A Rose for the Crown (95 page)

“Holy Mother of God, John. Do I now have to look up to you?” She laughed and stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his mouth.

John grinned, picked her up—more easily this time—and whirled her around. “Mother! Well met. I swear you grow more beautiful every time I see you.”

“Fiddle-faddle, John. I see they have taught you a good deal of silver-tongued flattery at court. No doubt those young maidens you attempt to seduce might be taken in by it, but not your mother.”

John blushed. He had indeed managed to seduce one or two serving wenches and found it a most pleasurable experience. But he did not expect his mother to talk about it. He changed the subject. “My father, the king, sends you God’s greetings.”

“I am glad of them,” she murmured. “Her grace, the duchess, would like to see you, John. Then we may have the afternoon to ourselves.”

They bumped into Molly on the landing. She squealed when she saw him and squealed again when he picked her up and kissed her soundly on the cheek.

“Put me down, Master John, you naughty boy!” He acquiesced, and she looked him up and down. “It be hard to believe. ’Twere only yesterday I helped you to take your first steps.”

“Molly, fetch us some wine and wafers, please. We shall be in the duchess’s solar.”

“Gladly, madam.” Molly picked up her skirts and ran downstairs.

“Have a care, Molly. Remember your condition,” Kate called after her. John looked blankly at his mother, but she ignored him, taking his hand and tucking it into hers. “Come, my son. You must greet Lady Margaret.”

Margaret gave John a warm welcome. “Well met, Captain John. Are you used to the title yet?”

John laughed. “’Tis indeed a great honor, your grace. I hope Father will not be disappointed in me.”

“How could he be?” Kate retorted, making John roll his eyes with embarrassment.

As they sipped wine and exchanged news, Kate asked about his sister.

“Katherine left my stepmother’s service as soon as her grace was declared contagious. Father thought Katherine would be safer with her husband, and she is gone into Wales. She was happy to be reunited with him, so Father told me. I have not seen her in an age. She, more than I, must be grieved by Aunt Anne’s death. She lived closely with the queen all these years. My time has been spent mostly in the north, but Father called me to join him in London as soon as ’twas clear Aunt Anne was
dying. We have been hunting—he has given me my own falcon! Hawking seems to give him comfort. He is much changed by the queen’s passing, in truth. ’Twas bad enough when little Ned died. It did seem his heart would break—indeed both their hearts.”

Margaret nodded. “The duke and I have also remarked the great change in your father, John. ’Tis sad to see. He does try so hard to be a good king. But tell me, what news of your cousins of York?”

Kate held her breath. She let it out when John shrugged and said, “I have no news, your grace. ’Tis certain they are somewhere safe. They are no longer in the Tower, but you know that, I suppose. If you speak of my cousin Bess, Father intends to send her north with me when I return next week.”

Kate groaned. “Next week—so soon? I had hoped to see you much more.”

John gave her a rueful smile. “’Tis my father’s command, Mother.”

“Then let us make the most of his visit today, Kate,” Margaret interrupted. “ ’Tis said you have a pretty voice, John. May we hear you sing? Kate, fetch your harp. You may amuse us all while we sew, do you not agree, ladies?”

Her three gentlewomen, who had been silently plying their needles by the window, looked up and nodded.

“I like to sing, your grace, but my voice . . .” He tailed off as it lurched into a lower range, and they all laughed. “If it please you, I would dearly love to hear my mother.”

For John, Kate sang his favorite Agincourt song, and he occasionally chimed in when he felt his voice would not let him down.

“He is perfectly delightful, Kate,” Margaret declared later, after John had taken his leave. “Such a handsome boy with a fine wit. No wonder Richard is proud.”

“As am I!”

Margaret patted her hand. “Certes. But all mothers are proud of their children, even those who turn out to be bum-baileys. However, ’tis for a son to earn his father’s pride, and ’tis easy to see why John has done so. ’Tis a godsend for Richard that he has this fine young son to lean on now.”

Kate went to bed wondering how Richard would bear up when John
returned to the north. It did not surprise her that she dreamed again of the meadow, the two children floating above it and the third watching from the edge. She had no doubt now the children were hers, but the dream’s significance still eluded her.

I
T HAD RAINED
all night, but the ruts in the road were soon caked dry. Kate twice almost missed her footing teetering on her pattens up to Tendring Hall. The summer wildflowers, made more brilliant by their recent watering, lifted their heads to the blue sky. Campion, ragged robin, cow parsley and the purple vetch, Kate named them all as she passed. The glorious scarlet poppies in a distant field stood out in contrast to the ripened wheat. Honeysuckle climbed and trailed along the hedgerow, its strong, sickly-sweet fragrance saturating the air. Kate breathed it in deeply; it masked the smell of the decomposing rubbish heap nearby.

Margaret was in residence at the Hall for the summer. She did not care for Framlingham Castle. It was too isolated, set on a knoll overlooking nothing but flat fields and woods, she said. Moreover, it was overcrowded and noisy. She would always look on Tendring as her home.

“Besides, being here means being close to you again, dear Kate,” she told her friend one day. The summer did not agree with Margaret. Her growing girth slowed her down, and she perspired profusely. On the days when she would not leave her chamber, she sat quietly in the darkened room in only her shift. She complained of pains in her chest and had difficulty breathing in the hot, humid days. Kate worried about her and gave her tinctures of motherwort to help her respiration and calm her pulse.

“What does it say?” Margaret asked after watching Kate read a letter. Her ankles were swollen today, and she had asked Kate to massage them with lavender oil.

“Katherine is coming to see me.” Kate’s eyes shone in the gloom. “It appears that William, her husband, fears an invasion close to them by Henry of Richmond.”

“Ah, yes. Henry of Richmond, the so-called Tudor pretender.” Margaret scoffed. “Does he think he will find support here? Who would rally to fight for a man who left our shores as a boy and has not set foot here since? Why, we have heard he hardly speaks word of English! Yes, his
mother is a Beaufort—a descendant of those bastards of John of Gaunt and his mistress—but why does Henry not believe the stipulation
excepta dignitate regali
—that the Beauforts should never inherit the crown—also applies to
him?
” Margaret was warming to her subject, and Kate was used to letting her vent. “And who was Tudor’s father? Edmund Tudor, son of Henry the Fifth’s widow and a Welsh groom. Another bastard! Hardly ideal bloodlines,” she finished, shaking her head.

“Quite so, Margaret,” Kate said. “As I was saying, he wishes to remove Katherine from any danger. He believes that if their castle were to be taken, Henry would not think twice about taking the daughter of the king hostage. He thinks she will be safer with me.”

“Very sensible,” Margaret said more calmly. “He must care for Katherine deeply. When may we expect her?”

“William wrote this on August the first. Today is the seventh. Why, she should be here in a day or two. I must tell Molly. You know Katherine is her favorite. But first, let me make your poor legs comfortable. Then I shall light a candle in the chapel for Katherine’s safe arrival.”

W
ILLIAM
H
ERBERT
, earl of Huntingdon, had made handsome provision for his wife’s long journey across England. On August the tenth, twenty liveried retainers escorted their royal charge, who was attended by three gentlewomen, along the lane from the village to Tendring Hall. The villagers were used to seeing their duke ride in and out of Stoke with a much larger train, but they did not recognize this livery, and so many stopped what they were doing to gawp. Tendring field hands lined the lane, many of them too young to remember the auburn-haired beauty as the toddler who had played in the fields behind Dog Kennel House.

Kate waited at the front door of the hall with Molly, Edith and Agnes. Margaret was in the tower solar, not wishing to spoil the reunion with senseless etiquette. Kate was surprised to see her usually exuberant daughter carried in a litter, her little jennet trotting riderless behind a groom’s horse. True, it had been a long ride of more than a week in the heat of the summer, but there was something wrong, she could tell. Katherine, who should have been enjoying the attention, was lifeless and her face pale. However, when she saw Kate, she rallied and waved.

“Mother! God’s greetings. I am glad to see you.”

“Katherine, my dearest girl, as I am you. What ails you, my sweet child?” Kate ran forward to help her daughter to the ground but was edged out by a burly man-at-arms who lifted his charge easily off the litter.

“Thank you, Rhys. I shall be well once I go inside, I promise you,” Katherine said.

“I swore to my lord I would deliver you whole, my lady. I feel responsible that you are unwell.” He backed away to allow Kate to reach her daughter just as Katherine swooned. “God’s bones! What ails her?” he cried, springing forward and lifting up her limp form.

Kate felt Katherine’s forehead. “Sweet Jesu, she is drenched!”

Despite her pallor, the young woman was clearly feverish. Her breathing was labored, and when she opened her eyes a few moments later, she complained of pain in her stomach. Molly came forward to see her beloved Katherine, but Kate forbade her to go near. The experience with plague had taught her to be wary.

“We know not what this is, Molly. You must not endanger your child. Run down to the house and ready my chamber. We will isolate her there.”

She asked Edith to go to Margaret and arrange for the housing of the escort. First, she asked if any more of the party had been ill or had any of Katherine’s symptoms. Two older men and one of the women acknowledged they, too, were ailing, and Kate told them to follow her to the house. As she led the small group to Dog Kennel House, she searched her knowledge for a sickness of this sort and could not find an answer. She needed help.

“Master Rhys, instruct one of your men to fetch the physician from Stoke immediately. He lives in one of the row houses behind the church. Anyone will know.”

She had no sooner asked than it was done, and a rider cantered through the curious bystanders towards the village. Kate shooed away those too close to her door, and Rhys carried Katherine to the second floor. Molly was hovering at the foot of the bed, and Kate spoke sternly to her again.

“Do not come into the room again, Molly. Do you understand? Have Janet bring me some springwater to drink. Go quickly. If you would like
to help, you may tear up some linen cloth and leave a bowl of cold water outside the door. My poor child is wet through.”

Rhys disappeared and left Kate alone with her patient. Katherine’s shallow breathing frightened her. She pulled off her traveling gown and fine lawn chemise. Kate gazed on the young body for a moment, marveling that she and Richard had created something so perfect, before she slipped one of her shifts over Katherine’s head and tucked the sheet around her. Katherine complained of aching joints.

“My dearest child, what is it? When did you first feel ill? Was it something you ate, do you think?”

Katherine was panting. “Nay, mother. The food at the inn last night was so bad, I ate naught but a crust of bread and some cheese. Oh, why does it feel as though someone is squeezing the breath from me? Help me, Mother, please! I am suffocating.” She tried to tear the material from her breast, but she was too weak. “Is it perhaps the morning sickness?”

Kate’s heart jumped. “Morning sickness! Do you mean . . . ?”

Katherine managed a smile. “Aye, I am nigh on three months with child. How will it feel to be a grandmother?”

Kate kissed her daughter’s hand, her eyes shining with tears. “We will have you well in no time, my dear.”

Molly tapped on the door. “The bowl of water be here, mistress.”

“Molly! Dear Molly! Why can I not see her?” Katherine was distressed and struggled onto her elbow. However, she agreed with her mother when Kate told her the reason. “I pray to God this will not harm my child.”

Kate sponged off the young woman too many times to count, while the symptoms intensified. The doctor came and went, shaking his head. He prescribed a poultice for Katherine’s chest and took a bowlful of blood from her arm, but he had no more idea of the nature of Katherine’s strange malady than had Kate. She remembered the cold bath she had been given when she was consumed by chicken-pox fever. She called down and asked Wat to set up the wooden bath with cold water in the kitchen. A few minutes later, she changed her mind. Katherine was too weak to be moved. Besides, this was not a simple fever, this was something different. Kate was reluctant to try the bath in the end. Two more hours passed, but there was no sign of the sweating abating.