The King's Grey Mare (19 page)

He did sneeze; a gusty, roaring explosion that echoed satisfyingly around the nave.
Warwick’s eyes slid sideways.
Perchance, Edward thought, amused, he is alarmed for my health.
I have never ailed, save for the one bout of measles – and that in the middle of an array!
But that was witchery; the Frenchwoman laid me low with a curse.

Elizabeth Lucey stared no longer; her downcast eyes appeared to weep.
When would women learn that naught could hold a man once desire was dead?
Another face rose to haunt him – saintly and more beautiful than Dame Lucey.
He shuddered.
That was yet another secret from Warwick, to be concealed at all costs.

‘May the almighty and merciful God grant us pardon, absolution and remission of all our sins.’
Dutifully he muttered, eyes closed, thinking:
Eleanor.
My greatest folly.
Warwick shall never know about Eleanor
.

There were the usual rolls for signature in the chamber filled with heralds, notaries, clerks.
Warwick stood close; Edward experienced a familiar satisfaction when the tall Earl was forced to look up into his King’s eyes.
Together they dealt with the day’s business, Edward signing with flourishes, and tossing parchments swiftly to the Master of the Rolls for the Great Seal’s imprint.
Only when the representatives of the City of London came forward did his haste abate.
He embraced the gildsmen and burgesses, his beloved citizens.
These were his supporters, and the purveyors of England’s lifeblood.
These were the men who through their wool and grain and fish would replenish the debt-ridden Privy Purse, legacy of King Henry, and make England a land once more revered.
Practical, honest men, who enjoyed the sweets of life.
He, Edward, would restore them; and doubtless they would show their gratitude in a practical, honest way.

Eventually Warwick and he were left alone.
The Earl seemed fidgety, and Edward was chafing from the summer sounds outside.
Nearly nine!
He was determined to be astride his favourite courser within the hour.

‘So, Richard, how goes it?’

‘Well enough, your Grace,’ said Warwick.

Edward gestured impatiently.
‘God’s Blessed Lady!
You know my name well enough.
Use it.’

‘Ned,’ said Warwick.
‘Ned, my lord.
I have serious matters for your opinion.
They can delay no longer.’

‘Queen Margaret, no doubt,’ said Edward with a sigh.
‘Well, where is she today?
Harlech, Scotland?
Give me your scurriers’ news, and I’ll summon an array.
Although, God’s Blood!
my armies are marched to death.
I had thought we might rest a week.’

‘Certes, rest all you wish,’ said Warwick unexpectedly.
‘My serious matters, if you consider them favourably, may give us rest for our lifetimes.’

Edward sat down in the chair of estate and contemplated his own well-turned thighs.
The Earl’s next words should not have surprised him, yet they did.

‘It concerns your marriage, Ned.
England needs a Queen, and you must get an heir.’

‘So,’ murmured Edward, thinking of his bastards.
None could ever doubt his potency.
He raised his golden brows.
‘Whom have we in mind?’

From his pouch Warwick drew sealed letters.
‘I have, your Grace, taken the liberty of securing the hand of the Princess Bona of Savoy.
Isabella of Spain would also honour such an alliance, but Savoy is shaped to meet our needs in these precarious times.’

He held the letters out to Edward, who did not move or speak.

‘The Princess will come next year to be your bride.’

Suddenly stricken by implication, Edward said: ‘The Lady Bona is sister by marriage to Louis of France!’

‘Yes,’ answered Warwick swiftly.
‘And this is three parts of her value.
With you wed to Louis’s kin, there can be no more assaults from the Frenchwoman.
France and England can unite.
Think, your Grace!
Peace without blood!’
He added casually: ‘Bona, they say, is very fair.’

Wild thoughts nipped at Edward.
He broke into a light sweat.
Eleanor.
Because of my madness with Eleanor, I can marry none.
I always wondered whether Warwick, through his spies, had any knowledge of this; now it is proven that he has not.
Nor shall he have.
But what of this princess he offers me?
Implication, realization, smote at him, making his voice hard in reply.

‘Burgundy,’ he said.

The Earl spread his hands deprecatingly, and was silent.

‘I will not side with France against Burgundy,’ said the King tightly.
‘Not even for the sake of peace’ Louis would expect, nay, demand, that his new kinsman align himself with him against the hated, coveted realm.
‘Christ!’
his voice rose.
‘I owe Burgundy my brothers’ lives.
Have you forgotten how Duke Philip cherished them in exile, when the Anjou witch would have had them butchered?
I can never repay Burgundy!’

Now he was sure of the truth in the rumours of Warwick’s friendship with Louis.
He wondered how far it had gone.
How ruthless the Earl was, and how short of memory!
Coldly, Edward said:

‘My lord, I trust you continue to guard my brother Richard as faithfully as Duke Philip did.’
He changed tack, and smiled an infuriating smile.
‘I, too, have every intent of matchmaking.
My sister Margaret shall marry Philip’s son: Charles of Charolais.
Burgundy shall remain our ally.’
Secretly he thought too of the wool trade, the low levies and the desirability of commerce with Burgundy rather than France.
Edward did not like France at all.

Warwick chose to disregard this last statement.
He said coldly:‘Richard does well at Middleham.
He is by far the best of my henchmen.
He excels in the arts of war.
He is not the weakling we all thought him.’

Tell me what I know not, Edward thought, the last vestige of his good humour gone.
I know Dickon’s worth: Why else would I make him Admiral of England?
He may be only twelve and his brother George topping him by inches, but had I to choose in whose hands to lay my life …

‘And he loves me well,’ said Warwick, cool and dangerous.
‘He vows I am his second father.
As for George, he would ride with me to the earth’s end.’

The meaning was obvious.
Remain my pupil; do my will, or I will suborn your brothers!
Edward had never seen the Earl like this.
It was also obvious that he had expected an immediate acceptance of the Savoy proposal.
Well, this moment was as good as any.
Obduracy flourished in Edward.
Now pupil can bid master come and go!
He rose.

‘Enough,’ he said.
Outside the day glittered, and the birds were singing like mad angels.

‘What am I to tell Savoy, your Grace?’

The King stopped, near the door.
Warwick’s knee was bent, his head bowed, but a flush of chagrin mounted to his hairline.

‘Tell them that I am going hunting.’
He went out, brain whirling from the impact of this new Warwick, thoughts stumbling over the impossible prospect of marriage – any marriage.
Eleanor.
Eleanor, why were you not wanton and easy, like Dame Lucey?
Anxieties knotted within him, and were suddenly overlaid by a calm, insistent voice, culled from the crazy patter of a dream: ‘At Grafton … at Grafton …’

He sent messengers ahead to greet the Duchess of Bedford, to arrive a full day and a half ahead of his party.
This would give her time to call in any cattle on Whittlebury Chase; his hounds would bring down anything, even the lion, the unicorn.
He decided not to burden the Duchess with providing hospitality for all his train.
These isolated manors were usually cheerless anyway.
Time enough to think of where to stay when the hunt was over.
He ran down the Palace stair, leaving his esquires far behind with each long stride.
There, waiting for him was Lord Hastings, solid as granite; a drinker, a wencher, a true fellow about whose neck he flung an arm.
And the Earl of Desmond, clad in hunters’ green; young, handsome and eager.
If any asked, Edward could say with truth that Desmond was the knight he loved best.
Desmond was like the spring, bright and promising.
He made Edward laugh, he lifted his rare melancholies with warmth and wisdom.
He was utterly trustworthy, cultured and noble.
For all these reasons Edward had bestowed upon him the Deputy Lieutenancy of Ireland.

‘Tom, we’re for Northamptonshire!’
he cried.
Desmond pulled a long face, grumbling that it was the devil of a way to ride merely to chase the boar, and Edward laughed.
He began to sing, a coarse verderers’ song; he clutched Thomas Fitzgerald Desmond about the shoulders and they sparred together like yokels all the way to the princely stables.
The esquires followed, shocked and admiring.
Edward lifted his face to the sun and laughed again.
He was England’s King; he could do as he pleased, and he was going hunting.

He was also disenchanted with Warwick, his one-time guide and mentor.
He was ready and ripe to be undone.

She walked through the forest, holding the hands of the little boys, one on either side.
The hands were cold; they were hungry and so was she.
Despite the day’s heat, a chill filled their bellies.
Thomas was pale, quieter, beginning at seven years to outstrip his strength by inches.
Now and then she stopped to lift Richard into her arms.
For all his thinness, he seemed to weigh the earth.
A slight, black-robed figure, she went dwarfed by the giant trees while all around the forest sang and scampered, small birds and animals in ceaseless activity.
She went slowly, unafraid, for nothing could harm her.
Even the wolf and wild boar would pass her by, for her mother had laid the word upon them.

In the past two years she had grown to Jacquetta like ivy to an elm.
It had been a long and painful business, with many joltings of her spirit, rebellion and tears, but now the two of them were one in desire.
Therefore she walked the appointed way at the appointed time through Whittlebury, and often she smiled.
Coupled with her downcast eyes, the smile was strangely sinister.
Seldom did she look up; the mossy way, starred with celandine and buttercup, made itself plain and clear before her, like the words of a well-learned text.

‘She asked Raymond for as much of the land around the fountain as could be covered by a stag’s hide, and she cut the hide into ten thousand strips so that her land extended far beyond the forest.
There she built Lusignan…’

A bubble of hunger rose in her throat.
At Grafton the household was far too large for comfort, even in her father’s absence.
He was away mostly, leading a life unknown, not fighting, for since the royal pardon he had eschewed Queen Margaret’s cause.
But there were the sweet, ever-famished sisters: Catherine, Jacquetta, Anne, Mary, Margaret, Eleanor, Martha.
Young Edward was at sea and Lionel in training for holy orders.
But there was still Dick, cursing his lack of fine clothes, and nineteen-year-old John, who ate the heartiest of all.
Anthony was married to a kinswoman of Ismania Lady Scales and Elizabeth was glad for him.
He was Lord Scales in right of his wife and could be summoned to the Parliament.
He visited Grafton occasionally, and the fair comeliness of his face reminded her of another, two years dead, and her own insupportable pain.

‘There she built Lusignan …’

But had Melusine loved?
Had she lost a husband at the hands of Raymond’s kin?
These were questions forbidden by the Duchess; locked away since that first intense conversation in Jacquetta’s private solar.
Then, Elizabeth, laughing and crying, had vowed she would sooner put her head in fire than come within an armsbreadth of any Yorkist murderer.
Yet she had been conquered, by one sentence, repeated like a charm.

‘Do as I say,’ Jacquetta, great eyes burning, whispered.
‘Do as I say, and you will hurt my lord of Warwick sore.’

There was the spark to the brand.
Since the rape of Bradgate, Elizabeth had lain nightly conjuring tortures for the enemy, torments so real that they disturbed her sleep.
Warwick’s gouged eyes, his flesh aflame with everlasting fire; Warwick hanged from Bradgate’s tower, a spike through his tongue.
All these outrageous impossible lusts outmatched so simply by one calm phrase: Do as I say.
And she had cried: ‘Yes, madame!
With my last breath!’
And so the fantastic pattern was revealed with all its diabolical nuances.
Secrets so black and bloody between herself and Jacquetta and the world, that she often trembled at their implications.
Sir Richard Woodville could not know, and the sisters were kept apart.
Catherine, the dearest, was hurt and troubled.
More acute than the others, she pestered Elizabeth: what was that strange perfume, that ugly herb, gathered by night?
and received a curt answer, or none at all.