I heave myself onto my side and stare into the darkness. I have never felt this afraid before, or this alone, but now I am lost among comparative strangers in a foreign land.
Duty dictates that I write to my mother. I am at a loss as to what to write and in the end send a brief note, outlying what has befallen me. I do not want her to come here; having been my own mistress for so long I could not bear to live beneath her jurisdiction again. It would be nice to see Edith, but she is recently wed and soon to have a child of her own. She will not want to leave her home to be with me. All I can do is write to her, but I can never put what I really feel into a letter, and I know that anything I tell Edith will be related straight away to Mother.
Mother is not tardy in sending her reply. “You must come home, Margaret,” she urges. “Your place is with me; you will be safe here and we can raise your child in the nursery, just as you were raised.” I ponder the idea for no more than a moment. The scenario flits across my mind’s eye; I see myself living under her roof, a young widow, the child in her nursery evidence of my fertility. Once more, she would place me on the marriage market, and wave my fortune beneath the noses of those hungry for power. I have no wish to see her and will not go. Too much has passed since she sent me away, and Edmund left me in no doubt as to his private opinion of her. I am a woman now, and it has become very clear that she desires only the benefits I can provide.
My child and I share a close relationship with the king but I am determined we will never be an asset to her. Edmund would have forbidden it. One by one, she has arranged advantageous marriages for my siblings; each one a benefit to her own ambition. Without hesitation, she sold me in marriage when I was still a child, and gave no heed to the sort of man I was marrying. She gave no thought to what I might encounter once I left her household and she sent me into the world unschooled in the nature of marriage. Only by chance was Edmund a worthy man, a young man with enough kindness in his heart to treat the child he married well. He was a good husband, but that good fortune owed no thanks to my mother.
My outraged pen rushes across the page in a scrawl of misery. Afterwards, when I read the words I have written, I realise my own bitterness and do not send it after all. But the exercise does me some good, as if the act of scratching my broken hopes and dreams onto a piece of parchment and sealing it with self-pitying tears provides a kind of healing. I have no idea how or why the act of writing it down is so soothing, but although I am still broken and afraid, having purged my mind, I am able to function again. With a little more courage than I had before, I agree that plans should be laid in place for my coming confinement.
A week or so later Ned brings me another letter, this time in Edith’s hand.
Dearest Margaret, she writes.
I am so sorry to learn of your misfortune. We miss you so much, Margaret. Why do you not return home, if not to Mother at Bletsoe, then here with me? My husband is a good man and says he will be glad to welcome you. You should be among your own at this sad time, to bring your child forth in safety and comfort rather than some far flung barbarian place.
I have a room prepared for you, a large one with a view across the parkland. It will be such fun, Margaret, we can sew baby clothes together and raise our sons in the same nursery and oh, so much else.
Please, write to me as soon as you can so that I may put the wheels in motion. I so look forward to seeing you again, you have always been my dearest sister.
I let the letter fall into my lap. I have no desire to return to England. After running my own household I will never allow myself to become a guest in my sister’s house. It is better that I remain here at Pembroke, where I am, more or less, my own mistress. Edith will never see me as an adult. She would simper and stroke my hair and treat me like some precious puppy. It is better here in the chills of Pembroke than the false welcome of my mother’s house, or the cosy comforts of my sister’s.
I do not form a reply. I leave the letter unanswered; it remains on my table, the words resounding in my mind like the temptation of the devil. The parchment yellows more each day, and begins to curl at the edges until one of my women asks if she can dispose of it.
I think for a long moment. It is my last chance. If I do not send a reply and dispose of it, I forego the opportunity of turning back the years and re-entering the security of my nursery days. Yet, now that I think of it, those days were not secure at all. My mother was not bringing up a child; she gave no thought to me. She was raising a bride, a prize to barter for a pot of gold, an icon of power to raise her status and buy favour with the king. Can I be sure Edith’s motives are any different? I nod my head slowly, and without hesitation, she thrusts the letter into the flames.
The edges of the parchment darken and shrivel, the marks of Edith’s dubious affection turning brown and withering to ashes.
Someone offers me a cup, and I smile up at them before placing the cold rim against my lips, the wine rich upon my tongue. Pembroke is where I belong. It is what Edmund would have wanted and it is where I am determined to stay.
Pembroke Castle – January 1457
My belly is vast. I wonder that human skin can stretch to encompass such a thing. The child is very quiet now and I sometimes worry that I have lost him. Filled with horror, I poke and prod at my abdomen until he squirms away from my prying fingers.
If I were at my mother’s house, I would have been locked away from the rest of the world a month since but here at Pembroke, although some provisions have been made, I am free to walk on the parapet, or look out of the window toward the river and the church on the hill. I am not sorry to dispense with etiquette; the idea of being incarcerated in those tiny chambers for weeks on end is not a welcome one.
I miss the gardens of Lamphey but there are none here, not even produce is grown; vegetables are ferried across from the priory to accompany the endless round of goose, capon and salmon that we are served at table. I have a sudden memory of the rich fayre I enjoyed during my visit to court when I was a girl. I recall an immense pie shaped like a castle, filled with rich, meaty sauce. The king and queen probably eat like that every day while I must survive on plainer fayre. I have been so long in Wales, so completely over taken by the events that have befallen me, I wonder if I will ever return to England, or ever visit the royal court again. I should like the king to bless my child, one day.
I turn listlessly from the window. Ever since we rode here from Carmarthen, I have lacked energy, lacked joy. It is as if a thick mist has descended upon me and I cannot see my way ahead. I know the birth must be soon, there is no escaping that, but what shall come after?
My future that a few months ago seemed so solid is now like slurry beneath my feet. I do not know what to do and God, despite my constant prayer, remains stubbornly silent. While I was prostrate with sorrow and fear, Jasper, even in his own grief, arranged everything. Perhaps he has a plan for me, also. Edmund has been laid to rest at Grey Friars, close to where he died. I have not seen the burial place but I picture him sealed in a tomb for all eternity, his brilliance fading as I grow old and the memory of our love becomes dim.
I cannot imagine the vibrancy he owned vanquished by death, his golden hair beginning to dull, his eyes soon to hollow, his skin to dry and flake until all he was becomes dust. Death must come to us all but my macabre thoughts make me gasp. I shake my head to dispel the image. I must put away the resentment I feel and thank God that, for all eternity, masses will be said for Edmund’s soul. Jasper and I have paid the Grey Friars a small fortune to ensure it is so. When my own time comes, I will leave instruction that my body be laid beside his. I cannot imagine ever loving another.
In my loneliness, the façade of strength I had so briefly conjured fades fast. Each night, when darkness falls, my despair erupts again; it rises like a tide, gushing from some place deep inside me until I am consumed and fall weeping onto my pillows. I wake each morning drenched in tears, both for myself and my poor fatherless child. Listlessly, I seek direction from s
omeone wiser than myself, searching for someone to show me the path I must follow. I am forever on my knees beseeching God’s help, begging for a light to show me the way.
When it all becomes too much to bear, I try to stave off the overwhelming misery by retreating into a childish game, in which Edmund is away, fighting for the king, and will be home with me come supper time. It is only such small silly things that help me through.
By the time January arrives, the weather is bitter cold, and there is little comfort to be had inside the castle. Although the fire is built high, ice forms on the inside of the windows at night, and draughts whip along the passage, seeking a way past the thick tapestry that screens the door. I am constantly cold, constantly miserable.
In the worst weather, we keep the shutters closed and pull our seats as close to the fire as we safely can. It is a gloomy, mole-like existence. Myfanwy tries to keep me entertained with chatter, bringing gossip from the castle kitchens to my chamber, but I do not care for it. I bend over my sewing, adding hundreds of tiny stitches while her voice fills my head and the birthing chair waits, like a portent of doom, in the corner.
Whenever I am alone, I pray to St Nicholas, who has helped me so often in the past, and to St Margaret, who keeps watch over all women in childbirth. I can no longer bear to look at my own body; the fear of what must surely come robs me of sleep, robs me of peace, and fills me with terror.
I am so very small, my arms and legs are thin, easily bruised, and my knees are knobbly and red from praying. The child inside makes a monster of me; my huge abdomen and swollen breasts seem absurd against the rest of my body.
I know the facts of what is to happen to me. I have seen pups and foals born and know the path the child must take, but I can make no sense of it. How a baby, even a small one, can come forth from me in such a way is both bewildering and terrifying. My child is trapped within me, and we are both confined inside a strange castle, in an alien land, while the monsters outside creep ever closer.
The women think I do not hear them whisper about the dangers my slight stature may impose. They think I haven’t seen the midwife shake her head and purse her lips.
“She is very small,” she whispers when she thinks I am out of ear shot, and her words echo around my head like the tolling of the plague bell. Death sits at every window, a hungry smirk on his face as he waits to take me.
Pembroke Castle – January 28th 1457
Something disturbs me. I open my eyes but the night candle has burned out and I can see nothing in the darkness. “Myfanwy?” I sit up, call her name again but know instinctively that I am alone.
She has been absent often lately. She thinks I have not noticed, but as my pregnancy progresses, I wake in the darkest hours of the night and find her bed empty. I blink into blackness. The candle has burned out but there is, as yet, no sign of morning. Something is wrong.
Fingers of fear flutter in my belly. I throw back the cover and slide from the mattress, feeling my way across the freezing room. I grope on Myfanwy’s truckle bed – the rumpled sheets are cold to the touch. As I had guessed, she has been gone for some time. Fumbling for a light, I call out for her and as I do so, something grips the base of my spine. Pain radiates right through me, stealing my breath as my belly is tied into knots. I freeze, paralysed in agony until it passes.
“Myfanwy!” I gasp again as soon as I can breathe. I reach for the door and throw it open. I call her name again and, when no answer comes, I call for Ned, screaming like a fishwife along the passage.
Where is everyone?
“My lady?” Ned emerges from a niche where he has made his bed with Jay. The boy coughs and yawns, rubs his eye. “Are you ill, my lady? Is it … is it the baby?” His horrified eyes trickle down to my belly, widening as he notices the spreading patch of dampness on my shift.
“Where is everyone? Where is Myfanwy?”
“I will fetch her ...”
“No. Don’t leave me, not yet.”
I can feel another pain, unimaginably agonising, rising rapidly from some unknown quarter of my body. I grasp his arm, lean over, my other hand to my back, biting my lip in an effort not to cry out.
I am afraid. I want Myfanwy. I want Edmund. I would even welcome the presence of my mother.
“I will help you back to the chamber.”
I grab his arm and make no protest when he places his hand about my waist and bids me lean on him. I walk like an ancient woman, my knees palsied, each step a torment. His fingers strike cold through my thin night gown, the sweaty, smoky aroma of his hair assaulting my nose. Intimacy with an underling does not concern me now. Other fears loom large in my mind; memories of the women I have known who have died bringing forth a child. Their sorrowful faces float across my mind, but I push them away. I must not think of them now. I am not them. I am Margaret.
With my arm draped about his shoulder, I allow Ned to lead me slowly back to bed. He helps me onto the mattress, carefully lifts my legs and covers them, plumps the pillow. “Will you be all right now, my lady? Shall I run and fetch Myfanwy and the midwife?”
“They should be here – everything was made ready. They had their orders …”
Another pain rises unbidden, and I close my eyes shutting out Ned’s terror-stricken face, my teeth clenched on my bottom lip. I have never known, or imagined, pain like it. When the agony lessens, I nod at him and try to smile, try to speak normally. “Yes, fetch them, please.”
“I will bring the Earl, too,” he yells as he scoots from the chamber.
Oh no, please. Not Jasper. Anyone but him.
What seems like an age later they burst into my chamber. Myfanwy rushes to the bed. “Oh, Margaret, I am so sorry, I should have been here. I am so sorry.”
I see her as if in a dream, certain details striking through my pain. She is clad only in her shift, her face is flushed, her lips strangely swollen, and there is a mark on her throat like a large round bruise.
“Where have you been?”
“Come; let me bathe your face. The midwife will be here any minute, she will instruct us further.”
“Fetch more fuel for the fire.” Jasper has arrived and sends Ned hurrying away again. He takes one step closer to the bed. He is dishevelled, as if his clothes have been thrown on anyhow, his hair damp and standing on end.
“Help me sit up,” I say, and when Myfanwy struggles to lift me, he comes forward. His strong arm slides beneath me as the pain assaults me again. I cling to his shirt, bury my face in his shoulder, and he holds me while I grit my teeth, fighting for breath, my body rigid from the attack. When the moment passes, I lie limp for a moment, glad of his strong arms, his musty male odour. Then my eyes snap open as suddenly everything becomes clear.
His skin, his personal aroma, is laced with something else, somebody else. Myfanwy; it is clear he has been with her for he reeks of the scent of their mating. While I have been drowning in grief and fear, almost giving birth to my son with only a boy to attend me, my best friend and my protector, heedless of my needs, have crept away like thieves in the night to satisfy their lust.
But I cannot worry about that now and I tuck my resentment away.
Jasper calls Jay to his side and he and Ned slip from the room. They have no place in a lying-in chamber. The tiny apartment fills with women, half-dressed and still fugged with sleep as they fuss with unguents and potions. The midwife orders the heavy birthing chair to be dragged closer to the fire. With fear bubbling like vomit in my belly, I stare at it as if it is an instrument of torture.
They leave me to my own devices while they rush around, calling instructions to each other, frantically getting all in order; things that should have been done before. The midwife asks me to lie on the bed and, after a cursory examination, she says, “You’ll do for a while, my lady. You’ve a way to go yet.”
My heart sinks. ‘A way to go?’ I am not sure I can bear this much longer. It is worse than anything I have ever known; far worse than my monthly cramps, far worse than
the measles, or the time I fell in the garden and broke my littlest finger. It must be less painful to be shot through the heart by an arrow, or torn apart by horses. I want to whimper, I want to cry like a baby for my nurse but I am a lady, and the Countess of Richmond. I cannot wail like a commoner… I bite down on my pillow as another pain slides up from my nethers.
The women are warming towels at the hearth. “Aaaahhhhh!” At my scream, their heads turn. Myfanwy drops her towel and climbs onto the bed beside me. I grip her wrist.
“God help me, Myfanwy. I have not even the strength of mind to pray …”
She wipes sweat from my brow, trickles water between my lips.
“The midwife says it is normal, Margaret. It shouldn’t be much longer. Think of holding your child in a little while, your little ‘Owain’, and hold onto that thought.”
I am given little relief between assaults of pain. I can feel it coming. First it is little more than a slight niggle in my back, but it grows in intensity, running across my body like a flowing tide until it consumes me entirely. My belly tightens, my back bone is ready to snap, my whole being under attack. I thrash around on the bed, battling to escape it, although some part of me knows the pain is part of me. I can never escape myself.
The Beaufort Bride: The Life of Margaret Beaufort (The Beaufort Chronicles Book 1) Page 12