Abbot Millyng had been listening, in growing disapproval, and now he was moved to mediate, made uneasy by the expression on the Duke of Clarence’s face.
“I truly must protest! It is not seemly that there should be dissension amongst you on this which should be the happiest of days for the House of York.”
They were all staring at him, and he read in their silence unwilling acknowledgment of the truth of his charge. Richard allowed his niece to lead him toward the door, pausing long enough to murmur a few words meant for George alone. George didn’t reply, but they seemed to have reached an understanding of some sort and he followed Richard from the room. Will was next to depart, and as he passed the Abbot, he murmured, with a sideways smile, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God.”
The Abbot shut the outer door, glanced toward the bedchamber door, which still remained closed. Jacquetta was attempting to soothe her angry grandson without notable success. He was complaining bitterly, “It is just that I see not why Bess should be fetched to see Her Vainglorious Grace now, when she never once did come to us in sanctuary….”
Jacquetta’s reply was lost to the Abbot, for Anthony had begun to rail against “that whoreson Hastings,” and as he listened, Abbot Millyng felt a chill. He’d deeply feared an England ruled by the Earl of Warwick and Marguerite d’Anjou, sure there could be no peace between those most bitter and implacable of enemies. Now he wondered if it were truly that different with the House of York. It occurred to him that herein, too, lay the seeds of destruction, as surely as it did with Marguerite d’Anjou and the Kingmaker.
It was a sobering thought, but then he remembered, remembered with deep heartfelt relief…. Thank Almighty God that there was a man strong enough to hold them all together, a man able to reconcile the passions of Woodville and Plantagenet under the blazing banner of his Sunne in Splendour. The hostility he’d just seen in this room had been disturbing, but there’d be no bloody rending of the House of York. He glanced again at the bedchamber door, and then said to Jacquetta, “Shall we not give thanks, Madame, that His Grace the King has come safely home to us?”
Bess was curled up beside Richard on the settle in her grandmother’s solar. She’d been tenaciously staving off sleep ever since supper, but her eyes were now the merest of slits, and as Cecily watched, silky little lashes sealed off the last lingering traces of blue. Cecily smiled; Bess might have her mother’s silver-gilt hair, but her eyes were unmistakably Edward’s.
Cecily was, in many ways, a stranger to the child, for her relationship with her daughter-in-law was such that she rarely saw her grandchildren in settings other than ceremonial. Richard was far better acquainted with Edward’s eldest-born than she was, and she’d expected Bess to be somewhat shy with her, at least at first. But Bess was no more shy than any small creature that had been conditioned to expect only love and approval, and she’d shown no hesitation whatsoever in climbing up into Cecily’s lap, just as if she’d passed every day of her life with her grandmother at Baynard’s Castle.
Cecily leaned over to wipe a greasy smear from the little girl’s chin, said ruefully, “One might read our menu on that child’s face! Come, Bess; let me put you to bed, dearest.”
Bess’s eyes were unfocused, her lids uncooperatively refusing to remain open, but she at once offered sleepy resistance, clinging to Richard with the resolve of one determined not to be dislodged.
“Let her stay, Ma Mère. Does it matter, after all, whether she does sleep here or in bed?”
“No, I suppose not,” Cecily conceded, seeing that Bess, reassured by Richard’s intercession on her behalf, had stopped struggling. He shifted his arm and she nestled back against him, slid with a contented sigh again into sleep.
“She’s quite taken with you, Richard!”
He smiled, shook his head. “No, it’s not that. Bess and I did strike a bargain, you see. I did pledge on Ned’s behalf that he’d not come anywhere but to Baynard’s Castle, and till he does, she’s not likely to let me out of her sight!”
Cecily smiled, too, at that, and then said, “We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?”
Richard nodded, and looking down at his sleeping niece, found himself thinking of Kathryn, his own daughter. She was nigh on a year old already and he’d not seen her since she was a swaddling babe. He couldn’t even be sure she still lived. Babies were subject to the croup, to sudden high fevers, to any number of ailments that could snuff out a little life as abruptly as any candle flame. And if Kathryn had been stricken, how could Kate have gotten word to him? She could be dead and beneath ground these many months past and he’d not even know.
“What troubles you, Richard? Is it your own child you do think of?”
Richard’s eyes widened. His surprise was readily apparent, his embarrassment only slightly less so, and she shook her head, said dryly, “Did you truly expect me to remain long in ignorance? I assure you there’s little you and your brothers do that does not eventually find its way to my ear…whether I do want to hear it or not!”
The best Richard could muster was an inadequate, “I see.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Richard, you can’t imagine it does come as any surprise to me that you’ve a child born of an illicit attachment? After all, I was raised in a family with more brothers than I could count! Moreover, I did bring up four sons to manhood, and your brothers were no less susceptible than you to temptation—while being far less discreet, I regret to say. I cannot condone the circumstances of your child’s birth, but I most surely do approve of your willingness to assume responsibility for your act.” And then she sighed, said in a voice suddenly dull, drained of animation, “Men are born to sin, Richard. What does matter most is not that we err…. It is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.”
Richard leaned across the settle, touched her hand lightly with his own. “He did promise me he would come, Ma Mère. He rode with me from Westminster as far as Ludgate, and I thought sure he meant to accompany me all the way. Then he of a sudden drew rein, insisted he had some pressing task he must attend to, one that could not wait. But he swore he’d be done by Vespers, that he’d then come, straightaway here. I believe he will, Ma Mère…in truth I do.”
“Vespers,” she said; no more than that. But no more needed to be said; it was already well past dark.
A troubled silence followed. It was no small undertaking, to give consolation to one who was more accustomed to offering comfort than to accepting it herself, but Richard now ventured a try at it, said, “He did want to come, Ma Mère. I know he did. But he does fear to face you….”
“As well he might,” she said tartly, no more easy than he in this sudden role-reversal.
Richard made no further apologies or explanations for George. Instead, he decided to remind his mother that “Ned should be here ere long.”
This time she chose to take the substitute solace he offered. She rose, brushed one of her rare kisses against his cheek.
“If I’m not mistaken, that be him now,” she said, with a smile suddenly expectant, eager, and moved toward the door as Bess, guided by some mystical sixth sense, stirred and yawned.
John Gylman, a yeoman of her chamber, appeared in the solar doorway. He seemed unduly agitated, confirming her belief that Edward had, indeed, arrived.
“Madame,” he said and then stammered, “Madame…your son…”
Cecily stared at him in surprise. “Whatever ails you? Where is he…in the great hall?”
“Here, Ma Mère.”
Gylman backed away from George and then fled. Richard came at once to his feet. Bess, fully awake now, opened her mouth to protest and then, seeing she was not to be abandoned, pliantly wrapped her arms about his neck, let him lift her from the settle.
“No, Dickon…don�
��t go!” George blurted out, but Richard was already at the door. There was some sympathy in the look he gave his brother, but he had no intention in the world of being an unwilling witness to the scene that was to follow. Setting his little niece back on her feet, he took her hand and shut the door firmly behind him.
Cecily said nothing, watched as George crossed the solar. He stopped before her and then slowly dropped to his knees. The face upturned to her was deeply flushed, and his clothes, though of the finest and most expensive cut, were slightly awry, not precisely disheveled but worn with a queer careless air, and George was ever one to be acutely conscious both of fashion and appearance. There’d been, as well, a barely perceptible slurring of speech in his appeal to Richard. It might have been due to stress, of course, but Cecily saw, too, how the corners of his mouth were slack, how he flicked his tongue over his lips like one parched with thirst.
“How much wine did it take to bring you here, George?” she asked, in a voice that was as remote as she could make it, distant and disdainful.
He was mute, still knelt before her. His hair was tousled; she could not recall a time when he’d been able to keep it from tumbling down onto his forehead. On the wall behind him a cresset torch burned, and under its flickering light, his hair seemed even fairer than she’d remembered, seemed to have regained the brightness of boyhood. He was thinner than she remembered, too, his cheekbones thrown into sudden prominence. Perhaps it was that which gave him such an unexpectedly youthful appearance. She didn’t know, knew only that he suddenly looked years shy of twenty-one, looked exactly as he had each time he’d disappointed her yet again and then, repentant, vowed to make it up to her, swore earnestly that each found-out sin would be his last.
He had yet to speak, but he reached now for her hand. She resisted the urge to snatch it away, instead let it lie limp and cold within his grasp. It was a trick of lighting, surely, or of her senses, that he should suddenly seem so young to her. He was no boy…no longer. He was a man grown. A man accountable for wrongs done, wounds inflicted. For betrayals that in no way could be regarded as boyish escapades. But even as she pulled her hand from his, she saw his eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“Will you not speak to me, Ma Mère?” he whispered, and there was something in his voice Cecily had never heard before. A total lack of assurance. Contrition. She stopped herself before she read more into his demeanor than he deserved, said coolly,
“What do you want me to say, George?”
“That you do forgive me….”
She let him take her hand again. He came lightly to his feet, but she knew that even when drunk, he retained a certain loose grace. She found herself hoping, nonetheless, that he was not as cupshotten as she’d first feared.
“You are sober, George?”
He nodded and leaned down, kissed her timidly on the cheek. When she didn’t rebuff him, he was heartened enough to kiss her again.
“Ma Mère, I am so sorry…so very sorry.”
His eyes met hers steadily. He was not ashamed of the tears that clouded the clear turquoise. She could see only pain in his face, pain and remorse.
She reached out; her fingers stopped just short of his cheek. After a moment, she said softly, “You are truly sorry?”
“Oh, yes, Ma Mère!” he said eagerly. “More than I could ever say! I’d never willingly have acted to cause you hurt. You do know that, don’t you? Ma Mère, I do swear to you that it was none of my doing. It was Warwick. It was he who concocted that outlandish story about Ned. A slander none could possibly believe. But there was nothing I could do.” He gave her his first smile, sunlit, loving.
“Lord, how long I’ve wanted to tell you that! To tell you it was none of it my fault. Ma Mère, I want…Ma Mère? Why are you looking at me like that? You do…you do believe me, don’t you? You understand that it was not my fault?”
Cecily started to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She stepped back, and before he could assure her again that he was blameless, she slapped him across the mouth with all the strength she had at her command.
He gasped, stumbled back. His eyes, still vivid, still purest turquoise, were now round with shock, with hurt.
“Ma Mère, I did say I was sorry! I did tell you that it was Warwick’s doing, not mine! What else can I say? What more do you want of me?”
“I want you once, just once in your life, to accept responsibility for what you’ve done! Just once, to admit you were in the wrong and not try to pass the blame around to all within reach! Can you do that, George? Can you not say to me that you did commit grievous wrongs against those who did love you, that you now do see that and you regret what you’ve done? Or must I believe you aren’t even capable of that much?”
There was entreaty in the look he gave her, and misery not even she could deny.
“Ma Mère, I want so much to do what you ask of me. I swear I always have. But how can I take the blame for what I didn’t do? How can you ask me to assume a guilt that does belong by rights to Warwick? That’s not fair, Ma Mère. Surely you do see that?”
Cecily stared at him. He meant it. He meant every word he said. He had no comprehension whatsoever of what she’d said to him.
“Go away, George,” she said at last. Never could she remember being so tired; never had she felt the full weight of her fifty-six years as she did at that moment. She made an enormous effort, said, “We’ll talk later. But not now…not tonight.”
Far from resenting her dismissal, he looked inexpressibly relieved. He quickly caught up her hand, pressed it hastily to his lips. “Of course, Ma Mère,” he agreed at once, and turned to make his escape before she could change her mind.
Cecily watched him cross the solar, and she knew suddenly that there’d be no further discussion between them. The next time she saw him, he’d have regained his poise, filled up even these small chinks in his armor, would once more be beyond reach, beyond remorse. If they didn’t talk now, they never would, and he knew it as well as she.
“George, wait!”
He was at the door, his hand on the latch, turned back with the utmost reluctance. “Ma Mère?”
“Don’t go. I’ve changed my mind. I think it best that we do talk now.”
He hesitated. “Ma Mère, I…Forgive me, but I do not. You are distraught now, more apt to say what you don’t truly mean.” He summoned up for her his most coaxing smile. “We can always talk tomorrow. There’s no reason why it must be tonight, after all.”
He had the door open; Cecily saw he was already out of reach. But she tried, nonetheless, gave in to a sudden surging rage that was unlike any she’d ever experienced, that for the moment mercifully numbed her of the capacity to feel anything but anger.
She reached the door within seconds of his retreat, caught up with him on the wooden stairway that led from the solar down into the lower end of the great hall, and grabbed his arm with force enough to hurt, that she hoped would hurt.
“I would talk with you now, George!”
He offered no resistance, stood rigidly within her grasp, staring down into the hall, down at the pandemonium that held sway below them. Cecily’s blind rage cleared; she looked about her, as uncertainly as one awakening from a dream that was unremembered but unpleasant, nonetheless.
It seemed to her that every one of her servants, every retainer in her service, every man, woman, and child lodged within Baynard’s Castle must be below in the great hall. The babble of voices beat upward to assail her ears in discordant waves. So many torches flared that even the darkest corners held some of the light of day. She saw the faces of men she’d not seen for months, other faces that were totally unfamiliar to her, and almost at once, her daughter-in-law. Surrounded by servants, clad in cloth of gold and having about her throat and shoulders jewels enough to dazzle even the most jaded eye, Elizabeth looked elegant, aloof, and so beautiful that all in the hall were staring at her in awe, even those who did like her least.
In the very midst of all t
his uproar, reveling in the excitement he was creating, stood her son. He looked up now, saw her standing on the solar stairway and grinned, said loudly, “Well, Madame, are you not going to welcome me home from my wanderings?”
To her horror, Cecily found tears were suddenly stinging her eyes. She could not believe her nerves would fail her now, had no intention of giving in to emotion before this sea of spectators. Nor did she. The cultivated discipline of a lifetime stood her in good stead. She blinked the tears back, smiled at her son, and started to descend the stairway into the hall.
“No, don’t move,” Edward said and laughed. “This time, Madame, let me be the one to come to you!”
26
London
April 1471
Richard rolled groggily out of bed in the early hours of dawn, his head throbbing with too little sleep and too much wine. The day stretched ahead of him like an unending hot, dry road. Battle captains to be conferred with, supplies to be gathered, artillery to be inspected, horses to be requisitioned. Don’t bother about breakfast, he told a yawning Thomas Parr; he hadn’t time to spare. But he abruptly restructured his morning plans a few moments later as he broke open the sealed letter that had come in the night. Unfolding the paper, he read rapidly, and as he did, his face changed.
“Saddle some horses,” he ordered, as Thomas turned to look at him in surprise. “If my brother the King should send for me, tell him that something of urgency—No, don’t say that. Tell him I had matters to attend to, will be back as soon I can.”
It was midmorning by the time he returned to Baynard’s Castle. By now the curious and the faithful had gathered without, and as word spread through their ranks that the slight dark youth on the silver-grey stallion was the King’s brother, they raised a flattering cheer for Richard. One youngster bolder than the rest darted forward, kept pace for several strides at Richard’s stirrup.
“ ’Tis glad we are that you’re home!”
Richard grinned. “So am I,” he said.
The Sunne in Splendour Page 38