by Diana Rubino
"Naught, Dove, I have been quite comfortable here," he said with a reassuring smile.
"What has transpired between you and Henry?"
"A brief exchange, naught else. He paid me a personal visit, entering alone to speak with me; he turned the key in the lock himself. Rather a humble entrance for a usurper. I thought he'd come riding in on a donkey."
"Has he pressured you?" she asked, her brows knitting.
Her husband shook his head. "Not at all. He gave me one week to make my decision, which, I must admit, is quite generous. So I must take my leave shortly, as I must give him my decision."
"I don't want to return to court, Valentine. I love our home and our life together in the north. It will be so miserable living here. But I will if the alternative is--"
"Dove, listen to me." He cupped her chin in his palm the same way he had done when he had delivered that devastating news after the final battle. Her sense of dread kicked her in the stomach. What was coming?
"Dove, I have made my decision to die rather than bend to Henry's will."
She groaned as though her heart would break. "No, please, my love..." She locked her arms around his neck, her tears staining his tunic, her heart beating wildly.
"I shall not serve him, Dove. I am giving myself up freely. I said I would die a noble death and now I shall prove it."
He ended their embrace too painfully soon, pushing her arms from around his neck. Two guards flanked him, clutching him at the elbows.
"But, Valentine! You have so much to live for! What about our children! You'll be leaving us alone in the world if you do this!"
"You shan't be alone, Dove. You have your brother. For me to serve Henry Tudor just to escape death would be the most cowardly act I could ever commit. After a while you would begin to loathe me. I would not expect you to live with a coward. Death is a much more noble alternative."
"Then I am going with you! We shall die together. I do not want to live without you!" she insisted, running now to try to keep pace with the men.
He shook his head. "Do not be daft. You must not leave our children as orphans. They must know the truth about me, Richard, all that we did and hoped to do before Henry usurped the throne so foully."
"But what will become of us without you? My love for you is--"
"No harm will come to you. You are his sister; you are royalty. I am merely in the way. You must understand. I must act as my conscience dictates, no matter how much I love you."
"Please, Valentine…"
But it was too late. Another guard attached himself to her elbow before she could grip her husband around the waist to plead with him, and they were both escorted down the winding stone stairs of the Byward Tower.
"Nay, I shan't let you do this, Valentine. I know what I must tell my brother." Her mind was made up. Her work was done; she could leave this world knowing she'd accomplished what she'd set out to do. She and the intrepid, brave Cristoforo Colombo were the only two people she knew who could honestly say that.
She fought the pang of regret that she would not live to give birth to their second child. Young Richard would never know his parents.
But her sadness was jarred away as the door to the King's receiving chamber opened. The guards crossed their swords and he appeared in the doorway. As Valentine bowed and Denys curtseyed, her eyes bored into her brother, whose long saturnine features were expressionless.
"Denys," Henry said, signaling them to rise as he approached them. "How nice to see you, dear sister."
She ignored his greeting and blindly clutched her husband's hand. "We have come to give you our decision," she said firmly, no trace of agitation in her tone.
"I shall speak for myself, Dove," Valentine rasped.
"I know. But Valentine, please let me speak to my brother."
"Ah, then you are come to serve me." Henry nodded, a self-satisfied smirk forming on the thin reedy lips.
Denys shook her head. "Nay. We cannot serve you, Henry, either of us. I have told you that before. But all of the work Valentine does in the north on behalf of the poor is invaluable. Therefore, I have come to die in place of my husband."
"You?" Husband and brother looked at her with equally astonished eyes.
Valentine grasped her sleeve, trying to push her behind him. "N—nay, she did not mean that, sire—"
"Valentine, cease!" She shook his hand off and turned back to her brother. "Loyalty does not end with a monarch's death, as anyone in Yorkshire could attest to, Henry," Denys said, her voice steady. "I want you to spare Valentine and take me. He's worth much more to you alive than his estates after he's dead. You are just too ignorant in the way of politics and—most of all—the English people, and what's in their hearts—to realize that."
"My lord, forgive her--"
"Nay, Valentine, there is no other way. Better I should forfeit my life than the country be plunged into civil war again because you are gone."
The King stood silently, assessing the situation.
Denys couldn't stand to look into the green eyes that were so much like their mother's. All emotion began to drain away, leaving her shocked at what she had said and done, but knowing that she could not have done anything differently.
Valentine remained silent. He clutched her hand again and this time she did not resist, but gently grasped his fingers and squeezed them.
The silence lengthened, until at last Henry said, "I am impressed, I have to admit. I really believed I could get you to bow to my will and shift sides the way so many others here have been all too happy to do. I am doubly impressed that you would choose to die in the place of your husband, Denys, instead of coming here and partaking of royal life as a privileged member of my court. I cannot undermine your loyalty to your dead King, nor can I expect you to consider me an ally, but I cannot kill my only living sister.
"Valentine, your following in the north is formidable indeed, and I cannot expect everyone to like me, as not everyone liked Richard either." The corner of his mouth twitched in a weak smile.
He cleared his throat and carried on, "I am sorry you do not wish to avail yourself of the offices I wish to bestow upon you, but that shows that you are a truly loyal and unambitious man after all. Therefore, I shall no longer consider you a threat. You may go back to the north with my blessing, to live out your days there in peace."
Valentine nodded curtly, bowed, and began to back out of the chamber.
But Denys stayed rooted to the spot a moment longer, looking into the eyes of her new king. Her kinsman. Finally she found her voice, enough to utter a small, "Thank you, Brother."
"Be well, Sister."
"We shall try. Farewell, Henry." She curtseyed and turned to join her husband where he waited for her, just inside the door.
"Denys," the King's voice reached her just as they were about to exit the chamber.
She froze, steeling herself for the cruel blow she was sure would follow.
Henry said almost timidly, "Would you not like to see Prince Arthur before you leave?"
A hard fist gripped her heart and squeezed. Her new nephew.
She looked up at Valentine and got an encouraging smile. She turned and said quietly, "Aye, Henry, I would indeed."
Henry looked visibly relieved and personally ushered them into the nursery a short distance away, where Elizabeth sat rocking the infant at her breast. She was no longer the giggly girl that had harbored fanciful thoughts about Valentine. She was a woman now, the Queen consort, and her new-found regal bearing brought an amused smile to Denys' lips. She greeted Denys and Valentine warmly and willingly let Denys hold her nephew in her arms.
"Let us treat bygones as bygones, Dove," Elizabeth said. "After all, the past can't be helped now, can it. If you can find it in your heart to forgive Henry's injustices towards you and to forgive my mother for her heinous treatment of you, I would wish to welcome you into our hearts as our sister."
As she looked down at the handsome boy and thought of her own son back h
ome and the other one growing within her, she said softly, "‘Tis all history now, Elizabeth, is it not? Let us simply look forward and secure a better world for our children."
Denys gathered the swaddled infant to her breast. The eyes were of her and her brother's and their mother's. The tiny lips had that same pouty heart shape. He was a Beaufort through and through, with nary a trace of Woodville in sight.
"He is lovely, Elizabeth, so very lovely."
"But why did you not name him Henry?" she asked her brother, who she was sure would have wanted to watch the future Henry the Eighth grow before him.
"The Welsh bards told me the Breton versions of the Arthurian legend, and I made them tell me over and over. I dreamed of living that legend, and having a son I would name Arthur. It was a fitting name for a boy born to be king."
So he too had dreamed of those Arthurian legends. He had also longed to live them, just as she always had.
"Well, Henry, the Arthurian stories are compelling indeed, but they are just that, legends. Living here will make you realize that you can't live life in a storybook. However, I wish your son Arthur a long and prosperous reign as our King one day, as God sees fit." She couldn't wish the same for him.
As she took her leave, Henry spoke a few last words to his sister. "Loyalty takes many forms, and remember, you have family here."
"I've finally found my family and they're here at court, Henry. But I've also found my own life, which is in the north with my husband." She nodded her final farewell.
She took Valentine's proferred arm, and both bowed and strode out the door without a backward glance.
The King watched with renewed pride as his sister and brother-in-law walked down the corridor, arm in arm. Then he turned back to his wife and new son.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Later that evening, the guards at the Tower led Denys to a small chamber and stood posted in the doorway. Denys shivered as she walking in through the door, to be greeted by the young Earl of Warwick. If it had not been for her brother's sudden inclination for mercy, she too would have ended up a prisoner here, and not just a guest.
It was this reflection on strange twists of fate which had led her to urge her husband to return to the north ahead of her, while she remained behind to conclude a few pieces of business.
The young man reminded her painfully of his father, the dashingly irrepressible George. But there the resemblance ended, for he was gazing at her with a slightly confused and childlike expression of wonder in his gray eyes. "May I help you, Mistress? Or are you here to see my wife?"
"Hello, Edward. I am Denys. I was a friend of your father, and a very dear friend of your Uncle Richard."
She did not refer to herself as King Henry's sister. Now that Henry had his first son, she knew that as the last of the Yorkist Plantagenet line, Edward's days were numbered. It would simply be a matter of time before Henry eliminated Edward, and spirited his wife and daughters into obscurity. Edward was Denys' last link to her past, and the impulse to call on him had recently become very strong.
Edward's eyes instantly lit up in recognition at the sound of his uncle's name, and she could see his father George's mischievous twinkle behind the darkness brought about by a lifetime of imprisonment. His very pregnant looking wife Sabine joined them, followed by their two toddlers, Topaz and Amethyst.
Denys watched them chasing each other, pulling each other's hair, not yet aware of the pain and suffering they were to endure because of who they were. Little Topaz sat in the window seat and placed a gold circlet on her head.
She sat up straight and tall, looking like a child queen.
"Topaz, you are a little jewel, and so are you, Amethyst!" Denys laughed, pointing to the small but proud figure.
Topaz bowed her head with a dignified smile.
"Topaz is all ready to take over the throne," Denys jested. "She looks like a queen already."
"We shall never know, shall we?" said Sabine. "Who knows which way the wayward crown will go after we're gone."
Denys gave them all a few small gifts and the basket of food she had brought. It was not much, but Sabine took it with obvious gratitude and immediately began to portion out the victuals for her husband and daughters, keeping back only a small scrap for herself.
"I shall send more," Denys promised in a whisper, before moving toward the door. "But for now I must go and would not like to interrupt your family time any further."
"Thank you. God bless."
"Aye, and you." Denys bade them farewell and hurried from the place, pausing at the guardroom just long enough to tell them to expect parcels regularly from the north henceforward for the little family.
They were deferential to her due to the royal seal on her papers, but she could see their looks. Why give food to dead people.
She shook the dust from her feet as she left the gloomy prison. She would speak to Valentine about what to do for the best. He would know how to approach this problem and try to save them, she was sure. The sooner she arrived home, the better.
Swinging up onto her mount, she began to head north, the crowded buildings soon giving way to greenery and the tree-lined road north. As she rode, she reflected that her voyages of discovery were now truly at an end. She knew who she was, and was now heading home to everything she had ever hoped for in her life-someone who loved her for herself, not for the power she could bring.
"I am on my way home to you, Valentine!" she nearly sang as her mount galloped up the road, made crimson by the late summer twilight.
She reflected on the aptness of his name as she imagined in her mind's eye the joyous reunion they would share as soon as she returned home. Valentine, the patron saint of lovers. He certainly had brought her love, and so much more. She had found her family, set to rest the ghosts of the past, and had a son and another child on the way with whom to share whatever future they could manage to secure for themselves in this new Tudor world her brother had brought about.
Plantagenet, Lancastrian, Tudor… They all ate, slept, prayed, made love, hoped for peace, dreaded war. They lived, laughed and loved, no matter what they were called. Denys prayed her brother would have the wisdom to see that and allow her and her family to remain in peace.
As she rode along, she espied a figure in the distance, heading towards her on a fine mount. Her heart gave a little leap, for surely no other man's hair gleamed like spun gold...
"Valentine!" she called, and spurred her mount.
He waved, and closed the distance between them in a matter of moments. He swept her out of her saddle and into his lap, where he kissed her thoroughly. When they broke apart at last, she asked, "What is wrong? Why are you here? I thought we agreed you should head home as soon as possible in case Henry changed his mind."
"I started to go, but feared he might change his mind about you. So I waited at the inn just north of here, and have been waiting for any sign of you ever since we parted."
"All is well, Valentine. Henry bears no grudge towards us."
"Thank God for it."
"But I thank you for your concern." She kissed him soundly.
"It is the least I can do. You were about to lay down your life for mine, after all, due to my stubborn pride and sense of honor."
"It's who you are. You can't help it, any more than I can help being a Tudor by birth."
"I told you when you set out on your journey of discovery, my dear, that you would always be Denys to me, and that would be more than enough."
She beamed up at him, her love shining in her eyes bathing him in a warm glow. "Being a Starbury is more than enough. And as for the value of name, Valentine, my darling, thy name is love to me!"
"I love you, Denys, now and for all time. Let's go home. Richard will be eager to see his parents, and we to see him."
"Aye, home, my love," she said, nestling into his arms, and knowing she was already there.
EPILOGUE
Cristoforo Colombo didn't forget Denys and Valentine's generosity. On
his fourth voyage to the New World, after finally securing the financial backing of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, he named one of the islands La Huerta, which means "The Orchard."
Don't miss Book Three of The Yorkist Saga, The Jewels of Warwick.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to the Richard III Society, notably Peter and Carolyn Hammond in London, for their assistance with my research. The Barton Library documents were especially helpful.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashdown, Mrs. Charles H., British Costume During Nineteen Centuries
Banks, F.R., The Penguin Guide to London
Braudel, Fernand, The Structures of Everyday Life