by Diana Rubino
Finally he spoke, without moving. "Let me be left alone, lass, I promise when you come back, God shall have given me the answer." She thanked him and left him standing in the sunbeam, waiting. She now had another way.
Leaving her travelling party at her London townhome to rest, she had a groom saddle a fresh mount and escort her to Westminster Hall, her mother's miniature next to her heart.
Its thumping kept her alert. She'd already rehearsed her words to Bess Woodville a thousand times over: she knew this had to work.
"Tell the dowager Queen that her niece waits without," she told the page who opened the door to Elizabeth's quarters.
Mass would be over by now; the former Queen was probably reading her book of hours, atoning for a lifetime.
Elizabeth and her children were sequestered behind locked doors and armed guards. The page led Denys into a stuffy antechamber, where Elizabeth's youngest daughters were playing with their dolls in the corner.
Finally Elizabeth appeared, no longer sweeping through in a rustle of satins and gauze. The doorway dwarfed her in her simple black cloak, devoid of jewels. Denys was shocked at her appearance. But her face brightened upon seeing Denys. She felt an unexpected stab of pity. No anger. No resentment. Only pity. This poor woman.
I'm grown now; she can no longer intimidate me.
The former Queen was actually shorter than she, but she'd never noticed it. Gone was the willful spark in her eye; the stormy gray had dulled to the tiredness of tarnished pewter.
She was thin, her face drawn and bony, folds of skin hanging loosely from her chin.
She rushed up to Denys and embraced her like a long-lost daughter.
"Dove! What a lovely surprise! I've been so lonely here. How I have longed for your company—"
Denys tangled with a fresh rush of emotions. But they all felt so much better than the constant contempt that had weighed down her heart all those years, knowing this was a door she would never walk through again.
She searched Elizabeth's eyes for some hint of the usual transparency, but there was none to be found. She was wallowing in the malaise of her own self-defeat. The years of manipulating her victims had finally taken their toll. Empty and resigned, she was now a deposed queen whose fate had dealt her a final blow she no longer had the strength to resist.
"Aunt Bess—" She struggled to keep her voice steady. Years and years of memories converged on her all at once.
She no longer even knew who this woman was, yet she felt pity above all. "—I am so sorry about Uncle Ned. I loved him so. I miss him terribly. A part of me died along with him."
"I know how much you loved your uncle. ‘Tis a pity you and I never shared such closeness." You never wanted to, she ached to say. You shoved me aside and sent me away. You never wanted me. Now, twenty years later, ‘tis a pity.
"Aye, it was. But look at the way it worked out, Aunt Bess. I have Valentine, whom I love dearly and I believe I'm finally carrying his child."
"I'm to have a grandniece or nephew? Ah, Dove, that is marvelous!" After the briefest glance at Denys' middle, Elizabeth clasped her hands together, her eyes lightening.
For the first time, Denys actually saw the hint of blue in those troubled eyes. She fought back the tears with every bit of her strength.
To acknowledge Denys' child as her grandniece or nephew was the farthest Elizabeth ever reached out to her. But now, it was simply too late. Elizabeth may very well have been the baby's great aunt. If she'd been another kind of person, if she'd treated Denys like a niece instead of an unwanted outcast, Denys would have believed she was a Woodville.
But that seven-year-old forever cried out, Aunt Bess, who were my Lord Father and ma mere? And now, with God's help, Denys could finally tell her. So that lost little girl within her could rest.
Now—with Elizabeth contrite, defeated and broken, she would know the truth. Denys knew this woman no longer had the capacity for cruelty.
"I see the prince Richard has joined his brother Edward in the Tower. I am glad for Edward. He must have been lonely there by himself."
"I feel I have made a terrible mistake in letting him go and join his brother. I do not trust the Duke of Gloucester." Of course she hadn't expected Elizabeth to refer to Richard as king. "He never had much reason to trust you either. So perhaps now you can call a truce."
"I have no truce to call with the Duke of Gloucester."
"The lads will be fine."
"At least I still have my little girls with me." She glanced lovingly over at her youngest offspring, who hadn't even looked up from their make-believe world.
"Aunt Bess, I've come to show you something I found." Without another word, she swept the beads out from under her chemise and held them up to Elizabeth. The miniature swung to and fro, and Denys gestured for her to take it.
Elizabeth grasped the miniature, looked at it, then away, then back to it. She took a step back.
"Where did you get this?"
"It matters not where I got it. But isn't she lovely? She's someone you may know quite well, is she not? She looks almost regal—almost like she could be a claimant to the throne." She snatched it away again before Elizabeth could tighten her grip on it.
"So that is what you came here for. You never would have come just to visit me, would you?" Denys had to think about that for a moment. Would she? In several more years, after the pain had eased, perhaps.
But not now. Elizabeth didn't have to know that, however.
Why goad her? This matter was much more important, and she was as close to the truth as the miniature sheltered protectively in her fist like a pearl to an oyster. "She resembles me, does she not?" She didn't await a reply.
"She was a lovely young woman. Amazing—I can see myself in her eyes." She kept her voice steady, for the tears were pressing to burst forth.
The dowager Queen glanced at Denys, then jerked her head with a snort.
"Oh, cease. She is one homely wench. Now I know why Thomas Stanley went into battle; he's better off looking at two thousand horses' asses than that ugly face."
Denys gasped loudly. Elizabeth's eyes ceased their careless wandering and bored into her.
Thomas Stanley!
Denys' mind reeled back through the tables. She matched names and faces from court, pictured every person walking through their door.
He was married to Margaret Beaufort! "My mother is Margaret Beaufort!" It came out as a tortured whisper, but she had to hear it upon her own lips for it to sound like truth. Margaret Beaufort. Hearing that name aloud made her heart nearly stop. So half the mystery was solved.
Elizabeth looked up, and took another step back. Her lips formed words she couldn't speak. Two pairs of eyes locked, two wills, two lifelong opponents, ever circling each other in spar, but neither one succumbing to defeat. Until this moment.
It had worked. She'd lost every battle, but finally won the war. It had taken a lifetime, but she'd finally tricked and defeated Elizabeth Woodville. She then realized from that moment on she had nothing more to say to this woman, a stranger in every sense now.
The beads fell to the floor. Dove got to them before Elizabeth's foot came down to squash them like a bug. She swept them up, jamming them down her bodice.
"Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I thought you never would. Now farewell—Your Highness," she added, deliberately and mockingly.
"You mean—you didn't know? You just—you tricked me?" she shrieked with disbelief, as if any human were capable of outwitting Elizabeth Woodville.
Denys shut her eyes for the briefest moment, to erase the sight of the woman from her mind forever. Without curtseying, she turned and left the chamber, not opening her eyes until she'd turned, not hearing a word the woman was screaming after her. All she could think of was her mother's name, and she repeated it over and over again, like a chant: Margaret Beaufort.
Ma Mere.
Margaret Beaufort, the Lancastrian spy, the woman who'd financed her son Henry Tudor's battles agai
nst Richard, who'd provided intelligence to the enemy, the enemy herself. "Ma Mere." Imprisoned in the Tower for treason, to be executed as soon as this battle was over.
As she rounded the corner and exited the chambers, she deliberately slammed the outer door behind her. Once outside, she looked straight ahead in to her future.
Entering the small Westminster chapel, she asked the chaplain for access to the birth records of 1457.
Margaret Beaufort had been married thrice. Could one of those men be her Lord Father? Carefully turning the pages, she found the leaf headed ‘1457' in large script. Taking one last deep breath to ensure her lucidity, her eyes forced wide, she painfully slowly ran a finger down the list of names.
Finally. There she was.
Girl and boy, twins, January 28, 1457, born to Margaret Beaufort and her husband. Edmund Tudor.
Her father was Edmund Tudor. Oh, God Jesus.
"No!" she cried. "Oh, God, no!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Denys bowed her head over the records, made a fist and pounded the book in anguish. Her twin brother was Henry Tudor, who was at this moment was trying to seize Richard's crown, fighting her beloved Valentine, putting at risk everything she had, her entire world.
Her long-lost family, whom she'd longed for and cried out for, all her life were the enemy. The dreaded Lancastrians. But it was her mother in that prison cell, and she had to get to her.
Without stopping to even think of how to get there, she fled the chapel and headed for the Tower of London, where her mother languished in a cold, damp cell, awaiting death.
The guard at the White Tower regarded her with awe and confusion. He knew she was no commoner, but with her hair disheveled and her gown spattered with mud, she hardly looked noble.
"In which tower is Lady Margaret Beaufort?"
"The Beauchamp tower, milady. But why—"
"I am her daughter!" Saying it for the first time to this stranger seemed to ruin the magic of the revelation. Somehow she'd pictured it differently. She'd wanted to tell Valentine, or write it in her journal, not blurt it to a stranger guarding the prison cell.
"Lead me there, please." For a fleeting second, she became aware that she could turn, go back home, and alter the course of history. To acknowledge Lancastrians as her family spelled possible disaster for herself and her husband, but as she climbed the winding stone steps and strode down the drafty corridor, she knew there was no turning back.
The woman behind this prison door was her destiny and her history—the blood running through her veins, through her unborn children's veins. Beaufort and Tudor blood.
The guard unlatched the lock with a skeleton key and swung the door open.
Denys took a gulp of air, already fearing the worst in the cell.
He stepped back. She stepped in.
The room was silent, airy and light. It didn't resemble a dungeon. No mire clung to the walls. There were no rats or piles of filth about. It was a simple, small room.
The woman's back was to her. Then she turned.
Denys no longer had the dreaded sensation of feeling lost, or thinking about the past. She was there now, about to come face to face with her mother. A scene flashed before her eyes. A young mother, barely out of childhood herself, was handing her baby to another woman, asking her to raise her, for she was royal, and a daughter of the enemy.
"You must raise her as your niece," she told the woman, "and never let her know who she really is."
She shook with nervousness. Her stomach tumbled.
When their eyes met at last there was instant recognition. She didn't look like a prisoner, starving or near death. It was that same face on the miniature, but aged. It was her own face, her own eyes looking back at her, the lips curling up in her smile, her oval face, her strong chin. She never saw the resemblance until now.
She wrapped her arms around her daughter. "I prayed you would come to me," she said softly. "After all these years, I can finally hold you. Oh, how many years we've lost!"
"Ma mere," Denys whispered. "I'm here now, so let's not look back. Let's just start with this moment." She didn't smell death, didn't feel death. That tragic shroud of doom didn't hang over the room or over her mother.
But their tears mingled, tears of a thousand emotions that words couldn't even begin to convey, in French or in English or in any language. They simply let their tears and their hugs say everything that needed to be said.
Her fears vanished. There were no warring factions, no bloody massacres, her brother and her husband and King were not fighting to the death for England's crown. In the face of this miracle, that couldn't be happening somewhere on a field in Leicester.
Her mother surprised her with her next words. "You're with child." She took a tiny step back and held Denys' chin up in a strong but bony hand.
"How do you know?"
"I just know. I see it in your face. You glow."
"Aye. I am. I'm having your grandchild."
"Oh, I prayed all your life for this moment. But at the same time, I feared that you'd always hate me for giving you away."
"I knew you didn't give me up because you didn't want me. It had to go deeper than that. I knew that as much as I knew I wasn't a Woodville. Now that I know who you are, I know why you gave me up. You were afraid, weren't you?"
"Oh, Denys." She squeezed her eyes shut and they spilled over with tears. "I was so fiercely protective of you, you'll never know. I had to do what was best for you."
"Start at the beginning."
"I was twelve when King Henry gave me as a ward to his half-brother Edmund Tudor to marry. He was King Henry's heir to the throne—along with my claim to the throne through my ancestors, we would have reigned jointly as king and queen. Then he was captured by Yorkists in the Battle of Saint Albans and died of plague two months later. He left me pregnant with you and your brother, and I birthed you at Pembroke Castle.
"The King soon married me to Henry Stafford, and we went to live way up in Lincolnshire, on the edge of the Fens. I sent you both away, separating you so you would be even safer. I knew Henry would be safe with his Uncle Jasper in Wales, because of the endless wars being fought here.
"But I had big dreams for Henry. I wanted him to aspire to the throne, so I made sure his uncle trained him well militarily. I felt, with his royal heritage, he deserved a chance at the throne, if not through bloodlines, by battle. So I helped him finance his armies.
"But you were my daughter, my princess. I needed to make a much greater sacrifice for you. So I told King Henry you had died, and delivered you unto my trusted friend, Elizabeth Woodville. As I feared for your life even more than Henry's, I told Elizabeth to change your identity."
"Why give me to her, of all people?"
"I had good reason to give you to her, and she had just as good reason to take you. Elizabeth had a mad fancy for Edward Plantagenet, and she also knew he was destined for greatness. I knew Edward quite well. Our families are related, and we spent a lot of time together at Maxey Castle in Northamptonshire whilst growing up. Elizabeth told me she would protect you if I made a match between her and Edward, but even then, that wasn't enough for the greedy Elizabeth. In case Edward didn't fall under her spell, she wanted something else in the bargain, so I also had to give her a manor house and its lands that I inherited, Foxley Manor.
"As for Edward, I told him he needed to court Elizabeth because I always teased him about his notorious wenching and how he needed a wife and proper household. So I told Edward of this beautiful older widow who had a burning desire to meet him. I arranged for him to court her under an oak tree in Grafton. It has become legend, and the superstitious folk branded it witchcraft, but it really was as simple as love at first sight. He fell for Elizabeth at once. Belief held that she'd cooked up a spell, but it was naught more than simple human nature. She was a beautiful woman determined to get what she wanted, and she did.
"Then Edward seized the throne, overthrowing King Henry, and you would hav
e been in even more danger if your identity had become known as a Lancastrian claimant to the throne. It almost killed me. All the while I was dying inside, knowing I had this beautiful daughter whom I couldn't acknowledge as my own."
"So that is why Elizabeth never told me who I was even once Uncle Ned became King," Denys guessed. "To make sure I'd never get near the throne."
"Of course. We all know the self-serving Elizabeth. When she realized she was about to become queen, she had more reason than ever to keep it quiet. The fewer claimants to her husband's throne, the better. If word had got out about your real identity, the risk of the Lancastrians trying to put you on the throne and kick her husband Edward off would have been great. And by the time she began birthing Edward's heirs, she knew anyone with a claim to the throne was a threat to her princes."