First of the Tudors

by Joanna Hickson

  There was a slight smudge on the last words, which I assumed to have been made by his lips. I pressed the paper to mine, tasting ink and persuading myself it held the flavour of Jasper. I had found the letter earlier in the day pushed into a crack in the retaining wall of the moat. It was only a matter of casually leaning over the parapet to look at the fish kept there ready for the kitchen and slipping my hand in, hidden by the folds of my skirt. That was how I knew that an undercover Lancastrian agent either worked in the castle or made frequent visits but I had no idea who it might be. The location of the secret cache had been delivered to me anonymously in a note slipped into a pile of Harri’s clean laundry, which I alone handled.

  This letter was only the sixth I had received in as many years since coming to Raglan and I had read each a dozen times before forcing myself to destroy them. Apart from my two little girls they were now the only link between Jasper and me, and with each letter I felt our relationship hanging by an ever-weaker thread but this latest letter and the possibility of a reunion had drawn all my feelings for him back to the surface.

  At that moment, lying on the lumpy straw mattress of my truckle bed, I would have given anything to feel his arms around me and to surrender to the soaring sensations that his kisses and caresses had always inspired. In my distress I almost imagined that he was there with me, wiping the tears away and coaxing me into the healing release of mutual passion. I flung myself onto the pillow to stifle my sudden sobs. If I am honest it had always been his ability to stir my blood to fever heat that had nourished our union and fed my love for him. I missed him physically, emotionally and in every way – hardly feelings of a kind I could share with the children or admit to my Yorkist hosts. Swamped with loneliness, I cried out my pain and frustration in smothered anguish. Then I forced myself to hold the crumpled letter to the taper-flame. My latest link with Jasper vanished into ash and smoke, but the faint hope it had inspired would not die.

  31

  Jane

  Raglan Castle

  HARRI WAS PERMITTED TO sit beside his mother at the banquet provided to welcome the Countess of Richmond and her husband Sir Henry Stafford to Raglan. Earlier in the day I had watched their arrival in the new Grand Court, where Harri had lined up with all the Herbert children considered old enough for ceremonial. His impatient shifting from one foot to the other was halted by a frown from Lady Anne while Lord Herbert made a long florid speech of welcome. Then the formality of the introductions: Lord Herbert started with his wife and proceeded down the line; Anne, Maud, Cicely, Walter and then finally Harri.

  Standing at last in front of her son Lady Margaret solemnly studied him from head to toe. They met as strangers and yet the likeness between them was striking; the same delicate build, the same straight aristocratic nose, the same fine features and proud stance and, until Harri made his growth spurt into manhood, almost the same height, for she remained tiny. The only pronounced difference was in the eyes; whereas Lady Margaret’s were a speckled slate grey, his were deep blue and full of curiosity and empathy; eyes that Jasper maintained were, like his own, inherited from his mother Queen Catherine, Harri’s grandmother.

  Harri withstood his mother’s scrutiny for several long moments before suddenly remembering his manners, snatching off his soft cap and dropping to his knee to do her honour. His greeting was whispered and I could not hear the words but they inspired a beaming smile from his mother, which transformed her whole appearance and wiped years off her apparent age. Suddenly I recognized the girl I had attended at Pembroke, the girl who had blossomed as she recovered from her widow’s grief and found the energy and zest to take pleasure once more in the world around her and the new life growing within her. With a joyful laugh she bent to grasp Harri’s upper arms and urge him to rise so that she could embrace him properly. Enfolded in that warm embrace Harri’s bright eyes shone with love, and all at once I saw in him a look I had seen in Jasper’s eyes. It seemed that Lady Margaret still had the ability to pull a Tudor male into her web with a single smile.

  The banquet had been long and formal but I noticed that Harri and Lady Margaret did manage some private conversation between courses, despite the plethora of entertainments provided. The most interesting and controversial of these was a performance by the bard Lewys Glyn Cothi, who had often sung at Pembroke in praise of Lord Jasper but now, like the cunning creature he was, he had crafted a long poem to Lord Herbert in which he hailed him as the new Y Mab Daragon, the Son of Prophecy, though I noticed he did not mention exactly who he would be saving his people from. This change of allegiance puzzled me and certainly, when word of it spread, Lewys’s defection taking Y Mab Daragon with him, would undoubtedly affect Jasper’s power to stir Welsh followers to the Lancastrian cause. Lord Herbert looked proud and pleased with the homage Lewys paid him and no doubt he rewarded the poet with a handsome purse. However, I wondered how welcome the praise-song would sound to Lady Margaret, who must have last heard the legendary title applied by the very same bard to Lord Edmund, the father of her son.

  I was soon to find out. At the end of the banquet the lady herself called me to her side on the dais and informed me that she wished Harri to be moved from the children’s accommodation in the Great Tower into her own chamber off the Grand Stair. ‘Lady Herbert agrees with me that I should enjoy as much of my son’s company as possible for the short period of my stay and that you, who know his daily routine and habits, should place yourself temporarily among my servants as well. I am telling you now so that a bed can be made available for Henry and his belongings moved immediately.’

  I bobbed a curtsy. ‘Yes, my lady. I will see to it.’

  Lady Margaret glanced around before speaking again in a more confidential tone. ‘You are familiar with Welsh traditions, Jane. Do these praise poems carry much weight with the people? Their loyalties seem sadly fickle. I can remember when Lewys Glyn Cothi hailed Lord Edmund as the Son of Prophecy before Henry was born.’

  ‘The title certainly captures people’s imagination, my lady; Y Mab Daragon is a powerful symbol of Welsh pride.’ I dropped my voice to a whisper and my eyes subserviently to the floor. ‘Perhaps we might discuss this when we are among your own people.’

  She raised her head and her voice reverted to noble authority. ‘Yes, well thank you, Mistress Jane. Let me know when you have made the arrangements. I would like to retire with Henry as soon as possible.’

  I hurried away to do her bidding, this new arrangement playing into my schemes, and the sooner I could warn her that the Herberts were not aware who was my children’s real father the better. The custom of wealthy nobility to occupy individual bedchambers, though married, added to the convenience of the arrangement and I would be able to liaise with Lady Margaret as Jasper hoped.

  Sir Henry Stafford cheerfully escorted his wife and Harri to the door of the chamber they would share. He was a good deal older than Lady Margaret and not robust; close up, an angry red rash could be detected behind his full beard. Nevertheless they seemed a fond pair as they exchanged kisses and blessings for the night to come. For Harri to sleep on, I had caused my own small truckle to be placed beside his mother’s velvet-hung tester and procured some finer sheets and covers for it than those I was permitted to use. I had arranged to sleep myself on a palliasse in the separate ante-room allocated to Lady Margaret’s servants, but she instructed me to bring this into her chamber.

  ‘I think it would reassure my son to see a familiar face, should he wake from a nightmare,’ she announced in front of her own attendants, to counter any jealousy that she was favouring a stranger. I hoped it meant that she was making it possible for some private conversation with me.

  With maternal thoroughness she observed Harri’s bedtime routine and listened particularly intently to his prayers, smiling with satisfaction when he included one for the soul of his dead father. When the tired boy had fallen deeply asleep she settled herself, silk skirts rustling extravagantly, in the high cushioned armchair beside the fire,
which I had stoked to burn brightly and ward off the autumn chill. A footstool lay nearby and she gestured me to sit on it. I felt a little like a lowly handmaiden sinking down before a queen.

  ‘At last I have an opportunity to thank you, Jane, for your admirable care of Henry and, most especially, for your remarkable loyalty in remaining at his side for so long. As you can imagine the enforced separation from my son has been extremely painful for me but that pain has been somewhat eased by the knowledge that he has been able to rely on you for his comfort and security. I will not forget that.’

  I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘Harri has never for one second failed to regard and honour you as his true and loving mother, my lady.’

  Lady Margaret favoured me with one of her winning smiles and made an affable gesture. ‘Yet it must be admitted that Lady Herbert is an intelligent and gracious lady; indeed your letters telling me of her treatment of my son, and his Oxford-trained tutors and priestly confessor, gave me much needed reassurance, Jane.’

  ‘I must tell you though, my lady, that it has been necessary for me to conceal the true identity of my children’s father from the Herberts and beg you not to disclose it.’ Lady Margaret raised a reassuring hand in pledge and I rushed on. ‘In a letter to me Lord Jasper hinted that he had written to you regarding a possible meeting during your visit here. I am sure you will understand that I am eager to know if it is true that I may see him again after all this time.’

  Lady Margaret frowned but then seemed to put her disapproval of me aside and instinctively bent closer. ‘Keeping your secret at least assures me that I can trust you enough to keep mine, Jane, which allows me to tell you that I have established a courier system in order to maintain a correspondence with key Lancastrians who uphold their allegiance to King Henry. Lord Jasper intends to sail into Tenby very soon. In fact he may already be there.’

  My heart began jumping in my breast but I tried not to show it. ‘Is a rendezvous arranged?’ I asked. ‘It may be difficult to leave the castle without an escort. The Herberts are very security conscious.’

  Lady Margaret made a dismissive gesture. ‘That will be no problem. My own escort will serve me and we can lose them when I choose. I have already told Lord Herbert that I wish to make a private pilgrimage to a shrine near here, where Lord Edmund made a vow shortly before he died. You shall accompany me. I will not tell you more until we are on the way there. Lord Jasper will send a note here to confirm his arrival via the usual route.’

  I nodded. ‘I will check the letter drop tomorrow morning. But I believe Lord Herbert has plans for your further entertainment so I hope there is no clash.’

  Lady Margaret did not seem concerned. ‘Jasper will lay low and wait. He knows I will be kept busy.’

  I was awed by her self-confidence. It was hard to find any trace of the desperate girl I had found on my arrival at Pembroke and nursed through a traumatic childbed.

  The following day Harri was eager to show his mother his skill with arms and she was keen to meet his tutors so I found it easy to slip away to the letter drop in the wall of the moat. The note I found there was brief and enticing.

  ‘The swift has landed.’

  Jasper’s personal emblem was a golden martlet, or swift. Clearly the wandering outlaw had made port and was on his way even now to the pre-arranged meeting place. I ached to know where it was and felt as if, had I known it, I would already be riding at a gallop to meet him.

  Only after I had shown the note to Lady Margaret did I remember having to wait to retrieve it until after someone passing by on the other side of the moat had waved at me. It was the bard, Lewys Glyn Cothi.

  32

  Jasper

  St Aedan’s Church, Bettws Newydd

  I HAD KNELT WHERE my brother had knelt when he made his sacred oath to St Aedan ten years before. Edmund had never confided the gist of his vow but he had not long discovered that Margaret was expecting a child and so I had always assumed it was a prayer for a son, with some sort of promise attached. An heir would secure his Richmond title and estates and it was a bitter circumstance that he never knew the son that was born to him, nor lived to defend the Richmond estates against theft by a usurper king. Ours had been an erratic relationship in our adult years but I nevertheless felt Edmund’s absence acutely. I had welcomed the opportunity to confess deep regret for his passing and to pray for his soul.

  The church was a Christian shrine, dedicated to St Aedan, a travelling preacher who had converted heathen Celts and performed miracles all over South Wales a thousand years ago.

  ‘What kind of miracles?’ Evan had wanted to know. At first he would not enter the little church but had halted further up the hillside on which it nestled in its yard, to look out above the mist, a thin mist that swirled and gave the impression of ghosts rising from the ancient graves.

  I shot the squire an impatient glance. ‘You are more Welsh than I, Evan, you tell me.’

  He shrugged and grinned back. ‘I am probably one of the heathen Celts he missed, my lord. Is this where we are meeting the ladies? What a spooky place!’

  ‘I hope so, if they received my message. We will have to wait and see whether Lewys managed to deliver it. After Lord Edmund came here he told me Bettws Newydd must be the loneliest spot in South Wales. He said that people avoided it like the plague. It was his idea of a joke because the Great Pestilence had wiped out the whole village a hundred years ago. But at least those ghosts you find so spooky should preserve us from prying eyes.’

  ‘Did your brother not die of the plague?’ Evan asked anxiously. ‘He might have caught it here.’

  A hollow laugh escaped me. It was an irony that people believed my brother died of the plague. I did not believe he died of plague at all; he was Black Herbert’s prisoner and was murdered.

  For two days and nights we had waited, sleeping in the bare nave beneath its only ornaments, the large wooden cross and reliquary on the stone altar. A vast semi-circular cope chest sat abandoned in the lean-to vestry, mouldering and too big to move, like the empty houses left behind when the village was abandoned.

  Then in the bright light of the third morning, they came.

  Margaret’s smile caused my heart to perform its accustomed flip and I revelled in the blaze of her fine scarlet gown with its gold clasps and glossy fur trim, evoking the days of courtly show I had once relished and now lost. Then my eyes turned to Jane, sweet Jane in a dull brown cloak and a peaked linen coif, her expression a confusion of joy and uncertainty and I could see the effort she made to control her emotion. She bobbed a shaky curtsy and whispered something inaudible.

  With unexpected consideration Margaret turned away and approached the dusty altar, making the sign of the cross as she approached, then she dropped to her knees before it and began to murmur a Latin prayer.

  I took Jane’s hand and led her into the vestry. After she had greeted Evan with a sisterly hug, I shooed him out and shut the door. Freed from constraint she threw herself into my arms with a little cry. ‘Jasper – my dearest lord!’

  I pulled her close so that she could feel the sudden urgency of my desire for her.

  ‘I still want you as much as ever, Jane,’ I said. ‘In other circumstances we could love each other here and now in God’s house and I am sure the Almighty would understand our need. But I need Margaret too.’

  Jane nipped my ear painfully. ‘You worship the ground she walks on,’ she hissed, moving her hips against me. ‘She winds you round her little finger. I hate her. And I want this.’

  She pressed the hard evidence of my desire in her hand and I forced myself to pull away from her while I still had control. I cupped her face in my hands. ‘You are the mother of my children and the treasure of my loins. We are a pair. Please believe me when I say that I love you and one day very soon we will be together again. But Margaret is my link to King Henry’s loyal followers, my conduit back to power. Until I achieve that, all I am is a roving outlaw without hearth or home. I must have access t
o her connections and her couriers.’

  Breaking free, Jane stepped back and tucked her hands demurely away under her cloak, her expression calm, as if lust had never lit its flame there. ‘I understand that, my lord. I also know that you have feelings for her that are deep and enduring, but they will never be reciprocated. I believe her entire capacity for love is reserved for the boy whose birth nearly killed her – her ambition for Harri is all consuming and she will use you and anyone else of influence to secure what she considers his rightful place beside the throne, whoever may occupy it. Although she serves the new queen and at the same time schemes with you, her loyalty does not swither between York and Lancaster as it might appear. It is focused solely on Henry Tudor and the drop of royal blood she has passed to him.’

  I gazed at her, shaking my head in wonder. ‘You have more in common with Margaret than I realized.’

  ‘Except that I love you, Jasper Tudor, as much as, and more perhaps, than I love our children, which some may find unforgiveable.’