The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III (132 page)

such marriages were far more common on the Continent. Yet if the Pope did sanction it ... There were many who felt Ned's sons had been cheated out of their just inheritance; even among those who believed implicitly in Richard's right, there was considerable sympathy for the children made to suffer for their father's forgotten sin. What better way to heal the wounds of Richard's accession than to crown his brother's daughter?
But what of the plight-troth? How get around that? Richard couldn't repeal the Act of Titulus Regius without impeaching his own right to the throne, and that much of a fool he wasn't. Blessed Mother Mary, but there must be a way, must be ... What of the Beauforts? Jesii, yes! That high-and-mighty House had begun in bastardy, the issue of the Duke of Lancaster and the sister-in-law of the poet Chaucer. Yet the children of that illicit liaison had been declared legitimate by the King, the stain of illegitimacy expunged by parliamentary act. Could not the same be done for Bess?
Would Richard ever consent, though? Could he be persuaded to make such a marriage? If Ned had made an unlikely marriage from lust, could not Richard be induced to do the same from guilt? He had to have an unease of conscience; whether he'd wished it or not, his brother's sons had died because he'd taken the crown. To lose his own son so soon thereafter and now his wife . . . What man would not see that as God's judgment? And what better act of expiation than to make Bess England's Queen?
Elizabeth's mouth softened, curved in a smile of cynical certainty. Why shouldn't he agree? How often was a man given the chance to find atonement in the bed of a beautiful girl?
She mustn't delude herself, though. The odds against such a marriage ever coming to pass were disheartening at best. So many ifs, so much contingent upon chance, upon factors beyond her control.
But when had she ever shrunk from risk? She'd lived a gamble her whole life long. Who would ever have believed, after all, that the widow of an obscure Lancastrian knight could have gotten the King of England to offer marriage? But she had, a twenty-seven-year-old widow with two children, she'd held out for a crown, as stunned as anyone by her success, not realizing that Ned took marriage no more seriously than he did anything in this life, including himself.
No, she'd not think on that, not think on how he'd betrayed her, or how she missed him even now, a mocking ghost haunting her sleep these twenty-one months past, the man who'd given her all she'd ever wanted only to fail her at the very last. Think rather about Bess, about this, her last chance. Edward and
Dickon were dead; she could do nothing for them. But if she could see Bess crowned as Queen of
England, if she could do that. . .

"Madame?" Her servant cleared his throat hesitantly. "Madame, be it your wish that I escort you to your daughter's chamber?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No," she said. "I want you to take me home, back to Waltham." She needed time, time to think.
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WINDSOR
February 1485
A, lnne had always preferred Windsor to Westminster, and on January 12 Richard took the court to the eleventh- century castle some twenty miles west of London. He'd hoped against hope that Anne might somehow benefit from the change, but as the month dwindled away, so, too, did her waning strength.
Shortly before Candlemas, she took to her bed, and Richard could no longer deny the truth, that she would not live to see another spring.
The first day of February dawned raw and blustery. Snow began to fall shortly before dusk, was still falling hours later. A biting wind was sweeping across the lower bailey; Richard scarcely noticed. Nor did he pay heed to the startled looks of the few people he encountered, taken aback to come suddenly face-to-face with the King, accompanied only by a large silver-grey alaunt.
As was his custom now, Richard had gone at dark to his wife's bedchamber; his evening hours were reserved for Anne and Anne alone. Sometimes they talked, but there was less and less to be said that would not give the lie to their mutual pretense. Most nights they played chess or cards, but tonight
Richard soon saw that Anne's attention was wandering from the chessboard. Making excuses to cut the game short, he rose to go, and saw in her hollowed dark eyes an unmistakable relief.
Although it did little to ease the hurt, Richard thought he understood. All Anne could do for him now was to try to minimize her discomfort, to spare him the fear, the despair that must torment her solitary

hours as she sought to come to terms with the disease cheating her of so much, with a mortality to be measured in weeks. Richard felt he had no choice but to honor her wishes, to make death a forbidden topic between them, but in truth he could not have handled it any other way, could not bear to abandon all hope, even a hope he knew to be false.
And so they found themselves locked into a conspiracy of silence, but until tonight Richard had not understood how high the price would be, that in denying the truth they were condemning themselves to suffering isolated and alone. The irony bore down upon him with devastating impact. He wanted above all else to give Anne comfort, and yet he was the very one who couldn't, for with him she must strain to hide the reality of her illness, to live her last days as a lie. Standing there by her bed, it had suddenly seemed to Richard as if he were seeing her from a distance, a distance that widened between them with each breath she drew, breaths that were labored, finite. Already she was slipping away from him, caught up in emotions he couldn't share, listening to that which he couldn't hear-the silent relentless ticking away of time, her time. She was dying and he was not, and that was a barrier not even love could breach.
For more than an hour he'd been walking aimlessly, but it was only now, as the Chapel of St George loomed ahead through the wind-swirled snow, that Richard realized where his footsteps had instinctively been leading him. Begun more than ten years ago by his brother Edward, the chapel was as yet unfinished; at the time of Edward's death, only the choir and aisles had been roofed. But it was a magnificent building, even in its present state, and Richard hoped that in time he'd be able to carry out his brother's architectural ambitions, to make of St George's Chapel a living, lasting monument to Edward's memory.
Entering the south door of the nave, he found himself pausing before the door of Will Hastings's chapel.
He stood in silence for a moment, staring down at a large grave slab. Will's resting place. It was adorned with an incongruous remembrance-Richard's torch played upon glossy dark- green leaves, interspersed with berries as bright as blood. It was, he saw, a cluster of English holly, and he wondered who had chosen to remember Will in this fashion, with a woodland tribute that somehow seemed more pagan than
Christian, but queerly touching, withal.
He didn't linger in Will's chapel. Passing through the screen set up to shield the east end of his brother's tomb, he stood at last before Edward's grave site. A priest had apparently been careless, for a torch still burned near the door leading up to Edward's chapel. Richard approached the altar, knelt, and murmured, "In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti."
The prayer came from memory, without conscious thought. But after

that, he was at a loss for words. If the Almighty no longer heard his prayers, how could Ned? He was surrounded by silence, the implacable accusing silence of the dead.
Richard came stiffly to his feet. Fool, what did he expect? Absolution from a dead man? A mistake to come here, a grievous mistake. He found himself staring at the gilded iron gates that stretched across the aisle to the west of his brother's tomb. On the gates were hung Edward's cap of maintenance, his sword, armor, and a surcoat of crimson velvet, embroidered with pearl and gold, interwoven with rubies.
Against his will, Richard reached out, let his fingers brush this garment that had been his brother's, and in that moment it was almost as if the loss were being felt for the first time, the stunned realization that Ned was truly dead, his laughter forever stilled, flesh and blood and brain no more than memory, and memories . . . memories were not to be trusted. They distorted, took on the coloration of love or grief or guilt, projected the past through a glass, darkly, and sometimes, sometimes too bright to behold . . . or to bear.
"Ah, Ned," he whispered, "how came we to this?"
His words seemed to hang in the air, and then he heard a sound behind him, quickly stifled, and he realized that he wasn't alone. He saw now what he'd not noticed before, that the stairwell doorway was ajar, and caught up in a sudden unreasoning rage, he strode over, jerked the door all the way open, and found himself looking into frightened blue eyes.
Richard's shock was such that he stood frozen, doubting the evidence of his own senses, for Jane Shore was the last person he'd have expected to see, a ghost conjured up without warning from a time in his life he wanted only to forget.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, saw her flinch away from the anger in his voice, his face.
"I loved him, too, Your Grace," she pleaded, stepping out of the shadows of the stairwell. Richard stared. Even a long woollen cloak could not conceal her condition; her once slender body was now heavily swollen.
"You're with child?" he said, startled, and she nodded shyly.
She was, he now saw, clutching a garland of holly. He hesitated and then reached out, put his hand on her arm. "I think I'd best escort you across the bailey. The ground is icy in spots; you might slip, hurt your baby."
Jane showed no surprise at the offer, gave him a grateful smile. "Your Grace . . . there be something I
would say to you, something I've wanted to say for months. Please ... I must. I owe you so much, you see." Bringing her hand up, she stroked her swelling belly. "This

baby ... I cannot tell you how much it means to me, to be with child. I wanted so much to bear your brother's baby. Twice my womb quickened with his seed; twice I miscarried. I guess . . . guess God thought my sins were too great. I'd long since given up all hope of motherhood, and now . . . well, God willing, the babe be due at Eastertide. But if you hadn't given Tom leave to wed me ..." She shook her head, said wonderingly, "I couldn't believe it, told him he was a fool even to ask. But you said yes; with every reason to deny the marriage, you gave your consent."
She held out to Richard the holly garland in unspoken entreaty, watched as he walked over, laid it upon the black marble of his brother's tomb. So much she still wanted to say to him: how sorry she was that his little boy had died, that his wife was so ill, that meanspirited men did spread ugly stories about the fate of
Ned's sons.
"I shall pray for your Queen," she said softly, and in that instant before Richard looked away, she saw tears fill his eyes.
BESS was lying upon the bed in the bedchamber she shared with Cecily whenever they were at their mother's manor house in Waltham. Tears pricked her eyes but she blinked them back angrily. It was stupid, after all, to cry over a mere horse. But Isolda was special, a fine-boned chestnut with a gait as smooth as silk, a gift from Dickon and Anne on her nineteenth birthday. It just wasn't fair. Ten days she'd had the mare, ten brief days. How quickly all could change, a careless misstep suddenly transforming a sleek beautiful animal into a panicked creature hobbling pitifully on three legs. Bess felt a sob rising in her throat, was unable to choke it back in time.
Her tears for Isolda were not long in giving way to something else entirely. She no longer fought it, gave in to her grief and wept bitterly, wept until the pillows were sodden and her eyes swollen to slits. And still the tears came, for her father, her brothers, Anne, for pain she'd lived with too long, for confused yearnings she dared not examine too closely, regrets that had nothing at all to do with a lamed mare.
"Bess?"
She stiffened defensively. Oh, God, that Mama had to walk in now of all times! Mama, who could never understand. She bit her lip, bracing herself for some stinging sarcasm, waiting for her mother to mock her tears.
The bed creaked as Elizabeth sat down beside her. "Would you like some compresses for your head?"
she asked, and Bess rolled over, stared up at her mother with suspicious eyes. To her confusion, she saw only concern upon Elizabeth's face, saw sympathy that seemed quite sincere.
"I heard your sobs in the hall," Elizabeth said, "feared you'd make

yourself sick. If I send for hot mulled wine, do you think you could drink some?"
This unexpected kindness unstrung Bess as nothing else could have done. "Oh, Mama," she sobbed, "I'm so unhappy, as unhappy as I've ever been in all my life. . . ."
"I know, Bess, I know," Elizabeth murmured, and Bess wondered dazedly if she were dreaming, if this tender stranger could truly be her mother. She felt Elizabeth's hand on her hair. . . . When had Mama ever given caresses? A need never before acknowledged surged to the surface; she buried her face in her mother's lap and wept.
Elizabeth stared down at he daughter's bright head, on her face uncertainty and something almost like dismay. She'd not expected this, had not expected Bess to respond to her overtures like one starved for love, a mother's love. Could it, she thought in sudden confusion, have been as easy as this? Were her daughters waiting only for her to reach out, to show she cared? But of course she cared! How could they not know that? No, they were the ones who'd shut her out, chosen to give their love only to Ned. If there was fault to be found, it lay with them. Not with her.
She continued to stroke her daughter's hair, waited for Bess's sobs to subside.
"Do you want to talk about it, Bess?"
Bess shook her head violently.
"It's Anne, isn't it? Having to watch her die. . . ." Elizabeth hesitated, added with deliberation, "Having to watch what it's doing to Richard."
Bess held her breath, waiting for the worst. When it didn't come, she raised her head, eyed her mother with dubious surprise.
"You're right, Mama, I do weep for Anne . . . and for Dickon, too." This last with a hint of defiance.
"Isn't that your cue? Don't you want to tell me now that God be punishing them for Dickon's many sins?
That they deserve no better?"
"I admit I have no liking for Anne Neville," Elizabeth said calmly. "Why should I? Her father murdered mine . . . your grandfather, Bess. But I'm still capable, I hope, of feeling pity for a dying woman.
Even-however much it may surprise you-for Richard. Whatever our differences, I've never denied that he loves his wife. It must be very difficult for him. ..." Her voice trailed off suggestively, and Bess picked up on it at once, nodded vigorous agreement.
"Oh, Mama. . . . Mama, it's so awful for him, and it just goes on and on. That week Papa was dying . . .
when I think how it would've been had he lingered for months, I ... I'd have gone mad, I know I would.
How Dickon can stand it, seeing her grow weaker day by day. ..."