The Queen of Last Hopes (27 page)

“Who let you into my chamber?”

“Your obliging ladies. Don’t worry. I saw the king go off to Dunstanburgh with Brézé just now. He certainly is vigorous lately.”

“I believe he has hope he lacked before.”

“And he is lying again with you regularly. Isn’t he?”

He was, in fact, almost as often as he had in the earliest days of our marriage. “That is none of your business, Hal. What is wrong with you?”

“I’ve been looking for you on the ramparts. Every night. You haven’t come.”

“I told you, it is dangerous.”

“And Henry is keeping you so satisfied that you don’t need my services. Is that all I have been to you? A plaything?”

“Hal, you’re talking wildly. I lay with you in France and that night here because I love you, and love made me reckless.” I took my hands in his. “But you must be sensible. This has been an idyll, which we will look back upon fondly in our old age, but it cannot last. It is wrong whether or not Henry comes to my bed.”

His voice softened. “Then you want that night in that turret room to be our last? That narrow cot in that cold, drafty room? I think it only fair to both of us that we have a last time together that is more pleasurable. Such as here, in your comfortable bed with the sun warming us—well, as much sun as you get up north.” Somerset kissed me playfully. “Please? After all, we’re bound to be besieged here soon. Isn’t a bit cruel to leave a man here with nothing but his fellow men to look at, with no pleasant memories to think upon?”

I am not made of stone. “But it must be our last time. Hal, promise.”

“I promise.” Hal began to undo the fastenings of my gown.

Twenty years later, I can still perfectly recall it all: the sun glinting on our hair as it mingled on our pillows; my cries of pleasure blending so harmoniously with the squawks of the seagulls that I started giggling until Hal brought me to such a height that I could think of nothing except for the sensations claiming me; the incoherent endearments we whispered to each other; Hal’s gasps of pleasure after I’d slowly teased him to climax; the long, delicious sleep in each other’s arms afterward. It was sin, Lord knows, but it was sweet, and when the sunlight plays on the walls of my chamber a certain way and I think of all in my life who have come and gone, I remember it still.

***

“I don’t like the looks of that cloud,” Pierre de Brézé said the next morning as our ships sailed toward Berwick.

I came out of my reverie long enough to gaze upward.
I shall never forget yesterday afternoon, my love, no matter what happens in the future
, Hal had whispered just before Henry and I were rowed off to our ship. As best as I could without betraying myself, I had kept him in my sight until I could no longer make out his form. “It does look rather nasty,” I said lackadaisically.

Brézé gave me an irritated look. “That’s an understatement.” When I had nothing more to say for myself, he added, “I think we should head back to shore. I’ll speak to our captain.”

He had been gone for no more than a minute when the tempest came upon us, stirred up as if by some angry god of antiquity. The wind howled, the rain pelted us, and the waves tossed around our caravel as easily as a child might toss around a toy ship. Soon we could not even see the rest of our fleet.

Ordered into the cabin by the captain, my ladies and I could do nothing more but huddle there and pray as the ship’s rocking sent us skidding from one side of the tiny space to another. Then I screamed as the sea tossed our ship upward and threw her down again amid a great spray of sea and a sound of shattering wood.

We stumbled out of the cabin just as the cry went up to abandon ship. Through the rain and blowing sand, I could just make out the rocks that we had been wrecked upon. “What will we do?” Marie wailed. “We’ll die!”

“No,” I said. “We’ll launch the boat, and we will get into it and be safe.” I looked at Pierre de Brézé. “Won’t we?”

Pierre nodded, then looked at our flowing gowns critically. “We’re going to have to lower you ladies down into it, and those skirts of yours will be a nuisance. My advice is cut them to your knees. May I?”

I nodded and offered my skirts up to Pierre, who hacked at them with the dagger he wore at his side until I stood exposed from my knees down, save for my stockings. Marie looked on mournfully as he repeated the process with her. “My trunk! It will soon be at the bottom of the sea. Won’t it?”

“Along with all of our treasure,” I said. “But we can’t worry about that now.”

With a great deal of cursing and shouting, the sailors had succeeded in launching the boat, which looked pitifully tiny next to even our sleek caravel, especially with the waves swirling around it. Two men promptly clambered down the rope ladder into it. “I shall go next,” said Henry. He shook his head as a sailor offered to tie a rope around his waist. “You don’t need to tie me. I place my life in the Lord’s hands.”

“Henry—”

My husband kissed me. “You shall go after me, and I shall be there to make sure you arrive there safely. Tie her very carefully.”

“Henry!” I clutched at him as he set his heels upon the ladder. “If we die, there is something you must know. I have sin—”

Brézé pulled me back. “There’s no time for that! Let him go.”

Because the ship was built low for cruising, the distance to the boat was not more than twenty feet or so, but to me it looked three or four times that as Henry descended. He landed in the boat safely and called up, “Now, Marguerite, you come. Trust to the Lord as I did, and all will be well.”

Brézé looked at my feet. “Best do it barefoot, your grace. You’ll slip right off otherwise.”

After kicking off my sodden slippers, then shedding my stockings, I put my bare foot on the first rung of the rope ladder. From the ship, it had looked deceptively stable; now that I was on it myself, I found that it swung back and forth. Praying, or to put it more accurately, mumbling God’s name like an incantation as I went on, I found the next step and began to descend slowly, each step downward feeling like a free fall into an abyss. Then at last Henry’s arms came around me. “You’re safe, my brave girl,” he whispered, lowering me into the rocking boat and wrapping his cloak around my freezing legs as he sat me down.

Late that evening, we finally made it in our little boat to Berwick, where the garrison stared at us women in our mutilated gowns as we straggled into the great hall. My ladies and I sank in front of the fire, but Henry went with the constable himself to make certain that I could be accommodated comfortably. Pierre de Brézé, unwilling to prop himself before the fire while the king was being so active himself, would have followed, but I stopped him. “Please stay for a moment, my lord.” Reluctantly, I moved away from the huddled ladies before the fire. “When I thought we were in danger of death, I almost made a confession to the king.”

“Yes. I believe I know what it is. Does it involve the Duke of Somerset?”

I nodded shamefacedly. “How did you guess?”

Brézé snorted. “No great perceptiveness on my part, trust me. Somerset’s not a model of subtlety, despite what he might think. He undresses you in his mind whenever he looks at you; any man over sixteen can watch him and see him doing it. And you’re not exactly circumspect yourself. If your husband weren’t Henry, I daresay he would have guessed by now. I did back in Rouen. Lovers are insane, most of them, in what they think goes unseen, and you’re no better than the rest of the lot as far as that goes.”

“You stopped me from telling him.”

“Yes. Aside from the timing being poor, some things are better kept to oneself. I’m not sure even King Henry would be able to refrain from putting the duke to death. What would that accomplish?” He coughed as I hung my head. “I’m old enough to be your father and he’s not here to tell you this, so consider this advice in the spirit of
in loco parentis
. Put this affair to an end. I know it’s difficult for you, Somerset being a charming young blade and King Henry being—unique, as we shall say, but it will get around sooner or later, and you will lose your reputation for virtue.”

“I don’t believe I ever had one among the English in the first place,” I said. “But I have anticipated you. I have broken it off.” But would I be proof against Somerset the next time I saw him, if he pressed himself upon me? “At least, I have tried.”

“You must do more than try, my child. You must be firm.”

“I know. But I love him so much.”

“The king, or Somerset?”

“Both,” I said. I stared toward the fire. “Thank you for your advice, my lord.”

Four hundred of the men who had set out with us from France were wrecked upon Holy Island during the storm that had claimed my own ship. Some were killed by Edward’s men, some were taken prisoner; most simply escaped and found their way back abroad. I had nothing to pay them with anyway; my treasure was at the bottom of the sea.

By Christmas, Henry and I were back in our borrowed quarters at Edinburgh, as if we’d never left. Warwick had been besieging Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, and Alnwick since late November, and I knew that all three castles were inadequately provisioned and could not long hold out against a winter siege. But help was on the way from the Scots, given only after Henry promised the Earl of Angus an English dukedom and I hinted to Bishop Kennedy that the Archbishopric of Canterbury might be within his reach. If the castles could hold out just a little longer, we would be able to raise the siege with an army headed by the Earl of Angus and Pierre de Brézé, who were heading south as quickly as they could.

Christmas had come and gone when, coming back from my son’s chamber, I entered my own and saw my ladies standing together in a knot. “Oh, Christ,” Marie whispered. “This will kill the queen.”

My hearing has always been sharp. “What will kill the queen?” I halted as my ladies turned pale faces to me. “What on earth is it?”

“We have lost Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh.”

I winced. “Our men?” They stared back at me. “Well, what of our men?” A chill ran through me. “Speak. Are they captured? Dead?” My voice pitched upward. “My lord of Somerset. Is he captured, or dead? Tell me, for mercy’s sake!”

“He ought to be both,” Katherine Vaux said finally. “But he is neither.”

“For God’s sake, what do you mean?”

“The Duke of Somerset has joined Edward’s men. He is besieging Alnwick—alongside Warwick’s forces. He has turned against us.”

For a moment I stood frozen there, absorbing the unthinkable. Hal, whom I had trusted, loved, given what should have been given only to my husband, had betrayed us.

With all my strength, I drove my fist into the wall beside me.

“God damn him to hell!” I screamed as my ladies dragged me backward, my hand bleeding over all of us as I struggled to free myself from their grasp. “God damn the filthy whoreson to hell!”

After Somerset betrayed us, I tormented myself as I lay abed at night, picturing him and King Edward chortling together at my folly in bedding Hal. Perhaps they were laughing at me for loving a man six years younger than myself; perhaps Hal was amusing Edward and his new Yorkist friends with tales about my merits or lack thereof as a sexual partner. What basis, after all, did I have for comparison? By-and-by, he might even point out the chambers where we had made love at Bamburgh, as sort of curiosity pieces.

It did no good, in my more rational moments, to reason with myself that I had never known Hal to be unchivalrous in that manner and that surely he could be trusted to keep the secret of our liaison to himself. I had thought that he would be true to Lancaster, too, and what had happened? My only consolation was in thinking of what would be done to that handsome body of his if he ever fell into our hands. Hanging, drawing, and quartering would be his lot, I promised myself—and castration as well. In my worst moments, I pictured myself performing this latter task personally.

The tidings of Somerset’s treachery had come from an unimpeachable source: Hal’s brother Thomas Ros, who came to me soon after I heard the news from my ladies. “We offered to surrender Bamburgh on Christmas Eve,” he said, glancing at my bandaged hand and wisely deciding not to comment. “We didn’t know then that troops were on the way to raise the siege. We were almost without provisions, and we had started eating our own horses by then.”

I briefly indulged myself in a pleasant mental picture of Somerset dining on one of his beloved palfreys. “Go on.”

“Our condition was that the castles remain in the hands of Percy, provided that he swore allegiance to Edward, and that we be spared our lives. They offered the Earl of Pembroke and I safe conducts here, and they brought Hal and the rest to see Edward at Durham. Edward had been sick with measles.”

“Measles,” I said. “The boy king.”

“I don’t know what Edward said to Hal at Durham. I do know that when we were at Bamburgh, Hal was beginning to lose heart—and it wasn’t just the horsemeat. He’s not seen our mother in years; he has a son he’s never seen; he’s never married; he’s poor; he’s worried about our brother Edmund in prison.”

“But you haven’t seen your mother or your wife or most of your children in years either, and you are worried about Edmund too, surely? And you stayed faithful to us. He has no good excuse for his treachery.”

“I don’t seek to excuse him, but he’s my younger brother and I’ve always been fond of him. I can’t judge him harshly. Perhaps in his case I would have done the same. When he went off to see Edward, I feared that he might be heading into a trap, that he might be killed. When I found that he had joined Edward, I wanted to beat him black and blue, but I was also glad to hear that he was still alive.”

“I was not. I hope he rots in hell.” I glared at Ros, “You helped him meet me back in Rouen. Why?”

“Because I love him,” Ros said quietly. “Your grace must know that I was never pleased by the arrangement, but he would have met you anyway with or without my help. I hoped that with my help the two of you would not be discovered and that the affair would run its course, as it did when your grace very sensibly ended it. I regret having played the role I did.”

“You should.”

Ros hesitated. “Your grace, there is something I must ask. Could you be—?”

“Carrying his brat? No. And it is lucky that I am not, for if I were, I would use any means I could think of to get rid of it. Including sorcery, if that were my only hope.” Ros shivered, and I stared stonily into his eyes. “I spoke too harshly just now; it is hardly your fault that I played the whore with your brother. I am grateful for the good service you have given to me over the years. But I warn you, if you ever communicate with that false traitor, brother or no brother, you shall pay the price.”

“Yes, your grace.” Ros backed out of the room.

***

“This is precisely how I want to spend a beautiful day in July,” Queen Mary said as we rode toward Norham Castle. “Besieging a castle with a fellow mother. And our sons! Quite a family party.”

“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” I said, glancing at the boys.

Soon after Somerset’s perfidy, Pierre de Brézé and the Earl of Angus had ridden out to relieve Alnwick Castle, still under siege, and had freed our garrison. But the earl—ailing, as I later realized, as he died from an illness that March—had been overcautious and had avoided battle, and so in the end Alnwick had fallen into Warwick’s hands. Yet our fortunes, at their nadir then, had improved. In March, Ralph Percy, left by Edward in charge of Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh, had sent a messenger in secret to let us know that he would give them up to us, and Sir Ralph Grey had followed suit with Alnwick in May. With these favorable augurs, and with our ally Bishop Kennedy in the ascendency in Scotland for the moment, we had decided to lay siege to Norham Castle.

This was not to say that all of our party was enthusiastic. King James, who was just a year or so older than my own son, appeared to be liking his taste of warfare well enough, as were my Edward and the triumphant Bishop Kennedy, but Mary of Gueldres had not given up her hopes for a peace with York. Rudely, I wondered whether she harbored thoughts of marrying King Edward.

“None of your schemes has worked! Not one.”

“Well, if this one does, we shall be out of your hair and at Westminster where we belong.” I made a conscious effort to keep my temper. “And I feel confident that this one will work.”

“Why, my dear? Why this one?”

Because something has to go right for us, sooner or later
. “We have men and great ordinance. And I believe our recent success has given us heart.”

“I should hardly call having three dreary castles handed over to you by traitors success,” mused Queen Mary. “But I can see where it might be a decided improvement from your point of view. Now you will forgive me, dear, but there is someone I really must speak to.” She prodded her horse ahead of mine and trotted briskly away.

I glared at the rear of her departing horse, wondering what Somerset had ever seen in her.

***

For eighteen days we laid siege to Norham. Each night Henry and Edward and I, as well as King James and Bishop Kennedy, rode among our men, calling out words of encouragement. (Mary of Gueldres, who I learned later to my considerable guilt was genuinely not feeling well, and who indeed died late that year, stayed in her tent.) “Do you think we’ll ever get England back?” asked Edward while we were riding back to our tents after one of these excursions.

“We pray so,” Henry said. He smiled at me. “And if your mother has any say in it, our prayers will be answered.”

“I don’t like living like this, always having to move from place to place. I liked Grandfather’s court.”

I sighed as I looked down at my stained dress. Sometimes, though I tried not to, I could not help but think of my wardrobe at Greenwich, stuffed with fine dresses and jewels. How pampered had I been in those days, and how little appreciative of it. “It will not be forever, Edward. Now, hush. Having Queen Mary complaining is bad enough without you joining in.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Henry gazed at Edward for some time after that. Later that evening, as we were preparing for bed in the tent we shared, he said, “My dear, I have been thinking about what Edward said. Win or lose, when this siege is over, I want you to return to France.”

“You don’t want me here?” The guilt I felt daily over Somerset descended upon me. “Have I offended you?”

“Don’t want you here? I shall miss you every hour.” Henry put his arms around my waist. “But this is no life for you and for our son, living in tents and in castles where we can be turned out at someone’s whim. I want you to live in comfort. And my reasons are selfish, too, for I worry constantly that you will fall into the hands of Edward’s men. I will be much easier in my mind, knowing that you are safe abroad.”

“But—”

“It is decided, my love. I have written to your father to ask him to give you and Edward the use of one of his castles. Do not think you will not be of any use to me there. You will be able to meet with King Louis and our other relations.”

I hesitated. “But you? Would you join me there?”

“No, for now I think it best to stay here. It would not do to have others fight for me while I stay abroad.”

I did not trust myself to go abroad without Henry again, not after what had happened in Rouen. But I heeded Pierre de Brézé’s advice. “Very well. I will do as you wish.”

***

Just before dawn the next day, a messenger arrived: Warwick and his men, traveling north to raise the siege, lay within a short marching distance from Norham. All would be decided in a couple of hours. We were ready for a fight.

Instead, we ran. At the first sight of Warwick’s banners, the Scots—deaf to Pierre de Brézé’s orders, curses, and finally pleas—fled, bearing young King James and Mary of Gueldres in their midst. “God curse the sorry cowards!” Pierre screamed as he sat astride his horse, flanked by the few French troops we had remaining. “We can’t possibly fight with them gone. We’ll be annihilated.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” I said, tears stinging my eyes.

“Nothing. Whoresons!” Brézé let go a volley of expletives in French, then stopped in mid-curse. “Warwick’s men! Good God, they mean to capture you and the king! Fly!”

We galloped away, the press of men and horses beside us causing Henry’s and Brézé’s horses to become separated from Edward’s and mine. My nine-year-old son, though he promised to be a fine horseman, lacked the experience of the rest of us, and the vagabond life we had been living had not allowed him to practice riding regularly. Panicking and completely out of his control, his horse ran off the path we were traveling to Berwick. Screaming advice to my son, which he either could not hear or was too terrified to heed, I followed. “Edward!”

Edward lay face down in some mud, his riderless horse vanishing into the woods. I scrambled off my horse and knelt beside him. “My God. My God. Speak to me.”

My son sat up. “I’m fine,” he muttered.

I helped him to stand. Nothing had been broken, but a knot was beginning to appear on his forehead. “You must get on my horse. It has a sidesaddle, of course, but we can man—”

“No.
We
have a sidesaddle now.” A rider wearing the ragged staff insignia of Warwick swung easily from his horse, and grabbed me by my cloak as five or six other men trotted up behind him. “And look what else we have, boys. The little French bitch who started all of this. Ain’t I right?” He raised his sword and smiled at me. “I can cut your pretty little head off with this, like you did the good Duke of York’s. Did you know that?”

“Leave my mother alone!”

“Well, if it isn’t the little bastard himself,” said our captor genially. “Whose son are you, anyway? Suffolk’s?”

“Too late, you fool. Suffolk died years before this one was hatched.”

“True. Must be a Beaufort, then. But who knows? Could be anyone’s, really.” He pushed me to my knees. “Ever had a fighting man, Meg? Maybe I’ll have my pleasure with you before I kill you. Would you like that?”

Edward ran to my side and drew his dagger. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

My captor chuckled. “The bastard has spirit, I’ll give him that.” He considered. “Now, if there is an off chance that he’s Henry’s, he needs to be got rid of. If he isn’t Henry’s, he’s a nuisance no one will miss. What of it, men? Shall we kill the boy as well?”

“For our Savior’s sake, spare us!” I stared up at the men. “You can have my jewels, my horse, my cloak—everything. You can have my body if that is what you want. You are Warwick’s men, don’t you think he will give you a generous reward if you bring us to him alive? Don’t you think my father would pay dearly to ransom us? You’ll get nothing if you bring Warwick our corpses; even he won’t want his hands stained with a woman’s blood and a boy’s. He might even punish you.” I held up my hands in supplication. “At least spare my boy!”

“The wench has a point,” observed the youngest of the men, who had been watching me plead with less amusement than the rest. He gave me a look that I could not read, then walked over to my horse and opened a saddlebag. “Christ, there’s half the crown jewels in here!”

“You’ll not be taking them all for yourself,” his leader warned. He turned as the men around him all swarmed round the booty. “What, you think you’ll cheat me out of my just share? Will! Guard the bitch and her whelp, damnit!”

Will, the young man who had spoken earlier, left the treasure with a sullen look and yanked me to my feet. Then he whispered into my ear, “See the dappled horse there? When I signal, grab your boy and run for it. Hesitate and all three of us will be dead.”

I nodded. For an agonizing few more moments, the men squabbled over my goods, their voices rising as they fought over who should get what. Then one punched the other. “Now!” hissed Will.

We scrambled on the horse, I in front of Will and Edward hanging onto his back, and galloped into the woods, our departure lost in the melee. “I’ll not see a lady raped or killed, and I suspect they would have done both to you,” Will said when I gasped out my thanks. “But I warn you, your grace, these woods are full of brigands. We might have exchanged bad for worse.”