A Rose for the Crown (100 page)

Epilogue
London, 1491

D
o you now understand why I am afraid for you,” Kate said. “What happened to John might well be your fate if the king thought you might conspire against him.”

“I think I understand, Mother. But how could I, a mason, threaten a king?” Dickon replied.

“Two years after your father’s death, an Oxford student posing as the son of George of Clarence was the rallying point of a rebellion that ended at the battle of Stoke. John fought in that lost battle alongside his lord, Francis Lovell. ’Twas a futile effort to throw Tudor off the throne and restore the house of Plantagenet, but it frightened Henry. If a mere nobody could keep the cause alive, why not one of royal birth—like John or you?”

“Is that why my brother was hanged?” Dickon asked.

“Possibly. After the battle, he fled with Francis into Europe, and I heard nothing from him until a few months ago, when he returned in secret to tell the Lovell family of Francis’s death in Burgundy. Someone informed on him, and he was caught and imprisoned. Tudor showed no mercy this time. I warrant the king regretted giving John a pension after
Redemore.” She smiled at the irony. “He thought he could buy the loyalty of a son of Richard of Gloucester. Pah!”

Dickon rekindled the embers in the fireplace. The glow threw up strange shadows around the room, darkened now by the twilight outside. It was many hours since the execution at Smithfield, and mother and son had not been disturbed during Kate’s tale. He looked up from his task. “Why do you tell me all this now, Mother? Perhaps ’twas best never to tell me. What do I do with this secret? ’Tis more of a curse, in truth.”

“Perhaps you are right. However, ’tis as clear to me as a September morn that Henry has it in mind to do away with anyone who bears the Plantagenet name. Aye, John was base born, but he had the royal Plantagenet blood in his veins. An unsettling thing for Henry Tudor with his fragile claim to the throne. I led you into danger this morning at Smithfield. When John called me ‘Mother,’ we came under suspicion. Not for the first time I have thanked God for your Bywood looks. John was unmistakably Richard’s son and could not have hidden long from Henry. You are the image of me, ’tis true, but inside I see the quiet seriousness and determination of your father. You must go far from London and live an ordinary life and never, never tell any living soul who you are. Swear to me, Dickon. Your life depends upon it.”

He was ready to agree to anything, he was so bemused. He had a thousand questions, but he could not formulate one. Her story had answered many of them. He was relieved to know Uncle Geoff was in truth his kin. Geoff had been the father he remembered. His memories of By-wood Farm had faded as he grew to manhood, and he was happy to have been reminded of them. When Kate had arrived at Ightham to claim him after Richard’s death, he was stunned by her confession. It was a shock to be told Johnny and Margery were not his parents. But he had to admit he was not sorry to learn Kate was his real mother. The connection between them during their first meeting had been so special.

Kate had never told him about his father no matter how many times he had asked. All he knew was that he was named for him. He had begun to think the man was a monster who had callously left his mother when she became pregnant. Today, she had told him the truth. He remembered the unusual visit to the schoolhouse by the richly clad lord who had accepted his humble carving. Neither he nor the other boys
dreamed they were in the presence of the king. He recalled the kindness in the dark gray eyes and the smile that lit up his face when Dickon had given him the carved wolf. The man had not acted like a king, Dickon thought now.

The images flooded and then faded from his mind and left him with one impossible truth. He was a king’s son.

Kate swung her legs off the bed and stretched her weary body. Just as a heaviness had come over her that morning with the death of her beloved elder son, a weight was lifted from her now all was revealed to the younger. Dickon put his arms around her thin frame, holding her close. What to say? He could not think.

“’Twas your right to know your true father, Dickon, and to be proud of it.” Kate leaned her head on his shoulder. “It may have been wrong of me not to tell you before, but my stubbornness often rules my heart. Even though you must never use it now, your true name is Richard Plantagenet.”

She opened her purse and drew out the
écu
on its worn string and placed it around his neck. “’Tis time you had this. As you know, your father wanted you to have it. Perhaps it will bring you luck.”

He turned it over in his fingers, imagining the king handing it down to Kate on the ride out of Leicester. He found it comforting, a tangible connection to his father, and he smiled his thanks.

M
OLLY HAD STAYED BEHIND
at Dog Kennel House with her little son, Wat. The lad had come down with a fever the day before Kate and Dickon traveled to London, and Kate had not the heart to separate them. Molly was too attached to the boy, Kate knew, but he was all she had after Wat was killed with Jack Howard on Redemore Plain—some now talked of the battlefield as Bosworth Field. When Kate undressed with Dickon’s help that night, she again missed the familiar deftness of Molly’s fingers. She cried herself into a fitful slumber, reliving the outstretched hand and anguished plea from the scaffold. Her strong, handsome John was gone. John, who had toddled through a toy castle of bricks to claim an apple, who had cried for her on the road to Fotheringhay, who had twirled her around like a girl on the lawn at Stepney, and who had braved death to come to her and tell her of Richard’s last moments. She
had not seen him again after Bosworth, although he had written to her once he was safely ensconced at Middleham. A little before the battle of Stoke, the final battle between the houses of York and Lancaster, he had informed her he would go to Ireland with Lovell. A few letters had arrived from Burgundy after he fled that battle, but then she had heard nothing until she learned of his imprisonment. The mason contest Dickon was to participate in a few days hence had fatefully coincided, and she was resolved to see him one last time.

She gave him food through the grille of his prison cell in London a few days later. He appeared older than his twenty-one years, just as his father had done after becoming king. He was unshaven and dirty, looking like any of the real criminals that peopled the Fleet Prison. She had paid the guard well to shave him, cut his hair and give him a new shirt, so he might look more like a king’s son when he went to the scaffold. For another penny, the guard allowed her an hour in the cell with her son. They had talked of Richard, Katherine and his own childhood. Toward the end of the meeting, Kate lowered her voice and told him of Dickon.

“A brother?” He was incredulous. “Why did you not tell me before?”

“’Twould have done no one any good, John. I admit I was young and impetuous. It seemed the best solution at the time. But I regret Dickon has grown up not knowing you. He knows nothing of his heritage—it has concerned me that Tudor might discover the truth.”

“What? And persecute a boy?” John laughed. “Mother, the only reason I am here is because of my treasonable action at Stoke. Henry Tudor could not give a flea’s arse about my heritage. Why, he even gave me a pension those first few years. Whether ’twas guilt or Cousin Bess’s kindness, I shall never know. But Dickon need not fear him, I swear.”

“I am not so sure. The less Dickon knows, the likelier he will live to be an old man.”

“You must tell Dickon who his father is. Promise me you will, Mother.” His face was pensive. “I regret I never knew him. Is he clever? Or a soldier like me?”

“He is neither, John. It appears he has a God-given talent for carving. He will be at the mason contest next week—” She had broken off when it occurred to her that John might not be there next week. “I am so sorry.
How careless and stupid of me! Oh, John, is there nothing I can do to take you from this place?”

“Nay, Mother. I have been found guilty of treason and as such, I shall be . . . punished. I know not when or how. I pray you will be back home at Tendring, for I would not want you to be here for the—” Kate put her finger to his lips. Neither could face the word “execution.” Kate pulled him to her, and they sat silently in a close embrace until the guard unlocked the door and ordered her out. Their hands had touched briefly through the grille before she turned and ran back into the street. Word had come to her two days later that John was to die the day after. These scenes went through her mind as she drifted into a disturbed sleep. For the first time in many years, she dreamed once more of the knight in the field. As Richard’s bloodied face lifted off his horse’s neck, he and the two floating children vanished. The third ran into the field, his arms outstretched to heaven. She screamed Richard’s name, and the noise awoke Dickon, who threw off his cloak and went to her side.

“Mother, ’tis only a dream. Wake up. All is well. I am here.”

She saw his concerned face and sat up, shaking away the vision. “Aye, Dickon, ’twas only a dream. I pray you go back to sleep.”

She knew now the meaning of the nightmare, surprised it had not occurred to her before. But before, John had not died. The minutes dragged into hours as she lay under the covers thinking of her life as she had told it to Dickon. The rest of the story he knew, for he had been with her on a visit to Geoff when she learned that Richard Haute had died from wounds suffered at Stoke.

Anne admitted then that her father had ridden with Henry Tudor at Bosworth and not King Richard. She had been taken aback by Kate’s vehement response, still ignorant of Kate’s liaison with Richard.

“King Richard gave your father a pardon six months before Bosworth Field. He restored the Mote to him. ’Tis inconceivable that my cousin turned his coat on his king! What had the king done to him?”

Anne had no explanation, except to say that Lady Elizabeth’s family had ties to Margaret Beaufort. “Perhaps, my stepmother was to blame. I overheard them saying how well the Lady Margaret and Bishop Morton had deceived the duke of Buckingham into rebellion, but that is all I can tell you.”

Aye, they were Richard’s real enemies, Kate knew now. John Morton had swiftly been made Tudor’s chancellor. A fair prize for treachery, she thought bitterly.

She heard the watch call “Four of the clock!” A dog barked in the Mermaid’s courtyard. Her thoughts wandered back to Tendring, and yet another pain suffused her. Her beloved friend Margaret Howard, heartbroken over Jack’s death, allowed her health to deteriorate, despite Kate’s cajolings and cathartics. Kate had spent the better part of last winter at the Hall, nursing her friend, and was at her side when she died one cold March morning not six months ago. Margaret was buried in Stoke by Nayland’s church in a vault not far from Jack’s first wife, Catherine.

Jack Howard, duke of Norfolk and loyal friend of the house of York, was taken to Thetford church for burial after Bosworth. Margaret told Kate that Jack’s adversary on the field, the earl of Oxford, was reported as saying, “A better knight could not die, but he might die in a better cause.”

Margaret had scoffed when she heard it. “Henry Tudor a better cause? A king who dares to date his reign a day before the old reign is over so that he can proclaim a traitor anyone who rode with Richard? Ha!”

Jack was attainted and his lands forfeit. His son, Thomas, also attainted, had been imprisoned for a spell but even he was making an expedient peace with Henry. It was Thomas who had recommended that Kate stay at his father’s favorite inn, the Mermaid. It was also Thomas who had sent her a message two days after their arrival to tell her of John’s pending execution and where she could visit her son. Again she was in a Howard’s debt.

Margaret and some of the family were permitted to remain at Tendring, but without Jack the gaiety in the house was lost. Yet even in her sadness, Margaret had welcomed Dickon and shown him great kindness. Kate treasured those memories. She buried her head in the pillow and wept again. The faces of those she had loved and lost passed through her mind as indelible imprints on her heart: her mother and father, George, little Robert, Philippa and Martin, lovely Katherine, Margaret, her beloved John, and Richard, her dear love. Dickon was all she had left now, and even he must leave. It was Margaret who had arranged for him to apprentice with the mason whom Jack had employed to beautify the
Stoke church, and Dickon had more than served his time. It was the mason who had urged Dickon to go to London and compete in the special contest saying he could teach his young apprentice no more.

It was time for her, too, to let him go, she thought, as sleep finally claimed her.

D
ICKON CAME RACING UP
the stairs two days later, clutching his sodden hat and trying not to whoop with excitement. He burst into the chamber, where Kate was seated near the window, staring out at the rain. Her melancholy had not lifted, and the torrents merely confirmed her suspicion that the world was a miserable place. She turned her head when Dickon entered, and a semblance of a smile flitted over her face.

“Dickon, take off your doublet and your boots before you drown us in the puddle.”

Dickon took no notice, flung his hat on the chair by the fire and knelt in front of her. “Mother, see what I have here.” He pulled a scrolled parchment from his doublet and thrust it at her. “’Tis a chance for a new life. Read it, Mother, and you will see.”