The Red Tavern Read online

  PROLOGUE

  "S-s-st, there, good gossip, wake up, I pray thee! Hearest thou notvoices yonder in our lordship's tent? Methinks I can see between thetrees the glimmer of his council-candle. Even now he doth plan theattack, whilst this cursed cross-bow is playing the very devil of atraitor! The stubborn latch balks at speeding the string. Come--come,wake thee, Jock! Spare me thy deft hand to its mending, or the firstpeep o' day will discover me impotent to fly a bolt against ourcrook-back enemy beyond the brook."

  "Crook-back cross-bow--i' th' s-s-string----" muttered the oneaddressed with drowsy incoherence.

  "I tell thee, Jock, wake up!" the first speaker persisted. "Listen, Isay! Dost hear the hum of voices in brave Richmond's tent? Fix me thisdamned cross-bow! Eftsoons it will come daydawn, man!"

  "Daydawn, sayst thou?" returned the other, starting into broadwakefulness and arising to a sitting posture. "Why, Dickon, thou canstscarce glimpse thy five fingers before thine eyes; and the stars shineas merrily in the vault as ever they did yestereve. What's the noise i'the wood?" he added, sinking sleepily back upon his bent elbow.

  "'Tis the sound of the rolling wheels of the crakys of war. Mark howthe blazing links of those who attend upon them weave fantastic shadowsamidst the trees. There! the cross-bow hath repented of its waywardnessand mended itself. 'Tis said of these shooting-cylinders in yon woodthat they can hurl a leaden slug of two score times the weight of acaliver billet."

  "Marry, Dickon," the other said, "and that be not the least part of theweight of my nether stocks from lying knee-deep in this foul morass,thou mayst dub me a shove-groat sword and buckler man. Where thinkestthou," he added, "that King Richard hath gathered his forces?"

  "I'll lay thee a round wager, friend Belwiggar, that the morning lightwill find him across the brook," replied Dickon, disposing his hugebody for further rest upon the top of his cross-bow.

  "I would it were not so," observed Belwiggar, yawning. "For here are wewith our bonnetful of men at the very tail of the triangle. 'Twill befight or die, comrade, and tyrant Richard deal with the hindermost."Whereupon the speaker clambered to a higher point of ground andprepared to resume his interrupted sleep.

  Scenes and dialogues similar to the one here presented were beingenacted in every corner of the field. Especially did a spirit ofdisquiet and apprehensive concern pervade that part of it so aptlytermed by Belwiggar "the tail of the triangle." All along the bordersof the morass, the banks of the creek, and within the dense forest wereto be heard anxious whisperings, mingled plentifully with mutteredoaths and threats of dire vengeance against a bitterly hated monarch;and despite the earliness of the hour, within the leader's tent theactivities of a day destined to be so heavily fraught with historicalsignificance had already been inaugurated.

  The interior of this pavilion was of a considerable amplitude; and,in keeping with the manner of the period, was fitted out with everynecessary, together with not a few of the luxuries, of the toilet ofa prince of the royal house. Beside the couch with its silken coversand damask canopies, whereupon the Earl of Richmond was reclining, wasa massive, carven table. Upon it stood a richly chased silver tankardbearing a profusion of crimson roses. Within their center, singularlyenough, a pure white flower reared its beautiful head, the which servedadmirably to enhance the royal splendor of its compeers.

  Round about the plush-carpeted floor were seated John de Vere, Earl ofOxford, Henry's chief of archery; Sir James Blunt, sometime captain ofthe Castle of Hammes, in Picardy (the same who had connived at Oxford'sescape from that fortress); Sir Walter Herbert, and Sir Richard Rohan,Richmond's boyhood companion, squire, and chief of horse. All werearmed at proof and full accoutered for the coming battle.

  The last named, though but a youth of nineteen years, would withoutdoubt have arrested attention above any in the distinguished party.The red crest of his helmet nodded quite two inches above that ofhis tallest compatriot; his features were uncommonly trim and perfectin the ensemble; and his every gesture abounded in that intuitive andcareless grace appertaining to exuberant health and spirits and a welldisciplined physical strength. As though to complete a picture alreadyapproaching perfection, from beneath the rim of his head-piece a lockof hair had escaped and shone golden in the mellow light of the waxtapers guttering in silver sconces above his plume.

  "Knowest thou not, Sir Richard," said Henry, bending above the rosesand inhaling their refreshing fragrance, "who sped to us these gracefulmessengers?"

  "I beseech thee, your grace," warned Oxford, "to observe some measureof caution when breathing in their odors. 'Tis not impossible that adeadly poison is lurking within their fair petals. It sits plain uponmy memory how poor Burgondy expired after the smelling of a nosegay."

  "For the matter of that," spoke up the fair young knight, "had theybeen laden with a secret poison I had not lived to bear them within mylord's pavilion; for I sniffed of them a score of times whilst ridinghither."

  "Then, certes, we are double safe," laughed Henry, "for their sweetperfume, Sir Richard, hath filtered to our nostrils through thy goodbody. But what like, say you, was the messenger by whom they werebestowed?"

  "It ill beseems me to say that I know not," the young knight replied,"but such is the truth, my lord. I had but finished relieving the guardat the further side of the wood when I heard a sound as of gallopinghoofs along the road from Market Bosworth way. Approaching, the riderhalted his steed where no ray of light from our blazing links couldreach to raise the veil of his identity. Then, calling my name, he laidthe flowers within my arms. 'For Henry, our noble liege,' he quicklywhispered, and rattled off down the highroad ere I could return word ofthanks."

  "Saw you no cognizance upon his sleeve or upon the trappings of hishorse?" queried Blunt.

  "Methought there was a rayed sun emblazoned on his arm," the youngknight answered. "Though, in truth, my lord, 'twas all done so quicklyI may not swear 'twas surely so."

  "A Yorkist gift, by the rood! Marry, and this be true, my friends, itis a good omen indeed," observed the Earl of Oxford, rising and goingto the table. For quite a space he leaned above it, gazing fixedlyupon the flowers, as though in the hope that they themselves mightunravel the mystery their presence had aroused. "But this," he addedpresently, indicating the solitary white bloom, "doth sore defeat myunderstanding. Wherefore, prithee, mingle the white with the red?"

  "Methinks I have the solution of that enigma," spoke up Herbert, whoseform was merged in shadow, and who, until then, had taken no part inthe discourse. "I would crave his lordship's indulgence, however,before adventuring my lame conjecture."

  "Surely we would have thy answer to the riddle, Sir Walter," saidHenry, yawning sleepily. "My mind doth refuse to probe its bafflingdepths."

  "An I mistake me not," Herbert resumed, "my lord of Oxford in thevery profession of his perplexity hath reached a good half way to theanswer. Methinks 'tis meant to typify the peaceful mingling of thewhite rose with the red."

  "Why--body o' God, I see it now!" Henry exclaimed. "But first, by forceof arms, the red must overwhelm the white."

  "Nay--not so, and your lordship, please," interjected Blunt. "Butrather, let us hope, a mingling through the milder expedient ofmarriage."

  "Ah! Princess Elizabeth!" cried Henry, assuming a sitting posture uponthe edge of his couch. "Sir Walter, thou hast given us a fair answerand earned a guerdon for thy keen wit. But enough of soft speech, mynoble knights. And now, sirs, to the sterner business of the day! MyLord of Oxford, where say'st thou camp Stanley's forces?"

  "At a point equally distant from thine, most gracious liege, and thoseof the infamous Richard. He desires thee to understand that his belovedson's head hangs upon his dissembling devotion for yet a few hours tothe murderous hunchback's cause."

  "Aye--I know. We may depend upon him and his three thousand horse,think you?"

  "With absolute certainty, my lord."

  "'Tis well," observed Henry, laying aside his feathered cap andstooping to allow his young squire to adj
ust a steel helmet to hisshoulder-guards. "Then do thou, my lord of Oxford," he resumed, "havethy archers well in hand and ready against the first show of dawn. Thesun, standing in our enemy's eyes, should much confuse their aim. Bendthy every energy toward staying their advance with a cloud of welldirected bolts. My good Captain Blunt, let our basilisks in the woodfling their leaden hail above the heads of our kneeling archers. SirWalter Herbert, let thy mounted troop to the right and left be readyfor the final charge. And you, Sir Richard, faithful friend, bear uponmy right hand till the battle's done. Do thou each, noble gentlemen,take one of these roses and entwine it with thy helmet's crest. What,ho, guards! strip me this tent and bestow it with the camp litterbehind the wood. Now, thy brave hands, noble sirs; and God smile uponour cause."

  Into the dense vapors arising from the morass, which, in the gray lightof daybreak, were rapidly changing to a pearly mist, the leaders thendispersed upon their several missions.

  The droning of subdued conversation, the clanking of swords and steelgear, the twanging of bow-strings undergoing preliminary trial, and thetinkling of pewter flagons discharging their liquid cheer into parchedthroats could be heard over all the field. Each armed host was alertand ready, awaiting with tense drawn nerves the flaming signal in theeastern sky.

  From afar off a cock crowed a cheery welcome to approaching day.

  "I would the blessed light would discover me an eye-hole across thebrook," one of the burly archers was saying. "I'd flick me a bolt intoits yawning center for God and a better king."

  "Yea--truly. And any king, my friend, would be a better king," anotheranswered. "I would I could but fasten my aim upon the elfish-markedmonster himself. 'Twould be a mark worth finding, i' faith."

  "My lord of Oxford is a brave and clever captain, lad. Were it notfor these leather guards our bow-strings would have been no whit moreuseful than frayed rope's ends with this cursed damp. As 'tis, they'refit to send a quiverful of white-hot billets into as many traitorousgizzards. I, too, would that one of them might make its home withinthe green midric of Richard himself."

  "Hast heard the latest from the hunchback's camp?" another whispered.

  "Nay. What is 't?"

  "'Tis said by the outposts along the slough that there were heard wildshriekings in King Richard's tent during the night."

  "Ah! the foul fiends bidding him to their black abode. Mark you, Jock,once he gets there he'll have the whole dismal brood hanged, drawn, andquartered before the year's end."

  "'Twould be his first gracious deed then, I give thee warrant."

  From an opposite point of the compass a second cock crowed; and thenanother and another. The day at last was dawning; the mist lifting,dispersing. Slowly it thinned away, as though one after another of amyriad of gauzy curtains was being raised from between the opposingarmies.

  When eyes could penetrate from line to line hostilities began. Apallid, ghost-like form, grotesquely exaggerated, would emerge fromthe fog. Then would be heard a sharp cry, a groan, a horrible rattlingin an expiring throat, a flinging aloft of a pair of arms, and asinking of the spectral figure into the black mire above which itseemed to have been floating.

  These emerging shadows multiplied from one into a score; from a scoreinto a hundred; from a hundred into a thousand. There was no crashof sudden onset and meeting. Rather there was that which resembled agentle crescendo of death. A blending together of two armed forces withthe melting of the fog. It was as though a peaceful entity had gentlyrisen to yield place to a warlike one.

  By now, the din and crash were become incessant. Wading hip deep in thereddening waters of the brook and in the crimsoning black mire of themorass, the men of the opposed armies met and battled, hand to hand.

  From the wood belched flashes of fire. Heavy smoke clouds rolled awayamong the leaves. The thunder of primitive artillery reverberatedacross the meadow, mingling its sound of a new kind of warfare withthat of the decadent.

  Wherever a crescendo occurs, a diminuendo is commonly indicated.The augmenting of Richmond's desperately battling forces by those ofStanley marked the climax of the crescendo. The downfall of Richardthe Third before the sturdy lance of Richmond, the beginning of thediminuendo; the fitting finale to the whole.

  Wild of eye, disheveled, his charger struck away from beneath him, KingRichard faced his mortal foe. Dauntless to the last gasping breath, hemade one frenzied, vain effort to rally his scattering army.

  "A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" he shrieked aloud; andthen, dying, pitched forward into the dust.

  The Battle of Bosworth Field was with the history of things past.

  "His kingdom for a horse, quotha!" shouted Stanley. "His kingdom?Bah! What is his kingdom now, honest gentles?" he added, leaping fromhis blood-slavered stallion and contemptuously spurning with hissteel-booted foot the pitiful remains of the dead monarch. "What ishis kingdom now?" Sir William repeated, looking inquiringly about him."Why, somewhat above three cubits of unwashed dirt. A full cubit less,by the rood, than any man of us here shall inherit."

  "Body o' God! an he had him a barb now, my lord of Stanley, whither,thinkest thou, would he be riding?" shouted someone out of the circleof mailed warriors that was exultingly closing in around the limp,misshapen figure huddled upon the ground.

  "Whither else but to the foul fiend!" returned Stanley, smiling grimlyup into the speaker's face. "'Tis an easy riddle thou hast set me,a'Beckitt. But he'll need him no barb to fleet him his black soul intothe burning lake, I'm thinking."

  "An Crookback sink not a treacherous dagger within the back of oldCharon before he's ferried him across the Styx, I am wide of my guess,"interrupted a third.

  "Or strike off and pole the three heads of Cerberus when he does getover," suggested another.

  "Look you yonder at the redoubtable Cheyney," again spoke Stanley,pointing toward a gigantic body, sprawled limply, face downward,over the top of a tangled clump of copsewood. "Him, good gentles, Isaw totter and go down before this lump of bent clay like unto alightning-riven oak. I' faith, much doth it marvel me at the furiousstrength that kept its abode within this crooked carcase."

  Upon an ebon-black stallion, and apart from the men hovering,vulturelike, above Richard's body, sat the Earl of Richmond, thefortunate young leader beneath whose lance the tyrant king had fallen.By reason of a natural eminence of heaped earth and stone he was raisedwell above the field, the whole of which he could command by a simpleturning of his head to right and left. Behind him the deep shadows ofSutton Ambien Wood served picturesquely to emphasize the flash andglitter of the plated and richly inlaid armor that girded him from headto toe.

  It was then but a brief fortnight and a day since the ship in whichhe had embarked at Bretagne had brought him careening through BristolChannel to a safe landing upon England's coast at Milford Haven. Inthat short time he had succeeded in setting a period to the devastatingWars of the Roses, and in exchanging his earl's coronet for that whichfortune subsequently decided should be a crown.

  The lifeless body stretched before him in the hollow marked the pitifulend of nearly a century of deadly, internecine strife. Intently hewatched them denuding the stiffening corpse of its costly armor andkingly vestments.

  During these moments that England was without a legal monarch, HenryTudor, Earl of Richmond, remained motionless as a statue upon his blacksteed, solitary, unheralded, forgotten.

  "Body o' God, men! we'll give him a horse," he heard them wildlyshouting; and then impassively regarded them while they lashed thebent, and now naked body upon the broad back of a lively hackney. Itwas the final and brutal expression of a righteous indignation.

  From every part of the field there rang in Henry's ears loud criesof exultation over the dead and vanquished Richard, which mergedpresently into a riotous pandemonium of inarticulate sound when thehorse, bearing its gruesome burden, was paraded before the men in thedirection of Market Bosworth Road.

  "_Le roi est mort,--vive le roi!_" the clear voice of Henry's squiremade
itself manifest above the din.

  Something the faintest of smiles broke upon the impassivity of theEarl's countenance as he turned his head in the direction whence thiscry had come. Sir Richard, bearing a jeweled crown outstretched in hishands, was just leaping above the clump of copse-wood whereupon thebody of Sir John Cheyney was lying.

  Lord Stanley, who, by this time, had resumed seat upon his horse,quickly stationed himself between the approaching young knight and theEarl of Richmond. Then, taking the crown that had encircled Richard'shelmet throughout the battle, he set it solemnly upon that of Henry.

  Whereupon--"The King is dead, long live the King!" the cry rippledabroad over the sanguinary field of Bosworth; and the blazing Augustsun beat down upon a circle of upraised, flashing swords, unsheathed inpromise of fealty to the new monarch.