Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

  ‘I never thought such a thing!’ I take her naked hand in mine, marvelling at how she can reject even the simplest of luxuries that is leather gloves in wintertime. Should I inquire further, implore her to elaborate? Every fibre of my being is yearning to know whether my youngest sister speaks of friendship or of a more intimate bond, a kind of bond I have previously only heard Thomas discuss openly—yet that was in the dark of night. Perhaps it is best not to ask and not to know. I may have a talent for safeguarding secrets when I so wish, but I have my hands full with my own at the moment. Moreover, I am not certain Bridget can put it in any clearer terms for me.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder to ensure the guards we brought are still ambling fifteen feet behind, out of earshot for our low discussion. Then, I turn to the third matter of the heart that day.

  ‘What do you know of Anne’s marriage?’

  ‘Nothing. Has it escaped you, sister dear, that you are the only one in this family who still cares to speak with me at length?’ There is no bitterness in her voice. ‘Years of estrangement will do that.’

  My breath forms puffs of white smoke in the cold. ‘Mayhap. Then I’ll tell you now that Howard is not fit to polish her boots, let alone share her bed. She had a babe who was born much too soon and died this spring. By God’s truth, if he did not beat it out of her, it was the pain I know he so often inflicts on her psyche.’

  Bridget crosses herself in silence.

  I continue. ‘She says he still loves her. I think he still has passions for her, is still fond of her, and for all I know he has no mistress. But that does not change his cruel nature.’

  ‘”The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence, His soul hates.”’

  On that note, we turn to resume our walk back to Westminster. The sky is grey marble, streaked with gold, somehow unforgiving. Rarely has London been so quiet, so void of bustle and life, so eerie.

  Thomas and I have a certain difficulty staying sane now that the only thing ever keeping us apart are social obligations. Despite my sobering walk with Bridget, I am flushed and love-crazed again within the hour of returning, eager to give in to passions I did not know I was capable of.

  One of those winter days, Thomas and I have the rare luck of stumbling upon an empty solar at Westminster, and he bars the door to ensure our privacy. Bursting with giggles I ought to have abandoned with girlhood, I let him pull me onto his lap in one of the armchairs. Perhaps this is the kind of silly escapade I would have spent my time on if I had not been whisked away to Tattershall with Welles—I have much to catch up on.

  Thomas’ lips are warm against my temple, my mouth, my neck. He is in the path of the sun, the light painting his silky hair brighter than I know it to be. The thrills edging up my spine and to my fingertips are sweeter than honey.

  ‘I’ve longed for you too many years to ever let you go now,’ Thomas murmurs against the curve of my shoulder. ‘I hope you realise that.’

  ‘I don’t mind one bit.’ I think I have never spoken truer words.

  I reach up to knock my headdress off and pull out the hairpins, allowing a cascade of burnished gold locks to fall like a curtain around our faces and shoulders. What happened in the stables might have happened again there and then, were it not for a thread on Thomas’ sleeve getting caught in my diamond broach.

  ‘Let me untangle it,’ Thomas says and sets about the task, narrowing his eyes. ‘You still wear that thing? You don’t think it is time to…let go? Much too sparkly.’

  I muster a glare. ‘Do not dare mock my broach. You might as well mock my very person.’

  ‘I would pick something more imaginative, then.’

  ‘I like sparkly.’

  ‘I know.’ He seeks to part my lips with his again but I pull away ever so slightly, thrusting a hand in the pocket hidden between the folds of my gown.

  ‘Speaking of jewellery, I have something for you.’ I extract a small gold pendant, studded with bands of tiny pearls, and slip it over Thomas’ head.

  He takes it in his palm, studying the precious stones. ‘Fine craftsmanship,’ he says with a grin. ‘But don’t you know I have no need of pretty gifts and tokens?’

  ‘You do if you want to keep a lock of my hair.’ I unsheathe the dagger in his belt, wind a few strands around two fingers, and make the cut. The garland fits perfectly in the pendant.

  ‘Thank you, sweet Cecily, for finding me again on that night.’

  I could stay forever in the solar, and I nearly do, mindless of the dancing that has begun in the great hall. Only when the first notes of lutes and virginals fleet into the room where we are sat does it strike me that the entire court must be marking my absence.

  ‘Say you had a headache and took to your bed. That latter part does not have to be a lie, right?’ Thomas whispers with a wink blatant enough to make me laugh.

  ‘I could say that. Or you could let me change into a fancier gown and come dance with me.’

  ‘What, before everyone?’

  I shrug. ‘Why not let them grow accustomed to the sight before I spring the news of our marriage upon them?’

  ‘Our marriage.’ He savours the words like a delicacy. ‘You do know how to persuade a man.’

  ‘I like to think so.’

  Tudor’s howl carries merciless through the April night. I never went to sleep, but I can imagine the horror of those waking to that inhumane sound, a sound containing a chilling note of madness. Minutes before, the Palace of Placentia was still and quiet and dense with sleep. Now it appears all Hell’s demons have risen to make merry in the gloomy halls.

  I rise from my bed, abandoning the seven-page letter from Thomas, sweep myself in a frock, and scurry towards my sister the Queen’s chambers. Upon arriving, I find she has already gone to her husband, and I am left to wait with a cluster of ladies trying to rub the sleep from their eyes and suppress their yawns. Some of them have slept in Elizabeth’s bedchamber to help maintain the heat in the room; some have, like myself, come tripping from their own chambers to investigate this most harrowing of commotions.

  We wait a good half hour before my sister returns. Only one person before has brought my thoughts to a snuffed-out candle: Anne Neville, embalmed days before her funeral. Elizabeth’s cheeks are not just waxy white, though, but have turned an interesting shade of green, her eyes glazed, unseeing.

  I take two steps forward and grab her arms, perhaps too roughly, disregarding all ceremony and titles, making use of the nickname I have not uttered since we were little. ‘Tell me, Beth. What, in the name of the Holy Virgin, has happened?’

  Her knees buckle and she would collapse on the floor were it not for my grip. I need not say anything, for two other ladies hurry forth to assist me in coaxing her to the bed. No candles are lit at this hour, and I have some difficulty discerning the women’s faces, but I believe I spot Aunt Catherine and Bessie Tilney both. If only Anne were here, or Mother… They would know what to say to remedy this sorry state.

  ‘Beth,’ I whisper for my sister’s ears alone. ‘Tell me, at least.’

  At last, a breath of a voice: ‘Prince Arthur. Dead of the sweating sickness. Dead.’

  I pull away abruptly, feeling my own face drain of colour and a sour taste on my tongue. Not only do I know the pain of losing children, but I know the blow this is to everything Tudor has built, everything he has fought for. His Tudor Rose Incarnate is dead. The boy with whom all our hopes rested—even my own, because I had begun to find some small comfort in knowing that England would still be ruled by a king half Yorkist. Arthur…Arthur who demonstrated a sense of duty rarely seen, Arthur who did not hesitate to let his little cousins Eliza and Annie borrow his most treasured manuscripts. Prince Arthur, who sealed the most prestigious marriage alliance in England, who was supposed to be the link to the royal House of Castile.

  My thoughts have already darted on to Catalina de Aragón, now a widow in a foreign land, when the s
obs come. Unhinged, strangled sobs, mingling with short cries and gasps for air. Even at this hour of her greatest need, I feel mildly awkward with my oldest sister, and leave the others to sooth her while I set out to find Tudor. Of course, I should not venture into the open corridors and galleries dressed thus, but I doubt anyone will notice what I am wearing at a time like this.

  I find the Pretend-King in the outmost part of his privy chambers, staring blankly through the high window as if awaiting dawn. For the first time in my life, I pity him. I pity the man who shattered the world as I knew it, for he is in shatters himself.

  ‘Your Grace,’ I say in a low voice. ‘The Queen needs you.’

  He does not move. ‘She told me to take heart in God’s mercy, because we still have one prince and two fair princesses. She told me we are still young enough to have more children.’

  ‘All very well, Sire, but my sister is in dire need of comfort. You must tell her what she told you. Come now!’ Under other circumstances, it would have given me immense pleasure to watch Tudor heed my command and follow me back to Elizabeth’s privy chambers, but I am not capable of joy tonight.

  I am proven right: her husband alone can calm my sister. Not until this moment did I truly believe he loved her, yet for all his domination of her, there can be no other explanation. Perchance his love is similar to Welles’ love for me—sprung out of necessity and many years of companionship—although her own affection was kindled before they were wed. Regardless, the scene offers me a peculiar glimpse of humanity, vulnerable, raw humanity that I did not expect to ever find in the remote Lancastrian ruler.

  Two years ago, Tudor had three healthy sons. Now he has one, a single thread upon which his dynasty’s future hangs, and his paranoia grows by the day after Arthur’s death. Before his eldest has even been buried properly, he issues a tangle of new arrests: William Courtenay, Young Dorset, Exeter, and Will de la Pole, who is Suffolk’s younger brother.

  Kate catches me just as I am about to seek her out. She is flushed pink, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Have you been crying, Sister?’ I ask, stunned. ‘I did not think you cared for your husband in such earnest ways—’

  ‘Never mind him! He’ll manage. But what if the King pursues me? I swear he has gone mad!’

  ‘Hush!’ How queer, that I should be the one to caution against slandering Tudor, considering my own record of doing just that.

  Kate finally manages to stop flitting around like a trapped bird. ‘Remember I told you Billie supped with Suffolk once this last summer? The others did, too, the other men that were arrested, and…’

  ‘And now Tudor think them to be conspiring against him,’ I finish for her. ‘Are they?’

  ‘How would I know? Billie can be so wondrously impulsive!’

  I pull her with me to sit on a velvet-clad pallet. At twenty-one, she looks almost identical to the little girl who used to wail and rage and giggle without any consideration for our mother or our nursemaids. However, this time she is not in a fit over a toy or a scolding. This time, the blood-soaked block on the Tower Green is surely as foremost in her mind as it is in mine.

  ‘Bless them all if they have put themselves in this quagmire for the sake of the White Rose. As much as I regret it, Suffolk stands little chance. You know that, don’t you, Kate?’

  She nods zealously.

  ‘I think Tudor knows it, too, but he wants to root out every Yorkist, however small a threat they pose. Lord only knows how many more men he means to seize.’

  ‘There is more.’ Kate’s eyes have returned to their usual colour and contain a flicker of the delight that she takes in knowing more than others for once, a kind of delight I am familiar with myself. ‘A man named James Tyrell has been in the Tower awhile now. Tortured, I’m sure! The King had him fetched from Calais because he, too, had been corresponding with Suffolk.’

  I frown. ‘So? I do not recognise his name.’

  ‘Does not matter, Cece, what matters is what I’ve heard. Rumour has it…’ She makes a deliberate pause. ‘Rumour has it he confessed to more than he was charged with. He confessed to murdering the princes.’

  ‘What princes?’

  ‘Our princes.’

  The magnitude of Kate’s words dawn on me slowly, so slowly that it hurts all the more. On the few-and-far-between occasions she mentions our angel brothers, she simply refers to them as ‘the princes’. Like Bridget, Kate was too young when they were taken away to remember much if anything. To her, they can be naught but hazy figures, faraway phantoms of tragedy.

  I grapple for words. My tongue is unwieldy in my mouth, my throat dry like caked mud.

  ‘Cece?’

  ‘What says this man…Tyrell?’ I manage at last.

  ‘I know not. The trial is less than a fortnight away, though. I bet we will find out then.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we will.’

  The paranoia continues. On the last day of April, two common Londoners have their ears slashed off for daring to speak ill of the Pretend-King and his council.

  Two days later, on a Monday heavy with rain that never falls, the show-trial of Tyrell and three of his associates takes place in London’s Guildhall.

  Thomas insists on going with me. I do not mind the scandal of it, fearing I will bite off my own tongue unless I have a warm hand to clutch. Naturally, the sight of the Queen’s sister and the man whispered to be her immoral paramour raises eyebrows, but it is not we who are the main attraction, not in this spectacle.

  James Tyrell is a robust man, thick as a tree trunk and equally coarse by the look of his weathered skin. His tawny beard is the colour of withered grass; his broad nose blends into the rest of his face without distinction. His legs are close to failing him, and one arm is lodged in an improbable angle: traces of torture, perhaps the rack.

  I believe…I believe I do know this man. I saw him a few times in the company of Uncle Richard, especially at Nottingham Castle, a trusted servant if I remember correctly, knighted by my father on the battlefield after Tewkesbury. Though his own father was Lancastrian to the bone, Tyrell was a loyal Yorkist until Tudor took the throne and coerced the man into his service—up till now. Could he have murdered my brothers? Buckingham would likely have had access to him…

  The trial commences. I listen with half an ear as the jurors read up the charge of treason and the intelligence gathered by Tudor’s network of spies, facts proving Tyrell did lend support to Suffolk in Calais. As the trial draws to a close, I snap out of my trance.

  ‘Do you stand by your confession regarding the sons of the late King Edward IV?’ one of the jurors says.

  Tyrell meets the other man’s inquisitive gaze without blinking. ‘I made no such confession. I did not lay hand on the wretched princes. This I swear on the Bible.’

  To my astonishment, the jury does not press Tyrell in this matter, does not even ask him to take the oath he offered. I cannot hear what they whisper among themselves, but there seems to be a revelation of sorts, and this particular charge is dropped flat, as if it had never been spoken.

  I turn to Thomas. ‘Why do they let it go so readily?’

  He squeezes my hand. ‘No doubt they remembered how it would wretch the King if they condemned Tyrell for the murders.’

  ‘I thought Tudor was only too eager to lay the blame on my uncle’s trusted knight.’ I cannot disguise the bitterness in my tone.

  ‘Maybe he is. But you forget, that man has been in Tudor’s service these past sixteen years. How would it look if a sovereign had favoured the perpetrator of the crime of the century?’

  I shake my head in disbelief. Before I have time to reply, the jury pronounces their sentence.

  ‘Sir James Tyrell, you have been found guilty of foul treason by means of aiding the exiled rebel Edmund de la Pole. You are to face a traitor’s death four days hence. The law has condemned you to be hanged by the neck, taken down alive, disembowelled, have your private parts removed and
burned, beheaded by means of axe, and quartered, according to the pleasure of His most august Grace King Henry VII.’

  Tyrell emits a choked sound from the base of his throat. Finally, his stretched and tortured legs give way. He cannot have expected any other outcome, yet the death sentence appears to weigh on his shoulders like a yoke of led, and he has to be dragged from the Guildhall back to his cell.

  When I ask Kate where she heard the rumours of Tyrell’s confession, she merely crinkles her nose and says: ‘A young lawyer said something about it. Thomas More, I think his name was. Smelled like rotten fish.’

  Fortunately for Tyrell, Tudor shows a twinkle of lenience and allows his prisoner to be beheaded rather than face the traitor’s death allotted him. Tyrell makes no last speech, and I do not think I shall ever find out the truth.

  Perhaps he was indeed the man the toad Buckingham tasked with the filthy deed. Perhaps he made a false confession when pained by the rack cracking his bones. Or mayhap this was all a fabrication of the lawyer Thomas More’s mind.

  Honestly, it matters little to me.

  Chapter XXIX

  PRINCE ARTHUR WAS buried in Worcester Cathedral on Saint George’s day, late in April. The choice puzzled me before I remembered that Tudor likely wishes to downplay the disaster, insecure on his throne as he still is. When I dress in my mourning garb every morn, I cannot help but wonder how many days I have spent in black these past twenty years.

  Mother once said the death of Edward of Middleham was divine retribution for her own boys. Naught has yet convinced me that this was the case, on the contrary, but I wonder if not Arthur’s passing so shortly after his marriage was retribution for the three young men who met their maker on Tudor’s command to pave the way for said marriage.

  What I do know now, though, is that John of Gloucester’s death can only have been Tudor’s personal decision, a bonus execution for the sake of retaliation. Father’s son by a mistress has been called to court and installed as Elizabeth’s cupbearer. He lacks all ambition, true, but his bloodline is no sketchier than Gloucester’s was, yet he does not suffer for it.