Exasperated, he looks at the ceiling, and then back at me.
“By Heaven, Margaret, you could use a spanking.”
I stiffen, outraged at his discourtesy, but as I open my mouth to make a sharp retort, I think I detect a tiny spark of admiration in his eye. I close my mouth again and make no reply as I pull on my gauntlets.
“And I am not spending another moment in that litter. Have a horse made ready for me.” I speak over his shoulder to his steward, but Jasper puts up a hand.
“No, if I have any say in the matter, you will ride with me, my lady, so I can at least try to keep you from harm.”
As he ushers me from the room Ned steps forward, seemingly from nowhere. “My lady, I am coming too.”
A sigh shudders from deep within me. I do not even turn to look him in the eye.
“Don’t be tiresome, Ned. Go and walk Jay in the gardens, make yourself useful.”
I turn again but he tags after me.
“Begging your pardon, my lady, but I owe you my life, and if you are going into danger then I am coming with you.” He puts his hand on the dog’s head. “And so is Jay.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, you impossible child. Very well, do as you wish. I revoke all responsibility for you.”
There is no time to argue. I march swiftly away, Jasper at my side telling me I am too soft with the boy. I raise my eyebrows but forebear to comment that he might likewise be too soft with me.
***
I have never seen suffering or poverty before, but perhaps I have never looked. The streets of Carmarthen are squalid; there are dead dogs in the gutter, heaps of refuse at the roadside. Beggars sit in the dirt, dogs and rats scavenge in the gutters. I see ragged people, blind men, children with ribs like hoops, women little older than I already worn to the bone by hunger. And now, to add to their misery, pestilence has visited Carmarthen.
As if seeing the scene from above, I am aware of the bright opulent splash of our party against the sombre backdrop of the town. Above our heads, Jasper’s pennant flaps and snaps in the breeze, the sun glinting on the armour of the guard. The people at the roadside sullenly watch us pass, as different to us as the moon is from the sun. I am warm in my plush velvet gown, my pristine linen and my thick fur cloak. Cradled in Jasper’s arms, kept safe by the host of men at arms that surround us, I know myself for a pampered, fortunate soul, and for the first time, I am shamed by it.
“Jasper, have you any coin about you? Can we give them some?”
“No.” His voice rumbles in his chest as he rides on, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “It would cause a riot. If you want to help them, give money to the friars, they in turn will help the needy.”
I decide to do just that. I will ensure an annual sum is sent to the people here at Carmarthen. No creature living should have to suffer such penury.
The horses begin the steep climb to the castle where the shelters gradually grow less squalid and the peasants are marginally better dressed. As the shadow of the castle engulfs us, I suppress a shiver, starting in fear when a sudden cry goes up from the battlement. The gatekeeper peers out through a slit in the door. “Who goes there?”
“Open up for the Earl of Pembroke,” Jasper growls. There is a scuffle within, but we are forced to wait for what seems a long time. At first I think we are to be ignored but eventually we hear the clanking chain as the portcullis slowly rises. I crane my neck, blinking against the bright sky, hoping to see Edmund leaning over the battlement, waving in greeting. But the parapet is empty.
The castellan wipes away the sweat on his brow with his sleeve. “I’m warnin’ ye’, there’s pestilence within.” He leers at me as Jasper urges our mount through the yawning gate. We move forward to the sound of hooves as our company clatters over the drawbridge. Jasper puts pressure on the reins, leaning back in the saddle, and we come to a halt in the middle of the bailey.
There is as much chaos here as outside. The inner ward is littered with bodies of both the sick and the dead. I have a sudden longing for the gardens at Lamphey and Caldicot. Jasper’s arms tighten around me.
“By Christ, Margaret, I should never have brought you here.”
Ignoring him I lean forward and call out to the castellan who has shuffled in our wake. “The Earl of Richmond, where is he lodged?”
He spits on the ground and waves his arm in the direction of the western tower. I wriggle desperately, demanding to be let down from the horse. Jasper releases me reluctantly, swings from the saddle and helps me alight. With a fearful glance around the bailey, I slip my hand in his, and, picking our way through prone bodies, we hurry in search of my husband.
The steps to the upper chambers of the tower are narrow and winding, the torches almost burned out, some of them guttering to darkness as we pass. The air I breathe is dank as I feel my way in the gloom, the wall cold and weeping beneath my fingers. Behind me, I can hear Jasper’s heavy tread, his rapid breathing, and I sense he is as anxious as I. Still, I am comforted to have him there.
Near the top, I pause for breath before pushing open a door. It creaks loudly, releasing a sweet cloying stench of mortal sickness. As horror washes over me, I whisper a desperate prayer, clamp a kerchief to my nose, and step into the chamber with Jasper close behind me.
His hand falls heavily upon my shoulder, our footsteps moving in unison as we draw toward the centre of the room. The shutters are half-closed, the fire dwindling. In the corner, on a narrow bed, I can just discern the figure of a man. He is thrashing and whimpering, caught in the agonies of a seizure. Shaking off Jasper’s restraint, I hurry forward and sink to my knees at the side of the bed.
“Edmund.” Although he gives no sign of recognition, he clutches my hand as if his life depends on it. I am a shaky lifeline indeed. My first instinct is to collapse, rely on the man behind me but the suffering on my husband’s face makes that impossible.
I brush away the tears, turn my head and yell over my shoulder. “Get help, bring water, and send to the Grey Friars for Myfanwy. Tell her to bring medicine. Quickly!”
I barely acknowledge the sound of scampering feet as my order is obeyed. I look about me. What can I do? I am helpless. Why am I such a fool? Why did I not think to bring my remedies from the still-room? There are no herbs powerful enough to cure the plague, but there are some that provide relief.
“Edmund.” I call to him again, reaching out to stroke back his damp and dirty hair. I hold his head still, my thumbs tracing the outline of his brow. “I am here now, all will be well, my husband.”
He does not know me. His jaw is clenched as he shakes and shivers, his long legs juddering beneath a meagre blanket. I draw it back and notice his torso is swathed in a dirty bandage, stained by an oozing wound in his side. I remember the words from his message: I am injured but well.
He lied in his letter. For my sake he had made light of his injuries, but together with the plague, he has little hope now. I push away the thought, steel my strength and refuse to give in to the fear. I must do everything I can.
An hour later, Edmund is calmer but still unconscious. I have bathed him with tepid water, removed his linen and wrapped him in a fresh, clean sheet. His sweat-darkened hair is brushed away from a face that gleams bone-white in the gloom.
Jasper brings me a stool and I remember to reward him with a grateful smile.
“We should leave now, Margaret. You need to cleanse yourself, burn all your clothing, lest you too succumb.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe he has much longer. I will stay with him until he departs.”
I feel no panic now, the hysteria has vanished. I sit passively at his side and pray for an easy passing. As his hand grows limp in mine, I try not to dwell on our precious dreams that are dying with him.
I do not think of the past, or the wrongs he has done me. I have forgotten the monster my childish mind envisaged before we wed. He was … is … a man like many others; an ambitious man whose chief concerns are family and power, and for
tune. If only the love between us had blossomed sooner; if only our son had been conceived with love. Edmund would have made a good father, a good husband, and I am grieved that our time together has been cut so short.
With little hope, I bow my head and pray again, trying to force God to listen to my will. But miracles do not happen any more so I do not ask that his life be spared. I ask only for a swift and painless passing.
Silently, in the corner, Myfanwy clutches a bundle of bandages in her arms and waits and watches, her face a white, open question. With tears on his cheek, Ned kneels at her feet, nervous, frantic fingers working in Jay’s brindle fur. Jasper’s hand is gentle on my shoulder, the pressure comforting in the darkness that is consuming my world.
As we sit there, suspended in time, Jay pulls free of Ned’s grasp and comes to join me at the bedside. He settles on his haunches and, as Edmund’s soul passes, he lifts his nose to the heavens and howls his sorrow.
We all feel like howling.
Grey Friars, Carmarthen – November 1456
I know nothing of the journey back to the priory. I come back to my senses some time later, and as if by sorcery, I find myself there. Silently, Myfanwy strips away my soiled clothing. She sends everyone away, and then takes everything, even my small linen. I watch as she struggles from her own garments, gathers up the bundle and summons Ned, ordering him to see that it is all burned. “And do the same with your own clothes,” she calls after him.
“What are you doing?”
She glances up, the bones of her face hard.
“I don’t know. When I was a child and there was pestilence in the village, a wise woman there insisted that we do the same. I have little hope that such measures will be effective.”
I tremble, lost in stunned silence as she wraps me in a clean sheet and tells me to wait while a wooden tub is filled with water. There is no time for sweet-scented petals or delicate oils. In a miserable daze, I lower myself into the water and allow her to scrub me, head to toe, with soap so harsh it makes my eyes sting. Then, after roughly drying me and settling me before the fire, she immerses herself in the water too. I watch her scrub every inch of her smooth sleek body. She stands, the water cascading from her flanks and dripping from her long wet hair. Catching up a towel she wraps herself up and comes to me, kneels at my feet, takes both hands.
“Are you dry, my lady? Let me dress you.”
I stand up and the sheet falls away. I cross myself, one arm over my hard pink breasts and the other to cradle my swollen belly. She quickly brings a loose gown and swamps me in fur and velvet, leads me to the bed. I follow her like a child and let her tuck me between the sheets. Yet the bed offers no comfort.
I roll onto my side and stare at the damp spots on the wall. I do not notice when my eyes grow heavy but it must be hours later that I wake to the sound of voices. Keeping my eyes closed, I listen as they plan my future.
“We must get her back to Lamphey…” Myfanwy whispers, but her words are cut short by Jasper’s voice, that rasping deep and worried in the dark.
“Nay, not Lamphey. I have no jurisdiction there. I will take her to Pembroke. It is no palace, and the lodgings are not what she is used to, but it is safe ... impenetrable. She can bring forth her child in safety there.”
“I must stay with her.”
“I know. We both have need of you …” His voice is cut short and a long silence follows, and then a scuffle in the shadows, a gentle moan. Stretching my legs to the end of the bed, I roll over onto my back. Instantly Myfanwy is beside me.
She lights a candle and I see her cap is gone. Her hair is awry and a strange expression gleams in her eye, as if she is lit up from the inside.
“You’re awake, my lady. Can I get you anything? Look, your brother-in-law has called to see how you are.”
I pull myself up on the pillows, place my hands on my belly and watch Myfanwy fussing around as she prepares a cup of wine.
Jasper comes to the foot of the bed. His face is pale and he is shadowed about the eyes. I remember he shares my loss, and I flinch as a vision of Edmund lying stiff and cold in his winding sheet rises before my eyes. Grief and fear swamp me again.
I turn my face away.
Jasper waves a hand around the room. “We must get you away from here, Margaret. The pestilence is spreading. I am taking you to Pembroke in the morning. You will be safe there.”
I have no will to travel further. I would gladly stay here and die among the Grey Friars, but I have no strength for argument.
Indeed, it matters little to me where I am.
The Dowager Countess
Pembroke Castle – November 1456
Pembroke Castle stands impregnable on a crag above a loop in the river. Although Jasper warned me to expect a grim, grey, uncompromising stronghold, I am ill-prepared for it. The fortress offers no prospect of ease. The horses strain up the hill, the swaying and jerking of the litter adding to my misery and discomfort. I send up thanks to God that my journeying will soon be at an end.
As we approach the great gate, a shout goes up, echoed by another and another until, slowly, the drawbridge begins to lower and the portcullis is raised, giving vent to the life and noise within. With a jolt, the horses move on and we pass into the shadow of the gatehouse. For a moment the sun is extinguished and the chill increases, but when we emerge the other side, the sun returns in blinding glory.
I blink in the sudden light as Ned helps me clamber in an ungainly manner from the litter. Stretching my aching limbs, I look about the outer ward. It is heaving with activity; a boy with a stick drives a flock of geese by, pigs are squealing in a muddy enclosure, and the air is filled with the sharp acrid smell of a forge, where a blacksmith pauses in his work. Hammer in hand, he draws his forearm across his forehead, our eyes catch and he pulls off his cap in greeting. I do not smile in return but turn my face toward the aroma of roasting pig coming from the kitchens. The smell teases my reluctant taste buds back to life.
The people here have been expecting me, everyone pauses in their tasks for the first taste of the pregnant widow-child so suddenly in their midst. I do not acknowledge them. My eyes travel about my new home, my head rolling back so I can look upward, where the crenellations bite the sky and Jasper’s flag hangs limp, as if in sorrow.
My host appears at my side, looking pale and uncomfortable beneath the dust of the road.
“My lady, come with me. I am ill-prepared for you, especially … like this … in your condit …” His words tail off hopelessly, and in an attempt to comfort him, I manage a rictus smile.
“I will be safe here, my lord. That is all that matters. As long as I have a roof over my head, and a fire in the hearth, I will be well.”
Relief swamps his face, and a smile vanishes before it is truly formed. “We may even find you a straw mattress and a blanket,” he quips. “No, truly, Margaret, Pembroke may lack the niceties to which you are accustomed, but we will do our best.”
He ushers me up a sweep of stone stairs and I duck my head beneath a small entrance. The passageway is long, low and ill-lit, the torches guttering in the current of cold air that streams along it. At the end, we enter a meagre round chamber where an inadequate fire smoulders in the grate. As I walk around, trying to force an appreciative comment, I create a draught, and smoke billows into the room. I suppress a cough.
“This will serve me very well,” I smile bravely, wishing with all my heart it were true. Myfanwy, who is not so schooled in hiding her feelings, asks indignantly, “And where is my lady to sleep, and her attendants?”
“Oh, there is another chamber. There are several rooms linked by passageways. When I am in residence I use them myself but I thought they would serve you better, Margaret.”
With no little relief I follow him along the passage to another room, almost identical. Unable to find an honest thing to say in praise of the accommodation I kneel on the window seat and look out across the river. To the left is what looks like a religious house.
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“What is that place, Jasper? Is it an abbey?”
He moves close to me and leans to the window, a hand on my shoulder.
“It is Monkton Priory; the Benedictines there do good works among the local poor.”
Relieved that God’s presence is discernible in this wild, forsaken place, I try to look happy.
Turning to face me, Jasper adds, “The church is dedicated to St Nicholas who, I think, is your favourite saint.”
I am startled that he should recall so small a personal detail, but I do not comment. He holds out his hand and helps me to my feet. I survey the small bed, the truckle bed beneath, the seat at the hearth and feel a twist of guilt at turning him from his quarters.
“But where will you lodge, Jasper? I am sorry for stealing your rooms.”
“It is my pleasure, Margaret. I am bereft of a brother, yet soon you are to bless me with a nephew or, perhaps, a niece. I will do all in my power for your comfort. If there is anything you lack, just send for me, day or night.”
He bends over my hand, his lips not brushing my skin as they usually do, but warm on my wrist. When he straightens, we look into each other’s eyes and acknowledge our shared sorrow.
Myfanwy, seemingly attacked by a sudden spate of coughing, breaks our reverie. She bends over, thumping her chest, her eyes watering.
“Fetch a pitcher of water, Ned,” I say, my concern for Myfanwy overcoming my own worries. I go to her side, pat her ineffectually on the back while Ned brings a slopping jug of water and splashes some into a cup.
“Thank you,” I say as I pass it to Myfanwy. “You were very swift, Ned.”
I watch anxiously while she takes small sips, her colour slowly returning to normal. When she is fully restored and breathing normally again, I turn to resume my conversation with Jasper. But he has gone.
We retire to bed early, but I sleep ill in the hard, narrow bed. I lie flat on my back, feeling the child squirm as he seeks a better position. Edmund should be here with me. He used to love to follow the contours of the baby’s movements, put his ear to my belly to see if he could hear anything within. We spent long hours of the night imagining our firstborn’s face, what his voice would be like, what shade his hair. I was safe in my husband’s care and our relationship showed such promise. I try not to dwell on that one time when our mutual love for our child led to other, unexpected things. My chest grows tight with longing for the act that will never now be repeated. Now, Edmund will never look upon our child’s face, and my firstborn will be his last.
The Beaufort Bride: The Life of Margaret Beaufort (The Beaufort Chronicles Book 1) Page 11