A boom of laughter, obviously the king's, came from inside the hall. “And there is another thing. How can he make so merry?”
“My lady?”
“The king's daughter died less than a twelvemonth ago. So many have died. How can he laugh as if nothing is the matter? I cannot understand it. I never thought he could have such a hard heart.”
Guy said, “I don’t think his heart is hard, my lady. He knows as well as the rest of us do that life may never be the same, and that many households have suffered grievously. But carrying on as best he can gives him heart, and I think it gives the rest of us heart, too.”
“It gives me none.”
“You only recently lost a husband whom I think you loved very much, Lady Despenser. I remember seeing the two of you in Calais together and thinking what a fine couple you made, and how happy you appeared with each other. My wife was ailing then. It was bitter to see.”
“I did not mean to give you pain.”
“Hardly your fault, my lady.” He half smiled as another roar came from the great hall. “At least you have to admit it's more congenial than the Flagellants; have you heard of them? They travel from town to town on the Continent, scourging themselves on the back. It's their way of atoning for all of our sins, they say.”
“Why, that sounds almost blasphemous.”
“Blasphemous, and painful too. Give me a joust and dancing any day.”
Bess smiled. “Here is my page,” she said almost regretfully, for she had found something soothing in Sir Guy's company. If she had to sit beside any man the next day, Sir Guy would be the best, she thought later, wincing as her young maid—a newly orphaned girl who, like her page, owed her position in the household to Bess's charity, not to any skill in performing her duties—clumsily braided Bess's hair for the night.
The next day, she woke to a royal summons. Obeying it, she found the king in his chamber, relaxing with the queen. “Lady Despenser. Our clerks will soon finish this business about your dower. You may swear your homage to us now, and also that you will not remarry without our license, of course.”
Bess knelt, rather glad that she was not having to perform the ritual in front of a crowd of courtiers, and swore her oath to the king, who then helped her rise. “We were grieved to hear about Sir Hugh, my lady. He served us well.” Edward indicated his own garter, a duplicate of the one Will was so assiduous in checking. “Pity. Had he lived, he might have come to wear one of these.”
“He would have been most honored to hear you speak of him so, your grace.” Probably he would have been, Bess supposed, given the unaccountable stock that men put into such things.
“Well, Burghersh says that Sir Hugh's nephew Edward is a promising lad. But come now, Bess, your father and I were old friends. There's no reason for us to be so formal. Since you’ve arrived, I’ve taken care to put several likely men in your path. Do any of them suit?”
“Your grace?”
The king shrugged. “I know it's far too early to think of marrying any of them, but there's no harm in looking to see who's available, now is there? Of course, I must approve the match, but within reason, you can pick for yourself. It's certainly not too early to narrow the field. With your wealth and that pretty—”
“Your grace. It is you who has encouraged these men to inspect me like a horse at the fair?”
“My dear, it's a two-sided transaction, you see. They inspect you. You inspect them. Indeed, it's you who should be doing most of the inspecting, because their minds are made up. All of them want to marry you, whereas you can pick only one of them. Or none, of course. But that would be a waste.”
“Ned!” Philippa interjected. “I do not think Lady Despenser is ready for your matchmaking yet.”
The king cheerfully ignored her. “What did you think of Guy Brian? He wasn’t one of my original choices, but I hear that he was talking to you last night. Oh, yes, my dear, kings find out about these things. Now there's a brave, loyal man I’d like to reward with a good marriage. Quite presentable in appearance, too, didn’t you think?”
“I will marry no man until I am ready. If I ever am ready, that is.”
“Of course, Lady Despenser,” said Philippa, frowning at her husband. “There is no need to rush. Never mind Ned. It is simply that he wants to see you settled and comfortable again, for your father's sake.”
“Out of that blasted black and into some pretty colors,” the king said. “And dancing.” He grinned at her. “You dance quite well, as I recall. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re quite accomplished at kissing also.”
Bess was blushing and searching for a suitable reply, if there indeed was one with Philippa present, when a messenger entered the room and asked to see the king privately. The two of them withdrew into an inner chamber, leaving the women alone. “You must excuse Ned, Lady Despenser. The pestilence has had an odd effect on some people, and in his case it has made him unseemly jocular at times.”
Something in the queen's face reminded Bess that she was not the only one in the room who had suffered from the pestilence. “I was so very sad to hear of the Lady Joan's death, your grace.”
“The king does not like it spoken of; it is his way. But he grieves too, though you might not think it from his demeanor. It is very hard for me, though. She was the daughter most like myself, and sometimes it is as if one of my own limbs has been removed. I imagine you know the feeling all too well.”
Bess took the queen's outstretched hand. “Yes. I do.”
They were gazing at each other in understanding when the king walked slowly back into the room.
“Lady Despenser,” he said in a voice very different from the one he had used just minutes ago, “we have had sad news that pertains to you and your brothers and sisters. Your lady mother has been ill—with the pestilence, we are grieved to say. She is dead.”
“Mother,” Bess echoed.
“We will inform your brother of these ill tidings for you if you wish. And you can rest assured that we and our men will do all that is necessary to help you through this difficult—”
“Hush, Ned,” said the queen. “Practical words are useless to Lady Despenser now. She has lost her husband and now her mother.” She held out her arms. “Come here, Bess.”
Bess buried her head in the queen's lap and sobbed like a little girl.
In spite of everything, Bess's world had returned to some state of normalcy by the following January. As summer had changed to autumn and autumn to winter, fewer and fewer reports had come of people dying of the pestilence. Slowly, guests began to return to Bess's great hall, and Bess herself, who had been drifting back and forth between her Welsh estates and Hanley Castle, accepting invitations to visit now and then but merely going through the motions of her existence, found it harder and harder to ignore the life around her.
For there was life around her, despite the fresh graves in every churchyard, the fallow fields, and the abandoned houses that littered the countryside. Widowed tenants of Bess's married other bereaved tenants, and already a few of the brides were big with child. Tenants arrived to lease manors, like Emma's, left vacant by the pestilence. Her awkward tailor and her awkward maid, more sure of their duties these days, married each other, and her maid's burgeoning belly soon proved that they were not too awkward to have figured out the intricacies of the marriage bed. A new chaplain took Beste's place at Hanley Castle. There had even been fighting between the English and the French again.
“So I understand the Pope's decision went against your brother?” Elizabeth de Burgh asked Bess, newly arrived at Usk in January.
Bess nodded. “Will was chagrined, I think, but he adjusted fairly quickly. I think he must have been expecting it, really. He is planning to marry little Elizabeth Mohun. Her father was made a Garter Knight along with Will. She's all of six years old, so I suppose there won’t be a previous marriage in her case.”
“Lord help us if there is,” said Elizabeth de Burgh. “But starting afresh, that's the bes
t thing he can do. And what of you, my dear? Are you ready to start anew? Has anyone asked for your hand?”
“Not in so many words. But I have had several men find themselves astray in Wales in the past months.”
“I’m not in the least bit surprised.”
“I have also seen that Guy Brian I told you about when I was here over the summer. Some of Hugh's estates have been put into his keeping, and that brings him onto my own estates for business on occasion. And I believe the king would like to put me in his keeping as well. He is high in the king's favor, and Will is always passing on the king's praises of him to me. I imagine the king encourages him to do so.”
“And what do you think of Sir Guy?”
“I like him well enough.”
“Well enough to marry him?”
Bess shrugged impatiently. “Everyone wants me to remarry. The king and queen, Will, my sisters—and of course Hugh told me before he died that I should. Sir Guy is a kind man, and Hugh spoke well of him on occasion. I could live with him, I suppose, but—”
“But what, child?”
“I just wish I had some sort of a sign.”
“A bolt of lightning?”
“Just something,” Bess said, a little miffed. “How do women choose their spouses? I’ve never had to do it.”
“Well, you could ask that pretty Joan; she chose Holland, after all. Or you could ask me. I chose my second husband.”
“How?”
“I liked him, and he was a good man. And I knew that if I did not choose him, the second Edward would choose someone for me who might not be to my taste. As he did when I was widowed not many months after I married my second husband.” She sighed. “It was a happy marriage while it lasted, child.” She smiled. “And Theobald was persistent, which also helped his cause.”
“Well, Sir Guy hasn’t been that. He has said nothing about marriage.”
“Oh?” Elizabeth de Burgh stood. “My, this cold weather makes my bones ache. Perhaps Sir Guy will be more forthcoming when he comes here.”
“Here?”
“He is expected tomorrow.”
Guy Brian indeed arrived the next day and was put by Bess's side at dinner, where he and Bess made stiff, awkward conversation about the state of the nation. Bess was ready to scream with relief when the last course was served and Elizabeth de Burgh rose from her splendid chair, signaling to the company that they were free to leave themselves. “Shall we go for a walk around the bailey, my lady?”
It was bone-chillingly cold outside, and the bailey of Usk Castle was hardly a point of interest, but Bess agreed and sent her man for her warmest cloak. When both Guy and Bess were suitably attired, they entered the bailey and began walking in a circular path. “I believe you can guess why I am here, my lady.” She nodded. “The king has approved of what I am going to ask you, which is to be my wife.”
“I thought so.”
“You’re under no compulsion, my lady. You can refuse if you wish.” Bess smiled, and Guy went on, “I know, I know, that isn’t what I should be saying. I should be telling you of my virtues, in the most humble way possible, and extolling your beauty and grace. And I do find you beautiful and graceful. But I’m not much with words, and I don’t want you marrying me because you feel that you’ve been placed under duress.”
“No, I feel no duress. The king has made it clear that he wishes the match, but I know he is not a man to bully a woman into taking a husband she doesn’t want.”
“Indeed, we are lucky in our king.”
“Sir Guy, there is something you must realize. I am barren. In all of my years of marriage with Hugh, I never quickened with child.”
“I have known women not to conceive with one man and then to conceive with another.” Bess frowned, and Guy hastened to add, “Mind you, my lady, it is no aspersion upon the man's—abilities, might I say. But I have seen such things. And you were very young when you came to Sir Hugh, and are young still. It may be that God would bless our union with children were you to marry me. But if not—well, I have a daughter of my own to inherit my estates if we are not so fortunate as to have a son.”
He fell silent, perhaps thinking that he had been too hasty in anticipating a favorable response. Then Guy said, “You might think it is only for your wealth and your beauty and your potential for giving me children that I wish to marry you. It is not true, my lady. I have heard much about you to make me respect you.”
“Oh?”
“From your tenants, from your husband's aunt, from your brother, even from the king and queen. They have told me how you succored others during the pestilence, with no thought for your own person.”
“That is no credit to me. I did it for Hugh's sake, and in the days and weeks after he was taken, I did not care whether I lived or died. Were it not for that, I would have shut myself up fast like so many others.”
“I do not believe you. I think that you have more courage than you give yourself credit for, Lady Despenser.”
They began their second turn around the bailey, Bess still waiting for a sign. But as Elizabeth de Burgh had asked, what heavenly manifestation did she expect? Wasn’t it enough, perhaps, that a man she knew to be of good character, approved by the king and held in esteem by all who knew him, had come here to ask her to be his wife?
All around her, those whose lives had been shattered by the pestilence had found the will and strength to begin again. Should she be no less brave than the lowliest of her tenants? Why, she was the daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, who’d risked his very life for the king that long-ago night at Nottingham Castle. She owed it to him to show a little daring, and to Hugh and to so many of the others who had died of the pestilence. They had faced death or the threat of it without flinching; she could at least face life with the same courage. Perhaps Guy was right; perhaps she had possessed it all along.
Yet was this the right man? For the first time since his death, she felt a tinge of irritation at Hugh. It was easy enough for him to urge her to remarry, but to what man? She sighed, and Guy looked at her inquiringly. Deciding that her suitor was due honesty, she said, “Hugh told me that he wished me to remarry; those were almost his parting words to me. If only he had given me a little guidance as to the man I should choose.”
Guy cleared his throat. “Surely a dying man can’t be expected to remember every last niggling detail, my lady.”
Bess started, and then laughed—the first time she had done so since Hugh was alive. And there, she realized, she had her sign. Hugh had joked even in the face of death; above all, he would want to see her married to a man who could make her laugh.
She took a deep breath. “I will marry you, Sir Guy.”
As the words left her lips in a whisper, relief surged through her body. Hugh had been right; she did not wish to live the rest of her life alone. It would be good to be a wife again. And who could say? Maybe God in His grace, having seen fit to allow her to survive the pestilence for some inscrutable reason of His own, would let her bear this man the children she had never been able to give to Hugh. She found herself smiling. “And who knows? The king might even build that Round Table of his after all.”
“My lady? I did not catch all of what you said.”
“Only the first part was of any consequence. I will be pleased to be your wife.”
Guy took her hand. “Then I thank you, my lady.” He stepped a little closer to her. “Shall we try each other out?”
She nodded a little nervously, and he drew her in for a kiss, one that was light at first and gradually became more insistent. It was easier, and more pleasant, kissing Sir Guy than Bess had expected. “Shall we go in and tell her ladyship of our match, Bess?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “But I wish to visit the chapel for a little while, Guy. I will be with you again presently.”
He nodded. “I understand. Take your time.”
Inside the chapel, Bess lit a candle, knelt, and prayed. Then she sat up and waited. She would have preferred
to have been in one of her own chapels rather than Elizabeth de Burgh's, but Hugh could find her anywhere. After a short time, she asked, “Did I do the right thing?”
“Yes. He's a good man. But if he's a better kisser than I am, I don’t want to hear about it, sweetheart.”
Bess smiled. “You won’t,” she promised. “God keep you, Hugh.”
Author's Note
* * *
BESS AND GUY BRIAN MARRIED SOME TIME IN 1350 AND had at least four children together, three boys and a girl, before Bess's death in 1359 at Ashley, a manor she had held in jointure with Hugh. Bess was buried next to Hugh in Tewkesbury Abbey. Guy, who never remarried and who survived Bess by thirty-one years, had his own tomb constructed opposite that of Hugh and Bess. Both canopied tombs, among the finest of their time, can still be seen today.
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