The Golden Widows

by Isolde Martyn

  ‘Briefly!’ the ushers and sergeants-at-arms repeated loudly at intervals.

  No one took any notice. Only a fortunate selected few appeared to be ushered behind the dais to the sacred tabernacle containing Lord Hastings, and each person seemed to take an infernal time with his lordship before they reappeared. After two hours of standing, Elysabeth cursed herself for not setting out her request in writing but even had she done so, how long would Hastings take to answer? Would he even read it?

  She tried mentioning that she was his lordship’s neighbour and a woman of rank to one of the soldiers keeping order but, like the usher, the man had a swift answer.

  ‘Then I am sure his lordship will entertain a beautiful widow like you to dinner some day soon, my lady, but if you’ve a cause to plead like the rest of ’em, then think of it like Judgment Day, all are equal and the officers at the front’ll decide whether you’re a sheep or a nanny goat and which pen you go in.’

  Insolent cur! Damn him! If this wasn’t for Tom’s future, she would storm from the hall this instant.

  And she should have brought some food and ale with her. People around the hall were unwrapping kerchiefs of provisions. Her head was aching from her best headdress, she needed air, and more besides. Assured by Tom that he would stay in the line, she went outside to find a chamber of ease. There was a queue there, too, all women. The men were pissing wherever they could find a wall.

  There was no room in the gatehouse’s reeking garderobe to fiddle with her headdress and she was likely to lose the pins. As a traitor’s widow, her honour was already smirched, but surely there was somewhere she could reset her cap without inviting lewd comments? She tried behind the chapel only to find the ground stank with urine and then she spied the open postern in the wall. Wandering through, she found herself alone facing the moat on a narrow path that soon disappeared round the corner of the outer wall. There was no one on the opposite bank. Here was her chance. She put the pins for safekeeping between her lips and eased the crespinette off. Released from its tight confine, her thick plait of hair tumbled free. Now she would have to pin that back up that as well. Hands full and unable to curse, she was struggling to stuff her headdress under her arm and clear her lips when someone grabbed the cap from behind her.

  ‘You need another pair of hands?’

  Elysabeth nearly swallowed the pins. She spun round and discovered her helper was a tall youth and, judging by his thigh-high boots, the wooden box slung from his shoulder and the cered sleeveless doublet hanging loose over his open shirt, he had just returned from fishing.

  Elysabeth’s glance darted from the couple of plump grey chub tails flopping over the edge of the pail up the willow rod leaning against his broad chest to the cheerful, glowing face gazing down at her. She was aware that there was a lot of him in between and found herself blushing. A long while since she had done that. The grin that was neither a man’s nor a boy’s dimpled further and it was irresistible not to smile back.

  One had to be practical. She blew the pins out into her hand first.

  ‘Hope I’m not giving your cap a fishy smell.’ He spoke before she could. Dear God, he might be only a stripling but he was giving her a thorough look-over as though she was his age, or was she imagining it? ‘Take your time. I’ll hold it while you finish.’ There was no ‘shall I?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said gravely, trying to prove she had some decorum left. ‘It’s not very comfortable. Why we women put ourselves through such torment, I’ll never know.’ Why was she prattling so? He must be several years younger than her. Grey’s age more like. ‘It rubs around the ears,’ she added.

  He set down the pail and leaned the rod against the stone wall. ‘Glad I don’t have to wear such a thing,’ he assured her heartily. ‘Perhaps I can hold the pins for you as well, mistress?’ He wiped his hand on his thigh before offering her its service. The river water had rendered his ample palm soft as a gentleman’s and the tiny chains of his life and heart lines were not threaded with dirt, as with most fellows his age. Did he realise how charming his thoughtfulness was? How it restored a vigour to her life. Made her wish she was a milkmaid instead of a widow with a bale of worries. Goodness, she was even noticing this fellow’s freckles and his hazel eyes were thickly lashed, with a glint of gold in the sunlight.

  She tried to concentrate, twist the braid once more around the crown of her head and take the ivory pins, one by one. ‘It’s easier with a maid.’

  ‘You want me to try?’

  ‘Goodness, no,’ she laughed, imagining those large fingers trying to be nimble in such a feminine task. For sure he would be good at unlacing, she almost said, and was conscious of a rosy flush spreading yet again over her face and shoulders. He handed her the crespinette and she dragged it down over the coronet of hair and straightened it over her ears. ‘There,’ she sighed, tethering it with the last of the pins. ‘That will have to suffice. Are you—’ she began just as he said the same words. They laughed together.

  ‘A friend of the family and you, mistress?’

  ‘A neighbour but I’ve not met Sir William Hastings yet. I came on a matter of business and, well, to be neighbourly, but since he is now so high in the king’s regard, I see I stand no chance. Have you seen the number of petitioners, sir?’ He shook his head. ‘Believe me, they would take up the length of Westminster Hall.’ She hadn’t meant to say that. These days mentioning she had served the fugitive queen would be like admitting she had slept a week with the Devil.

  ‘You have been to Westminster Palace, mistress?’

  ‘N-yes, I did not say that to impress, sir. I have been fortunate to see inside, that is all.’ She lingered, not wanting to leave that sunlit spot and his cheerful company. ‘I hope those fish were not from the moat.’

  He grinned. ‘Lord, no, just been scaling them. Caught these at Heathe Brook, well above Kirby. Wouldn’t fish here. Mind, Sir William is desirous of putting vaults below the latrines instead of letting the waste into the moat. Not a bad notion but expensive and I wouldn’t want to be mucking them out.’

  ‘Nor me,’ she laughed. ‘Well, I’d better return to the line. Thank you for your help.’

  ‘My pleasure, mistress. Mistress…?’

  ‘Elysabeth, Lady Grey.’

  ‘Oh, your pardon.’ He inclined his head sweetly.

  ‘I know,’ she apologised ruefully. ‘Barons’ wives do not pin their hair behind the stables.’

  ‘Evidently some do,’ he quipped but it was not said lasciviously.

  ‘Adieu, then.’ She made a curtsey that was respectful; his bow was neither fulsome nor stiff.

  ‘You’ve been a long time, my dear,’ said the draper’s widow ahead of her. ‘If it wasn’t for the boy here, we’d have thought you’d given up.’

  She felt like doing just that. Thrice more, she heard a bell from Kirby Church strike the quarter. Every time the door behind the dais opened, there was a rustle of anticipation. This time, instead of taking the next in the queue, Hastings’ steward was striding down the hall.

  ‘Is there a Lady Grey among you still?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, astonished. Had the young ‘friend of the family’ put in a word for her?

  ‘Follow me.’

  ‘By Heaven!’ exclaimed the draper’s widow. Her tongue stalled between her teeth in outrage.

  ‘Wish I had a pair of lovely duckies to shake at his lordship,’ snarled an elderly chapman, as Elysabeth passed him.

  ‘Hold your foul tongue, master, or go to the back,’ ordered the steward with an indifferent expression. ‘This way,’ he barked and led Elysabeth and Tom up the dais steps, past two men-at-arms and into an accounting chamber.

  They were ordered to wait before a trestle table, draped in dark green baize. The steward left by a side door and a soldier in a brigadine with Hastings’ maunche embroidered on his shoulder took up position behind her making her feel more like a prisoner than a supplicant. Two clerks were seated at one end of the trestle
, hedged in by a row of inkpots and a bristle of goose quills. One of the men was busy finishing off a letter.

  The chair behind the table was empty. Its owner was standing by the open lower lights as though he longed to be outside. He was once more wearing the chunkish collar of suns and roses across his shoulders but he had abandoned his mantle over the back of his chair. The short brown velvet doublet pannelled with gilt-threaded brocade did not displease her. It glinted as he turned reluctantly to observe her. A tallish, well-made man.

  ‘The widow Grey?’ How drab it sounded. How demeaning. No acknowledgment that she was Lady Grey.

  St Jude, I hope you are with me, she prayed as she spread her skirts in a deep curtsey. Tom at least had the manners to remove his cap and bow.

  ‘Sir William,’ she acknowledged.

  Her host did not affirm so or gallantly assist her to rise. Rather, he was assessing her, perhaps playing his own guessing game.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me.’ She kept her voice lower than usual.

  ‘What is the matter you wish to discuss with me?’ He did not sit down.

  ‘I greet you as a neighbour, sir.’ He inclined his head in thanks. ‘From Groby but…’ Oh Christ’s Mercy! She floundered at the lack of response in the patrician features. ‘That is, I wondered…’ Struggling for the arguments she had rehearsed, her mind went blank. ‘Please, is there a stool here? Do you mind if I sit down? I have been standing a long time.’

  No apology was offered, merely the flick of command. The soldier brought her a three-legged stool. Tom was looking at her with concern as she loosened the cordels of her cloak. Sir William was, too. Realising her gown was gaping somewhat, she corrected it primly. She had become thinner since John’s death.

  ‘Are you with child, Lady Grey?’ this new lord chamberlain asked. His hand moved towards a small handbell. ‘Do you require some ale?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, my lord, I am not but…but since my husband’s death—’

  ‘That would be Sir John Grey, Baron Ferrers of Groby?’ he interrupted. ‘Slain at St Albans?’

  On his right, one of the secretaries lifted his head. ‘Attainted, my lord.’

  Beside her Tom stiffened.

  ‘It was no treason back in February, sir,’ she retorted swiftly to the clerk and then took a sharp breath. O Jesu! She should have held her tongue. At least Tom had held his.

  ‘But now you want my help, Lady Grey?’ Hastings asked, with a lift of forefinger to forestall another comment from his scrivener. His stare took in the embroidered edge of her bodice neckline and its persistent attempt to bare her shoulder before returning to her face.

  ‘Yes, Sir William. I should like to offer you the wardship of my son, Thomas.’

  ‘Oh, you would.’ If there was dry humour in Hastings’ tone, it was piquant with arrogance. ‘With an attainder on his estates?’

  She darted a swift warning at Tom to hold his tongue. ‘If that were to be reversed through your good offices, my lord,’ she suggested, ‘the income due to you as my son’s guardian would not be negligible.’

  He sat back in his chair, his right thumb stroking the edge of the table. ‘I met your husband’s family two days ago at Sir Robert Sheringham’s and they gave me to understand the Ferrers lordship is about to pass to Sir John Bourchier. Is that correct?’

  Did he read the astonishment in her face, the hurt of more betrayal? Why hadn’t they told her they had met Sir William?

  ‘Yes, that is so,’ she admitted miserably. Did this stranger suppose she had deliberately withheld that truth? ‘But if there is no issue from the marriage between my mother-in-law and Sir John, then Thomas will inherit the title.’

  He nodded and then gestured to his secretary to write down the request. She waited for his verdict as the scratch of the quill filled the silence. Meanwhile, the other clerk sanded the letter he had been writing, rose and set it in front of his master. Hastings signed and she was forced to watch and wait as the process of dripping wax upon the folds and handing it back for his lordship to jab his seal ring down was carried out. It was done as though she and Tom were no longer visible.

  Damn them all!

  She cleared her throat. ‘Sir William.’

  Oh, how those in authority could tug down a protective visor of courteous gravity. People said power in a man could be attractive. Well, Hastings, for all his fair looks, left her unmoved, frigid. If it wasn’t for Tom, she should have enjoyed slapping the arrogance from this neighbour’s face. Instead she said, ‘Sir, my son will be in need of good lordship as he grows to manhood. Truly, I should wish to see him given wise counsel.’

  Hastings’ gaze flicked Tom’s face then came back to her. ‘Make him into a good little Yorkist, you mean, Lady Grey?’ The blue eyes gave no quarter. The soul behind his stare offered no friendship.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ How she hated herself for sounding so compliant; God forbid that John’s soul would ever learn her treason or that his family were belly up to the victors.

  Tom was clenching his jaw. She had reminded him on the way here that William Hastings had not been at St Albans, that he had had no hand in his father’s slaying.

  ‘And what have you to say for yourself, Thomas Grey? Do you desire to become my ward?’

  Her boy could be charming when he chose. Or scornful. Elysabeth held her breath and propelled another prayer to St Jude.

  ‘I think, my lord, that I must cut my cloth to clothe my arm.’ Unsmiling, her son looked meaningfully at his ebbed sleeve.

  ‘Well, that is one way of putting it.’ Sir William’s gaze strayed back to Elysabeth. ‘I feel immensely flattered by this, Lady Grey,’ he remarked. She realised her neckline was slipping again. ‘Was that the only matter you wished to raise?’

  I hope the Devil carries you and your precious king to hell, she thought. Aloud she said, ‘Yes, my lord. I…I do not expect – I mean, I hope you will think further about Thomas. Maybe if not as a ward, perhaps you might consider him as a page?’

  Hastings’ mouth tightened and he looked back at Tom. ‘How old are you, Thomas?’

  ‘Nine, sir.’

  ‘Two years older than most pages. That could make life rather difficult for you.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I suppose it could.’ No more words followed.

  That was it then?

  She rose before he could dismiss her, shaking her skirts and straightening her collar. ‘If you would kindly send word to me at Grafton, my lord, when you have reached a decision and my family will forward your answer to me.’

  ‘Grafton? Grafton Woodville?’

  ‘My mother is the Duchess of Bedford.’

  ‘Oh.’ She doubted his surprise was genuine. Of course, he knew. ‘So your father would be Richard Woodville. Didn’t he and your brother, Lord Scales, oppose King Edward at Towton?’

  ‘Yes, Sir William, but they are hopeful of a pardon.’ It was needful to swiftly spur the conversation onto a different path. ‘Unfortunately, my circumstances may compel me to return to my family home, sir, a situation I hope to avoid with your good lordship.’

  Hastings’ eyes widened slightly.

  His good lordship! Curse it! Had she implied she was looking to be his mistress? Embarrassed, she had no resort but to incline her head in cold, stately fashion and turn away, expecting the guard to open the door for her. It had all been a waste of effort. But the guard, curse him, was a-waiting his master’s nod.

  Hastings, still unsmiling – he probably could be devastating if he bothered – came round the table, courteously offering his wrist to lead her to the door. She felt no alchemy at his touch.

  ‘Farewell, Lady Grey.’ She hated the amused glint in his eyes, the lick of a glance at her breasts but what insulted her most of all was that if he assumed she had just propositioned him – which she hadn’t – he certainly was not keen to take advantage.

  ‘Good day, my lady.’ And good riddance, he probably added as a postscript.

  Kate


  10th May 1461

  The road to Bisham, Berkshire

  Arranging a visit to Kate’s mother had taken a week or so and the Countess had suggested a compromise. Instead of expecting her youngest to journey with a baby all the way north to Fotheringay, she had bestirred herself to meet Kate at Bisham Priory, northeast of Reading.

  Flanked by armed outriders, the Bonville retinue finally managed to trundle out of Shute and trot towards Berkshire. For Kate, it was a pleasure to travel again especially since the promise of summer was in the stillness of the morning. Bright green foliage dappled with flowerlets fringed the ditches either side of the Devon lanes and the hollow ways were shady now, vaulted by newly leafed branches. Bluebells and violets had burst through the ivy and wild garlic in the woods, and the cow meadows were sprinkled with yellow-glazed buttercups and white marguerites.

  It probably felt like this to go on pilgrimage, Kate decided, glad to be quit of Devon for a few weeks and to behave like a dutiful daughter, but it was timely to depart: since French supporters of

  Queen Margaret had seized the Channel Islands, there had been rumours of invasion on the south coast and moving inland seemed very sensible if you believed such nonsense. But there was another reason Grandmother Bonville had been so easily persuaded: the garderobes and latrines of Shute Hall needed a good airing.

  South of Chard, the procession of carts and riders crossed paths with a lone horseman – Robert Newton, returning to Shute. Old Lady Bonville had been moving him like a chess knight always out of reach. Well, be damned to that! Kate halted the party by the gate to a farm track, fetched Cecily from Eleanor’s arms and carried her over to the patch of grass to make water.

  After he had dismounted and greeted Lady Bonville, Newton came across to make his bow to her.

  She offered her hand. ‘I haven’t been able to thank you for rescuing Guinivere until now.’

  ‘No matter, my lady. I am pleased to see you ride her still. And now how’s this little demoiselle?’ he asked, going down on his haunches in front of Cecily. The child clutched hold of Kate’s skirts and peeped a head of yellow curls warily round at him.