The Dragon and the Rose (16 page)

"But I have information that the southern levies are marching to join Gloucester now."

"Perhaps. But if you come between them and the king—I beg your pardon, sire—between them and Gloucester, they will sit down and wait. They will not fight unless driven to it. They are Edward's men, you see, and there is war in their souls between remaining faithful to a Yorkist ruler and taking revenge on the murderer of Edward's children."

Henry twiddled his fingers gently. His instinct was to do the opposite of any action William Stanley suggested because of his certainty that treachery was not only a matter of self-interest but a matter of amusement to Sir William.

However Stanley's reasoning was sound, and was heartily approved by the council. Instead of continuing northeast, the Tudor's army marched east by south toward Leicester. Henry still smiled and made speeches to the townsfolk, still ruthlessly and publicly punished any man caught looting or threatening the local population, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to conceal his distraction. Talbot seemed sincere enough, but it was entirely possible that William Stanley had joined his forces only to demoralize them by retreat at a crucial moment in battle.

He told his devoted guard that he wished to ride alone, and dropped farther and farther behind the main body of his army, musing desperately on whether it was more dangerous to take precautions, which would display his doubt of the Stanleys' good faith and might drive them back to Gloucester, or to pretend trust.

It was a dull, lowering day and Henry, who was already so tired that he could feel no increase in his fatigue, did not notice the failing light. When his patient, plodding horse stumbled at last and he was jerked from his reverie, the fields about him were empty. Worse, it was so dark that he could hardly see the next fold in the ground, and it would soon be full night. No star, no moon—where was he? Had he ridden ahead? Fallen behind? Had he wandered off the path of the army to the north? To the south?

Already too thin and feverish, Henry knew that if he slept out all night and was wet by the coming rain, or even by the heavy dews of late August, he would be ill. He urged his mount forward again; he could not stay where he was. Before it grew too black to see at all, he came to a huddle of huts, a village so small that if it had a name at all it was known only to the inhabitants. His hail was not answered, but his sword hilt applied briskly to the door brought a sullen response.

"Open!" Henry called. "Open, I say."

The door opened slowly. It was fortunate that Henry had dismounted so that he could thrust his armored body into the opening or the door would have slammed shut again. As soon as the hind saw that it was a single man and not a troop strong enough to enforce their will, the peasant wanted no part of Henry.

The peasant retreated as Henry advanced. For a moment the Tudor choked in the stench; he considered retiring into the open air again. The thought was only a passing one. Here, armored and with his sword loose in its scabbard, he was safe from the damp and the possibility of being picked up by a roving band of Gloucester's men.

"I am benighted. I seek shelter," Henry said softly. "I will do you no hurt. Go. Feed and water my horse. You will be rewarded."

Dull eyes regarded him without either hostility or hope. Henry blinked in the wavering glimmer of a single rushlight and moved his hand suggestively toward his sword hilt. A slighter male figure detached itself from the gloom and went out the door.

"Whose land is this?" Henry asked.

The man mumbled a name that meant nothing to the Tudor, and Henry then asked how long the landlord had held this land.

"Not long. Never long."

Henry hooked an uneven three-legged stool from the corner and sat down with his back against the wall. It was as difficult to get speech from this hind as from his dogs, but he was somewhat curious about the dull-eyed despair. The man was not starving. The movements of the boy who had gone to feed the horse were too quick to indicate sickness or weakness. These lands were not as rich as those in the south, but they were not as poor as some in Wales either, and it could not be so bitterly hard to wrest a living from them. Of course, the man's trouble might he personal, but it was hopelessness not sorrow that marked his face. Besides, the longer he tried to pry information from this clod, the less time he would have for his own fears.

"Your landlord is good?"

That was so odd a question from an armored knight that a spark of interest showed in the laborer's eyes. "Not bad, but soon he will be gone and there will be another."

"He is old? Sick?"

A mute negative shake of the head was all the reply Henry received. The door opened, the rushlight flickered; Henry reached toward his sword, and the hind gasped softly and drew back. As it was only the boy returning, Henry dropped his hand again, but the defensive gesture had struck a chord; the older man drew closer again, apparently taking in the pale tiredness of Henry's face for the first time.

"Hungry?"

This time Henry nodded mutely, and the hind grunted something into the shadows behind him. A woman came forward carrying a wooden bowl and a broken heel of bread. The ale in the bowl was little better than water, but Henry drank thirstily and then bit into the bread. Ridiculous it might be, but the hospitality offered demanded a similar courtesy from Henry's breeding. In a man's house, you made suitable conversation with him.

"Will the harvest be good?" Henry asked, thrusting back his hood.

The laborer shrugged. "The crop is good. The harvest … who knows?"

That was a puzzler, and Henry found himself more and more interested in such alien processes of thought. "If the crop is good, how can the harvest be bad?" he asked.

There was a long silence while the laborer studied his scarred, gnarled hands. Then he lifted his head slowly, as if Henry's intent gaze was forcing speech from him. Anger and bitterness showed on his face now.

"For that the likes of you will trample it down in your war."

Henry's first thought was that either his own or Gloucester's army must be encamped nearby; his second that it must be his own, since it was unlikely that Gloucester could have moved so large a mass of men so far from Leicester without an alarm. His face showed only interest, however, and its placidity at last unlocked the peasant's tongue.

"There's none but us as suffers. The lord, he hears, and he sets us to harvest his crop and the part of ours that’s his, or else he takes his pennies for rent. And the priest, he takes his tithes. And what's left is mine—if the soldiers don't ride it down or graze their horses in the field."

The Tudor chewed his bread and took another sup of ale. It was useless to speak of intention or necessity to such a man; He knew only his own needs and cared nothing for the general good. To explain that some must suffer so that most would be benefited was a theory beyond his understanding.

"The armies will not fight here," Henry said at last. It was likely true, unless Gloucester moved incredibly fast. In any case, he wished to offer the comfort to still the man's tongue which he now felt he was unwise to have unlocked. He had worse troubles of his own.

"What matter." Anger had been replaced by despair again in the hind's face. "When I was a boy, Henry was king, but then Edward came and with him a new landlord. Then Henry again, and again a new lord of the land—then Edward—then Richard. Now another Henry. And each time the lord is new, the rents must be paid again. War or no war, there will be nothing left."

"Why? You have paid your rent already." Henry regretted the question, but it was out before he thought.

"I have, and it is written in the lord's book. But the new lord will have a new book with nothing written in it, and a new bailiff who will not remember, or an old bailiff whose affair it is not to remember."

"So," Henry said, interested in spite of himself. It was a clever game. He must remember and do something about it if he could. "You should get a writing from your landlord that says you have paid your rent," he suggested.

"Who knows what is written on paper? Papers bring only grief."

Henry almost laughed, partly at the hind's suspicion of the written word and partly at his own consciousness that the remark had a good deal of truth in it. If he had not received letters offering him the crown, would he be here now? The problem as an intellectual exercise was interesting. How could an unlettered man get a receipt and know what he was getting?

"I will tell you," Henry said. "You should have a book of your own. Take it to the priest and let the priest write in it the day and the year and the amount of the rent. Then the lord's clerk or bailiff must seal it with the lord's seal when you pay or bring in your crop. You would know the meaning of the seal, as would all other men."

There was a long, long silence during which Henry's eyes closed and he leaned wearily against the wall. He did not believe that this man or his grandson would dare harm him. They could never explain the horse and armor, and therefore could get no profit from his hurt. Nonetheless, he could not sleep, partly because of his discomfort and partly because the intentions of his stepfather haunted him.

"The priest will not do it for nothing."

Henry's eyes snapped open. The rushlight was out, but a darker shadow crouched before him in the dark. Henry rolled his head, easing the pain in his neck, and realized that he had been asleep. He checked a hysterical giggle at the thought of the grave matter to which the attention of the king of England was now directed, and also at the tempo of a conversation that permitted one of the participants to sleep between remarks.

"It is worth a few eggs and a chicken or two," he suggested, and closed his eyes again.

"But will the lord or his clerk put on the seal?"

Was the darkness lighter? Henry looked up through the smoke hole of the roof. Perhaps it was, but the night was not yet over. "If you go together, the whole village, to pay your rents," Henry offered, "and each has his book, then you can pay the priest enough, all paying a little, so that he will come with you. Like enough the clerk or bailiff will use the seal if the priest is there."

"Like enough."

Silence fell again. The minutes crawled into hours. Henry slipped deeper into sleep. He did not feel the hand of the laborer steady him as he teetered sideways once. Mostly the rough mud of the walls caught in the backplate of his armor held him upright. Only when the cramp in his neck became so severe that it pierced his fatigue did he open his eyes. The sky showed gray through the smoke hole. Henry raised his hands to his neck and groaned.

"Thirsty?" A filled bowl was offered. Henry took it, drank, and groaned again as he twisted his head this way and that. He stood and a hand was offered to steady him. "Next rent time," the laborer said, as if his last remark about the rent book had been made only moments before, "I will try."

Henry opened the door and stepped outside. The air was sweet and fresh; he had forgotten the stench of the hut until this moment. The boy slipped out behind him to get his horse from the shed, which was really half of the house. Henry lifted the skirt of his armor, fumbled with his underclothing and relieved his bladder. He realized that he was ravenously hungry and that his men would be frantic with worry, but his eyes glowed with pleasure. Anxiety and ambition notwithstanding, life offered him much. He turned and smiled, wishing he had something to give the hind, but he had no purse and to leave a ring or a jewel from his clothing would endanger the man rather than reward him.

"Years from now, yeoman, you may tell your grandchildren's children that Harry, king of England, slept in your house, ate your bread, and drank your ale. And you, yourself, do you remember that King Harry told you how to have justice in the matter of your rents. This I promise you. For the sake of the roof and the bread and ale you offered me, your landlord himself shall place his seal on your book and you shall have no new landlord this harvest time. What is your name, and the name of your village?"

"J-John, lord." The man was trembling visibly. "John of Cannock Wood."

"I will remember it to your benefit."

Spurs set the horse in motion and kept him at a hot pace. In the light of day, Henry was not afraid of losing his way. Hereabout all roads would lead to Lichfield where his army was to have camped, and he did not doubt that they would remain where they were until he appeared. His arrival was greeted with near hysteria. Jasper had aged twenty years in that night, and his face was blotched with weeping. William Brandon fell to his knees and seized Henry's hand, breaking into the racking sobs of a man who saw the dead return to life. Even stolid Poynings turned so pale that Henry thought he would faint. All were red-eyed and drawn, so shocked by relief that they could scarcely stammer questions.

"How now," Henry chided gently, "am I a child that I may not be gone a few hours without such a to-do?"

"No more," Brandon gasped. "You will go out of my sight no more. When you next wish to be alone, you will need to kill me. I will part from you no more. I will not live through such another night."

"What sort of trick was this, Harry?" Anger could not steady Jasper's voice; he had suffered too much. "Were you lost?"

To admit the truth would only add to his uncle's anxiety. Besides, it would damage his dignity. "Of course I was not lost," Henry said testily. "If I had been lost, how could I have found you so easily? Do I look as if I have been riding through the night? William, get up, do."

"Where were you?"

"I—" Henry looked at the red-rimmed eyes, the grim mouths with bitten lips. He had intended to make a jest of spending the night with a woman in Cannock, but he could not give so light an excuse to these tired men. "I waited in a small village to receive a message from secret allies." Henry's lips twitched as he thought that he has not lied. Doubtless John of Cannock Wood was now an ally—of some sort—and he had certainly received a message from him.

"I hope you had more sleep than we did, sire," Stanley said. "We searched for hours, and even then your council seemed inclined to fix the blame somewhat before they knew harm was done."