Free Within the Hollow Crown by Margaret Campbell Barnes Page A

habit of day-dreaming, and the sight of a gaily painted charette in the midst of them suddenly drove all other thoughts from his mind. His mother was coming home. The drawbridge was going down over the moat, the sentries at the Byward Tower were springing to attention. Peasants and problems forgotten, Richard Plantagenet dived down the dark spiral of the stairs, taking the worn steps at dangerous speed. By racing along a gallery he arrived in the courtyard just in time, no dignified king but an eager boy with shining eyes and wind-swept hair.
       He had outstripped his half-brother, who was coming more soberly from the hall. Grooms and pages he waved aside and, swinging himself onto the high steps of the charette long before the lumbering vehicle had come to a standstill, he thrust his head through the unglazed window. Chattering women filled the barrelroofed interior with the flutterings of an agitated dovecot. But his mother was there, illuminating the dim interior with the russet flame of her hair and the unfailing radiance of her smile.
       "I've been so worried about you, precious!" he cried, kissing the soft hands which were the only part of her he could reach.
       Joan of Kent made quite a to-do fussing herself and her bunchedup skirts and flowing sleeves through the narrow wooden doors, so that he had to stand aside and let her tall firstborn, Thomas, lift her down. Between tears and laughter, she embraced them both. But there was mud on the satin of her gown and her high, veiled headdress lay crushed and torn in the hands of her youngest lady, who skipped out after her.
       "It was those ruffians on Blackheath," she tried to explain, as Gloucester and Bolingbroke and her small grandson crowded round to welcome her.
       "What did they do to you?" asked Richard, tenderly wiping a smear from her cheek with his newfangled handkerchief.
       Although obviously still rather breathless from some recent ordeal she was quick in their defence. "Oh, my men couldn't help it, Thomas," she expostulated. "There were simply swarms of people and somehow or other they had collected a lot of pikes and things—"
       "They could easily have murdered us all!" dramatized the dark vivacious girl carrying the crushed headgear.
       Apparently Gloucester felt there were worse calamities. "Or held you as hostages," he scolded. "And then our hands would have been tied!"
       Holland met his glance with full appreciation of what seemed to both of them a crazily lost opportunity. "Thank God they hadn't that much sense!" he concurred piously.
       But Richard wasn't concerned with military tactics at the moment. "They didn't really hurt you, did they, madam?" he persisted, urging his mother to come in and rest.
       Her musical, full-throated laughter was reassuring. "No, no, of course not, ma mie. Why should they? They've nothing against me ." As she walked buoyantly into the hall she was human enough to glance round with malicious enjoyment at Gloucester and the rest. All men whom the insurgents had reason to hate, presumably, since their consciences told them they would be safer in the Tower. "The people don't forget that I am the widow of their idol. Besides which, they've always liked me for my own sake." She preened herself provocatively before the empty hearth in her plumage of blue and green and gold, and laughed beneath her painted lashes in the way that always made Richard feel uncomfortable. "Why, I believe if I'd been a statesman I could have twiddled them round my little finger. Made them do anything…" She stood twiddling the rings on her fingers instead and most of the men watching her shuffled themselves into a sheepish, admiring semi-circle that mutely admitted her Circean powers.
       "Everything except go away, madam," her youngest lady presumed to remind her, with a sidelong smile at the attractive king. Lizbeth de Wardeaux was both amorous and pert, and Richard often wished that his mother would