The King's Grey Mare (63 page)

He was John, yet he was not John.
He was made old and terrible and sad, by something manifest in his bitter eyes, in the cruel rancour of his mouth.
She fell back as if thrust from him.
He had lost much flesh; that was apparent from the cheeks sharp as blades, the harsh clean line of his jaw.
But he was still elegant; his shoulders were broad and straight, his hair fell sleekly.
It was a forced elegance that shrieked defiance and hatred.
Hatred poured from him; an idiot could have sensed it.
He smiled at her, a smile so awful that she glanced hastily behind to see who it was incurred his loathing, for she could not believe the look was directed at her.
Even while seeing no one there she still did not believe, and she spoke his name in love and joy, while the tears in her eyes loosed themselves and poured.

If he had once borne resemblance to King Richard he was now Richard in facsimile, Richard most troubled, with a ghastly indrawn pallor as if he had been tortured and then starved.
The fire shone eerily on the tight planes of cheeks and lit up the malevolence in his eyes.
He looked her over steadily, keeping his palm pressed so hard against the wall that his whole arm trembled convulsively.
She said, greatly pleading:

‘John, my love.
John, what ails you?’

Still he looked at her, and presently said in a strong, controlled voice:

‘My father is dead,’ while tears darkened his eyes and fell smoothly down his face, which was like that of an unknowing sleepwalker who dreams and weeps.

She said, as she had always planned: ‘Ah, heart’s joy, I know it … be comforted,’ and took a step towards him, recoiling at sight of the hand held out against her like a drawn sword.

‘Stay from me,’ he whispered.
‘Do not touch or goad me.
Christ help me, I am no more master of myself!’

‘For God’s love, John!’
she said, her voice shaking.

‘Go back,’ he said.
Tears ran down his set face and over his chin.
‘Go to your mistress.
To the witch, the Woodville, the serpent, the murderess.
To the breaker of lives, to the ruiner of dynasties, the shame of thrones.
To the poisoner, the widow maker, to Our Lady of Sin.
Go to her, Mistress Grace, and kiss her and fawn upon her, and stroke her brow.
Succour her so that she may have strength to work fresh evil … to rob fair knights, fine men, of hope and peace and bring them down to death …’

‘Ah, what are you saying?’

‘She killed him.’
His voice and rigid face were thick with tears.
‘As surely as if she had taken the sword and struck him down.
She forecast and ensured his death.
And worse than death!
Oh, Jesus, God!’
He wailed so wildly and suddenly that folk turned to stare.
‘Would that for one hour she were a man!
They could burn me, hang me, but give me chance to shear that Gorgon’s head!’

‘For God’s love, stop!’
she begged.
Still he raved, he sobbed.

‘You do not know what was done to him!’
He beat his head against the stone buttress, drawing blood from his brow.

‘It is not my fault.’
Timidly she stretched out her hand and with a violent movement he struck it away, hurting her.
She said, more wildly: ‘Why?’

‘Today I watched you.
I stood outside Westminster while the devil’s spawn married my wretched cousin, Bess.
I saw you come out with Woodville, and clasp her in your arms, and lip her hand.
She who made my father’s flesh bloody filth and his name a pestilence upon the earth.
She who comes higher in your heart than any other … you lie nightly with her … plotting … ruin, treachery …’ Choking, he bowed his head.

‘I plot with none.’
Her body was ice-cold

He spun away from the wall and she shrank.
He raised his hands but dropped them quickly before they touched her.

‘You love her,’ he said, venomously soft.
‘Deny it!’

‘I do not deny it.
Neither do I deny that I love you, John.
Always, now and ever.’

‘Love
me
!’
His face came close.
His breath was rank, his wet eyes stared.
‘Madame–’ with loathing emphasis – ‘God curse the day I ever knew you.
May He burn me for a fool that I ever gave you my heart.
In my folly I overlooked your treason, your false allegiance.
To think that I ever held you dear!’

She looked down at her feet.
All around was filth; chewed gristle from the roast, sodden straw, black snow-slush.
Rags and debris and madness.
A cur nosed for scraps, while a ragged infant pushed at it for possession of a bone.
Her mind shut itself off, rejected the senseless rage that beat about her.
This was not John; he was of the swans and the sun and flowers.
Very far away she heard her own voice saying: ‘I love you, my lord,’ and his loud, heedless answer.

‘Why don’t you drink, lady?
It is the brave Dragon’s wedding-day!
Drink!
Hey, tapster, wine here!
Wine for a Woodville-lover!’

He cried this so loudly that across the square the tavern keeper heard him, and flapped his hands in a shop-shutting gesture.

John whirled and cried again: ‘Is there no wine?
Oh, Jesu, I will give them wine like blood …’

The prentices’ red-haired slut came out of the shadows.
She had been an avid if half-comprehending witness and was much amused.
She held a half-full tankard.

‘Will ale do, sir?’

He saw her and she was translated; with her torn gown and soot-streaked white bosom, she was a sharpened sword, an angel of revenge.
Ignorant of his purpose, she had been eyeing him for minutes, his fine clothes, his dark anger, even his tears.

‘Drink, sir?’
She raised the mug towards him.
Untroubled by his fierce eyes she sank back into the buttressed alcove, where the leafy stones leaned down.
She smoothed her skirts and measured him, look for look.
Grace, watching, began to tremble afresh.

‘Is there more of this?’
His tone was surprisingly calm.

‘Plenty, highness.’

He took the cup, raised it, a sacrament.
‘Death to Henry!’
He swallowed, his throat moving fast and painfully until the draught was done.
Grace caught a look of triumph from under swathed red hair, as John said to the girl: ‘Are you for Lancaster, maiden, or for York?’
pitifully casual, and the grimy white shoulders rose and fell.
‘Tis all the same.’
The victor, her eyes moved to Grace.
‘So long as I’ve food in my belly, and a man to pleasure me …’tis all the same.’

‘Your name?’

‘No name, sir, ’tis best.’
She threw back her head, laughed with surprisingly fair white teeth.
‘Does it matter?’

‘I’ll baptize you,’ he said.
The marks of tears lay on his gaunt, frenzied face.
He sprinkled ale-dregs over the girl’s skin.
‘Let us call you Elizabeth!
Elizabeth, my queen!’

‘That is the Queen’s name …’ she said in wonder.
John began to laugh, and moved forward to clasp her in his arms, in front of Grace’s anguish.
‘Go!’
he called to her over the ragged shoulder.
‘Go to your first and best love!
Go!
Witch!’

Yet he watched her return across the square which she had traversed in such love.
He shuddered from the devils in him, heard the woman crooning in his ear, and wished for death.

Grace looked back once.
Her sight was almost gone, but she fancied that he either wept or laughed.
The red-haired girl was holding him so close, she could not be sure.

‘Where, my lord?’

‘How should I know?’

Tom Dorset was irritable.
The new court was not as he had fancied it to be and lacked something, making him uneasy.
He was the Queen-Dowager’s son, the Queen’s halfbrother, and yet … He hardly ever saw the King.
Henry was inaccessible, as different from Edward and Richard as lord from vassal.
Dorset had rank, but he was perplexed.
He had not enjoyed his sojourn at the foreign court.
There, he had fled after the business with Jane and Hastings, and there he had found himself enmeshed.
When he had tried to obey his mother’s summons home, he had been waylaid; Tudor’s men had come upon him at the moment when he was about to board ship for England; they had haled him back to French Charles, from whose side he had been forbidden to stir, save for occasional close-guarded rides.
He had not forgotten.
He looked down at Grace.
He admired her, but she was becoming a nuisance; he had more on his mind than the whereabouts of lost lovers.

‘Ask my mother!’
he said.

‘She does not know.’

Grace was weeping again.
She had wept so much during the past week that her vision was affected; objects were fluid or owned misty, hurting edges.
She had collided with Dorset coming round a corner in a deserted part of the Palace of Westminster.

‘Why do you wish to know?’
he said curiously.
‘The sons of dead kings are of no value.
Grace …’ he admonished her: ‘live for the day.
Serve King Henry.’

‘Do you, my lord?’
She raised her swollen eyes.

‘Of course,’ he answered swiftly.

‘Is John here, somewhere in Westminster?’
she said softly.
‘Where does he live?
You know most things.
Everyone says so.’

‘Indeed.’
He was momentarily flattered.
‘Well, lady, not this.
I tell you … ask father Stanley.’

‘Father Stanley?’

‘Bess calls him so.’

‘Bess does not know where John is?’

‘Don’t worry
her
for the love of God,’ Dorset said hurriedly.
‘She is to be left in peace, at the King’s wish.
You will have us all in mischief.
Dear Grace,’ he said quite kindly.
‘Forget this knave.
Find yourself another.’

‘I cannot,’ she said quietly.
‘He is my joy and comfort, my heart’s maker.’

Had the red-haired girl stripped him of sorrow?
Filled him with drink?
Yielded her soft, soiled passion to his desire?
Cousin, don’t cry, Dorset was saying.
Cousin?
He is not my cousin – John is my most beloved cousin.
Bess, whom I may not approach, my half-sister.
Richard, whom they slew, was my uncle, and his brother, who died in ardent fullness, my father.
Young Warwick, immured in the Tower, is my cousin too.
Anne Neville was my aunt, and she lies deep under leaf-edged stone.
Elizabeth is none of my blood, and according to John, is devil and witch, and I love her.
Vainly she sought the riddle’s answers and sanity in the crazed pattern, in Dorset’s dismissive face.
The answer did not lie in the hard coolness of the ruby on her hand, John’s ring, still hopelessly worn.
Nor in the nerveless tear-hung air, nor in the silvery sweep of fanned corridor where she and Dorset stood.
Nor in the corridor’s successive arches, each like a hungry mouth.
Arch upon arch yawned into the distance, ending in the blackest mouth of all, to which, impatient, Dorset pointed.

‘Ask to see father Stanley,’ he repeated.
‘At this hour you will find him in his chambers.’

He bowed and went on his way.
Grace started slowly through the chasmic arches.
As she walked, a sob burst from her and was caught up in the folds of the impassive stone; it echoed above her head, died and was lost.
She wondered: will it return?
Will my grief resound in this place after I am dead?
It was a sudden, weird thought that amazed her, that dried her tears.
She spoke with Stanley’s personal esquires outside his apartments, and was admitted rather too soon catching the trail of a dire argument between husband and wife.
Stanley’s voice, usually mellow with diplomacy, was raised.

‘Dame, I tell you I mislike it!
It will alienate her.’

Margaret Beaufort’s clipped tones were high.

‘My lord, she is of no import, no more than a puff of wind.
I for one am pleased with the Act of Settlement.
Should Bess die, my son is free to suit himself.
He can take a Spanish princess … why should he be bound to Woodville daughters?
There is precedent, but precedent is born to be broken …’