The King's Grey Mare (13 page)

Close, Elizabeth felt her father’s warmth.
It was good to be with him again.
Broad and handsome, he inquired as to her health and that of John.
Jacquetta of Bedford sat enjoying the voyage, her head dipping to the rhythm of the lapping waves.
And there was another passenger aboard, one who frowned at each miscast stroke of the oarsmen with the dignity of an octogenarian, who closed her nose with a herb-sprig at the stench of cod wafting from the fishmonger’s alleys: Lady Margaret Beaufort.
Fully twelve years now, she sat, eyes on a sacred manuscript, but now and then looking about with a passionless, all-seeing gaze.
Elizabeth ventured to ask her: ‘Are you wed yet, my lady?’
and the dwarfish maiden answered: ‘Next year, Dame Grey.
To Edmund Tudor.
The King so decrees.’
She bent again to her reading with one chilling, complacent look.

At Westminster Hall a host of knights and nobles were gathered, all wearing the Lancastrian ‘chain of ‘S’s or the flower of Marguerite.
The Queen was already seated at the head of the throng, with Henry, gaunt and shadowy; the little prince, toy dagger occupying his hands, sat on a red velvet throne.
The oaths were taken, the principals of the Council took their places.
The occupants of the Hall accommodated themselves as best they could, some leaning against the walls.
To Elizabeth, crushed behind three tall knights and their ladies, the Queen was a blur, the white face a little flame, the spare small body straining upwards.
Beaufort of Somerset presided.
On the faces of the councillors there was triumph, hardly veiled.
Many were richly robed; in his poor gown, the King looked like some wantwit peasant come to solicit alms.
Elizabeth twitched her father’s sleeve.
‘Why are they all so proud?’
she whispered.
‘I never saw my lord of Buckingham smile like that before.’
Buckingham was a tall dour knight who cared little for ceremony.
Sir Richard Woodville leaned down to murmur: ‘It is a great day for Lancaster.
Look about you!’

She glanced before and behind at the massed courtiers.
Every face bore the same look; smugness, arrogance.
Lady Margaret Beaufort, all but smirking, knelt on a prayer-stool near the dais, while beside her stood her betrothed, Edmund Tudor, and his brother Jasper, thin and sallow and haughty.
Colours made a mosaic of the Hall; gowns red and green and yellow, the brown of a friar’s habit, the black robes of the tonsured clerks, who, quills and parchment ready, waited on the Council’s words.
Sir Richard leaned again to his daughter.

‘There are no Yorkists present, Bess.
And should any come, they will be refused entry.
This is the Queen’s new Council.
Today she pits her might against those puny adversaries.
Listen to my lord of Somerset, Bess!
See the tide turning!’

His blue eyes blazed with satisfaction.
Nowhere was there a sign of the White Rose, the Bear, the Falcon, the Fetterlock, the Griffin.
There was a scuffling at the great door, where guards with pikes conducted a whispered argument with someone outside.
One who demanded admission, and pressed on the door so that it swung open; who doffed his grimy cloak to reveal a tunic studded with marguerites.
Elizabeth swung round quickly to see the newcomer, now jesting with the apologetic guard, slip in under the raised halberds.
He was tall and slender and copper-haired.
The fairest man …

‘John!’
she cried, earning a frown from her father.
Heedless, she ducked and writhed through the press of people, treading on feet, feeling her sleeve tear on the hilt of a dagger.
Then she was at his side, feeling his strength, his velvet doublet smooth upon her throat and breast.
She, a wife of two years’ standing, should neither feel nor act thus, hut feeling, like a whirlwind, swept her, overcame her; tears dissolved his face when she looked at him.
He bent and took her mouth hungrily, released her, hugged her to him again.
She said, over the sound of Beaufort in strident proclamation from the dais: ‘Ah, my lord, my lord!
How I do love you!’
Around them heads turned, though not in annoyance.
For in those ageless words was something to make those long past love remember, and be kind.

They whispered together like children, holding one another close.
Silly loving words: why had he tarried so long?
She died by inches when he was away.
It was her fault, he said, there had been many complex matters in the Groby estates for his eye, his seal, on which he could not stay his mind for thinking of Isabella.
Six weeks, six whole weeks.
Did she prosper?
And the babe?
In the shadow of a tall squire’s cloak, his hand slid to caress her belly.
Joyful tears stained her cheeks; he wiped them dry with his fine linen kerchief.
Beaufort’s voice rose and fell, filling the Hall with meaningless words.
What had her father said?
That this was the tide turning?
Let them talk and talk.
Her own tide was turned this very day.
Her ship was anchored in the sweet slack harbour of love.

Then John said: ‘I may have to go to war.’

Her racing pulse slowed.
The grey arched pillars of the chamber rose high above her.
She felt her body suddenly cast in their image; stone-cold and stiff, supporting the great weight of new trouble as they upheld the faded gilt roof … It would be madness to swoon.
All men went to war.
Their women harnessed them, remembered them in the Mass, and waited for their returning, or their non-returning.
Or did they swoon, the weaker ones?
Only at the reality of death, not at a word.
She had never succumbed to such fits in her life.
It must be the babe that made her head ache and grow light as a puffball.
John’s arms pulled her back from a blinding greyness.
Stinging heat rose in her eyes.
She heard him say:

‘Listen, sweeting, to the Queen.
She is going to address the Council.’

Margaret’s pallor held all eyes.
Her diadem caught the light, and her little teeth gleamed in a wolfish smile.
King Henry looked up frailly at her, and the little prince ceased toying with his dagger and took his mother’s outstretched hand.
He walked, well-schooled, with her to the edge of the dais, and stood, his white silk mantle falling to the floor about him.
Margaret said clearly, fiercely: ‘My lords and loyal subjects!
Behold our salvation!
This day I give to you the emblem of our royal House, destined to be anointed with the Chrism.
Born of my body to defend our throne.
My lords!
The Prince Edward!’

Like a shipwrecking sea, cheering split the air.
It lasted long minutes while Margaret stood, surveying her son.
The King muttered, startled, and looked towards heaven, while Beaufort moved to the prince’s side, placing a bronzed hand on the small shoulder.
Nearly all the councillors were tall, but Beaufort, in that moment, looked like a giant.
The Queen began then to speak in earnest, her accent growing heavy, tortuous like a saw-edged knife, commanding like a mace.
She lit the imagination and the loyalty of all.
Even the sycophants who had squandered the King’s treasure while he prayed were moved.
She lashed them with her own ambition.
She spoke with French oaths, calling on the saints and all her ancestors to witness her renewed hope, her strength, in the presence of England’s heir.
Her vengeance stirred a great wind in the Chamber, especially when she spoke of Beaufort.

‘Remember, my lords, that when Richard Duke of York forced himself upon this realm as Protector, he had our dearest cousin imprisoned in the Tower?
Is this protection?
To use thus one who has earned our favour through his great and laudable counsel at all times?
Is this loyalty?
To our royal and beloved husband?
To me?’

King Henry raised his eyes.
‘Forsooth, nay,’ he said.

‘Gentlemen,’ continued the Queen, ‘we are weary of this false pretentious claim of York and all his minions.
We will suffer him no longer.’
Her lips were slick with froth.
‘My lords!
If you are my loyal and noble Council, you will this day order an assemblage of all our military.
For the purpose of safeguarding our person against all enemies.
Messires!
Will you array yourself accordingly?’

John’s arm closed tighter about Elizabeth.
‘This is a formality,’ he whispered.
‘We are out to frighten the Yorkists … sweetheart, be calm.’
But his own voice was far from such, and full of excitement.
A roar answered Margaret’s challenge.
Already armed men were issuing from the adjoining chamber.
Beaufort was down on one knee before the King.
He proffered a sword.
Uneasy and wistful, the King took it, weighed it, nodded an acceptance, then bowed his head over the gleaming steel, tracing the cruciform hilt with a devout finger.

‘Is the King to fight also?’
Elizabeth found this hardly credible.

‘There’ll be no fighting; the Yorkists will run,’ said John, as if he rued the prospect.
‘And the King must show himself.
He’ll lead one of the levies.
To Leicester.’

So he knew all the time, she thought sadly.
Even the venue for the marshalling of the troops.
I must be brave, like all other women.
Yet no other woman loves as I … The hall was hot with talk, the throng dispersing.
Hand-clasped, she and John slipped out into the corridor.
Already there was the chill sound of sharpening steel on stone from the neighbouring courtyard where there was an armoury.
Sick with longing, she said: ‘Pray Jesu you need not leave this very day.’

He laughed, lifted her off her feet, kissing her throat and bosom.
‘Nay, sweet, my arms are in good order!
All this franticking to prepare I’ll leave to those who let their gear go rusty.
Oh, Isabella!’
He shrugged his body in the travelstained velvet.
‘I’m not fit to kiss you.
Lead me to a bath, and dinner!’
She looked at his eyes and knew with gladness that the bath would be cursory, the dinner rushed through.
Warmth flooded her.
My love, she thought.
And more; my saviour and my friend.

She awoke once in the night and cried out, full of some obscure image, a dream of shadows and dark places.
And he was there instantly, drawing her down in his arms, so strong that her bones felt like a kitten’s.
The scent of him lulled her to sleep again before his murmurings of comfort had ceased.
She dreamed again, that life itself was a dream, and that they walked together through drifting roses, their heads touched by the sun.
There were flowers on every bush.
When she bent to pluck the flowers she saw that they were really jewels, sapphire periwinkles, primroses of beaten gold.
The rainbow blossoms were searing hot to the touch.
She awoke laughing at the nonsense of it all, awoke to John’s warmth and his drowsy amorousness.
And the old dance of love again, to greet the morning.

The royal army left for Leicester three days later.
Henry wore a purple mantle over ill-fitting armour.
A great cross he wore made a weird clanking sound as it jounced on his cuirass.
He scarcely seemed to know why he was so attired.
Margaret knelt before him, kissed his hand, and he looked down upon her with a vague tenderness.

‘Fie, my lady, why all this pother?’
he remarked.
‘If my lords do but love one another, all will be well.’
He turned to look out of the window on to the Thames, which sparkled under the May sky.

Beaufort came then to the Queen.
His harness was scoured to a mirror sheen.
As if he were going to a tourney, he wore the daisy-flower, tucked into the join at his gauntlet.

‘God speed you,
mon cousin
,’ said Margaret.
The King was still at the window, gazing and muttering.

‘Look to his Grace,’ she said.

‘With my heart’s blood,’ replied Beaufort of Somerset.
‘I would die a thousand deaths before he should come to harm.’

‘And I will cherish our heir,’ said the Queen, giving Beaufort her hand.
He held it tightly, tears in his eyes.
At that moment a messenger, spur-blood on the hem of his cloak, was admitted.
He offered a sealed roll, which Margaret waved away.
‘Speak!’
she commanded.
‘All here are my friends and advisers.’