Rebellion (10 page)

And Edward had been more than generous to
him – embarrassingly so; steadily promoting him, giving him extra responsibilities such
as the charge of the garrison at Newcastle, restoring to him all his former estates and
titles, releasing his brother from the Tower and his mother from her custody also. He
kept the duke with him at all times; Henry Beaufort was more frequently in the king's
company than even his great friend Lord Hastings; and certainly more frequently than
Warwick, from whom the king seemed to wish to preserve a certain distance. He consulted
him first in matters of importance and laughed loudly at any joke he made.

Such obvious preference could only provoke
hostility, of course. Whenever the duke entered a room he could feel the temperature
change; people stopped talking as he approached. He'd even wondered, more than once,
whether this elaborate show of affection and esteem was part of some plot of the king's
to have him killed by indirect means. He took care not to wander along the palace
corridors alone.

But the king remained avuncular, walking
with his arm round the duke. He had lost one brother, he said, who had been killed along
with his father at the Battle of Wakefield; but now he had gained another. The duke felt
himself being pressed uncomfortably into this role of younger brother (he was, after
all, some six years older than the king), while all around him people muttered that the
king had gone mad, or was bewitched. Had he forgotten the role Henry Beaufort's family
had played in those deaths?

Yet gradually, and this was the most
disconcerting part, the duke began to suspect there was something more to this show of
affection than display. The king's face lit up when he saw him and he would gesture to
the duke to sit at his side. He would tease him about his guardedness (and who would not
be guarded in this situation?), saying that he would have the duke's beard shaved
off so that he could tell whether or not he was smiling. Then there
were all the private asides. When one of his councillors left the room, the king glanced
at the duke and said, ‘He has gone to get some grease, so that he might slip himself
more perfectly into my arse.'

And of one of the women he was bedding, ‘She
spends all her time on her knees, either praying or fucking – I confess I find it hard
to tell the difference.'

It was as though, with these comments, he
was drawing the duke into some private conspiracy.

And reluctantly the duke had started to like
the king. Not so much for his showmanship as for the sense that there was another man
beneath the display; someone at once tougher, shrewder and more sensitive. He was, in
effect, a good king – he fulfilled the role he had taken on himself admirably. He looked
the part, but more than that, he acted in it capably and well. He was undefeated in
battle yet not hungry for war; he strove, in fact, to repair the damage done by warfare.
And he was no fool. He debated with the best lawyers, took a leading role in the
decisions of his council, assiduously pursued foreign relations and trade, and was fond
of literature and music, though he admitted that in his younger days (he was still only
twenty-one) he had not been a great scholar. But he could foresee a time, he said, when
the rule of this country would depend on the scholar not the fighter.

There was no question in the duke's mind
that he was better for the country than King Henry.

There was another side to him, of course. He
ate and drank too much, and, as if proving that as king he should have the most
prodigious appetite, slept with a different woman each night, sometimes two.

In this also he was generous, sometimes
proffering them to Henry Beaufort to try them first, or certainly afterwards – he might
have any of the king's women that he pleased.

It did not please the duke to have the
king's women.

‘But I heard that you have
had the Queen of Scotland – and Warwick at one time proposed that I should marry
her.'

The duke said nothing to this, lowering his
gaze to his plate.

‘What do you think? Have I missed something
there? Was she worth bedding?'

The duke smiled and raised his hands in a
gesture of helplessness.

‘Was she so unmemorable? Perhaps I was lucky
to escape. Now the other one – our former queen – I can imagine she would be worth
staining my sheets for.'

The duke could not help it; his face
darkened.

‘But I hear you have tried her as well – is
she as passionate as she seems?'

The duke muttered something inaudible.

‘It would not be surprising – she can't get
much satisfaction from her marriage bed.' He made a gesture indicating limp
impotence.

The duke sat back in his chair, aware that
the colour had risen in his face in that annoying way it had. ‘Your majesty's expertise
exceeds mine in this as in all matters,' he said levelly.

And the king laughed loudly and said he
would be sure to broaden the duke's experience while he was at court.

That was the way he was when drinking. A
darker strain appeared in his humour and something other than his usual self looked out
from his eyes. A low cunning; wary, like a trapped animal. But the duke did not feel as
much aversion to this as he might have expected, though so many of the thrusts were
directed against him. It was something he recognized and understood. So little of the
true self could be displayed at court. Who did not feel that internal fracturing – the
difference between thought and word, inner emotion and outward expression? And who would
feel it more than the king?

If anything, it was what he liked about the
king, that there were moments when the mask slipped, though he preferred it
when the hostility was not directed against himself. But even then he
felt he could trust it, more than he trusted the displays of affection, which only
increased throughout the summer. It was as if there was nothing the king would not do to
demonstrate his love.

But even he was surprised when the king
invited him to sleep in his bed.

It was an old custom, practised by all the
Plantagenet kings; a demonstration of trust in their closest companions – for when was
the king more vulnerable than in sleep? Guards slept outside the chamber and no one
could slip past, but the person invited into the king's bed might strangle or suffocate
him in the night.

The king was honouring him with this
ultimate demonstration of trust. How could he refuse?

He tried, of course, saying that he snored
too loudly and would keep the king awake, but the king said only that he was sure he
snored enough for both of them.

Then the duke said that he hoped there would
be no other party in the bed – he would not sleep if the king was practising Cupid's
sport.

The king laughed loudly and said if that was
the case then he hoped the duke would join in and they would see finally who was the
better man.

So there was nothing for it but to accept
graciously.

That night they bathed together in adjoining
tubs. The king's chamberlain, Hastings, heated the water and tested it. The bed was made
up according to an elaborate ritual involving two squires, two grooms, a yeoman and a
gentleman usher. They tested it at each stage, as the under sheets were spread on it,
then the upper sheets of bleached linen, the bolster and then an ermine counterpane. The
bed was heated with a warm pan and holy water was sprinkled on it. The king took a shit
and his arse was wiped by his chamberlain. He glanced ironically at the duke while this
was going on, as if to say,
Yes, this is what kings do.

Henry Beaufort considered
putting his shirt back on, but it seemed that the king would go naked. He stood, massive
and pink from the steam, issuing orders to those testing his bed, emphatic in his
nakedness. His chest was broad and fleshy, only his legs were covered in tawny hair, and
his member was mercifully limp; though at one point he took hold of it and shook it at
one of his attendants.

All this time Henry Beaufort stood
uncertainly, holding his shirt in front of him in partial concealment. He was conscious
of his considerably smaller, leaner frame, but the king did not look at him. He saw to
it that there was drink for the night and that the scented herbs were swept away; he
said he would put out the last candle himself. Then he dismissed all his attendants and
got into the bed.

The door of the room closed.

‘Are you going to sleep standing up?' he
enquired.

Henry Beaufort dropped his shirt and climbed
carefully, gingerly, between the sheets. He lay on his back, at a distance of about four
inches from the king. The king sat up and pushed the curtains around the bed back
fully.

‘That's better,' he said. ‘As a boy I could
never sleep if I felt closed in.'

Then he settled back down on his side,
facing the duke, and for a moment the duke feared that he might touch him.

‘Are you comfortable?' the king said, and
the duke replied that he was perfectly comfortable.

He had never been less comfortable in his
life.

‘I imagine that you never thought you would
be here, in my bed.'

The duke said that was certainly true. Then
the king said, ‘I suppose you never slept with your former king?' and the duke tensed in
case he was about to make some detrimental comment about the queen. But he only made an
amused sound, like a kind of grunt, and turned on to his back. Then he said, ‘We could
have been friends, you and I.'

The duke said that he hoped
they were friends.

‘I mean, from our earlier days. We could
have been like brothers. I feel as close to you as if you were my brother. Closer,
even.'

The duke said nothing.

‘Shall I tell you something?' the king said.
‘A secret?'

The duke was instantly alert.

‘Something that no one else knows – not even
Hastings or the Earl of Warwick.'

The duke, sensing that he was expected to
reply, said that he thought the Earl of Warwick knew everything.

‘That is a rumour put about by Warwick,'
said the king. ‘No one knows this. I have told no one. Apart from you.'

The duke shifted in the king's bed until
even in the darkness he could see the king's eyes glittering at him.

‘There is a lady.'

‘Ah.'

‘No,' said the king, starting to laugh.
‘This one is different. I mean, she is someone that I could love.'

The duke made a surprised sound.

‘I think I love her. At least, I can't stop
thinking about her.'

The duke thought of all the women that the
king had slept with. ‘How is she different?'

‘She will not sleep with me.'

‘That is different.'

‘She says that while she is not good enough
to marry me, she is too good to be my whore.'

‘She wants to
marry
you?'

‘There are difficulties.'

‘Is she already married?'

‘No. Not now.'

‘Not now?'

‘She was married. To Lord Grey of
Groby.'

Even in the darkness the king could sense
the duke's surprise.

‘Yes – her father and her husband and her
brother all fought
against me. Just like you. And I have forgiven them
all. Do you think me very foolish?'

‘No,' said the duke, though in fact he
wondered, then said, ‘The mind can offer no wisdom to the heart.'

‘No,' said the king and there was a silence
of a certain quality, infused with pain. The duke registered with some surprise the fact
that the king seemed to be serious.

‘But you cannot marry her,' he said, and
there was a further silence.

For once the duke forgot that he and the
king had been on different sides. ‘It would be a mistake,' he said, groping for the
words to convince the king. ‘She is a widow and not – not of a high enough rank. You –
your majesty – will be expected to marry some foreign princess.'

‘His majesty is rather tired of doing what
is expected of him.'

‘But I understood that the Earl of Warwick
was already making plans to that effect?'

‘The Earl of Warwick,' said the king, ‘is
always making plans.'

The duke was silently amazed that the king
could even contemplate such a step. It would divide the whole nation, turn the people
against him. Not to mention the lords. But all he said was, ‘You say she will not sleep
with you?'

‘You think that will make a difference?'

‘It might.'

Silence. Then the king said, ‘I do not know
that it will make a difference.'

The duke thought of saying that between the
sheets all women were the same, but restrained himself, remembering the woman who for
him was different. The king gave a small sigh. ‘Well,' he said, ‘we shall see.' And he
yawned and turned over, releasing a prodigious fart as he did so, and mumbled that he
was sorry and something about the pork. The duke had also eaten the pork, of course, but
he did not suppose that he would be able to fart in the king's bed at any point during
the night. He lay awake as the king
began to demonstrate his earlier
point, about his capacity to snore.

Since his defection, when he had given away
vital information about his former king and queen, and all their plans, the duke had
often lain awake, seeing with closed eyes the ghosts of his father, his uncles and all
his ancestors, who had been such stalwart supporters of the House of Lancaster, glaring
at him accusingly. Also he could see the queen's face, gazing at him with that startling
directness, those fierce eyes, that soft mouth. At such moments the pain of what she'd
said to him, that she could not or would not ever look at him
that
way, burned
in him afresh, along with the shame of his desertion, so that he would suddenly weep.
Now, however, these memories were overlaid with thoughts of an entirely different
nature. For if the new king married inappropriately it would damage him more effectively
than any war. It would be the first political disaster of his reign. Many things would
depend on the lady that he loved, on what her true motives were, though the duke could
not help but fear the worst. If she wanted him to leave her alone she had only to sleep
with him. But it seemed apparent to the duke that she was playing a different game.