The King's Grey Mare (61 page)

In a corner Reynold Bray was praying for a blessing on the King’s marriage.
Earlier the clerk had told Henry that the Stafford brothers, still in Sanctuary at Abingdon, were plotting revolt.
Henry decided then that he would knight Bray soon.
Not for loyalty!
but for his tireless, ferreting energy.
As for the Staffords – they would be dealt with in his own time.
He would make an example of them so that every traitor might know himself under the King’s surveillance.
One of the pages stood on tiptoe to crown Henry with a velvet cap.
A rose, fashioned of red and silver tissue, was pinned to the cap with a jewel.
Later, in the Abbey, Henry would wear his crown.
They held the steel mirror before him.
For a second he thought: that man is pale!
not recognizing himself.
Then strength flowed into him.
The past, with its doubts, died.
He thought: I am as glorious as Edward or Richard ever was.
More glorious!

And I am careful.
I am not prodigal with doubts, money, or my life.
All the anthems in the world shall not do justice to the wisdom of Cadwallader’s seed!
Free now to join Morton at the window, he looked down on the surging panoply, seeing among the standards the silver crescent of Northumberland, who had so nearly betrayed him in the field, coming so tardily to espouse his cause.
Reminded by the standard that he had other territories besides London, Henry said: ‘I shall ride north after Lent.’

‘Is that wise, Sire?’
Morton.
‘York in particular is still in a ferment of grief over Richard’s death.’

Henry looked mildly surprised.
‘It must be done.
The Yeomen of the Guard will escort me, and a few hundred outriders.
Of course we shall go.
I will claim my allegiance throughout the realm.’

He looked again at the pale window opposite.

‘Is my bride ready?’
he mused.
‘Who attends her?’

Across that gap of snow-driven air, Bess stood like stone.
What seemed a million miles below, wenches crawled fussing with the hem of her gown.
Behind her she heard the whispering of her sister Cicely and her aunt Catherine, adjusting her train, a billow of cloth-of-gold.
The most prominent of the attendants was Margaret Beaufort, who flitted here and there, advising, admonishing, like an officious gnome.
Bess thought: I am a doll, a mammet, being readied for some children’s revel.
I am no longer Elizabeth of York, for when I donned this shining gown, I relinquished myself.
I could no more leave this place than a doll could run from a child’s destructive hands.
So be it; I will be a doll, inert.
So many lectures had been hammered in her ears by Morton, the Countess, and by her constant companion, Maud Herbert, that the advice had mingled in her mind and run away, like rain down a conduit.
Be dutiful, Bess.
Be obedient.
Do not laugh or weep loudly.
Above all, be fruitful!
Poor Bess, with a wit that astounded even herself, had countered: ‘I will be fruitful, if I have a good gardener!’

She felt Grace undo her hair so that it fell almost to her knees, a veil of shining primrose.
Poor Grace!
she thought absently.
So willing and quiet, with her odd little pointed face and those eyes whose colour came as a shock every time they looked at you.
Even Grace was changed these days; the hands wielded the comb as efficiently as ever, but her face was indrawn, bleak with some awful distress.

Elizabeth, sitting quietly in the window-embrasure, watched her daughter apparelled.
The comb passed through Bess’s hair as through water.
Maud Herbert took a long strand of sapphires and diamonds and wound it about Bess’s head.
She pulled it tight, tormentingly tight; it bit into Bess’s brow and the nape of her neck.
The tension of the past hours overwhelmed Bess; she burst into tears.
Instantly Mistress Herbert was contrite, caressing the Princess, whispering unspeakable comforts in her ear.

‘Your Grace, don’t cry.
Marriage is given by God; as to the … fleshy business – his Majesty will not hurt you!’

Bess spoke, for the first time.
‘How should you know?’
and turned away, stiff and regal.
Maud sniggered and withdrew.
‘Let me help,’ said Grace gently; arranging the jewelled circlet more comfortably, she was very close to Bess.

‘Have you seen John?
John of Gloucester?’
she whispered.

‘He came with me from Sheriff Hutton.
They say that Henry has shut him in the Tower, together with my cousin of Warwick; but I don’t know … I don’t think so.’

‘Was he well?’

‘Yes … no, he was not …’ said Bess.
Grace sucked in a harsh breath; next moment the Countess of Richmond descended upon them.

‘Are we ready?’
she demanded.
‘Bess, I vow you are most comely.
Dear daughter!
je t’embrasse, je te bénisse
 …’ She pecked the girl’s cheek.
Bess’s eyes flicked round the circle of attendant ladies.
Fatigue and excitement whitened their faces; the palest was that of her mother, advancing towards her.
Elizabeth placed her arms, their flesh fiery, about Bess.
The feel of that frail, seething heat was unnerving.
‘Madame, are you sick?’
she whispered.

‘What?
On this, our day of days?’
said Elizabeth.
She held Bess close, kissed her, clung.

‘Madame, you will crease my dress.’

‘This day,’ said Elizabeth almost drunkenly, ‘we shall be one family again.
Reunited.
My dear son Tom, my brothers Edward and Lionel.
Your sisters, Cicely here – Kate, Mary, Bridget, for the nuns of Dartford have given her leave.
And my little sons whom I have not seen for so long.
My Ned, my Richard …’

She pressed her hot face against Bess’s icy gemmed temple.
The firm hand of Margaret Beaufort detached them.

‘It’s time.’
She flung open the chamber door.
Outside, the snow fell no longer and a pale red sun had appeared.
The Yeomen of the Guard were manipulating a golden canopy whereunder Bess might walk.
Distant trumpets sounded, and further away, the rhythm of steel on anvil, for men were preparing for the three days’ jousting that would follow the wedding.
There was the smell of woodsmoke and rubbish burning; it would soon be dusk and the citizens had lighted the first of many bonfires.
There would be revelry in the streets; the King had sent messengers abroad, bidding merriment.

The procession gathered.
Bishops and Archbishops, monks and priests and poets; statesmen and nobles, barons and dukes and earls.
The bridal party, a shimmering train of rich dress and soaring standards, swayed and converged; as they passed under the gate the entourage of York and Lancaster merged in splendour, the white rose and red blossoming athwart one another.
Clarions called harshly.
There was no question of who should escort the bride.
Elizabeth was almost jostled back by the King’s mother, and took her place only a few steps before Grace and Catherine.
She bade herself have patience.
This was the dreamed-of day; Bess will be Queen of England in an hour, and I Queen-Dowager.
The past is gone.
Deo Gratias
 …’

‘
Deo Gratias!
’ The choir strained to the topmost stave, their voice sharp-edged like the silvery vaulting of the Abbey; the singing softened in a dying fall, then rose like the fanned sweep of pillars that dwarfed the congregation.
Light, stark yet shadowed, fell upon the couple as they knelt for the final prayer.
The choir shrilled to a height again and died, to find breath for the last anthem.
Candlelight gleamed upon the wedding-rings.
Acolytes raised the great Cross from which fiery prisms smoked down on the bent heads of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth Plantagenet.
The Cardinal had officiated at many weddings before, royal weddings, yet he thought: never was there a stranger marriage, for the King’s hands had shaken uncontrollably during the exchange of rings, and the maiden was as stiff and waxen as the Virgin in her nearby niche.
Faintly there had come sobbing from the nave, from someone unknown, unseen.

Elizabeth’s tired eyes ranged over the packed throng.
She looked up towards the altar, at the russet hair of Henry under the rich new crown, and at Bess’s flaxen fall.
Her gaze wandered: stall upon stall was filled, with Tudors, with the old scions of Lancaster, a few of the House of York (Bess’s unfortunately and costly blood) – Lincoln and his satellites, Margaret of Salisbury.
Again her eyes roved, past shadowed alcoves and through chantrys with their shining leaves of stone, past the dark-blue, the silver and gold, the red of banners, the rose and the dragon; into hollowed darknesses and frailly-lit corners her eyes probed and questioned.
They sought answer in the painted face of long-dead knights, the gilded saints, the smoke-grey images, reminders of love and death now cast in clay.
Grace was kneeling close behind her.
She turned her head and asked:

‘Do you see anyone?’

‘Who, highness?’

‘My sons – Ned and Richard.
They must be here.’

She turned fully and saw how Grace’s eyes also roved, as they had done throughout the ceremony; they moved about the nave, they strained, with blood-flecks showing, to the chancel and up to the clerestory.

‘I see no one, Madame.’

I see no one.
I do not see my love.
My love, are you imprisoned?
If not, why did they forbid you this royal charade?

‘I would have thought my sons would be present.’

‘Why is John of Gloucester not here?’

They looked at one another as the choir, mad with the wine of heaven, reached an unwavering, heartstopping height and hung upon it.
Elizabeth’s dull, wasted hand was drooping at her side.
Grace’s fingers stole out and closed about it.
So they remained, as the couple came slowly down towards them, the trumpets sounding for their going out.
In the streets, red flame caught the first bonfire, and the cheers of festive London arose.

Leaving the Abbey, Elizabeth slipped on a patch of soft snow.
Grace flung out her arms, catching the Queen-Dowager’s weight upon her own hip and shoulder.
For a moment the two women clung together, while the crowd, yeomen and vassals and merchants, all muffled in their best, watched curiously, but only for a moment; they were avid to drink in the bride.
In the dying red rays of the sun, Bess gleamed; her dress, her jewels, her sleek, lambent cheeks.
She is like the Queen of Heaven, the watchers murmured, genuinely awed.
Henry walked steadily beneath the canopy beside his bride; he was stern and gorgeous.
Enthusiasm wafted through the mob; someone took up the cry – God save King Henry!
He smiled then; the long lips curved in the calm face, the yellowish eyes sparkled acknowledgment.

‘Is all well, Madame?’
Grace whispered.
Elizabeth held on to her arm.

‘Yes.
You are good.
Grace, you are good to me.’

It was the kindest thing she had ever said to her.
Grace seized the hand, the limp wasted hand, and kissed it.
Together they moved on to the banquet in Westminster Hall.
The King’s Yeomen held open the great door, gathering in nobles; finally the door was closed upon the gaping crowd.
One last cheer arose, before peasant and pedlar, trollop and friar and prentice turned to one another with shining eyes.
A band of fiddlers struck up and a man beat on a drum.
The long night was beginning.

‘You must bear me sons, Bess.’

Seriously he said it, as if on the moment she could fulfil his command.
He stood at the foot of the bed.
Propped on pillows, she watched his slender nervousness and the way he twined his hands together.
She wondered why he did not come to lie beside her.
Twice and thrice he had opened the chamber door to ensure that the Yeoman were vigilant.
She could hear the barked orders as they changed duty, and the clash of pikes in salute.
She lay, a doll, in a white embroidered high-necked shift and with the long-wheaten sheaf of her hair spread over the coverlet and flung out on the pillows.
She was weary past weariness.
The banquet had been long and sickly; the toasts had drummed in her dizzy ears.
Lancaster!
Cadwallader!
Tudor!
Tudor for ever!
Bleakly and vaguely she wondered what her father would have made of it all, then ceased to wonder.