The King's Grey Mare

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by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

‘You have no faith,’ she said. ‘Let him lie under our roof this night. Do you think that any earthly bond could hold him from you? Or you from destiny?’

  A white moon stood tall in the sky to overlook the Duchess’s work. She moved about the sleeping manor and its grounds, followed mutely by Elizabeth. A man came to join them briefly; a pale clerk named Thomas Daunger. Learned in orders holy and unholy, he whispered incantations as he went, for his knowledge began where Jacquetta’s skill left off.

  There was blood. Before retiring Edward had suffered a nosebleed; he had jested about it, saying that the Duchess’s strong wines caused his veins to rejoice and burst their banks. Elizabeth begged pardon for the liquor’s treason.

  ‘Give me your kerchief, lord. I will trust it to no wimplewasher.; I’ll launder it myself!’

  So now the tiny gold-haired image was rosy, the tallow steaked with red like some rare precious stone. Edward Plantagenet lay still within Jacquetta’s hands, under the moon’s white eye. There was a black candle burning briefly, and more blood, fresh blood, caught before the scream of its small host had died away.

  This was the consummation. A night remembered by Elizabeth only in dreams or delirium. A night where fact and fancy were so closely meshed as to be indistinguishable.

  When she weakened and trembled, the Duchess fed her drops from a small blue vial, making her sight clearer and yet more treacherous. The hot white night dragged, dry as sand, an eternity of labour and strange sounds, diffused images, voices tirelessly intoning. Towards dawn, when it seemed that a thousand years were running out, the mother and daughter stood, beside Grafton’s little lake; Thomas Daunger had departed as silently as he had come. Now there were two moons, one hard and bright and sinking slowly, the other like a soul palely lost beneath the water. Between these two dead fires a light moving mist shimmered, as if the water were boiling, and with it came sights of beauty and terror: a maelstrom of fighting men, forms that sank to dissolution at the touch of Elizabeth’s eyes and renewed themselves, changed; ten thousand knights, their screaming mouths silent holes in the mist, and the cruel sting of defeat on their faces. Images that whirled and writhed; the ghostly moon wavered as if it strove to burst the water’s skin. In the trees an owl cried, the shriek of a murdered child.

  She was afraid. The Duchess stood, her ankles lapped by water and reeds. The small figure of destiny lay between her hands.

  ‘Pray to her, daughter!’

  Melusine was with them, strong, her unseen fingers tossing the mist, agitating the water. Within herself Elizabeth felt the change begin, a hardening of thought and will and dispositions, manifesting itself in a marble chill through every vein. She was afraid, and clung to fear as something natural and stable; she tried to call upon the Holy Name. She was dumb and powerless, swept by a change as irrevocable as a tidal bore.

  ‘See!’ said the Duchess. ‘She’ll not fail us!’

  Elizabeth lifted her heavy eyes. From the lake a column of mist was rising. It formed a shape she dared not look upon.

  All over England they were raising the Maypole. Long before the seashell dawn had cast up the day, there was movement on the roads. Between hawthorn hedges came pedlars, jugglers, minstrels and dancers, bound for the nearest green, the nucleus of gaiety. The cares of winter fell behind. Eagerly the people looked forward to the virile festival, the seal of spring. In every tree small birds sang of maying, and the travellers caught the tune, broke into gruff or warbling song, thinking of the ale, the sports of war or the flesh, the gossip. They wore frail garlands of flowers.

  Elizabeth donned her bridal gown. She had fashioned it herself, and nights of lost sleep winked from its lucent damask, the bosom low and fringed with silver thread. Like the day itself, it was a thing of impossible splendour. She treated it cautiously.

  She had no doubt that he would come. Carefully, as if each thought were a bubble, she let her mind stray to their last conversation. She had watched disbelievingly while he knelt at her feet and said the words to make her Queen of England. She had thought: he knows not what he says. To be sure, I must remind him…

  ‘The Lady Eleanor Butler.’

  His eyes, raised to hers, were glazed, enthralled. In his mind, her words were merely some echo of a life lived long ago. He did not answer. She said then, diffidently:

  ‘My lord … Earl Warwick – he mislikes my family.’

  The eyes cleared, became ruthless, angry.

  ‘Earl Warwick is not my keeper.’

  Joy sprang at this; but she was still doubtfilled; for Eleanor was a living, breathing creature, wife to this besotted man. So she spoke her name again, gently. He rose and took her hands. Reverent, lust fled for the moment, he was like a shadow of the hot-breathing Edward.

  ‘Eleanor is with the nuns,’ he said. ‘And she is sickly, like to die… She will never leave the House of Carmelites. She is dead to me already. Bessy, don’t you know you are my fate?’

  Incredulous joy gave her a smile like a jewel.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I am, in truth, your fate!’

  Therefore he would come. Even now he was riding, hard and desirous, having left his followers at Stony Stratford. He would tell them he was going hunting, even though they were in the midst of an array. A bubbling laugh escaped her, and was answered by a little sigh from Catherine, who knelt to straighten her sister’s gown.

  ‘You are so fair,’ she said wistfully. She held the mirror up. Elizabeth’s face had a delicate flush, the small red lips were full and pouting. Her eyebrows had been fashionably plucked almost to invisibility; did this account for the change she saw in the eyes? There was something there previously lacking. An echo of mist and water, a fluid, sensuous brilliance that lacked all compassion. A pitiless essence seen in the eyes of an old soul.

  She called the other sisters and opened a walnut box. Presents. Gifts, from ‘Lord Ned’.

  ‘Ah, Jesu! Will you look!’ Like small wild animals they fell upon the coffer. There was a package addressed to each sister. Margaret had a ruby bracelet, Anne a gold muskball; Martha and Eleanor received pearl ear-rings, Jacquetta a jewelled missal, Catherine an emerald necklace, and Mary a sapphire ring. There was a small token packet for Elizabeth too, a harbinger of greater gifts. She unwrapped it. A message in his own hand lay within.

  For Dame Elizabeth Grey,

  Who grows more like Our Lady every day.

  It was a pearl-and-enamel rosary, each pearl as large as her little finger-nail, the crucified Christ worked in red gold, the Five Wounds small rubies. She stared at it; suddenly its beauty repelled her, and she laid it aside. The sisters gloated, pouring their gems from hand to hand, adorning throat and fingers and ears with handfuls of light She watched them, and thought: these are the jewels of my dream, the old dream in John’s arms. She thought on him briefly and felt little emotion. Her mind touched on Warwick; the old rage was there, a comforting, everlasting fire. So love had gone, and hatred remained.

  The sisters knew nothing of the day’s plan. Soon they would be sent, joyous and bemused, out into the May morning to make merry at the fair. They would not return until tomorrow. Ned had insisted on it. None must know; only the Duchess and whatever clergy she might bring in to perform the ceremony. It must be a privy matter for weeks. Until he found the words to inform his Parliament.

  ‘Must we stay from home overnight?’ Anne moved to her sister’s side, breathing the scent of her new muskball. ‘Must we sleep at the nunnery? I never have a full night’s rest, thanks to their bell and prayers. And they are always fasting.’ She rubbed her small belly comically.

  ‘Mother of God!’ cried Margaret; twirling her bracelet. ‘Fasting is naught fresh to us, Anne! And to no holy purpose, either!’

  Elizabeth longed to say, proudly: Soon, hunger will be a stranger to you all. She chivvied them from the room, just as the sound of horsemen arriving drained the blood from her face and sent her into a flurry of last-minute preparation. There was a step on the stairs, hast
y, too light for the King. Neither would the King burst into her bower so, although this one was tall and fair-haired, and swept her up into his arms, as the King might.

  ‘Sweet sister!’

  ‘Anthony!’ She kissed him, weeping, for his coming set the seal upon the day. He twirled her about, whistled at her finery like a knavish groom, went on his knee, sprang up and kissed her again.

  ‘What widow’s garb is this, my sweet? A wanton widow, by my faith, all Damascus cloth and shining like the sun. What mischief’s this? Whatever it is, may it prosper!’

  So kind and charming was he that she broke her pledge, and told him. His eyes grew large in disbelief, then jubilation. There was even a kind of envy too.

  ‘By God!’ he said, very low. And little more; for the first time ever she saw him speechless.

  ‘Tell none,’ she begged.

  ‘Nay, nay,’ he said slowly. ‘I’d meant to tarry a few days, but I’ll go at once, before the bridegroom … Jesu! my mind rocks! … before the royal bridegroom comes.’

  All gaiety gone, he knelt to her in earnest, pressing his face against the silver hem of her robe.

  ‘I do you homage, Madame,’ he said. ‘I salute you as Queen of England.’

  ‘Christ’s Blood!’ she cried. ‘Get up, fool! Would you tempt destiny?’

  He rose hastily, solemn-faced. ‘Bess,’ he said tentatively, ‘have I always been a good brother to you?’

  ‘Always, dear lord.’

  ‘Then–’ sheepishly – ‘I pray you, remember me when you come into your glory. Despite my wife’s lineage, I have many enemies at court … a word from the Queen would ransom me from spite and hardship …’

  Again she flinched from the word ‘Queen’. Anything could happen, even to the King being killed en route to Grafton by a fall from his horse. Yet the Duchess had bidden her be merry and confident. She took her brother’s hand.

  ‘I promise,’ she said. ‘Now, go at once.’ We’ll meet again.’

  ‘In splendour!’ His face was sharply alight. Suddenly she was infected by his ecstasy.

  ‘Anthony, Anthony!’ she cried. ‘You shall be with me! We will be supreme! More powerful … than the King himself!’

  Young and mocking and handsome, he saluted her, slung his cloak about him and quit the room. Very soon, straining her eyes through the window she saw the little blossomy cloud of dust that heralded the King.

  He came into the chapel quite alone. In the gloom his golden head was luminous as the aureole around a painted saint. He was plainly dressed in brown velvet. With the Duchess, Elizabeth stood to welcome him among banked flowers and candles. The smell of the tallow and the spring blooms rose thickly intoxicating and mingled with the cloying incense. Above all was the scent of the peerless vervain with which she had anointed her body, drifting through the chapel like a breath of mysterious song. He saw her and grew pale with longing. More unaccountably, the face of the parish priest waiting at the altar whitened also; he shot one uneasy sideways glance at her and clutched at his breviary. Beside him a boy acolyte stood motionless.

  ‘My love. My fate.’ The King’s lips were cold upon her hand.

  ‘Edward, our day is come,’ she whispered.

  ‘Swear me one thing.’

  She nodded, expecting to be asked for assurance of love. The words were ready on her tongue.

  ‘Swear that you, as my Queen, take upon you eternal fealty to the House of York.’

  For an instant her mind cried out in rejection. She lowered her eyes. But John was dead, love was dead. And during the past months, perjury had become her bedfellow, and her tongue the tool of blackness.

  ‘I swear. May God preserve York for ever and ever. Amen.’

  He gave a little satisfied nod, and from his golden height looked down at her adoringly. She laid her hand on his for their binding.

  The boy acolyte began to sing, a high pure cadence of almost pagan sound, like the calling birds outside the high arched window. The music pleasured her; she glanced to thank him with a look, and saw no answering flicker in the sightless eyes. Edward’s cold and sweating fingers fumbled with the marriage ring. The Eucharist was raised to heaven; the Blood of Christ burned her mouth. Like a tortured lark, the blind boy sang.

  There was darkness as there might be after the end of the world. Darkness and silence. In the hour between dog and wolf, she lay plunged fathoms deep, oblivious of the bed, the world, the great naked body now quiescent beside her. And she dreamed that she was dead, lapped in blissful blackness, all struggles ended.

  His voice and hands roused her yet again. The velvet darkness clung as unwillingly she rose from it, her limbs slack with fatigue, like an old woman’s. Never had she been so weary, not even after the long travail of bearing the two little boys. Resentment at Edward’s vigour trembled on the lip of her mind. But she stretched her leaden arms to him, yielded her body, brittle as an autumn leaf, while somewhere far beyond her consciousness he kissed, and groaned, and possessed. His flesh damp and burning like a marsh-fire, he muttered endearments, striving as though his one desire was to be irretrievably lost within her. The last of the comforting darkness ebbed and she was wide awake to hear him say:

  ‘God, God! I have been in a dream these past weeks, and now the dream is mine.’

  She thought irrelevantly of her sisters. Poor Anne, grumbling at the convent bells. The girls would doubtless also be awake at this hour, summoned down draughty cloisters to mouth their sleep-sick prayers and conscious of their yawning bellies …

  ‘Bessy, Bessy! My lady, my heart!’ said the King. ‘My poor sisters …’ she murmured.

  ‘Yea! Lovely, lovesome wenches. A nosegay of flowers, and my Bessy the fairest flower of all.’

  ‘I wish they could have shared our wedding feast.’

  The supper, prepared by Jacquetta’s own hand, had been sumptuous for Grafton. Roast sturgeon, a salmon morteux rich with cream. A syllabub with candied violets.

  ‘Yes, the little doves,’ he said foolishly. ‘So they should have done.’

  She smiled in the blackness. ‘My lord, you yourself said …

  ‘Yes, yes, all must be secret,’ he replied hastily. ‘It was fitting they should lie from home this night.’

  He hugged her closer, stifling her breath.

  ‘Yet even a king can change his whim,’ he said.

  She laid her lips against his neck.

  ‘Anthony came today,’ she said softly.

  ‘Ah, Lord Scales!’ he answered after a moment. ‘A worthy knight.’

  Yes, he had truly forgotten Calais, when he and Warwick called Anthony a knave’s son. She went on, softly stroking the muscular plateau of his chest:

  ‘He longs for favour. Would that you knew him better! He is so learned, daring in the joust. He can create a song out of air, and weapons from wit.’

  ‘He shall have my favour,’ said Edward.

  ‘And Lionel! He is the most devout in Christendom. For years he has studied the priesthood. And my young brother John! There, sweet lord, you’d find no more worthy courtier. Gracious, cultured. Dick, too …’

  ‘Lionel, Dick, John,’ said Edward. ‘Anthony; is there more? You have forgotten Edward, my namesake! God’s lady, Bessy! You’ll have me jealous of these poxy brothers!’

  Although he was jesting, she thought it pertinent to kiss him again, which she did, deeply. It was his turn to smile, unseen. This wife of his was a strategist, and it pleased him. The large and ambitious family of Woodville pleased him too. They were a potential buckler against the power of Warwick. Now the clever Nevilles should dance to the King’s air. With this new phalanx of beholden kinfolk about him, he would have his renaissance. Not only at court, but throughout England. Sweep the board clear for a fresh set of chessmen, schooled to his every whim by gratitude. His arms tightened about Elizabeth’s frail nudity.

  ‘Which is your favourite sister, honey sweet?’

  ‘Why, Catherine, though Margaret is nearest to me by bi
rth.’

  ‘Have I seen Catherine?’ He mused awhile amid the girlish bodies, the shy, perplexed smiles.

  ‘The little, round one.’

  ‘Ah yes. Well, Kate shall have for husband young Harry Buckingham. A Plantagenet of ancient line. Clever. Handsome, too. And Margaret … she could do worse than Maltravers, Arundel’s heir. The others betrothed as I see fit.’

  ‘And my brothers?’

  He only kissed her, laughing tormentingly, his dawning beard rasping her throat. His mind went its separate way, gauging the worth of Anthony, Lionel, Richard, Edward, John. Lionel he had heard of already; cunning and glib of tongue. There might soon be a vacancy in the See of Salisbury for such a smart prelate. Edward was a seaman, always useful. Richard? A secretary perhaps. John, nineteen? He almost laughed aloud. Warwick’s own aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, was lately widowed and very rich. She was eighty if a day; they would call it a marriage made in Hell. But it would benefit Bessy and her family, and it would make Warwick writhe. Was it too cruel? He would see. At the moment he felt too utterly content. Virtue rose and fermented in him. He could even push to the back of his mind his mother’s last letter.

  ‘My son, for all we hold most dear, put not your soul in jeopardy for one woman. I beg you to think anew. For bigamy is an odious state and mortal sin, and shall bring ruin and sorrow to our House …’

  Those words, swiftly torn across with the parchment that bore them, had been like a fierce jet of flame. She was so pure, so utterly faithful to York and its old scions. She could not understand his longings that made nonsense of past loyalty. She did not know the wellspring of his dream: the enigma of Jacquetta’s eyes; the silver body of Elizabeth. He could not write in reply saying: Mother, I know not why, but I am bound to her. From that sacred moment in the forest, all my life’s map lay spread before me, and every path, Elizabeth.

  ‘I was right!’ he said out loud.

  He crushed her to him, heedless of the thousand love-inflicted bruises. He said thickly: ‘And you? What do you desire, my jewel?’

 

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