The Tudor rose

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “I would willingly be your messenger,” said the King. “But short of pushing past the crozier of every bishop in the country I cannot.”

  They could hear him for a while talking with Will Slaughter just outside the open door. Telling him which horse he intended to ride on the morrow, discussing the state of the roads, and even laughing ever some campaigning incident of the past.

  “He is certainly more at home in camps than council-chambers!” muttered Edward the Fourth's elder son contemptuously, though well aware that it was the same forthright manner with the common people which had made his father so beloved.

  But presently Richard, who was nearer the door, began to prance noiselessly in pantomimic exultation. “Move them into the room in the Garden Tower,” he could hear the King saying. “They will be able to get out into the sunshine sometimes.”

  The door was closed almost immediately, but Richard did not mind. It would not be for long, he thought.

  Only Will Slaughter heard the end of the crisply spoken order. Heard it, and wondered. His hand was still on the bolt and the man he had always served already a few paces along the passage. “And by the way, Slaughter,” he said, halting in his tracks.

  “Sir?” From bending over the bolt Slaughter straightened himself smartly to attention.

  “That younger one has courage and gaiety,” said the King, without turning his head. “Whatever happens while I am away I would not have him unnecessarily—hurt.”

  BESS HAS A CROSS bear on her back,” complained little Katherine, whose nurse often used the old household expression during her own childish tantrums. And Elizabeth realized with compunction that it was true. All day she had left the children to their own devices and then, trying to lose herself in the sweet imagery of her new book of verses, had been furious with the noise they made. Even the fine singing of the monks at vespers had failed to restore her usual serenity. Half her mind was still seething over the coupling of her name with Henry of Lancaster's, and the other half kept straying to her brothers in the Tower. She longed to go out and see for herself what was happening in the outside world, and the monotony of austere monastic walls was beginning to suffocate her. The summer evening was so warm and lovely that she ached to be on the river or riding beneath the great beeches at Windsor. “But it must be worse for the children,” she thought compassionately; and after a cheerless supper she went to see what they were doing.

  She need not have felt so much compunction.

  Guided by shrieks of merriment, she found them gathered in a room shared by Cicely and Ann, and the whole place in the wildest confusion. They had opened two old oak chests which had been brought from the Palace and which had stood in some dark corner ever since. Garments of all kinds were strewn across bed and stools and window-seat, and all four of them were playing at the age-old game of “dressing up.” Even baby Bridget, half asleep in her nurse's arms, had her fair curls rakishly crowned with a garland of roses which one of her ancestresses must have worn as Queen of Beauty at some bygone tournament.

  “I hope, Madam, it does not matter their ladyships creasing up all those lovely velvets,” apologized her old nurse Mattie anxiously. “But it is so difficult to find occupation for them these long evenings.”

  Elizabeth smiled reassuringly. “They are only old things, Mattie, and it is good to know that my sisters are young enough to be happy in spite of everything.”

  “Come and dress up too,” begged Cicely, who was struggling into a pair of hose considerably too tight for her.

  “Take them off before you split them,” advised Ann, with sisterly candour.

  “But here is the doublet to match,” said Cicely, diving afresh into one of the coffers. “It's the one with the green ruffles which Dickon fancied himself in so last Christmas. Do you remember?”

  “Put it back,” said Elizabeth sharply, remembering only too well.

  “Well, come and dress up in something yourself,” urged Cicely goodnaturedly. “Here is a lovely flowered gown which would suit you to perfection.”

  How dear of them to be so eager for her to join in their play, thought Elizabeth, and to bear her no grudge for her day-long churlishness! “I would willingly try it on but that it appears to have been made for a giantess,” she laughed, perching herself companionably on a corner of the nearest chest.

  “Then wait while I find you something smaller,” offered Ann obligingly, turning over a mounting pile of garments.

  “Look! There's brother Ned's suit with the roses,” pointed out small Katherine, as well as she could for the flowing veil in which she imagined herself to be a bride.

  “Bess doesn't want to dress up as a boy, petite imbecile!' said Ann, throwing the favourite old suit aside. But Elizabeth picked it up and examined it attentively. It was made of plain black velvet with white roses of York stitched all over it. “Edward is so tall for his age I believe I could get into it,” she said, beckoning to one of the women to unhook her dress.

  The children were delighted. Willing hands helped to fasten the doublet and to tie the points of the long black hose. “Why, you look wonderful, Bess!” exclaimed Ann, whose dress sense already bade fair to be excellent. “Here, chérie, let me tuck some of your hair under this black-velvet cap. And put your feet into these square-toed shoes. They are distressingly clumsy, but I cannot find Ned's.” Dainty Ann knelt back on her heels and stared in astonishment at the transformation she had wrought. “You know, Bess darling, you make a wonderful boy. No one would ever guess, would they, Cicely?”

  “You look like another person—the way you did in that grand French wedding gown,” said Cicely, gaping with astonishment. “Only now, I am glad to say, you don't look grand at all. Except for the silk roses, of course.”

  “Bring me the mirror,” said Elizabeth, and, suddenly finding herself in urgent need of more mature confirmation, raised questioning eyes to kind old Mattie.

  “Truly, Madam, you might be his young Grace the King,” Mattie told her.

  “Or one of the pages, with those shoes!” giggled a gawky young nursery girl who had come to carry Bridget to her cradle.

  “If only Dickon were here he would make up some play for us to act now that we are all dressed up,” sighed Ann, exquisite in somebody's flame-coloured pageant dress.

  “I will try to invent one in his stead,” said Elizabeth, looking down with particular satisfaction at the incongruous shoes.

  They clapped their hands with delight, and when it was acted and the hour-glass had run down to bedtime the girls declared that never since their father's death had they enjoyed so good an evening's entertainment; and the waiting-women were no less pleased because a considerate Princess insisted upon her sisters helping to tidy the room. She even began folding things up herself; but while they were all busy she slipped away, and none of them noticed that she had taken her own impromptu costume with her.

  Far into the night, almost to the last gutter of her candles, Elizabeth, the King's daughter, sat diligently unpicking white silk roses; and in the morning as soon as the kitchen fires were being raked she dressed herself carefully in the plain black velvet, trying to hide the gleaming length of her hair as Ann had done. She drew close the curtains of her bed so that the servants might think she slept late, then donned the square-toed shoes and, with pounding heart, crept softly down the backstairs, uncomfortably conscious of the unaccustomed draught about her slender, tightly hosed legs.

  As a child she had often seen inside the Palace kitchens, and by comparison the Abbot's looked intimately small. She had counted upon there being more people about so that she might slip out unseen. But on the other hand there were no complicated passages to negotiate. Near the backstairs entry, in which she stood, some of the servants were sitting on a bench still finishing their breakfast ale, while beyond them a couple of scullions hung freshly filled pots on the chains above the great open fire. A lay brother appeared to be superintending the cooking, and in the middle of the stone-flagged room a tall
monk sat at an old refectory table with an account book, chequerboard and several little piles of coins in front of him. He was bargaining for country produce as the carters brought in their wares, and the going and coming through the outer door at the far end of the room was considerable. Through the blunt Norman arch of it Elizabeth could see the open courtyard and groups of peasants unloading fresh vegetables. Some of them, their produce sold, were already throwing back their empty sacks and departing. It should be easy enough, she thought, to pick up a sack and walk past the unsuspecting guard beside them; and once outside the Abbey precincts she knew the way to the Palace water-stairs. Ferrymen were always hanging about at the moorings. She had only to call “Hey, there, a boat for below bridge!” and step casually aboard as she had seen young 'prentices do a hundred times when going about their master's business. And then, once out in the early-morning sunshine, she would be borne swiftly away from the stifling walls of sanctuary upon the sparkling tide. There would be the breath-taking thrill when the boat shot expertly through a narrow arch of the bridge, and beyond it, solid and white and strong, would be the Tower with the water swirling through the portcullis of the gate into the sullen moat, and the grim, battlemented towers above.

  Perhaps in a few minutes from now she would see her brothers again. If she were fortunate, one of them might wave—though, to be sure, they would not recognize her in doublet and hose. And if they were not yet up she would tell the boatman to row back slowly at slack tide, hoping to see them on her return journey.

  Elizabeth had never in her life stepped into a swaying boat without the help of obsequious hands, nor had she the least idea how much the hire of a public one might be; but she had been careful to put some gold pieces and a groat or two into the little wallet attached to Edward's leather belt. As she felt with moist, anxious fingers to make sure they were still there someone hurrying in from the backstairs passage jogged her roughly, elbowing her out of the way. “Have you no errands to do, blockhead, that you must cumber the doorways?” demanded a consequential young soldier whom she recognized as a corporal in John Nesfield's guard.

  It was a new experience for a Princess of England, but Elizabeth had the sense to keep her mouth shut. She moved obediently into the kitchen and looked about her, accepting a mug of breakfast ale with the rest.

  The corporal called loudly for a glass of the best Malvoisie. With reluctant but unruffled courtesy the tall Benedictine sent a servant for it and went on with his accountancy, setting to shame the young lout's self-importance. For, as everyone knew, no one in the new King's guard had any right to penetrate even as far as the kitchen.

  “Thinks he owns the Abbey just because the Captain sends him to report to the Tower ev'ry mornin'!” grumbled the old man who grommed the Abbot's mule, sore because the soldier had upset his ale.

  “What is there to report about in this celibate backwater?” enquired a discontented scullion.

  “Everything the Woodville widow and her clutch of daughters do, I suppose,” laughed a coarse-looking individual sitting on the bench close by Elizabeth's side.

  “But what's the good of sending reports about anything to London when the new King's gone up north?” asked someone.

  “He's left trusty people here to act for him, never fear!” vouchsafed the corporal, overhearing him. “Gloucester never did leave anything to chance. He's the best soldier we ever had.”

  As he set down his empty glass and swaggered out into the courtyard the lay brother turned from the fire with a skillet in his hand. “A pity Sir Mars does not bring reports back again about what's going on in the Tower,” he said, voicing the uneasiness of all.

  But uneasiness and curiosity were drowned in laughter as a shock-headed swineherd drove in an unwilling pig for sale, and the Benedictine monk, after poking its lean ribs, sent him out again. During the scuttling and the merriment Elizabeth edged her way farther along behind the fast emptying bench. It was no good standing still like a frightened hen, or being shocked by the way the servants really spoke. She noticed an honest-looking farmer selling Father Ambrose a fat goose while his two boys waited with a basket of more delicious plums than ever reached her mother's table. “I will go out with them,” she decided, settling the unaccustomed belt more snugly about her slender hips and looking for somewhere to set down her mug.

  But before she could reach the table to join them the sunlight was momentarily blocked from the open doorway and the swineherd came running back again. He ran so fast and so blindly that he cannoned into the lay brother, who was in the act of tasting the steaming contents of the skillet with a long-handled spoon. “The Devil take you!” yelled the poor man, as drops of boiling liquid slopped over his sandalled feet.

  The lad did not even apologize. “Have you heard?” he panted.

  “Heard what, you clumsy numbskull?” growled the enraged Benedictine, sinking back on to a stool to hold his scalded toes.

  “What they are saying all along the strand.”

  “The strand is always buzzing with some silly tale or other.”

  “People with nothing to do but hang about for fares have time to invent them,” scoffed a second lay brother, coming in hot from the hard labour of kneading the day's dough.

  In spite of so discouraging a reception, the country lad stood his ground in the midst of them all. “'Tis about the two Princes,” he said, still too excited and short of breath to elaborate.

  Cooks and scullions turned from their tasks, and the breakfasting servants ceased chewing with bread still bulging their cheeks. Involuntarily every man stopped to listen, for what was happening to the late King's sons was the subject upon which the ears of all London hung.

  “Well, what about the Princes?” asked the monk in charge, grudgingly, thereby lending the uncouth newsmonger the prestige of his notice.

  “They've been murdered.”

  The stark words, roughened by a rural burr, seemed to drop into the expectant stillness as separately as hard stones. Their harsh impact created a horrified hush, followed by a babel of questions.

  “Where?”

  “Who says so?”

  “How do you know?”

  In the general hubbub no one noticed a fair-haired lad stagger against the table, or a mug half full of ale clatter to the stone floor.

  “Seems some sailors had it from Will Slaughter's doxie. They be all round her on the water-stairs now.”

  “And who is this Will Slaughter?”

  “He looks after them, she says.”

  “'She says'!” scoffed Brother Ambrose, closing his account-book with a bang. “It is always someone else who says. And is this—loose-living person with so sinister a name supposed to be the murderer?”

  The tale-bearer, not having thought so far, could only scratch his tousled head.

  “It seems scarcely likely, Brother Ambrose,” pointed out the cook with the scalded toes, forgetting his pain. “Or he would have been the last to start the news.”

  “Then who is supposed to have done this dastardly thing?” demanded the Surrey farmer, his gaze upon his own two sons and the Abbot's money lying forgotten in his gnarled hand.

  For a moment it seemed as if some powerful presence they all feared were holding men's tongues dumb. Some of them glanced apprehensively over their shoulders in the direction of the Palace buildings. “He who has most cause to benefit, surely,” suggested someone at last.

  “There's but one man who stands more firmly through the slaughter of King Edward's innocent sons,” persisted the farmer, uninhibited by such townsmen's caution.

  “King Richard is miles away making a circuit of the north,” Father Ambrose reminded him sternly.

  “But, absent or present, there be those left at the Tower who still do his bidding,” mimicked a falconer from the Abbot's mews, remembering what the upstart young corporal had said.

  “And mighty popular he makes himself, remitting fines and prison sentences and such,” added his mate.

  The slender
lad in black who had stumbled seemed to have recovered himself. To the amazement of all, he suddenly flung himself upon the bearer of the hideous tale. “How were they murdered?” he demanded, clutching at the other's coarse jerkin as if he would shake the truth out of him.

  The hefty young swineherd goggled in surprise. “In their beds, they do say,” he stammered.

  “'They say' again!” raged the clear, accusing voice. “But, in God's name, do you know?”

  “How should I, fool?” countered the country boy, fending him off.

  “Then speak no more out of your ignorance, rending people's hearts!” cried the one in black, fetching him a stinging welt across the face with his open palm.

  The placid peasant's anger was roused at last. He swung back a red ham of a fist which would have persuaded an ox from one furrow to the next. In that moment the lads' two faces, coarse and cultured, came very close; and some vague recollection, stirring at the back of his slow mind, must have stayed the blow. His mouth gaped and his arm fell to his side. Not until his whirlwind of an aggressor had vanished through the backstairs door did his wits begin to function. “'Twas like our true King,” he said, awe-struck. “I saw him when they brought him through London. Close I was to him as I am to you, reverend Sir. And all white and pale he looked, just like him.”

  “'Twas his very clothes,” confirmed a Smithfield man, who had often watched royalty at the tournaments.

  “And the way he spoke—with that clipped Norman accent.”

  “Must have been the poor King's ghost,” muttered the credulous old falconer.

  And, to be on the safe side, the two lay brothers crossed themselves.

  “Ghosts don't talk such common sense. Follow the fellow and bring him back,” ordered Father Ambrose, despairing of ever getting any work done in his kitchen that day. But they all hung back. No one wanted to be the first to climb the dark and winding backstairs for fear of what they might meet there. And by the time the hard-breathing pack of them had pushed each other to the top the gallery leading to the living-rooms was deserted, and colour would be added to any tale that might be told against the usurper because every man among them would believe until his dying day that he had seen the avenging ghost of unfortunate young Edward the Fifth.