The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  He bowed into the shadows and let another figure through, one as snow-stained and unkempt as any of John’s fighting men had been. One whose familiar face brought a urge of inexplicable affection. The graceless face of a court page.

  She moved forward swiftly. ‘Why, Master Barnaby!’

  She waited for him to greet her, Ho, Dame Grey! winking and saucy enough to be whipped, but his insouciance was gone. He must have learned manners, she thought, for he went on his knee on the stone flags and kissed her hand; and he kept his head bent during what even she thought a long homage. She noticed that the insides of his boots were rubbed almost through, as if he had ridden hard to be with her. He had caught his neck on a thorn, too, dried blood was patterned on the skin. He was pressing his brow upon her wrist, she felt a wetness on her hand. So, to jostle him from whatever pangs assailed (did the knave dare to love her?) – she said: ‘Up, Barnaby! What news from court? Who holds sway there, these perilous days?’

  He made a muffled noise. ‘Tears, Master Barnaby?’ she said mockingly.

  Then he rose, thinner, damp-suited, dolorous. Not a vestige of mirth in him, only embarrassment. ‘Dame Grey,’ he whispered. ‘They sent me, for I can ride swiftly. All the way I came, from St. Albans.’

  The Queen’s image arose, shockingly clear. ‘Cursed be the name of St. Albans!’ Thomas was ramping round Barnaby, feinting at him with a wooden sword.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  He stood very straight, as if for execution. ‘Sir John Grey is slain, my lady.’

  She thought: Barnaby is talking to me of some slain knight. So I must in courtesy ask him details, how this one died, and why. This she did, very calmly.

  ‘He was grievously wounded at the fighting at St. Albans. The Earl of Warwick met Queen Margaret’s force in a second battle there, and the Queen was victorious. She called it her vengeance for the first battle when Beaufort was slain. Warwick fled. But Sir John Grey led the last cavalry charge that routed the Yorkists. And he was wounded, and died.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In his tent. At St. Albans. Wounded head to foot and bloody. At cursed St. Albans, Sir John Grey, knight, did die.’

  But John is not a knight! A frail gladness rose. It is some other, for he is but plain John Grey. Poor John, who ever craves knighthood. Sweet John. He is not dead.

  ‘My husband lives,’ she said, greatly relieved. ‘There is, to my knowledge, no Sir John Grey.’

  Barnaby was weeping copiously.

  ‘They did knight him ’ere he died. For his services in war. They vowed none fought so bravely or with such chivalry, sparing the defenceless, crushing the strong. They gave him a knighthood.’

  Outside the snow began again, softly covering the ground. Life struggled beneath, small buds kissed by cold to an infant death. Elizabeth snatched up a cloak. He was wounded; she would bring him to life. She would staunch his blood with her own body. There were elixirs known only to her mother and herself, secrets to heal a man of the most dreadful wound. Thomas was shouting around the room, war-cries, wielding his little sword.

  ‘Saddle me horses. My lord needs me,’ she said urgently.

  ‘Madame, your lord is dead!’ said Barnaby sadly. He took the cloak from her; it fell to the floor.

  She would not scream as Queen Margaret did at the news of cursed St. Albans, or the taste of those screams would be forever in her mouth. With great care she sank to sit upon the floor, while the drain of grief within grew and grew until she felt bloodless from head to foot.

  Sir John Grey, knight, is dead. There is no John.

  As if the winter had slaked its venom in her anguish, the fierce weather yielded. On the trees’ stark limbs tiny tight buds showed themselves again. The lake receded, leaving a vista of cool busy water. And the manor was filled with the presence, the essence of John. It ringed her round with a desperate comfort, retrieving the past to veil her agony. In this unseen nimbus she wandered, lonely and sad as a ghost, speaking rarely, seeing the faces of all who dwelt with her as unreal shadows. Images from a time gone by and never to come again. So tormented, indrawn, she knew a half-life, and was sustained only by Bradgate’s stout walls and vivid furnishings. The meadows, like creatures recovering from long sickness, gained fresh slow colour from the wary assault of spring. She told herself: I shall make Bradgate a shrine to John.

  Prostrate before the chapel altar, she heard the thin reedy note of the singing-boys rising, sweet and sour and tender, in the Requiem Mass. She flooded the stones beneath her face with hot tears; the first, last and only tears. It was only a short relief; she wondered: when shall I be done with this witless watching for his return, this night-waking, hungry for his presence? Under the high cold psalm that soared and soared she wept for the waste of a young life, a strong ardent body, a courageous, tender soul. Leaving the chapel, she caressed a stout pillar. Thank you, my lord, my love. Thank you for Bradgate. Always, I shall cherish it for your sake.

  Slow as an old woman’s steps, March came and went with lengthening days. What to do with those days? those months and years ahead? Only wait for night to come, and then another day, and another. Nothing else; no hooves striking unexpected joy from stones; no moonlit ecstasy, no mellow future. She took needle and thread and a length of stuff and fashioned the widow’s barbe and wimple, coiling; her hair so that none of it showed beneath the stark headgear. Now she was a nunly thing of the spirit, pale, the blue eyes darkened with sorrow, her heart often raging and rebellious. And at this time, unknown to her, half England quailed under a fresh battle, and the tide of war turned yet again.

  Green April came to mock her with the time when she first rode to Bradgate. That was the same cuckoo, surely, chuckling and invisible in the leafing trees; the same clustered primroses, rising like tiny gold roses where the snowdrops had hung their heads. Yet the air seemed chill; did that fickle sky still herald storm? One day she could bear the sounds of spring no longer. She went to the chapel murmuring within the ghostly halo of candlelight: ‘Ipsis, Domine … et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus …’ Grant to them, we entreat Thee, a place of cool repose, of light and peace. His face was a star against her closed lids, his face, its image still sharp enough to turn a knife in her heart. She felt the coolness of the carved prayerstall. Old wood, his heritage, hers, and that of their children. In the quiet that followed the requiem, she heard, very faintly, sounds outside. Horsemen again. A shiver ran through her body. Then, there was a mighty knocking on the outer door. It was like the sound of a judgement. She adjusted the seemly wimple and went to meet whoever it might be; she was pale, unknowing, ready.

  There was the steward with his twisted arm, gesticulating, vainly barring the way to a score of armed knights. Their grouped presence made the doorway dark, their plumes wavered in the April breeze. The foremost brushed aside the gibbering steward and entered. He was tall. The light behind him hid his face but she knew him. Ah, she knew him. Tethered near the staircase where she stood were John’s two wolfhounds. They were old, but more savage than ever. Her hand went to their collars. She bent, whispered into the pricked ears, smelled the meaty tang of their breath, and struck off their chains. They leaped, roaring, straight for the tall figure who advanced so steadily.

  Quickly he stripped his gauntlet and extended his fingers to the hounds and spoke. What he said she never knew, but the hounds became gentle, submissive and dropped their muzzles. To see her weapons thus blunted filled her with fury, new, necessary, warming. He came towards her, doffing his helm. Yes, she knew him. She spoke first, trembling with loathing;

  ‘My lord of Warwick.’

  Unhurriedly he bowed and straightened so that he towered above her. He looked older, grimmer, but was otherwise the same as at Eltham.

  ‘Dame Grey,’ he said. The large brilliant eyes encompassed her, rage-less, calmer than she. She looked over his shoulder and saw the knot of armed men who accompanied him walking the Hall, obviously appraising its trappings. One of them fingered the
Goliath tapestry. She said in a cold incredulous voice: ‘What means this intrusion?’

  ‘Your dogs are fierce, Dame Grey,’ said Warwick calmly. ‘And your manners are no better than I remember them. Is it not customary to offer refreshment to guests?’

  ‘Uninvited guests?’ she said violently. She saw then that the steward, obviously intimidated, had given orders already; Renée came, white-faced, bearing a flagon of wine and cups. The last of the Rhenish, thought Elizabeth furiously. May it choke this Yorkist swine. Warwick poured wine into two hanaps.

  ‘Will you not drink, Dame?’ he said. She took the cup he held, saw his eyes on her shaking hand. Rage, my lord, not fear, she wanted to say, and bit her lip against it.

  ‘Pleasure yourself, sir,’ she said shortly. ‘Then do me the goodness …’

  Her eyes went again to the soldiers who milled about the Hall. They were examining the furniture. The hounds were growling softly, and Warwick’s voice was mixed up in the growl.

  ‘I come to acquaint you with the fortunes of England. You should know, Dame Grey, that York’s cause is utterly triumphant. We have crushed the madwoman. That French canker in England’s heart is excised at last. I have set Edward of March on England’s throne. At the battles of Mortimers Cross and Towton, that proud prince was victorious. Dame Elizabeth–’ here, the coldness of his voice was replaced by exaltation – ‘we have a new King. King Edward the Fourth, may God preserve him for ever!’

  Renée was serving the soldiers with wine; they laughed, they tickled her chin, but at Warwick’s words all their mirth vanished. They raised their cups devoutly and drank deep. Elizabeth heard her own voice, asking after Queen Margaret, King Henry.

  ‘The Frenchwoman has fled to Scotland, with her bastard whelp,’ said Warwick brutally. ‘His Grace King Henry is in London, little better than a drooling idiot. Edward of March is King. And you, my lady, are to forfeit this manor to the Crown.’

  He went on, saying that she had profited herself well in her marriage to the dead Lancastrian knight. He told her that her father and brother had tasted his tongue at Calais, being but mean squires and knaves, unfit to have language of princes, such as he, Warwick, and Salisbury and York, God assoil their murdered souls … And all this might well have been left unsaid, for she heard none of it. His previous sentence had drawn all the breath from her body. Her face, reflected in the polished wine-cup, was yellowish-grey as she stared at it. Even Warwick saw the change in her; he said, more kindly:

  ‘I have an escort outside to take you to Grafton Regis. You may have your maidservant, but the others must stay to help my bailiffs with the inventory.’

  Still she could not speak. They were taking down the Goliath tapestry. Four men staggered under its jewelled weight. They rolled it like a corpse; Warwick watched them. ‘Forfeit to the Crown,’ he said, as if in explanation. Then, holding up his wine-cup. ‘Come, Dame Grey! Drink a toast to better days! Will you salute King Edward the Fourth?’

  Deeply in his eyes she looked, and the brilliant pupils flickered for a moment as if she had struck him. Then she turned her hanap upside down so that the wine streamed out and splashed his boots.

  ‘Dame, dame,’ said Warwick, his voice thickly outraged. ‘Did you think it wise to make an enemy of me?’

  He had said it before, at Eltham. Had she married Sir Hugh, none of this would have happened. She would have known no love, no happiness, no despair. Bereft, she said the one thing that could wound his chivalry. Out of her humiliation it came, and found its mark.

  ‘I will go then, and make ready. All my black gowns. Do you, my lord, think it brave to persecute widows?’

  While the dark flush still bloomed on his neck, she curtseyed, insultingly low. Then, small and upright, she ascended the stairs. Behind her came the sound of Bradgate being stripped to the bones.

  She seated herself before her mirror. Her hatred uncoiled like one of the serpents that lie sleeping for centuries to arise at their appointed time. She breathed like a runner over many leagues, like a woman in the throes of love, or labour, or madness. Her lips were stiff. She watched the mirrored ghostly face; it stared her out.

  ‘Grief, misfortune and tragedy attend them for ever,’ she said softly.

  And the mirrored face was that of Melusine, the serpent. Melusine the beautiful. Melusine the accursed, who, with all her ancient force, now rose to damn the House of York.

  They reached Grafton in two days. Renée and the baby went in a litter; Elizabeth, spurning comfort and setting a wild pace, rode her old sorrel, and Thomas jounced at her saddle bow. Warwick’s escort were completely silent, like wraiths in harness, eyeless and anonymous behind closed visors.

  Jacquetta of Bedford was waiting. She wasted no words; she chivvied Elizabeth’s weeping sisters to their lessons and sent the little boys to the nursery. She went then with Elizabeth to the private solar, where she took her daughter in her arms, hiding Elizabeth’s face against her heart.

  The still-beautiful eyes grew large in powerful thought. The lips moved comfortingly. Now, the eyes said. As I forecast. This knight of hers, who was naught, has played his part and is gone. She is despoiled of possessions, also naught, compared with what will be. The time is now, the way is open for our heritage, our destiny among the stars.

  She is fairer even than I was, and Edward of March is a lecherous young fool.

  Now I can begin.

  PART TWO

  The Rose of Rouen

  1463–78

  The Rose came to London, full royally riding.

  Two archbishops of England they crowned

  the Rose King.

  Almighty Lord! save the Rose, and give him

  thy blessing.

  Edward IV’s Coronation Song: Anon.

  King Edward the Fourth awoke early on a fine summer’s morning. He was tickled out of a pleasant dream by the sun’s rays probing a chink in the bedcurtains. For some moments he lay stretching his long limbs and trying to recapture the dream’s fleeting savour, but it was already gone, where all dreams go, back into a world of false joy. None the less, its essence was sweet enough to bring a smile to the King’s face, a radiance that passed over the strong chin and sensual mouth until it reached the blue eyes and lineless forehead. He stretched himself to the full until his six feet four inches were taut and glowing; he flung out one hand to caress the damask sheet beside him. Now, in warm and sensuous morning, was the time to welcome a woman’s body with searching fingers. The bed’s other half was barren, however, so he abandoned these thoughts. He moved his golden brow into the narrow path of sunlight and lay still. Youth and strength bubbled up in an almost unbearable flood. He was King of England and Ireland, and, more significantly, he was twenty-one years old.

  Beyond his curtained feet he could hear his esquires snoring. They whistled and groaned; his lips twitched in amusement. Sluggards all! He would have them out hunting, straight after Mass. The sombre courtiers too; he would see them horsed and running through briars and bogs, after fox or boar or stag, consummating his own life-lust in their discomfort. He bore them no ill-will, though; he loved them. They had earned his love, through their loyalty to York. They were in the main older than he. He thought on them briefly; Chancellor George Neville, Bishop of Exeter, a powerful, strong-spoken man; John Tiptoft, Constable of England, with his bloody-humoured dedication to duty; Lord Hastings; the Chancellor’s brothers, John Neville, Marquis of Montagu, faithful and fierce, and Richard, Earl of Warwick. Warwick, the King’s protector and mentor. He who had cloven stoutest during the last few perilous years, and who, by his own acknowledgment had set the crown upon the sovereign’s head.

  Yes. He loved Warwick, no question of that. By force of arms, by strategy and determination, and by a modicum of luck, Warwick had achieved for York’s son what York himself had failed to do. Edward was grateful. Yet his sleepy smile faded a trifle when he remembered that he had promised Warwick an audience in the State Chamber that morning. This would undoubtedly
delay the hunting expedition. Concourse with Warwick was inevitably a lengthy affair; matters of state and policy were all meat for his painstaking discussion and advice sprang readily to his lips, as if he still considered Edward his pupil. God’s Blessed Lady! thought Edward suddenly. I am the King! Now pupil can bid master come and go!

  Although there were facets in Warwick which brought out all Edward’s obstinacy, which could be considerable, they were joined by blood. Family ties (the King’s mother, Cicely Neville, was sister to Warwick’s father, the dead Salisbury) and the sword had brought them closer than brothers. In hard weather and pitiless conditions they had achieved the impossible. Warwick had embraced the future king, a fierce, fatherly embrace, after the battles of Towton Field in Yorkshire and Mortimers Cross in Herefordshire. Mortimers Cross: Edward’s face sobered as he recalled his vision there. He had scarcely believed it, then; even now he found it incredible. But others had seen it too. In thought, he was back in the battle tent, rising on the morning which, had he but known it, would give him victory. Victory over the French whore, her bastard son and Henry, that barren twig of Lancaster. He had staggered, sick with cold and sleep, through the tent-flaps, his harness, as he put it on, like pieces of burning ice. His heart was low, not through fear but at the prospect of another day’s march, snatched meals, hurried decisions, frustration. Then, more from habit than grace, he looked towards heaven, and saw – three suns. Not one, but three! The men-at-arms, at whom he clutched, crying of his discovery, had seen them too. They swore it. Shattered, inspired, he looked so long upon the fiery triumvirate that it remained imprinted on his eyeballs for hours afterwards. Throughout that day, when nothing could go awry, the day that became truly and irrevocably his.