The King's Grey Mare (27 page)

‘I have forgotten nothing,’ said Richard.
‘You brought us gifts and comforted us.
You were called by God to win England from Lancaster.
At Towton and Mortimers Cross; you were, and are, my loving brother, and praise God, my King.’

He raised eyes black with worship.
Edward blinked.

‘Aye!’
he said, pleased.
He wondered whether to ask Richard about George, who, as everyone knew, hankered after Warwick’s eldest daughter Isabel, and whose loyalty was therefore suspect.
He decided against it, and said:

‘You will soon be grown.
Able to minister to my affairs in the courts of justice, and ride on campaign.’

There was that look of gratitude again, almost frightening in its passion.
The youth was too serious; no frivolity.
To Edward this seemed wrong.
He should be dancing, gaming, and soon there should be mistresses.
These thoughts brought on a fierce lust for Elizabeth.

‘So!’
he said, hastily, and stretched his hand again for Richard’s salute.
‘Be gone, now.
Amuse yourself.’

The young Duke left without a word, and Edward extended himself upon a day-bed.
Soon, the Queen would enter and come to him.
It was uncanny – some days there was no need for him to summon her.
It was as if she knew his wishes; the mystical implications of this made his flesh crawl pleasurably.

Within five minutes he was watching her disrobe.
The sunlight gleamed upon her whiteness.
At his leisure, while the afternoon danced and ebbed like a wanton, he got her again with child.

‘Tell me again,’ said Elizabeth.

She was fatigued.
There had been a revel that evening, and dancing, which her heavy body could not enjoy.
Edward was still closeted with her father and brother and the other ministers in the King’s privy chamber.
She had looked forward to being unrobed by Renée and sinking into sleep.
But Margaret Beaufort had craved audience – a matter of urgency, she said – and now sat at the Queen’s feet, fresh as if it were dawning, unruffled, keen-witted.
She had done with childbearing, she was often heard to declare, as if she were an old woman.
Her eyes roved expressionlessly over Elizabeth’s heavy roundness.

‘Say again, my lady.
My wits are dull tonight.’
The windows were open but it was still stifling in the Tower apartments.
The rooms were too narrow; a pungent mist rose from the summer Thames, but Greenwich and Sheen were being sweetened so she must endure it.
Sometimes she thought of Bradgate.
Bradgate was hers again, but she had not been back.
Lady Margaret leaned close, casting an eye over the attendant ladies.
Most of them were dozing or working intently on their tapestry.

‘My informant is reliable,’ she said softly.
‘My clerk.’

‘So?’

‘Reynold Bray.’
The narrow black glance was amused.
‘These clerks!
They go like church mice, soft and docile.
They weasel in and out of the most privy conferences, bringing back tidings like snips of cheese.
No great lady should be without them.’

At the news that Elizabeth owned no such servants, she pursed her thin mouth, shocked.

‘It would honour me should your Grace require my man at any time to work her bidding, were it in his own blood.’

Elizabeth said carefully: ‘Why should I need such service?’

As if in chapel, Lady Margaret bowed her head.

‘All have enemies.’

Instantly alert, Elizabeth said: ‘Tell me their names,’ and Margaret glanced about, maddeningly covert.
Whispering, she replied: ‘Hastings – he would bring you down an it were possible.
And the Deputy Lieutenant of Ireland …’

Elizabeth froze.
So Desmond’s laughter was not the mere crackling of thorns; there was real malice beneath it.
Small wonder he had incensed her so with his smile; her instinct had not lied.

She said: ‘Recount me what your church mouse has learned.’

‘Not here, Madame.
It’s better from his own lips.
If your Grace will accompany me …’ She cast waspishly about at the drowsy gentle-women.
‘I will support you; ’tis not far.’

Minute and upright, with many obsequious gestures, she led the way to her own apartments.
In an antechamber, Bray was writing at a lectern.
A pale and shadowy man; anonymous.
At the Queen’s entrance he dropped his quill, yet neatly so that no ink scattered; he drew a low obeisance, flourishing a soiled kerchief.
She looked about her; this day everything revolted – the smell of dust from a pile of parchments in the corner; dog-hairs on a worn cloak.
The child kicked fiercely beneath her girdle, as if it were distressed by the smell of sweat and stale beer.

‘By St.
Denis, Master Bray, you live like a hog!’

He raised a white face, he begged her pardon and that of Lady Margaret.

‘Sir,’ said the Countess, ‘recount to her Grace the conversation between Earl Warwick and Lord Desmond.’

He smirked and twisted his hands together.
‘I was saying my morning office,’ he began.
‘The chapel window was open, likewise that of my lord Warwick …’

‘Come, Sir Clerk!’
cried Elizabeth.
‘I care not how you heard it.
Speak, or I’ll have you whipped.’

The smirk vanished.
He said quickly: ‘Your Grace.
My lord spoke first; he said: “Tom” (so he calls Desmond) – “Tom, can you not influence the King?
He loves you well and will hearken to you.” ’ He shot a narrow glance upward.
‘Your Grace, ’tis almost treason…’

‘Would you lose your tongue?’
Now she found she could be ruthless and savage, like the Butcher of Worcester.

‘He said: “The Queen
wastes
our sovereign.
This rift with Spain and Savoy gives me bad dreams.
Through her, our realm is plunged into vulnerability.
The Queen is an ill-omened person.” ”

Through her growing rage she felt a little chill.
The clerk continued:

‘He asked my lord of Desmond if there was any means by which he could persuade the King to … to put your Grace away.’

‘And what said Desmond?’

‘I could not hear.’

‘But he did not disagree?’

The clerk spread his hands, a yea-nay gesture.
She thought, curdled with fury: I’ll have Desmond’s head, and I will see the blood of Warwick.
Cursed Warwick!
The child plunged within her as if pricked by memory carried in her own blood: Warwick’s men unhanging the Goliath tapestry; Desmond’s smile.
The two things oddly mingled.
Lady Margaret’s hard black eyes were upon her, her hand upon her arm.

‘Your Grace,’ she murmured, ‘shall I bid my mouse hide in the wainscot a few more weeks?’

Speechless, she nodded, and quit the chamber where Bray mopped and scraped in duty.
Flashes of fire ran through her belly.
I must be calm, she told herself.
Or I shall miscarry Edward’s child.
Sometimes she hated him for making her carry the child through the sweltering summer.
The burden added viciousness to her thoughts.
She felt the weight of enemies all around her, synonymous with this pull of flesh within flesh.
Jacquetta of Bedford was constantly at her side, feeding her capers in honey for pains in the womb, and violet syrup for her throbbing head.
The King’s ardour was undiminished at the sight of her swollen body.
He possessed her almost nightly, though now with the tenderness of a nurse.
Often she caught herself wanting to scream: ‘Leave me be, you lustful Yorkist ram!’
She clung to discretion.
The glitter in her blue eyes he mistook for love.
Jacquetta smiled, mixing little simples, murmuring quiet consolations.

Thomas, the Queen’s firstborn, approached manhood, and she saw John in him, a dull, aching memory.
But he was arrogant where John had been courteous.
He was rumbustious, and bullied the young pages in tiltyard and Hall.
He mocked the King’s brothers: Richard of Gloucester, and, when he dared, George of Clarence, for Clarence was sixteen and owned his own manor, spending little time at court.
One of Warwick’s toadies?
she wondered, and watched him when she could.

One day Edward, impulsive and restless, burst into her chamber with the announcement that he was riding out.
He said it was time to cast an eye over his southern provinces, to attend the
oyer
and
terminer
in a few shires, and to pray at a shrine or two on his progress.

‘Would that you were coming with me, sweet heart,’ he said.
Hands in her hair, warm lips on her throat.
She extricated herself with a little laugh, weak with concealed relief.

‘Our child must not be born upon the road, Ned,’ she agreed.
‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Oh, weeks, days,’ he said vaguely.
‘I leave the court in your hands.
Send for more minstrels; the Flemish are skilled in song.’

Something awoke in her, and stirred.
She said: ‘Is there not more to ruling than music, my lord?
Are there no matters of policy which I should know?
While you’re away, should I not be aware of statecraft?’

He laughed indulgently, picked up a tapestry frame in one great hand, admired the birds and flowers, and set the frame down.

‘Pretty one,’ he said.
Then, reconsidering: ‘Aye, well.
My ministers will attend you daily.
I shall take Hastings with me, and your father, and Anthony perhaps.
No?’
seeing her face fall.
‘Very well.
Your father shall stay.
But there are offices I must confer before I leave – the Deputy Lieutenancy of Ireland for one …’

She said sharply: ‘That is Desmond’s commission!’

‘Yes.
But I intend to confer greater honours upon him.
He’s wasted in Ireland.’

She said casually: ‘Have you thoughts for his successor?’

Laughing at this new interest in policy, he caressed her.
‘Have
you
, my love?
Come, you shall choose.
A worthy supporter of all my causes to rule over those blackthorn bogs.
Give me your vote.’

Like a wild vision the ruthless, deathshead countenance of her most faithful servant came to mind.

‘Tiptoft is loyal,’ she said.

He roared.
‘Why, sweeting, a fierce choice.
And yet …’ He mused, subtly enlightened, stroking his fair strong chin.

‘He would serve you well,’ she said almost inaudibly.

For a moment he studied her.
She was pale today, her long throat like a windflower stem, her lips like two red petals folded firm.
And John of Worcester would and could hold down the chanting peat-bards royally.

‘So be it, lady,’ he said.
‘Tiptoft is our choice.
Desmond shall be relieved; he can make merry in his Irish castle until I return.’

She pressed close.
‘Return soon,’ she said.
She yielded her mouth, feeling his hard kiss, warm, insensitive, tasting the salt of his passion on her lips.

At Westminster, she held in her hands the Great Seal.
It was heavy, with a solemn dark glow about it, and the arms and images were deeply ingrained like the runes on some mysterious talisman.
The Seal!
the emblem of omnipotence.
The child moved fiercely within her; she saw her pearl-trimmed girdle flutter and rise slightly as if to touch the Seal in approval.
About her stood a small and silent assembly: her father, Sir Richard Woodville, new-made Earl Rivers and Treasurer of England; Lady Margaret Beaufort; Doctor Morton; and Jacquetta, with her devil-virgin’s smile.
Elizabeth looked down.
As if at the touch of her eyes the man kneeling before her raised his head and fixed her with that dreadful, thrusting, competent glance.

‘Sir John Tiptoft.’

‘Your Grace.’
He would not release her from that look, or from culmination of a plan that had moved too quickly, burned too savagely.
‘All is ready, highness.’

The clerk, familiar, whey-faced Reynold Bray, stepped forward with a long roll of parchment.
She cast her eye over it; the word
treason
leaped black and plain to see.
It was a most unconstitutional document; but in this she was her own parliament and court of law; vanity was the judge and rage the executioner.
And for this end she must know more, hear more.
She must feel the spark that lit her tinder.
Tell me, Sir Clerk, the words my lord of Desmond lately used to shame us.
She must have those words, to counter the Seal’s dreadful coolness under her hands.