The window was full of the deep blue gloom of a summer night, with stars
shining like the feathers of silver arrows shot into a target. A black
curtain shut off the window recess from the King’s council chamber
within, where candles burnt in sconces on the walls.
In this window recess in the south wall of the White Tower two men stood
talking in whispers—great lords both of them, the Earls of Salisbury
and Warwick. The shorter of the two had opened one of the lattices, and
was kneeling with one knee on the padded seat. He rapped with his
fingers on the stone sill, and watched the sentinels going to and fro
upon the walls, and the river sliding smoothly under the stars. The
night was very still—so still that they could hear the stream plashing
along the walls by the water-gate. Hardly a sound came from the city,
and the very muteness of the night seemed ominous and strange.
A clashing of arms, sudden and sharp, in the courtyard below, and the
tramp of feet, told of the changing of the guard. A voice shouted
orders. From beyond the curtain came a queer, whimpering sound as of a
girl hiding her head in her cloak and weeping.
The man who knelt on the cushions turned sharply, and his lips were
drawn back over his teeth.
“Psst—listen to that! Such snivelling when the kingdom’s turned upside
down!”
“Not too loud!”
“What will happen when he hears the wolves howling under the walls! And
Walworth could promise——?”
“But little. Eight thousand burghers skulking in their houses behind
closed doors; and thirty thousand ready to shout for the gates to be
opened.”
Warwick turned fiercely and glanced up into Salisbury’s face—a massive,
stolid, cautious face, in no hurry to betray emotion.
“What’s to be done? Are we to let this herd of swine root up the whole
kingdom?”
“Ring their snouts, my friend.”
“And who’s to do the ringing? That—that—in yonder!”
They turned by some common impulse and stared at the black curtain that
hid them from the council chamber.
“The lad has no more heart in him than a hare!”
“He is what he is.”
“A snivelling girl! Thunder of heaven, if we could but have the sire
back in his stead! Why, look you, if these rebels can but get him into
their hands, they’ll have no more to do but to pull ugly faces. He will
run and hide his face in his mother’s bosom, and let them hang every
gentleman and friend in the kingdom.”
Salisbury nodded his head.
“Weak King—no kingdom. I am wondering how many of us will keep our
heads on our shoulders.”
“Hallo, who’s this?”
Footsteps came towards them. The curtain was plucked aside, jerked back
again, and a third man stood with them in the window recess. It was
Robert Knollys, with the face of a ship’s captain, looking straight into
the thick of a storm.
He laid a hand on Salisbury’s shoulder, and spoke in a harsh whisper.
“Look in yonder; it is enough to make the heart of a strong man sick.”
He drew the curtain slightly to one side, so that they could see into
the great council chamber lit by the candles set in sconces upon the
walls. Half a dozen knights and gentlemen had withdrawn to the far end
of the chamber and were standing there like men discomfited, knowing not
whether to stay or to go. At the lower end of the council table sat
Simon of Sudbury, clad in a plain violet-coloured cassock with a small
gold cross at his breast. He had a richly-bound missal open on the table
before him, and he made a pretence of turning the pages. Now and again
he raised his eyes from the book with binding of scarlet and gold, and
looked at the Princess, who sat in a great carved chair set upon a low
daïs in the centre of the chamber.
For this woman’s face was a tragedy in itself, struggling to mask pity,
shame, anger, and a kind of incredulous scorn. She was dressed in some
golden stuff that caught the light of the candles, so that her figure
seemed to draw the light to it from every corner of the great room. A
cap of silver tissue covered her black hair, and her face had a fine and
spirited comeliness that strove not to be humiliated by the thing that
lay upon her knees.
For on her knees lay the head of a King—her son. Her hands covered it,
hands wearing many rings that sent out from their whiteness sparkles of
red and of blue, of green and of purple. Richard was kneeling before
her, his hands clasping the arms of the chair—frail, delicate hands,
tapering towards the nails. Two thin ankles and feet shod in shoes of
gilded leather were thrust out from under the folds of a robe of blue
and white silk. His shoulders were twitching, and as they twitched the
heels of his gilden shoes smote together.
Knollys dropped the curtain and blotted out the room.
“God help the lad; he should have been born a girl.”
They stood close together, morose, grim, baffled.
“How can one put blood into the boy?”
“Ask me some other riddle, my friend! He has been like that ever since
Newtown came to him to-day from the mob upon Blackheath. Newtown babbled
too much—a pity they did not hang him.”
“And we have promised that he shall parley with them to-morrow.”
“Yes; and he swears that he will not go.”
Warwick struck the wall with his fist.
“Go; he shall go! By God, are we going to be brought to perdition
because the lad’s a coward! He has come to a man’s state. Thunder of
heaven! Think of what the sire was at his age, and the grandsire before
him. Some tricksy devil must have got into the marriage bed.”
Knollys stroked his chin, and his eyes fell into a hard stare.
“Sirs, I have something to say to you.”
And to such purpose did he tell his tale that the murmur of their voices
continued behind the curtain for more than an hour.
The next dawn was that of Corpus Christi Day, and Richard the King and
his lords and gentlemen heard Mass in the Tower chapel. Those who knew
what to fear saw that the King’s face was like the face of a sickly
girl, and that his thighs shook under him as he knelt on his crimson
cushion. When Mass was over he returned to his chamber with the
Princess, his mother, meaning to robe himself to meet these rebel
peasants. They were to send their leaders to the southern bank near
Rotherhithe, and the King was to go in his barge and listen to their
grievances.
What passed in Richard’s chamber no one but his mother knew, for she
served as confessor, squire, and page, and the door was closed on them
for more than an hour. She gave him strong wine to drink, and used the
lash of her scorn, so that there was some colour in his cheeks when he
went down with his lords and gentlemen to the water-gate where the barge
was waiting. Trumpets blew, and the lad’s chin went up as though his
manhood crowed an answer to the trumpets. Salisbury, who walked at his
side, watched him narrowly, knowing how much hung upon this youngster’s
wit and courage.
The barge swung out into the river with a steady sweep of the long oars,
and headed towards Rotherhithe, with the King’s banner flying at the
stern. Salisbury, Warwick, and Suffolk, and certain knights and
gentlemen were in the barge, and all wore armour under their robes. The
rowers were men who could shoot straight if needs be, and bows were
ready under the thwarts. Towards London Bridge many boats were lying,
full of people in red and green hoods and many coloured doublets, so
that they looked like great painted birds upon the water. These London
boats stayed by the bridge, none of them putting out to follow the King,
for Knollys had rowed up with two sergeant-at-arms and had it proclaimed
that no boat should venture past the Tower.
In the King’s barge all men were silent, and avoided each other’s eyes
as though fearing to see what each man felt to be too urgent in his own.
Richard sat stiff as a wooden figure in the stern, an earl on either
side of him. He wore his crown and robes of state, and the royal sword
lay sheathed upon his knees. Warwick, who sat at his right elbow, kept
pouring a whisper of words into his ear; but Richard never opened his
lips, nor did he seem to hear. His eyes threw out uncertain, flickering
glances that wavered from side to side. He watched the blades of the
oars churning up foam, and since his lips were dry, he kept moistening
them with his tongue.
As they drew towards Rotherhithe, a knight who was standing in the bow
of the barge uttered a “Grace of God,” and shaded his eyes with his
hand.
“My lord, look yonder!”
Salisbury stood up, to see what should have been a green meadow sloping
to the river, turned brown by a great swarm of men. Thousands of
peasants were crowded along the southern bank, and they were silent with
a strange, hungry silence, waiting for the coming of the King.
“By the Virgin, they have sent ten thousand men instead of ten score.”
Then, quite suddenly, as though from some crack in the earth, a huge,
rolling shout went up from the southern bank. They had seen the King’s
banner at the stern of the barge, and the whole brown multitude bayed,
and jostled, and jumped on each other’s shoulders to get a view. The
clamour had a ragged and ferocious edge to its exultation. It was like
the uproar among caged beasts when the keeper appears with red meat on
an iron spit.
The lad wearing the crown sat rigid, and went white to the eyes. The two
earls looked at each other over his head, and drew closer to him as
though to warm him with the heat of their manhood. He was cold in the
sun, and his teeth were chattering.
“Courage, Sire.”
“They shout for the joy of seeing you.”
Salisbury spoke sharply to the steersman, and the barge ran on, the
crowd along the bank unfolding itself like a grotesque tapestry upon a
wall. Every sort of face seemed there—hairy, smooth, red, sallow, old,
young, round, lean, some like screaming birds, others like neighing
horses, all hooting, bellowing, and howling so that each open mouth was
a red hole spouting sound. The uproar made the ears sing. Some of the
men had stripped off their clothes, and danced with a kind of obscene
bravado. Caps were waved, fists shaken at the nobles.
Salisbury, who was standing up, very white and fierce and calm, signed
to the rowers to rest on their oars and let the barge glide along about
thirty yards from the bank. A storm of cries swept across the water.
“Land—land.”
“Come ashore!”
“Death to the lords!”
“Come ashore, King Dick; we honest men would speak with you.”
“Wow, wow, wow!”
“Father Adam’s come to court.”
“Sit you down, big belly. Up with the King.”
The two earls sat close to Richard, half holding him with the pressure
of their bodies.
“Courage, Sire.”
He shut his eyes and broke into a voiceless chatter.
“No nearer, sir, I charge you. I—I am your King. Bid them row farther
off.”
“They mean you no harm, Sire.”
“By the soul of your father, open your eyes, and look at them as you
would look at a herd of swine.”
“No nearer. Row farther out, I say. I’ll not speak to these beasts.”
The barge turned, and then began to row to and fro at a fair distance
from the bank. For a while the crowd grew quieter, as though it were
puzzled, and waiting to see what those in the barge would do.
Then the shouts broke out again.
“Come to land.”
“Curse you, lords! They are making a mock of us and of our King!”
“Ho! Hallo! Hallo! Give us our King; we have much to say to him.”
Some of them who were naked began to wade into the water. Salisbury
glanced at the coward under the crown, spoke to the steersman, and held
up a hand for silence.
The crowd suffered him to speak.
“Sirs, you are not fitly clad, nor fitly mannered for the King to speak
with you.”
He faced them, nostrils inflated, eyes bidding them back to the soil.
The barge was edging away, and for a moment the crowd was silent. Then
of a sudden it understood.
The roar that went up was the roar of a multitude that is balked of its
desire. Fists shot out; men sprang into the river, felt for mud, and
threw it, even as they threw curses. Hoots, yells, whistlings followed
the splashing oars.
The King’s barge returned to the Tower, and the peasants to Blackheath,
to tell the thousands who had tarried there how the King and his lords
had refused to treat with them, but had held aloof as though they were
so many lepers. Wat the Tiler, Merlin, and John Ball had no wish to see
the mob in a peaceful temper. If these lords and gentlemen were to be
trampled out of existence, it behoved them to keep the Great Beast to
its fury, and set it to rend and slay.
The whole host poured from Blackheath, and by noon there were sixty
thousand peasants in the suburbs, rushing hither and thither, breaking
into religious houses, plundering the taverns, breaking down doors, and
smashing fences, following any wild whim that served to lead them. They
demolished the Marshalsea and set the prisoners free. Hundreds of
uncouth figures came crowding to the closed gates, and howled threats at
the guards upon the walls.
“Open the gates! Open the gates!”
The cry became one long, monotonous, unchanging howl.
Walworth the Mayor spoke with them at the bridge gate, standing on the
curtain wall between the towers, and looking down upon a sea of upturned
faces. The rebels shook their scythes and pikes at him and threatened
him with their bows. Some of them had brought up tree trunks and
ladders, and shouted that they would break the gates down or storm the
walls if the city did not open to them.
Walworth parleyed with the crowd, and rode straight to the Tower, where
the Council was sitting without the King. Walworth’s news was desperate
news, nor could he promise much for the goodwill of the city. The
wealthier guilds might muster some eight thousand armed men, counting
prentices and servants; Sir Robert Knollys had his six score
men-at-arms, quartered about his lodging; Sir Perducas d’Albreth had
some fifty more. There were in the Tower with the King his two maternal
brothers, the Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, and Warwick, the Grand Prior
of the Templars, Sir Robert de Namur, the Lord of Vertain, Sir Henry de
Sanselles, and a number of knights, squires, and yeomen. The Kent and
Sussex rebels could count on the great mass of the common people within
the city, and the easterlings and the midlanders were on the march.
Walworth shrugged his shoulders and spoke of opening the gates.
“I tell you, sirs, there is nothing for it but to keep these gentry in a
good temper. The King alone can shepherd them. They will listen to no
one else. Yet if they are met bravely and with fair words——”
The lords looked at each other across the council table. It was as
though Walworth mocked them, bidding them send out a white pigeon to coo
to all these ravens. There was some quarrelling before the Council broke
up, having come to no judgment in the matter; but Salisbury and Knollys
drew Walworth aside and spoke with him apart in a window. Warwick and
the archbishop joined them, and they debated for a long while in
undertones.
It was Salisbury who pressed the issue.
“Walworth speaks the truth. We are in the last ditch, sirs, and
something must be risked by desperate men. Let Knollys bring this marvel
in.”
“But the Princess? Is she the lady to suffer her son——?”
“Let us all go to her together. She is a woman of sense and spirit.
Come, gentlemen; we have no time to lose.”
This “woman of sense and spirit” heard them with so much patience that
Knollys rode to his lodgings as dusk fell, and climbed the stairs to
Fulk’s attic. The last edge of a red sunset showed through the window,
and Fulk was standing and leaning his arms on the sill. For days he had
been cooped up in this upper room, seeing no one but Knollys’ old squire
and trusted comrade in arms, who brought him food and drink, and stared
him in the face as though he were Edward the Black Prince risen from the
dead. For hours together Fulk had stood at the window watching the smoke
rising, the pigeons on the roofs, and the swifts circling high above the
steeples whose vanes glittered in the sunlight. Isoult’s beauty was
still burning in him, making his restlessness a consuming fire.
He turned sharply as Knollys entered, and his profile showed clear
against the sunset. The very cock of his head was for adventure.
Knollys closed the door. He had a green cloak and hood, and a grey scarf
over his right arm.
“The King behind the King!”
He gave a short laugh and tossed the things upon the bed.
“It’s like the smell of the sea when the ships put off for France. On
with the cloak, lad, and wrap the scarf over your face. It will be dark
enough in the streets.”
Two strides brought Fulk into the middle of the attic.
“I was ready to knock my head against the wall. What news?”
“Leave that for an hour. We must get through while the streets are open.
The mob may break in before you can sing an Ave.”
Fulk put on the cloak, and covered his face with the scarf, so that
nothing but his eyes showed.
“What lodging for to-night?”
“The Tower, lad, the Tower!”