Within the Hollow Crown by Margaret Campbell Barnes Page B

ride anywhere. Why can't Richard go by barge? Down the river to Rotherhithe or somewhere. He can summon the leaders to the bank and hear what they have to say from midstream. Then there will be no danger of hostages or trickery."
       Old soldiers like Warwick and Salisbury were half ashamed of themselves for not thinking of so simple a solution. This son of Gaunt's was a likely looking lad, mature for his age and quick to seize an advantage. And—much as they hated to admit it—new situations called for adaptable young minds.
       "An excellent idea, Harry!" approved Richard, and sent for his bargemaster before the others could think up some argument against it. "We'll go this afternoon."
       John Holland, not to be outdone, sprang up with such clumsy haste that he upset his stool with a bang. "Why not now—this morning?" he demanded pugnaciously.
       Richard and Henry were bending over a map of the Thames valley which Standish had had the forethought to bring along and which he had just unrolled across the table before them. For once these two grandsons of Edward the Third were in absorbed accord, fair head and dark almost touching. "Because this morning, my dear John," explained Richard without even looking up, "my watermen would have to pull back up-river against the tide. Whereas this afternoon the tide will be on the turn and we can come back quickly—if we should need to."

Chapter Eight

    Richard had told Ralph Standish to wake him early on Corpus Christi day so that he might attend Mass. But he had slept badly and lay still in his bed for a while, thinking over all the disturbing events of the previous day. After dinner they had gone down the river in the state barge as Henry had suggested. The meadows at Rotherhithe, usually so lush and green, had been black with insurgents, and the royal party had stayed off shore for a little while talking with their leaders. A very little while it seemed, looking back upon those confused and nervous moments. And then they had taken advantage of the turning tide, just as he himself had shocked John Holland by suggesting, to row back a great deal quicker than they had come. Because they were afraid. They—the supposed cream of English nobility—afraid of that ill-fed, ill-armed rabble on the bank.
       Richard Plantagenet groaned with shame at the thought of it, turning closer into the blessed privacy of his tapestry bed hangings.
       Even now he could scarcely believe that they had behaved so cravenly, and was prey to a tantalizing conviction that if only they might go again they would do better. What had happened to all the inherent dominance of the ruling classes—to all their warlike training and lessons in high chivalry? What must these serfs and labourers, whom they had ordered about all their lives, have thought of them? And—above all—how could they themselves go on respecting each other? Once back in the Tower they had avoided each other's eyes. But the fact remained that not even the bravest of them, tried on many a battlefield, had had any idea that a mob, once free from their crushing heel and aware of its own power, could look—and sound—so alarming.
       Richard's waking senses became aware of sounds unusual to the hour. Surely the same sounds as at Rotherhithe—that murmuring of innumerable voices and shuffling of innumerable ill-shod feet? But that was impossible, with the width of the Thames between. It must be some horrid trick of memory born of a sleepless night. He knew that he would be late for Mass, yet burrowed a rumpled bronze head deeper into the softness of the pillows. But it was all of no avail. The mob really was howlin g beneath his windows. He sat up starkly and called for Standish to pull back the tapestry curtains.
       "What is it, Ralph?" he asked, and knew the answer before his squire spoke.
       Standish was white beneath his healthy summer tan, but he began laying out his master's shirt and hose with steady,