The queen, having seated herself at the head of the table, now stood abruptly with a rustle of silk skirts. ‘Speak against me, and you speak treason, my lord,’ she said calmly. ‘Speak against the Marquess of Dorset, and you insult the new king’s stepbrother. Will you risk the new king’s displeasure before he is even crowned, sir?’
‘A threat I’ll long remember, my lady,’ Hastings said. ‘And not all power is yet Woodville power. I still hold power enough to defend myself. And the Duke of Gloucester is not yet arrived.’
Dorset laughed, leaned back in his chair and stretched his long golden legs. ‘Gloucester? His power lies only in the north. In the rest of England, we are so important that even without the king’s uncle we can make and enforce these decisions.’
‘I will reluctantly agree a royal entourage of only two thousand men,’ smiled the queen, once more seating herself. ‘I trust that will suffice. So small a force can surely attract no objections?’ She looked around. The gentlemen of the council looked down and nodded obediently. ‘Very well, then,’ her highness continued, ‘let us agree the date of the coronation. The fourth day of May, in two weeks’ time, has been suggested. Shall we agree?’
‘What of the Duke of Gloucester?’ Hastings again insisted. ‘He is named Lord Protector and Defender of the realm in his late highness’s testament. His grace should therefore be present before any such agreement is made. He must first be consulted.’
‘Gloucester again?’ Dorset stared at each furrowed face around the council table. ‘The Lord Protector shall have a voice but so must the king’s maternal family. Let us have no more argument. Once our new sovereign is crowned, he may speak for himself and decide his own advisors.’
Hastings narrowed his eyes. ‘There are many of you here who fear to antagonise our new sovereign’s family. But I say the king is yet twelve years old and needs the guidance of the Lord Protector, a man long experienced in politics, who was chosen by the late king himself. I took it upon myself to inform Richard of Gloucester of the king his brother’s death. And I shall inform him further, of everything that now occurs in the council chambers. Decide as you wish, but when the duke arrives, I warn you, this Woodville monopoly will shatter.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
They did not know how long it had been. Ellen had scratched marks on the wall panelling above her mattress, but no one was sure when each day began or ended. Interminable and uncountable time dragged slowly, and the guards who brought them beer and bread refused to answer questions. Most of the guards refused to speak at all.
‘Five days,’ Felicia said. ‘Though I am hungry enough for ten.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘Three, no more.’
‘I reckon eight,’ insisted Casper. ‘Nigh ready to scream, I is. Bin expecting Mister Cobham for a bloody age.’
‘I done scratched ten scratches, so’s it’s ten days,’ said Ellen.
‘You can’t even count,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Three – four – it doesn’t matter how many,’ sighed Tyballis. ‘Drew isn’t back, the king is dead, we are being slowly starved and for all we know, war may already be raging in the streets outside. We have to do something.’
‘Indeed, we must find a way or I cannot answer for the consequences,’ said Felicia, holding her nose. ‘This stench – the foul vapours! Is this a dungeon, or a chamber in a respectable house? Then beat a hole in the wall to clear this filth, or Gyles’ death will be on your consciences.’
Tyballis had been sitting beside Ellen. With Ellen’s small bare legs across her lap, she was darning the child’s skirts where the dark green worsted, once part of her own gown, had badly torn. She looked up suddenly, pricking her thumb with the darning needle. ‘That’s it,’ she said, immediately excited, and stood up in a rush. ‘Knock a hole in the wall. Perhaps we really could.’
‘Mistress Spiers,’ said Casper with faint contempt, ‘weren’t talking serious. But since it’s her brats what does most of the shitting, maybe she’d like to start kicking the wall down herself. I reckon I’ll just sit and snigger.’
‘While our friendly guards comes a running to see what all the bastard noise is about,’ Elizabeth said, tossing her curls.
‘No, no.’ Tyballis, now standing, was staring down at them all. ‘We don’t bang a hole through. We cut one. I really believe we might be able to do it.’
‘How long we bin here? And you only just thought of it?’
‘But it didn’t occur to me,’ explained Tyballis. ‘And it still might not work. You see, this was never built as a proper room. Hasn’t anyone noticed how flimsy those walls are, and how they rattle and shake every time a door is slammed outside?’
‘Whole house shakes,’ said Ralph gloomily. ‘Wait long enough, the bloody lot will tumble.’
‘It is rather ramshackle,’ sighed Tyballis. ‘But this chamber is the worst. There was a minstrel’s gallery once. You can tell by how it’s been enclosed and divided. Drew uses the next little room as a sort of study and between that room and this, the division is hardly a wall at all, just planks. An axe would be best but we have none. With the two knives I found, we could try and cut through.’
‘And then what?’ asked Felicia, breathless.
‘Into the next chamber – and escape.’ Tyballis kept her voice low. ‘Drew’s study leads directly down to his bedchamber with no intervening door, and from there his garderobe has access to the gardens.’
‘Through the cesspit?’
‘There’s a back corridor,’ Tyballis said. ‘It goes to the kitchens and out to the pantries and sheds. Haven’t any of you looked around there?’
‘We have always respected Mister Cobham’s private quarters,’ said Felicia with dignity. ‘But now – well, I do think – Jon, my dear? Do you agree?’
Jon Spiers was curled small on a mattress in the furthest shadows, peacefully asleep, one of his sons in his arms. Ralph spoke in his place. ‘No matter who else agrees, I say we start right now. Which wall is it? I got one of the knives. Who’s got the other?’ Casper waved his steel. ‘Then get your back to this wall,’ Ralph said, ‘and hold it steady. I’ll get the knife point in, and work it.’
One knife point broke, but pushing and twisting for nearly an hour, they finally cracked the veneer and forced through to air. A tiny pulse of light glimmered beyond. ‘That’s it, saints be. A beautiful buggering hole, it is,’ chuckled Casper. ‘Well, my lovelies, we’s on our way.’
‘A fiddlin’ pinprick, and it’s taken an age. Now to cut a hole big enough to climb through?’ Elizabeth sighed. ‘I swear it’ll take a bloody week.’
‘Let’s to it, then,’ Casper said.
Earl Rivers, magnificent in black velvet, rode out from Ludlow Castle on a bright sunny morning, his elegant young nephew riding at his side. Behind him marched two thousand men, called to prove their duty to their monarch. It was the twenty-fourth day of April. Although his late highness was already two weeks gone, no rush had been made to lead the new king to his people. There had been the required church services, and the son given some peace in which to mourn his father. There were also other considerations. Rivers would not leave too much time between his charge arriving in London and the programmed coronation. The least possible opportunity should be left for the Lord Protector to take the reins, or to manoeuvre barriers between the king’s Woodville family and the power they intended to claim. The coronation would take place on the fourth day of May. Earl Rivers planned the uncrowned sovereign’s arrival in London for two days before. There would be no allowance made for the Woodvilles to be thwarted in the final hours.