“Don’t waste your sympathy on Maximilian,” Edward said, so acidly that Richard started. “That he was gutless, I’ve often suspected. But I never knew the half of it. Do you know what that spineless wonder has done, Dickon? He’s agreed to marry his infant daughter to Louis’ son, and to provide as her dowry no less than the two richest provinces of Burgundy!”
Richard’s jaw dropped. While there was little he would have put past the French King, he’d not expected this, had not thought Louis would dare to flout his English ally so openly. Jesú, no wonder Ned was so wroth! For more than seven years, Bess had been acknowledged at the French court as Madame la Dauphine, as the bride-to-be of Louis’ young son. And now this! More than a stab in the back, a scornful slap in the face.
Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed. When at last he’d exhausted his imagination, if not his temper, he slumped back tiredly on the bed, said with considerable bitterness, “Jack says they were laughing about it at the French court, calling the Treaty of Arras Louis’ last jest, saying he’s cheating death with one hand and the King of England with the other.” He spat out an oath even more profane than his earlier epithets and then gave Richard a sudden level look.
“What was it you said to me at St-Christ-sur-Somme, Dickon…that we did sell ourselves not for blood, but for promises, pensions, and silver plate. It surprises you that I do remember? It shouldn’t. I remember, too, what else you told me then. You warned me that Louis would disavow our treaty whenever it did suit him to do so.”
Richard felt first surprise and then a surge of admiration, of the sort his brother had rarely evoked in recent years. Ned didn’t have to say that. Not one man in a hundred would have. He doubted whether he would have done so himself had he been in Ned’s position, and he opened his mouth to say this when he caught movement from the corner of his eye, turned to look at his forgotten niece.
“Ah, lass, don’t! It’s political, not personal, Bess, has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”
Edward swore under his breath, sat up so hastily that a spasm of discomfort crossed his face. “Dickon be right, sweetheart.”
Bess had bowed her head, but now when Edward held out his arms, she came quickly into them, buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed. “But Papa…don’t you see? The French King…. He shamed me, shamed me before the whole world. I was to wed with his son, and all knew it….”
“Hush, sweetheart, hush. That’s not so. It was England he was rejecting, not you, Bess.” Tilting her chin up, Edward kissed her wet lashes, stroked her hair. “No man with eyes to see would ever reject you, sweetheart, that I can tell you for God’s blessed truth!”
Bess wiped away tears with her sleeve. “Papa, you’ll make Louis pay for this, won’t you? You won’t let him get away with making mockery of the treaty, of my marriage?”
“You needn’t fret, Bess.” Edward sounded suddenly grim. “Louis does owe me a debt, and I swear to you that it is one I’ll not be forgetting.”
Richard’s head came up in surprise. Ned had never been one to bluster, and still less was he one to make empty pledges to his children. But how could he hope to make good on what he’d just promised Bess? If his health had kept him from dealing with the Scots, how could he even contemplate a campaign on the Continent? He studied Edward with troubled eyes, but tact had never been his strong point, and he could think of no way to phrase such a question without giving offense.
“God help your uncle, Bess, if ever he had to hide what goes on in his head! I’ve known no man whose thoughts be so easy to read. Shall I tell you what he’s thinking now? He’s asking himself where in Christendom could I hope to find a war-horse sturdy enough to carry all this bulk!”
That was so patently ludicrous an exaggeration that Edward got the response he’d been aiming for; both Richard and Bess burst into startled laughter.
For a man once acknowledged by even his enemies as “the handsomest Prince in Christendom,” Edward was surprisingly free of vanity. It was true that since his teens, he’d shamelessly exploited his good looks to get what he wanted—the favors of fascinated women and the admiration of his subjects. But he’d long since come to realize that, with most women, their dazzled eyes got no further than the crown upon his head, and in recent years he’d begun to believe that a King who was respected and feared was better off than the one who was loved.
To the fading of a once eye-catching beauty of face, he was truly indifferent. To the weakening of the body that had served him so well for so many careless years, he was anything but. Only to Hobbys, however, would he admit to shortness of breath, to chest pains, to queasy stomach spasms. He had no intention of discussing these ailments with either Richard or Bess, and he’d taken care to divert the conversation away from the rocky shoals of health, into more innocuous channels.
He’d introduced a new style at court that Christmas, doublets with very full hanging sleeves that did wonders to disguise his increasing girth. But in a half-opened shirt, such camouflage was impossible. He made not the slightest attempt now to do so, said with a faint smile, “You needn’t worry, Dickon. None of this fat has yet gone to my head! Whatever my failings, I’m no fool. I know I’m not up to leading an army into France.” He paused and then said quietly, “But if I cannot…you can.”
Richard caught his breath. That Edward trusted him, he’d long known. That Edward needed him, he had known, too. But not until this moment had he realized just how deep that dependence did go. There had been no doubt in Edward’s voice, only an assurance that was absolute, a faith that had been forged in the blood of Barnet and Tewkesbury and hammered over the years into a bond beyond breaking. It was no small tribute Edward had just paid him. He was by no means blind, however, to the magnitude of what Edward was asking of him.
“I’m honored…I think,” he said wryly, and Edward laughed.
“I’ve been told that Louis did mark you at Amiens as a man dangerous to France. We can hardly let Louis go to his grave thinking he misjudged you, now can we?” Edward was smiling, but the flippancy fooled no one. He was in deadly earnest, had just enunciated what amounted to a declaration of war.
21
Westminster
April 1483
It was dusk as Thomas Grey’s barge neared Westminster. He was not pleased to be summoned back from Shene on such short notice. Like most men who’d enjoyed a life free of illness, Edward made a very poor patient, was given to venting his frustrations upon doctors and innocent bystanders alike. He’d caught a chill on a day-long fishing trip soon after his return from Windsor, and on Easter Monday, he’d taken to his bed. Even the mildest royal indisposition cast a cloud of gloom over Westminster, and Thomas had soon grown bored. More than once, he found himself squirming under the lash of Edward’s peevish sarcasm, and he was not long in deciding to make himself scarce until his stepfather was up and about again. But he’d not been gone four days before a message had come upriver from his mother, an abrupt cryptic demand for his immediate return to Westminster.
Thomas was not particularly sensitive to atmosphere, and yet he sensed almost at once that something was amiss. Westminster was subdued, eerily still, and the few people Thomas encountered were wandering about like sleepwalkers. By the time he reached the Queen’s chambers, an instinctive unease was threatening to flare up into active apprehension. But he was still not prepared for what he found in his mother’s apartments.
Elizabeth’s women were red-eyed, sniffling into crumpled handkerchiefs, and at sight of Thomas, a pretty blonde he’d bedded occasionally burst into tears. He was patting her shoulder awkwardly, trying to make sense of her sobbing when the bedchamber door was flung open and suddenly his mother was screaming at him like one demented, incoherently abusive, demanding to know why he was out here dallying with one of her ladies when he
knew she’d been expecting him for hours.
Thomas gaped at her, too taken aback by her raging tantrum even to offer a defense. Grabbing his arm, she pulled him into the bedchamber, and at once began to berate him again.
“Where in the Name of Almighty Christ have you been? I did send for you last night!”
“Your messenger did not reach Shene till after midnight. I was already abed,” Thomas protested. Even at age twenty-nine, he was very much in awe of the beautiful woman who’d given him birth, and he made haste to say placatingly, “I did come as quickly as I could. Mother, what is it?” Too shaken for tact, he blurted out, “You do look ghastly! What be wrong?”
“It’s Ned.” Elizabeth swallowed, passed her tongue over her lips. “He…he’s dying.”
Thomas’s expression didn’t change. He continued to look expectantly at her, his face intent, puzzled. “What?”
Elizabeth said nothing, and Thomas gave an abrupt unconvincing laugh. “That can’t be! It was only a chill, no more than that. A chill!” But even as he mouthed the words, his body was sagging, absorbing the blow that had yet to penetrate to his brain.
“That be what the doctors thought, too,” Elizabeth said dully. “But then he began to have pain in breathing and his body temperature suddenly shot upward. He’s been burning with fever for two days now and nothing seems to help. Yesterday he began to cough up phlegm flecked with blood, and Hobbys says there be no hope, says he be dying….”
“They’re wrong; they have to be! He can’t be dying. He can’t!”
Elizabeth had said much the same thing when first confronted by the despairing doctors, had clung to a stunned disbelief with all the frenzied illogical passion of panic. At last even she could not deny the evidence of her own senses, could not deny that in Edward’s pain-racked breathing and hacking cough lay the seeds of coming death. But although she had shared her son’s stubborn refusal to face the truth, she had no sympathy to spare for him now. Her need was too great.
“I tell you, he’s dying,” she cried, “and saying it isn’t so won’t buy him a blessed moment more of life! He’s dying! Do you hear me, Tom? He’s dying and leaving as his heir a boy not yet thirteen!”
She was perilously close to hysteria. It was in the sudden shrillness of her voice, in the glassy green eyes, pupils shrunk to flickering pinpoints of fear. Now, as she clutched at Thomas, her nails scored painfully, causing him to pull his hand from hers. Thoroughly alarmed, he fumbled for words of comfort, said soothingly, “I know Edward be very young, Mother, but he’s a bright lad, has been raised since birth to be King. And he’ll have us to guide him, have you and Anthony and me….”
Elizabeth stumbled to her feet. “Be you so sure of that? Well, there’s something you’d better hear. This afternoon Ned did summon his executors, did make a codicil to his will. Shall I tell you what it said, Tom? He did leave all to his brother! God forgive him, but he did name Gloucester as Protector of the Realm!”
While Thomas was undeniably dismayed by his mother’s revelation, he did not see it as the unmitigated catastrophe she obviously did. It was unthinkable to Thomas that they should yield up the reins of power to Gloucester. And so they wouldn’t. To him, it was as simple as that. What frightened him far more was the unstable state of his mother’s nerves. Never had he seen her like this. His world was already reeling; that his stepfather could be dying struck at the very heart of all that was secure and certain in his life, and it was only a little less chilling to see Elizabeth so frantic with fear, fear he didn’t fully understand.
“Mother, I know you’re overwrought, but you’ve not thought this through. Gloucester may have the protectorship, but we’ve something far more important…the trust of the young King. Whom do you think Edward will turn to? To you, his mother, and to Anthony, the uncle who has been his governor and guardian for the past ten years! Can you doubt it? Gloucester be a stranger to Edward, and you may be sure Anthony has given him no reason to look on Gloucester with love. Don’t you see? We do hold the winning hand!”
Elizabeth’s breathing was constricted, coming in short strangled bursts. “You don’t understand! Oh, merciful Jesus, if you only knew!”
“Knew what? What is it I don’t understand? Mother, tell me!”
She backed away from him, shaking her head. “I cannot, Tom,” she whispered. “God help me, but I cannot.”
It hurt almost unbearably to breathe. Each time he drew air into his lungs, Edward felt as if a knife had been plunged into his chest. The sheet clung damply to his body; he made a feeble attempt to free himself from its clammy folds, only to have other hands at once tuck it firmly around him. His fever had raged unchecked for three days now, resisting sage and verbena, resisting sponge baths and prayers; his body was quite literally burning itself up.
Dr Hobbys was bending over the bed. Poor old Hobbys. He looked verily like the wrath of God. As if it were somehow his fault.
“Your Grace, I beg you, don’t try to talk. Save your strength.”
For what? But that was a jest that would never be made. He was too tired to talk, was finding it took an extreme effort of will just to keep his eyelids open, to keep from slipping down into darkness, into the exhausted sleep that promised surcease.
“I should never have let you do it. I knew how hard it would be on you.”
Edward had known it, too. But he’d had no choice, had insisted that the lords be summoned to his bedside. Lisbet’s two sons. Her brothers Edward and Lionel. His Chancellor, Rotherham. Will…a good man, Will, and loyal. John Morton, the clever Lancastrian. Tom Stanley, who’d turned his coat too often to be trusted. The other members of his council, those then in London. But so many were beyond summoning. Anthony at Ludlow with his son, with young Edward. Jack Howard on his estates in Essex. Buckingham at Brecknock, in south Wales. Northumberland on the Scots border. And Dickon at Middleham, more than two hundred miles to the north, at the time when he was most needed.
He’d done what he could, had gotten them all to reavow their allegiance to Edward, to his son. It had not been easy for him. Each breath was precious, came with no small struggle, and it was that which lent all the greater weight to his words; they could see the cost. They must reconcile their differences, he pleaded. Must make peace for the sake of England, for the sake of his son. Between coughing spasms so violent it seemed as if each might be his last, he entreated them to forget their grievances. By now, only Tom Stanley and John Morton were dry-eyed; both Will Hastings and Thomas Grey were unashamedly weeping, and at his urging, they clasped hands, pledged to bury the past, to give his brother Richard their support in governing the realm until his son came of age.
But was it enough? He doubted it. Jesus wept, how they did despise each other! Will had no use for Tom Stanley. Northumberland was jealous of Dickon for winning the allegiance of the North away from the Percys. Jack Howard couldn’t abide Morton. And all did hate Lisbet and her Woodville kin. He’d never cared before, never taken their grudges to heart, knowing he was strong enough to keep peace among them all. It had even amused him a little, knowing these rivalries only made them all the more dependent upon him. But now…what would happen now? Would Dickon be strong enough to hold them all together? He had to be. For if he could not…
“Your Grace, you must rest. You’re fighting sleep and you shouldn’t be.”
Edward’s eyes moved past Hobbys, to the table pulled up close to the bed. It was cluttered with medicinal herbs, a crucifix of beaten gold, and a goblet studded with rubies. It was to the goblet that Edward looked, and Hobbys, quick to comprehend, at once put it to the younger man’s lips.
“The Queen….” Edward drank again, sank back on the pillow. “Send for her.”
At least Lisbet wasn’t weeping. Thank Christ for that. Jane’s flood of tears had been hard to bear. So much he wanted to say. So much. If only he could be sure Lisbet understood. A woman could not be Regent. The country would never accept her. She had to yield the power, had to let go. Tw
ice in the past hundred years the crown had passed to a child, with disastrous consequences for all. That mustn’t happen to his son, mustn’t happen to Edward. But did Lisbet truly understand the danger? Understand what men would do to gain control of a boy King? Dickon alone could keep Edward from becoming a political pawn, manipulated by first one faction and then another in the struggle for sovereignty. Did Lisbet see that? There was no love lost between her and Dickon, but that mattered for naught now. She needed him, but did she realize just how much? Let her see that. Sweet Christ, let her understand.
Her hand was icy in his. Or was it that his own hand was afire? He felt like he was. It was becoming difficult to keep his thoughts from drifting. His eyelids were getting as heavy as stones. But he mustn’t give in to it, not yet. Still too much to tell her. Stillington…. Must reassure her about Stillington, tell her the old man would hold his tongue. Had to believe that, had to…. If only Edward was here. Shouldn’t have kept him so much at Ludlow. Better to’ve brought him more often to court, let him get to know Dickon. Too much in Anthony’s keeping…. Make it harder on him now, having to put his trust in Dickon and Will, men he didn’t know…. But too late. So much too late. So much should’ve been done differently.
Poor Lisbet. So beautiful once. So very beautiful. Nineteen years. And children, children to be proud of. Should be something to say, something…. Not always easy for her. Warwick. Giving birth to Edward in sanctuary. No, not easy. And then Nell. What was she thinking? If only she’d look up….
“I did love you….” Scarcely more than a whisper, but he saw she’d heard. Her head came up, her lashes lifted. Her eyes were wide and staring, free of tears, free of all save a terrible fear.
Edward was appalled. “Christ, Lisbet! Don’t…don’t do anything stupid! You mustn’t….”
The Sunne in Splendour Page 88