The Assassin's Wife

by Blakey, Moonyeen

  “The Duchess will soon have her own babe to put in the nursery.”

  Jane Collins shook her head, plain face sombre, mouth down-turned. “It’s still a way till June. Let’s hope she’ll carry this one to full term.” She crossed herself.

  “Do you believe in prayer?”

  “I don’t know, lass.” Weary resignation marred her face. “I’ve said enough in my time, but few were answered.”

  I leaned over the cradle where Dickon slept, chubby arms outstretched. I couldn’t resist touching the soft dark hair upon his brow. How beautiful he was! I longed to scoop him up into my arms and hug him to my breast. No love, not even my powerful feelings for Miles, burned as strong as this fierce maternal affection.

  “Don’t wake him, lass.” An indulgent smile softened Jane Collins’s coarse features. “Emma’s had a troublesome time with yonder rogue.”

  “I think he’s a tooth coming,” the nursery-maid said. “He’s such a lovely babe. I hope the duchess will have one just like him!”

  “I wonder why some women bear as easily as farm-cats and others struggle,” I said. Lady Anne’s panicked eyes still seared my mind.

  “These gently born ladies are too delicate. They’ve no strength or stamina. Look at Lady Anne’s sister, poor Isabelle—one miscarriage after another and dead before Christmas.”

  “But the queen’s borne many children.”

  Mistress Collins shuffled uncomfortably, her eyes shifting away from mine. Her hesitancy made me bold. “I’ve heard say she uses sorcery to ensure their well-being. Her mother’s supposed to be a powerful witch.”

  Pursing her lips, Jane Collins looked at Emma tending one of the stirring Metcalf babes. “I’ve heard that too. I know nowt about witchcraft, lass, but if I did I’d be the first to use it for our little Duchess, and that’s the truth. For all his so-called devotion, the Duke grows impatient. No man’ll keep a barren wife. She needs all the help she can get.”

  And I needed no other answer.

  I hid the cards in my bodice when I went to seek Lady Anne that afternoon.

  * * * * *

  “What is it? What do you see?”

  She leaned so close over the little table her breath fanned my cheeks. Her eyes darted back and forth, restless, famished.

  “A successful enterprise.” I touched the painted images with the tips of my fingers. “The Sun signifies happiness, and the Chariot overcomes all obstacles, brings the realisation of your hopes—”

  Two hectic spots bloomed in her cheeks like rosebuds, her breathing grew rapid, her eyes glittered with excitement.

  “You must be careful of your health.” I picked up the Six of Swords, overwhelmed by her trust in me. Suppose I’d been mistaken? Meeting her gaze, I marked the dark hollows beneath her eyes, the pallor of her lips. She looked too sickly for childbirth.

  “Though you’ve powerful friends, you must be wary. Many seek their own preferment.” I explained each card in turn. “There’s danger round you—”

  “But I’ll have my son!” She whirled about the chamber, hugging her arms about herself, heedless of all else, while I cringed from a shower of blood and watched a wasted hand reach for a fallen crown beneath the twisted spikes of a hawthorn bush.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “It’s too soon.” Jane Collins wrung her hands. “A seven month child won’t live.”

  I tore my hair in a frenzy of urgency, finally dragging her from the safety of the nursery.

  “We must save him!” Desperation made me savage. “Lady Anne’s in great distress. She’s set such store by this child, I can’t see her disappointed.”

  I forced Mistress Collins down the steps, cursing the cruel April morning, the bane of women, the injustice of life—anything I thought might rouse her from despair. “You can’t just give up! She needs us!”

  In the lying-in chamber an ivory-faced wench, wincing under the whip of Lady Anne’s screams, made hurried preparations.

  “I sent the others away.” I glanced at the midwife, emptying out the herbs I’d collected. “They were more trouble than help. This one at least has some sense.”

  I brewed a wallflower posset and afterward a tisane of lady’s mantle and ergot to speed the birth. The tight-lipped serving wench fetched and carried without complaint while Jane Collins probed and pressed and murmured encouraging lies. Hour crawled after hour, Lady Anne’s cries turning from screams to groans. I wiped sweat from her brow and held her hands, reminding her over and over again of the success I’d seen in the cards.

  At noon, fearing for the lives of both mother and child, I dispatched the wench to find the duke. But Lady Anne showed herself stronger than anyone could have imagined. She didn’t complain once throughout the long ordeal. And she refused the henbane I promised would bring her a half-sleep.

  “I must bear my son in the customary fashion of all women.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “And I must be awake to see his face.”

  The marks of her nails left crescent wounds on my arms, but when she held the tiny, mewling babe, I witnessed her triumph.

  All the bells in Coverdale rang to mark the birth of her son. At Middleham, the household drank his health and wine and ale flowed freely. Even the lowliest scullion grew tipsy with the cheer. A time of singing and laughter enveloped the household. Lady Anne had given them an heir.

  The duke, refusing to consider the child’s frailty, named him Edward, in honour of his brother, the king. No one knew how his duchess suffered to bear this precious child. Yet three months later he still lived.

  Lady Anne, gathering us together in her bower-chamber one afternoon, showed him off to all her ladies.

  “Isn’t he perfect?” Her green eyes sparkled with pride. At her elbow, Isabel Burgh, the wet-nurse, hovered nervously.

  “He’s beautiful, Your Grace.” I answered with complete honesty, for the babe I held in my arms was truly angelic in form. Gazing upon the tiny, delicate features, Durga’s words returned to me from long ago: “Such children are precious gifts, given to us to cherish for a little space so that we may glimpse perfection.” A stab of terror set me shaking.

  Lady Anne snatched the babe from me with the greedy possessiveness of the new mother.

  “Nan predicted his birth,” she said, a mysterious, gloating smile on her lips.

  A ripple of unspoken conjecture stirred amongst the ladies and I tried to ignore the furtive glances, sly nudges, and complicit understanding which passed between them. How long before someone accused me outright of practising sorcery?

  “My Lord is delirious with our good fortune.”

  I found it hard to imagine the Duke delirious about anything. The little I’d seen of him hadn’t impressed. The pinched, starved-looking face betrayed no emotion save watchfulness and that always made me feel uneasy. Although Miles spoke warmly of Gloucester’s courage and agility in battle, I saw no charm or wonder in him. He lacked his royal brother’s fascination.

  “I wish my father had lived to see this moment.” Lady Anne said. “In this child, the glory of the Nevilles will live again.”

  She looked so happy and so vulnerable tears pricked my eyes.

  “Why, Nan, how tender-hearted you are.” She squeezed my arm affectionately.

  I dashed away the drops with my fingertips. “I know how much this babe means to you.”

  “You must train your Dickon to be his trusty companion and playmate.”

  Again I sensed that rustle of suspicion amongst her ladies. Laughing, she held up the beautiful child, turning with him in a dancing circle of delight.

  “He’ll have need of loyal servants when he’s grown.”

  “You may depend upon it, Madam.”

  How sturdy Dickon seemed against this frail infant.

  She stopped at once and turned the child toward me, green eyes grown so grave I cowered with sudden foreboding. “You must tell me, Nan, what future you see for my son.”

  For a moment, I felt like a prisoner facing condem
nation. The clutch of waiting women leaned forward, all attention. Every eye accused. Already these ladies talked openly of Lady Anne’s curious “fostering” of me, and speculated regarding the herbal remedies I brewed—though several of them spoke highly of their efficacy. But fortune-telling raised other matters. How could she place me in such danger?

  “Don’t you predict a long and happy life for him?” She gave a coquettish toss of her honey–coloured hair. Did she extract pleasure from my torment? “What do you think?” Inclining her head to include the other women, they gathered round babbling nonsense, breaking the tension.

  “He’ll be a brave warrior, your Grace.” Margaret Huddleston, always bolder than the rest, smiled enigmatically. “Already he has a look of your noble father.”

  “He’s so beautiful, Your Grace,” said giddy Genevieve Mountford. Eyes shining with genuine wonder, she reached out a white hand to touch the tiny fingers, gasping in awe as they curled about hers.

  “You may go now, Nan.” The little duchess awarded me a secretive smile. “Isobel will bring him back to the nursery.” Holding the babe with the protective pride of a lioness, she swept into the throng of admiring gentlewomen. They swallowed her up in a mass of rustling taffeta and silk, shunning me as a flock of elegant birds abandons the bedraggled outsider. I wondered how long I’d wait before she summoned me to read the child’s future.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “This feast will rival Prince Richard’s.” Meg Huddleston looked up from lacing the duchess’s elaborate silver-tissue gown.

  A magnificent summer banquet announced Middleham’s public joy in the Gloucester heir.

  “You flatter me, Meg. But the queen likes to flaunt her power.” Lady Anne’s mouth twisted in the faintest hint of a sneer. “I suppose it’s still a novelty for her.” She turned, allowing Elizabeth Parre to fasten the clasp of her pearl and topaz necklace, and laughed disparagingly. “Her mother may have been a duchess, but her father’s nothing but a low-born opportunist with a handsome face. And how long before her beauty no longer bewitches? The king indulges her, but they say Shore’s wife enjoys more favours.”

  Lips twitching with amusement, Alice knelt to adjust the gown’s shimmering folds, while Meg Huddleston flashed Elizabeth Parre an impudent look behind the duchess’s back, and Grace Pullen winked at me. Didn’t our little duchess demand similar indulgences from her husband?

  “One day Meg will go too far,” Alice whispered, as our little party tripped down the steps to the great hall.

  Genevieve nudged her. “I don’t think Nan knows—”

  “Knows what?”

  “Ssh!” Alice raised her brows and widened her eyes in warning for Lady Anne missed little. “Meg loves to goad Lady Anne.” She murmured in my ear. “It’s because she’s her sister—”

  “Half sister.” Genevieve stifled a giggle. “She’s the Earl of Warwick’s bastard.”

  “And Lady Anne’s rival for his affections, so they say. He married her into the wealthy Huddleston family—”

  “Well, it’s dangerous to get too close to these great ones.”

  Listening to their mischievous prattle, everything fell suddenly into place—Meg’s pert remarks and saucy answers, her cleverness and pride. No wonder these noble households nurtured such hotbeds of intrigue.

  A resounding flourish of music urged us to our places. Scrope, Lovell, Radcliffe and Greystoke, Metcalf, Parre, and Tyrell— the north’s influential families, gathered to dine in the sumptuously decorated banqueting hall. Welcomed with a wonderful show of courtesy from Lady Anne, they raised brimming goblets to Edward, the new Prince of Middleham. The vast chamber rang with their praises.

  Dressed in my finest gown, I joined Miles amidst this illustrious throng, listening to the stirring music of shawms and rebecks, the lilting ballads of sweet-voiced minstrels, supping fine wines from Burgundy and France. Roasting meats basted in delicious sauces, pungent with spices and herbs scented the air. Martyn the Fool juggled and capered, the vast stone walls echoed with shouts and laughter, and afterward, we gasped in awe as tumblers executed amazing balancing feats.

  When the servers carried in a magnificent subtlety in the shape of a swan with a babe lying in a gilded cradle between its wings loud acclaims filled the hall. At the high table the little duchess clapped her hands with delight and the tight-faced duke stood to pledge allegiance to the king. Rising noisily the men-folk echoed his words, but their clamorous voices rang hollow in my ears. In an instant, all the glamour of the occasion faded. My mind filled with the image of my merry-faced knave and his brother peering out at me through the windows of their turret chamber while armed guards paraded below. An eerie sense of foreboding unfurled like a huge dark wing, spoiling the rest of my evening.

  Vainly I threw myself into Miles’ arms for the farandole, scampered among the other ladies in foolish games, and exchanged gossip and jests with my tipsy neighbours. But only a surfeit of sweet hippocras could blot out my fear. That night I sank into a heavy, drowning sleep, only to be roused in the black, early hours by a voice which called: “Beware the archbishop!”

  Teeming darkness pressed about me. I crouched against the bolster, aware of the familiar crawling sensation tingling through my limbs, a sheen of sweat bathing my brow. An unquiet spirit walked. Stillington’s cruel, yellow eyes seemed to stare at me from out of that pulsing dark. But the voice appalled. I knew it to be in great pain. It was a voice I knew well, although I’d not heard it in a long time. It was Brother Brian’s.

  Despite frequent attempts to discover his whereabouts I discerned nothing of the priest. Many times I wrote to Harry, but the monks at St John’s grew plainly hostile when subjected to questioning. What connected Brother Brian to the wily Stillington? What had become of that letter I’d penned from the Convent of the Carmelites? Mara promised its safe delivery, but I recalled her prediction saying it would pass through many hands. Suppose it fell into the wrong ones?

  * * * * *

  Little Ned of Middleham proved an ailing child whose welfare occupied all my time. Vigilant as a mother-cat, Lady Anne watched his every quiver. The merest tremor sent her flying to me for remedies. Patiently, I brewed herbal possets for coughs and colic, massaged his tender skin with soothing unguents, wrapped him in softest sheepskin, and showered him with every remedy I knew. Mara’s teachings served me well during this unlucky time for the nursery became my day-time prison. Here Jane Collins bustled to and fro with warm poultices, harrying the serving boys for wood to keep the fire a-flame, and young Emma, instructed to shield this precious child from draughts, sudden noises or disturbances, rocked his cradle, singing him softly into sleep.

  Meanwhile, my own boy grew swift and sturdy. His impish smile set my heart leaping. His presence in the nursery eased away the tension of my confinement. Watching a proud Miles lift him on his shoulder or jog him on his lap, I tried to shake aside all my old misgivings concerning his link with the boys in the Tower. How could such a loving father ever harm a child?

  * * * * *

  Sitting by the casement in our apartments one early evening, warm sunlight bathing my shoulders, I savoured a rare moment of solitude.

  “Not in the nursery?”

  Miles’ voice startled me.

  “The children are asleep.” Putting down my pen, I turned to welcome him with a smile. “So Jane doesn’t need me. You’re back early from the hunt.”

  He stood in the doorway the warm smell of horse-flesh wafting from his clothes, filling the chamber with that oddly comforting odour of the stable.

  “And you’re writing another letter?”

  “To Harry.” I stretched voluptuously, flexing my cramped, ink-stained fingers. “Did you have good sport?”

  “Aye, the duke caught a fine stag. There’ll be venison at supper.”

  Miles’ good humour pervaded the chamber. He heaved off his boots to lean back against the settle, flexing his feet with a sigh of satisfaction. “I’d be jealous of this Harry,
if I didn’t know you better.”

  “Harry’s like a brother to me. Without him I’d have been lost in London.”

  “Ah, yes, I forget how important London is to you.”

  “I spent a good deal of my childhood there,” I answered evenly, wondering what he inferred. “My village priest took me to live with my aunt after my father died.”

  He sauntered behind me to watch the loops of my letters unfold, and for an instant I recalled how I’d once watched Brother Brian’s scholars in the chapel with such avid curiosity. Although Miles could write, he’d no regard for this expertise —having once told me at Barnard, clerks performed such craftsmanship as he needed.

  “I suppose the priest taught you?”

  “No.” I answered without thinking, my mind flooded with memories of Alan Palmer and the letters I’d penned to him in Ely.

  “Then where?”

  Conscious of his scrutiny, I turned my head away to dip my pen into the little bowl of ink. “I learned at Norwich.”

  “Ah, from the Butler widow.”

  Something sinister in the way Miles pronounced this remark made me wary. My shoulders tensed. We’d spoken little of my time with Eleanor and I often wondered what Miles knew about her. I didn’t mention Sister Absalom.

  “I’m a poor scholar.” Surveying my work, I attempted lightness. “I fear Harry will have a hard time with all these blots.”

  “I wonder you find so much to say to him and that a baker’s son should have learned such skills. He must find little use for them.” Stung by his surly tone, I swung round to face him with a bold, teasing smile.