Виктория Холт - The Vow on the Heron

The coronation had not been as splendid as he would have liked. The exchequer was very low and he was beginning to feel very uneasy. His mother and Mortimer were taking too much of money and treasure which was needed for other things. He must examine these matters. He was concerned about his mother, though, and hated to upset her and she could be so easily upset nowadays. Any word of criticism however faint directed at Mortimer and she was ready to fly into one of those moods when she talked incessantly and sometimes not very coherently, and that worried him.

He was at Woodstock to forget such matters. He and Philippa could walk together and he could cosset her and they could talk of the baby which was due in June.

Messengers came from Winchester. There were alarming reports of treason, and his uncle the Earl of Kent was involved.

Oh not seriously, he thought. Uncle Edmund could never be really serious. He thought he was, of course, but he could be so enthusiastic about some plan and a few words could alter the course of his excitement completely. He did not take Uncle Edmund entirely seriously.

He would not go to Winchester. He was not going to leave Philippa. She was very young but then she was strong and so far she had had an easy pregnancy. He wanted to stay here and talk of the coming child for nothing could seem of any importance beside that.

The days were growing warm. Philippa was growing larger. Each day brought the arrival of that blessed infant nearer. Who could think about what was happening at Winchester?

* * *

The Earl of Kent was shown the letter he had written to the dead King. Was it in his handwriting? It was, he answered. There was no point in denying it. He had believed the dead King was alive and indeed had been shown a man in Corfe Castle who greatly resembled him.

‘Did he tell you he was the dead King?’ he was asked. ‘I had no speech with him,’ replied the Earl.

‘Yet you believed he was the dead King and you wrote this letter to him. Do you know that this letter is treason. Do you know that your offers of service were to a man not our King whom you are proposing to set up against our true King ... do you realize, my lord Earl, that this is treason?’

He knew enough to recognize that it was.

He also knew the penalty for treason.

Isabella and Mortimer talked of it when they were alone. ‘You cannot sentence him to death, Mortimer,’ said Isabella. ‘He is the King’s uncle.’

‘I can and I will,’ cried Mortimer. ‘He has written this letter. He has condemned himself to death. He should not complain if the sentence is carried out.’

‘You are forgetting he is royal.’

‘Royal or not he goes to the scaffold. There is none who thinks himself so high that he cannot be brought low.’

‘The King must be told.’

‘My love, do you want to ruin our plan? You know what Edward would do. He would pardon his dear kinsman.’ ‘What then, Mortimer?’

‘Execution,’ replied Mortimer. ‘Immediate execution.’

* * *

They had sentenced him to death and the sentence was to be carried out without delay. They had taken him into the courtroom presided over by the coroner of the royal household, Robert Howel, and he had been clad only in his shirt with a rope about his neck.

He pleaded for mercy. He wished to see the King, he said.

His accusers regarded him coldly. It was too late to think of repentance, they told him. He was a traitor to the King; he had committed treason; he had tried to arouse others to share his disloyalty; he had planned to raise an army against the King. What did it matter if he were closely related to the King? He was a traitor and deserved his punishment the more for being royal.

On Mortimer’s orders he was taken through Winchester to a spot outside the walls. There the axe was awaiting him.

It was early morning for Mortimer had wished the deed to be done before the town was astir. He guessed that the execution of such a well-known man would attract crowds and there might be some to disagree with the verdict.

Half an hour passed and the headsman had not arrived. A messenger came from him. He had run away because he was afraid to do it, he had said, for the Earl of Kent was royal; he would not behead such a person. Who knew he might be blamed for it later.

Mortimer who was there in person to witness his enemy’s end was furious.

‘The knave! ‘ he cried. ‘Send for another. Anyone. But let there be no delay. The headsman had an assistant had he not?’

He had, was the answer, but hearing what his superior had done he himself had acted similarly. He also had decided that he would not take responsibility for beheading a member of the royal family.

Mortimer was fuming with rage. It was as though they were defying him, as though they said: ‘Edward the King would not wish this deed to be done.’ Of course he would not. That was why it had to be done with all speed.

‘Find me a headsman,’ cried Mortimer; and although one was sought none could be found. His knights and squires cast down their eyes lest he should command them to do the deed. He could not do that, for if he did it could be said that one of his men had murdered the Earl of Kent. It must be done by a man whose business was with prisons.

Noon had come and the Earl still lived. He was praying to God, telling himself that this was divine intervention. He was going to be saved because God would allow no one to behead him.

The afternoon wore on and still no one could be found to do the job. Then Mortimer had an idea. ‘Go to the prison,’ he said. ‘Find a man who is condemned to die. Promise him freedom if he will act as headsman to the Earl of Kent.’

That was the end of the quest.

Life was a reward too great to be missed.

At five o’clock on that March day Edmund Earl of Kent laid his head on a block and that head was severed from his body.

* * *

The King was at Woodstock when he heard the news.

He could not believe it. His own uncle. To have been executed without a word to him!

A traitor they said. He was plotting to raise an army against his King.

* * *

It was the end of March and the child was due in June. Edward must leave Philippa and ride to Winchester to hear for himself what had really happened.

She did not want him to go, of course, nor did he wish to. She wanted to come with him, but he would not allow that. True the winter was over but the roads were rough. How would she travel? Carried in a litter. That would not be good for the child.

‘Must you go?’ she asked.

‘He was my uncle,’ he answered.

‘And a traitor to you.’

‘Somehow I cannot believe that of my uncle.’

‘You always thought he was not very clever.’

‘Not very clever but he would not rise against me.’

‘Something troubles you deeply,’ she said.

‘My love, my uncle has been beheaded, accused of treason against me. In truth I am troubled.’

‘There is something more,’ she said.

He stroked her hair back from her face. ‘I am troubled that I must leave you,’ he said. ‘Never fear, I shall be back soon. I shall order that I am to be kept informed of your health every day.’

So he rode to Winchester, and there he found his mother and Mortimer.

‘Fair son,’ cried Isabella, ‘how good it is to see you here.’

‘I am not happy with my mission,’ he answered grimly. ‘I come to hear about my uncle Kent.’

Mortimer was there, smiling familiarly. One would have thought Mortimer the King and he, Edward, the subject.

‘My lord, ever zealous in your service we could not allow one to live who was trying to raise an army against you.’ ‘I do not believe that to be true.’

‘There was evidence. He admitted it. He had trumped up some story about a man at Corfe whom he believed to be your father.’

Edward was silent. He looked at this man and he thought: What happened to my father? How did he die?

His mother was watching him closely.

‘Mortimer has been a good servant to you, Edward.’

‘And to himself, my lady,’ Edward replied; and his words sent shivers of alarm through Isabella’s heart. She thought: He is growing up. He is growing up too fast.

‘My dear son, your grandfather always dealt speedily with traitors so I heard. It is never good to let them live to ferment trouble.’

‘My uncle was a fool but not a knave.’

‘The actions of fools and knaves can sometimes run on similar lines,’ said Isabella. ‘Oh, Edward, I know this is a shock to you, but it was necessary. Believe me. Believe me.’

She looked so wild that he had to soothe her. ‘I know you have my good at heart,’ he assured her.

‘Have I not always loved you? Were you not everything to me? When you were a baby you made all that I had suffered worth while.’

‘I know. I know. I do not complain of you.’

It was pointed but Mortimer shrugged it aside.

‘Only a boy,’ he said afterwards to Isabella. ‘The Scottish campaign taught him that and it is something he will never forget.’

‘What if he discovers that you set the trap for Kent? That you arranged for his downfall?’

‘How could he? Has he discovered how his father died?’ ‘Not yet,’ said Isabella.

‘Oh, my love, what has come over you? You are so fearful these days.’

‘I have a premonition of evil. Oh Mortimer, we should never have killed Edmund of Kent.’

‘Nonsense. It has shown people that they should take care before they trifle with me.’

He drew himself to his full height. The complacent smile was always on his lips nowadays. What was wrong with the execution of Kent? Mortimer had taken charge of much of his possessions and grown the richer for it. All over the country people would be marvelling at the might of Mortimer.

‘Take care,’ they would say. ‘Never offend the Earl of March.’

IT was ten o’clock on the morning of June the fifteenth and expectancy hung over Woodstock Palace.

Philippa was calm; her women about her declared that that was extraordinary in one so young expecting her first child. She was just seventeen years old.

‘If the child is a boy,’ she had told Lady Katherine Haryngton, ‘my happiness will be complete.’

‘It is never wise to think too much about the sex of the child, my lady,’ was the reply.

‘Oh do not think I should not love a girl. I should. And it is not for myself that I want a boy, but for Edward. Imagine his joy if I could bring forth a son. Everything has been perfect so far, Katherine. I would just like it all to be crowned with a boy ... a perfect boy ... a boy who looks exactly like Edward.’

‘We will pray for that, my lady.’

‘Dear Edward. He longs to be with me now and will be I know ere long. In a way I am glad that he is not here, I may suffer and that would make him unhappy. No, I want him to arrive in time to see his boy ... and not before.’

‘My lady, you make great demands on fate.’

They were good friends, she and Katherine. Katherine was the wife of Sir John Haryngton of Farleton in Lancashire, herself a wife and mother and very well able to look after Philippa.

They discussed children and the best way to bring them up during those waiting days; and then came the fifteenth, that day which Philippa was to think of in later years as one of the happiest of her life for during the morning she gave birth to a child—a boy, who was perfect in every way and even at his birth showed himself to have the long limbs of the Plantagenets and that lusty air which Katherine Haryngton declared was obvious from the first moment she saw him.

Exhausted but triumphant Philippa held him in her arms—this wonder child, this fruit of her love for Edward.

‘God has favoured me,’ she said. ‘Never was a woman more blessed. The news must be taken to Edward without delay.’

‘I will send your valet, Thomas Priour, to him at once,’ said Katherine.

‘I would he were here. I would I could see his face.’ ‘He will be here. You will see his face.’

‘I long to show him our boy.’

She did not have to wait. Edward came immediately. He had given the delighted Thomas Priour a reward of forty marks a year for bringing him the good news.

Now he strode into his wife’s chamber, knelt by the bed and kissed her hand. There were tears on her cheeks.