A great despair descended upon me. Amid the gilded tapestries of my room, I lay down. I had sent Catherine Gordon a gift of a Book of Hours on Perkin’s death, but who was left to mourn poor little Edward but me? In his twenty-four years of life he had run free over the fields for less than two of them, and that was the sweet interlude when Anne and Richard had taken him into their family. All who had loved him were dead now; he, like King Richard and Johnnie of Gloucester, had been born into calamity.
Oh, Richard, if you could have foreseen what would follow, would you still have cast your life away?
But I, too, shared blame for the blood that had flowed since Bosworth. Had I fled Sheriff Hutton, a Tudor could not have remained king and none of this would have taken place. But in my moment of great tragedy, blinded by loss and by grief, I had the misguided thought that I could save a nation. And I had stayed.
I hated this new world I’d helped create; this frightening and sinister place where a groom’s bastard grandchild could be a king, and the bastard could send a king’s son to meet a traitor’s death. Never had Fate reveled so heartily in her jest! I could almost hear her laughter in my ears.
Save a nation.
What arrogance!
All these years, God has been punishing me for my sin of pride, and I never understood until now.
That night I dreamt of Richard on his white horse riding out of shadows and mist, charging toward me, the crown on his helmet glimmering in the gloom, but instead of a rose, he held a battle-axe in his hand. I bolted upright in bed with a scream on my lips.
“What is it?” Kate asked, placing an arm around my shoulders.
“A dream, Kate.” I shuddered and drew the blanket tightly around me. “Naught but a dream. Go back to sleep, sister.”
But I lay awake in the darkness. Twice before Richard had come to me this way, and both times he’d brought me comfort. This felt different. This time I was afraid.
CHAPTER 26
Lost Princess, 1500
“THE KING HAS TAKEN ILL AT WANSTEAD,” KATE whispered,“so ill, there is murmuring of the succession.”
I heard her dimly. I didn’t wish death on anyone, but I derived little personal happiness from my marriage. I had endured for England’s sake, and for Arthur’s, yet the blood cost kept rising. It would be a blessing to see Arthur on the throne.
But Henry recovered. Through the fog that engulfed me, I heard Kate tell me that he had returned to Westminster.
I remained cloistered in my chamber until Arthur arrived in mid-December. Donning one of my wide-sleeved black velvet gowns, a heavy fur-lined cloak, and a jeweled headdress, I met him near the entry to the Great Hall of Rufus. The sight of his sweet face brought a smile to my heart, my first since meeting Henry’s astrologer.
“Arthur, my dear son!” I took his arm, unable to tear my gaze from his face, my eyes misting as I looked up at him.
“Mother, you have lost much weight. You are not ill, I pray?” he asked anxiously.
I gave him a smile as I clung to him. “No, I am well enough, and even better now that you are here safe at my side. ’Tis Yule, and that is my favorite time of year for I always know I shall see you, my beloved son.” I threw a glance at his attendants hovering in the background. “Shall we go to the river for a stroll? I would like to be alone with you before others claim your attention.” I hung on him as I walked, for I had not much strength after three weeks confined to bed, and I noticed that he had slowed his pace on my account.
“How is Father?” he asked, as we approached the wide Thames.
A wind blew. I caught at my cloak. “I know not. I haven’t seen him since—since—”
Arthur pressed his hand over mine. His gesture gave me courage to broach the subject that had assailed me since Edward of Warwick’s death. Henry would never relax his white-knuckled grip on the crown until death pried it loose. And what of Arthur? Would he choose to murder innocents to keep his throne safe?
“Dear son, I worry greatly what lessons your father’s actions are teaching you.”
He paused his steps and tightened his hold of my arm. He threw a glance around for eavesdroppers, but our retinue followed far behind. “Mother, rest assured I would not have done what Father did. I see the world with your eyes. Mind you, I do not criticize him. He did what he felt necessary, but I would have handled the problem differently. There are always options.” After a pause, he added, “I would probably have sent Perkin back to Burgundy. ’Tis no doubt reckless of me.”
A tear found its wayward path down my cheek. “Mercy is not reckless, my dear one. To have the hearts of your people is a great thing. It will take time, and it is by far the harder path, but in the end, that is your measure as a king. And as a man.”
We walked and chatted, and watched the barges pass, and listened to the screech of the seabirds against the morning cold. The air hung heavy with moisture, and I felt revived by the time we returned to the palace. Oblivious of where we were headed, joyous merely to be near him, I followed where he led, and we turned into the presence chamber. We both came to a sudden halt. Harry, who had arrived the day before from Eltham, stood on the dais, playing a game with his friends.
“Take your positions,” Harry was saying. “You’re the executioner,” he told a friend, “and you’re the condemned,” he said, pointing to Kate’s son, Henry Courtenay, who knelt at his feet.
“I am afraid to die this way. Pray,Your Great Majesty, allow me to live!”
“Traitors must be punished. Therefore, you shall be tied to a hurdle and dragged through the streets to Tyburn where the executioner—”
“Harry!” I cried. “How dare you disobey me? What did I tell you the last time I caught you in here?”
“Mother, I do not disobey you. I am not sitting on the throne this time.” He regarded me with his angelic, innocent face.
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. “Nevertheless, I forbid you to play such games. You may leave.”
The children scrambled out of the room. I took Arthur’s arm again, my head throbbing. “You shall have to watch Harry,” I said under my breath.
“No, Mother. These are but boyhood games. He’ll grow out of them.”
Arthur’s words brought me little comfort. Harry was learning ruthlessness, not only from Henry’s actions, but from Skelton, and Morton, and especially Margaret Beaufort, who doted on him and filled his head with her ideas. And I could not stop them.
I forced my dismal thoughts gone. This was a precious time, and too brief. I could not afford to waste my golden moments with Arthur. We chatted quietly together as we made our way through the passageway. By the time I took in my surroundings again, we were at the nursery door.
Ten-month-old Edmund looked up at us, surrounded by his nurses. He toddled to me, screeching, “Mama, Mama!” Then he noticed Arthur and stared at him with bright blue eyes as round and wide as cornflowers. “Dah?” he said, grabbing my skirts, pointing.
Arthur laughed heartily. “That probably means ‘Who are you?’ Doesn’t it, Mother?”
I turned my smile on Arthur again, suffused with love. “Probably.”
Arthur knelt down on one knee, and grinned. “Edmund, fair brother, ’tis time you met the eldest in your family. So how have you been? Up to a good deal of mischief, I am sure.” He rumpled his brother’s corn-colored hair, picked him up, and tossed him high into the air. Edmund seemed shocked at first, but after Arthur caught him and set him down on his little legs, he put his arms out to be tossed again.
Edmund’s nurses laughed with admiring looks in their eyes as they gazed at my lanky, dark-haired son. He is handsome indeed, and fortunate is the Spanish princess, I thought, a pang squeezing my heart.
We bid them adieu and made for Henry’s chambers.
I did not wish to see him. I would have been glad never to see him again. But that could not be. I had to make my peace with him and find a way to go forward.
I fell silent as we approached his chamber
. He was seated at the table, his head bowed, writing in his little black book. I hung back as Arthur strode into the room and called out, brightly, “Father!”
Henry glanced up, and his eyes lit with joy. He put his book away and pushed out of his chair. Standing in the doorway, I stared at him in shock. He had aged twenty years since I last saw him! He was forty-two years old, but looked sixty. His hair had turned white, and he had lost much weight. His bony cheeks were sunken and hollow; his brow lined with deep furrows; his mouth and eyes etched with lines that had not been there a month earlier. Where he had played a hard game of tennis as late as this past summer, he now drooped over the table, bent and shriveled, and leaned his weight on his hand.
He is an old man! I thought, pity flooding me. He hates what he has done, and he grieves. I had covered my lips to stifle my gasp, but the movement caught Henry’s eye. The gaze he turned on me was filled with pathos. He held out a hand to me in a gesture begging of forgiveness, and I went to him.
He was not a wicked man, only a man who had done wicked things.
To keep the peace.
To keep his crown.
Surely, there is a difference?
But where is the difference?
It was all too much for my poor mind. ’Tis for God to judge him, not me. I could only pray for him, as I prayed for his victims. Turning to Arthur, I gave him my hand. He took it and placed an arm around his father’s shoulders, and together we stood.
IN THE SOLAR, WE WAITED FOR ARTHUR TO JOIN US in a cup of wine before dinner. I kept my voice down as I chuckled with Kate over the antics of Henry’s pet monkey, who now sat at his feet, watching us demurely. He had absconded with Henry’s memorandum book a few days earlier. When the book was finally retrieved from behind a coffer, it had been shredded, its precious secrets erased forever. Henry had received the news with good humor, and the court with delighted amusement. No doubt, to many, the monkey is a hero, I thought.
“I met Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam,” Harry announced as soon as he entered, interrupting my chat with Kate.
Maggie and Mary ran to him, and Henry looked up from his ledger, where he was checking expenditures.
“Did you talk to him?” Maggie asked, taking his arm.
“Did you talk to him?” Mary echoed, taking his other arm.
She always repeated everything her older sister said. With a shiver of vivid recollection, I remembered how my brother Dick Grey had done the same with Dorset.
“Naturally,” Harry beamed.
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” Maggie blurted, her bright eyes wide with awe.
“Me neither,” Mary added.
“That’s because you’re girls,” Harry replied, standing with his stout legs astride.
“Are we talking about the Bishop of Cambrai’s private secretary, the Dutch scholar and priest?” Henry demanded, giving his monkey a chestnut.
“The same,” Harry responded.
“How did that come about?”
“Thomas More brought him to see me at Eltham Palace. You know the clever lawyer who is Morton’s protégé?” Harry replied, throwing himself into a chair. Maggie and Mary each pulled a stool to sit at his feet.
I thought how grown-up he seemed for a child whose feet could not yet touch the floor when he sat, and I smiled to myself over my embroidery.
“Ah, More. He is a fine young man. Morton thinks highly of his talents.” Henry put down the lead rod he used to mark his accounts and turned his full attention to Harry.
“He is a friend of mine,” said Harry proudly, helping himself to an apple from the bowl on the table beside him. He took a bite and chewed noisily. “And Erasmus is, too, now that we have met. We spent the entire afternoon together in discussion of many serious matters.”
Henry exchanged a glance with me, amusement flickering in his eyes, for Harry had the air of a wizened old man.
“What did you learn?” demanded Henry.
“Something of great interest to you, Father.”
Henry leaned back in his chair and waited.
“Erasmus told me of his friend in Italy. The man is a scholar of politics and philosophy and is preparing to write a treatise on how a prince should govern his state.”
I saw Henry’s mouth quirk with humor, and I bent my head low over my embroidery for I feared to burst out with laughter.
“And what principles does he advocate for his prince?”
“He says it is more difficult for a new prince to rule than a hereditary one. For he must stabilize his newfound power and build a system that will endure. And he may have to do things of an evil nature in order to achieve the greater good.”
My merriment vanished. Henry edged forward in his chair. “What else does he say?”
“That the end justifies the means.”
His words, cold as ice water, chilled me, and I shuddered.
“The end justifies the means,” Henry echoed thoughtfully. “Indeed, ’tis so.” He looked over at Harry, who was turning over the core of his apple and picking off the last bit of flesh. “We must invite this Erasmus to banquet with us.”
I felt a sudden desperate need to quit the room. “I wonder what is keeping Arthur. By your leave, my lord, I shall go and check for myself.”
Everyone looked at me with astonishment, and I wondered if they had forgotten I was there. I am, I thought, the invisible queen, as my mother warned I would be.
IN THE GREAT HALL OF RUFUS, I RECEIVED PETITIONERS.
An old woman entered and knelt before me. She mentioned a name that seemed familiar and hovered on the edges of my mind, but I could not place it.
“I come on ’er behalf to begs your aid, my queen. She was wet nurse to Prince Richard, brother to Yer Queen’s Grace. She’s feeble now and is bedridden. She’s fallen on dire straits, she ’as.”
The mention of Dickon’s name sent a rush of panic ripping through me. “Take her this material,” I said quickly, feeling faint. “ ’Tis three and a half yards of the finest wool. She can sell it, and the money will sustain her for some months.”
Lucy Neville placed the fabric into the old woman’s hands.
“No more petitioners. ’Tis late and I must rest,” I told Lucy.
But I could not rest. I stood by the window with Richard’s book, Tristan, in my hands, gazing at his portrait. The day was dimming outside; soon it would be dark. Deluged in memory, the sounds of the castle came to me only vaguely: the chatter of my ladies in the antechamber, the voices of servants calling to one another outside, the laughter of children.
“Mother, what are you doing?”
Harry’s voice at my elbow startled me. I had not heard the door open and I jumped, dropping both book and miniature. I took no breath as Harry bent down to retrieve them. Slowly, very slowly, he reinserted Richard’s portrait into the pages of the small leather-bound volume. He rose and returned them to me. His eyes met mine.
“Yours, Mother, I believe?” His voice was hard, edged with steel.
I watched him leave. Now he would tell his father. What did it matter? I’d never give Henry the portrait; I’d hide it away where no one would find it for a hundred years. Henry was good at destroying people, but he wouldn’t destroy this last bit of Richard. I turned back to the traceried window with a sigh, and my glance touched on a figure in black in the distance, seated on a bench by the riverbank, her head bowed.
I went to my brocade-covered writing desk, my treasured, worn copy of Richard’s Tristan in my hand, and took a seat in the carved chair. Opening the book with extra care now that I’d dropped it, so as not to spill the last grains of red earth that still remained from the field of battle, I gently traced Richard’s inscription with the tip of my finger: Richard of Gloucester, Loyaulte me Lie. He’d had such beautiful handwriting: strong, clear, each letter elegantly formed.
“Richard,” I murmured, touching all that was left of him. “Richard—” Good that you didn’t know that day at Bosworth Field how it would all end: y
our body despoiled; your memory vilified; your friends and those of your blood hunted down and murdered. Jack of Lincoln, Humphrey Stafford; young Edward of Warwick; your own sweet boy, Johnnie, a bastard and no threat to anyone save another bastard. All who loved you are dead now, Richard, except for me, and maybe Francis Lovell.
I flipped to Richard’s portrait in the middle of the book, where Harry had inserted it. Dark hair, wide sensitive mouth, strong square jaw. Eyes looking into the distance: earnest eyes, filled with terrible sadness. His last words to me echoed in the dark stillness of my mind: You’ll change!You’ll forget me!
You were wrong, Richard. I didn’t change, and I didn’t forget. Nothing can erase you from my heart.
I set down the miniature and drew the book to me, remembering myself at eighteen, at Sheriff Hutton. Removing a pen from a sand cup, I dipped it carefully into the ink and opened the flyleaf. Sans Removyr, I wrote beneath his inscription. It was my motto, used only once in my life, when I was neither princess nor queen. Without changing. I brought his portrait to my lips, implanted a kiss. I lifted my face to the bleak winter sky. “Richard, if you have been greatly hated, you have also been deeply loved,” I whispered.
I removed my silver chain and key from around my neck and unlocked the secret compartment of my coffer. I put away Richard’s book. Withdawing a small breviary, I secured the drawer. Dropping the key back into my bodice, I left my chamber to join Catherine Gordon.
I held my cloak close to my face and slipped through the palace grounds, unnoticed by those I passed. I made my way over the gravelly path to where she sat. It was a cold day. The Thames was drenched in gray mist, and no one was about except a few ferrymen and the mewing gulls.
The King's Daughter (Rose of York) Page 36