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    Hunchback
    Hunchback
    Hunchback
    Ebook252 pages3 hours

    Hunchback

    By W.Wm. Mee

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    About this ebook

    Everybody loves to hate a ‘bad guy’ and Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ is one of the 'badest' to ever grace a stage or bloody a page! ‘Murder most foul’ is his specialty, sparing neither friends, family, nor children! In this ‘alternate tale’, Richard’s ‘ghost’ comes back to ‘set the record straight’. Travel back to fifteenth century England when the Lancasters and the Yorks were caught up in the civil war known as the ‘War of the Roses’ and follow in Richard’s bloody wake as he piles up the bodies on his murderous way to his brother’s throne.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW.Wm. Mee
    Release dateMar 16, 2014
    ISBN9781310464942
    Hunchback
    Author

    W.Wm. Mee

    Wayne William Mee is a retired English teacher who enjoys hiking, sailing and walking his Beagle hound. He is also a 'living historian' or 'reenactor'. You can see Wayne's historical group on Facebook's 'McCaw's Privateers' 18th Century Naval Camp' page. Building & sailing wooden sailboats also takes up a chunk of Wayne's time, but along with his wife Maggie,son Jason and granddaughter Zoe, writing is his true love, the one he returns to let his imagination soar.Wayne would like you to 'look him up' on FACEBOOK and click the 'Friend' button or even zap him an e-mail.If you enjoyed any of his books, kindly leave a REVIEW here at Smashwords and/or say so on Facebook, Twitter, Tweeter or whatever other 'social network' you use.Thanks for stopping by ---and keep reading!!Drop him a line either there or at waynewmee@videotron.caHe'll be glad to hear from you!'Rest ye gentle --- sleep ye sound'

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      Book preview

      Hunchback - W.Wm. Mee

      ‘HUNCHBACK’

      by

      W.Wm.Mee

      A Retelling of Shakespeare’s

      RICHARD III

      Dedicated to my son, Jason;

      A ‘Henry V’ fan

      Copyright 2014 W.Wm.Mee

      Smashwords Edition.

      INTRODUCTION

      ‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York!’

      What a load of shite!

      That Shakespeare fellow got a lot of things right, but he got a hell a lot of them wrong as well! Plus he ‘flowered it up’ with all those fancy words of his! I ask you now, who in God’s green earth ever spoke like that?! I myself enjoy a ‘well turned phrase’ and have, from time to time, been know to ‘wax poetical’ --- and, without doubt, will do so in this tale when ‘spoken speech’ is required, but the ‘playwright from Stratford’ outdid himself, pushing his sharpened quill into new realms of similes, metaphors and, dare I say it --- iambic pentameter!

      Still, that part about me being ‘rudely stamped’ and ‘sent into this world scarce half made up’ was accurate enough; as was the part about me being so damned ugly that ‘dogs bark at me when I halt by them’! Ha! I got a good chuckle out of that one! I also enjoyed the part about me being a ‘bottled spider’ as well! Good stuff that, though like I say, the bugger got a lot of his ‘facts’ wrong!

      Sooooo, here I am, the hunchbacked ghost of that ‘bottle spider’, Richard the Bloody Handed III, come back across the dark, yawning gulf of centuries to finally set things straight!

      Let us begin, shall we?

      In the early 1470’s England was at war with itself; a vicious ‘civil war’ between two great families; the thieving, back-stabbing Lancasters on one side of the ‘royal tree’, and us Yorks on the other.

      Not that we were any ‘better’ than those of the ‘Red Rose’, but I like to think that ‘we of the White’ were at least ‘craftier’!

      In truth, the ‘War of the Roses’ tore the country apart, setting village against village, friend against friend and, in my case, brother against brother.

      Here’s a painting that was said to have ‘symbolised the times’ --- whatever the hell that means! That’s supposed to be me in red, offering some Lancastrian noble the Yorkish ‘White Rose’. A peace offering? A bribe? By the look on my face it seems more like a bloody threat! And just look at that face! Lean, determined and handsome! The ‘lean and determined’ part I’ll grant the artist, but the daft bastard got the rest of it all wrong!

      ‘I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking-glass!’

      I’d also not be caught dead in a garish red outfit like that! More like a high priced strumpet’s dress than a fighting man’s attire! And where’s the game leg, the withered hand and the damnable hump?! I’ve never stood that bloody straight in my life!

      But then perhaps I am being unfair on the artist; after all, the man earned his living by making the rich and the ugly look noble and beautiful! Still, since in real life I could not prove a lover, I was determined to prove a villain!

      So, settle back now, Gentle Reader, and let the ghost of the notorious and long dead ‘Hunchback of York’ tell you how it really was; and though at first the tale may seem rather dull and stale, and lack the Bard’s’ sharp wit and flowery phrases’, I assure you that, given a page or two, you will, as my famous chronicler so once nicely put it: ‘be stepped in blood so far that, should you wad no more, returning would be as tedious as going on!’

      Now, let me state the facts clearly and quickly so as we both may get on to the ‘meat’ of the matter.

      In the year of Our Lord, 1461, at the age of twenty-one, my elder brother Edward, the Earl of March, was proclaimed King Edward IV of England.

      This came about because he and other Yorkists defeated the supporters of the older, weak, often insane Lancastrian king, Henry VI, and drove the simple minded old fool into hiding.

      I was a mere lad of eleven at the time, barley off my nurse’s tit.

      Three years later, in 1464, Lancastrian revolts in the far north of England were again defeated by my elder brother, ‘Good King Edward’; only this time the fugitive King Henry VI was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

      Henry’s queen, Margaret of Anjou --- now there was a true ‘bottled spider’ for you! --- was exiled and, along with her young son, sent penniless back to France where she belonged.

      After that my dear brother’s hold on the English throne appeared to be secure for a number of years. I meanwhile was a growing, lusty, although somewhat twisted lad of fourteen and though I had given up on my nurse, I had no desire at all to give up on tit!

      In the spring of 1471 however, the hated Lancasters once again raised their greedy heads and my younger brother Clearance and I joined our elder brother the king and met the rebels in two bloody and decisive battles; those of Barnet and Tewkesbury.

      I was all of eighteen and by then my body --- like many of my family were soon to do, had already betrayed me, giving me the unholy trinity of a three-fold blessing: a withered left hand, a clubbed right foot and a hunch in my back large enough for an eagle to nest on! Yet all of this, Gentle Reader, bothered me not, and I shall tell you why! For, though ‘dogs may bark at me whenever I do halt by them’, I had several weapons that most others had not, namely a quick and clever mind, a devious and cunning nature and, most importantly, a driving ambition and a relentless desire to crush all that stood in my way!

      So now, my new found friends, the time has come for you to choose. Art thou willing to wade with me through the blood and gore and not only hear, but smell, feel and taste the heart pounding thrill of bloody battle and the even bloodier word-games of court? Art though ready, willing and able walk with me as I ‘bustle about in this wicked world’?

      Good!

      Then come along, for it’s the 14th of April, 1471; you are a lusty eighteen year old lad and are looking forward to ‘doing your worst’ to your brother the king’s onetime friend, uncle and now bitter enemy, the Earl of bloody Warwick!

      The ‘Hunchback’,

      Richard of York’s Ghost

      ***

      PART ONE

      ‘MY YOUNGER DAYS’

      Chapter 1: ‘Let Slip The Dogs Of War’

      The Battle of Barnet

      14th of April, 1471

      The traitor Warwick is camped not three miles hence, Your Grace! the mud spattered scout told my brother, King Edward, the fifth of that name to rule merry old England. I, Richard, Duke of Glouchester, Chief Justice of the North and Constable of England, was known best by my well deserved nick-name, ‘The Hunchback’.

      Though in truth my deformity bothered me not one iota, for my brother the king loved me well and had just given me the place of honour in the upcoming battle. I was to lead the vanguard against our hated turncoat of a cousin, the Earl of Warwick! At eighteen, hunchback or no, leading men into battle was a very heady enterprise, right up there with drink and fumbling with a milk-maid’s tits!

      Edward’s gruff voice, ten years my elder, brought me back from such pleasant flights of fancy. Mount up, brother and lead your troop forward! I intend to use the cover of darkness to bring ourselves closer to our wayward cousin Warwick, so that, in the morning, we may embrace him all the sooner!

      Grinning like the young fool I was, I gladly did my brother’s bidding!

      Richard, wait for me! a high pitched voice called out. Turning I saw my younger brother George, recently turned seventeen and newly minted the Duke of Clarence, trot up to me through the clinging mud.

      Little chance have I to outdistance you, little brother, you having two good limbs and I dragging this faulty one!

      But you ride like the wind, Richard, and wield a sword like Lancelot himself!

      Would that I had that hero’s looks as well as his skill, Georgie! Then might I scamper nimbly in a lady’s bedchamber and woe her to the simpering notes of a lute!

      George grinned like the pimple faced youth he was. Always chasing the tit, eh Richard?! Is there a serving wench or milkmaid in the land that you haven’t tupped soundly?

      Proud of my ‘reputation’, though in reality falling far short of it, I waved my withered left hand across the muddy English field. Tis a wide and broad realm we inhabit, Georgie, brimming over with serving wenches and willing milkmaids! A man would need a dozen lifetimes to do even one one-hundredth of the fair beauties justice!

      But you’re willing to brave the attempt, are you not, brother?! George grinned widely. To manfully storm the closely guarded ramparts of tit and twat!

      Or die, trying, little brother; or die trying!

      George and I found our mounts, looked to our weapons and rode off to glory --- or so it seemed at the time. The reality of war, however, is a far cry from what the poets and minstrels would have you believe.

      Blood, guts and rivers of shit best describe it, along with dying beasts and bodies stacked up like cordwood, all awaiting the hungry flames of hell. And it’s not just the sight of it, but the sound of it, and perhaps worse, the smell! Nothing on God’s green earth smells as bad as the reeking, bloated remains of a battle field after simmering for two or three days in the hot sun!

      Though still two years shy of twenty, back then I was no stranger to armed conflict. True, most of it had been in my training for knighthood, but for some years now the wooden practice swords had been replaced by heavy steel ones, and though the edges were dull, they could still easily break bones. Also, for the last two years I had accompanied Richard’s army on his ‘punitive campaigns’ against local robbers, barons reluctant to pay their taxes and border raids against both the Welsh, the Scots and any rebellious Lancaster factions.

      Though I had never actually taken a man’s life, I had cut a goodly number with my blade and wounded two with the newer ‘hangunns’ that were making their noisy way into use. The king had graciously made a present of a matching brace of the new Wheelock style to both Georgie and myself, and, like the excited young lads that we tried so hard not to be, we couldn’t wait to try them out on the rebels!

      As it turned out, the wait was a short one!

      One of the new handguns

      Edward had made for Georgie and me

      ***

      Marching through the rainy, fog shrouded night, we arrived much closer to Warwick’s rebel camp than we had originally planned. Lighting no fires lest we give ourselves away, we deployed ourselves immediately so as to be ready to meet the morrow.

      Edward set his good friend, Lord William Hastings on our left, entrusted me to lead the right and, keeping young George with him, took charge of the centre. A contingent of reserves was wisely kept at the rear, ready to come at Edward's call.

      During the night, my turncoat cousin, Warwick, ordered his cannons to continually bombard the place where he assumed that we were camped. This assumption was aided by the order that I had given earlier to light some ‘campfires’ far back behind us. The result was that while we sat shivering in the foggy drizzle, the Lancastrian artillery lit up the night sky in front of us while their shot flew harmlessly over our heads.

      Well done, Your Grace! my man Catesby grinned in my ear.

      Was it not? I smiled back, though it was more a grimace than a grin. Let my cunning cousin waste his fire on the empty night, come the dawn we will set things aright!

      (You see, Gentle Reader,

      England’s most celebrated bard is not the only knave that can rhyme a couplet!

      Let us try some more, shall we?)

      We’ll give the traitor pause to curse his fickle heart, my lord!

      Aye, good Catesby, for all such wrongdoers and malcontents should be treated thus, but I fear my brother the king’s own heart is too soft to do the hard deed.

      You fear he will pardon his cousin, and restore Warwick to his former greatness?!

      Not only do I fear it, good Catesby, but have heard it from his royal lips! He loves Warwick still, and would rather forgive the man than forfeit his life.

      That would be a deed ill done, my lord!

      Ill done indeed, Catesby! But fear not, for I have it within this withered frame to do what my brawny brother turns from!

      And I with you, my lord --- as always!

      Good Catesby, thou shalt one day surely get thy just reward!

      Serving you is reward enough, lord --- though a title and a bag of silver now and then would not go amiss.

      You shall have both and much more, my man, but first we must live through the day! But look you to the east where the dawn light greys the blackness! To arms, my friend, for we must away!

      ***

      At four of the clock --- when that ‘dawn’s light’ that I spoke of was still just a faint glow in the direction of the far off realm of Cathay, after firing our cannons and our deadly flights of arrows, we laid into each other with our pole arms. A forest of eighteen foot long skewers tipped with metal thrust and poked at each the other like a primeval creature from the mists of time!

      Then, dropping pole and drawing sword, we came together like long lost lovers, hot to grapple! Two fields of roses, the Lancastrian Red and the Yorkish White, met and entwined in the blood soaked ground!

      Ah but my boyish blood was up that day!

      Amidst the cannon’s roar, the trumpets call and the heady heat of battle, I rode forward at the spearpoint of our living wedge --- my limp forgotten, my sword running red and my rounded hump mocking heaven’s unwatchful eye! So busy was I with those around me that I forgot all about using the fancy firelock Edward had given me --- for I was of the ‘old school’ that pressed forward when on the defence and charged headlong in when attacking! No time had I for the priming and packing of powder; for horns and flints and stopping to ram a ball!

      ‘Forward!’ ever cries youth --- and back then I was as a red faced newborn into the wicked world of war!

      Yet I found, Gentle Reader, much to my surprise, that amidst all the blood and the gore of a body strewn field, that I had a certain ‘knack’ for killing! That

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