Thy Name Is Love (The Yorkist Saga) (27 page)

To acknowledge Denys' child as her grandniece or nephew was the
farthest Elizabeth ever reached out to her. But now, it was simply
too late. Elizabeth may very well have been the baby's great aunt.
If she'd been another kind of person, if she'd treated Denys like
a niece instead of an unwanted outcast, Denys would have believed
she was a Woodville.
But that seven-year-old forever cried out,
Aunt Bess, who were my Lord
Father and ma mere
? And now, with God's help, Denys could
finally tell her. So that lost little girl within her could rest.
Now—with Elizabeth contrite, defeated and broken, she would know
the truth. Denys knew this woman no longer had the capacity for
cruelty.
"I see the prince Richard has joined his brother Edward in the
Tower. I am glad for Edward. He must have been lonely there by
himself."
"I feel I have made a terrible mistake in letting him go and join
his brother. I do not trust the Duke of Gloucester." Of course she
hadn't expected Elizabeth to refer to Richard as king. "He never
had much reason to trust you either. So perhaps now you can call a
truce."
"I have no truce to call with the Duke of Gloucester."
"The lads will be fine."
"At least I still have my little girls with me." She glanced
lovingly over at her youngest offspring, who hadn't even looked up
from their make-believe world.
"Aunt Bess, I've come to show you something I found." Without
another word, she swept the beads out from under her chemise and
held them up to Elizabeth. The miniature swung to and fro, and
Denys gestured for her to take it.
Elizabeth grasped the miniature, looked at it, then away, then
back to it. She took a step back.
"Where did you get this?"
"It matters not where I got it. But isn't she lovely? She's
someone you may know quite well, is she not? She looks almost
regal—almost like she could be a claimant to the throne." She
snatched it away again before Elizabeth could tighten her grip on
it.
"So that is what you came here for. You never would have come just
to visit me, would you?" Denys had to think about that for a
moment. Would she? In several more years, after the pain had
eased, perhaps.
But not now. Elizabeth didn't have to know that, however.
Why goad her? This matter was much more important, and she was as
close to the truth as the miniature sheltered protectively in her
fist like a pearl to an oyster. "She resembles me, does she not?"
She didn't await a reply.
"She was a lovely young woman. Amazing—I can see myself in her
eyes." She kept her voice steady, for the tears were pressing to
burst forth.
The dowager Queen glanced at Denys, then jerked her head with a
snort.
"Oh, cease. She is one homely wench. Now I know why Thomas Stanley
went into battle; he's better off looking at two thousand horses'
asses than that ugly face."
Denys gasped loudly. Elizabeth's eyes ceased their careless
wandering and bored into her.
Thomas Stanley!
Denys' mind reeled back through the tables. She matched names and
faces from court, pictured every person walking through their
door.
He was married to Margaret Beaufort! "My mother is Margaret
Beaufort!" It came out as a tortured whisper, but she had to hear
it upon her own lips for it to sound like truth. Margaret
Beaufort. Hearing that name aloud made her heart nearly stop. So
half the mystery was solved.
Elizabeth looked up, and took another step back. Her lips formed
words she couldn't speak. Two pairs of eyes locked, two wills, two
lifelong opponents, ever circling each other in spar, but neither
one succumbing to defeat. Until this moment.
It had worked. She'd lost every battle, but finally won the war.
It had taken a lifetime, but she'd finally tricked and defeated
Elizabeth Woodville. She then realized from that moment on she had
nothing more to say to this woman, a stranger in every sense now.
The beads fell to the floor. Dove got to them before Elizabeth's
foot came down to squash them like a bug. She swept them up,
jamming them down her bodice.
"Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I thought you never would.
Now farewell—Your Highness," she added, deliberately and
mockingly.
"You mean—you didn't know? You just—you
tricked
me?" she
shrieked with disbelief, as if any human were capable of
outwitting Elizabeth Woodville.
Denys shut her eyes for the briefest moment, to erase the sight of
the woman from her mind forever. Without curtseying, she turned
and left the chamber, not opening her eyes until she'd turned, not
hearing a word the woman was screaming after her. All she could
think of was her mother's name, and she repeated it over and over
again, like a chant: Margaret Beaufort.
Ma Mere.
Margaret Beaufort, the Lancastrian spy, the woman who'd financed
her son Henry Tudor's battles against Richard, who'd provided
intelligence to the enemy, the enemy herself. "
Ma Mere
." Imprisoned
in the Tower for treason, to be executed as soon as this battle
was over.
As she rounded the corner and exited the chambers, she
deliberately slammed the outer door behind her. Once outside, she
looked straight ahead in to her future.
Entering the small Westminster chapel, she asked the chaplain for
access to the birth records of 1457.
Margaret Beaufort had been married thrice. Could one of those men
be her Lord Father? Carefully turning the pages, she found the
leaf headed ‘1457' in large script. Taking one last deep breath to
ensure her lucidity, her eyes forced wide, she painfully slowly
ran a finger down the list of names.
Finally. There she was.
Girl and boy, twins, January 28, 1457, born to Margaret Beaufort
and her husband.
Edmund Tudor.
Her father was Edmund Tudor. Oh, God Jesus.
"No!" she cried. "Oh, God, no!"

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Denys bowed her head over the records, made a fist and pounded the
book in anguish. Her twin brother was Henry Tudor, who was at this
moment was trying to seize Richard's crown, fighting her beloved
Valentine, putting at risk everything she had, her entire world.
Her long-lost family, whom she'd longed for and cried out for, all
her life were the enemy. The dreaded Lancastrians. But it was her
mother in that prison cell, and she had to get to her.
Without stopping to even think of how to get there, she fled the
chapel and headed for the Tower of London, where her mother
languished in a cold, damp cell, awaiting death.
The guard at the White Tower regarded her with awe and confusion.
He knew she was no commoner, but with her hair disheveled and her
gown spattered with mud, she hardly looked noble.
"In which tower is Lady Margaret Beaufort?"
"The Beauchamp tower, milady. But why—"
"I am her daughter!" Saying it for the first time to this stranger
seemed to ruin the magic of the revelation. Somehow she'd pictured
it differently. She'd wanted to tell Valentine, or write it in her
journal, not blurt it to a stranger guarding the prison cell.
"Lead me there, please." For a fleeting second, she became aware
that she could turn, go back home, and alter the course of
history. To acknowledge Lancastrians as her family spelled
possible disaster for herself and her husband, but as she climbed
the winding stone steps and strode down the drafty corridor, she
knew there was no turning back.
The woman behind this prison door was her destiny and her
history—the blood running through her veins, through her unborn
children's veins. Beaufort and Tudor blood.
The guard unlatched the lock with a skeleton key and swung the
door open.
Denys took a gulp of air, already fearing the worst in the cell.
He stepped back. She stepped in.
The room was silent, airy and light. It didn't resemble a dungeon.
No mire clung to the walls. There were no rats or piles of filth
about. It was a simple, small room.
The woman's back was to her. Then she turned.
Denys no longer had the dreaded sensation of feeling lost, or
thinking about the past. She was there now, about to come face to
face with her mother. A scene flashed before her eyes. A young
mother, barely out of childhood herself, was handing her baby to
another woman, asking her to raise her, for she was royal, and a
daughter of the enemy.
"You must raise her as your niece," she told the woman, "and never
let her know who she really is."
She shook with nervousness. Her stomach tumbled.
When their eyes met at last there was instant recognition. She
didn't look like a prisoner, starving or near death. It was that
same face on the miniature, but aged. It was her own face, her own
eyes looking back at her, the lips curling up in her smile, her
oval face, her strong chin. She never saw the resemblance until
now.
She wrapped her arms around her daughter. "I prayed you would come
to me," she said softly. "After all these years, I can finally
hold you. Oh, how many years we've lost!"
"
Ma mere
,"
Denys whispered. "I'm here now, so let's not look back. Let's just
start with this moment." She didn't smell death, didn't feel
death. That tragic shroud of doom didn't hang over the room or
over her mother.
But their tears mingled, tears of a thousand emotions that words
couldn't even begin to convey, in French or in English or in any
language. They simply let their tears and their hugs say
everything that needed to be said.
Her fears vanished. There were no warring factions, no bloody
massacres, her brother and her husband and King were not fighting
to the death for England's crown. In the face of this miracle,
that couldn't be happening somewhere on a field in Leicester.
Her mother surprised her with her next words. "You're with child."
She took a tiny step back and held Denys' chin up in a strong but
bony hand.
"How do you know?"
"I just know. I see it in your face. You glow."
"Aye. I am. I'm having your grandchild."
"Oh, I prayed all your life for this moment. But at the same time,
I feared that you'd always hate me for giving you away."
"I knew you didn't give me up because you didn't want me. It had
to go deeper than that. I knew that as much as I knew I wasn't a
Woodville. Now that I know who you are, I know why you gave me up.
You were afraid, weren't you?"
"Oh, Denys." She squeezed her eyes shut and they spilled over with
tears. "I was so fiercely protective of you, you'll never know. I
had to do what was best for you."
"Start at the beginning."
"I was twelve when King Henry gave me as a ward to his
half-brother Edmund Tudor to marry. He was King Henry's heir to
the throne—along with my claim to the throne through my ancestors,
we would have reigned jointly as king and queen. Then he was
captured by Yorkists in the Battle of Saint Albans and died of
plague two months later. He left me pregnant with you and your
brother, and I birthed you at Pembroke Castle.
"The King soon married me to Henry Stafford, and we went to live
way up in Lincolnshire, on the edge of the Fens. I sent you both
away, separating you so you would be even safer. I knew Henry
would be safe with his Uncle Jasper in Wales, because of the
endless wars being fought here.
"But I had big dreams for Henry. I wanted him to aspire to the
throne, so I made sure his uncle trained him well militarily. I
felt, with his royal heritage, he deserved a chance at the throne,
if not through bloodlines, by battle. So I helped him finance his
armies.
"But you were my daughter, my princess. I needed to make a much
greater sacrifice for you. So I told King Henry you had died, and
delivered you unto my trusted friend, Elizabeth Woodville. As I
feared for your life even more than Henry's, I told Elizabeth to
change your identity."
"Why give me to her, of all people?"
"I had good reason to give you to her, and she had just as good
reason to take you. Elizabeth had a mad fancy for Edward
Plantagenet, and she also knew he was destined for greatness. I
knew Edward quite well. Our families are related, and we spent a
lot of time together at Maxey Castle in Northamptonshire whilst
growing up. Elizabeth told me she would protect you if I made a
match between her and Edward, but even then, that wasn't enough
for the greedy Elizabeth. In case Edward didn't fall under her
spell, she wanted something else in the bargain, so I also had to
give her a manor house and its lands that I inherited, Foxley
Manor.
"As for Edward, I told him he needed to court Elizabeth because I
always teased him about his notorious wenching and how he needed a
wife and proper household. So I told Edward of this beautiful
older widow who had a burning desire to meet him. I arranged for
him to court her under an oak tree in Grafton. It has become
legend, and the superstitious folk branded it witchcraft, but it
really was as simple as love at first sight. He fell for Elizabeth
at once. Belief held that she'd cooked up a spell, but it was
naught more than simple human nature. She was a beautiful woman
determined to get what she wanted, and she did.
"Then Edward seized the throne, overthrowing King Henry, and you
would have been in even more danger if your identity had become
known as a Lancastrian claimant to the throne. It almost killed
me. All the while I was dying inside, knowing I had this beautiful
daughter whom I couldn't acknowledge as my own."
"So that is why Elizabeth never told me who I was even once Uncle
Ned became King," Denys guessed. "To make sure I'd never get near
the throne."
"Of course. We all know the self-serving Elizabeth. When she
realized she was about to become queen, she had more reason than
ever to keep it quiet. The fewer claimants to her husband's
throne, the better. If word had got out about your real identity,
the risk of the Lancastrians trying to put you on the throne and
kick her husband Edward off would have been great. And by the time
she began birthing Edward's heirs, she knew anyone with a claim to
the throne was a threat to her princes."
"Did Uncle Ned know who I was?"
"Nay—he believed you were Elizabeth's niece."
"He would have told me the truth had he known."
"He possibly would have, my dear, without regard for his crown or
even his life. He was so selfless and noble. That is why I thought
it too dangerous to tell even him. ‘Tis one thing to have a son in
the thick of a battle for the crown, but I didn't want a battle
fought with my daughter in the crossfire."
Denys' gaze intensified and she began tapping a rhythmic beat with
her ring on the edge of the table that matched the rapid hammering
of her heart.
"As for my life," Margaret sighed and wiped her mouth with the
handkerchief, "after Henry Stafford died, I married Thomas
Stanley. He had always wavered between Yorkist and Lancastrian
sides. Finally I persuaded him to support my son, which he agreed
to do in this battle."
Denys nodded slowly as she digested all these hard facts. She
closed her eyes and reopened them, as if waking from a dream.
Margaret Beaufort tilted her head and opened her mouth to speak.
They stood for a long silent moment before she finally said, "I
know you do not want to hear this, being a loyal Yorkist as you
are, but Henry has a rightful claim to the throne, my dear—and
now, so do you."
"Oh, Jesu, no, I'd never want it! Elizabeth's sons were declared
illegitimate, so the crown belongs to Richard."
"That depends on how hard he's willing to fight for it." She
sighed and wiped her mouth with the handkerchief.
"May the best man win."
"You're aware that my husband is fighting that battle at Richard's
side," she stated evenly.
"I know, my dear. But he shan't perish. Mayhap he and Henry will
become friends."
"Valentine is not like your husband. His loyalties are
unwavering." Denys no longer wanted to discuss politics or
financing of Henry's battles or claims to the throne. This moment
was too fragile, too rare, it wouldn't happen again—until she met
her brother, Henry Tudor.
Her mother changed the subject for her. "So, I want to hear how my
little grandchild is doing. My granddaughter."
"But
ma mere
—how
do you know ‘twill be a girl?"
"You want a girl?"
"Aye, I've always wanted a little girl!"
"Then you shall have a girl."
After a night of hugs and promises, Denys finally left her mother
and returned the next day to Rockingham, their home in Leicester.
She gazed into the looking glass and saw someone else. Denys
Beaufort Tudor. With a claim to the throne of England.
She considered her brother, on the battlefield fighting her
husband and her King. She was not afraid of Henry Tudor and his
dubious supporters. She had faith in King Richard and his first
general, no matter who betrayed them.
But he was still her brother, and every battle had only one
winner.
And one loser.
"Oh, God!" she implored, shaking her head, still stunned with
disbelief. "Please let them be safe."
But her prayers gave her no relief, for now she knew she was right
in the middle of it all, at the crossroads of history, with
nowhere to turn for safety.