Sacrifice (6 page)

   There was no evidence against Jane Shore. She was the daughter of a prosperous merchant, and had risen to prominence by sharing the beds of certain high-born men, including the late Edward IV, the Marquess of Dorset and Hastings.

   Gloucester, who hated loose morals and the depravity of his late brother’s court, harboured a personal dislike of Shore. It was for her shamelessly lewd conduct, Geoffrey suspected, that Gloucester meant to charge her with treason.

   “Your honour is dung, my lord,” Gloucester sneered, “and shall be treated with the appropriate respect. Sir Geoffrey, take him outside. The rest shall be consigned to prison, to await further judgment.”

   Geoffrey nodded at Harrington, who stepped forward to lay his mailed hand on Hastings’ shoulder. The Chamberlain heaved a deep sigh, closed his eyes briefly, and then rose to his feet.

   “So be it,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on Gloucester, “so it begins, my lord. How many more heads will roll before you feel secure?”

   Gloucester scowled and said nothing. He stepped aside to allow the little procession to pass, with Geoffrey in the lead. Fresh curses flowed from Stanley’s mouth as Pilkington dragged him off the floor. Morton and Rotherham, in respect of their age and clerical office, were treated rather more gently, and offered no resistance as the guards ushered them away to prison.

   Hastings was taken down a short flight of stairs, to the little green beside the chapel within the Tower.

All was ready for him. A soldier in Gloucester’s livery stood with a battle-axe beside a log on the middle of the green.

   There was also a priest, a skinny, nervous little creature with pop eyes and an abnormally large Adam’s Apple. His yellow hands shook as he clutched a small leather-bound Bible to his chest.

   “My lord of Gloucester has thought of everything,” Hastings remarked drily. Geoffrey helped him to remove his chain of office and heavy fur-lined robe.

   “At least it is a warm day,” Hastings added, “no man will be able to say I trembled before the axe.”

   Geoffrey thought he displayed incredible fortitude for one about to be judicially murdered, and resented him for it. He resented all such displays of courage, knowing himself incapable of them.

   “Shrive him, and be quick about it,” he ordered the priest, who almost dropped his Bible in the haste to obey.

   Hastings confessed to being a sinful man, and an innocent one. “I never uttered treason or conspired against the Protector, still less against my dear lord and king, King Edward V, God save him. God, I suspect, will need to be active on His Majesty’s behalf in these coming days.”

   He looked meaningfully at Geoffrey, who ignored it. To entertain such suspicions, to even think of them, was to risk death.

   “My lord,” said Geoffrey, “you must kneel, and place your head on the block.”

   Hastings duly knelt. Once an athletic figure, his body had thickened with age and debauchery, and the flabby curve of his paunch was visible below his shirt. His grey hair was thin and greasy, and there was a spreading bald spot on the back of his head. A shabby and pitiful figure, saved by the calm dignity with which he confronted death.

   “Sir Geoffrey Malvern,” he said softly, as though seeing Geoffrey for the first time, “I mind the first time we met, after the fight at Northampton. You came into the Earl of Warwick’s pavilion, with the blood of many a Lancastrian knight on your sword. That was a great day. I have been fortunate to witness many great days.”

   Geoffrey had heard enough. He signalled at the headsman to stand back a little, and bent down to whisper into Hastings’ ear.

   “The truth is, my lord, I hid under a gun-carriage at Northampton until the battle was over. The blood on my sword was from a corpse. I am a coward, a liar and a murderer, and have always profited from the deeds of better men. Lay down your head, my lord Hastings, and go to your rest.”

   Twin spots of colour appeared in Hastings’ pale cheeks, and he glanced up at Geoffrey with genuine shock in his eyes.

   “There,” said Geoffrey, delighted by his reaction, “I wager you thought this day could bring no more surprises, eh?”

   He stepped back, grinning, and gestured at the soldiers to do their work. They seized Hastings’ neck and forced it down onto the block.

   His lips were about to mouth a final curse when the axe fell and ended his troubles forever.

Chapter 6

The Tower, 22
nd
June 1483  

Richard was alone in his chamber. He stood in front of a gilded mirror mounted on the wall and studied his reflection with disgust.

  
The runt of the litter, Father called me.

  
His father, the old Duke of York, had meant it in jest, but young Richard took it ill. He had been a serious child, painfully aware of his physical inadequacies compared to his big, healthy, vigorous brothers.

   Decades later, his father and brothers all lay quiet in their graves, but the mirror showed the same flaws. Richard’s lack of height, pale complexion, twisted spine, mismatched shoulders. His weak, almost feminine build, so unbecoming in a warrior.

   Richard staved off the inevitable onslaught of self-loathing and melancholy with bravado. “The runt is the head of the litter now, father,” he said aloud.

   His words met with silence. There was a dull, persistent ache in his skull. It had been there for weeks, ever since he received news of Edward’s death. On some days it was tolerable, others (especially if he had slept badly) it was like red-hot needles stabbing against the back of his eyeballs.

   If only I could sleep a whole night. All I get now is an hour or two. Sometimes, not even that.

  
He suspected Jane Shore, that accursed whore and notorious witch, of placing a spell on him. It was thanks to her black arts that he couldn’t sleep. The pain in his head could only be caused by her making a wax image of him and driving a needle into it. An old piece of dark magic, but effective.

   His efforts to punish Shore, to shame her before the world, had proved a disappointment. Soon after the execution of Hastings, he had forced her to walk barefoot in her petticoat through Saint Paul’s, carrying a lighted taper and singing hymns.

   Richard had hoped the crowds would greet the whore with the disgust and loathing she deserved, and pelt her with missiles. Instead the vile woman turned the situation to her advantage. Though almost forty, she was still attractive, and struck onlookers dumb with her show of meekness and humility.

  
Well, be damned to her. I placed her in Ludgate prison, where she may think long on her sins.

 
Richard had more pressing concerns than the fate of Jane Shore. Even as he stared at his reflection, a man named Ralph Shaw was preaching a sermon from the rostrum at Saint Paul’s Cross, to a packed audience of Londoners.

   Shaw was an eminent doctor of theology, a Cambridge man, learned and erudite. He had been commissioned to set forth Richard’s claim to the throne of England.

   Buckingham’s voice echoed inside Richard’s mind: insinuating, mellifluous, persuasive.

   “The King will never forgive us for what happened to Rivers. Edward loved him.”

   “Edward is still a boy,” Richard had replied, “time will heal his hurts. It always does.”

    He spoke without much conviction. Inside, he knew Buckingham was right. Edward was too much his father’s son to ever forgive or forget an injury.

  
Perhaps I should have kept Rivers alive. Not the others, just him. At least until I could persuade Edward of his guilt.

  
He chided himself. It was no use wishing away the past. Rivers, Grey, Vaughan and Sir Thomas Haute, another of their adherents, were all dead. The order to kill them had gone north just days after the death of Hastings. Unlike Hastings, they got a form of trial, with the Earl of Northumberland presiding as judge.

   A mere formality. The verdict was never in doubt. Northumberland knew better than to countermand Richard’s orders. Four more heads rolled.

Five deaths. How many more?

Buckingham, without ever baldly stating as much, wanted Richard to take the crown for himself. His reasons were obvious: with Richard on the throne, Buckingham would be the second man in the realm, lifted to heights of power and authority he could never have achieved under Edward V.

   Richard might have resisted such naked, selfish ambition, but Buckingham was not alone in his urging. On the very evening of Hastings’ death, Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, had begged a private audience with the Lord Protector.

   The elderly prelate got his wish, and what he had to say in private made Richard’s head pound like never before.

   “I have kept this secret for many years, my lord,” Stillington informed him, “and it has proved a heavy burden, a veritable millstone around my neck. Often I have beseeched the Lord, imploring Him to know if I should reveal the truth to the world, or keep to my oath of silence. Thus far, I have kept my oath.”

   “Very commendable,” Richard replied impatiently, “men should keep to their oaths.”

   Stillington raised one liver-spotted hand to his withered mouth and gave a discreet little cough. He was an elongated, funereal sort of man, with a long white beard trailing down the front of his surplice to his waist.

   Richard was not deceived by the air of holy simplicity. He had learned to smell ambition, and Stillington stank of it.

   The bishop had suffered under Edward IV, being dismissed from his post as Lord Chancellor and even briefly imprisoned, though the reasons for the latter were unclear. Richard had been in the north at the time, though even up there he heard dark rumours of some information Stillington passed to the late and unlamented Duke of Clarence.

   “Present circumstances dictate I should break my oath,” Stillington said, “my lord, I shall be brief.”

  
Thank God.
Richard gestured at him to continue. 

   “It concerns your brother, His late Majesty, King Edward the Fourth. Some twenty years ago, the king fell in love with a certain beautiful heiress, Lady Eleanor Butler. Your lordship will remember her name.”

   Richard indicated that he did. “As we all know, King Edward was ruled by his passions,” Stillington continued, “he desired the lady, and would do anything to have carnal knowledge of her. She rebuffed his advances, time and again, until at last he agreed to marry her in secret. It was the only way to overcome her scruples.”

   “So the thing was done. I wed them myself, with none but us three present to witness it. The king made me and his bride swear never to reveal the truth of the marriage. From that day to this, I have kept my troth.”

   Richard said nothing until he had drank down half a cupful of wine. Stillington’s allegations were monstrous. If true, it meant King Edward’s later marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, and her sons by him bastards.

   If true, it meant Richard was the rightful king.

   He carefully put down the cup and pressed his palm against his forehead. The pain was exquisite. He gritted his teeth, determined not to cry out.

   There was no-one else in the audience chamber. Two sentries stood outside, but they were out of earshot.

  
Unless one of the whoresons is eavesdropping!

   Richard sprang from his chair, hurried past the startled prelate and shoved open the door. The guards were at their posts, and looked at him in surprise.

   He scowled and pulled the door shut again. “Keep your voice low,” he hissed at Stillington, placing a finger to his lips.

   Richard returned to his seat. “Similar tales have been told before,” he added, “my brother Clarence accused Edward of not being our father’s son.”

   He gave Stillington a hard look. “For this and other offences Clarence was strangled, here in the Tower, on Edward’s orders.”

   Stillington gave a weak little smile and fondled his neck. “I make no accusations, my lord,” he replied, “but the truth must be known.”

   “And you have waited until now to reveal my brother’s bigamy? Why? No, don’t trouble to answer that.”

   Richard didn’t require an answer. Stillington was just another Buckingham, greedy and anxious for profit. They looked to put Richard in their debt, so he would repay with interest once he was king.

  
I never coveted the crown. When I set out from York, it was with the intention of securing my rights as Lord Protector.

   My rights. Nothing more.

   He dismissed Stillington with a promise that they would speak again in private, and soon. Once the man was gone, Richard ordered his guards to admit no further guests, and struggled up the stair to his bedchamber.

   Sleep refused to come, nor did he expect it. Long hours of darkness crawled past as Richard lay on his back, staring at the canopy of his bed. His wife, Anne, was in an adjoining chamber. Richard’s fractured sleep patterns were also depriving her of rest, so for now he ordered her to lie elsewhere.