By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  He was the king of fools. All that was wanting was the cap with its tinkling bells.

  Footsteps roused him. With them came the jingle of keys rather than the bells of his imagining. He rose with lithe strength and stood alert, feet slightly spread for balance. He had not yet been shut up so long that despair and bad food had taken his pride, though he feared it would come to that in the end. Or perhaps not, if the hangman came for him first.

  The lock rattled. The door swung open. A slender figure stepped inside.

  “A half hour, no more,” the jailer said, and slammed the door, locking them in together.

  David.

  It was David and not Isabel. He might have known. He drew a hoarse breath, pushed aside his disappointment before stepping forward for the handclasp of greeting.

  “What news?” he asked. “I’m told nothing, have heard nothing since last you were here.”

  David shrugged. “The court is the same, though without the king, who has left on progress. The babe you saved thrives. Leon has not surfaced again, in spite of rumors which say he has been seen here or there. Nothing of great import.”

  Nothing, the lad meant, that might lead to his release. It was what Rand expected. Nothing might be heard until he was taken before the King’s Court and from there directly to the hangman. The next news he had might be his last.

  “And how is your mistress?” he asked without inflection as he turned to measure the six paces to the far wall and back again. “Have you a message from her this time?”

  “She bids you be of good heart. She journeys soon to gain your release.”

  “What?” It made no sense to Rand’s brain, which seemed to have slowed to the pace of a spider’s crawl. “How?”

  David told him, his voice tight as if he feared to be blamed. When he was done, he remained standing near the door with his hands clasped behind him.

  “She goes to Winchester,” Rand repeated, while the mixture of dread and hope inside him gave his heart a ragged beat.

  “Your lady knows you have been useful to the king’s mother in the past and that she holds you in affection. It is all that’s left, for the king would not see her.”

  “She tried for an audience?”

  David’s gold curls swung forward at his short nod. “Aye, and waited for hours, for all that nothing came of it.”

  Rand sent his squire a sharp look as he heard the trace of fervor in his voice. Another conquest for the lady, it seemed. Something about her inclined males that way, and that included her husband. It also made what she planned impossible. Winchester was a weary long ride away from Westminster over roads rife with all manner of dangers.

  “She must not go. I forbid it.”

  David tilted his head, a scowl pinching his brows together over his nose. “Even if it could save your neck from being stretched?”

  “What good is it if we both die? No, I refuse to chance it.”

  “She has asked that I go with her.”

  “Even so.”

  “We need not worry about thieves and cutthroats if a few mercenaries were hired for protection.”

  Rand reached to put a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “There is more to this business than meets the eye. One woman has died already. Nay, my lady must not leave the palace. Go back and tell her I will not have it.”

  “And if she won’t listen?”

  It was possible Lady Isabel would not. By all the saints, it was almost certain she would not. “Tell her to come to me. Arrange it through McConnell, in secret if need be. I must see her at once. Tell her.”

  His squire executed a stiff bow. “I obey, sir, but doubt the lady will do the same.”

  “She will. She must, or I shall…”

  “Yes, Sir Rand?”

  He looked away from the interest and sympathy in the rich blue of the lad’s eyes. “Never mind. Only give her my command,” he said, and added various other orders as would serve to ease his mind.

  His squire bowed his acquiescence once more, began to turn away.

  “Wait.”

  “Sir?”

  Rand hesitated, asked finally, “You have my sword? You’ve kept it safe?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “If, by chance…”

  “Yes, Sir Rand?” The patience in the lad’s face remained steady.

  “Take it for the protection of my lady. Keep it close in case of need.” He turned away again, unwilling to see the rise of pity in David’s eyes.

  “But, sir, I am only your squire.”

  “You have trained well and long so have the skill for it, and the strength. You are ready.”

  “If you say so,” the lad replied, the words fretted with pain, “though I would rather you carried it in my place.”

  Rand turned to him, meeting his gaze for long moments. They had been through much together in this past year. Pray God, they would weather more before David earned his spurs as a knight. “So would I,” he answered with a ghost of a smile. “Since that isn’t to be, use it as I would.”

  David bowed again. The chamber door with its iron grille clanged behind him.

  Rand ordered water for bathing and shaving, drawing out the process to fill the time. Then he sat down to wait. He waited all that day, and the next, and the one after. Finally, he ceased to shave himself each morning, ceased to demand more clean water, clean clothing or frequent emptying of the foul pot de chambre that stood in one corner. He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

  Sometimes he spoke to the spider that diligently spun her web above him. He accused the creature of all the sins of females, all the self-centered vanity of one who weaves webs in obedience to her own wayward caprice and in defiance of her mate. He cursed all women who did the same.

  She would not obey Rand’s summons, Isabel vowed. For one thing, there was no time. For another, she resented being commanded from behind a prison door. She was also incensed that he could suppose she would drop everything and scurry to his side for dalliance in his Tower chamber. She did not doubt it would come to that. And if she avoided him because she feared she might succumb, that was her secret.

  The time to depart on her quest was now, while the court was in turmoil. News had arrived of a minor uprising in the West Marches. Heralds had come and gone all day and far into the night, pounding the road between the king on progression and his counselors and nobles left at the palace. A few weeks on campaign should see the matter settled, or so said those who pretended to knowledge. When it was in hand, Henry would turn his attention to the charge of murder lodged against his former companion. His assessment of the facts in the matter would be stringent, as would his directions to the justices of the King’s Court. No one would be able to accuse him of favoritism.

  What was wrong with a little favoritism? Isabel asked in indignation as she set out for Winchester. Did loyalty and service count for nothing? Henry might not be king this day if men such as Rand had not made his cause their own, sticking to the course against great odds, tramping at his side from the landing for invasion in Wales to the carnage of Bosworth Field.

  A veritable cavalcade streamed out of the town with her on this fair dawn. In addition to David, Isabel had with her two courtiers on business with the king’s mother, the Spanish diplomat sent by Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon with orders for a written report on the birth of Henry’s heir apparent, the men-at-arms attached to the courtiers and six mercenaries recruited by David with the aid of Rand’s purse. Extra horses had been bespoken, as well, and awaited them at taverns along the road. So the column traveled along the road to Woking and beyond, toward the priory attached to Winchester Abbey where the nuns would attend the queen in her labor. They swept through villages, past farms with paddocks of sheep, beside hedgerows where wildflowers were going to seed and along the edges of fields studded with shocks of grain. And Isabel felt, no matter Rand’s command to remain in her woman’s place, that his protection went with her.

  They reached Winchester in
late evening of the second day. Isabel decided to wait until morning before going to Lady Margaret. She had not slept for many a long night for the anxiety that gripped her, and was over-tired from the journey besides. Rest might sharpen her wits, something she would have need of when she faced the king’s mother. Besides, she did not care to appear in all her travel dirt, as if desperate in her mission.

  For all the sleep she got, she might as well have pounded on the palace door at midnight. Heavy-eyed and heavy of heart, she sent off her request for an audience the instant she had breakfasted next morning. That it was granted at once earned her fervent gratitude.

  She was received in a solar made cozy by pastoral paintings of gigantic size and the liberal use of Saracen carpets instead of rushes. Henry’s mother was dressed in her usual black and white and with her small face topped by a gabled headdress. She sat in a large armchair with her feet propped on a stool to prevent them from dangling without touching the floor. Putting aside her breviary as Isabel was shown into her presence, she tucked her hands into her full sleeves.

  “What pleasure to see you, Lady Isabel,” the Duchess of Richmond and Derby said in her softly modulated voice. “I trust you bring no unwelcome news from Westminster?”

  Unease lurked in the lady’s pale blue eyes, Isabel saw. It was the natural fear of a mother who had seen kings come and go in her five decades of life. “None, Your Grace,” she answered in prompt reassurance. “All is well with the king save a small insurrection that I believe he has well in hand.”

  “Yes, so I have it from the dispatches brought by the courtiers who rode with you. And everything at the palace is as it should be?”

  “Close enough, I believe.”

  “I delight to hear it, and would speak more on it later. Meanwhile, I pray thee tell me what brings you, for I cannot suppose you are here without purpose.”

  Isabel knew precisely what she wanted to say, having had ample time to think while cantering toward this audience. She plunged in at once with the death of Juliette d’Amboise and Rand’s arrest for her murder. “We spoke before, Lady Margaret, of the attempt by the king’s enemies to draw a parallel between the death of the Frenchwoman’s child and that of the princes in the Tower. What His Majesty may not realize is that many at court know full well the lady was sent to Braesford Hall for the birth. It was done for the queen’s sake, of course….”

  “A king does not worry about the effect of his amours on his consort,” Margaret said severely.

  It would be well if he did, in Isabel’s opinion, though it could hardly be useful to say so. “Indeed not, but what of the effect on the child carried by Elizabeth?”

  The king’s mother slid from her chair and walked away down the length of the solar. Turning with such force that the small silver crucifix on a chain at her waist swung in an arc, she paced back again. “My son is surely aware of the implications of his order of arrest,” she said as she passed Isabel on her way to the chamber’s opposite end.

  “He may be. Or he might not realize that people, knowing Rand acted for Henry in concealing the Frenchwoman, must believe he also acted for him in removing her. By allowing Rand to hang, he would be implicating himself in the murder.”

  “You are assuming Sir Rand is innocent.”

  “Yes.” Isabel could not have said what made her so certain, unless it was the way he had saved the small boy at the tournament. Yes, or the way he had held the toddler afterward, as if his young life had infinite value. He had also felt the pain of her injured finger even as she had, for she had seen it in his face. No man so tender in his concern could take the life of a newborn or its mother.

  “Such loyalty is commendable, but you imply that my son might allow such a miscarriage of justice.”

  “Would he not, to retain his crown?”

  Margaret flung her a cold glance. “He may well believe, or know on good evidence, that Sir Rand is guilty.”

  “Then why did he not put him in prison the moment he arrived in London? Why wait? Nay, Your Grace. The king has been constrained to act against his better nature, or so I believe. The death of Mademoiselle d’Amboise was designed to embarrass him and force his hand. Someone wants Sir Rand to stand his trial so the evidence against him can be manipulated to besmirch the king. Once Henry is suspected of ordering the vile murder of his own flesh and blood, and that of the baby’s mother, then he can be reviled for child murder as completely as Richard III, and toppled from power as easily.”

  Lady Margaret paused in her pacing to stare at Isabel. “The idea is not new.”

  “But the manner in which Rand was lured to the scene of Mademoiselle Juliette’s murder adds weight, do you not agree?”

  “If only we knew who came for her. Yes, and where she was taken.”

  This was the point Isabel had been waiting for. “You could discover it, Lady Margaret,” she said, hiding her fisted hands in the folds of her gown. “You are the king’s mother and most beloved by him. No one can or will deny whatever you request. More than that, I am told you sometimes hold council on minor matters with the king’s blessing, that you hear petitions and make judgments so His Majesty may direct his efforts toward more weighty matters. Could you not hold a tribunal on this affair?”

  “A tribunal.” The older woman’s face turned thoughtful.

  “With your influence and under seal of your orders, the captain of the men-at-arms who spirited the Frenchwoman away from Braesford might be located. The midwife who delivered the babe could be brought before you to be questioned. The owner of the keep where Mademoiselle was killed could be produced so he might explain how she came to be lodged there, or at least why she died in that place and not some other.”

  “You are suggesting I undertake this while Henry is absent from Westminster. Yes, and otherwise occupied with this insurrection.”

  Isabel flushed. “I had not intended anything quite so…so devious. It’s only that the time is now.”

  “As you say,” the king’s mother agreed with a dismissive gesture before turning away again, allowing her gaze to rest on her prie-dieu of black oak with a velvet-covered kneeling bench, which sat in a corner. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But what if the answers turn out to be…wrong?”

  “I dare not think they will,” Isabel answered. “But if so, you must make the matter right, Your Grace. You cannot be who you are and bear in good conscience that it should be otherwise.”

  Silence descended between them. Somewhere men chanted in voices low and serene yet thrumming with restrained power. A dog barked and earned a reprimand. Hens cackled in alarm, then sang into quiet. Isabel stood so stiff and straight that her knees hurt. She began to sway, a faint movement that grew more pronounced with every passing second.

  “No,” Lady Margaret said at last, “I refuse to believe Henry can be guilty. Nor can I accept it of Sir Rand. If something is to be done, it must be soon and it must be in Westminster. There is where I have access to account rolls showing who was paid, when and for what service, also to heralds to send here and there and to the official seals that will force answers.”

  It was full agreement, Isabel saw. She had won. The relief was so intense that her knees sagged with it, forcing her to recover with a jerk.

  Lady Margaret gave her a swift glance. “Of course, I would have to leave Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, but the queen consort has some weeks yet before her time, I believe?”

  “So does everyone else, counting back from the wedding. I am not convinced. But no matter. We must depend for her security on her doctor and those who hover around her like wasps around ripe fruit.”

  “I am certain all will be well. Her Majesty may not be…of a robust nature, but neither is she a weakling.”

  “As you say.” Lady Margaret drew a deep breath, forcing the air from her lungs in a rush. “I will require aid if the business is to be done in good time. Once back at Westminster, you must remove to a chamber near mine and become my scribe for the messages that wi
ll go out under my private seal. We want no chatter about this business. If all goes well, we may be able to sort out this madness and keep safe the lives of the men we love.”

  The king’s mother thought she loved Rand. Isabel opened her mouth to refute it, but closed it again. Allowing the suggestion to stand might be an advantage. With a lift of her chin, she said, “If you will recall, Your Grace, the chamber I shared with Rand was near the king’s apartments.”

  Lady Margaret gave a nod. “So it was. Excellent. Go, then, and make ready. We leave for Westminster as soon as everything is in order.”

  Isabel accepted her dismissal with a deep curtsy. A moment later, she was outside the solar with the door closed behind her. She stopped there, staring at nothing.

  She had won.

  The concession she had thought to extract had been allowed her.

  She should be joyful. Euphoria should flood like a millrace in her veins, filling her heart to bursting. Instead, she was suddenly tired, so tired. And repeating endlessly in her mind was the question the Lady Margaret had whispered to the God she consulted at her prie-dieu.

  What if the answers discovered in tribunal turned out to be wrong indeed?

  Preparations for the return from Winchester took forever and a day, or so it seemed. Servants ran here and there with stacks of folded linen. Menservants knocked beds apart to be loaded, and packed silver and gold plates, cups, basins and ewers. Horses and mules, carts and wagons, were gathered. Heralds were sent flying ahead to arrange changes of horse and announce their coming at the tavern where they would rest the night. Squabbles among Lady Margaret’s attendants over who would go and who would stay had to be settled.

  Isabel waited in a fever of impatience. She would have liked to harry the servants, forcing them to move faster. She wanted to mount up and gallop away as swiftly as she had come. Neither course was within her power. The servants were not hers to order and she could not offend the king’s mother by leaving ahead of her.