo occurs, a diminuendo is commonly indicated.
The augmenting of Richmond's desperately battling forces by those of
Stanley marked the climax of the crescendo. The downfall of Richard
the Third before the sturdy lance of Richmond, the beginning of the
diminuendo; the fitting finale to the whole.
Wild of eye, disheveled, his charger struck away from beneath him, King
Richard faced his mortal foe. Dauntless to the last gasping breath, he
made one frenzied, vain effort to rally his scattering army.
"A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" he shrieked aloud; and
then, dying, pitched forward into the dust.
The Battle of Bosworth Field was with the history of things past.
"His kingdom for a horse, quotha!" shouted Stanley. "His kingdom?
Bah! What is his kingdom now, honest gentles?" he added, leaping from
his blood-slavered stallion and contemptuously spurning with his
steel-booted foot the pitiful remains of the dead monarch. "What is
his kingdom now?" Sir William repeated, looking inquiringly about him.
"Why, somewhat above three cubits of unwashed dirt. A full cubit less,
by the rood, than any man of us here shall inherit."
"Body o' God! an he had him a barb now, my lord of Stanley, whither,
thinkest thou, would he be riding?" shouted someone out of the circle
of mailed warriors that was exultingly closing in around the limp,
misshapen figure huddled upon the ground.
"Whither else but to the foul fiend!" returned Stanley, smiling grimly
up into the speaker's face. "'Tis an easy riddle thou hast set me,
a'Beckitt. But he'll need him no barb to fleet him his black soul into
the burning lake, I'm thinking."
"An Crookback sink not a treacherous dagger within the back of old
Charon before he's ferried him across the Styx, I am wide of my guess,"
interrupted a third.
"Or strike off and pole the three heads of Cerberus when he does get
over," suggested another.
"Look you yonder at the redoubtable Cheyney," again spoke Stanley,
pointing toward a gigantic body, sprawled limply, face downward,
over the top of a tangled clump of copsewood. "Him, good gentles, I
saw totter and go down before this lump of bent clay like unto a
lightning-riven oak. I' faith, much doth it marvel me at the furious
strength that kept its abode within this crooked carcase."
Upon an ebon-black stallion, and apart from the men hovering,
vulturelike, above Richard's body, sat the Earl of Richmond, the
fortunate young leader beneath whose lance the tyrant king had fallen.
By reason of a natural eminence of heaped earth and stone he was raised
well above the field, the whole of which he could command by a simple
turning of his head to right and left. Behind him the deep shadows of
Sutton Ambien Wood served picturesquely to emphasize the flash and
glitter of the plated and richly inlaid armor that girded him from head
to toe.
It was then but a brief fortnight and a day since the ship in which
he had embarked at Bretagne had brought him careening through Bristol
Channel to a safe landing upon England's coast at Milford Haven. In
that short time he had succeeded in setting a period to the devastating
Wars of the Roses, and in exchanging his earl's coronet for that which
fortune subsequently decided should be a crown.
The lifeless body stretched before him in the hollow marked the pitiful
end of nearly a century of deadly, internecine strife. Intently he
watched them denuding the stiffening corpse of its costly armor and
kingly vestments.
During these moments that England was without a legal monarch, Henry
Tudor, Earl of Richmond, remained motionless as a statue upon his black
steed, solitary, unheralded, forgotten.
"Body o' God, men! we'll give him a horse," he heard them wildly
shouting; and then impassively regarded them while they lashed the
bent, and now naked body upon the broad back of a lively hackney. It
was the final and brutal expression of a righteous indignation.
From every part of the field there rang in Henry's ears loud cries
of exultation over the dead and vanquished Richard, which merged
presently into a riotous pandemonium of inarticulate sound when the
horse, bearing its gruesome burden, was paraded before the men in the
direction of Market Bosworth Road.
"_Le roi est mort,--vive le roi!_" the clear voice of Henry's squire
made itself manifest above the din.
Something the faintest of smiles broke upon the impassivity of the
Earl's countenance as he turned his head in the direction whence this
cry had come. Sir Richard, bearing a jeweled crown outstretched in his
hands, was just leaping above the clump of copse-wood whereupon the
body of Sir John Cheyney was lying.
Lord Stanley, who, by this time, had resumed seat upon his horse,
quickly stationed himself between the approaching young knight and the
Earl of Richmond. Then, taking the crown that had encircled Richard's
helmet throughout the battle, he set it solemnly upon that of Henry.
Whereupon--"The King is dead, long live the King!" the cry rippled
abroad over the sanguinary field of Bosworth; and the blazing August
sun beat down upon a circle of upraised, flashing swords, unsheathed in
promise of fealty to the new monarch.
CHAPTER I
A WARRANT UPON DOUGLAS
Upon a massive chair of state within the private audience chamber,
which adjoined the throne room in the venerable castle of Kenilworth,
sat King Henry VII, gloomily brooding. An ermine trimmed robe of
softest velvet fell from his shoulders, rippling over the steps of the
raised dais to the floor below; a golden, jeweled crown sat awry upon
his head.
Five years as reigning monarch of a discontented and rebellious people
had borne their weight more heavily upon him than had the whole of the
twenty-nine preceding them. Though yet young, as time relatively to the
man is commonly measured, his hair and carefully pointed beard were
shot with premature gray. His countenance, deeply lined, was overspread
with a sickly pallor. His hands, clutching upon the arms of the
damask-covered chair into which he had thrown himself, and in which he
was now half-sitting, half-reclining, trembled as though palsied with
an enfeebled age.
His royal marriage with Elizabeth of York, daughter of Henry VI, had
marked the consummation of his loftiest ambition. The omen of the white
rose mingling with the red had been pleasantly fulfilled. Outwardly his
position seemed sufficiently secure. But beneath the surface there were
incessant ebullitions of seditious sentiment threatening momentarily to
seethe to the top and engulf him. Always, must dissembling be met with
keen and smooth diplomacy; plot, with adroit and clever counter-plot.
Because of his open aversion to war, his appreciation of the advantages
of negotiation and arbitration, he was stigmatized by his secret
enemies as being greedy and avaricious. Yet, on the other hand,
had he amassed great armies and plunged them headlong into foreign
conflict, thereby burdening his subjects with increased taxation, he
would doubtless have been regarded by these same malcontents as being
extravagant and needlessly cruel.
During the space of the greater part of an hour the King remained
seated in the precise attitude in which the opening of the present
chapter discovered him. His chin lowered upon his breast; his gaze
fixed straight before him; his fingers tapping ceaselessly upon the
arms of his chair.
Then, after the manner of a draped lay-figure imbued with sudden life,
he sprang to his feet, threw aside the purple robes enveloping him and
paced with nervous footfalls across the floor. Occasionally he would
pause, incline his head, and pass his hand fretfully across his brow.
Once he stopped, leaning heavily against a marble image of Kenelph,
Saxon king of Mercia, from whom the castle had its name. The sun of
a September afternoon shining brilliantly through one of the western
windows bathed them, the marble effigy and the man, in squares of
vari-colored light; affording thus a sharp contrast between the old
and the new. In the chiseled head of stone the stamp of an iron will
was predominant in every feature. Those of the living bespoke no less
the possession of a will; but a will that would seek ever to achieve
its purposes through the exercise of crafty cunning. The one had been
grimly determined, brave, and openly cruel and tyrannical. The other
was a secret coward, masking his cruelties beneath the guise of virtue.
Suddenly, looking up into the stone face of the dead king, the living
king smiled.
"Yea," said he. "We will--rather we must--yea, we must command it to be
done. And by doing it in that way, 'twill be transfixing two bullocks
with a single dart."
Thereupon, mounting the steps of the dais and reseating himself in his
chair, he carefully donned his robes of state, composed his features,
and gently pulled a golden tassel depending from a silken cord at his
elbow.
"Command my lord of Stanley instantly to attend me," was Henry's stern
behest to the court attendant, who bowed himself within one of the
curtained entrances.
Very soon thereafter Stanley came in. Approaching the dais, he knelt
upon the lower step, touching with his lips the indifferent and cold
hand extended to him.
"My lord of Stanley," said the King, "fetch yonder stool and dispose
thyself beside our knee. We would have speech of thee--and council."
Then, to the attendant waiting near the entrance, "Ralston," he ordered
tersely, "we would have it known that we will brook no interruption
till this conference be ended. But hold! do thou lay commands upon
lords Oxford and de Vere, and Sir Richard Rohan, to be ready and
waiting against our present summons. Thou mayst go, Ralston."
Silently the attendant withdrew. Folding his arms and looking steadily
into Lord Stanley's eyes, the King resumed.
"Now, Stanley, to the business in hand. From what source hast thou
drawn thy information that secret emissaries are at this moment on
their way hither to acquaint Sir Richard of the facts concerning his
noble lineage?"
"Are they then facts, my liege?" queried Stanley, his arched eyebrows
plainly evidencing his surprise. "Is it indeed true that this youthful,
fair-haired upstart may lay a true and proper claim to the title of
Earl of Warwick, and, through that title, a seat upon this very throne?"
"Presume not upon our indulgence, Lord Stanley," warned the King in a
menacing tone. "Thou hast met question with question. Now, my lord,
the source of thy information."
"I crave thy pardon, liege," Stanley hastened to return. "Full well
thou knowest, august highness, that every foul rebellion doth breed its
fouler traitors. From these coward turn-coats have I stumbled upon this
knowledge. The information thus gained I have supplemented and verified
with that gleaned by thine own honest and tireless servants. 'Tis, I
fear me much, unimpeachable."
"But under God's heaven, Stanley, how came these rag-tag rebels upon
the facts as to Rohan's lineage? Marry, my lord, methought 'twas hidden
as though sunken within the very entrails of the earth."
"Through one Michael Lidcote, a captain of ship in Duke Francis's
fleet. The same, I'll swear, who brought thee to England at Milford
Haven," Lord Stanley explained. "'Twas done, I hear, out of a certain
love for the young knight, and a desire to witness his elevation to
his--true position."
For a considerable space thereafter the King remained silent, his chin
resting upon the fingers of his clasped hands, his pale blue eyes
gazing straight ahead of him into space. In retrospect, his mind had
turned to the contemplation of some happy days in sunny Brittany when
he and Sir Richard were being reared and disciplined together beneath
the eye of the stern but kind old Duke. The images materialized must
have been pleasing to him, for the hard lines of his face softened into
the semblance of a smile. Then, with a sudden, determined lowering of
his head, a straightening of his thin lips beneath his sparse beard, he
turned again toward Stanley.
"Ah! how true it is," said he, "that desire for fame and power is but
an insatiate parasite which gluts and fattens upon the care-free joys
of youth. What is this glittering panoply, pray, but a mask? A shining
veneer, shielding from view the process of decay within? And now, after
yielding nearly all--my health, my strength, my happiness--you ask of
me that I shall spill the blood of my dearest friend. The companion of
my joyous youth. Him, say you, must I offer up on the gory altar of
public expediency. That I must perforce still the one brave heart that
beats with an unselfish devotion to my cause and person."
"'Tis needless to tell thee, my liege," purred Stanley, who was ever
careful to guard his precedence at the throne, "that the peace and
integrity of a nation depend upon thy secure hold upon this very seat.
Even that which but remotely menaces should be rendered impotent. These
expressions of thy tender sentiment, your highness, are attuned in
harmony with thy noble character as a man, but----"
"Yea, Stanley," interrupted Henry, making a show of partial surrender
to the flatterer's wiles, "but am I longer a man? There's the question,
my lord. Dare I think as a man, and not as a fear-stricken, fettered
monarch? Is it not true that the ruler hath swallowed up the mortal,
leaving naught but an outward pageant? An effigy of cold and heartless
clay upon which to drape a tawdry robe; to set a jeweled crown; to hang
a golden scepter?"
Stanley ventured no reply, and a somewhat prolonged interval of silence
followed Henry's theatric outburst.
"Think not that I am mad, my lord of Stanley," the King at length
resumed, and in a tone so low, melancholy, and sad, that its false
note was scarcely to be perceived. "It is indeed true that my first
concern must ever be to safeguard my beloved people. Hath these rumors
concerning the young knight been spread broadcast, my lord? It were an
ill time to essay a cure of the malady, and it had festered over all
England."
"It hath not done so, your majesty," Lord Stanley assured him. "The
aged seaman and all but two of the seditious leaders are now imprisoned
within the tower. The pair who escaped the meshes of my net are now
journeying hither from London in disguise. I have their names and know
well what like they are."
"'Tis well. Thy station be the forfeit, an they elude thee. Still all
their busy tongues, my lord. We lay upon thee royal warrant of their
death, and that speedily. Concerning the young knight's progenitors,
Lord Stanley, it doth please us to make of thee our single confidant.
This noble is in truth the son of the Duke of Clarence--the good Duke,
who came to his untimely end at the gentle hands of our esteemed
father-in-law. Thou dost remember well that he was attainted of high
treason, and that we took measures accordingly to have his issue
pronounced illegitimate. 'Twas done, as thou canst see, to guard
against such a contingency as hath now arisen. But to my tale. Sir
Richard, when but a suckling infant, was carried secretly to Brittany,
and enjoyed there, with me, the powerful protection of Duke Francis.
Why the die of England's sovereignty was cast in my favor, I know not.
God wot, Stanley, I wish that it had not been! Now, my lord, attend our
every word. The weak stripling, whom base Richard the Third believed
to be the true Earl of Warwick hath, under our command, for long been
immured within the tower. It is perhaps the better part of wisdom that
we should lesson thee that an exchange of infants was many years ago
covertly effected by one Dame Tyrrell, wife of Sir James Tyrrell, the
same who was bribed by Richard to strangle his two nephews, the boy
dukes remaining betwixt himself and the throne. Within a fortnight,
Stanley, do thou undertake to have the news of the death of this
changeling early published over all our kingdom. 'Twere the more
seemly, mayhap, and it appeared to have transpired through natural
causes. A return of the sweating sickness, or some like subterfuge."
"And the young knight, Rohan; what of him, most mighty liege?"
"Him, we would have thee to know," said Henry, "we love and trust above
any man, saving thyself, in all the length and breadth of England.
"Aye, marry, but----"
"Hold! have patience, my lord, and attend me. We know well what thou
wouldst say. Him, too, must we sacrifice for the sake of the peace and
safety of a people who love us but little. Do thou this very hour issue
warrant under the Great Seal and give it into Sir Richard's hands to be
delivered by him upon Douglas, in Castle Yewe, in Scotland. Lay royal
command upon Douglas that his courtiers shall engage the young knight
in quarrel and honorable conflict to the end that he return not again
into England."
"By the rood, august highness! wouldst make him the bearer of his own
warrant of death? 'Tis a parlous risky business."
"Yea, my lord. But a risk that we are happy to assume out of a spirit
of fair play, and as a mark of our highest confidence. And know,
too, Stanley," Henry said, smiling shrewdly, "'twill rid us of many a
Scottish enemy. The young man battles tremendously well. And, more in
favor of this plan, 'twould be the death of Sir Richard's own choosing,
mark you."
"Aye, marry, doth he fight well. I can see many a Scot's midriff lying
open to his couched lance or drawn sword. My liege, shall I deliver
warrant here?"
"Here, and now. Let Oxford and de Vere be witnesses of its delivery.
Though, we charge thee solemnly, hint not to either of its purport. On
yonder table thou wilt find parchment. Take point in hand and write.
Send Ralston to me when thou hast done. The Queen doth await our
presence within the Hall of Windows."
For an hour or more after the King had gone, the eagle's quill within
Lord Stanley's fingers moved slowly back and forth across the sheet
of parchment. When he had finished with the body of the document and
signed his name he lifted his head and looked keenly, furtively about
the room. Arising, he moved swiftly from curtain to curtain. Lifting
each, he peered hastily beneath its heavy folds. Whereupon, satisfied
that he was alone, and resuming his seat at the table, he spread before
him another sheet of parchment and proceeded to copy, word for word,
that which he had written upon the first.
So intently did he engage himself upon this task that he failed to
notice the silent parting of a draped entrance, or the King's catlike
tread upon the thick pile of the carpet as he moved stealthily across
the floor. A long hand, very slender and very much be jeweled, moving
across the table before him and taking up the original document, gave
Stanley his first hint of his sovereign's presence.
Without a moment's hesitation, and not the slightest quivering of an
eyebrow, Lord Stanley arose and bowed low before Henry. He met the look
of stern inquiry on the King's face with a quiet smile.
"I crave thy pardon, liege, on the behalf of my sluggish fingers.
Fitter are they to wield sword in thy cause than pen."
"So it would seem. What meaneth this second transcript, my lord of
Stanley?"
"I bethought me that it would be well," replied Stanley upon the
instant, "because of the grave importance of the document, to issue
it in duplicate. The one to give the young knight safe conduct to his
journey's end, the other to secrete within the lining of his cloak or
doublet."
"'Tis a most excellent thought, by my faith!" exclaimed the King, the
black cloud passing from his brow. "Command Oxford, de Vere, and Sir
Richard to our presence. We would have done with the business, and with
all speed dispatch the young knight upon his travels."