First of the Tudors

by Joanna Hickson

  I was no expert in heraldry but I knew that the portcullis belonged to Beaufort, the red dragon to Wales and the greyhound was the symbol of Richmond. Margaret was a mother who was desperate to have her son back and Jasper was on his way. King Edward’s splendid sun was sinking. As I set the paper to the fire and watched it burn, my spirits rose with the flames. Then I started in sudden fear when Elin’s elfin face appeared round the door to announce that a stranger was at the entrance wanting to see me.

  Elin was not supposed to answer any knocking; stranger at the door could be a Yorkist agent who had tracked us down. Huw or Eithne should do it, Huw being a local lad hired to help with the heavy chores and Eithne his mother who insisted that I could not manage without her interference. I paid her since she was a great help with cleaning and shopping although she protested that she was only doing me a kindness. I think she wanted to keep tabs on her son and her disciplinary presence in the house was a blessing, when she was there. Where was she now though, when she should have been answering the door?

  ‘She says she knows you,’ Elin was saying. I felt a prickling in my spine even before she added, ‘Bit witchy, starey black eyes, lots of shiny beads.’

  ‘I will deal with her myself. You go back to your sewing.’

  Myfanwy.

  The ‘shiny beads’ were not beads at all but jewels. She looked like a wealthy woman and still a very beautiful one. She fell into my arms when she saw me. ‘Sian, thank Jesu I have found you. May I come in? People have been staring at me.’

  I ushered her quickly inside.

  ‘How did you find me? I hope you have not been asking for me around the town. They do not know my story here and that is how I want it to stay.’

  Myfanwy gave me a scornful look. ‘Do you think I would not realize that? Funnily enough I recognized your basket from the Pembroke days. It is very distinctive and it was on the arm of a red-faced woman. I followed her home from the market. Am I not clever?’

  ‘You are indeed.’ I gave her a grateful hug, my emotions in turmoil. ‘But why have you come here after all this time?’

  ‘Because you have my son of course! He is still with you I take it? How is he?’

  ‘Of course he is with me! Did you think I would abandon him as you did?’

  ‘I did not abandon him. I left him with the person who would best bring him up. I quickly realized, if you did not, that I am not suited for motherhood. May I sit down? I feel quite weary.’ She sank onto the window seat with a sigh and looked candidly at me, her gaze absorbing my serviceable holland dress, my apron.

  A rush of guilt swamped the anger, which until that moment I had not known I felt. I was forgetting that refreshment was the first duty of a host. ‘I will have some ale brought. Would you like me to send for Davy too? He is down on the harbour beach annoying the fishermen.’

  ‘No, not yet. I need to talk with you first, Sian.’ Myfanwy gave me a smile of entreaty. My Welsh name spoken now in her deep melodious voice inspired a sudden rush of nostalgia for our lost friendship, further banishing the tension the day’s events had been arousing in me.

  I found Eithne in the storeroom, unpacking her purchases from the distinctive basket. ‘I have a visitor, Eithne. Did you not hear the knocking at the door?’

  ‘I did but I thought Huw would go.’

  Gone were the days of Pembroke Castle, when the servants had bowed and bobbed to acknowledge orders from the earl’s mistress. I told her to find Huw and send him to fetch Davy, after she had brought us some ale. When I returned to the hall Myfanwy had not moved and was staring out of the window watching the cogs and hulks queuing in the bay for their turn to unload on the high tide. ‘This must be a prosperous town,’ she remarked.

  ‘Jasper certainly thought it worth protecting,’ I responded. ‘He spent a fortune on its defences.’

  ‘It did not protect him though, did it. Where is he now?’

  ‘If I knew I would not tell you, Myfanwy.’ I sat down beside her on the cushioned seat in the oriel. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘Davy of course.’ Myfanwy curled her legs underneath her in a way that would have horrified Lady Margaret. ‘I hope he resembles his father and is not like me.’

  ‘Yes he is very like his father and not at all like you,’ I said frankly, thinking that her dark, gypsy looks would not suit Davy’s sunny character. ‘He is strong and bright and resourceful; by rights he should be trained for knighthood, for he has all the necessary attributes, but the way things are I doubt if the opportunity will be afforded him.’

  ‘But that is exactly why I am here! For although you have this comfortable house and live in a prosperous town it is obvious to me that you do not have much money.’

  I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, the way it always did when I was cross or distressed. She laughed and reached out to take my hand. I took it as a placatory gesture and let mine lie in hers. She had changed. Her rustling silk skirts and fashionable beaver hat indicated that she was no longer the wild, carefree child-of-the-forest she had been when she came with Owen to Pembroke.

  At this moment Eithne arrived with a tray loaded with a jug, two mugs and a platter of sweetmeats. ‘I have sent Huw off to fetch Davy. Shall I bring him in when they get here, Mistress Hywel?’

  ‘No, Eithne, let him wait until I come and get him.’

  ‘Mistress Hywel?’ Myfanwy repeated when Eithne had gone. ‘I do not remember ever hearing that name before. It always used to be Mistress Jane, did it not?’

  I shrugged. ‘I needed to give the children some status in the town. I decided to be a widow instead of a paramour. May I ask what you are?’

  It was her turn to blush. ‘Oh I am just Myfanwy. But I am married again now.’

  ‘To a rich man by the look of you.’

  She twisted the eye-catching sapphire ring she wore. ‘I married the Denbigh apothecary who took me in when I escaped my first husband’s murdering son. His wife died.’

  ‘Before or after you married him?’

  Her throaty laugh rippled out, a familiar sound from the old days. ‘I had forgotten your wry sense of humour! He is the perfect husband – kind, generous and rich. Apothecaries are much in demand. But he is no Owen Tudor.’

  We were still holding hands and I nodded ruefully, giving hers a squeeze. ‘The Tudors are a hard act to follow. Was it you who lit candles around Owen’s head in the Hereford Market Place, Myfanwy?’

  Her eyes instantly filled with tears and she looked away, swallowing hard. Eventually, in a voice hoarse with grief, she asked, ‘How could they do that to him? He was so beautiful.’

  ‘You were lucky they did not arrest you.’

  ‘They would not have dared. There is something to be said for being thought a witch.’ Myfanwy stood up, pulling her hand from mine and walked across the room to pick up her saddlebag. ‘And a lot to be said for having a rich husband.’ She took a heavy purse out of the bag and placed it on the seat between us. I picked it up and untied the drawstring. Inside I caught the dull gleam of gold. ‘There are twenty crowns,’ she said. ‘Will it be enough? Ideally I would like Davy to train for knighthood but I realize that Jasper is in no position to take him on. There is money here for him to join some other knight’s retinue.’

  ‘I have no idea if it is enough,’ I said. ‘I will ask Geoffrey Pole when he next visits. He still holds offices in Haverford and Pembroke. Edith – my friend – died giving birth to their daughter Eleanor. Nothing is as it was, as you can imagine. I have no influence without Jasper. It may be that Davy will only ever become a man-at-arms, although I must say that he has the makings of being a very good one.’

  ‘Perhaps things will change,’ Myfanwy said, using a kerchief extracted from her sleeve. ‘England has been in chaos ever since the Earl of Warwick started stirring up trouble. Now they say he has made an alliance with the old queen. Lord Jasper may be back.’

  I bit my lip. I was not about to reveal what I knew to Myfanwy because I h
ad no idea where her loyalties now lay. ‘I think it is time you met Davy. I will go and see if he has returned.’

  She picked a wafer from the dish and bit into it with her small white teeth. I smiled and left her sitting in the window, gazing out at the harbour and the castle on the headland, which defended it. I could not find Eithne or Davy, although I searched all the places where I thought they might be. I heard the thud of a closing door and ran up the steps that led to the rear passage. When I reached the hall it was empty but the purse still lay on the window seat. There was no sign of Myfanwy.

  Elin appeared, alerted by the slammed door. ‘Who was she, Mother?’ she asked.

  ‘A ghost from the past,’ I replied, quickly pushing the purse into my capacious apron pocket.

  I felt a deep sense of regret for my past friendship with Myfanwy. She had been my friend at a vulnerable time when we were first-time mothers together, confiding our hopes and sharing our fears. Her leaving without saying goodbye and without seeing her son had somehow broken that bond.

  I put my arm around my daughter’s shoulders. ‘Come and help me get dinner on the table, Elin. I do not think we shall see her again.’

  Davy appeared, loud and complaining, his face hot and cross, his shock of sun-bleached hair tied back with a grubby cord. ‘Huw was wheeling me at the quintain in the handcart and I was just beginning to get the hang of it, Mother.’

  The natural way he called me ‘Mother’ made me glad Myfanwy had gone. She had told me she was not the mothering kind; even so I could not imagine any woman liking to hear her son call another one ‘Mother’. But what a profound relief I felt that she had not wanted to take Davy from us. He had always been one of the family and his role as provider on our walk from Weobley had reinforced his position in our hearts.

  ‘It was a false alarm, Davy,’ I said apologetically. I felt the heavy weight of the purse in the pocket of my apron. Could its contents possibly be enough to provide for the boy’s future or would Jasper return to take him in charge and one day see his young brother dubbed knight?

  * * *

  That evening, when the children were in bed, it gave me a certain acquisitive pleasure just to see the coins spread out on the kitchen table, gleaming in the lamplight. For a moment I contemplated repaying Lady Margaret some of the money she had sent us, but I secretly considered Margaret owed it to me anyway and it did not seem the right way to spend gold intended for Davy’s future. These coins were Myfanwy’s effort to make amends for abandoning the boy. The money was his and he was ours.

  I recited Lady Margaret’s message in my head; The bear and the daisy have united and our greatest hopes may be realized. Let the portcullis be raised, the red dragon unleashed and the greyhound returned to its dam. The martlet is due to land and then the sun will set.

  Feelings of excitement and hope stirred in me with great force. Davy’s gold seemed dazzlingly bright where it lay. I contemplated where I could hide it to be safe and then the very idea that anything or anywhere at this precarious moment could be safe made me laugh.

  41

  Jasper

  Tŷ Gwyn, Tenby, Pembrokeshire

  I HAD TO HAND it to Warwick, his scheme for outflanking Edward worked faultlessly. As he had predicted, we landed on the Devon coast without opposition thanks to a long-standing local war of attrition between the Courtenay and Bonville families that kept all the fighting men in that area occupied in the service of their own liege lords. The royal coastal garrisons were incapable of confronting even our relatively small army. King Louis had supplied sixty ships for our two thousand men and horses and a French admiral to command the fleet. The wind blew fair for once, landing us at dusk on various beaches to the south of Dartmouth.

  Warwick took the bulk of our French troops and headed straight for London, while I took a smaller force due north then west with the aim of collecting men from the Beaufort estates in Somerset on the way to recruiting in my own Welsh heartland. Our agents had told us that Warwick’s supporters in Yorkshire had, as planned, staged an uprising threatening enough to send King Edward rushing north to quell it. By the time my burgeoning army had reached the Severn we received news that Warwick had doubled his force by marching through Kent and then trooped into an undefended London, welcomed once more by the merchant burgesses who pragmatically preferred to preserve the peace and protect their businesses rather than fight Edward’s battles for him. Meanwhile Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, had also turned coat against Edward and brought the large force he had been commissioned to raise against the northern rebellion around to support it. As Warwick marched north from London, Edward found himself in Nottingham, comprehensively betrayed and caught in a Lancastrian vice.

  For my part, within a week I had crossed the Black Mountains and made a rendezvous with Gruffydd’s grandsons at Dinefŵr Castle. My friend and ally, Thomas ap Gruffydd and his youngest son Rhys were still in exile in Burgundy but after William Herbert’s execution Thomas’s four eldest sons, Morgan, Henry, Dafydd and Hopkin had seized Carmarthen and Cardigan Castles from the crown and were still holding them, despite the efforts of young Richard of Gloucester to force them out. I had been in regular correspondence with these four and was gratified to find that they had fulfilled their promise to have a large number of men waiting ready to flock to my standard. In return I guaranteed them all royal pardons for offences against the crown and continued seisin of the two royal castles they already held, to be granted as soon as we had restored King Henry to the throne. Having settled this to everyone’s satisfaction I handed my army over to my second in command and Evan and I set off for a much-anticipated family reunion in Tenby.

  I had sent prior warning of our arrival and in order to avoid unwanted recognition by the townsfolk we were disguised in common soldiers’ sallets and battered leather brigandines. We left our horses at an inn and walked to the house – it was a moment I had been longing for, yet I was unprepared for the rush of emotion I felt on seeing Jane’s sweet face. It was three years since our meeting in St Aedan’s ghostly churchyard at Bettys Newydd and yet if anything she looked younger and prettier than I remembered. Although I had visited a barber on the way through Carmarthen, I knew that my face had been marked by the uncertain life of a wandering exile; a neatly clipped beard could not disguise the erosion of the years and I was now turned forty. Jane, too, had suffered trials and tribulations enough to leave their stamp on her countenance but I could not see it.

  The children were standing beside her in the centre of the hall but I eagerly took Jane in my arms, heedless of the watching household.

  As I kissed her mouth and breathed the scent of her skin, I felt her melt into my embrace like a hot flame around a fresh log. Standing back, as dignity dictated, was torture.

  ‘Welcome to Tŷ Gwyn, my lord,’ she said, her smile as warm as mulled wine. ‘We all so much relish your coming.’

  There was a slight emphasis on the ‘all’, which prompted me guiltily to turn my attention to the children. They stood in order of age, a solemn row of wide-eyed youth, figures that I knew but did not know, with the faces of strangers.

  ‘Elin,’ I said, placing my hand on her head where a plaited silk circlet barely restrained her sunburst of copper curls. I gently kissed her forehead. ‘My beautiful daughter.’

  It was an involuntary remark for she was indeed beautiful, tall for her age and slim with sparkling speedwell blue eyes and a determined curve to her full red lips. She wore a plain green kirtle over a lace-trimmed chemise but there was nothing demure about her response, which caused her mother to frown and pierced my heart like a knife. ‘It is good to meet you, my lord father – at long last.’

  I hid my pain, gave her a smile and a nod and moved on to Davy. Someone had obviously made a valiant attempt to tidy him up but somehow he still retained a smudge of dirt on his cheek and a cobweb in his hair, as if he had been rummaging in a dark cellar. He had such a look of Owen about him it was uncanny, straight nose, strong shoulders, thi
ck chestnut hair and tawny brown eyes. Time seemed to stand still, so I squeezed his shoulder, man to man. ‘You look fit, Davy,’ I said.

  ‘And now, last but not least – you must be Joan.’ I put my finger under the small child’s plump chin and raised her head. Her gaze met mine briefly before dropping to her tightly clasped hands. ‘You have lovely long eyelashes, like your mother’s.’

  A pretty, braid-trimmed coif obscured her hair and she was appealingly plump in a bright blue kirtle laced at the front. ‘I am named for my mother,’ she confirmed in a little, low voice. ‘My name is Sian.’

  I glanced back at Jane who was eagerly greeting Evan. ‘Ah yes. How lucky I am to have two of you.’

  Jane broke away from her brother and came to take my arm. She made a face and fingered the studded leather of my brigandine. ‘Let Evan relieve you of this before you join us at table.’

  Evan unfastened the buckles and Davy watched intently before taking the heavy garment from him. ‘I will hang it up, sir,’ he said eagerly.

  From the oriel window I checked the harbour scene and enquired if there had been any sign of the castle garrison being increased.

  ‘There are no more men there than usual,’ Jane replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘If Edward knew we had taken ship he would have strengthened defences at the channel ports,’ I replied. ‘It means he has moved all his available troops north.’

  She looked worried. ‘Will he not turn around when he knows you are here?’

  I smiled. ‘Yes, of course but by now he will have found that he has enemies both behind and in front. He cannot fight them both at once.’

  ‘So what will happen?’

  ‘Warwick thinks Edward will turn and confront him, probably somewhere like Nottingham. But I think he will run.’

  She looked horrified. ‘Run – where? Not this way?’

  ‘No, without Herbert there is nothing for Edward here in Wales. Even Gloucester has left to join him. He will flee the country – to Flanders is my wager. He made a good move when he married his sister to the Duke of Burgundy.’