Fitzwilliam’s lips formed a flat line, and Margaret realized that was his form of a grin. “Innocent of what?” he asked.
“I am quite sure that I do not know,” Margaret snapped, her anger increasing her courage. “I attempted to gain information regarding my son’s incarceration for several fortnights before being removed from London. Never did I receive an answer.”
Her interrogator’s face did not move. “Your oldest son, Lord Montague,” he continued after examining her until she could not help shifting in discomfort. “He is in contact with his brother.”
He looked down at the scroll before him, as if looking for an answer, “Cardinal Pole.”
“Cardinal Pole is my son,” she agreed.
“And when did you last hear from him?” Fitzwilliam asked in a voice that insinuated that the answer was not all that important to him.
Margaret knew that it was vital. “You would do better to refer that question to the king. His council oversees all correspondence with the cardinal. I am certain that their records are more accurate than an old woman’s memory.”
His eye twitched. “Was your son betrothed to the Lady Mary?”
“Which son?” she asked innocently. “I do not have one available for marriage.”
That flat grimace of a smile appeared again. “The cardinal is not yet a priest if I am not mistaken,” he corrected her.
“It is but a foregone conclusion,” she lied, her eyes on her lap. When she looked up again, victory was in Fitzwilliam’s eyes. Margaret pressed her lips together. He would not goad her into saying too much. She looked out a nearby window as if she were unconcerned and bored with the conversation.
“Montague, too, has been questioned,” Fitzwilliam stated and then waited for her to take the bait. She did not. “Was he in the habit of having secret meetings with the earl of Exeter?”
“You mean his cousin, Henry?” Margaret asked in a tone that expressed doubt in his intelligence. “Of course he had conversations with him, though they were not any more secret than any other gathering of family.”
“That is not entirely true is it?”
“Which part?” Margaret asked in a pleasant voice. “They are cousins. My cousin, Catherine of York….”
“That is enough,” Fitzwilliam cut her off. His voice remained flat and the lack of consternation only made him more frightening.
The questions continued as the sun disappeared and Margaret’s stomach grumbled audibly. Fitzwilliam seemed to neither tire nor require refreshment. The room cooled, but he did not order a fire. The cold sent pain shooting into Margaret’s joints, but she refused to admit her discomfort to this scarily emotionless gaoler.
When he finally began gathering his things to leave, she became desperate for information that she knew he would not give her. What could she ask of this man who had so nonchalantly informed her of Geoffrey’s suicide attempt? “Was that true?” she asked before realizing that she had spoken out loud.
His muddy brown eyes slowly shifted to her. He made no other sign that he had heard her or understood the question until he responded, “That was after his first interrogation.” He stood and made his way to the door. Turning a last time, he added, “To my knowledge, he has been questioned several times since then. No need to even use the rack on that one. The threat of it is enough.”
Margaret watched the door shut behind him, no longer feeling any pride in her ability to evade his questions. Her entire family, everyone she loved, was at the mercy of King Henry and vulnerable to whatever testimony Geoffrey could be convinced to give. She had complete confidence that Montague could manage his inquisitors at least as capably as she had . . . but Geoffrey? Had he seen death as the only escape that could keep him from causing the downfall of his family?
Frustration built in her and she stood to pace with nervous energy. Spinning the rings on her fingers and scanning the room for anything that may provide help, she prayed for a way to stop the worst from happening. The view through the window continued to mock her with tranquil skies and the beautiful autumn setting.
Her movement stopped as she stared out at the beauty of God’s creation. She stood and willed herself to pray and for God to listen. Nothing changed. It was too much. She collapsed to the cold stone floor and wept.
December 1538
A fortnight under house arrest was sufficient time for Margaret to realize how much she had taken for granted before that fateful day when her world had fallen apart. She missed her granddaughters who had served as her ladies-in-waiting. Her worry for them and all of her extended family ate at her continuously and as effectively as a cancerous growth. Margaret had grown thin and looked every one of her sixty-five years as she took up her post at a window that looked out upon the road approaching the castle and watched the seasons change.
Without a doting family to encourage her well-being, she took little care for her meals. Though her dress remained immaculate, each piece hung loose. She continued to pray to the God who had thus far abandoned them to the devil’s demon and hoped that he might use her family to bring him glory. Margaret wondered how her family endured within the Tower. Were they fed and kept in rooms according to their rank and position or had they been tossed into a dank cell as Geoffrey had been?
Had they been tortured?
It had been unbearable to be ignorant of Geoffrey’s fate. She had no idea how to cope with hearing nothing of her entire family.
The trees outside had lost their colorful foliage, leaving dormant branches stretching brown claws toward the sky. The sea was bleak with icy foam topping the waves. Margaret wished they could wash over her and end her suffering. Was she really any better than Geoffrey who had attempted to end his own? Her poor child. He was simply not equipped with the strength for the situation he had been placed in. Of course, that is why the king had placed him there.
Margaret sighed heavily wishing there was some useful way for her to pass these interminable days. Then a movement in the trees caught her eye. She squinted and cursed her failing sight. After a moment, she shook her head and mumbled about her hopeful imagination when it happened again. She could not pinpoint the movement or identify its source, but her prayers became more fervent that something, anything was going to happen.
Her prayers seemed to go unanswered for the remainder of the day, and she had almost forgotten about the mysterious sight when a sound at her door startled her out of her doze. She had been secured in her room for the night, and the quiet sound reminded her of the nighttime adventure to visit Queen Catherine. Her heart was ready to burst with hope when John Hussey slipped into the room.
The smile that lit her face was filled with wonder. “How did you come to be here?” she exclaimed.
“You know me better than that,” Hussey said casually as though he secretly entered noblewomen’s bedchambers on a regular basis. He bowed low to her in reverence and gave her the opportunity to cover herself with a nearby cloak.
“Your presence is an unexpected blessing,” she said, still praying that she was not dreaming.
Hussey’s voice clouded as he spoke, “I pray that you will welcome me as warmly after you have heard the message I bear.”
Margaret swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “Anything is better than not knowing. Tell me.”
She had risen from her bed with the cloak wrapped tightly around her for warmth and propriety. They stood facing each other, and Hussey inclined his head once to indicate that he would do her will though his frown expressed that he did not relish the role he was in.
“A trial has been held,” he said, then stopped to clear his throat and gather his strength.
“Who was on trial?” Margaret prompted impatiently.
“Several men have been tried in rapid succession, most notably among them Montague, Exeter, and Edward Neville.”
Margaret blinked to dry her eyes. Did Hussey believe by saying Montague rather than Henry that Margaret would fail to render up an image of him as a sun-kissed littl
e boy? And Exeter, dear Henry Courtenay. A trial was for show only. The king’s will would be done.
“The charges?”
Hussey seemed surprised by the question. “My dear Margaret,” he said, addressing her more intimately than he had in their long years of friendship. “High treason.”
Her hands tightened into fists and she closed her eyes. Let it all be a dream, she prayed. Hoping that Hussey would not be there, she opened them to see his face stamped in grief. She released the breath that she had been holding.
“Geoffrey?”
“Will not be tried,” Hussey said crisply.
Rather than being thankful, Margaret was confused. Hussey seemed unwilling to say more without being prompted. “Why?” she demanded.
Hussey coughed and patted his doublet as though he searched for an answer more pleasing than the one he had on hand. Giving up the quest under Margaret’s anxious glare, he wilted and admitted, “Because he has given evidence against the others.”
The confusion cleared from Margaret’s face as storm clouds are chased away by sun, but it revealed something she did not want to see. “Against his brother,” she whispered.
“I am so sorry, my lady,” Hussey’s voice was a low grumble, heavy with sorrow for this lady he had grown to admire.
He reached a hand out to comfort her but pulled it back, remembering that she was in her bedclothes. She did not see his effort because her face was buried in her hands. Every time she thought she could bear no more, trials were heaped upon her. Without uncovering her face, she blindly made her way to the bed and sat down heavily, sobs wracking her body.
“How could it have come to this?” she cried. “Brother giving testimony against brother, and I am here.” She removed her hands from her tear-streaked face to indicate the stark room so far from her sons and so empty of hope.
Hussey allowed her a few moments to weep. He turned away and fixed his gaze upon the hearth that should have held a warm fire on this chilly night, but Margaret’s gaolers had left it dark. When the sounds of sniffling quieted behind him, he turned back toward her.
“Forgive me, my dear lady,” he began quietly. “But I have more that I must share with you.”
Margaret shook her head vehemently. “No, please. I cannot.”
He looked as if he were considering it. Just leave it at that. It was enough.
“I am sorry, Margaret,” he said as one who knows he is about to break another’s heart. “The sentence has been carried out.”
Hussey was able to pinpoint the precise instant when the truth of his statement had been processed by Margaret’s sharp mind. Her reddened eyes widened, the brows raising as if they would cry out of their own accord, and her jaw dropped in a most unladylike fashion. Then her face collapsed into uncontrollable pain as she realized that her firstborn son had been executed by his own cousin.
“His ways are not our ways . . . He leads us to green pastures . . . He prepares a place for us . . .” Margaret was muttering in an effort to soothe her own excruciating pain.
It took several utterings and fierce concentration for Hussey to discern that she was praying or attempting to recall God’s promises to his children as if needing to convince herself of their truth.
“Let us pray together for the soul of your son,” he said, holding out a hand to her.
As Margaret raised her own, it shook with tremors that she could not control. It felt as cold within Hussey’s warm grasp as her son’s hand must now feel in death, but he did not cringe or give away his thought. He smiled encouragingly at her and pulled her from the edge of the bed toward her small altar. Giving her the time she needed to collect herself and her thoughts, he then helped her to her knees before joining her in appealing to the almighty for comfort and mercy.
~~~~
The next morning dawned cold as the weight that sat firmly upon Margaret’s heart. She and Hussey had exchanged few words after their time in prayer. Were it not for the heartache reminding her of the night’s events, she would tell herself that it was not true.
A hand to her puffy eyes and cracked lips found further evidence that her nightmare was indeed reality. She pulled the bedcovers over her head and determined never to rise again. Within the warm dark, Margaret recollected the remainder of harsh news that Hussey had imparted before he was forced to leave with the rising of the sun.
Sir Edward Neville, Hugh Holland, and others less known to her had also met their fate while she had sat senseless at Warblington. Not for the first time, she was struck by the fact that so much life had been brought to an end without any portent brought to her notice. How had her firstborn died without so much as an omen or skipped heartbeat on her part?
The darkness provided her with no answers.
Margaret wondered what the scene had looked like as Henry and his Courtenay cousin went to their deaths together. Hussey had admitted only to the expected story of good death, well said prayers, and quick slicing off of their heads. She pondered whether that was truly the case.
Had her son cried as he was forced to leave this world as he had when he fell and scraped his knee when he was small? Did the two of them bear each other up and encourage manliness in one another? She prayed that the executioner had been skilled if he must be employed at all.
Did the crowd cheer as her child’s head was sundered from the body that had been created within her womb?
The air had grown stale and her thoughts morbid, so she thrust the coverings back while making no move to rise from bed. She gulped in cool, fresh air, then felt guilty for doing so when her child could not. Could she ever take joy from this life again?
She had no company or distraction to make the grief bearable as she could do nothing but wait for more bad tidings to arrive. Hussey had happily assured Margaret that no testimony had been given which incriminated her. She almost wished that it had. Better to know that her own end was approaching than to wait helplessly while her family was butchered.
March 1539
The move from Warblington to Cowdray made little difference to Margaret. She knew that it would make another visit from Hussey impossible if she were held at the residence of Sir Fitzwilliam, but her only concern during this sentence of life surrounded by death was prayer. She had so many dead to pray for.
King Henry was apparently not content with the degree of his extinction of the York families. With Margaret close at hand, Fitzwilliam took it upon himself to interrogate her regularly, taunting her with incomplete tidbits of news regarding her remaining children.
Margaret had obtained expertise in hiding her feelings from him since she rarely experienced them anymore. When he entered her room unannounced, she did not even glance in his direction.
“I thought you would want to know,” he said without greetings. Just enough of a pause let her think that she probably did not want to know. “Your son, Geoffrey, has been released and pardoned.”
At that unexpected announcement, she did look to the dour man. His face held no more expression than it had when he had tauntingly informed her, he thought for the first time, of Henry’s death. A spark of hope dared to brighten within her before he continued.
“He almost immediately attempted suicide once again,” he continued with scorn. “But perhaps Constance will inspire him to be more of a man than he has been thus far.”
Margaret dropped her eyes and allowed her shoulders to sag. She had let him trick her, the greater fool she was thinking that he might take pity on her. He pulled up a chair next to her, not bothered by her clear wish that he would not.
“I would like to speak to you about your other traitorous son,” he said conversationally. When she did not respond, he added, “The whoreson posing as a cardinal has been striving to cause trouble for the prince who so generously raised him up.”
She fumed silently, biting back the retort she would like to make, as he had as yet posed no question.
“Does he yet have your support?”
Margaret almost lau
ghed. After the seasons changing, soon for a third time, since her incarceration, Fitzwilliam must believe her to be a greater schemer than she was. Yet it was a question, so she answered, “It is unfortunate that my son behaves so toward one who has been so good to him.”
She almost had to choke the words out, but any others were not worth the pain they would cause. The king had been sending assassins to target Reginald for years, so there was no point in her offering an empty defense of him that would convict others, including herself.
“Who is helping him?” Fitzwilliam pressed, leaning forward as though he smelled weakness.
Margaret did her best to appear helpless, no more than that. Clueless. “Besides the Holy Father and Mother Church, I know of none who give my child comfort.”
A slight reddening of his cheeks was the only sign of anger that Fitzwilliam unwillingly demonstrated.
“What about you?” he asked vaguely.
“I am a good woman,” she stated firmly. “And have given no offense to my cousin the king.”
The slight twitch of his lips was the closest thing to a smile that Margaret had seen on Fitzwilliam’s face. He stood, wishing to waste no more of his time on this this aged woman’s clever answers.
“If you could,” Margaret surprised him by saying. “This room is rather cold. Could you see a fire made? Also, my dinner was quite unsatisfactory. I would like some roasted partridge to help balance my humors, and surely you have a higher quality wine on hand than that which I have been served.”
Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows raised just a fraction of an inch before he bowed and left without responding to her requests.
He would not be an easy target, Margaret knew, but with steady pressure she would see herself removed from this house. She had begun making her requests to the servants and then to Fitzwilliam’s wife when she had come to see what the fuss was about. In Margaret’s unique position as a countess and cousin of the king but also a prisoner, her keepers were obligated to do what they could to see her wishes fulfilled, so she made them plentiful.
Faithful Traitor: The Story of Margaret Pole (Plantagenet Embers Book 2) Page 28