Georgette Heyer (11 page)

The lists were being prepared outside the town, and Bel sire, lately returned from the Scottish border, was to have a special pavilion, like the King. Edward of Rutland, whom the lordings had not yet learnt to call Edward of Aumâle, had been made Constable of England; and Thomas Holland of Surrey was Marshal for the occasion, in Norfolk’s room; and all the arrangements were in their hands. The children discovered that they would be attended by men dressed in silk sendal, and armed with silver-tipped staves. There would also be heralds and pursuivants; and, if gossip did not lie, a contingent of men-at-arms and archers. Everyone who could do so was going to Coventry to watch the encounter, and Cousin Richard was afraid of large gatherings. The lordings were puzzled to know why he should in this instance dread an outbreak amongst the borel-folk: they supported Hereford almost to a man, and would only start to hurl if Norfolk won the combat. And as not even Norfolk’s friends would have wagered a groat on his chance of success against Henry of Bolingbroke the presence of ten thousand armed men seemed ridiculous.

The day appointed for the trial was the 16th September. The lordings’ hopes that a miracle would cause them to be taken to Coventry in Father’s train had remained unanswered, and Thomas was in a black rage because someone had disclosed to him that Harry was going, as page to Father. ‘Harry cares nothing for jousts!’ he said. ‘Everyone knows I can unhorse him! It is unjust, unjust!’

‘No, it isn’t,’ replied John. ‘He is the eldest of us, and it is his right.’

‘You always take his part!’

‘Wherein? If you were the eldest, I should deem it your right to go. How far away is Coventry? Do you think the same weather holds there?’

It was a cloudless day, so hot that the lordings lay sprawling in the shade of a tree, with their doublets cast off. Thomas glanced at the sky. ‘Seventeen–eighteen leagues: I don’t know! I should think it would. It may be too hot.’

‘Better than rain.’

‘Yes, only that one sweats so in harness!
You
know what it is when your armour gets sun-baked! And the surcingles stretch.’

‘True, but it was cooler at Prime. Father thought that by Sexte it would be ended.’

‘Sooner!’

‘If the ceremonies were not overlong. When shall we know?’

‘I’ll lay you a wager Father unhorses goky Norfolk at the first wallop!’ offered Thomas.

‘You’ll wager what?’

‘Your sorrel mare against – oh, what you will!’

‘All thanks, brother! I’m not such a lurdan! Of course he will! Will he send us tidings, think you?’

‘Yes, for I asked him,’ Thomas said.

5

Tidings came, but not in such guise as had been expected. Sir Thomas Dymoke, who was a knight in Bel sire’s retinue, came to Hertford, informing the children’s guardians that he was sent to escort my lord’s family to London. The lordings besieged him with questions. He replied only: ‘The King threw down his warder before my lord had advanced seven paces. He is banished the realm within fifteen days!’

‘Banished!’

‘Both! My lord for ten years; Norfolk for an hundred winters!’

‘But – but
why
?’

‘The King said that since treason was the issue it was not meet that royal blood should be spilt. My lord of Norfolk confessed at Windsor certain matters which show him to be one likely to trouble the realm.’

‘Witterly! But
Father
?’ demanded Thomas.

Dymoke shrugged up his shoulders. ‘Ask that of those who may know the cause, lording! I am not one of them!’

While the valets trussed up their baggage, they sought a known face amongst Sir Thomas’s following, and, finding it, straitly demanded the full tale. A grizzled man-at-arms told them what he knew.

‘Hot? I warrant you! When his squires were busy with his arming-points, my lord said – you know his merry way! – “God send the bridle slip not in my hand!” Sweating? A full hour before Prime, as the Lord is my judge, it was running off him in a river! Folks swooned by plumps in the crowd, smitten by the sun: yea, yea, as God’s my witness! They set up traverses above the sieges at either end of the lists, above my lord’s chair and Mowbray’s, to shield them a little. My lord’s was green and blue; Mowbray’s white and red, and his siege hot as the sun, crimson velvet. And all the Marshal’s men coursing hither and yon with their fine sendal dark with their sweat! Enough to make a man laugh himself into an accesse, you would say, but list! list! My lord horsed him on his white horse of deeds – ’

‘Blanchemains!’ interjected Thomas. ‘Barbed in green and blue velvet, with Swans and Antelopes!’

‘So it was, lording, so it was! He came riding up to the entrance to the lists at the hour of Prime, with his visor up and his sword naked in his hand, and cried aloud that he was Henry of Lancaster, come thither to do his devoir against a traitor. When they heard him, the redeless folk set up such a shout that it was like the crack of thunder. The heralds opened to him straight, and in he rode, the noble destrier beneath him spurning the ground, and throwing up his head for very disdain. There was a great panache of plumes set on it, and I saw all the feathers tossing. My lord swore upon the Holy Evangelists that his quarrel was just, and another shout went up that set his horse fretting and jouncing, foaming at the bit. Then my lord voided his horse – nay, nay, you know his usance! he needs no aid! He voided him featly, and signed himself, and went to his siege, his sword sheathed, and his spear held in his hand.’

‘And Mowbray?’ demanded John.

‘Late and light, lording! Mowbray came not yet! First entered the King into his pavilion, with the lords about him, and the little Queen in his hand. She was jump-eyed to see the sport, decked out like a mawmet, and her mantle lying a full ell behind her on the ground. Well, well, she is a fair maid enough, but to take such a nurseling for his bride, and himself three-and-thirty years old, come Epiphany, is against nature, no force!’

The lordings cared nothing for Madame Isabelle, and demanded matters more germane to the issue.

‘Well,’ proceeded their informant, ‘the King took his warder in his hand, and on the one side he had the little Queen, and on t’other him they call the Count of Saint-Pool, come over to watch the combat, though there is some as holds it was him caused the King to stop it.’

They nodded, their brows lowering. The Count of St Pol had married the King’s half-sister, Maud Holland, and, according to Bel sire, he was far too fond of meddling in English affairs.

‘Then there was the Lollard Earl of Salisbury, and a frape of Percies, and Nevilles; and Despenser, and Sir John Bussy, and – ’

‘Oh, leave that! Bagot, and Green, and Wiltshire, and all the other cumberworlds!’ Thomas exclaimed impatiently. ‘Where was our father the while?’

‘Why, seated on his siege, for sure! I compassioned him, I warrant you, for the sun was riding high, and the traverse over him small comfort. One of the Kings-at-Arms read out a proclamation, but what it was I know not. Then another herald sounded his trumpet, and we knew my lord of Norfolk was come, and they opened to him, and he rode in, shouting, “God aid him who hath the right!” Well, he was brave to see, but it was a pitiful small cheer he got from the people. He voided his horse, but clumsily: you could see his harness weighed heavy on him! His horse was barbed in crimson velvet, bespent with silver lions and mulberry trees; and his squire carried his banner before him, but not wind enough to flutter it. Then my lord of Surrey, which was Marshal, took both the spears, and viewed them fairly, and my lord’s he rendered up to him again with his own hand, but Norfolk’s he sent back to him by one of his knights. Then the heralds ordered the sieges and the traverses to be removed, and it was done, and the lords mounted again, but my lord first, so it would have gladdened your hearts to have seen him, so strong and nimble, and he caparisoned at all points! He shut down his visor, and took his spear in his hand, balancing it in the palm before he set it in the rest, which made the redeless folk set up another great shouting and roaring. When the trumpets sounded, he set forward on the echo. Six – maybe seven paces he took before my lord of Norfolk was fairly started. You could not then hear a sound in all that rout of people, but they say the French lord was whispering all the time in the King’s ear. Then there was a commotion, the heralds shouting Ho! Ho! and my lord reining his horse in so hard that he reared up, and fell to snorting, like he was araged to be held from his foe. I saw my lord knock up his visor with the back of his gauntlet, and look towards the King’s siege. I knew no more than the next man why the heralds shouted, but they say the King threw down his warder. The word ran through the press of people, and well it was for the King he had his Cheshiremen there! Yea, by my head! The heralds took the spears from the two lords, and said they should go back to their sieges. Holy Rood, if ever I saw men sweat like them that had to bring back the sieges and the traverses foot-hot!’

‘But what happened?’ John asked.

‘That’s more than I know, lording. Two full hours the lords sat waiting. The King went to his pavilion, and they do say that he held a council there. No one saw him again, but a knight came out at last, and read a great proclamation. Well, it was all long words, and so many of them I heard but the half, but certes it was the King’s sentence that both the lords should be banished the realm. The sely folk began to hurl, but the Cheshiremen had their shafts fitted in their bows, and all ended only in grutching.’

‘But, for God’s love,
why
?’ cried Thomas.

6

He had the answer from Wilkin, in London. ‘Why? Because the King fears Lancaster, lording! Christ give him sorrow, for he has dealt M. d’Espagne his death-stroke! May my own ending-day not come till I have seen Lancaster avenged!’

‘But if he fears Lancaster – Rood of Chester, is the world arsy-versy? When did Lancaster cleave to Mowbray? Why, then, is Norfolk banished too?’

Wilkin stabbed a gnarled finger at him. ‘Who sent Thomas of Woodstock to the deathward, lording?’

‘Out of dread, Norfolk!’

‘Yea, but at whose word? At whose word, lording?’

Thomas stood staring at him; John said: ‘I see. The King fears to be betrayed by Norfolk, and dare not slay him. Thus he thinks to be rid of him.’

‘But this is unwit!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘Will banishment silence Mowbray? It will unleash his tongue!’

‘Nay, who lends ear to a banished man?’

Thomas flung away, biting his nails. He ran straight into Humfrey, arrived that moment at the Cold Harbour from Monmouthshire. He halted in his tracks, blinking. When last he had seen Humfrey, Humfrey had been a chubby five-year-old. He beheld now a tall, slender boy, and only by the oddity in his left eye did he recognise him. ‘God amend the Pope! Humfrey!’ he ejaculated.

There was something fawn-like about Humfrey. He looked at Thomas out of his great brown eyes, and said softly: ‘I think you are Thomas. God have you in His keeping, brother! What do we all do here?’

‘We bid farewell to Father!’ Thomas said.

‘Not you, I think,’ murmured Humfrey, glinting a smile at him under his long lashes.

He was right: his brothers had yet to learn how often Humfrey could be right in small matters. Father told Thomas that he was to go with him into exile.

‘N-not Harry, sir?’ Thomas stammered.

‘Harry stays with the King,’ my lord answered.

Even a nine-year-old knew that the King, taking Harry into his household, would hold him as hostage. John was troubled, knowing that it was Thomas, not Harry, whom Father best loved.

My lord had sent for his children so that they might be with him to the last, but he had little time to spare for them. The preparations for his exile occupied his every moment. He was under oath never to meet or to communicate with my lord of Norfolk, or with the exiled Archbishop Arundel, and since the second was in Rome, and the other bound for Almaine, he was going to Paris, where he had good friends.

M. de Guyenne also had preparations to make. The Beauforts, sons of his middle years, gathered behind him, yet stood aloof, knowing that not in them were his hopes centred. His preoccupation was with my lord of Hereford’s vast inheritance. He did not expect to outlive the period of my lord’s exile, and as matters now stood his possessions would pass at his death into the hands of King Richard. All his remaining energy – and only his wife and his quiet son John Beaufort knew how little was left in him – would be devoted to the fight to secure Henry’s inheritance to him.

The younger Henry was permitted to remain with my lord until his departure. It was hard to discover what he thought of it all. His brothers found him withdrawn, guarding his counsel. The months he spent at Oxford seemed to have set a gulf between them. He no longer fought with Thomas, and no longer engaged in hot argument with any of them. The only time that Thomas tried to grapple with him his body stiffened, and he held Thomas off, his hands like steel about his wrists, and in his eyes a look so blazing yet so austere that Thomas was startled.

‘You should know that Harry doesn’t like to be mauled,’ said John.

‘What daffish talk is this?’ said Thomas. ‘Harry has always been a wrestler!’

‘Yes, for the sport, and when he lists. He will not be touched if he doesn’t so choose.’