Royal Mistress

by Anne Easter Smith

  Jane turned in his arms, sensing this was exactly the right moment. After all those years with Edward, the nights she shared with Will, and the lusty couplings with Tom, she had never conceived. Had God forgiven her her sins that He had waited for her to be married before quickening her womb? She and Thomas had been wed for only two months and yet she had already conceived. “I have something to tell you, Master Lyneham,” she said, with a radiant smile. “God has finally looked on me kindly, my dear, and I believe we are going to have a child.”

  As if she were that child, Thomas lifted his wife into the air, his grin wide and his eyes shining with pride. “Thank God,” he said, happily, “our prayers have been answered.”

  March was mild that first year of Richard’s reign, and Jane was delighted to find her garden was well planted with daffodils, the flower she always associated with spring. Despite a mild dose of sickness every morning, Jane was reveling in her pregnant state. She checked each day in her polished copper mirror to see if her condition was noticeable. Ankarette laughed at her, saying, “It will grow, mistress, never fear, and then you will wish you looked thin again.”

  Jane was seated on a stone bench, enjoying the sunshine and listening to the birds that morning when Isabel Thomson, the nurse Thomas had hired to help when the baby arrived, hurried down the path toward her.

  “His lordship, the earl of Surrey is here, mistress,” Isabel announced. “I told him the master was not at home, but he wishes to see you.”

  Thomas Howard here? Jane thought quickly, and a tiny flicker of fear prickled up her neck. Her husband had gone to Essex on legal business for the king, and most of the lords and their retinues who had crowded the city during Parliament had returned to their estates. What could Lord Howard want with her? She had not seen him since her penance.

  “Go and fetch him here,” Jane ordered her servant. She was damned if she would run back to the house to greet him; he could come to her, she decided. She got up, brushed the earth from her skirts, and put up her hand to make sure her straw hat was concealing her hair. She knew she must look like a peasant in that and the plain woolen dress laced in front, but she enjoyed the freedom from formality they gave her. Besides, the Lynehams did not have many visitors other than her mother and Sophie.

  She watched Thomas stride down the path, looking more like his father than ever, she thought. He and his wife had been kind to her whenever she had been at court with Edward, and she would always be grateful to them. As he approached, she smiled and went toward him.

  “God’s greeting to you, my lord,” she said cordially. “ ’Tis a fine day you have chosen to visit me, or is it my husband you wish to see? He is not in the city at present.”

  Thomas bowed over Jane’s outstretched hand. Even in her rustic garb she was still eye-catching, he thought, and she had filled out a little, which suited her, he decided. “My dear Mistress Jane. First of all, may I congratulate you on your marriage. Thomas is a good man. However, I must confess, he took the council—all except the king—by surprise when he told us. Thomas must somehow have won his grace over, for Richard took the news with equanimity. It was a pleasant diversion from the usual council business, in truth.”

  Jane had not been informed of the king’s reaction to her marriage, only that Richard had decided to keep Thomas in his post. “Is that so. I am not out and about much anymore, preferring to enjoy my peace and quiet here, so I was unaware Thomas and I were the subject of tittle-tattle at the council.” She saw his eyebrow lift and realized she might have offended the earl, but her newly married state had made her even bolder, and she hurried on. “I do hope you and your wife are keeping well. And your father, the duke, is he in good health?”

  “Indeed we are all well,” the earl acknowledged.

  She sat down and invited Howard to join her. “What can I do for you, my lord?”

  “Still as frank as ever I see, Jane,” the younger Howard said, smiling. “I am not here to see your husband. In fact, I made sure he would not be at home. I am aware my duty to you might now be a little delicate, but you did put this into my keeping, do you remember?”

  Jane watched, curious, as Thomas swung the pouch on his belt into his lap, undid the strings, and brought out the exquisite book of hours that Will had given her the evening before his death.

  Jane’s hand trembled as she took the book from him, and she ran her fingers over the embossed leather. She had not hoped to ever see the volume again. “Dear Will,” she said, fighting back tears, and looked up at the compassionate face of her visitor. “He did not deserve to die.”

  Thomas carefully drew circles in the dirt with his foot while he weighed his words. “I may believe that, too, Jane, but promise me you did not hear it from my lips. Despite the good statutes the king has legislated in the recent Parliament, and despite the mercy he showed many of the rebels in November, Richard is troubled, and I do not think he sleeps well. My father can see no wrong in Richard, but I, and others, fear his reign may be short-lived. Henry Tudor has tried once to invade, and he is always on our minds, always hovering like a bird of prey on the other side of the Channel. ’Tis why Richard has removed the court to Nottingham. ’Tis more central for mustering an army and dealing with an invasion, wherever it may come.”

  Jane wrapped the book back up in its velvet protection and placed it on the seat. “You think an invasion is inevitable, my lord Surrey? Should we be worried?”

  “King Richard is the finest soldier I know, Jane. Aye, Tudor has his Lancastrian followers, but he cannot command the sort of loyalty that Richard does. Henry has spent so little time in England, and he is an unknown. Even Queen Elizabeth has come to terms with Richard as king. She must believe he has her and her daughters’ welfare in his sights or she would not have left sanctuary.”

  Jane gasped. “She has left the abbey? Does this mean she knows her sons are safe?”

  Thomas was thoughtful. “They are either safely abroad and she knows it, or they are dead and she knows it. I would wager my new manor that the king is no murderer, and that he has hidden the boys in the north somewhere. Otherwise why would Dame Grey entrust herself and her girls to him?”

  “Elizabeth is a canny one, as I know well. Dorset thought they were dead,” Jane mused and could have kicked herself for bringing him up. It would remind Howard that she had lain with one of the rebel leaders, and she wanted him to forget who she had been. She decided to bring the meeting to a close and jumped up from her seat. “How ill-mannered of me. May I offer you some refreshment, my lord?”

  Thomas looked surprised at the abrupt close to the conversation, but upon seeing Jane’s enquiring smile, he unwittingly fulfilled her goal of seeing him gone. “Nay, thank you all the same. I must return to my father’s house at Stepney.” He took both of Jane’s hands and looked down at her. “I trust you are content now, Jane? I worried about you greatly last summer, you know.”

  “You are very kind. I cannot deny they were the worst three months of my life. However, may I reassure you of my happiness at present, my lord?” She confided, coyly, “You see, ’tis with great joy that I tell you I am at last with child.”

  “Then I must believe the child will be most fortunate in his mother,” Thomas responded with a sincerity that touched Jane.

  When he had taken his leave, Jane sat back down on the bench and picked up her precious gift from Will. “If you are watching from heaven, I pray you are contented for me now, dear friend. This beautiful book will remind me of you every day and remain with me always.”

  Richard could see the reeds clearly on the riverbed of the Cam wafting in the gentle current. Over his and Anne’s head, in the delicate branches of a newly leafed-out willow, a thrush sent out its distinctive warble as if to proclaim this cloudless April day perfectly carefree. Richard thanked God for this respite among the scholarly surrounds of Cambridge, secluded as it was in the fenlands of East Anglia. He was in another world here, he thought, far from the grind of governing, and wished h
e could be one of the students or tutors hurrying from one temple of learning to another. He and Anne had already decided to bestow gifts upon the university in the form of endowments for the building of Queen’s College and the resumption of work on the King’s College chapel, begun by Edward’s predecessor, Henry the Sixth. When Richard learned that Edward had neglected this worthwhile project, he was determined to have the exquisite church finished and had already released the funds from his treasury.

  He sat across the river from it now, watching the masons clambering up ladders and along the precarious scaffolding as nimbly as mariners negotiating the rigging on a caravel. He could hear the tapping of metal on stone and the calls of the overseer below warning of danger or shouting commands. It fascinated him how precisely each stone fit upon the next with only a plumb line and the keen eye of the head mason. It pleased him that this building would be used for the glory of God, and his name would always be associated with it.

  The tranquility of the scene helped him forget the cold response he had received from Elizabeth to his message that she could be assured her boys were safe and that he would ensure her girls were taken care of if they exited the abbey. He grimaced. It was a lie he had told her, and he had confessed it to his chaplain, albeit without revealing the truth beneath the lie. He was certain to burn in hell, but his crown was held on by so slender a thread that knowledge of Buckingham’s crime would break it in an instant. He would lose his Yorkist throne to Tudor, there was no doubt; he had to remain silent.

  “What are you brooding on, Richard? That is one of your serious looks,” Anne said, drowsily. She had given up reading about the exploits of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and had closed her eyes for a spell, her mind drifting home to Middleham and wishing little Ned were with them now in this peaceful place. “Can you not put governing from your mind for an hour, my love? This is a day for resting and rejoicing in God’s beauty, not for pondering the next foray into France or worrying about an invasion.”

  Richard turned his head and smiled down at his wife, comfortably settled among her cushions. “It may surprise you to know I was only thinking about the miracle masons are working upon that chapel.” He bent down and brushed her lips with his. “You look very beautiful lying there, you know. If there were not so many people walking past, I might seriously think about seducing you,” he teased.

  “Out here, on the grass and in broad daylight? Surely you jest, husband,” Anne chided him. “Lovemaking is for the bedroom, Mother always said.”

  “Aye, I expect she did,” he replied idly, and gazing back at the river he suddenly remembered the day when Kate had conceived their son, John, in the crystal clear waters of a river not far from here, and he had to stop himself from laughing. While he and Kate were frolicking in the river, his horse had wandered off and was rescued by a gruff peasant, who had presented it to the naked couple as they lay exhausted on the grassy bank. Richard had been mortified, but the peasant had merely complimented Richard on his lady and gone away chuckling.

  With a jolt, Richard realized Anne was awaiting a response. “You are right, my lady. This is not the place for our intimacy; I should not have suggested it.”

  Too soon they had to resume their journey, and late April saw Richard and Anne settled in the castle built high upon a promontory at Nottingham with a commanding view of the country to the south and west. Richard gathered his closest advisors and planned a strategy for the summer months, when it was assumed Tudor would attempt another invasion. The Scots were again threatening the northern border, and the English navy was constantly under attack by marauding French ships in the Channel, no thanks to Edward’s failed policies in the last months of his life.

  One evening in the royal apartments in the middle bailey, after Anne’s ladies had readied her for bed and Richard was bidding his daughter a good night, they heard a commotion in the courtyard. By the light of the flambeaux outside, Richard was just able to discern a rider gesticulating to the grooms and guards who had greeted him in front of the building. The king frowned but hoped his steward would see to the man’s mission, for he was tired. Removing his bed robe, he joined Anne in the downy royal bed, and drew her to him. Enjoying a tender kiss in the light of the one remaining candle, Richard wished his wife pleasant dreams.

  Suddenly, their solace was interrupted by a sharp rap at the door. Richard sat up and called, “Who is there?”

  “ ’Tis I, your grace. Francis.” Lovell’s urgency roused Richard from the bed, and in a few strides, he was flinging wide the door, surprising the guard who stood ready to open it upon permission from the king. Richard did not recognize the young squire standing with Francis, but the muddied white boar badge and his wide, frightened eyes made Richard’s stomach contract.

  “Who are you, sir, and was it you I saw arriving just now? Has there been an invasion?”

  “Nay, your grace,” the messenger faltered.

  Anne sat up abruptly. “Is something amiss?”

  Observing the curiosity of the guard, Richard motioned for the messenger and Francis to enter and then slammed the door in the guard’s face. The squire went on one knee, proffering Richard a letter.

  “I-I am come f-from Middleham, your grace,” he stammered, astonished to find himself in the king’s bedchamber.

  “Middleham?” Anne gasped, pulling on her bed robe and getting out of bed. “Is there something wrong with my son?”

  Richard ripped through the seal of the letter, read the few lines scrawled by his steward, and with a great groan, fell to his knees.

  “Oh God, what have we done to deserve this?” he cried in disbelief, and he reached back for Anne, who went down on the floor with him. “My dearest wife, brace yourself. Our little Ned . . . Ned is gone. He took ill of a fever a few days ago, and nothing the physicians did could cool the heat in his blood. He is dead, Anne, our son is dead!” Taking the swooning Anne into his arms, he rocked her from side to side, tears coursing onto her limp, trembling body. He nodded to Francis, who wisely hurried the messenger from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  The bereaved parents clung to each other, and hardened soldier as he was Richard could not have imagined such acute pain; it pierced him like a broadsword to the heart. Images of his beautiful little son filled his mind: his cheerful smile, unruly hair, blue eyes, and rather fragile arms and legs. He stroked his wife’s glossy light brown hair and entreated her to be brave. Anne was staring at a point beyond him as if in a trance and her lips moved but no words emerged. Then it seemed to him that as the news sank in, so did her body, sagging like a lead weight onto his lap, her silence frightening.

  “My love, I pray you look at me,” he pleaded, unable to stem his own tears and turning her gently. “Let us share this grief together. I cannot bear the torment of this awful news alone. Say something, Anne, I beg of you.”

  His anguish roused Anne, and she brought her gaze back into focus and looked up at him pitifully. Gently, she wiped his tears with her fingers and whispered her son’s name. “Ned, my little sweetheart, my little poppet, why was I not there to save you?” And then her grief came, and she buried her head in Richard’s chest.

  “God have mercy on his innocent soul,” Richard lamented over her head, “for He has no mercy on us.”

  When the news reached London, church bells tolled all day and priests and townspeople alike sent up prayers for young Prince Edward’s soul, so suddenly taken. But there were some who wondered if God had forsaken the new king; perhaps the rumor was true that he had done away with his nephews, and a wrathful God was seeking vengeance.

  In the seclusion of their solar, Jane and Thomas mulled over the information, each with their own thoughts about the king’s loss. Thomas had known the little boy during his first years with Richard at Middleham, and had admired the dedication of both parents to keeping the boy with them as much as possible. Sons and daughters of nobles were often sent from home at an early age; boys to learn Latin, French, the chivalric co
de, and how to become an independent man; and girls to learn how to sing, dance, read, and write, sew and run a household, and to become an accomplished marriage partner.

  Queen Anne had been reluctant to let her son leave her side; she had miscarried several times, and the little boy would most likely be her only child. Richard had indulged her, mainly due to the boy’s frail health; he was only nine and would grow strong and learn to be a man in time, Richard assured his wife. It had never failed to impress Thomas Lyneham that Richard devoted hours in a day to knowing both his sons: John of Gloucester, as his bastard was called, was a fine boy and beloved of his father, and perhaps because John did not have a mother to love him at Middleham, Richard gave him special attention. As soon as young Katherine had been old enough to leave her mother, she had been placed with Richard’s sister, the duchess of Suffolk, and now she was lady-in-waiting to the queen. No doubt Richard would arrange a fine marriage for his beautiful daughter. But the loss of his only legitimate child and heir to the throne was different, Thomas knew, and Richard must be devastated.

  Jane was lying in the crook of his arm with her own ruminations on the prince’s death. Jane had no love for Richard, with good reason. He had singled her out to represent everything he had abhorred about his brother’s court, and she had paid mightily. But her own penance aside, she had not found it in her heart to forgive Richard for killing Will Hastings, and for whatever had been his role in the disappearance of those two boys in the Tower. It was as though the world had forgotten them, she thought, sadly. The most difficult aspect of her marriage to Thomas was that he was so devoted to the king. She tried to close her ears to her husband’s praise of Richard. She did not want to hear that he was in any way a good man, because she did not want to believe it.