“My lord, ’tis true that I am a ward of the queen. We should not be here, and well you know it. I ask that you return me to my guardian, and that we forget we ever met.” My words fell like stones from my lips.
A strange, bewildered expression came into his eyes, and for a moment he didn’t move. Then he drew himself up to his full height and said in a stranger’s voice that sent an arrow straight to my heart, “Indeed, you are right, my lady. Pray, accept my apologies. I shall take you back forthwith.” He put out his elbow stiffly, and I rested my hand on his sleeve as lightly as if I were touching a hot iron, and we turned and went back through the damp garden to the hall that we should never have left.
I didn’t sleep that night but lay awake in the long darkness, weeping silently into my pillow, listening to Sister’s snores and counting the church bells that tolled at the end of every hour. Never would I forget the exquisite, piercing sweetness of the dance we had together, but time would heal this woe, and life would continue. I knew that because the books had told me so.
Morning broke sunny and beautiful, but the bright song of the lark wounded me anew and wrapped me in a cocoon of anguish. He didn’t break fast with us, and I heard that he had ridden off before cock’s crow. I had no stomach for food, and I wouldn’t have nibbled at the slice of bread if Sœur Madeleine hadn’t forced me. We stood in the courtyard watching the groomsmen saddle our horses, and I heard the barking of the hounds with a wretchedness of mind I’d never known before. As bells rang for Prime, we set out on our way and the castle gate clanged shut behind us. The redbrick castle grew smaller the farther we rode, and our fellow travelers fewer. The cluster of timber houses around the castle gave way to a straggle of cottages, fields, and barns, and finally opened out into the lonely moors. As I gazed at the tall grasses and flowers basking in the sun, the quiet of this world after the bustle and noise of the castle sent anguish pouring through me, and I felt as bereft as if I rode in a wasteland. My palfrey’s hooves rang out on the road, clippity-clop, clippity-clop, and their steady pounding rose to a thunder in my ears. Unable to help myself, I slowed my pace and, dropping behind the others, gazed back past the summer heather to where Tattershall Castle lay.
“Last night you couldn’t stop laughing and dancing, and now you are as silent as a mouse with a cat near,” Sœur Madeleine said, turning in her saddle. “What is the matter, ma chérie?”
I couldn’t reply. I felt as though I would never speak again. Tears lay on my heart and blinded my eyes. My palfrey caught up with hers, and I bowed my head so that she wouldn’t see my face.
Sœur Madeleine reached out and pressed my hand. “You are young, my little one,” she said quietly. “Someday another will come and make you forget.”
I raised my head and looked at her then, feeling that it was the first time I had ever truly seen her.
Three
AUGUST 1456
IN DRENCHING RAIN, I RAN DOWN A HILLSIDE OF rocks and thorns, unable to stop. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to escape the creature pursuing me. Swept with sheer black fright, I threw a glance behind me, my heart pounding and blood surging in my ears, but in the darkness I saw nothing. Where is refuge? Where shelter? If this thing caught me, my fate would be unspeakable! The horror of the thought lent wings to my feet, but now the ground grew thick with mud, impeding the way. Gnarled branches twisted out from nowhere and gained ferocious life, sighing and grasping at me as I fled past in the darkness. I choked back my screams and kept running, tripping and nearly falling several times. All around me, loud sobbing cries and pitiful moans rent the air and sent panic rioting through me. I covered my ears so I would not hear them. Suddenly I could go no farther. Something blocked my path, yet strangely I felt comfort, not fear. A flower glimmered before my eyes, and I saw that it was a white rose. Aware that the noises had ceased, I uncovered my ears, and the rose floated into my hands. I marveled at its iridescent beauty, which held a strange, almost ethereal quality. Then I lifted my eyes. Sir John Neville smiled down at me. I was engulfed in warmth, and my lips parted with joy and wonder, but in my surprise I dropped the flower. Sir John bent to pick it up for me, but when he stood again, he was a stranger, standing in shadow, and I could not make out his face. The stranger handed me the flower, only now the rose was red, not white. I didn’t want to take it, but it sprang into my hands, and I saw that blood dripped from its petals. It was blood that colored the white rose red! I dropped the flower and backed away, screaming in horror—
I awoke to find myself sitting upright in bed, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding.
“My poor child, you’ve had a bad dream, but the fever has broken at last. You will soon be well.” Sœur Madeleine removed her hand from my damp brow. Turning behind her as she sat on the edge of my bed, she dipped a cloth into a basin of water held by a young girl and wiped my face. I flinched, for it was cold. My vision, which sleep had blurred, began to clear. I looked around. There was little to see, only the stone wall of a castle bedchamber, a window, and a coffer. “How long have I been sick? Where are we?” I asked.
“We are at court, in Westminster. You fell off your horse and have been unconscious for two days.”
“I don’t remember arriving here.”
“’Tis because you were already ill and burning with fever. I had great fear for you, child.”
I frowned, straining to recall the journey, but there was nothing in my head except a dull pounding. Then all at once remembrance flooded me. “Aye, it’s come back to me now,” I murmured softly. With memory had come the ache of leaving Sir John Neville at Tattershall Castle. I laid my head back on my pillow, dimly aware that Sœur Madeleine was speaking.
“Isabelle, this is Margery. She’ll be taking care of you in my absence, child. I leave for Kenilworth Abbey and shall be gone several days. I shall check on you when I’m back.” She patted my hand, and the girl curtseyed. I gave them a nod, too weary to speak, and closed my eyes.
The trip from Lincolnshire to Westminster had been exceptionally arduous, perhaps due to the unseasonable heat. Beneath leaden skies that oppressed land and folk alike, we had passed friars; peddlers whose toes stuck through the rags that wrapped their feet; itinerant workers; merchants with their wares; women sagging beneath the weight of the milk jugs they carried on their heads; and farmers headed to market, dragging their carts laden with hay, leeks, and apples. Many looked as weary and low-spirited as I had felt. Unable to bear the prospect of entering a house now emptied of my father’s loving presence, we did not stop at his manor in Burrough Green, though Cambridgeshire lay on the path to London. Instead we spent the night at an abbey on the outskirts of town, where I shared a pallet with Sister. Her rolling snores, my own coughing spells, and the fleas and bedbugs that infested our lumpy straw mattress had kept me awake, and, as I had done since leaving Tattershall, I counted the church bells that tolled through the night and struggled to keep thoughts of Sir John Neville at bay.
For the last two days of our journey, I had subsisted on a few swallows of bread and wine. It became clear to me that I had caught the ague, but as the remedy for the sickness was to swallow a spider wrapped in a raisin, I made no mention of my fever in case Sister decided to cure me, and I grew progressively fainter. Then, strangely, the world retreated from me into silence and mist. Sister spoke to Master Giles and Guy, merchants greeted us as they passed, beggars put out their bowls to us from the roadside and called for alms, but their words didn’t reach me. By the time London’s crenellated city walls drew into view across the fields, my legs were in an agony of cramping and I had difficulty sitting upright on my palfrey. My head swam, and though my stomach lay empty, we had to stop twice before we reached Bishopsgate, so I could retch. Nor did it help to arrive in the city. The sights and smells of London sent my stomach churning anew as we passed butcher shops where clouds of flies banqueted on meat hung to dry, and rode down gloomy streets where the air was choked out by the upper stories of merchants’ houses
projecting over the narrow streets, blotting out sun and sky. In these dingy, filthy streets, pigs roamed freely, digging in refuse piles that emitted a stench worse than the dung heaps we had passed on the country roads.
All the while, as I rode and struggled to remain erect in the saddle, the world continued its uncanny silence. Mercers and customers argued in the streets; whirling wheels raised dust in the roadways; and blacksmiths hammered in their shops, fire spitting from the steel they forged, all without a sound. When we finally arrived at Westminster, the large palace courtyard teemed with crowds as mute as if they were etched in an illuminated manuscript. Grim-faced retainers strode purposefully across the court, hands clenched on the hilts of their swords; messengers galloped in and out, bearing missives to and from the far reaches of the kingdom. All unfolded dimly and without sound.
I turned to Sister and saw her talking to the porter in the castle bailey, and I saw the porter nod and point to one of the towers near the river. My head spun, light faded from the day, and the last thing I remembered as the ground rushed up to meet me was the startled look in their eyes as they turned to me.
I gave a soft sigh.
“Is there anything I can do for ye, m’lady?” the girl asked.
I shook my head, murmured my thanks, and closed my eyes. I must have fallen asleep, for it was dark when I opened them again. I pushed myself up into a sitting position. By the light of a single candle on the small bedside table, I made out the girl’s form as she sat dozing against the wall. Her eyes flew open when I stirred.
“M’lady, you’re awake!” She came and knelt beside me. Squeezing out excess moisture from the cloth in the washbasin, she wiped my face. “Your color is much better, m’lady. May I fetch you something to eat—some bread or broth?”
I declined the offer. My stomach was still queasy.
“A gift came for you while you were sleeping,” she said, moving to the coffer in a shadowy corner of the room. She picked up something and brought it to me. “Someone else has been concerned for you, too…. They sent you this.”
I cried out and shrank back, repelled by the sight. A red rose. The girl frowned in puzzlement. “’Tis only a rose, m’lady. It was left outside the door, with this.” She slipped a letter from her bosom and gave it to me. There was no seal. I opened it to find a rhyme carefully scratched out in black ink. I bent my head to read, hope stirring in my breast with each line.
Take thou this rose, O Rose,
Since love’s own flower ’tis,
And by this rose
Thy lover captive is,
And has been, since that fair night
At Tattershall Castle.
Joy exploded in my breast, and I felt the brightness of my own smile. I scoured the missive wildly, checking for a signature, but there was none. “Did you see who brought it?” I cried.
“I only saw his back as he left the flower. He is young and well built.” The girl smiled at me, and I smiled back, my heart soaring. Sir John Neville.
The rose was exquisite, in full and perfect bloom. The dream was an omen of good, not evil, I thought. I buried my face in the soft petals and lay back on my pillow, inhaling the flower’s lovely perfume, the sick feeling in my stomach suddenly gone. Bathed in its scent, I softly hummed the melody of the dance to myself as I drifted off to sleep once more, the song a lullaby for my heart.
Sustained by the knowledge that the visitor had to have been Sir John, I poured my energies into getting well. When Sœur Madeleine returned, she was pleased to find me recovered, and I, for my part, was delighted to see her again, for I had grown fond of her over these many weeks. “Sœur Madeleine, I don’t want you to go back north,” I pleaded as she dressed me for my first outing from the bedchamber. “Pray, ask the queen to let you stay with me.”
“Dear one, I’m needed back at the priory. No doubt the queen will appoint a gentlewoman for you when you have your audience.”
“When will that be?” A stab of panic came and went at the thought of an audience with the fearsome Marguerite d’Anjou.
“Whenever the queen can find time for such small matters. She is busy running the realm now that the king is ill again, so it may be a while. You will have to be patient.”
“The king is ill?” I inquired.
“Aye, he needs rest. State affairs have proved too onerous a burden of late.” She knelt down and busied herself with the hem of my gown. I had the feeling this was a subject she had no wish to discuss.
Unwilling to cause her discomfort with any more questions, I said, “Then I shall pray for his recovery, Sœur Madeleine.”
She nodded her approval.
Ill was the word Sœur Madeleine had used, but over the next few days, as I strolled through the gardens of Westminster Palace and ate in its halls, stealing wistful looks at my rose, I brooded over the open secret of the king’s madness. He was shut up in the royal apartments so no one would see that he sat silently all day, unable to speak, staring at the ground, not comprehending a single thought. But in a castle, light falls into the darkest corners, and secrets never remain secrets for long.
When the queen’s royal infant, Prince Edward, had been presented to his father for his blessing, Henry had glanced at the boy and cast down his eyes, saying nothing. It was spoken in hushed tones that Edward had been sired by the late Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. He could always be found at the queen’s side until his death at the Battle of St. Albans, which had taken place in May 1455, a year before I’d met Sir John Neville. In this battle, fought between the Yorkist party headed by Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the queen’s party, headed by Edmund Beaufort, the Nevilles had sided with York, and it was by a Neville that Somerset had been slain.
The horn sounded the dinner hour. Securing Sir John Neville’s rose to my bodice with my brooch, I abandoned the garden seat where I had been watching the sunset and reliving the ecstasy of the evening at Tattershall. The flower had wilted since he had delivered it to my sickroom, but to me it was still the most beautiful rose in the garden.
I made my way to the great hall reluctantly. Sœur Madeleine was still away, and I dreaded eating alone in the great hall. At the priory I had made few friends, for the girls were wont to cast me long looks and whisper behind my back, jabbing each other in the elbow when I passed. One who had befriended me—a girl named Alice—had given me the reason.
“They think you beautiful and wish to punish you for it,” she had said.
“But why?” I asked, stunned by this revelation.
“I suppose it’s because they think your beauty gives you the right to be loved, and to be happy.”
“But why, when my hair is dark and my eyes brown, and my lips so full?” I persisted.
Alice had laughed. “You have no idea, have you?”
I’d shaken my head.
“’Tis what I like best about you,” she’d replied.
Alice had died of the plague the following year, when she turned fifteen. I felt a squeezing hurt and whispered a prayer for her soul, as I always did when I thought of her.
I crossed the circle of green and headed to the keep. I had become accustomed to the loneliness, and my reception here at court matched my experience at the priory. I sighed softly. It’ll probably take far longer to find a friend here, if indeed a friend can ever be found in such a place.
But the Fates proved kind. Though on my left I was seated next to an old man who put his hand to his ear and grunted, “Hah—what’s that?” each time I spoke to him, until I abandoned all effort at conversation, to my delight I found myself with pleasant company on the right. She was a young woman, clearly gentle-born, and still unmarried at twenty-five. She chattered amiably, telling me about herself and asking questions of me in a refreshing manner devoid of artifice. Her name was Ursula Malory, and she had red hair. Like Alice, I thought. Blue-eyed and of middling height, with a bright smile and nicely drawn features, she would have been considered fair but for her freckles and a crossed l
ook to her eyes.
“You are slender as a cypress tree, m’lady, yet you’re not gaunt. On the contrary, you’re well covered—well covered indeed!” Ursula Malory grinned, throwing a glance at my bosom while I blushed and tried to pull up my bodice. “’Tis all in the way God makes us, I suppose, though I wish He had seen fit to move things around on me—to give me more on top, you know, less in the girth, so I wouldn’t resemble an old hen.”
I was about to protest, but she stopped me with a wave of the hand. “Tish-tish, all’s well. When I was younger, I did on occasion cut back my portions, but my body didn’t wish to shrink. So I decided to accept my shape and enjoy my food! Like you, my lady—” With that, she scooped up a handful of spitted boar and cabbage in a slice of bread, dipped the mixture as I had done in the small wooden bowl of sweet sauce we shared, and munched happily, matching me bite for bite, for I had always enjoyed good appetite, except at Tattershall Castle.
I banished the memory and focused on Ursula Malory. Plump and merry, she had an endearing quality that brought to mind not a hen, as she thought, but a colorful bird with fluffed-up feathers. I liked her more with every word. I gave her a wide smile, charmed by her warmth and by a disposition bright as her hair. She told me that her father, Sir Thomas Malory, had fought against Joan of Arc during the wars in France and had been a member of parliament in the early fifties.
“My father was also a member of parliament. He, too, fought in France at the same time,” I offered, between sips of leek soup. “I wonder if they knew each other.”
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