‘Well, madam?’ he said. ‘You are late abroad, or should I say early?’
And I was a child again, another oath broken, for I had sworn he would never again bring me fear.
‘I know you, mistress, do I not?’ His voice was kind, as a sword is kind until you feel the edge. I pulled my careless cloak together, confused. He had seen me more than once, sitting quietly in his mother’s apartments.
‘I had not recognized you before now,’ he said, just as if he had read my thoughts. ‘I vow—’tis those incredible headpieces you ladies wear, but now ’tis all plain ... were you not with us at Grafton Regis?’
It was undoubtedly true. With my hair fashionably hidden, the forehead shaved for height, I owned a different countenance. Without my wealth of hair, I was but another little pale face.
His eyes, cold depths of a winter lake, held mine. My gaze showed unease, I know, but strangely so did his, as if I were some little wild animal of uncertain temper. For a moment we looked at one another, and my heart, lately lulled to bliss by Richard’s touch, began to leap and bound as do the birds cruel boys fasten to stakes and stone to death.
‘Yes...’ he said, very slowly, and that one word held more meaning than the longest speech. Then suddenly he turned on his heel and strode in the direction of the Duchess’s apartments, while I stayed, paralysed with dismay, for there Elysande waited to let me in. I saw him halt outside my lady’s door, musing deeply, and he must have thought the hour too late or too early, for he moved away without knocking, and vanished down the staircase, his tall shadow following him.
Now fear such as I had never known held me fast. He had remembered me, and with that remembrance, had come a reprise of that night at Grafton Regis, when he had bullied me into forgetting what I had seen. And what had I seen? Something not clearly understood, something evil and dangerous. He was plainly haunted. And I feared the outcome of his malaise.
‘Holy Jesu!’ I whispered outside the Duchess’s door. ‘He will send me back to Grafton!’
He would send me back to Grafton, and I would never see Richard again. Elysande slid back the bolt and I fell into her arms, weeping as loudly as I dared.
Now she was pressing my hand gently. She had been looking out of the window.
‘He rides with Edward Brampton, the Portuguese,’ she murmured. ‘They make a goodly show—all of them...’ stealing a sideways glance. ‘He loved you right well last night?’ she whispered, and I nodded, because she was a dear friend to me and full of understanding that love was not always carnal sin, as the priests said.
‘You were courageous,’ she whispered. ‘To venture among all the military. I warrant you saw sights to bring the colour to your face.’
Even as she spoke, I knew for certainty that she herself must have made like journeys in her time, and wondered if she had loved a soldier ever, and knew the feeling. All the while she smiled; it was as if she applied the smile with her face-paint.
‘Did you ask him?’ she said.
I had to tell my little lie, truth as it was, that Richard did not know the real face of Robin of Redesdale. Her smile grew broader as if it were stretched and the paint on her lips cracked a little with the sweetness of her smile.
And then, that day, Lord Anthony entered, giving us all a fair good-day, and passed through to the Duchess’s chamber. And strong terror gripped me, more than I could bear, and I turned trembling to Elysande, who put her arm about me as if she had only been waiting for me to tell her the old secret that had plagued me for years.
So while my lord was closeted with his mother, I sought comfort and reassurance from sweet Elysande, and I told her all about it; the moonlight, and the manikins and the black cat, and the herb garden, and Elizabeth Woodville’s uncertainty as to the wisdom of their actions, and her mother’s fierce words. I told her all, and waxed fat in the telling, for she was a kind and tender audience, and hung on every word and her eyes grew wide and she asked me many questions and showed horror and sympathy.
Then she told me to set it all from my mind, as if it were one of my bad dreams, to forget it all and be glad and think only of my dear love. How could Sir Anthony send me back to Grafton for that which was not my fault? Sure enough she was right, for naught dreadful happened, as when my lord and his mother came out of the chamber they did not even look at me.
So I ceased to be disquieted, and was only full of love-longing instead, and I know which was the heavier burden.
He had told me he had written a letter to a friend while he was at Rising, for he had had no money with which to pay his men, and he had even jested about it, as we lay in each other’s arms.
I wished he would write me a letter, but I knew he would be far too busy for that.
There came August, and a day so full of sorrow that only one other summer day can best it for its anguish and that I cannot speak of yet.
Elysande’s dress was red this day, like a fair red rose, like blood, but we were not sitting quietly together on this occasion. We were at Westminster, running here and there, throwing things into chests, packing urgently, while the Household flew about as feverishly as did the panicking crowds in the street below.
For the King was taken. The King was a prisoner, and his captor was the man who had been his friend, the one who had set him on the throne, the knight Richard had loved.
Robin of Redesdale was not Robin Hood after all: he was Sir John Conyers, cousin of the Earl of Warwick; and Warwick had taken the King. Edward had left matters too late, with his hawking and his bedsport and his dalliance at Fotheringhay. While he pleasured himself thus, and his wise young brother chafed to be off, the man who made and unmade kings had been wondrous busy.
Horsemen on steaming beasts cried frenzy through London. Elysande cursed under her breath and I sought to calm my churning stomach, while we piled clothing and jewellery into coffers, bed-linen and arras into cases, helped by pallid manservants with the smell of fear about them. Hoarse shouting came in gusts over the screams of the mob. I rushed to a window; whenever I made out the word ‘slain’ or ‘beheaded’, a ghastly grinning spectre rose up to wave at me through the panes. Of a sudden I dropped the end of a Turkish rug and rushed out into the teeming passages, frantic for the news I dreaded. In a niche in the stones sat a small figure, weeping. I had never seen Harry cry before. In the midst of my demented progress I stopped and knelt to him. He pressed his face against me, his tears fell on my bosom. He would not be comforted.
‘The King’s Grace is taken,’ he sobbed. ‘I am so afraid.’
‘Don’t weep, Harry,’ I said, as bravely as I could. ‘All will be well.’
‘My sweet lord,’ he whispered through snuffling tears. All my heart’s blood massed in a red, icy knot.
‘What say you?’ I cried.
‘He was wondrous kind to me,’ he choked. ‘Men say he has been slain.’
I rose and staggered on my feet, bruising my back against the carved pillar. Then I started, witlessly, to run, seeking the street, to seize the stirrup of the nearest courier and demand he give this terrible news the lie. I stumbled, and arms caught me; arms that I fought, screaming into a lined face no longer merry.
‘God’s Passion,’ said Patch. ‘Must all fly about like slaughtered fowls?’ He held me fast. ‘Sweeting, calm yourself.’
‘Patch,’ I cried. ‘Patch!’
He grinned. His face looked strained and meagre; a skull-like face.
‘Mary have mercy!’ he said. ‘I thought you had more courage than to cry havoc with the rest. So the King is taken! Was he not warned, time and again? Why all this wonder, that the great Warwick seeks vengeance on the Woodvilles?’
‘Pembroke and Devon are headless now.
More necks will bleed ere long, I trow.’
He made a little jingle out of it. Then for a brief moment his face crumpled with grief, he crossed himself, said: ‘Christ preserve the King,’ and pulled me down beside him on a window-ledge.
‘Ah, I love you,
maiden,’ he said, and I could have struck him for jesting at such a time, but felt too weak to raise my hand.
‘Give me the news,’ I said, trembling. ‘Who is beheaded, who slain?’
‘The King’s favourites,’ said Patch calmly. ‘Sir Richard Woodville, John Woodville... Warwick will have the whole family’s blood. Clarence stands at his right hand, now that Isabel is his bride.’
‘George of Clarence—has wedded Warwick’s daughter?’ I cried. Patch nodded, and winked and said: ‘In Calais, lately.’
‘They will destroy the Woodvilles?’ I gasped.
‘In all ways possible,’ said the fool. ‘Tend well your mistress, maiden, for she’ll need your prayers.’
I knew not what he meant, but when he started babbling again about love, and he still could not tell me where was Richard in all this, I sprang up and flew to Elysande, but she was nowhere to be seen. The Duchess’s chamber was bolted from the inside, while two men stood without and spoke her name, sternly. They had a small retinue of henchmen, who wore the Bear and Ragged Staff, Warwick’s livery. They stayed a few moments, then quit the chamber purposefully, while the gentlewomen huddled like terrified pigeons. Snatches of their speech crept to my ears.
‘Redesdale’s Proclamation likened his Grace to Richard the Second, Harry the Sixth,’ said a shaking voice. ‘All deposed monarchs...’
‘Yea, and Edward the Second,’ said Anne Haute, in horrified tones. She was deathly white and I remembered that she too was a Woodville. Then I thought of the King, and Richard, and of poor, unnatural Edward the Second, with his bowels burned out at Berkeley, and my stomach came up into my throat. When the blackness faded into light, Elysande was with me. She was not smiling when I opened my eyes, but as soon as I was sensible she kissed me, a loving sister. Her red gown hurt my gaze. The voices whispered on.
‘The Archbishop of York... is in the Palace...’
‘A Neville!’ hissed another.
‘Yea, and Clarence sits on the Council...’
‘Warwick has summoned a Parliament...’
‘The Duchess!’ someone murmured anxiously.
‘Who were those men... What have they done to her?’
Their whispers flew like arrows, rebounding on to bafflement.
Suddenly the Duchess came out from her chamber. She was yellowish, and her grim jaws were clamped together. Angrily she waved her hand at the gibbering group of women. She leaned firmly on her ivory cane, white-knuckled.
‘Leave me—all of you!’ she snapped.
Yet Elysande and I flew to her side, for we feared she might collapse, as the others rustled out hastily, with many a glance behind.
Ignoring me, the Duchess glared at Elysande.
‘You failed me in your duty,’ she said icily, and Elysande was out of countenance for a moment, and her eyes gave off sparks.
‘Sweet madam, I wrought all I could, but the source ran dry,’ she said, and I was bemused by her strange words.
‘Where is Hastings?’ asked the Duchess, and she uttered the Lord Chamberlain’s name as if it were a poison on her tongue.
Elysande shrugged, as the French do.
‘And young Gloucester?’ My heart leaped in my throat. Before Elysande could reply, a stout knocking came on the outer door. The same two men returned who had waited to speak with the Duchess. They had waited vainly and now they would not be gainsaid. One said his name was Thomas Wake.
A panic fire had started somewhere down the street. I could hear the cracking of timber and the surging shouts from the crowd. Smoke drifted under the window.
The two men were courteous. They bowed to the Duchess, then one of them placed a parchment between her fingers.
‘Madame, we will attend your presence in answer to this charge,’ Thomas Wake said formally. Swiftly they left, walking clean and upright. One of them was dark and pale, like Richard.
The Duchess’s fingers were stiff and curled, and the parchment dropped from her hand, so I bent to pick it up. There were many long words, and one of them was ‘necromancy’.
‘Holy God,’ whispered Elysande.
‘Ask her Grace to come,’ said the Duchess firmly. I marvelled at her composure.
Elysande left and returned shortly with the Queen. For the first time ever, she came without her retinue of gentlewomen, servants, chaplains. On my knees, I glanced up at her. She was ivory-faced, but it became her, against her black dress with the jewelled girdle and the priceless reliquary Edward had given her. I wondered if she wept and feared for him as I did for my love.
‘Madame, they have taken Master Daunger,’ said the Duchess. And at the name I saw again, clear as crystal, the whey-faced clerk sitting at table on May Eve with the unquiet Elizabeth Woodville; galloping on May Day to Grafton Regis.
‘So I am informed,’ said the Queen. She also was serene, though less so. She frowned at the old woman and swept into the inner chamber, beckoning her mother to follow. Elysande and I waited. Low murmurings came from behind the closed door. I looked at my friend, and her eyes were yellow, like a wolf’s eyes.
‘They have Daunger,’ she said, and looked at me. I said naught. I was trying to collect my thoughts, straining my ears for the cries of men bringing news of the rebellion; news of Richard.
‘How fortunate that he is their only witness,’ she said musingly. And then I felt afraid. The voices within were louder, raised in anger... that was the Queen...
‘Even if they have his feet in the fire?’
‘He will not say aught, my daughter...’ And it was Grafton Regis all over again when she said: ‘It is written, it is written… he is a stubborn man, and clever.’
‘So there is naught to fear,’ said Elizabeth, the door now ajar.
As they came out, I sought to exchange comforting glances with Elysande. She gave me a right lovesome smile. Then she stepped forward with a deep curtsey before the Queen.
‘Your most noble Grace,’ she said softly, and despite this formal address there was a certain familiarity in her tone as if she had known the Queen years ago, in France, mayhap, when Elizabeth served Margaret of Anjou. The Queen looked at her expressionlessly.
‘Madame, there is one here,’ said Elysande slowly, ‘who speaks of necromancy, and sorcery... I know naught of it myself, for I am loyal and love your Grace. But one has told me tales of moonlight on the last day of April... things seen and heard. I am your servant and would safeguard you.’
She took the Queen’s hand and kissed it gracefully, and Elizabeth laid her own white hand on the shoulder of my dear friend, Elysande.
They all turned and looked closely at me, while I stood shaking, and it was as if their three faces were one, with the same cold hard glance, ruthless, appraising, as if I were a pear to be plucked, a stone to be priced, a sheep to be butchered. The Duchess spoke first.
‘And what folly does this one say, mistress?’
Elysande smiled. ‘All, Madame. Something about evil rites and words, and ravings about fickle men and “the other”.’ She finished with the casual air of one who imparts the insignificant. The Queen’s ivory face turned to chalk.
‘Jesu, mercy,’ she said quietly. Then, in the next breath and as if I were not there: ‘She was but a child...’
‘She would never withstand an inquisition,’ said one of them, but by now I was falling into a black tomb and did not know who spoke.
‘She is of little importance... she will not speak.’
I opened my mouth, to swear eternal silence.
‘She may already have spoken,’ said a voice, and knew it by its sweetness to be that of Elysande. She came and stood beside me. I caught a glint of her red gown through a fog of fear. And Elysande said, in a voice like running water:
‘Know you not, your Grace, that this one’—she indicated me with a slender sleeve-swish—‘this one lies o’night with my lord of Gloucester, and doubtless bears many a pretty tale?’
It was what Richard would have called a flank attack. While I
was engaged with the dangerous enemy before me, she had come down out of a mist of smiles and lovesomeness to destroy me. It was now that I knew she was truly a Woodville-lover and always had been, despite her provoking words in my presence, her soft mocking of the sleeping Duchess. She had betrayed me.
I fell at the Queen’s feet.
‘You should thank me,’ Elysande said. She was at the window, watching the reflections of the mob fire. Dark was falling. The glow lit up the great chamber like blood. They had been waiting for the night, for they were going to dispose of me. My mind ran rings of terror; the Tower yawned; nay, I thought, Warwick would examine all prisoners now that he was in power, and I would be of use to him.
The Queen was in Sanctuary; Elysande was on the point of joining her and the Duchess.
Ah, holy Jesu! I thought. They will kill me. They will murder me, as they did Desmond’s boys. A small cry broke from me.
‘I have saved your life,’ said Elysande, and mayhap she did not want my blood on her slender hands, for she continued: ‘The King loves Gloucester, and you are his harlot.’
I felt tears spring to my eyes at the word, for such were they who lay in long grass with soldiers, and did not give their whole heart and love to one alone.
‘Young Gloucester has no power; yet if you died, and he complained to the King, Edward would be angry... the risk is too great. Thus you will live, cursed and forgotten.’
‘He may seek me,’ I said through frozen lips.
Elysande laughed, throwing back her head. ‘He will not wish to seek you,’ she said gaily. ‘You will have vanished from the sight of men; and you have betrayed his confidence.’
‘I have never betrayed him,’ I whispered, shaking.
‘You have spoken of him to me,’ Elysande said. ‘Doubtless he will believe you have carried tales of his policies to Jacquetta of Bedford. All know there is no love lost between Richard and the Queen’s kin. Has he not spoken to you of things other than love?’
We Speak No Treason Vol 1 Page 16