The Sunne in Splendour

by Sharon Kay Penman

  No, he knew a confrontation was inevitable. But the days passed in peace. His unease grew. What was Ned waiting for? It was with something almost like relief, therefore, that he made ready to ride to Westminster this Sunday afternoon; better to face Ned’s wrath and get it over with.

  He’d hoped for a private meeting, was both disappointed and disconcerted when he was ushered into the Painted Chamber. His eyes narrowed at sight of the waiting assemblage. The chamber was filled with people, most of whom would gladly have bartered their own souls for a chance to see him in Hell. So this was Ned’s game. A public humiliation. His jaw jutted out defiantly; so be it then. He moved forward into the room.

  Ralph Josselyn, the Lord Mayor of London, and the city aldermen looked none too happy to be there, showed the discomfort of strangers unwillingly entrapped in a family feud. Other faces, however, told a far different tale, spoke of unforgotten grievances and long-cherished grudges.

  The first familiar face George saw was that of Will Hastings. Newly back from Calais, Will looked rested, at ease; as their eyes met, he saluted George with overly elaborate courtesy that was in itself a polished insult. George ignored him, approached the dais. There he saw the woman he hated above all others, his beautiful sister-in-law. Elizabeth wore yellow and her hair was loose, as if this were a state occasion. It drew even more glances than her crown, shone white-gold in the sun. Not for the first time, George thought that she had eyes like a hungry cat. Behind her stood her two grown sons by her first marriage. Thomas Grey looked like a man unexpectedly given a longed-for gift; his brother, too, seemed in the grip of some strange excitement. They both were smiling expectantly.

  “My lord of Clarence.” Edward’s face was impassive, his voice dispassionate. George found no reason for reassurance in that, would have preferred outright anger.

  He touched his lips to Edward’s outstretched hand, waited for Edward to give him leave to rise.

  “Have you an explanation for your extraordinary behavior before my privy council on the twenty-first of May?”

  George flicked his tongue over dry lips, said as steadily as he could, “Thomas Burdett was my friend. I did believe him when he assured me of his innocence. I felt I did owe him my loyalty….”

  “Loyalty?” Edward echoed, with just enough mockery to stir a ripple of laughter, quickly suppressed.

  “Let’s try, Brother, to keep this conversation within the realm of the believable, shall we?”

  This time the laughter was more pronounced. George flushed, started to speak. Edward cut him off with a peremptory gesture.

  “Actually, I don’t much care why you acted as you did. The why of it is rather irrelevant.”

  “Your Grace—”

  “No bond is absolute, Brother, not even that of blood. I’ll not speak of your past offenses, of the betrayals forgiven, the treasons pardoned. But two months ago, you did dare to make mockery of the laws of this realm, to subvert justice to your own vengeful purposes. Embracery is a crime, my lord, even for the highly born.”

  The chamber was unnaturally still. There was a roaring in George’s ears, the pulsing of his own blood.

  “Ankarette Twynyho died because you chose to take the King’s law into your own hands. You did then compound your offense by acting to cast doubt upon the fairness of the trials of Thomas Burdett and John Stacy. In so doing, you did impugn the King’s justice, call into disrepute the courts of this realm, and act as though you would take unto yourself the sovereign powers that be inherent within the crown.”

  Edward paused. The indictment had been received in utter silence. He let his eyes linger for a moment upon George’s resentful face, and then concluded, speaking with deliberation, the chill detached tones of authority absolute, “It is time, my lord of Clarence, that you did learn you, too, are subject to the laws and covenants of this land. This is not an action I take lightly. I do not forget that the blood flowing in my veins does flow, as well, in yours. But you do leave me no choice. As of this moment, you may consider yourself under arrest.”

  George gasped; for a dizzying second, he doubted both his senses and his sanity. Ned couldn’t…he wouldn’t dare!

  “You cannot be serious!” he blurted out, saw his brother raise his hand. It was an unhurried gesture, almost casual; yet men-at-arms at once appeared in the doorway. Their captain came forward.

  “My liege?”

  “You are to escort His Grace of Clarence to the Tower. He is to be treated with all due respect and, once there, to be lodged as befits his rank, as a prisoner of state.”

  George had gone the color of chalk. He swallowed convulsively, stared dazedly at his brother. Ironically enough, it was Elizabeth who unwittingly came to his rescue. She laughed, the only one in the chamber who dared to do so. He stiffened at the sound, strengthened by a surge of hate that left no room in his brain for any other emotion. With all the bravado he could muster, he made a deep mocking obeisance before his brother and then turned toward the captain of the guards, snapped his fingers in a gesture of command that was not his to make.

  Amused in spite of himself by George’s audacity, Edward let it pass, discreetly signaled his men to follow. There was nothing accidental about the audience he’d assembled for George’s arrest; it had been carefully staged down to the last detail. And yet, as much as he’d thought he wanted to see his brother publicly humiliated, there was still a faint sense of relief when he saw that George was going to be able to salvage some dignity after all. Acknowledging the ambivalence in his feelings, he acknowledged, too, one reason why: however little he liked George, the fact was that George’s actions did still reflect upon him. Brotherhood, he thought with a wry resignation, was a life sentence.

  George’s bravura posture took him as far as the Tower. But once he found himself alone in a small chamber of the Bowyer Tower, his courage failed him. He flung himself down upon the bed, and suddenly sweat stood out on his forehead, trickled cold and sticky down his back, soaked his shirt with wide wet splotches. After an interminable time, the panic subsided somewhat. He reminded himself that he’d been treated with deference so far, that Lord Dudley, the Constable of the Tower, had assured him he would have all his needs met. Dudley had even seen to it that a flagon of his favorite malmsey was sent in with his meal.

  He took heart at that, set about convincing himself that his stay in the Tower was going to be more tolerable than he first thought. He remembered now that when Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, had been confined there, he’d been allowed four servants to see to his wants, even had his own cook. He was able to take some reassurance from that…until he remembered, too, that Edward had kept Northumberland in the Tower for fully five years.

  11

  Windsor Castle

  September 1477

  August 12 was always a bittersweet anniversary for Elizabeth. It was the birthday of her daughter Mary, now ten. But it was, as well, a day of far more sinister memories, for it was on an August 12 that her father and brother had been led forth to die before the walls of Coventry, to die at the command of the Earl of Warwick and his youthful ally, the Duke of Clarence.

  Elizabeth blamed George fully as much as Warwick for the murder of her kindred. She owed him a blood debt and grimly intended to see that he was paid. But eight years had passed since those August executions and George’s day of reckoning seemed no nearer now than it ever was.

  When her husband at last lost patience and threw George into the Tower, Elizabeth was jubilant. But not for long. It soon became apparent to her that Edward did not mean to punish George as he deserved. There’d be no early morning execution on Tower Green. George would be confined for a time and then released. And he’d learn nothing from the experience; she knew he wouldn’t. He’d only be all the more embittered, all the more vindictive, all the more dangerous.

  That George was dangerous, Elizabeth did not doubt. He was clumsy in his intrigues; he’d so far shown an uncanny knack for alienating people, had no friends, only
lackeys and enemies, and he seemed queerly blind to the consequences of his actions, but he was dangerous withal. Edward laughed at her when she tried to tell him that, but Elizabeth couldn’t afford to laugh. George hated her with all the passions of a notoriously unstable nature. He hated her and never forgot for a moment that he stood by blood very close, indeed, to the English throne. Her son was not yet seven. Should anything happen to Ned…

  This was not a fear she dwelt upon at length. Ned was, after all, only thirty-five and all his life had been in superb health. For Elizabeth, to imagine all that vitality and energy quenched was like trying to envision the extinguishing of the sun. And yet it could happen. A fall from a horse, a renewal of war with France…. It could happen and that lingering awareness only served to give added urgency to her desire for vengeance.

  Elizabeth now found her twenty-three-year-old son Thomas to be an unexpectedly adroit ally. Thomas had the family flair for hating. And he had a taste, too, for intrigue. With very little trouble, he’d succeeded in placing one of his own men among those chosen to guard George in the Bowyer Tower. The man had not become a confidant of George’s; that would have been too much to hope for. But he did manage to keep Thomas, and therefore, Elizabeth, quite well informed about George’s day-by-day activities and outbursts.

  His confinement was much too loosely structured for Elizabeth’s liking. He was permitted to have visitors if he chose, to dispatch letters, to consult with his household. He had his own servants—had, as well, all the luxuries his wealth could provide: a feather bed brought from the Herber, silver plate, and fine wines. Elizabeth thought her husband was being outrageously indulgent, but he’d deflected her complaints with sarcasm, wanting to know if she would like him to cast his brother into one of the rat-infested airless holes reserved for those less fortunate of birth than George.

  Elizabeth was able to take some satisfaction, however, in the stories now surfacing about George’s increasingly erratic conduct. For the first month or so, he had managed to keep up a bold front, acted as if his stay in the Tower was admittedly an inconvenience, but no more than that. But that was in the beginning. Such sangfroid did not last long in the heat of high summer. George was no reader, hadn’t the capacity for sustained concentration that chess required, soon grew bored with dicing, Tables, and draughts. For the first time in his adult life, the hours hung heavy on his hands. And the longer he was held, the more likely it began to seem to him that his brother meant to keep him caged indefinitely.

  There were clear indications by mid-August that his nerves were giving way. He was increasingly bad-tempered with servants and guards alike. He drank more than he should, slept poorly. It was then that he swallowed his pride, wrote to his mother at Berkhampsted, entreating her to intercede with Edward on his behalf. By September, so desperate had he become that he was writing, as well, to Richard.

  Elizabeth was pleased; she wanted him miserable, apprehensive. If there was a just God in Heaven, he’d never know another moment’s peace. She was not so pleased, however, when Thomas came up from London to Windsor with the latest accounts of George’s deteriorating emotional state.

  Now in the third month of his captivity, George seemed to have surrendered unconditionally to despair. He was drinking heavily. Some days he didn’t even bother to dress at all, lay in a wine-sodden stupor from which he roused himself only to send out for more malmsey. Too little exercise and too much wine were adding unwanted pounds; for the first time in his life, he was having a problem with his weight. His face was puffy these days, their informant reported, had taken on an unhealthy pallor, and his temper was raw, dangerous. Unable to sleep at night, he did his best to drink himself into oblivion and, when that failed, he sought out the company of his servants and, on occasion, even the guards, subjecting them to long rambling monologues full of self-pity and venom.

  It was this that stung Elizabeth into such fury, these accounts of George’s drunken babblings. He’d always had a poisonous tongue, but never before had she been able to prove the seditious nature of his outpourings. Now fear and misery had stripped away all restraints and he stood convicted by his own mouth.

  The night was hot, the chamber scented with a fragrant incense from the Holy Land. Edward was in high spirits and Elizabeth made every effort to share his laughter, forbore to be irked by his teasing. Watching him in the mirror, she felt quite content; so far, the evening was progressing just as she’d planned.

  As soon as her ladies had withdrawn and they were alone, Elizabeth moved toward the bed. Unfastening the sash of her bed robe, she let the garment slowly slide down her shoulders, fall to the floor at her feet. There was a hint of arrogance in her assurance, in her absolute certainty that she could withstand the most searching scrutiny. Her breasts were still firm, her legs slim and shapely; the hair that flowed down her back was as silvery blonde as on the day of their marriage. She smiled down at Edward, secure in the confidence that she looked much younger than her forty years, that few gazing at her now would ever have believed she’d given birth to ten children. There’d been no noticeable thickening of her waist, only a few stretch marks to indicate past pregnancies.

  Elizabeth was well aware that it was whispered she made use of the black arts to cling to her youth and beauty beyond the time allotted to most women. The slander afforded her a certain contemptuous amusement. Black arts, indeed! She owed her looks not to sorcery but to an iron resolve, an unflagging discipline. She measured every mouthful of food, sipped the wine others gulped, spent hours lathering her skin with perfumed creams, lightening her hair with lemon juice. If she’d so far succeeded in keeping the years at bay, it was only because she’d refused to indulge herself…unlike Ned.

  Her eyes flicked to him. He was stretched out in the bed, propped up by several feather-filled pillows, a sheet casually thrown across his hips. It didn’t show so much when he was clothed, but it did now; her husband was putting on weight. He was fortunate, she thought, that he was a big man, could carry it better than most. Nonetheless, she could see the beginnings of a double chin, see the excess flesh that rippled, blurred his waistline when he sprawled naked as now. Too much carousing and too little sleep showed in his face, too; his eyes were permanently smudged, too often bloodshot.

  He was still a handsome man, but the abuses of the body were telling. As she gazed down at him, Elizabeth was given an unwelcome glimpse into the future, fancied she could see in his face and thickening body a portent of what was to come. In ten years, she thought suddenly, all that bright beauty will be gone, will be burnt up as if it had never been.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about such a prospect. Secretly, she was rather pleased that she looked younger than Ned; too many people had commented critically about the five years’ difference in their ages for her not to have developed a certain sensitivity about it. But she remembered, too, the first time she’d laid eyes upon him at her father’s manor at Grafton; he’d taken her breath away, quite literally. What a waste, she thought and sighed. What a needless, bloody waste.

  He reached out, beckoned her into bed. “Come here, sweetheart. Let’s see if, between us, we can’t fill your belly with another babe.”

  She smiled, but without enthusiasm. Her youngest was just six months old; in the thirteen years of their marriage, she’d given him three sons and four surviving daughters. That was, she thought, quite enough for any woman. She’d as soon her womb didn’t quicken again, hoped it was God’s will that it did not.

  “Ned? Have you given more thought to what Monsieur le Roux told you about George?”

  “What for?” he murmured against her throat, and Elizabeth bit her lip, stifled her exasperation as best she could.

  There were times when she didn’t understand him at all. Olivier le Roux was an envoy of the French King, had come to England that summer to negotiate an extension of the seven-year truce between the two countries. Le Roux had borne, as well, a private communication from Louis to Edward, contending that George
had sought to marry Marie of Burgundy for one reason only, so that he could then make use of the Burgundian army to lay claim to the English crown.

  “How can you make light of it, Ned? Truly, I don’t understand you at all.”

  “God be praised for that; there’s little more dangerous than a wife’s understanding!” He grinned, stopped her protest with his mouth.

  “In the first place, sweetheart, le Roux told me nothing I didn’t already know. Of course George would have angled for the English crown had he become Duke of Burgundy! In the second place, consider the source. Why do you think Louis chose to rake over stale rumors and court gossip, present them as proof positive?”

  “To show his goodwill?” she ventured, and Edward laughed rudely.

  “Ah, yes, my great good friend, the King of France! Let me tell you about Louis, Lisbet. I daresay you’ve heard of the strange Egyptian beast, the crocodile? Well, the crocodile, so it is said, does weep copious tears over the remains of the victims he has just devoured. Should we ever get a crocodile for the royal menagerie at the Tower, I rather think I’d name it Louis!”

  Elizabeth was not amused. “Even a blind pig can find an acorn occasionally, Ned! You should not discount le Roux’s warning merely because it does come from Louis.”

  “Lisbet, you still don’t see. Why should Louis want me to believe George was deeply entangled in intrigues with Burgundy? It wasn’t George he sought to discredit; it was my sister Meg. Louis does want a free hand in Burgundy, thinks I might give it to him should he convince me that Meg was implicated in George’s schemes to seize my throne.”

  “Yes, but…” She stopped, drew an aggrieved breath. He was no longer listening to her, was sliding his hand down her hip.