The King's Grey Mare (37 page)

He did not say who he imagined the instigator of such rebellion might be.
Disappointed, she kept silence, and he continued.

‘My stomach goes against it.
Yet it is kindness, really … snatch him to heaven ‘twixt one psalm and the next.
Yes.
Bessy, you speak well.
If it were not heresy and against nature, I’d say you have a man’s mind.’

‘A woman’s heart, though, my liege,’ she answered, but he paid no need.
He said only: ‘It is settled, then.
Henry of Lancaster shall die.’

‘And Clarence?’
The words came out too eagerly.
Edward’s eyes grew hard as he looked down at her.

‘Who spoke of Clarence?’
he demanded.
‘He will not transgress; he is pardoned once more forgiven.
He is my brother.’

She bit her lip, looked away.
Edward, sickened by decision and indecision, surveyed her.
In the dusk she seemed fluid, her hair a film of radiance, her whole body diffused, spiritual.
Sometimes he felt like crossing himself at sight of her, his Madonna, his goddess.
Yet she should not speak as she did.
Henry must die, he was of Lancaster; but Clarence, fair stupid Clarence, born of the same womb as himself … No, she should not even think of it.
He must remind her of an old lesson.
In the corner of the Hall, one of the shadows moved.
It was a page, come in to fetch napkins for the laundry.
Edward called to him.

‘Fetch me Mistress Grace!’

‘My liege?’
The boy hesitated; he was new to the household and did not know who Edward meant.

‘My dear bastard daughter,’ said the King.

The youth ran, returning with the infant in his arms.
Rosy, half-asleep, she smiled, stretched out her arms – to the golden giant, to the silver lady, who once more turned away.
Edward, weary and distraught, took the child in his arms with such roughness that she began to cry.
With his lips in the soft curly hair he said:

‘Lancaster shall die, Bess.
Ah, weep not, Grace!’

Above the child’s head, his eyes bored into Elizabeth, and spoke of Clarence.
Be careful, Madame.
Do not threaten those I love!
But, as if to an empty room, he repeated:

‘Henry shall die.
Quietly, swiftly.
No need to shrive him.
He is without fault.’

The long tide of Jacquetta of Bedford’s life was ebbing, leaving a desolate strand of memory and the old shipwrecks of those loved and hated.
It was a night of strange winds that shivered the tapestry knights upon the Siege of Jerusalem; from her bed, the Duchess looked cloudily upon that stolen splendour.
She lay lapped in goosefeather softness while her mottled hands spread and moulded the coverlet.
The kneeling figures about the room were opaque, inconsequential; she had been shriven but Bishop Morton remained, also the clerk Reynold Bray, tongueing prayers in a ceaseless monotone.
There were also two nuns, the nuns of Sewardsley, fresh from their penance.
Silly, blabbering women!
She remembered their betrayal of her over the waxen images and her fierce old heart cast a shred of rancour towards them; it was so tangible that one nun, frightened, looked up from her prayers at the bed where Jacquetta lay, formidable even in death.
The Duchess’s eyes moved over faces, features, jewels.
They loomed large and faded.
There was Lady Margaret Beaufort, the clever little wench!
The outgoing tide washed up admiration.
And Morton, with his crucifix held aloft like some battle trophy.
Together Morton and Margaret would guard her dream.
That gilded staff of heritage … there she was; dry-eyed as befits a Queen.
Standing straight and slender to watch the bearing out of the longship of Jacquetta’s soul.
Elizabeth.

The Queen came closer, one hand curved around the bedpost, thinking: so death clears my mother’s mind.
When I needed her she was somewhere distant, locked away in thought.
Now that the Fiend is no more, she comes to me again, purposeless.
She bent so that her warm cheek almost touched the mother’s shrivelled face.

‘I cannot hear you, madam.’

‘Fair,’ said Jacquetta in a breath.
She smiled.
‘Fair enough to grace the ramparts of Lusignan.’

Suspended in memory, the far-off day took on life.
The leafy willows, the green and silver reeds.
Two brindled trout lying in the shallows.
All beauty and all power, departed now from the old voice murmuring so precisely.
One word caught at her ear: ‘Danger.’

She answered, very quiet: ‘No more, madam.
Warwick is gone; he burns in Hell.’

The Duchess writhed to sit up; Margaret Beaufort assisted her.
‘… Others!’
said Jacquetta.
The word was wrapped up in the sigh and groan of the wind outside the walls.
‘Ned’s brothers will harm you.
Queens can be brought down.
Never doubt it.’

Morton’s black shape drew nearer the bed, and the nuns crept close.
The Duchess’s hand made an angry, serpentine gesture.

‘Let them depart!’
she said, and a look from the Queen sent the nuns stumbling on their habits, quitting the chamber with a backlash of icy draught.
Reynold Bray remained, a fixture, the reek of his clothes and his praying voice tokens of his presence.
Morton still held his cross aloft.
The Duchess caught at Elizabeth’s hand.
In a surprisingly strong voice she said, ‘Listen, my daughter.’
Margaret Beaufort leaned near, and the Bishop, one on either side of Elizabeth.

‘Danger … Clarence.’
The words hissed and broke like random rain.
‘He will dethrone the King, and you.
He suspects, but is not sure.’

‘Madame,’ said Elizabeth uneasily.
The old eyes were as clear as a child’s, and full of menace.

‘He seeks the truth about the King’s marriage to Eleanor Butler.
His spies go forth, night and day.
Soon he will have his proof, and undo you.’

Elizabeth felt the blood rush up into her face.
Her heart pounded; she gazed appalled at her mother, knowing that the closest of all secrets had been torn open wantonly before witnesses.
Then the Duchess chuckled, a sickly rasp.

‘There’s no harm in speaking before the Bishop and Lady Margaret.
They are your friends.
Am I right, my lord?’

Morton, stroking his crucifix, half-closed his wattled eyes and bowed in assent.
Margaret Beaufort’s clipped voice said, ‘Indeed, your Grace,’ and Jacquetta looked up triumphantly, but after a moment her face paled, her hands began to scratch once more at the bedcovers.

‘Open the window,’ she said faintly.
Reynold Bray rose from his corner and threw the casement wide.
A fierce gust roared in, lifting the Siege of Jerusalem so that the tassels upon it rattled in a skeleton’s dance.
The Duchess’s voice, much weaker, called to Elizabeth.
She leaned, shutting out Morton and Margaret.
Very softly Jacquetta said: ‘Bury me at midnight!’

She was bewildered, and answered: ‘Midnight, madam?’

‘Aye, for such as we – you and I, daughter – it is the only time of grace.
No demon can attack us at that hour.
Bury me then so that I may–’ she gasped, retched – ‘sit with
her
on the heights of Lusignan.’

I will not, cannot do it, thought Elizabeth.
It would cause comment.
She wanders, her madness returns.
‘Rest, madam.’
Her voice was caught up and tossed in the gale through the window.
Jacquetta was staring at her, one fading look of pride and warning.
The tassels made their bony music, the wind thundered, mingled with the moaning rattle in Jacquetta’s throat.
Lady Margaret touched the Queen’s shoulder.

‘She dies.’

Morton was gabbling the last rites and the holy unction trickled on Jacquetta’s brows.
The casement, torn almost off its hinges, by a sweep of wind, hurled open and shut.
As if summoned by this, there came priests burning ghostly tapers, the two white-faced nuns, and Anthony, weeping.
Catherine, weeping and followed by the other sisters, richly gowned, tired from their corridor vigil.
They knelt about the bed, making their soft farewell.

Elizabeth had imagined that perhaps some spirit of water and light would show itself, transfiguring Jacquetta’s face.
That Melusine herself would manifest her power, bear up her loyalest servant.
But there was none of this.
There was only stillness; the first hint of waste, corruption.
And of the grave, with its toad, its snail, its worm.

Edward was unfaithful.
It was his privilege and prerogative.
She guessed that he had dallied during the later part of their marriage with a dozen different women.
Now he had abandoned any pretence at keeping these matters secret.
All wives, she told herself, shared her situation, without complaining, but this philosophy, the very pattern of the times, did not lessen the hurt.
Now he had three harlots at court; there was a pale pious girl who spent all her free time in chapel.
She shared an apartment in Eltham hunting lodge with the King’s second favourite, a black-eyed Flemish slut.
Both these women were fed and clothed sumptuously, but were seldom seen in the royal palaces.
Jane Shore was different.

A hoyden, no more than seventeen, she was permanently at Edward’s side.
She laughed incessantly, unprettily, like a corncrake shrieking.
She had been plucked from the bed of a dotard husband and brought from Chepeside to the royal apartments.
Edward was besotted, not only with her round body but with her constant witticisms.
He looked upon her as a female fool, and for all the hours the jest continued, with variations, while Elizabeth listened to the distant, jarring screams and howls.
She herself was still visited by Edward; he came often enough to make her almost yearly with child, but no longer did he call her his love, his fate.

She watched Jane with Edward, and with her own son Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset.
He also, she knew, had enjoyed that plump jesting body, and Jane was in love with him.
Not only Thomas would like to cuckold the King.
Will Hastings, Lord Chamberlain and secret lecher, also desired Jane, the lowly mercer’s wife.
Elizabeth watched and held her peace, hugging the hurt close.
At Ludlow, she listened to the murmured words of Margaret Beaufort, now her dearest counsellor.

She may be useful, my liege.’

‘How?
A common whore?’
The hurt emerged, red and bleeding, was surveyed by the Countess and vanished unappeased.

‘Be kind to her, Madame.
She may be useful.
See how Hastings lusts after her.
Madame, believe me, I would befriend and advise you!’

Elizabeth was only half-listening.
She looked out over the green bailey of Ludlow.
She and the Countess were standing on the battlements.
‘Sweet Margaret,’ she said absently.
The words emerged oddly like a peace-payment, the diplomacy of necessity, like the words recently penned by Edward to Louis of France.
The Treaty of Picquigny was in progress.
Peace to all men.
Elizabeth looked sideways at the Countess; no, none could call her ‘sweet’ nor could they apply that to Morton.
These days the Bishop was always near, standing even now like a sacred sentry, his robe fluttering in the breeze.
The heir to England was at Ludlow, so it was fitting that Morton, so wise and holy, should oversee the little Prince’s destiny for a space.

Elizabeth stared out over the merlons at the vista of forest green; it was unbroken save for a silver trickle where the Teme glinted in the shadow of the Welsh hills.
The fern-scented air touched her face soothingly.
Yet behind her, where the spiral wound down through the intricacies of Ludlow Castle, a colder wind blew.
Fraught with uncertainty, unseen future betrayals, it shivered her spirit.
It nourished the nagging threat from those unknown, who might now plot and jest and speak her name.
She drew her mantle closer.
I am Queen of England
.
A wary inner voice answered: for how long?
She thought: while Clarence lives, while Clarence’s spies go forth, my majesty is null and void.