To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (3 page)

he looked suddenly shy—“you might inhale its comforts with every breath.”

“ ’Tis beautiful, Harry,” the queen said, and sniffed it. “Do I smell motherwort and barberry?”

“Yes, yes!” he cried, then launched into an impassioned explanation of each of its floral stems and the purposes of every flower and herb.

Nell knew that whilst the queen had loved Arthur with a feeling mothers reserve for their firstborn children, she shared a special bond with Prince Harry. Unlike Arthur, Harry, the second son, had been kept close to home at Westminster.

The king had shown scarce attention to Harry, bestowing what little affection he had for his children on his heir. Arthur had been strong and healthy. He’d been trained from earliest 
childhood to shoulder the mantle of kingship—Tudor kingship.

The firstborn of Henry the Seventh of England had drawn a marriage with a princess of Spain. What prestige, what power lay in Arthur’s lineage, future. What promise would spring from his loins!

Little Harry had been destined for the Church. He’d make a fine cardinal, it was oft repeated. To the great merriment of his clergy, his father had fantasied Harry, bright and pious as he was, one day wearing the “shoes of the fisherman.” “Imagine,” his father would say, “the first English pope.” Bessie and Nell both knew how Harry loathed such thoughts, how awful it would be for him to leave London and live in Rome. He loved England and had no wish to be the Holy Father.

The three of them had commiserated together at the thought of Harry as pope, with his starched red robes and the stifling Italian summers. Whilst he sincerely mourned the death of his brother, Nell thought, Harry could not but be celebrating the death of his father’s dream of the papacy.

Here, then, in the shade of a glittering court, mother and son had found private joy and comfort in each other’s company.

Only in the past weeks had the shift toward Harry occurred, now that it was clear that he would inherit Henry the Seventh’s throne, as Henry the Eighth. His father was lavishing time, if not affection, on his only remaining son. The bond between Harry and Bessie, however, was altogether unaffected. He was not a fickle boy. He loved his mother deeply and resented the treatment she had long received.

The door from the presence chamber to bedchamber opened without a knock. The three sitting comfortably on the Bed of State knew instantly who would dare walk through the door without invitation.

A black-clad, black-wimpled woman blew into the room 
like a tiny hurricane. Her long, thin, wrinkled face was more than stern. Bessie always said that Margaret Beaufort proudly showed on her face the discomfort of wearing a hair shirt as a constant advertisement of her piety. Her voice was thin and sharp as a blade as she acknowledged Bessie and Harry with a nod, then said, “Good day to you, Nell.” Nell came off the bed, came round, and curtsied to the queen mother. “Good day to you, madam.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m very, very sorry for your loss.”

“ ’Tis yours as well,” said Margaret.

“How very kind of you to acknowledge.”

There was no love lost between the queen and the queen mother, but Bessie had long ago learned the way to deal with Margaret Beaufort. She was outwardly compliant, even obedient, so that it might never be said the queen was defiant toward the king’s mother. But Bessie’s words to her mother-in-law were always mildly caustic, sometimes cynical, with healthy doses of wicked humor tossed in for good measure.

Nell was much more careful, keeping conversations with the woman light and respectful. After all, Lady Margaret had, at her son’s accession, become William Caxton’s greatest patron.

Dozens of books in the English language had been published by her good graces and financial largess. Till his death, Lady Margaret had virtually kept the shop under the sign of the Red Pale in business. When Nell’s father had died, Margaret had trans-ferred her patronage to Jan de Worde.

She had tolerated Nell’s friendship with Queen Bessie, though it had rankled when Bessie had named Nell godmother to the royal children. Still, Lady Margaret had reserved her displeasure, if not out of respect for Nell, then for her abiding regard for the man who had forever changed England with his press.

At this moment, however, Lady Margaret appeared at the 
limit of her reserve. “I do think your visit premature,” she added pointedly to Nell. “I believe I denied your requests and you are therefore here—”

“I wrote Nell asking her to come,” said Bessie, interrupting her mother-in-law.

“But you are in mourning, my dear,” said Margaret.

“And nothing will do me better than the sight of my dearest friend in the world”—she put her arm round Harry’s shoulder—

“and my sweet son.”

Margaret was beginning to seethe at the subtle attack on her authority, though her ability to hide signs of anger was finely honed. “But, Elizabeth”—Margaret Beaufort insisted on calling Bessie by her given name—“you are in a very delicate condition.

If you do not rest, you will become ill, and this family cannot bear another tragedy.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Bessie replied in the most even of tones. “But I have borne twelve children in my life. Have no worry that I can determine the safe length of a friendly visit.” For a fleeting instant Nell observed on Margaret’s face a fury so hideous that it might, like Medusa’s gaze, turn the three of them into statues of stone. A moment later it was gone, replaced by a tight-lipped smile.

“Nell, do tell Master Worde that his broadsheet on the Tyrell confession was most appreciated by the king.” Then, with something close to supernatural restraint, Margaret Beaufort quietly pulled the door closed behind her.

In the next moment there was a deep and unanimous exhala-tion of breath from the trio, followed by a fit of hilarity that Bessie attempted to stifle lest her mother-in-law hear it. Finally they calmed themselves.

“Mother?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“I saw Master Worde’s broadsheet. I read it through.” Nell and Bessie exchanged a concerned look.

“It said,” Harry continued, looking with distress at his mother, “that the man Tyrell, who was just beheaded, confessed to the killings of your brothers—the princes in the Tower—

and that my great-uncle Richard paid him well to do the deed. Is it true?”

Nell and Bessie were silent, unbalanced by the question.

“There is no simple answer to what you’ve asked, son.” Harry was perplexed.

“In life, there is truth and there is deception,” Nell said.

“Sometimes deception is a necessary evil.”

“But truth is always better,” Bessie added.

“So is Master Worde’s broadsheet truth or deception?” Nell and Bessie sought each other’s eyes. In the silence that followed, a flood tide of memories and emotions were loosed, and a decision made.

“Harry,” his mother began. “One day you shall be King of England. The story behind James Tyrell’s confession is the story of your family, your ancestors.” She glanced at Nell, who nodded encouragingly. “I think you deserve to know the truth.” Nell went to the large window overlooking the river. She turned back to her friend. Bessie’s expression was taut, even fearful. Yet they both knew the story needed telling, a full and truthful telling to an open, eager mind. To the one person in all the world who most needed to hear it.

Harry was only ten. It would shake his world to the core.

But when he was grown and sitting on England’s throne as Henry the Eighth, he would remember it all, every detail, and from it he would glean invaluable lessons. Kingly lessons.

Bessie, sitting silent beneath the canopy of the Bed of State, was thinking the same. Nell was sure of it.

“Harry,” said the queen, her gaze fixed on Nell, “if we tell you the story, the true story, will you promise that it will be our secret?”

“Of course, Mother!” His eyes were shining, as though he were a great adventurer setting out on an epic journey.

“This tale, which is not so much a tale as a history, ” Nell began thoughtfully, “involves not simply the little princes who disappeared from the Tower, and their uncle Richard. It involves your grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles and cousins.”

“Really?” Harry was incredulous.

“But the story begins in 1483,” Bessie continued seamlessly, as though the friends were sharing one mind, “with Nell and with me.”

“With you, Mother?”

She nodded. “In fact, Harry, it started with me and my mother in this very room. Well,” Bessie corrected herself, “just outside the door.”

With a wink to the guards standing sentry at the entrance of the royal bedchamber, Princess Bessie tiptoed past. She hoped desperately not to be seen or heard by her mother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, whom Bessie glimpsed sitting before her looking glass.

“Take a guard with you,” her mother called out through the door.

God’s blood! Bessie swore silently. The woman has eyes in the back of her head. “ I’m only going to Caxton’s!” she called back.

“Come in here, Bessie.”

The girl sighed and pushed open the door to her parents’ opulent inner sanctum. A maid was brushing out the luxuriant fall of golden hair for which Queen Elizabeth was famous. The magnificence of her alabaster skin and perfectly sculpted features never failed to amaze Bessie. Despite sharing the pale hair and complexion and the ice-blue, heavily lidded eyes, the eighteen-year-old princess knew that all who insisted she was as lovely as her forty-six-year-old mother were exaggerating. No one was as beautiful as the Queen of England.

“Why must I take a guard, Mother? The printshop is next door. Within Westminster’s walls! I doubt there are kidnappers lurking in the shadows to snatch me. I’m only going to Nell’s.” 

“See if there are any new French romances come in,” said the queen.

“Yes, Mother.”

“And tell Master Caxton that I wish to order a second copy of The Canterbury Tales.”

“I will.”

Bessie turned to go, but the queen’s voice stopped her in her tracks. “Why must you wear that old rag?”

“ ’Tis no such thing.” Bessie felt color rising in her cheeks.

Her mother took great pleasure in provoking her. “There’s no need to wear silks and satins for a morning walk.” The queen turned and glared at her daughter. “I don’t want to hear that the two of you have been traipsing round outside Westminster walls. Shopping on Totehill Street.”

“I’m going to Caxton’s printshop.” Bessie enunciated precisely to underscore her annoyance. “Then I’m coming home.”

“See that you do.”

Bessie was finally out the door.

“And don’t forget my romance!” she heard the queen call.

But the princess had escaped her mother’s clutches and made her way down the main staircase. She was passing Westminster’s great hall when she heard her name called.

Music was wafting from within, and when she poked her head inside she found her sisters Mary, sixteen, and Cecily, fourteen, together with her nine-year-old brother, Dickon, having a lesson in the saltarello with their Italian dance master. They looked tiny, the four of them in the enormous chamber, and the music of drum and pipe echoed in the high-vaulted ceiling.

“Come join us, Bessie,” called Dickon. He was tall for his age—most of his height in his long legs. He was a handsome child and, like his beautiful sisters, shared the yellow locks and blue eyes of their mother and father. She adored the boy for his 
sweet disposition and playful spirit. Indeed, she found more pleasure in his company than in that of her sisters, who seemed all but obsessed with their marriage plans and the latest fashions.

“Another day,” Bessie called back to Dickon. “I’m off to visit Nell.”

Dickon abandoned his dance partner, Cecily, in midstep and ran to the door. “May I come? Oh please. I hate these lessons.”

“I could barely get permission from Mother for myself to go out. We’ll go another day.”

“Can we go to the market? I must be old enough by now.” Bessie tugged at his long curls. “I’ll talk to Mother about it.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise. Now go back to Cecily. She looks very silly leap-ing round without a partner.”

A few moments later Bessie was outside in the palace courtyard.

“Princess Bessie! Good morning to you!”

“Aren’t you looking lovely as this lovely spring day.” Bessie smiled as she called back greetings to the men and women of the base courtyard. There were so many of them, from cooks to scullions and laundresses, to stonemasons and gardeners and coal carriers. It took thousands of these workers to run her father’s London castle. Westminster, a very grand castle it was, befitting a great king—her father, Edward—and Elizabeth, her mother, who was said to be the most beautiful queen England had ever had.

And the most hated, thought Bessie. I hope I shall never be as hated as my mother. These same people who greeted Bessie with such sincere friendliness could manage nothing more for Queen Elizabeth Woodville than grudging respect. That was fair, thought Bessie, as the woman treated her servants with nothing more than icy hauteur.

The princess slowed in her tracks at a stone house set squarely in the middle of the base court. ’Twas the bakery, its gorgeous yeasty fragrances trying to draw her within. She could take a beautiful white manchette loaf to Nell and her father. But no, she was too eager to be going to stop at the bakehouse.

It felt good to be alive, Bessie thought. Soft warmth of a spring day on her cheeks. Rounded cobbles under her slippers.

Beautiful smells from the bakery. And she hurrying to see her best friend in the world.