You will be pleased to know that, in Waterford not two days since, I heard a whisper that the boy, Richard of York, was alive and well somewhere on the Continent. Waterford is Butler territory and not friendly to your cause, and it is why I will go to Cork when the time is right. For now, I wish you health, and I hope for more news soon.
Your devoted and dutiful nephew, Perkin.
The abbey bells ringing out for Vespers from the valley startled him. He had not realized it was so late. He carefully folded the letter and, hiding it and his writing tools in the stiff leather bag with the false bottom, he locked the compartment and covered it with the small bundle of food he had not eaten. It would not do for the other mariners to see him writing, for they would know him for an imposter at once. He hurried back down the hill.
17
London and Lincolnshire
1491
Grace had attended another calving that winter, and she had grown fond of little Clover, as Grace named the bony white creature. She hoped Brother Oswald would keep her for the abbey’s milking shed and not for market. Grace’s vain hope was that by naming the animal she would prevent the monk from sending it off for slaughter when it grew. The milkmaid, Joan, had shown her how to feed the calf when it was first born, taking it to its dam and making it reach up to take the teat. “She be only able to suck if her head is raised, see,” Joan told Grace. “Put her nose in the pail and she’d likely drown.” The calf fed from its mother until the rich birthing fluid was gone and the abbey needed the ensuing milk. Grace learned from Joan how to teach the calf to lick the liquid from her raised fingers for several days, gradually lowering them until the calf could be changed to a tipped pail and eventually learn to drink from it without drowning.
Elizabeth complained every evening that Grace stank like a cow byre, despite the young woman’s attempts at cleaning herself with handsful of snow before appearing in the royal apartment. The hem of her gown took on a brownish tinge over the winter weeks, but she went to bed happy to have been useful in the shed.
Now it was May, and Grace wondered how soon Elizabeth would let her go to Hellowe. After Elizabeth led them in prayer each night, she would try to keep warm in her truckle bed, with the blanket and Elizabeth’s and her own cloak tucked around her. It had been a hard winter, and she had envied the two older women their shared bed and warmth. Often she could not sleep for the cold, and in those dark, silent moments when the abbey lay silent under a mantle of snow, she would try to imagine Lincolnshire, and her life with Tom. When her course had appeared in January with its usual dull pains, she knew she had not conceived and had sent a prayer of thanks heavenward. Cecily had been right—she did hold out hope that John would suddenly be there to whisk her away, and it would be awkward if she were with child. Addlepate! she chided herself. That would not happen any more than if the man in the moon could climb down to earth and bid her “good day.”
It was warmer now, and the fur-lined cloaks had been safely stored in the wardrobe chest, but still she could not sleep. She rose and tiptoed to the jakes to relieve herself and then sat on the stool beside the last embers of the fire, hugging her shawl around her. It would not be long now before Elizabeth dismissed her, she believed. Why else would her grace have had the conversation they had that very morning after Matins?
“I do not wish to send you to your wedded bliss without a gift, my dear,” Elizabeth had said, patting the cushion next to hers on the settle—a new piece of furniture Cecily had ordered made for her mother after last summer’s visit. The queen saw Katherine stiffen. Feeling charitable, she invited the bitter woman to join the conversation, and it was a mollified Lady Hastings who pulled up her chair and sat down.
“You have been a good, kind girl to me all these years, never asking for anything—except on behalf of others,” Elizabeth said, knowing Grace would understand she was referring to the money for John. “So today, I have made arrangements with Father John that you shall have a servant to take into your new life. A groom. Who do you suppose that is?” She sat back and watched the realization dawn on Grace’s astonished face.
“Edgar!” Grace cried, breaking into a grin. “Do you mean Edgar?”
Elizabeth’s smug smile and nod acknowledged the correct guess. “It is,” she said. “You seem content, and thus my good deed is done. Katherine, what a fish face you pull! You have never liked Edgar since he dropped your mantle in the mud. Admit it.”
Katherine gave a rueful grin. “’Tis true, your grace. Certes, she is welcome to him, although I must allow he is good with horses.” She turned to Grace and for once spoke kindly. “You are a fortunate young lady to have so gracious a mistress. My husband, Will, hired a groom for me when we were first married, but when I fell on hard times…”
“You mean when I forced you into exile with me,” Elizabeth teased her. “We have no need for grooms as we did when we were at court. We both gave up much when the Tudor banished me.”
Grace was stunned by her good news. Edgar would be free of Brother Gregory’s stinging tongue and the stable lads’ cruel mockery. She had no notion what to do with a groom, but she knew she would welcome Edgar’s stalwart presence on her journey north. He would be her bodyguard, and she would feel safe.
She went down on her knees in front of Elizabeth and kissed the dowager’s clawlike hand, noticing the swelling around the knuckles and the quick intake of painful breath as Grace picked it up. “How can I ever thank you, your grace?” she whispered, her eyes shining. “I shall be able to pay for Edgar from my dowry from Cecily, I suppose.”
“Aye, Cecily and I planned this purposefully. Tom has a goodly income from Welles, and I have no doubt will afford a tiring woman for you. ’Tis the least he must do for one of royal blood. You should be comfortable. But you must learn to keep your accounts and not be a spendthrift so your household will grow. Watch Cecily, my dear; she has a good deal of common sense when it comes to spending, although”—she clucked her tongue—“none when it comes to her foolish heart.” Grace hid a smile but was surprised Elizabeth knew her child so well.
Now Grace stirred the dying embers with the poker and pushed a wayward curl back under her nightcap. Aye, the time was drawing near, she thought, and although she wanted nothing more than to escape the dreary abbey walls, there was much she would miss. Having Edgar with her would keep the memories fresh, she hoped. She returned to the scene that afternoon, when she had gone to find Edgar and confirm what Brother Gregory should have told him by then, and chuckled. As soon as Edgar had seen her walking towards the stable, where he was checking for stones in the hoof of a broad-chested rouncy, he had gently replaced the hoof on the ground and run towards her. He pulled off his hood and fell to his knees on the manure-strewn ground. Grace could not be cross with him but gently told him to get up and move away from the dung, eyeing the soiled hem of his tunic. She would have to teach him how to serve a lady, she thought, but for now she came straight to the point.
“So, Edgar, you have heard your fate, I warrant,” she said, looking up at him and glad his bulk blocked out the sun. “It seems our paths are destined to run together from now on. I trust you are not too dismayed to be leaving Bermondsey. We are to live a long way from London and all that you know. You must bid farewell to your family, you understand.”
“I haven’t got no family, my lady,” Edgar assured her, grinning from ear to ear. Grace decided then and there that she would try to remember not to make Edgar too happy, as she could not bear the sight of those hideous teeth. “You be an angel, my lady, and I swear I will be a good servant.” He winked at her. “Bin and got wedded, I hear,” he said, bending to speak low and bowling her over with his bad breath.
“You must learn your manners, Edgar,” she admonished him, taking a step back. “’Tis not customary to wink, or address a lady in such bold language. We have been through much, you and I, but do not think it may give you airs. You will speak when spoken to and do my bidding without a grumble. Do you understand?�
�� Edgar looked so crestfallen she felt sorry for him, but she stood erect and stared him down until he mumbled an apology and touched his forelock.
“Edgar, you clay-brained mammet, get back to work!” Brother Gregory’s angry command froze poor Edgar’s feet to the ground, and his eyes were full of fear. Grace took two steps to the side of her groom to become visible to the muscular, square-headed monk, whose turn it was to freeze in his tracks.
“Lady Grace,” he said, acknowledging her with a quick bow of his head, “I did not see you. I crave your pardon. I thought Edgar—”
“Aye, I know what you thought, Brother Gregory, and I have no doubt Edgar would have been punished had I not been here to stand up for him. Your reputation precedes you,” Grace said, wondering where she was finding the courage to speak thus to one of the most senior of the order. She caught a glimpse of Edgar’s awed face and was emboldened further. “I shall have great pleasure in removing this poor man from your cruel treatment when I leave Bermondsey, which will be very soon. I trust he will not be punished for speaking to his new mistress, or I shall take the matter to Father John. This is supposed to be a house of Christian virtues and charity, but I have seen precious little of either from you. Good day to you, brother.” And she turned on her heel and walked off with as much dignity as her short legs could afford her. When she turned the corner into the privy courtyard and out of sight, she collapsed against the wall, her heart pounding, and then she began to laugh and hug herself for her brave stand against the bully of the abbey.
GRACE WAS OVERCOME with emotion as she received Elizabeth’s blessing on her knees in the apartment that had been her home for four years. She noticed a hole in the hem of Elizabeth’s gown and with a sad rush knew she would not be the one to mend it now. That would be Anne’s task. Fifteen-year-old Anne stood by her mother’s chair, quietly watching Grace say her farewells. She was a dutiful girl who had spent time in the household of her aunt, the duchess of Suffolk, and was still waiting for a husband to be found for her. During her father’s reign, Anne had been betrothed for a short while to little Philip of Burgundy, but ensuing politics had voided that contract. Now, as the fourth daughter of the dead Yorkist king and with a new Tudor princess in the royal cradle with whom to forge alliances, her future was of less importance to Henry. She had been surprised and dismayed to be summoned to live with her mother in Grace’s place. The de la Poles kept an unpretentious house, and the many children under their roof were less rigidly disciplined than Elizabeth would have sanctioned. Anne was loath to leave there, and Grace had felt sorry for her when she arrived with two packhorses piled high with belongings that had no place at the abbey. Anne had expressed shock to Grace at the change in her mother’s appearance, and Grace told her that the death not two months ago of her last remaining brother, Richard Woodville, had grieved Elizabeth greatly. “Earl Rivers was the last of the Woodville line, so her grace told us,” Grace explained. Five sons were born to Jacquetta and her handsome knight, and not one had male issue, Elizabeth had fretted.
This was a rare day when Elizabeth insisted on leaving her bed to bestow a proper blessing on the departing Grace. When the young woman looked up after receiving the queen’s kiss on her forehead, she saw tears trickling down the former queen’s gaunt cheeks.
“Ah, Grace, I have loved you well,” Elizabeth said. “Truly you are like a daughter to me for all you were born of my husband’s lust. You have more dignity than most noblewomen I know, and I let you go with a heavy heart. Be healthy and beget many children, my child. When you bring them to me, I shall be proud to be called Grandam.”
Grace found she could not hold back her own tears, for she was certain Elizabeth, dowager queen of England, would not live long enough to dandle a Gower grandchild on her meager lap.
They exchanged one last embrace and then Grace was gone.
IN A FINAL generous gesture, the abbey afforded Edgar new livery for his new life, and it was a proud man who helped Grace up onto the sidesaddle of the pretty jennet Cecily had sent to transport Grace to Hellowe. He carefully placed Grace’s feet on the planchette and then adjusted the strap of the cushioned saddle under the horse’s belly. He would ride the rouncy that Cecily had also provided, with Grace’s few belongings strapped behind him. The small armed escort flying Welles’s lion rampant pennant started slowly through the abbey gate and past the fields into Long Lane. Grace was astonished to see so many field hands and monks lining the route, waving and wishing her luck. She had no idea these people had even noticed her during her four-year stay. The usual group of women she had worked alongside was waiting up ahead, and when she drew close one ran forward with a posy of cow parsley, ragged robin and poppies. “God bless you, Lady Grace. You be always one of us,” she cried. Grace reached into a purse at her waist and gave the woman an angel. “Divide it among you, and may God bless you, too, Agnes. I will pray for a good harvest.”
The crowds of citizens at the weekly market on Southwark high street parted respectfully as Grace’s party trotted along the cobbled part of the busy thoroughfare that led onto London Bridge. They joined a column of other travelers, some on foot, some on horseback or in carts, rumbling slowly over the wooden drawbridge on to the massive, built-up bridge that was the only pedestrian crossing into London. Grace glanced up to see a blackened head of some criminal, the face now unrecognizable, impaled on a stake high above the gateway, and swinging in the wind the skeleton of a man left to starve to death in an iron cage. The man’s arms were pathetically hanging out of the bars, as if begging for food. Grace averted her eyes, for although these were common sights in the cities and towns, she could never forget the lessons about Christ’s love for his fellow man she had learned from the nuns. She could not imagine being the cause of a fellow human’s death, and she was even upset by the agonized squeals from the pigs that were slaughtered every November to be smoked and preserved for the abbey larder through the winter.
Looking up at the three-story buildings of wattle and daub that lined both sides of the street over the bridge, Grace never failed to marvel how they didn’t simply topple over into the Thames. Merchants had their ground-floor shutters open, displaying their wares on counters, while wandering vendors hawked hot pies and roasted birds on sticks to hungry passersby. They were soon inside the city wall, and traffic thinned out as they proceeded north past St. Margaret’s on New Fish Street and the conduit at Cornhill and into Bishopsgate Street. Grace was relieved when the hurly-burly of London was left far behind and she could delight in watching lambs frolic in fields and deer leap away along the forest paths. They followed Ermine Street, the ancient Roman road that stretched from London through Lincoln to York. After two nights along the way, they passed the road to Fotheringhay, the seat of her father’s York family. And then they turned off the road, busier now as they neared Stamford, to find Collyweston, where Cecily would be waiting for her. And Tom.
Of course he had not written every day, but he had communicated often in the months they were apart, and she had been touched by his attempts at love letters.
“My sweetest wife,” was often his greeting, and he would invariably end with “You have my heart,” “I think of you daily,” or “My love and devotion are yours always.” She wrote of her daily tasks, Elizabeth’s health and her attempts at raising a calf. How could she falsely write of her love to this good man? So she focused on their friendship and her duty to him as a wife. She knew he was intelligent enough to read between the lines, but he could never accuse her of dissembling.
The road wended through woods and fields, tall elms standing out among the hazel and birches in the fertile Welland valley. Collyweston Palace was situated at the end of a long driveway, which ended in meticulously clipped knot gardens flanking the last hundred paces to the steps. The sun was setting and cast pink and orange tints on the walls and glinted off the many windows as they approached. Fluttering high over the central tower a silk flag bearing the royal lions of England proclaimed the presenc
e of the king. Grace’s heart skipped a beat. She had not been told of Cecily’s command that the escort take her to Margaret Beaufort’s residence until the journey was under way. “Lady Welles will meet you there,” the captain had said. “She is a frequent guest of the Lady Margaret and wishes to accompany you back to Hellowe.” Grace had been nonplussed. The last time she had talked to Cecily about Scraggy Maggie, Grace remembered, Cecily had made a face. She assumed Cecily was forced to attend the countess when her husband had business at Collyweston as well. It had not occurred to her that the king would be there, too, especially as Bess was in seclusion awaiting the birth of her child at her favorite residence of Greenwich. But birthing was a woman’s cross to bear, Grace knew; after the pleasure of conception, most men deemed their work done. She had to admit the king and his mother frightened her, and she hoped Cecily would suggest they leave for Hellowe on the morrow so she would not have to face the pair.
Her fears were well founded, it seemed, because not an hour after she was greeted with great joy by Cecily and shown to the chamber, no bigger than a closet, where she would spend the night, Grace was ushered into the Great Hall, and Margaret’s chamberlain announced her in overly loud tones.
“Lady Grace Plantagenet, your grace,” he bellowed. Grace had given her name as Mistress Gower, but the chamberlain knew her well and made the correction. Certes, the irony is that I shall always retain the name of my highest status, she thought, even if ’tis as a king’s bastard.
Henry and his mother stood under a canopy in the elegant, paneled hall, with her husband Lord Derby nowhere to be seen. Grace understood now why the countess of Richmond and Derby preferred to spend time here. The palace was more like a large mansion, beautifully imagined and lavishly decorated but warm and manageable.
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