The King's Grace (52 page)
Authors: Anne Easter Smith
O
NCE AT
G
REENWICH
, Grace faithfully recounted to Bess and Cecily the events surrounding their mother’s death. Less than a month later, the cycle of life came full circle when, with Cecily and Grace in attendance, Elizabeth’s granddaughter was born and named for her. Summer melted into autumn, and she and Cecily were still at Greenwich with Bess and her sickly child, and Grace wondered when she would next see Tom. Then Henry sailed for France and Grace learned that Tom had gone with Viscount Welles and the rest of the army, and she feared for his safety.
“Pah!” Cecily made sure only her two sisters were within earshot in the nursery where they watched Arthur, Henry and Margaret play. “Henry fight? Surely you jest. I heard he cowered behind Brandon, his standard-bearer, at Bosworth Field, and that Uncle Richard almost reached him by killing the giant bodyguard Cheney as well as Brandon. And at Stoke, after addressing his men bravely enough, he withdrew to some safe vantage point to watch.”
“Enough, Cecily!” Bess commanded. “At least my husband did not flee as yours did—with ten thousand men.”
“Sisters, please don’t fight again,” Grace begged, rocking the carved oak cradle that held the whimpering princess Elizabeth. “See, you have frightened the baby. With all due respect, I do not care a fig for either of your husbands’ battle prowess; all I care about is that mine may be in danger.”
As quickly as their rivalry had divided them, they were reunited by Cecily’s wink. “I can remember a time not so long ago when our good little Grace could have given a rat’s arse about Tom Gower,” Cecily teased.
“Cecily!” Bess cried, concealing a smirk. “Watch your tongue in front of Arthur, I beg of you. But you are right, Grace has changed her tune. How now, Grace?”
Grace hid her blush by leaning into the cradle and easing the baby’s swaddling bands. She was loath to talk about her marriage with Bess, although Cecily had wrested most of the juicy details from her over that dull summer in Greenwich’s sleepy setting. Cecily knew how disappointed Grace had been when she had not conceived that day in the meadow at Bermondsey. And Grace had not seen Tom since, although loving letters had arrived at regular intervals, telling of his monthlong visit to Westow to help on the farm during harvest.
“How I wish you could be here with me at my home, my sweet wife,”
he had writ
ten, and Grace had wondered why he had not sent for her.
“My lord Welles tells me Cecily would be bereft without you, and as she must attend on the queen, I had no hope of freeing you from your duty to the queen to come with me. One day, my love, I will bring you here, I promise.”
“I love my husband, just as you do, Bess,” was all Grace would say. “More I will not say.”
A
MONTH AFTER
Henry’s return from France following the Treaty of Etaples, the sisters were once again in the nursery when the door burst open and a lady in waiting curtsied low and told them breathlessly, “The king is come. He wishes to see you, your grace, and is on his way up.”
Bess rose and smoothed her gown and felt for her headdress. “The king? Here? But he was not due to come for a week. We were to journey to Windsor together for the Yuletide season. I pray nothing is amiss.”
Cecily and Grace hurriedly arranged the folds of Elizabeth’s sarcenet hood and straightened its gold-brocade frame around her oval face. Wisps of fair hair curled in tendrils upon her forehead, and her golden eyes flitted anxiously to the door. “Make haste, sisters. His grace dislikes vain women,” she urged.
Henry’s face softened into a smile when he entered the room and took in the scene. With Bess’s attendants clustered around her and Arthur and Margaret each holding one of their mother’s hands, the group presented a charming tableau for an instant, before they all sank into their reverences to the king. Then Margaret ran headlong into her father’s arms and Arthur danced around him brandishing a wooden sword. Grace was astonished at Henry’s informality when he carried Margaret to greet Bess with an affectionate kiss and then dismissed his servants. Certes, there is still love there, she marveled. Then she found herself greeted by name before Henry relinquished his older daughter to her nursemaid and went to inspect baby Elizabeth. He tickled the child with one of his long bony fingers and was dismayed when a whimper and not a gurgle of glee was the response.
“She is a puny child, my lady. I trust the wet nurse is providing for her well?” After some private conversation over the cradle, his face turned serious.
“I promised you Christmas at Windsor, madam, and go there we shall.
But there is news from France that I must attend to first. However, I thought I could deal with it just as well here as at Westminster.”
“But I thought you had signed a treaty with Charles,” Bess said, pouring wine for him and inviting him to sit. “I trust he has not broken it already?”
Henry scowled, reminding Grace of her favorite gargoyle at Bermondsey. “Cracked it, perhaps, but not broken it,” he said. “By agreeing not to aid any of my enemies, I believed he would hand the mawmet imposter over to me—the man has had the run of the French court for months, even availing himself of the courtesans, so I am told—but instead he allowed the measle to flee with his friends into Burgundy. They are no doubt dining with the diabolical Duchess Margaret as we speak,” he said with clenched jaws.
“Nom de Dieu, qu’il est une peste.”
“Hush, my dear lord. Why do you fret about him so? He will be revealed as a dissembler by Maximilian and his son, and it will all be over, mark my words,” Bess soothed.
Henry swung round to address Cecily and Grace, who were keeping Arthur amused with colored building blocks. “What do you know of this…this deceiver? Do you believe your brother is still alive and kicks his heels and thumbs his nose at me over the Channel?”
Grace fumbled a block on top of her tower and it collapsed, making Arthur squeal with glee. Cecily sat back on her heels and, looking Henry straight in the eye, answered: “Nay, your grace. He is, as the queen says, a dissembler. I believe both my brothers are dead.”
Grace gulped and mentally crossed herself. How could Cis have lied so convincingly, and without batting an eyelid? She busied herself gathering up the scattered bricks and murmured something unintelligible. She prayed Bess would not enlighten him, and her prayer was answered. Thankfully, Henry was, as always, uninterested in what she had to say, but accepted Cecily’s word with a nod and a
“C’est bon.”
Then he suddenly slapped his forehead and exclaimed: “
Sacré coeur de Jesu!
Forgive me, sister; I forgot to mention that your husband asked me to send you to him in his apartments. And Lady Grace, Master Gower is attending him. If her grace can spare you, you should make haste.” He grinned. “They are anxious to see you again.”
Cecily sighed and got to her feet, but Grace was already in a curtsy before the king and queen, asking to be excused.
Bess nodded and, laughing, called to Cecily: “We have our answer after all, Cis. ’Tis plain as a pikestaff our little sister is besotted.”
T
HAT NIGHT
L
ORD
Welles’s wife joined her husband in his bed and his squire found his way into Grace’s bed, where both couples enjoyed each other on differing levels of passion.
Tom could not hide his joy when he closed the heavy drapes of their tester bed from the prying eyes of the tiring woman curled up in a truckle bed by the fire and found Grace naked under the sheet. His hands explored every part of her, making her hold her breath in case a moan escaped. A single candle burned in the sconce, allowing them to feast their eyes on each other before they rolled over and over, savoring the feel of skin upon skin, his mouth upon her breast and her hand upon the most velvet part of him. How many times he moved her to climax, Grace could not say, but she counted four times for him before he fell asleep, exhausted, and the cock crowed. This is what the poets talk of, Grace mused, lying in the crook of Tom’s arm, the candle long since guttered out. ’Tis what lovers know only in secret trysts and lustful liaisons, not, she had been led to believe, husbands and wives. How she hoped she would conceive this night! How loved a child of this union would be, she thought, dreamily.
Malines
NOVEMBER
1492
M
argaret chewed the end of her quill, gazing out of the newly glazed windows onto the garden, drab now after nights of frost had killed the remaining autumn roses. She had been delighted to learn that her darling boy was enjoying the hospitality of the king of France, who was the first ruler in Europe to recognize the young man as Edward of England’s son. She would have to remember to call him Richard now—poor boy, she thought; first Pierrequin, then Jehan, then back to Pierrequin and now he must get used to Richard.
Unfortunately, the tide had turned in France, and she needed to warn her nephew. Thus she must send this letter without delay, being careful not to reveal too much to her protégé in case it fell into the wrong hands and their years-long code was broken. She would send it via her former secretary and spy, Stephen Frion, who was now among Richard’s adherents at the French court. He had been charged by Margaret to instruct Richard on all manner of things English, which he had learned during his time at
Edward and Henry’s court. Frion was a gem, she acknowledged, and had fooled Henry completely.
She grimaced. What right have you to play with this boy’s life, Margaret? she asked herself. Is your hatred of Henry so great that you would risk your own little Jehan to reclaim the throne for York? Then her beloved father’s words echoed in her mind: “Never forget your blood kin. The most important people in your world are right here in this house—the house of York,” he had told her. Her father had died fighting to claim the crown for York, and her brothers Edward and Richard had worn it instead—rightfully so. Now the Tudor turd dared to wear it—his claim as flimsy as gossamer thread! Nay, ’twas not to be borne, she told herself, and even though she knew this prince was not the duke of York, no one else did. Aye, she decided and dipped her pen in the inkpot with new purpose, Richard is the son of a royal duke—bastard or no—and can restore our family’s birthright.
“Right noble and well beloved nephew, Richard, duke of York, I greet thee well,”
she wrote in her firm script. She must be formal in case this was intercepted.
“And I am satisfied that you are indeed my long-lost nephew, after hearing the testimony of my son-in-law Maximilian’s secretary, who recently visited the French court and saw you there. However, I must see you for myself and shall know then if you be my brother’s son or no. I pray that it is so and will rejoice greatly upon that day, which I hope will come soon
.
“But I digress. It has come to my attention that your brother-in-law, King Henry of England, has signed a treaty with your host, his majesty Charles, king of France, following Henry’s recent siege at Boulogne, which he undertook last month to make good on a promise to Brittany by claiming his right to the French crown.”
So far, so good, she thought. Nothing confidential there—Richard must know this much. She gave a short laugh, threw some sand over the parchment to help dry the ink and spat out a piece of feather she had worried off her quill during her ruminations. The invasion all came to naught, certes, because it seemed King Charles was loath to fight the English in the north while his ambitions lie south, in Italy. In fact, he preferred to buy off the English, and Henry received a handsome pension to withdraw.
“However, another condition of this treaty of Etaples will force Charles to cease and desist aiding any of England’s enemies, and my fear is that Henry looks upon you as a foe because of your rank and obvious claim to the English crown. It is my duty,
as a loyal sister of your deceased father, to warn you that if you remain in France any longer, Charles may have no alternative but to surrender you to King Henry as part of this agreement. It goes without saying that those faithful followers who have joined you there are also in grave danger. I therefore beg you, nephew, to make haste and come to my court at Malines, where you will be among friends. I shall look forward with all my heart to giving you a warm welcome
.
“If all goes well here, and my son-in-law accepts you as Edward’s son, then Henry must look to his crown.”
She dared not add that Maximilian is not pleased that Henry treated with France and thus is ill disposed towards the king at this point. But could she win Maximilian over? He might balk at providing resources for an invasion of England, she knew, and he needed to protect his trade with her homeland. Despite her loyalty to her English family, Margaret had never shirked her duty to Burgundy, and if her son-in-law forbade her to help Richard she would not gainsay him. She dared not say in the letter what else she had arranged in case Maximilian refused his support: she had been treating with James of Scotland on her nephew’s behalf through the faithful Lord Lovell, and as James would like nothing more than to irritate Henry, he was not averse to receiving the so-called duke of York at his court. From there, it would be easy to invade…but she was running ahead of herself, she knew, and she sighed.
“Prepare your bags and make haste, dearest Richard, before Charles decides you are a problem
.
“Your devoted aunt,”
she hesitated, pen poised over the paper, and then signed herself,
“Margaret of England.”
England
WINTER AND SPRING
1492–93
M
arch and April were blustery and rainy and then, early in June, the king at Kenilworth learned of a treaty signed by Charles of France and Maximilian, effectively ending the war between the two that had ravaged the countryside upon their borders for more than fifteen years.
June was also filled with rumors of an invasion by the man who was causing Henry concern and embarrassment from the Burgundian court, where he was being treated as a royal guest. Henry’s spies had scoured the Low Countries in search of clues to this obvious puppet of Margaret of Burgundy; Henry was desperate to find anything that would be plausible enough to stop the murmurings up and down England of a York revival. Indeed, there had been a few hangings when men had even dared gather together to whisper Richard, Duke of York’s name. Then when Sir Robert Clifford, one of Henry’s own household, flew the coop to the young duke’s side, Henry knew he must act. He secured the eastern ports against
other defections or invasion and sent his ships to intercept those from Burgundy who were said to be carrying messages back and forth to James of Scotland.
“If only we had corpses,” Grace heard him grouse to Bess one day in the spring, when the court had moved to Warwick Castle. “Your Aunt Margaret keeps taunting me to show her the princes’ bodies.”
“Aye, and because you reversed Uncle Richard’s bastardy act against us all, you have created a legitimate prince, if he be alive,” Bess had said, riling Henry more.
“I need not be reminded of it, my lady,” he snapped at her, and Bess had fallen silent.
Now it was the end of June and Cecily had begged the queen’s leave to return to Hellowe with her attendants for the rest of the summer, which Bess was gracious to give, albeit reluctantly. “I love your company, sisters,” she had said on the day they left. “You will be sorely missed.”
Grace would be glad to see the warm stone Lincolnshire manor house set among trees again. It had been almost two years since she had been there, and she hoped this time Cecily would make good on her original promise to find Grace and Tom a house of their own. She hugged herself. She was convinced she was with child, although she could not be certain, for after the
fausse couche
in March her courses had been none too regular. She thought back on that sad day when, after missing two courses, her bile had risen violently and, as she ran to the garderobe to vomit the warm blood had coursed down her legs and she knew she was losing the baby. Not heeding the mess she had made of her favorite blue gown, she collapsed onto the hard wooden seat and felt the tiny life she and Tom had created slip down the shoot, to be carted away by the gong farmer on his next round. She could not control her weeping, and Cecily found her there half an hour later mourning her loss.
“Certes, Grace, do not grieve so hard. I have had several false starts, but then I conceived two healthy daughters, in truth. This is your first time to conceive, is it not? Aye, then ’tis often the case that a womb is not ripe enough to form a child. I promise you, you will be more fortunate next time, and at least you know you are fertile.” She talked and stroked Grace’s hair, which had come unbound from under her coif and tumbled around her tear-stained face. “Would you like me to fetch Tom, dearest?”
Nay, Grace had shaken her head. She had not even dared to tell Tom she was pregnant yet, for fear of tempting fate. She had seen a lone magpie the week before, hopping down the path in front of her, and her heart had jumped into her throat. “Good morning Master Magpie, how’s your wife?” she had murmured, but certes, it had not broken the bad luck.
“Be of good cheer, I beg of you,” Cecily told her. “Imagine the grief a mother knows when she has held the child and then loses it. Her grief is truer, do you not agree?”
It was what Grace needed to hear. She wiped her eyes and took the bundle of clean squares of linen Cecily offered.
“I shall arrange for a bathtub to be brought for you. You will feel better,” Cecily said as she slipped out of the cold stone alcove.
Cis had been right, Grace now thought. Her sadness had not lingered, and here she was, not three months later, already believing she was with child again. She still would not tell Tom yet, she decided. He would treat her with the utmost care, she thought with a smile, and she had enjoyed their nights of lovemaking until Lord Welles had moved on to Kenilworth with the king and Cecily had asked to go home.
Grace took great joy in making herself useful on the farm that belonged to Hellowe manor, and the head gardener gave her a small plot of land to work as she pleased. She and Edgar planted peas, leeks and beans, and she was often to be found there, bent double, with her skirts caught up in her belt, weeding and watering the tiny plants as they sprouted through the rich Lincolnshire soil. With one or two heartsease blooms stuck in the ribbon of her wide straw hat, and with her little greyhound puppy capering around her, she was a familiar figure in the fields, the cow byre and the sheep dip. They were close enough to the coast that Grace could swear she smelled the sea on windy days, and she began to feel a part of the gentle hills populated by hundreds of sheep—the wool from which had made the Welles family fortune.
One sultry morning in late June, after breaking their fast and saying morning prayers, Cecily watched her go from her solar window with a twinge of envy. She wished she had something she was passionate about to pass the monotonous days of summer. Not even Thomas Kyme was in the vicinity to dally with—he was tending to his business affairs in London for a month, and she missed him. She spent an hour or so playing with
her two little girls, but that got tedious so she donned her pattens over her shoes and decided to see what Grace was doing.
As she passed the large dovecote and went under the archway into the kitchen gardens, she heard horsemen cantering up the stony drive. Calling to Grace to hurry back, she crossed the courtyard to the mounting block to await the visitors’ arrival with impatience. Finally, something to break the routine, she thought.
Grace heard her call and let down her skirts, wiped her sweating forehead and told Edgar to keep weeding. Edgar rolled his eyes, but she ignored him. She knew he considered gardening beneath him, but with only a few horses in the stable and Welles’s grooms to tend them, there was not much else for him to do. Grace gave him a stern finger-wagging, and he went back to work. She called to Freya, who had her nose in a rabbit hole, and went to join Cecily as fast as her clogs would allow.
The two men had just dismounted when Grace gave a cry of delight, as she saw Tom’s mop of yellow hair over the saddle of one horse. Hearing her voice, he gave his groom the reins and strode across the yard to take her in his arms, knocking off her hat. After kissing her several times with no thought of propriety, he set her down, laughing.
“If you could only see your face, my dearest,” he said, taking out a rather shabby kerchief and wiping a mud clot from her cheek. “’Tis clear you wasted no time in returning to the peasant life. And I love you for it,” he exclaimed, kissing her again, this time on the forehead.
“By Saint Sibylline!” Grace said, ignoring him as she stared at the piece of cloth in her hand. “’Tis the kerchief I made for you at Sheriff Hutton. You have kept it all this time?” She remembered with a tiny pang that she had last seen its duplicate in John’s hand in prison, but she had learned finally that John was in her past and that her present and future stood, nodding foolishly, by her side. “I am humbled,” she said softly, as she moistened a corner with her own spittle and let him dab at her face with it. “But what brings you at a gallop—besides me, certes!”
“Aye, Tom, what news have you? Not bad, I hope,” Cecily said, joining them. “Does my husband miss me?” she asked, mimicking a child and grinning. “Come, let us find you some refreshment; ’tis murderously hot out here. Grace, how can you abide toiling all day in the sun?”
“I don’t think about it, Cis. There is so much to do, and every day God’s
gift of the sun brings forth my plants. How can I complain?” Grace said, picking up her hat. She tucked her arm in Tom’s and followed Cecily up the steps and into the cool hall of the manor house.
Tom had two letters: one was to Cecily from Jack, and the second was from none other than the queen—to both of them. “Her grace knew my lord Welles was sending me to check that all was well at Hellowe, and she gave me this to give to you because, she said, ‘I miss my sisters.’” Tom looked up eagerly when Cecily’s steward ushered in two servants with pitchers of ale and some meat pies. Then he stood by discreetly.
Cecily ignored her husband’s missive and cracked open Bess’s seal. “Come sit by me, Grace. Let us see what Bess says.” As the two women pored over the fine script on the parchment, their eyes widened, and Grace let out a long breath.
Tom watched them, puzzled. “’Tis not bad news, I hope, my lady,” he said.
Cecily let out a peal of her inimitable laughter, aware that the steward and two servants were very much within earshot. “Bad news? Nay. She writes that his grace the king lost a fortune, including one of his favorite rings, in two card games called Plunder and Pillage. What perfect names, don’t you think? She says she wishes we could be with her because his grace is in such ill humor.” And she laughed again.
Grace stared at her, aghast, before her open mouth managed to discharge some facsimile of merry laughter to fob off the servants. How could Cecily lie so blatantly? she wondered. Did she not fear the flames of Hell? Grace still remembered every lie she had told and prayed daily for forgiveness.
Tom frowned. “I am surprised,” he said. “Her grace the queen seemed anxious when she approached me and asked me to make sure I did not lose the letter along my path.”
Grace caught his eye and frowned, while Cecily jumped to her feet and dismissed the steward with a wave. “Let us inspect Grace’s garden, if you are refreshed, Tom. I was on my way there when you arrived.” She led the way outside and read her own letter as they walked.
Once in the seclusion of the garden, after making sure that Edgar was busy with a cartful of manure at the other end, Cecily read Tom the relevant passage from Bess’s letter.
“I promised our mother before she died that I would allow Grace to go to our lady aunt’s court in Burgundy and find what she could about this imposter. It has been weighing on me that we are dishonoring our mother and father, as well as our brother, if it indeed be he, and I cannot sit by and not know. The king knows my mind on this but he is loath to allow any of us but Grace to travel at this dangerous time. But as a boon”
—Cecily paused to harrumph—
“he agreed that if Grace reports faithfully to us what she sees and hears, Henry will sanction a visit to Aunt Margaret under the guise of an aunt’s wish to meet her niece.”
Tom whistled. “Praise be they do not know you have been before,” he said, pulling Grace close. He did not say it aloud, but he was impressed that Cecily had kept her peace on this; she was not known for her ability to hold her tongue. “I pray they never find out,” he finished.
“Or ’tis the rack for you, my girl!” Cecily joked, seeing Grace’s worried look. “Let me continue.
‘I think Aunt Margaret will allow this particular visit, because if she is dissembling about the man, she would refuse to receive any of his sisters who knew him as a boy. Grace has never seen him and thus will not know one way or the other.’
She is clever, our Bess, I’ll give her that,” Cecily said.
“I wonder what made her change her mind,” Grace said. “She was so adamant he was an imposter every time we talked.”
Tom wiped his brow. The sun was hot and his worsted jacket was making him sweat uncomfortably. He took it off, loosed the ties of his shirt underneath and looked around for some shade. “There is more to this story, but if we may find a cooler spot, I would be grateful.”
Cecily led the way to a pond with a bubbling spring. “Hellowe, or Heghelow in the old English, is from
belle eau
in French,” Cecily explained as they removed their shoes and stockings, sat around the mossy edge of the lake and slipped their feet into its cool water. “It means beautiful water, and I suppose this was it.” With its border of yellow-flag iris and loosestrife and the ash trees shading it, the small lake was indeed a lovely spot. “But I interrupted you, Tom. Pray tell us more.”
“It seems Henry’s spies uncovered a tale of a young boy from Tournai—in Hainault, part of the Burgundian territories—whose father was naught but a boatman on the river there. He was taken from his parents at a young age by the bishop of that city, and from there it seems he disappeared. He went by the name of Piers or Pierrequin Werbecque or perhaps Osbeck. Here in England he is being called Perkin Warbeck.” Tom paused as the news was digested by his companions.
“I don’t believe it,” Cecily scoffed. “How could Aunt Margaret be duped like that? How could he have learned the graces of a prince by being a boatman’s son? ’Tis preposterous!”
“Certes, he is not a boatman’s son, Cis,” Grace said softly. “Aunt Margaret told me of our brother being safely hid in the castle at Guisnes and now being found. John believed it, too. ’Tis why Henry tortured and killed him. We had it from Sir Edward Brampton, who had just returned from Calais and came to the abbey. When I was at Malines, our aunt was convinced ’twas Dickon—even though, ’tis true, she had not yet set eyes on him.” She shook her head. “Nay, I fear Henry is grasping at straws.”
During the ensuing pause, Tom put a blade of grass between his thumbs and blew a raucous note with it. A large frog hopped off a lily pad and into the water with a plop and, across the pond, a heron lifted effortlessly into the air.
Cecily frowned. “I cannot conceive why Henry would condone this visit by Grace. It would appear to be tempting fate.”
“You are wrong!” Grace exclaimed, the light dawning. “I think this means Bess does believe this is Dickon, and Henry needs her on his side. Certes, he will expect me to report publicly that the man is an imposter. I may only be a bastard member of the family, but I am still a member of the family, and I will give Henry’s disavowal of Richard credence, don’t you see?”