The Witch of Eye

by Mari Griffith

  ‘Well met, Queen Jenna,’ William greeted her. ‘Don’t feel nervous. You’ll soon settle down and get used to giving orders. And you’ll find it’s a great deal more agreeable than taking them, I promise you!’ He smiled. ‘I’m the King of the Bean, by the way.’

  Jenna smiled back at him. ‘Yes, I realise that,’ she said, still flushed with embarrassment, but grateful that he had tried to put her at her ease.

  ‘Here,’ said William, reaching for a nearby jug, ‘a goblet of Lamb’s Wool for the wassail.’ He poured a generous measure of spiced ale with cream and apples into her goblet. Then he turned and banged on the table with the handle of his knife.

  ‘My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, raising his glass, ‘pray be upstanding to drink the health of Her Royal Highness, Jenna Harding, who is to be crowned Queen of the Pea. Wassail!’

  ‘Wassail! Wassail!’ The cry echoed around the barn and now the two young cowherds, Seth and Piers, were approaching the top table, marching in time to clapping and whooping calls from all sides, each bearing a crudely fashioned crown of entwined withies, one decorated with holly for the king, the other trimmed with ivy for the queen. They skirted around the table to place the crowns clumsily on William and Jenna’s heads then, giggling, Seth held a large sprig of mistletoe over the two of them. Piers, almost doubled-up with his hand over his mouth, was finding it difficult to contain his laughter, embarrassed by causing discomfiture to the Master.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jenna,’ said William, ‘but I’m afraid the King of the Bean has to kiss the Queen of the Pea. It is expected.’ He leaned towards her as a great cheer went up from everyone in the room. It was the first time Jenna had felt a man’s mouth on her own since she had fled from Jake’s bruising caresses but William’s lips as they brushed hers fleetingly, felt as light as thistledown.

  Surprised and blushing furiously, she pulled back from him just as Geoffrey the Carpenter, who had been declared Lord of Misrule for the evening’s festivities, leaped in front of them, waving an inflated pig’s bladder on the end of a beribboned stick.

  ‘By your leave, Your Highnesses?’ Geoffrey had grabbed Seth by the scruff of the neck and was bouncing the bladder balloon on his head. ‘Your loyal subjects wish to indulge themselves in a thrilling game of Hoodman Blind, with young Seth here as the first hooded man. Do we have the permission of Your Gracious Persons so to do?’

  William looked at Jenna and raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, my Lady?’ he said. ‘Shall we grant our royal permission for the game?’

  ‘I think we might, my Lord,’ Jenna replied, beginning to enter into the spirit of the occasion and doing her best to sound regal and haughty. ‘Yes, I think we might.’

  William raised his hand to give his blessing to the game and the Lord of Misrule turned the wriggling Seth’s hood around to the front of his head then pulled it up over his face so he couldn’t see a thing. William watched their antics with an indulgent smile on his face. Plough Monday would be here soon enough and they’d all have to buckle down once again to the daily grind of life on the farm. They might as well relax and enjoy themselves while they had a chance.

  The party disrupted into a scuffle of young farm hands, boys and girls, giggling and squealing in anticipation of spinning Seth around in circles several times before letting him go to stagger, disorientated around the barn, trying to catch one of them. Amid the hubbub, the King of the Bean turned to the Queen of the Pea and raised his goblet again, gazing at her over the rim with an enquiring lift of his eyebrows.

  ‘Is everything to Your Highness’s liking?’ he asked.

  Jenna smiled and inclined her head graciously. ‘Indeed, it is, my Lord.’

  It was the start of a topsy-turvy evening of great merriment and, after a while, Jenna quite forgot her misgivings about being Queen of the Pea. What she couldn’t dismiss from her mind was the thrill of William Jourdemayne’s lips brushing hers.

  ***

  This Christmas had been busier than the Abbot of Westminster had ever known it. Back in October, he had assisted Cardinal-bishop Henry Beaufort at the memorial service for the Duke of Bedford and soon afterwards there had been all that dreary business of negotiating the realignment of the Paddington stream to make more water available to the monastery. With Advent came the pressure of the extended Christmas festival itself, quite the busiest period in the Christian calendar, so he was feeling very tired by the time he reached La Neyte for a few days’ relaxation – perhaps because he was getting old or, perhaps, because the young King was very demanding.

  Of course, Abbot Harweden approved of the fact that His Highness was ardently devout, but despite the opportunity to worship in the royal chapel of St Stephen’s as often as he wished, the King still seemed to want to attend Mass in the Abbey very frequently. And each time he did, it was expected that the Abbot would entertain the royal visitor and provide a sumptuous meal for him and his entire entourage. The King brought all his youthful energies to his Christian worship but the Abbot, so much older than his monarch, felt very drained.

  After several days of relaxation at La Neyte, and for the first time in many weeks, he was beginning to feel reinvigorated, he was not even slightly irritated by the distant sounds of seasonal revelry which were quite audible on the early evening air. The Jourdemaynes were clearly holding the traditional Twelfth Night celebrations for the estate workers in the barn. Abbot Harweden preferred to dine quietly with a friend or colleague and, again, his companion was Thomas Southwell. They knew the Feast of Epiphany on the morrow would be a busy day for them both.

  ‘They do seem a noisy crowd down at the home farm this evening,’ observed Southwell between mouthfuls of beef stew. ‘I can hardly hear myself chew! Incidentally, Richard, this stew is excellent.’

  ‘You’re always so appreciative, Thomas,’ smiled the Abbot. ‘My cook loves to hear the kind things you say about the food here at La Neyte.’ He paused while Southwell continued to chew with enthusiasm, then leaned back in his chair, his fingertips together. ‘It doesn’t seem like three months since we last ate together, Thomas,’ he said. ‘So, tell me, how was the season of goodwill for you? Were you at St Stephen Walbrook? I didn’t see you here at Westminster.’

  ‘Yes, I was here,’ replied Southwell. ‘It is still not possible to use St Stephen’s because of the building work, but it’s going to be a magnificent church when it re-opens.’

  Abbot Harweden nodded approvingly. ‘It’s always good to know of improvements to places of worship. So, you were here at Westminster? You were very quiet about it.’

  ‘I also attended some services at Southwark,’ said Southwell, wiping grease from his mouth, ‘I made a point of it. It’s always a pleasure to hear Cardinal Beaufort preach a sermon. I try to attend St Mary Overie whenever he is there.’

  ‘Indeed, his addresses are always excellent,’ agreed the Abbot. ‘It’s just a pity his political manoeuvring is not always so skilful these days. He’s getting old, like the rest of us.’

  ‘A great pity. And he was always so successful at these things in the past. It’s a shame that the whole English delegation stormed out of the Congress of Arras last September then had to come home with their tails between their legs.’

  ‘Yes, very unfortunate,’ said Abbot Harweden.

  The Abbot was as aware as anyone else that the Congress of Arras had been a near disaster. Cardinal Beaufort and the English delegation had done their best to reach a peaceful agreement with the Duke of Burgundy, but the Frenchman proved himself a wily negotiator. He was clearly determined to rid France of her English overlords so that his cousin, the Dauphin, could legitimately call himself King Charles VII of France. To that end, the two had recently signed a treaty, pledging their absolute loyalty to each other.

  ‘It seems,’ observed the Abbot, ‘that they’re both pressing very hard to break the cordial relationship between France and England.’

  ‘Cordial relationship?’ Southwell snorted. ‘Hardly that. Our young
King may rule over both countries, but it has never been a “cordial relationship”.’

  The Abbot sighed. ‘I would like to take refuge in the Epistle to the Romans, Thomas,’ he said. ‘“If God is for us, who can be against us?”’

  ‘The French,’ replied Southwell grimly. ‘No doubt about it. Though Her Grace the Duchess of Gloucester confided in me that her husband thinks it imperative that France should be kept under English rule.’

  ‘Not so Cardinal Beaufort,’ said the Abbot, ‘especially since everything went so dreadfully wrong at Arras. And I do tend to agree with him. Perhaps we ought to make a clean break away from France and let the wretched country fend for itself. Where exactly do you stand on the issue, Thomas?’

  Southwell, soaking up beef gravy with his bread, wore a frown of concentration. ‘I’m not at all sure,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’

  The Abbot regarded his companion with cynical amusement. He knew Southwell would always sit firmly astride the fence, not taking sides with one or the other until he was certain who would win the argument.

  Beaufort and Gloucester were both very influential men and Canon Southwell had ambition. He would always want to side with the winner.

  ***

  King Henry disliked the feeling of having grease on his hands and beckoned his ewerer to bring him a bowlful of water. As he rinsed away the last slimy traces of roast swan and dried his fingers carefully on the proffered towel, he looked around him at the excited, happy faces of the revellers seated at the table on the royal dais, enjoying the last merry celebration of the long Christmas festival. These were his close family and there were few enough of them. His father’s only remaining brother, the Duke of Gloucester, was listening with rapt attention to something his wife was saying and Henry heard the Duchess laugh delightedly, a laugh which started on a high, fluting note and tinkled down the scale like a peal of little silver bells. He liked that.

  Catching his eye, his aunt Eleanor made a great show of stroking the new brooch once again and he snatched his eyes away from her, only to find his cousin, the seventeen-year-old Antigone, waving her hand excitedly to attract his attention. Humphrey’s natural daughter was seated between her brother, Arthur Plantagenet, and her fiancé, the Earl of Tankerville.

  ‘Your Highness!’ she called to him, ‘This time next year I shall be a Countess!’ Antigone, rather a strident young woman, seemed hardly able to wait to marry the Earl. In Henry’s opinion, Tankerville was welcome to her, though he nodded, smiled and kept his uncharitable thoughts to himself.

  The only face that was missing, the dear face he wanted to see more than any other, was his mother’s. The Dowager Queen Catherine should be here on the royal dais, watching the dancing, her slim fingers tapping the table to the rhythm of the music. She loved music and always charmed everyone when she sang the songs of her native France in her pretty Parisian accent. But she was spending Christmas in the country and no one but her son seemed to care that she wasn’t in Westminster; no one even mentioned her name.

  At least Henry now knew the reason why she wasn’t here, and he was the only person seated at the table who knew the truth.

  When he was younger, the King had been very distressed by his mother’s frequent absences from court and he had prayed earnestly that she was not ill. Then he reasoned with himself that she was probably still mourning his father’s death. Or maybe his mother disliked him and couldn’t bring herself to say so? Perhaps she was disappointed that he wasn’t growing up to resemble his late father. He had been told many tales of his father’s bravery and of the high regard in which the people had held him. Henry really, really wanted to grow up to be resolute and steadfast like his father and he had always wanted to please his lovely, gentle mother. But he was afraid she didn’t care for him.

  It had been with very mixed emotions that he’d learned the real reason for her absences. Far from mourning the death of her husband, as Henry had imagined, she had at last confided in him that she had married again, in secret this time, and she made him swear not to divulge the secret to anyone. The only other person at court who knew the truth of her situation was Henry’s great-uncle, Cardinal Beaufort.

  Henry had been deeply shocked, hurt and resentful that his mother preferred to be in the country with her new husband, Owen Tudor, rather than at Windsor with her son. But she explained to him that the marriage had to be kept secret because, as her Clerk of the Wardrobe, Tudor was a servant in her household. He was also Welsh and therefore had no rights under English law. He could be hanged if anyone ever found out about it. So Henry must promise never to tell anyone.

  At first Henry had found it very difficult to understand why his mother had lowered herself to associate with a servant. Then she told him of Tudor’s great kindness towards her when, as a French woman at the English court, she had felt lonely and vulnerable. They had fallen in love, but were forced to keep their relationship a secret because of a parliamentary statute which threatened terrible punishment for any man who married the dowager queen without the express permission of the King.

  Henry really wanted his mother to be happy and said he would readily give his permission for the marriage, but she told him that it wasn‘t as easy as that and one day she would explain it all to him. For the moment, all he needed to know was that the statute had been drawn up by none other than Henry’s own uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, so his mother and her new husband deemed it wise to stay away from court, rather than arouse the Duke’s suspicion and face the threat of Owen Tudor’s possible execution. The Duke still knew nothing of the marriage and neither did the Duchess.

  Of course, Henry would never let his mother down in any way, but she had entrusted him with an enormous secret and it was very, very difficult to keep it to himself. Sometimes he felt his head would burst with the effort, especially now he knew he had two younger brothers. Henry, who had thought himself an only child, was tremendously excited by the knowledge. He knew their names were Edmund and Jasper. Edmund and Jasper! When he was on his own, he would say the names quietly to himself, rolling them around his tongue, savouring them. He whispered those names in his prayers each night and entreated God to be kind to them. Edmund and Jasper. What did they look like? Did they look like him? Or did they take after their father, Owen Tudor? Edmund and Jasper. He wished he could spend time with them, teach them to ride, help them with their reading, worship with them in St Stephen’s Chapel or in the Abbey Church of St Peter. It wasn’t fair that he should be constantly alone. He ached to have his other, secret family with him here at Windsor, sitting on the royal dais, eating roast swan, enjoying the games, the music and the dancing, not hiding away in the country at Bishop’s Hatfield. What was the point in being King of England and France if he couldn’t have what he really wanted?

  The burden of the secret was almost too much to bear and he was relieved to be able to talk about it to the one other person who knew it, his great-uncle Henry Beaufort. Beaufort had warned him strongly against saying anything to anyone, particularly the Duke of Gloucester. He had been at great pains to stress that the King’s uncle was a dangerous, devious politician. He pointed out that, by forcing the Royal Marriage Bill through parliament to prevent the Dowager Queen from re-marrying and having more children, Gloucester’s main motivation was to strengthen his own claim to the throne.

  His Highness should wait, said Beaufort, biding his time and looking forward to the day when he was old enough to make his own decisions. Then he could welcome his half-brothers to court and no one could gainsay him.

  Henry was aware that there was no love lost between the Cardinal and the Duke but, of the two, his instinct was to trust his great-uncle Henry Beaufort. So, though it was all he could do to stop himself blurting out the truth, Henry knew he must keep the exciting secret of his half-brothers to himself and, whatever happened, he must never, ever, tell his uncle of Gloucester, nor his aunt, the Duchess Eleanor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Spring 1436

 
‘May Day tomorrow,’ said Jenna, expertly slapping a ball of butter into a rectangular shape between two wooden butter paddles. ‘It’ll soon be summer and then we’ll have trouble keeping the dairy cool.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jane, ‘it’s a lot better since Master Jourdemayne diverted the stream to run through it last year. It makes it a lot easier to clean out, too.’

  ‘Cold feet are my problem when I’m in here,’ Hawys said, with a scowl, ‘they’ve been frozen solid all winter.’

  ‘They don’t have to be Hawys,’ said Jenna. ‘If you’re shrammed with cold, you can always try stuffing stinging nettles in your shoes.’

  ‘Ugh! I’ll put up with the cold feet, thank you! Shall I pass you the butter stamp, Jenna?’

  ‘Please.’ Jenna added the butter to a tray of similar yellow rectangles, each lying on a dock leaf, then began stamping each one with the imprint of the farm before wrapping the leaf around it.

  ‘Oooh, I love May Day!’ exclaimed Kitty, pirouetting around her butter churn and humming a little dance tune. ‘I wonder who will be Queen of the May! Will it be you, do you think, Jenna?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Jenna shook her head. ‘I’ve already been a queen once this year, remember. I was Queen of the Pea. I won’t be May Queen as well. Perhaps it will be Hawys.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be me,’ said Hawys dismissively. ‘May Day,’ she grimaced, ‘already! And my Seth still hasn’t said a word.’

  ‘Perhaps he won’t,’ Jenna said, ‘and don’t waste your time grieving over that. Marriage isn’t all it’s made out to be. Or so they say,’ she added.

  ‘I can’t see any alternative, and I’m not getting any younger.’ Hawys wasn’t exactly sure of her age, but thought she was about nineteen years old. To Hawys, that meant her chances of marrying were decreasing rapidly.

  Jenna said nothing. Kitty had told her that the other dairymaids were itching to know whether she was a maiden, a wife or a widow, but she didn’t intend telling them. That was none of their business. She steered the conversation away from the subject.