Mistress of Mourning (24 page)

But as we came closer, I saw her gown was gray and hung loose on a bony frame, her hair snow-white and her arm wizened, her face cobwebbed with wrinkles. Had the sun and shadows played a trick on me? I dared not ask Nick or Rhys now or she would hear me.

She nodded in greeting as Rhys gave our names, and we dismounted. Rhys spoke to her in Welsh, but with a scratchy voice she said to us in English, “Are all the lovers from Ludlow come to visit me then? An’ I hear the last two didna fare so well.”

My insides lurched as Nick and I exchanged a lightning glance. “It is for that reason that we are calling upon you,” he told her. “By visiting you and the Glendower cromlech, we are honoring the last day the prince and princess had together before his death.”

“Ah—make no mistake,” she said, shaking a crooked
finger nearly in his face, “Glendower is not buried there. Oh, no, his lordship visits only when it takes his fancy. I’ve seen him up on the castle ramparts too, sword flashing, cape flapping.”

My legs went weak as water, but Nick barely flinched. “When Their Graces were here, did they buy any of your fine cooking herbs?” he asked.

“Not a bit, though I gave her sprigs of dried lavender for her hair. The boy—the prince—was seeking fresh wild garlic, a particular favorite, but it’s too early. Will you step inside then, and I’ll give your lady”—she glanced at me, obviously ignoring my costuming as a boy—“a bit of lavender too, since you are wanting to imitate the others, eh?”

Everything she said unnerved me. Despite my inherent curiosity and my desire to learn all I could for the queen, I did not want to go inside this woman’s cot. But we three shuffled in and, as she snatched a sprig of dried lavender from her low ceiling, which was an upside-down garden of dried, hanging flowers and plants, I darted a look around. And stared at what Nick and Rhys were gaping at too.

“You have a fine banner with the red dragon of Wales,” Nick said, stating the obvious. Spread against the wall, it stood out like a gold-and-crimson beacon amidst the pale stone and baskets of herbs, the simple low bed and table and two stools.

I noted well that she had what the London chandlers called peasant candles, field rushes dipped in fat, which smelled and smoked. How disdainful Christopher had been of those. It was dim in here, because her two small windows
were covered with linen soaked in resin and tallow to keep out drafts, so she could not have seen us coming. The entire cot seemed dank and dusty. I could not help myself; I sneezed.

“God bless you,” she said. Much relieved she had invoked the Lord’s name instead of some pagan deity’s, I nodded and forced a small smile. “The boy prince gave it to me,” she said, somewhat proudly, “in exchange for his lady’s lavender. Since it’s the Welsh dragon, I took it. Glendower will like it too.”

She was mad, I thought, and that was that. She was old but claimed to be older, mayhap believed she was. But did she have visions of Wales’s onetime would-be deliverer from English rule, or did she make all that up to either bring others here for business or to keep them away? I was intrigued by her but disturbed too.

Yet I accepted the fragrant lavender from her. “That for you,” she said. “And for the new widow, I shall give you some rue in a black ribbon, for in the future she will rue her future, her marriage to the king.”

Yes, she was crackbrained, I thought. “You do know the prince died?” I asked, wondering whether she was hard of hearing or forgetful. “The princess is now not wife but widow, so will not wed a king.”

“Ha! Wait and see. For Glendower lives, at least our new Glendower, eh?”

“And who is that, the new Glendower?” Nick asked, his voice rising.

“Why, one and the same. I must be off to my gathering now, but this lad will show you where to look for him, eh, Rhys?”

“Aye, Mistress Fey. And Da says if you pack up some rosemary to ward off bad dreams, he has need of such to sell, and I’m to fetch it on the morrow.”

“Canna have enough of that, eh? Everyone has bad dreams.” Turning her head away from Nick and Rhys, she looked straight at me. Her pale blue eyes seemed to brighten, to bore into mine, and I fancied for one moment in the dimness that she was young again. Was she a witch or sorceress? Gooseflesh skimmed my arms, and I shuddered.

In my free hand, I took the small bouquet of rue, indeed wrapped with a black ribbon, as if she had known we were coming and that we could take it to Princess Catherine. It resembled a small bough of grayish evergreen and smelled pungent—bitter. Nick took my elbow and steered me outside. He turned back only to give the woman an entire gold sovereign with the king’s likeness on it, which she squinted at as if trying to make it out—or, I thought, to give him the evil eye.

Nick and I thanked Mistress Fey, and Rhys told her something in Welsh that made her chuckle. Was
I
the one going mad? I had feared for my sanity after I had lost my child, even that day in London, when I fancied the angel dangling above us for Catherine of Aragon’s parade was my Edmund as he would look in the future. Was the queen’s obsessive nature, to refuse to let go of her dead, rubbing off on me?

“Don’t cling to that too hard,” Mistress Fey said, pointing at the rue. “It will rub off on you—leave a rash.”

I could only nod. Had she just read my mind about the queen rubbing off on me? No, mere coincidence,
happenstance, all of this. Or had this woman cast a spell on me? I should stop sniffing the lavender she’d given me too; we must discard the gift of rue for the princess. For when we rode away, even after I whispered to ask Nick whether she had looked young to him until we came close to her and he said no, I glanced back. And I swear by all that’s holy, I saw a young, comely woman standing there again, just watching us.

As we headed for the ancient cromlech, I suddenly dreaded seeing it. The strange old woman’s claim that Glendower was seen near this ancient tomb or on the battlements of the castle made me want to flee. I pictured again the man Nick and I had seen there, his sword flashing and his cape flapping, as old Fey had said.

Yet I did not want to discuss my feelings in front of young Rhys. How did I know he wouldn’t tell Fey or someone else what I had said? Hail-fellow-well-met the lad might seem, but I was more than ever convinced that evil lurked here and could have harmed the prince and princess. How would I ever explain that old herb woman and such nebulous fears to the queen? Though I had leaned back and twisted around in the saddle to drop the lavender and rue into my saddle pack, their scents clung to me, curled into my nostrils as if they would reach my brain.

“Tell us about this cave tomb,” Nick was saying to Rhys. He also leaned over to put a quick, steadying hand upon mine on the reins, so he must have noticed I was trembling. I had to buck myself up. I was with Nick and a Welsh lad he trusted. Surely all would be well.

“I heard tell,” Rhys answered Nick, “the Irish call such tombs giants’ graves, but here’bouts we call this Glendower’s cave. ’Tisn’t truly a cave but a chambered tomb cut back into a hill, and folks say if’n you pull out a small stone from it, it grows a new one. But it’s mostly huge stones, with a portal to go in, like to another world—you’ll see.”

We did see, as the massive blocks, one balanced on two upstanding others, emerged from behind the next scrim of trees. The tomb was indeed built against a hill. Two protruding stones made a small forecourt entry. A square stone partially blocked the entrance. I suppose it once could have been moved to block it entirely.

“Amazing,” Nick said. “There are huge, ancient standing stones in England, though I’ve not seen them. What a fine monument this is to some ancient king or chieftain.”

“And to Glendower,” I heard Rhys mutter under his breath, but I saw him cross himself as if he too were anxious about going in.

I had a good nerve to stay with the horses, for I realized it would be an enclosed area in there, a dark coffin of sorts. I wished we had brought lanterns or candles, lots of them. But after my time in the crypt of St. Paul’s, how dark could this be? Some light must filter in. And I would be with Nick. Obviously, the prince and princess had survived being here—or had they? Noxious vapors seeping into the body’s pores suddenly did not seem so silly as when the doctors had first mentioned them. Cave damp? And with bogs nearby?

No, I was being female and foolish, I scolded myself, and straightened my backbone as Rhys held my horse and Nick helped me down. Rhys led the way in. “Takes a bit for
your eyes to see,” he said. “Course, the lordship’s body was buried way back in, but this here chamber’s the one where Glendower sits or paces sometimes—some folks got a glimpse of him and his cape, heard his sword scrape on the walls.”

After dealing with Mistress Fey, I almost expected to see the old Welsh warrior here, but, of course, there was no one.

“I saved it for a surprise for you,” Rhys said, extending his arm at the portal of the next chamber. “When Prince Arthur was here, he left battle flags, Tudor ones as well as ones of the Welsh griffin and dragon, like the one at old Fey’s. Till he died and folks figured it be bad luck, they been coming out here to see them. Some say it’s an honor they been left by the Prince of Wales, but some who don’t like it say it’s sacrifice—or, ah, sacrament—”

“Sacrilege?” Nick said.

“That’s it. See, in here.”

The boy started into the narrow passage to the final chamber, but he jerked back so fast he bumped into Nick. “Can’t be!” Rhys muttered.

“What?” Nick said, and stepped forward, tugging me close behind him with one hand and drawing his sword with the other.

Nick gasped, and I saw for myself what must have recently happened. The banners Arthur had left—the two bright green ones, at least, with the Tudor and York roses entwined—were slashed to shreds. The Welsh ones with the dragon and the griffin seemed to have fared better but were spattered with what looked to be blood, no doubt the same
in which was written on the wall in huge letters,
GWELL ANGAU NA CHYWILYADD.

“What does that say?” Nick demanded of the shocked lad.

“‘Death rather than dishonor,’” Rhys said, his voice trembling. “’Tis Glendower’s old curse ’gainst English rulers.”

Nick gasped, then turned to mouth the words to me alone:
In English, that’s Lord Lovell’s motto too!

S
taying to guard the cromlech, Nick sent Rhys and me back to the castle to summon the king’s representative, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, to view and assess the damage to the prince’s property. I quickly changed into my woman’s garments—was I right to wear my best brocade gown to attend an earl?—then rushed to see him, flushed and out of breath, with my hair poorly pinned and only half-veiled.

I had to ask directions to his suite of chambers. At his door stood a guard to whom I gave my name and said I had been sent to give His Grace immediate information about the ruination of the prince’s royal banners. My legs shaking from my haste, and from facing an earl—the Lord High Treasurer of England, no less—I was quickly admitted. I curtsied as he rose from behind a desk in a small anteroom. Up this close I could see that his narrow face, lofty eyebrows, and aquiline nose gave him a haughty look. He was nearly as tall as Nick.

“Ah, the young woman sent to oversee the prince’s burial,” he said as his gaze swept over me once, then again, much the way Christopher used to scrutinize me. He came around his desk and stopped but a few feet away. “Trouble outside or inside the castle? Say on, mistress.”

I blurted out all I knew—how the Welsh claimed the ancient tomb was haunted, how the prince and princess had visited it, and how it had now been defaced with Glendower’s old curse against the English—though I did not mention that Nick had said it was Lord Lovell’s motto too. I explained how the banners were all shredded and bloodied. “And, my lord, a Welsh lad named Rhys Garnock is waiting in the outer ward to be your guide to join Nick Sutton there to assess the situation,” I concluded breathlessly.

“I’ll go at once. I am here as the king’s emissary, and we will brook no insults to the prince’s memory or the right of Tudor rule. Sirrah, to me!” he shouted so loudly that I jumped. When the door behind me opened, he said to his man, “My horse, ten armed guards, all in breastplate and helm!

“I would take you along, Mistress Varina,” he said, all business now as he donned a leather jerkin from the back of his chair, “but it will not be a proper place for a young, fetching woman—and you did come to fetch me, did you not?”

Despite his haste, he shouted a little laugh and gave me a tight smile as he assessed me again. I wondered whether it was obvious I had dressed in great haste. Should I not have worn so grand a gown in the midafternoon? I should go, but he had not dismissed me. Instead he kept talking, perhaps to
himself. “It’s worth knocking a few Welsh heads—just as hard as the Scots, I wager—to have a pretty lass come calling. That is all—for now, mistress,” he said as his man rushed past me with boots and spurs. I curtsied again and backed away.

Well, I thought, the lad Rhys could not do much better than to work his wiles on a more powerful man about serving in London. I just hoped that my carelessness in dress and flushed face had not given him ideas that I wanted to work my wiles. No doubt a man of his power and place, however long wed and with the large family Nick had mentioned, was used to “young, fetching women” vying for his attention.