The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  ‘Widow of Sir John Grey,’ said Edward briskly. ‘You remember him, Tom. He was a fine horseman who ran with the wrong pack!’

  ‘Certes, Grey! Like the colour!’ Desmond laughed. The laugh tingled down Elizabeth’s spine. All her unvented spleen rose to envelop Desmond, while she continued to look meekly downward, smoothing the hair and clothing of the two little boys, by now yawning and fidgeting. The King and his friend moved away a little, conferring. She listened hard; they were speaking of the King’s future plans. She heard the word ‘Fotheringhay’ and the King’s deep sigh. He turned slowly and strode back to her. He took her hands, so hard she thought the bones were crushed.

  ‘You offered me your hospitality,’ he said, very low. ‘But that stag is for you and yours, lady. I would not have it wasted on those who eat venison daily. He gestured towards the straggling knot of courtiers behind him, then looked down kindly at the two little boys. He notes our meagre bodies and our pallor, she told herself. She let her hands tremble in his as if they were too frail for the holding. She whispered something, soft enough for him to bend closer.

  ‘My lady?’ His eyes were hot again.

  Leaning a little so that her shoulder brushed his upper arm, she whispered: ‘If your Grace were … to come with a smaller entourage. To my shame, Sire, you must know we are very poor at Grafton.’

  He drew a quick, exultant breath. He murmured: ‘Lady, my lady. I will do better than that. I will come alone.’

  Then, like a schoolboy with his first passion, he abandoned kingship. He covered both her hands with kisses. Over his bowed shoulder she saw two things: the stag, now in pieces, being loaded on to mules, and Desmond’s face, which raised in her a peculiar hatred.

  She stood feeling the King’s greedy mouth upon her wrists. She was suddenly transfixed with awe and fear at how easy it had been; then the fear died under a leaping, pitiless joy.

  Through that summer and autumn, during winter’s clutch and spring’s swift renewal, the King came riding. He came as alone as a king can be, with a handful of armed knights, and an esquire or two. These gentlemen respectfully withdrew to the neighbouring hamlet while their sovereign dallied at Grafton.

  Elizabeth was a city under siege, her drawbridge bound up tight, enchained by the counsel of Jacquetta of Bedford. Hold back. Once you surrender, all is for naught. There were times when Elizabeth, nerves taut as hemp, would gladly have disobeyed her mother, and been rid of the desirous hands, the hot mouth. The voice which began the day softly, grew impatient, and rose to quarrelling petulance. Often he left her in a foul humour, rode through the gates and returned minutes later to beg her pardon. Each time he vowed his love; he would never desert her as he had other lemen (yes, he admitted past treachery), and once there were tears in his eyes. He knew naught of the flood she herself loosed as soon as he was safely from the manor. Painful tears, legacy of the exhausting battle against his demands. She asked herself: would it be so harmful to yield just once? And the Duchess, knowing her mind, would encompass her with passionate warning.

  In September he brought her a device for her throat; diamonds and pale flaming rubies. He sat beside her in the solar and fumbled to place his gift about her flesh. Jacquetta knocked, entered, knelt. Her lustrous eyes, the pupils blackly dilated, signalled to Elizabeth the required response. Obediently there came the downward look, the regretful smile. ‘Nay, my liege, I am unworthy!’ Edward’s barely controlled temper was audible, little gusty breaths. At Christmas came two harriers, lean joyful young dogs, which she returned with the courier who delivered them. The following week she received an angry note, signed only: ‘Ned’. He favoured anonymity, yet the sisters, maddened and curious, whispered their own assumptions in private, for there was none like him in the whole of England.

  By April, her strength had diminished. Drained by endless assault, there were times when she saw the true end of the campaign as something misty and forgotten. Its purpose was veiled by the constancy of Edward’s bruising hands, his pleading, his temper. Although she was but six years older than he, the six seemed sixty. His voice echoed in her dreams. ‘Yield, Bessy! Bessy, my heart’s lust!’ And his near-blasphemies, which should have offended her and strangely did not: ‘Forget the priests! True love is past all priestly knowing!’Truly he was a boy, a child, uninitiated, unaware that there were others than God …

  But one such dream made her cry out, mid-April. Faithful Renée ran to her mistress’s bedside, while Elizabeth writhed, remembering. She had been riding to Bradgate, John beside her, singing. She turned to kiss him and was engulfed by the King’s mouth, that bruised her lips and breast. Desire leaped within her shamefully, while Bradgate’s tower soared straight and strong before her eyes. There were the jewels, falling like a rainbow; jewels everywhere, the device she had returned and countless more, pearls for her ears, a girdle studded with sapphire and gold, silver chalices flowing with rich wine, a unicorn’s horn filled with emeralds. Then came her mother’s voice, that dried the King’s kisses and pinned a scowl upon his face. She heard herself crying.

  ‘Get up, daughter.’ The feel of her mother’s arms, awesomely tender, shocked her awake. ‘Be comforted.’

  ‘I thought I was at Bradgate!’

  ‘You shall have Bradgate. You shall have manors by the hundred.’

  She said: ‘For Jesu’s love, madam, how much longer?’

  ‘Not long,’ said the Duchess.

  I lusted for that necklace,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I long for Bradgate.’

  ‘All,’ replied Jacquetta. ‘All shall be yours, and more. He comes today. Prepare for storms, for Mars is in the ascendant! But Venus waits, and Jupiter …’

  She sent Renée away. ‘I will attend my lady.’ Whispering up and down, like a guttering candle, she ministered to Elizabeth. That face must know no blemish. She took two small vials, the contents of which she applied to her daughter’s skin.

  ‘Lac Virginis.’ It was an incantation. ‘Since time unremembered it has been used.’ The potion tightened on Elizabeth’s face. Litharge of lead, ground on marble into white vinegar with sandiver and settled for a day and a night, filtered into two waters for the application. ‘To make ladies beautiful,’ said the Duchess with a devilish laugh. ‘And used by Queens.’ The strong hands massaged, hurting cheekbones too near the skin.

  He came at noon, full of golden humour. Among the sweet airs of spring they walked, in Grafton’s little pleasaunce. They came to an arbour hung with the green promise of summer. There, he loosened her wimple; he was clumsy as a colt. The silver-gilt hair fell over his hands like a wild river. He began to caress her, his fingers straying to the bounds of propriety. He was so young and clean; she could imagine how others had succumbed. She stared him out with her look of lucent virtue; she rose to pluck a flower. She laughed gently, sighed and withdrew, melted the next moment, only a second later to become adamantine. All afternoon she played a dangerous game, watching his face pale and the muscles of his arms and thighs quiver like those of a man with palsy. This great, royal fish! She played him on her line. Yet he was stronger this day, more stubborn. It had been folly to bring him to the arbour. Away from the house, his fire kindled and blazed. Each long embrace grew more uncontrollable. Her diversions failed; he would not let her rise. His eyes, seen closely, were like an animal’s, sick and pleading.

  ‘Bessy, why do you torment me?’ he gasped. ‘God’s Blood, that I should be in this fire. Do you not know-’ he shook her fiercely – ‘that I am the King of England!’

  ‘And I your loyal subject, Sire.’

  He choked on wrath. ‘Plague on your loyalty! I would have your love.’

  Pinioned, she answered: ‘I love you as my King,’ the words cut off by a savage kiss that brought blood into her mouth. To quench the pain, she imagined it to be Warwick’s blood. Edward’s face was against her hair. ‘Love me as a man, not a King … eight months!’ He gave a crazed laugh. ‘Eight months, in which I have had time to fight against your erstwhil
e mistress, la maudite Margaret – all the while thinking, dreaming of you. Bessy, I would never desert you. You would be cherished unto death. Only give me your body and your heart!’

  She heard her gown tear. He would ravish her now, and all lost. She raised one desperate hand and struck him in the face. The next instant he had drawn his knife. Its jewelled hilt flirted with the sun, prisms of blue and gold and green. He set the blade against her throat.

  ‘Yield to me,’ he said softly.

  A witless laugh trembled within her. She looked into his eyes, riding out their blue storm. The Yorkists killed John – now a Yorkist king kills me. The blade’s edge was beginning to burn. She was unready for death; there was so much to gain, Bradgate, jewels, vengeance. And yet she found herself smiling, as if the smile had been painted on by an imp.

  He flung down the knife and sprang up. His towering shadow blotted the sun. He cursed her, calling her wanton, bloodless, jade, a whore that should be a nun, though there was no cloister devious enough to hold her. A cheating favour-seller, master and mistress of cruelty and child of Hell. So he railed, while Mars romped in the ascendant. He turned to leave, looking back once, turkey-red, his eyes bloodshot, saying:

  ‘Keep your cursed chastity, Madame. You will not see Edward Plantagenet again.’

  She watched him go, riding with savage spurs and oaths for his escort. A qualm of fright gripped her. She stood for a little while, chewing her bruised lips, then walked slowly towards the manor. The Duchess was at her window, watching with a little smile the fading smudge of dust on the horizon.

  ‘The King has left his cloak,’ she said. She moved back into the dimness of the solar, and lifted the heavy rich velvet into her arms. All round the collar hairs clung, gleaming like gold-dust. With infinite care Jacquetta plucked them until she had a fistful of shining booty. Over a little flame, a dish of tallow heaved. She watched it and her smile stretched into a snarl. Plenty there, to shape into a gold-headed King.

  And she was a craftswoman, she would make this time a better image than the crude Warwick, who lay in his secret coffer, the iron band eating at his vitals. She stole a swift glance at the Earl’s spellcast image, before bending to her more special work.

  Within five days, the King returned to Grafton.

  From the kitchen where lately there had been shouts and snatches of song, came only silence. A cask of spiced mead had been broached for the royal escort, the anonymous men employed for the King’s secret forays to Grafton. They had drunk and now lay, oblivious, while their sovereign, supine upon Elizabeth’s bed, covered his eyes and groaned softly.

  He had touched no wine, but his brain was on fire. He could see the flames; they lapped the pillows, and his upthrown hands had gloves of fire. Desire was stilled for a space, burned by these phantom flames. Faces flowered about him, lambent and terrifying: Warwick, arrogantly ordering his marriage with the Savoy princess; his own mother, the Rose of Raby, beautiful, widowed, spiritual, shaking her head sadly through a mist of fire. Another face, saintly, defiled. A tearstreaked, forgiving face. Eleanor, my love. He tried to say it; flames licked his tongue, and the name emerged bewitched.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  ‘I am here, sweet lord.’

  She knelt by the bed, crushing down terror at the sight of his dementia. An hour earlier she had found courage enough to rail at her mother, saying that they would all be hanged in chains. For the King was ill after the strange meal Jacquetta had prepared, the herbal drink stirred in a special way.

  ‘Christ’s Blood, madam, he is dying!’

  The Duchess took up the bowl that had contained the amanita muscaria, its dark fungoid taste masked by basil and cinnamon. ‘Go up,’ she said calmly. ‘Ask him what you would. He will gainsay you nothing.’

  So Elizabeth knelt, and took his hand. Down the whole of his body desire rekindled unbearably at her touch. Eleanor faded, his mother faded, and Warwick turned inside out with a sharp ‘phut!’ vanishing into blackness like a spent firecracker. He had enjoyed the mushroom. An Eastern speciality, she had called it, that old woman of his dream.

  She had ministered tenderly to him, topping his hanap with a thick liquid. ‘Jupiter’s brew,’ she said. It was so sweet that he, used to the indulgence of all sweetness, had found it irresistible. It was mixed with the scents of Elizabeth’s body, that aroma …

  ‘Vervain, my lord.’ Her voice washed around him, each word a cascade of glittering flame. ‘To strengthen the intellect and nervous humours.’ (And to restore lust, even in the grave.) ‘Ruled by Venus, for merrymaking.’

  He tried to laugh. ‘I’m far from merry today. So weary …’

  ‘You are Edward,’ she said gently. ‘Edward Plantagenet.’ Of the third son of the third Edward, and destined to be mine. She watched his speedwell eyes, tiny and defenceless as a sparrow’s. She suffered his limp hand upon her breast. ‘I would have your love,’ he said, like a child about to cry. He moved weakly so that there was room beside him on the bed. ‘If this is sin, I’ll take and eat the sin for your soul’s good. There! I offer you not only my love, but absolution. Lie with me.’ She drew back only a little, keeping her hand in his. The next words were Jacquetta’s, learned by rote.

  ‘My lord,’ she said steadily, ‘if I am not good enough to be your Queen, I am too good to be your leman. The choice is yours.’ She bowed her head.

  ‘So,’ he said after a moment. ‘You would wed me, Bessy, and be Queen of England.’

  She could tell nothing from his faint voice, whether he were angry, amused, or incredulous. She stole a look; his eyes were half closed so that a thread of white showed under the lids. Suddenly ice-cold and commanding, she answered:

  ‘My lord, I am not worthy to be your Queen, but my body is pure. I will be no man’s harlot. But to be your loving wife is a dream I have cherished, a dream far beyond me, your Grace. Sweet Ned!’

  Out of nowhere came John’s face, tenderly, wearily smiling. O Jesu! Let me hurt my lord of Warwick sore! She swallowed real tears and continued, dicing on each word.

  ‘Everywhere your Grace goes, my spirit follows. I think of the sweets of love, with the Rose of Rouen …’

  ‘You think of them!’ he said drunkenly. ‘Oh God! that you could only be my Queen!’

  Very timidly she said, watching the young reed bend: ‘I know, your Grace. There are nobles who would cry shame at our union, being as I am so low.’ She leaned closer so that the vervain at her breast and armpits drifted to his nostrils. ‘I am not ignorant. Your Grace needs the royal blood of Europe to preserve his ancient line, and …’

  ‘Christ!’ he said despairingly. ‘Would that it were as simple! I would say hang my nobles and advisers! Bessy, I would wed you tomorrow, save that …’

  In the breath-holding silence, she stroked his hand. ‘Save that I am married already,’ he said dully.

  Time ceased, gathered its wits, and moved on. Her first thought was: so all is lost. Even my mother could not foresee this blight upon our aim. All the months’ gruesome wrestling, the outrageous play for naught; the banishment of Jocelyne, to whom I could have grown close; the nightmares and tears … She looked upon the King who lay now as if in sleep, and her dismay yielded to rage. Willingly she could have killed him. A heavy pillow over the stupefied face … they would say that he had suffered a seizure and rolled among the bedcovers. Her fingers stole out and wound themselves in a bolster’s lace edge, gripping it until the blood thrust from beneath her nails. All for nothing!

  He said, with closed eyes. ‘I was crazy to marry her. She was chaste, like you, Bessy, and would have me no other way. It has been a secret for three years. She has no royal blood, but – her name is Eleanor Butler, daughter of Talbot …’

  ‘I knew Lord Talbot,’ she said with difficulty … ‘He was killed at Guienne. One of Marguerite’s chief officers.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes! Lancastrian, the whole family. Nell was so saintly, so good. Sudely, curse him, was trying to cheat her of her estate
s. She was widowed, she came suing to me for restoration. And we were wed.’

  ‘You say it’s secret?’

  ‘Only my lady mother knows. Well – she and a very few more. Bishop Stillington, he bound us together. And the nuns of Norwich. Eleanor is in a convent there. It was better so.’

  Yes, when you wearied of her, she thought bitterly. And this knowledge challenged her to wish the campaign begun anew. He would not tire of me! Did Raymond weary of Melusine? She took Edward’s hand and kissed it.

  ‘I shall guard your Grace’s confidence with my blood, and pray for you daily. Even though we never meet again.’

  She saw then that he wept, one tear trickling from each closed eye, balm to her savage sense of loss and failure. There was a rap on the door; Jacquetta entered, borne on a strong breeze of power, gliding over the polished boards as if on air, smiling, smiling.

  ‘Is my lord refreshed?’ With difficulty Edward sat up. ‘Your henchmen are without.’ She gestured to the door beyond which the escort, sick with mead, straightened their clothing. She continued: ‘Will your Grace ride now, while it is light?’

  The King wiped tears and sweat from his face and rose from the bed. He did not answer.

  ‘Will your Grace bathe, then? It’s warm for April. I have prepared a chamber. And then, supper and entertainment? Dame Grey has a new song for your delight. Whatever you desire.’

  ‘I thank you,’ said Edward, ashy pale. ‘I will rest here the night, lady.’

  He went out, walking like an old man, to the waiting henchmen. The. Duchess watched him dispassionately.

  ‘In a short while he will be renewed. The mushroom sent him visions – horrors mayhap. It sometimes does. It has weakened him like a barbed deer.’

  She turned to her daughter. ‘Well?’

  ‘The King is married,’ said Elizabeth.

  The Duchess gave a rasping laugh, and set her arm about Elizabeth’s neck.