Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

  Welles clears his throat. ‘Let us proceed, Lady Welles.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If, perhaps—’ He hesitates, then gestures towards the bed. ‘Would you mind terribly if you sat down? In fact, be so gracious as to lie, please.’

  I throw myself on the thick coverlets, lying stiff as a stick, my arms crossed over my chest. ‘So. Is this how you usually do it? With your mistresses, I mean?’

  Welles scratches his dimpled chin and sits down by my feet. ‘Oh dear. I hope we need not discuss indelicate matters, my lady.’

  ‘Well, we are not in public view, Husband. You can be as indelicate as you like. Are you happy your sister hauled me in for you? Am I a pretty enough present?’

  ‘I have no doubt we will both benefit from this arrangement.’

  I scoff. ‘Really? How, in God’s name, am I to benefit?’

  ‘Surely, you are eager to beget children, as is every woman. The joys of domesticity will calm your nature.’

  ‘Is that what you assume of all women? I have two decades to reproduce! I wager you have heard of the Woodville fertility.’

  Welles takes my foot in his hand. ‘May I remove your stockings?’

  I pull off both my silk stockings, wrap them to a hard ball and fling it across the room. ‘I suggest we leave this to another night.’

  ‘Pardon me, Lady Welles, but the marriage must be consummated. My beloved sister is bound to interrogate me in the morning, and I am afraid I lack the disposition to lie.’

  ‘Just get it over with,’ I whisper.

  Chapter XXI

  TATTERSHALL CASTLE IS the grandest wedding gift of them all. Margaret Beaufort has been generous, or rather, she has wrapped her sinewy hands tighter around my neck. ‘A place to enjoy a calm life. You may remain as long as your conduct pleases my son the King. Else, we may have to send you somewhere humbler, to humble your spirits also, for your own good.’ That is what she told me after handing the keys to the castle to her brother Welles. She is still in control of our new home, and so my fate is at her mercy for the time being. I cannot deny, though, that the thought of Tattershall makes my mouth water, for I have a clear memory of Father once praising it as the finest among castles. Whether this was an exaggeration or not remains to be seen. Welles has numerous other estates and manors we might choose to live in, but many of the houses were lost in a split of inheritance.

  We travel three days after our wedding, me in a carriage and my husband on horseback, exchanging nary a word during the lengthy journey to Lincolnshire. A tail of loyal servants and carts containing our most valued belongings and furniture follows. The roads have been partly wrecked by winter storms, and it is a full fortnight before we pass the city of Boston and arrive at our destination of Tattershall Castle.

  The carriage rolls across the bridge of the outer moat and I stick my head out the window. The water is glassy teal, fat geese gliding in flocks on the surface. I have never liked geese. When they open their beaks, all one sees are rows of tiny teeth.

  Having crossed the moat and been seen through the gatehouse at the end of the bridge, we arrive in what I assume is the outer ward. To our right are the stables, where I spot two grey horses chewing frost-bitten grass and a groom pausing in his tasks to watch us. I withdraw my head into the carriage. Our little entourage turns left and continues between the outer and inner moats until we reach another bridge and gatehouse. Once we have passed over these also, arriving in the inner ward, I can only gape at what I see.

  The castle itself is situated half in the ward, half rising from the moat. It is neither broad nor far-reaching, but perhaps six or seven stories high, towering skywards. The cool sun illuminates the fashionable red brick, bringing Sheriff Hutton to mind, and I am glad it possesses this spark of colour, because I am tired of palaces built of limestone and granite. From what I can see, there is one tower in each of the corners, though they may well be turrets. Trying to lean out far enough to turn my head, I count to five more towers wedged in the wall surrounding the inner ward. At the top are battlements, strengthening the impression I already have of Tattershall Castle as a fortress fit to withstand most trials, unlike anything I have lived in save Nottingham Castle.

  I do not know if I should be delighted or intimidated. A little bit of both, perhaps. I was promised a castle out of the ordinary, and this I have been given. However, I do get the sense my husband could lock me up in one of these massive towers and close the gatehouses, and I would be a damsel in distress as good as in any of Anne’s books. Of course, he could lock me up in a regular pleasure palace as well, so I suppose my concerns are not particular.

  The coachman offers me his hand but I climb out of the carriage without taking it. Winter immediately plunges its claws in me, sending shivers through my every limb, and I wrap my sable furs tighter around me. My breath creates whiffs of mist, the grass crunching with frost as I take a few steps towards the castle.

  ‘It is called the great tower,’ Welles says, dismounting beside me and handing the reins to one of the servants. ‘The castle itself, I mean, my lady.’

  ‘I see. It does not look like a single tower. Which floor is mine?’

  Welles dabs his runny nose with a handkerchief. ‘The basement is for storage and the ground floor for communal business—tenants coming to pay rent and the like. Then, let me see…’ He counts on his fingers. ‘Ah, yes, we have the great hall, the audience chamber, and the private chamber. Then, there are the battlements and roof gallery.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘Is it that small inside? Truly?’

  ‘I am confident you will find it to your liking, my lady. I have been told it looks like a fortress from without, but palatial from within.’

  I do not know what to say to this. I think the outside is splendid but the inside sounds modest, while my husband appears to think the outside the rough end and the inside the real prize. We shall have to see which one of us is in the right.

  The steward, an old man with two strands of hair on his head and alarmingly red earlobes, opens the door in one of the turrets and lets us inside before dispatching a group of servants to collect our belongings from the baggage carts. We step directly onto a spiral staircase, presumably running all the way up to the battlements.

  ‘This staircase will take us to the great hall,’ the steward squeaks like a rat being stepped on. ‘We have another entrance leading to the communal chamber. There is a third door, to the basement, but God forbid you use it.’

  I frown. ‘Why?’

  ‘The chief cook stores her spices down there. Spices! Nasty things, they are.’

  I decide against lecturing him on how wrong he is, turning my attention to the room we emerge into on the first floor. My initial impression of a small interior is swiftly disproven: the rooms may be few, but since each floor consists of a single chamber, said chamber is sizable, offering space that thick walls might have occupied otherwise. The inner walls are of the same red brick as the outer, though hung with rich tapestries—Flemish, if I am not mistaken, like the ones Father used to spend lavish sums on. The ceiling is chalked white and supported by rows of beams, creating a striped pattern. Vaulted windows allow for rays of winter sun to flood through the painted glass and cover the floor in rich reds and greens and blues, the room being lit up also by the iron chandelier.

  I round the hefty, polished table and the cushioned chairs dominating the great hall and arrive at the enormous fireplace ensconced in the wall. Cinder is all that is left from the fire itself, providing next to no warmth. Badges and crests line the mantelpiece, several of them identical replicas.

  I point at one of the crests. ‘This belongs to Baron Cromwell, the man who had all this built, does it not?’

  The steward bobs his head, hands clasped behind his back. ‘Indeed, my lady.’

  ‘What happened to the castle after his demise?’

  ‘It passed to his niece, Joan, and her husband, Humphrey Bourchier. I was a
young lad back then. Chamber servant, I was.’

  I freeze, and not just because of the fireplace being unlit. ‘I know that name! Humphrey Bourchier was my late father’s cousin.’

  Welles avoids my eyes, his expression blank. ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘I heard…I heard he was a treacherous man. His fate served him right.’

  Dense silence settles between us. Humphrey Bourchier benefited greatly from Father’s rule before swapping loyalties during Clarence’s and Warwick’s attempt to re-establish the Lancastrian line on the throne little less than two decades ago. He was slain at the Battle of Barnet, where Father’s and Uncle Richard’s victory paved the way for the return of York.

  ‘Not for me to say. Ever since, the place has belonged to the crown, until my lady the King’s Mother was gifted it, that is,’ the steward says at last.

  I swallow, tracing the smooth stone with my finger. ‘There is room here for another crest. We’ll put a white rose there—in fact, we could have the rest removed, and commission a whole line of white. It will brighten the room.’

  ‘Pardon me, but I cannot allow such a thing,’ Welles says.

  ‘What would you have, then?’

  ‘A Tudor rose or nothing, Lady Welles.’

  ‘In that case, Cromwell’s old badge will do nicely. At least you cannot keep me from the garden, dear husband. I think I will have the gardener plant roses in summertime, and white ones do have the sweetest fragrance.’ I glare at him, my words an intended provocation more than anything, but he refuses to meet my challenge. Instead, he turns from the fireplace and stand looking out from the window.

  ‘You would do well to remember my sister’s words regarding conduct.’

  I push back my more violent impulses and march towards the staircase. Although neither of us speaks the fact, he does have the authority to keep me from the garden, to keep me from whichever room of his choice. Mayhap he hopes it will not have to come to that, and neither do I, but it is the bitter truth.

  The three of us—I first, then the steward, and last Welles—climb the staircase to each floor. After the great hall comes, as Welles predicted, the audience chamber, where only the most highly esteemed guests are entertained. The second floor is the sole subdivided one, a brick corridor leading from the audience chamber to a smaller room with three chairs around a chess table and a cushioned window seat. I can see myself there, playing the lute, with Anne and Meg playing chess and Kate wiggling on the third chair. In all likelihood, they will not come, not the three of them at once, if at all. The distance is too great, Tudor will hardly let my sisters out of sight for long, and though Meg is now married to Welles’ nephew, she only lets her guard down to me entirely in Anne’s company. If this was Sheriff Hutton… If this was Sheriff Hutton, I would have turned the clock back to our merry household the summer three and a half years ago.

  On the third floor is the private chamber, a massive bedchamber serving as solar in equal measure. My stomach turns at the sight of the intricately carved wooden cradle standing in one corner, prepared with blankets and pillows.

  ‘Prithee, where shall we host visitors staying the night, or children past the age of swaddling?’ Welles asks the steward.

  ‘The other three turrets house additional lodgings, my lord. Much smaller, mark my word, but fine and dandy for those of lesser rank or lesser size.’

  I wish I could shut out their conversation and erase the cradle from my vision. Welles does not have to be frightened of childbirth, for it is not his life that is at stake. My cousin Katheryn, Duchess of Huntingdon, died in childbed a mere couple of months ago, and she was around my age.

  As long as the baby lives, Welles would be in a leisurely position with me in a grave: father to a prince or princess, free to wed a woman who suits him better, his status elevated by his last marriage. If we both live, I shall love my children endlessly, though I fear I might not prove the most patient of mothers, yet nothing can change the fact that they will be of my enemies’ blood. I vow never to hold it against the dear creatures, but I feel sorry for them already.

  At last, having climbed the last step of the spiral staircase, we emerge on the roof. A vaulted colonnade stretches around the rectangular, open space, creating a covered walkway. From there, we proceed up a smaller stairway to the battlements.

  I place both hands firmly on the coarse brick, gazing out over the flat Lincolnshire landscape. The height in itself sends a note of delight all the way to my fingertips, because I have rarely been allowed to stand on the battlements of the castles where I spent my childhood, were there even any, and the view over Lincolnshire is equally spectacular.

  Icy winds tear at my hair, trying to pull it from the gold-thread caul.

  I turn to Welles. ‘You can go inside if you like. I think I will stay awhile…it is refreshing up here.’

  For once, he does not object.

  That same evening, I lie curled up in our bed with the deep blue covers in a knot by my feet, not because I have suddenly developed a tolerance for the cold of winter but because disorder is a thorn in Welles’ side. This night, he has spared me my mechanical wifely duties and even agreed to dismiss the squire who usually sleeps with us in the room, but it is scant comfort.

  My pillow is warm and wet with tears. My eyes hurt from staring into the bright flames licking the logs in the fireplace and my fingers ache from clutching the blanket. I should never have left court, never agreed to wed the stiff man lying awake beside me. I should have been braver and fought Margaret Beaufort harder. Now, it is too late.

  ‘Please, my lady, must you weep? I cannot work if I cannot sleep,’ Welles says.

  I prop myself on my elbow and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand so that I can glare at him. ‘My apologies if it is inconvenient for you. I really am keeping as quiet as I can.’

  ‘Yet you have no reason to grieve.’

  ‘I don’t want this. What is it you fail to grasp?’

  He sighs. ‘Pray have consideration for the rest of us, my lady, and cease this foolery. I may be no great prince, and we may have certain differences, but there is no reason we cannot live perfectly content.’

  ‘You do not understand.’ I pile my pillows against the wall behind the bed and recline against them, arms crossed.

  ‘Oh dear. Marriage is an arrangement to profit both parties, as all matters in life. I believe we have had this discussion already, and I am not fond of discussion.’

  ‘I can tell.’

  Welles pats my shoulder before I can shuffle out of his reach. ‘Cherish this castle, if nothing else, my lady.’

  ‘It’s magnificent, but I miss Westminster.’

  ‘In my humble experience, missing is cured with the passing of time.’

  ‘Indeed?’ My voice drips of irony. ‘I would have thought the passing of time would only make it worse.’

  We say nothing more that night, or the next, or the one after that. I think my husband obtains his much-needed sleep.

  The days turn into weeks, then months. In budding spring and blooming summer, Tattershall Castle transforms from imposing to genuinely glorious, especially once the sun warms the rooms. The garden does become a place of roses: pale pink, a middle ground.

  Much in the same manner, my husband and I find our own middle ground. I am reluctant towards the concept, but it has its uses. I must be the obedient wife Beaufort wishes me to be, and in time, she and Tudor will have to relent in their view towards me. They like me little better than I like them, but I have come to realise, if not made my peace with, that I will get nowhere unless I start smoothing the rough edges between us. One day, my children will be King Arthur’s cousins, albeit through the female line of descent, and I remember my family’s history well enough to know what kings’ cousins can achieve. I will not have them put at a disadvantage because of my own scruples.

  Welles is not unreasonable. He is many things, but not that. I lose count of the times I lash o
ut at him or indulge in tears, yet he never once responds with violence. He neither hates nor loves me, not yet, but continues to treat me with distanced courtesy, the quarrels I attempt running off him like water off the geese in the moats. In the beginning, it frustrates me to the verge of madness, but, eventually, I am too exhausted by his lack of temper to try to provoke a reaction. Him being almost a score of years my senior has never shown itself clearer than in these moments.

  To my amazement, I manage to put aside our political and familial differences, secluded as we are from courtly intrigue. My husband will always be as staunch a Lancastrian as I am a Yorkist, as mellow as I am impassioned, but there are very few to remind us here, and at the moment I can achieve nothing by dwelling. I discover he shares my love for music, and in this we find a sliver of compatibility.

  Tattershall is not infinite, thus we are made to spend more time in each other’s company than I have done with anyone except my immediate family and Thomas. Thomas… As much as I try, he is impossible to forget. His eyes, his hands, his horrible knuckle-cracking and the baffled look on his face when I pulled him back from tripping into the fountain. Even the time he launched a grape at my nose lingers in my memory.

  Welles does not know, or if he does, he meticulously avoids the topic, as do I. I think he has a mistress, a woman in nearby Boston, because he travels there often and always returns with a guilt-stained gift for me, avoiding my questioning glance. It wounds my pride a little, but I expected nothing else, and I have enough pride to survive it. As he said, our marriage was and is a business arrangement—let him have his dalliance.