To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (26 page)

“Nell,” said Lady Margaret in a dispassionate tone. “I wish for you to be present whilst I speak to my nephew.”

“Aunt Margaret, is this necessary?”

Buckingham was certainly aware of Nell’s dislike for him.

Ignoring him, Margaret Beaufort continued speaking to Nell.

“You will not immediately understand why you have been included in this conference, but the reason will be clear when we are finished.”

“Yes, madam.”

“You may sit,” said Margaret. “Pull up a bench.” Nell did as she was told.

“First let me say how appalled we both are about the boys’

murders.”

“They’re dead, then?” Nell whispered, her voice failing her.

“Our dear king—” Margaret began in a sarcastic tone.

Nell glared at Harry Buckingham and grew bold, interrupting her employer. “I understand it was
you,
my lord, who had the children’s longtime servants dismissed.”

“That is correct,” Buckingham answered. His tone had suddenly lost its arrogance. Now there was hurt in his voice.

“ ’Twas done on King Richard’s orders just before he left for Yorkshire. They were
his
people sent in to attend the boys when the others were let go.” Buckingham looked genuinely stricken.

“I loved Richard. Believed him the rightful king. Believed him a righteous man. But to murder children . . .”

“I don’t understand,” said Nell, trying to coalesce her thoughts. If Edward was dead—? “I heard in London that you were leading a rebellion to
restore
Edward to the throne.”

“That had been my plan,” said Buckingham. “I’d gone back to gather my Welsh forces to liberate them, for I hadn’t faith that the southern rebels could manage it. I was halfway to Wales when I learned that the princes had been taken.”

“What else are they saying in London, Nell?” Lady Margaret seemed genuinely curious.

Nell looked with confusion at Buckingham. “That now Harry Buckingham is leading the revolt to place
himself
on the throne.”

“Give me my chair, Harry,” said Lady Margaret. Harry vacated the seat behind her desk.

Nell could see that her employer was thinking hard. As soon as Lady Margaret sat, the slender fingers began drumming on the desk. Something shifted in her demeanor and now it was as if Nell were invisible, no longer in the room.

“I need an answer from you, Harry.”

Nell could tell Buckingham was annoyed.
No,
she thought,
far worse than annoyed. Furious.
He had somehow been backed into a corner by Margaret Beaufort, and he looked ready to snarl and snap like a wild animal about to have a pack of mastiffs set upon him. This was his aunt Margaret, wielding control over him. He was younger than she, but he was a man, and this balance of power seemed altogether unnatural.

“Strictly by lineage,” he began, barely able to get the words out through clenched teeth, “my claim to the throne is better than yours.”

What was Buckingham saying? Was Margaret Beaufort contemplating the English crown for herself?

“You have bastardy in your bloodline, twice over,” he went on. “I am descended directly from Edward the Third and have no such stigma attached to my name.”

“True,” said Margaret in a sanguine voice. “But my Henry commands fifteen ships and five thousand troops from Brittany.

He has Duke Francis’s support, and my money behind him.”
Henry Tudor!
Nell was stunned.

“He’s already sailed with his invading army and will land on the south coast whether you join him or not.” Margaret’s spine was straight as a steel blade. “The people of Kent and Devon are more my people than yours, Harry. You must know that. They will fight under Henry’s banner before yours.” Nell chanced a look at Harry Buckingham. She enjoyed seeing him humiliated, especially by a woman.

“If you wish to see Richard defeated and a Lancaster king seated on the English throne again,” Margaret continued, “the chances would be far greater if you stood at Henry’s side and lifted him up, much as you did Richard.” Now her tone changed. It was urgent, and Nell could hear a touch of the feminine nature that, in Margaret Beaufort, was so often hidden. “Help place the crown on Henry’s head, nephew. Think of it, a kingmaker
twice over
!” She was persuasive, this small, sly woman, but Harry Buckingham had a sour look on his face. Clearly, he had long dreamt of the crown himself.

“Do you not wish peace in England?” Margaret demanded of him. “Can you not see how the joining of the two houses would seal that peace?”

The joining of the two houses? What could Margaret mean?

“You are already married, Harry. But Henry is not. If he marries Elizabeth—”

What was Margaret saying? That Henry Tudor should marry Elizabeth Woodville? That was lunacy!

“She’s eighteen. Beautiful. And her mother is a broodmare.

There’s no doubt the girl will give Henry many healthy sons.”
Sweet Jesus,
thought Nell.
She means Princess Elizabeth of York.

Bessie!

“You would be the highest peer in the land,” Margaret continued. “Bar none. And we will make you the richest as well.

Think of it. All that wealth and all that power, without the responsibility of kingship on your shoulders.” Buckingham’s eyes were darting round as he considered the offer.

“Join my son in this invasion, Harry. Crown him king, and Elizabeth of York queen, and you will end this endless War of the Roses to forge the greatest dynasty England will ever know!”

Harry Buckingham sniffed once and lifted his chin haughtily.

“Put it in writing,” he snapped. “My grants. My titles. My estates.”

Ah,
thought Nell, her brain exploding with the magnitude of the many revelations.
This is why Margaret needed me here. She expected Buckingham’s capitulation and knew she would need a trusted
scribe.

“Very well,” Margaret agreed, then her voice softened.

“You’ll not be sorry, my boy. We will see in the golden age of England together—you, Henry the Seventh, and myself.” Then Margaret turned and gazed at her secretary.

“Shall I get the writing implements?” Nell said, and stood.

“Writing implements?”

“Do you not wish me to—” She glanced at Harry Buckingham.

“Sit down, Nell,” said Lady Margaret.

“I think I should like to remain standing,” Nell said defiantly.

“And I think I should like you to tell me why I have been party to this extraordinary conversation.”

“Because,” the older woman replied, “I did not wish to have to repeat it to you verbatim.”

“But why did you feel I should know!”

That strange smile twisted Margaret Beaufort’s lips.

Then she began to explain.Westminster Sanctuary had become a dreadful residence. Surrounded as she was by hundreds of King Richard’s guards, there was no chance of escaping, or even of Bessie darting out to visit Nell. It was not a place meant for prolonged living, nor for more than a person or two to stay. Yet, for four months, Bessie, her mother, and four sisters had remained in the cramped quarters, squeezed amidst piles of furniture and the royal treasure Elizabeth Woodville had made off with from Westminster Palace. There were no servants willing to come and go, so Bessie and the girls did their best to keep the damp stone rooms clean and tidy. They sub-sisted on simple fare the friars brought them from the abbey kitchen. There were no diversions for the young children, and barely enough light to read by. The thick walls had at least kept the airless rooms cool in the summer, but now that the weather had changed, cold moisture was seeping through the stone.

Even Bessie could feel the chill in her bones.

Worse still was the gut-twisting fear under which all of them lived, for they knew that if Edward and Dickon could be so handily abducted from a fortress as awesome as the Tower of London, they had nary a chance behind Westminster Sanctuary’s walls if someone wanted them dead. Worse yet was the seething anger that flowed from Bessie to her mother, and from Elizabeth Woodville to everyone in the world.

The woman, Bessie felt sure, was possessed by a demon.

Small as their living quarters were, her mother managed to pace every inch of them hour after hour, day after day. Dickon had written to Bessie of the African lion in his cage at the Tower menagerie, pacing back and forth, back and forth, with slitted eyes, snarling at anyone who came to stare at him. Her mother snarled at her daughters now, even the youngest, Bridget, whom she made cry with bitter words and insults. They were all “miserable girls,” meaningless, with less power than a pawn.

To Bessie she raged constantly, over and over again, complain-ing of the treatment she had received at the hands of ruthless men out to destroy her.

Elizabeth had tried her best to free her sons. The conspiracy for the southern rebellion had been hatched right here in sanctuary, her one last trusted courier carrying messages to her last remaining friends and relatives still at large. For several weeks the little stone rooms had thrummed with hope and excitement.

The boys would be freed by rebels, and Edward restored to his throne. There were toasts around their little table with the friars’ poor wine in golden goblets, and Elizabeth Woodville had been almost merry. Life for those short weeks had been bearable.

Then, on Friday night past, the courier had come one last time, with horrific news. The boys had been taken from the Tower, but not, as expected, by Elizabeth’s southern rebels.

Word was that her sons were dead, murdered by King Richard’s henchmen. The messenger, terror in his eyes, had apologized, but said he would no longer be able to come.

Bessie had endured the agony of knowing that she had supported Dickon being taken to the Tower to join his brother, and though she knew his going had been inevitable, with or without her blessing, she could not shake the awful feeling of guilt, and complicity in his fate.

By Saturday morning, Sanctuary Tower—indeed, all of Westminster precinct—was aswarm with Richard’s guard. Elizabeth had been found out as the grand conspirator of the southern rebellion.

She’d tossed her head with smug disdain. “All those soldiers to guard one little woman.” She seemed almost pleased.

That was the limit for Bessie.

“Your sons have disappeared, Mother! They may well be dead. And why? Because of your endless scheming! Have you no pity, no sadness that they’re gone? My sweet brothers are lost to me forever because of you!”

Elizabeth held Bessie in a withering gaze. “How do you dare speak to your mother that way?”

“How do I dare? Because I loathe you. Because everything your enemies say about you is true. You’re horrible and self-serving. Ice water, not blood, runs through your veins.” Elizabeth crossed the room and came eye to eye with her daughter, then slapped Bessie hard across the face. Bessie hardly flinched, such was the pain she had come to know every hour of every day.

“Would you have had me stand by and do nothing when your father died and left the protectorship in the hands of a man who hated me?” Elizabeth Woodville was glaring at her daughter.

“Perhaps if you’d been more a wife to him while he lived—”

“More a wife to him!”

“If you’d spent less time raising your brothers and sisters to glorying heights and more on Father—”

“You poor, naive girl.” Elizabeth, defeated, stood down from

Bessie and sat in a high-backed chair that had once served as a throne. “Do you really believe that if I had been a better wife, your father would have taken no mistresses, swived no whores?” She laughed mirthlessly. “Listen carefully, Bessie. All men are driven by their pricks. All men are unfaithful, but most especially kings. Kings feel ’tis not simply their right to have lovers, but their
duty
. I myself would have been one of Edward’s whores if he’d had his way. But I denied him. Told him that I was perhaps not good enough to be his queen, but far too good to be his mistress. Oh, what lust
that
inspired! Enough to make him cross his good friend Warwick and marry me. But not enough,” she continued bitterly, “to keep him faithful.” Tears formed in Elizabeth Woodville’s eyes.

Bessie thought that they were the first she’d ever seen her mother shed.

“From the moment we married, indeed at the first swelling of my belly with you, he went astray. But I knew what I had married, and I knew what rewards were mine as queen, and so I was understanding, even gracious. Tell me, what kind of man shares his favorite mistress with his best friend, and his wife’s own son? Yes, I raised my brothers and sisters high. Arranged good marriages for them all. What else could I have done? Let them languish in poverty and obscurity whilst I queened over the land? I would have been equally derided and loathed for that.

And yes, I schemed and conspired and protected what was mine, what I had earned. But that was not the true reason I was despised. Shall I tell you, Bessie, the truth of how it has come to this?”

Bessie, perhaps hearing her mother clearly for the first time, nodded silently for her to go on.

“The Duke of Warwick handed your father the throne. ‘The Kingmaker Warwick.’ He reveled in the title. In the fame.

He’d gone to France to find a proper wife for Edward. A royal princess. But when he returned home he found that the king had married a commoner. A widow with two grown sons.

Warwick was livid. He never forgave your father for following his own heart, his own desires. And he despised me. I became the enemy. In his eyes I could do nothing right, even when I proved to be fertile. In short time I’d had you, and was preg-nant with Edward when Warwick rebelled, sent your father into exile. Back then, despite his women, Edward still loved me. Trusted me. I was named Regent of England those months of his exile.
I
was.

“Warwick was not the only one who hated me. Clarence loathed me for producing so many healthy children to his one wretched, simpleminded boy. And Hastings. He resented his partner in debauchery stolen away by a beautiful wife, so he lured your father into irresistible liaisons. And Richard, quiet, loyal Richard. He simply loved his brother to distraction. Anyone who siphoned Edward’s affections away from him, he despised.

“But there was something that was common to them all, something that bound them in their hatred for me. Now, despite his mistresses and whores, before his brothers, his friends, and even his kingmaker,
I
was Edward’s beloved.
I
was his most trusted.
I
was his primary adviser. Every year I produced an heir. Two healthy sons. Five beautiful daughters. I was the very fountain of life. The progenitor of the York bloodline. No one could touch me. No one could harm me. That was why I could be gracious to his mistress Jane Shore. An adored plaything cannot compete with a fecund queen.

“Do you see now, Bessie?
They had lost control of golden Edward 
York. Lost it to a woman, and a commoner at that
. This they could not abide. So they fought me at every turn. Campaigned so that everyone, noble and common alike, came to perceive me as a cold and grasping harridan, ambitious only for my family, and nothing more. But nothing could touch the real power I wielded. Not until Clarence found the priest Stillington.” Elizabeth looked away, unable to meet Bessie’s eye.

“You lived up to your reputation
then,
did you not, Mother?”

“Perhaps I did. I was prepared to fight tooth and claw to protect my children’s inheritance, their God-given right to rule.

That single indiscretion in the past—Eleanor Butler, the only other woman wise enough to demand marriage before she spread her legs—threatened to become my downfall.”

“How could you not know that forcing one brother to kill another would, in the end, harm you as well?”

“Perhaps I knew. But what alternative did I have?”

“You might have let the truth be known back then, ridden out the storm,” Bessie offered.

Elizabeth nodded slowly, painfully. “If I could have seen the future, had I but seen the destruction that one killing wrought, I think . . . I think I would have taken my chances with the truth.” Her laugh was brittle. “I see that those men—your uncles, your father’s friends—have succeeded in turning you against me too.”

“I needed no help from them,” said Bessie, aware that her words, after such a baring of the soul, would cut deeply. “Could you have never spoken like this to me before? Let me understand?”

“Understand
what
? That there was someone other to blame for my ruthlessness? Despite what I’ve told you about the men that surrounded your father, there is no one else to blame. I’ve finally become the woman they made me out to be. ‘Elizabeth Woodville, bitch queen.’ Hard-hearted out of necessity, but hard-hearted all the same.

“But as for my plotting since your father’s death, whilst I regret the consequences, I’m not ashamed of the actions. It was a hostile act, Edward naming Gloucester as protector. I think sometimes that he hated me at the end. He knew me very well, and he knew taking my power from me, placing it in Richard’s hands, would drive me to acts of desperation. He knew that! But I knew I was the best protector. That down deep in that quiet, smoldering heart of his, Richard of Gloucester was not to be trusted. Now see how my fears have been borne out. The man is a monster!”

“We don’t know that, Mother. We don’t know that Edward and Dickon are dead.”

“We know that my brother and my son are dead at Richard’s hand. We know that Hastings is dead on Richard’s orders. Why should we not believe he has done away with Edward and Dickon?”

Bessie fought back tears, for her mother’s words could hardly be denied. “They might be kidnapped,” she said. “Held in a safe place. Shipped off to the continent. But there’s no
proof
that they’re dead.”

“Proof? Proof! You sound like a lawyer, Bessie, not the sister of two murdered brothers.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Oh, how my head aches. Bring me some wine.” Bessie gazed at her mother, illuminated finally in the light of truth. It was, perhaps, an unbecoming light in many ways, and yet a certain sympathy had been born for the woman. What she’d said about men rang unhappily true.

“All we have is the friars’ watered-down claret,” said Bessie.

“That will do,” her mother said, spent of all energy. “Bessie . . .”

“What is it, Mother?”

“I take heart in knowing that your nature is so different from my own.”

Bessie stared down at her mother sitting limp on the dis-carded throne. “I’ll get the wine,” she said.

The storm had become a raging monster. True to John’s warning, flooded streams and washed-out bridges made for a nightmarish journey back to London. Several times he’d been forced to track backward and find other passages, but all the country roads were axle-deep in water and mud, and a downed tree had killed a family in Oxford. Staunch John never wavered, and Nell silently blessed him for that, for Lady Margaret had been dead determined that her secretary accomplish the task set before her in a timely fashion, the storm be damned.