The Queen came closer, one hand curved around the bedpost, thinking: so death clears my mother’s mind. When I needed her she was somewhere distant, locked away in thought. Now that the Fiend is no more, she comes to me again, purposeless. She bent so that her warm cheek almost touched the mother’s shrivelled face.
‘I cannot hear you, madam.’
‘Fair,’ said Jacquetta in a breath. She smiled. ‘Fair enough to grace the ramparts of Lusignan.’
Suspended in memory, the far-off day took on life. The leafy willows, the green and silver reeds. Two brindled trout lying in the shallows. All beauty and all power, departed now from the old voice murmuring so precisely. One word caught at her ear: ‘Danger.’
She answered, very quiet: ‘No more, madam. Warwick is gone; he burns in Hell.’
The Duchess writhed to sit up; Margaret Beaufort assisted her. ‘… Others!’ said Jacquetta. The word was wrapped up in the sigh and groan of the wind outside the walls. ‘Ned’s brothers will harm you. Queens can be brought down. Never doubt it.’
Morton’s black shape drew nearer the bed, and the nuns crept close. The Duchess’s hand made an angry, serpentine gesture.
‘Let them depart!’ she said, and a look from the Queen sent the nuns stumbling on their habits, quitting the chamber with a backlash of icy draught. Reynold Bray remained, a fixture, the reek of his clothes and his praying voice tokens of his presence. Morton still held his cross aloft. The Duchess caught at Elizabeth’s hand. In a surprisingly strong voice she said, ‘Listen, my daughter.’ Margaret Beaufort leaned near, and the Bishop, one on either side of Elizabeth.
‘Danger … Clarence.’ The words hissed and broke like random rain. ‘He will dethrone the King, and you. He suspects, but is not sure.’
‘Madame,’ said Elizabeth uneasily. The old eyes were as clear as a child’s, and full of menace.
‘He seeks the truth about the King’s marriage to Eleanor Butler. His spies go forth, night and day. Soon he will have his proof, and undo you.’
Elizabeth felt the blood rush up into her face. Her heart pounded; she gazed appalled at her mother, knowing that the closest of all secrets had been torn open wantonly before witnesses. Then the Duchess chuckled, a sickly rasp.
‘There’s no harm in speaking before the Bishop and Lady Margaret. They are your friends. Am I right, my lord?’
Morton, stroking his crucifix, half-closed his wattled eyes and bowed in assent. Margaret Beaufort’s clipped voice said, ‘Indeed, your Grace,’ and Jacquetta looked up triumphantly, but after a moment her face paled, her hands began to scratch once more at the bedcovers.
‘Open the window,’ she said faintly. Reynold Bray rose from his corner and threw the casement wide. A fierce gust roared in, lifting the Siege of Jerusalem so that the tassels upon it rattled in a skeleton’s dance. The Duchess’s voice, much weaker, called to Elizabeth. She leaned, shutting out Morton and Margaret. Very softly Jacquetta said: ‘Bury me at midnight!’
She was bewildered, and answered: ‘Midnight, madam?’
‘Aye, for such as we – you and I, daughter – it is the only time of grace. No demon can attack us at that hour. Bury me then so that I may–’ she gasped, retched – ‘sit with her on the heights of Lusignan.’
I will not, cannot do it, thought Elizabeth. It would cause comment. She wanders, her madness returns. ‘Rest, madam.’ Her voice was caught up and tossed in the gale through the window. Jacquetta was staring at her, one fading look of pride and warning. The tassels made their bony music, the wind thundered, mingled with the moaning rattle in Jacquetta’s throat. Lady Margaret touched the Queen’s shoulder.
‘She dies.’
Morton was gabbling the last rites and the holy unction trickled on Jacquetta’s brows. The casement, torn almost off its hinges, by a sweep of wind, hurled open and shut. As if summoned by this, there came priests burning ghostly tapers, the two white-faced nuns, and Anthony, weeping. Catherine, weeping and followed by the other sisters, richly gowned, tired from their corridor vigil. They knelt about the bed, making their soft farewell.
Elizabeth had imagined that perhaps some spirit of water and light would show itself, transfiguring Jacquetta’s face. That Melusine herself would manifest her power, bear up her loyalest servant. But there was none of this. There was only stillness; the first hint of waste, corruption. And of the grave, with its toad, its snail, its worm.
Edward was unfaithful. It was his privilege and prerogative. She guessed that he had dallied during the later part of their marriage with a dozen different women. Now he had abandoned any pretence at keeping these matters secret. All wives, she told herself, shared her situation, without complaining, but this philosophy, the very pattern of the times, did not lessen the hurt. Now he had three harlots at court; there was a pale pious girl who spent all her free time in chapel. She shared an apartment in Eltham hunting lodge with the King’s second favourite, a black-eyed Flemish slut. Both these women were fed and clothed sumptuously, but were seldom seen in the royal palaces. Jane Shore was different.
A hoyden, no more than seventeen, she was permanently at Edward’s side. She laughed incessantly, unprettily, like a corncrake shrieking. She had been plucked from the bed of a dotard husband and brought from Chepeside to the royal apartments. Edward was besotted, not only with her round body but with her constant witticisms. He looked upon her as a female fool, and for all the hours the jest continued, with variations, while Elizabeth listened to the distant, jarring screams and howls. She herself was still visited by Edward; he came often enough to make her almost yearly with child, but no longer did he call her his love, his fate.
She watched Jane with Edward, and with her own son Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset. He also, she knew, had enjoyed that plump jesting body, and Jane was in love with him. Not only Thomas would like to cuckold the King. Will Hastings, Lord Chamberlain and secret lecher, also desired Jane, the lowly mercer’s wife. Elizabeth watched and held her peace, hugging the hurt close. At Ludlow, she listened to the murmured words of Margaret Beaufort, now her dearest counsellor.
She may be useful, my liege.’
‘How? A common whore?’ The hurt emerged, red and bleeding, was surveyed by the Countess and vanished unappeased.
‘Be kind to her, Madame. She may be useful. See how Hastings lusts after her. Madame, believe me, I would befriend and advise you!’
Elizabeth was only half-listening. She looked out over the green bailey of Ludlow. She and the Countess were standing on the battlements. ‘Sweet Margaret,’ she said absently. The words emerged oddly like a peace-payment, the diplomacy of necessity, like the words recently penned by Edward to Louis of France. The Treaty of Picquigny was in progress. Peace to all men. Elizabeth looked sideways at the Countess; no, none could call her ‘sweet’ nor could they apply that to Morton. These days the Bishop was always near, standing even now like a sacred sentry, his robe fluttering in the breeze. The heir to England was at Ludlow, so it was fitting that Morton, so wise and holy, should oversee the little Prince’s destiny for a space.
Elizabeth stared out over the merlons at the vista of forest green; it was unbroken save for a silver trickle where the Teme glinted in the shadow of the Welsh hills. The fern-scented air touched her face soothingly. Yet behind her, where the spiral wound down through the intricacies of Ludlow Castle, a colder wind blew. Fraught with uncertainty, unseen future betrayals, it shivered her spirit. It nourished the nagging threat from those unknown, who might now plot and jest and speak her name. She drew her mantle closer. I am Queen of England. A wary inner voice answered: for how long? She thought: while Clarence lives, while Clarence’s spies go forth, my majesty is null and void.
One name, that of Eleanor Butler, could rip the cover off a bare and bleeding wound. Yet I dare not approach the King again, nor drop poison Clarence’s way. She longed to turn to Lady Margaret and say: What think you, my lady? You know of my feigned royalty, and that my queenship hangs by a thread. You know I must
be ruthless, perjured, bent on exterminating all who threaten my estate. She looked into the berry-black eyes of the Countess; unknowingly she revealed her own desperation.
‘The King loves you well, my liege’, said Margaret softly. ‘As for his harlots–’ she made a disdainful moue – ‘men are men. Clarence has several lemen, and even Richard of Gloucester, before he married Warwick’s Anne, sired at least two children; a maid, on some country wench, and John of Gloucester, whom he keeps in great estate.’
Elizabeth wasted no thoughts on Richard of Gloucester, who had taken himself off, together with Warwick’s daughter, to the north country, and there remained. No, it was Clarence who ate at her peace like the red ant … the Fiend was dead, but Clarence lived. Moth-light, the Countess touched her sleeve, murmuring a distraction.
‘Look!’ she pointed below. ‘There rides your son, Dorset; how elegant he is, my liege.’
Thomas swaggered in the gallop. He rode a tall chestnut across the bailey. His brother Richard Grey lagged a little, on a slower bay. Thomas was laughing. Dorset, the cuckolder of kings.
‘She loves me!’ he had crowed, strutting, his rich threads catching the candlelight. ‘Jane loves me, Ned loves me, and we all love one another! What better fate?’ He was born to sail close to the wind; Elizabeth warned him to keep his triumph more discreetly; he had laughed at her, kissed her. Margaret was talking again, half-heard words.
‘I believe your Grace has never seen my son,’ she said. ‘My Henry Tudor. Descended,’ she said proudly, ‘from the royal house of France.’
Descended by bastardy, thought Elizabeth, but was suddenly too weary to argue the point. Let Margaret have her pride; she had little else. She folded cold hands inside her sleeves and said: ‘You must bring your Henry to court.’ Margaret’s sallow face leaped into life.
‘Your Grace is kind; I’ll write to him this day.’
And she told herself excitedly: the tide turns. The Queen, depressed, grows pliant and a little careless. It will augur well for Henry to set foot within the court. Both the Stanleys and Morton agree with me here. And if the Eleanor Butler secret were to be disclosed … Light surged across the battlements of Ludlow, touched off, in the Countess’s mind, by her wild dreams – dreams whispered to her in the passing breeze and fading as the Queen, suddenly brisk, said: ‘Come. Let us go down and see the heir of England at his lessons.’
They descended the spiral together. Elizabeth hugged the wall close as it dipped down and down, icy, solid, like the round limb of some long-dead monster. The Queen’s little slippers were soundless upon the narrow dizzying stair. The high-fashioned gown she wore concealed her latest pregnancy, being cut with a projecting stomacher and falling fold. As they passed by the King’s private chamber there came the chuckling shriek of Mistress Shore.
In the schoolroom, the five-year-old Prince Edward, the heir to England, sat yawning over a vast Book of Hours. Beside him, his tutor, Bishop Alcock, followed, as he read, the arrow-straight margin with the jewel-bright capitals. All the children were there; the living testament of Elizabeth’s past decade. Bess was nine, and sat quietly at her broidery frame; she raised her blonde head as her mother entered; she rose, curtseyed formally and sat down again. Mary and Cicely were dressing a baby doll. There should have been another sister, but Margaret had only lived eight months and was already a memory.
The Prince Edward got up at Elizabeth’s approach. He was very pale, with bluish marks under his eyes. He smiled sweetly and made a little bow.
‘Does he learn well?’ Elizabeth asked the tutor. Dr. Alcock inclined his black-capped head.
‘He’s diligent, madam. Kiss the Queen’s hand, your Grace.’ She felt moist warm lips on her fingers, and she laid her hand for a moment on the silky head. Her fingers passed downwards, absently, to his face. Like a puppy, he ducked his head to rub against her hand. She felt a sharp regret that she saw so little of him; but he was Anthony’s charge. He was the heir to England, and should not leave Ludlow until Anthony, as Governor, saw fit.
‘His Grace’s brow feels chill,’ she remarked, and withdrew her hand. Instantly there was a scramble to close the windows. The ferny scents diminished, to be replaced by dust and ink. Elizabeth felt a tugging at her skirt and looked down. Grinning like a bad angel, her second son, two-year old Richard, Duke of York, confronted her. He brandished a toy dagger. He screwed up his face, plunged his head into the folds of her dress. He whispered an unintelligible secret, then proceeded to run, like a whirligig, round and round the Queen’s spread skirts. It made her glad to watch him; he was as robust as his brother Edward was frail. An understudy King! Then, a child’s voice, oddly adult, chided the small Duke’s rudeness, a hand coaxed the dagger from his grip and straightened his doublet. Elizabeth looked into the green eyes of Mistress Grace; those eyes that stared so, full of the disquieting unknown.
‘I’ll see you anon, my lord,’ she told Dr. Alcock. Without looking back she went alone, to see the Governor of Ludlow Castle.
He did not rise instantly at her entrance, he was so immersed in his work. A Latin copy of the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers lay on the table before him. Sheets of translation were scattered on the floor. She looked fondly at his bent head; he was heedless of her so she placed her hand over the page on which he was writing. Frowning, he looked up, then sprang instantly to his feet, full of loving apology. He kissed both her hands, then embraced her heavy body.
‘Anthony! Sweet Anthony!’ It was months since they had met.
‘My liege, Bess. Too long!’
‘How does Ludlow suit you?’
He drew her down beside him on a settle, soothing her tense mood with his soft voice, jesting, pleasing her eye with his gold good looks.
‘I have just come from the prince,’ she said.
‘Your prince, my scholar,’ he laughed. ‘Alcock and I are schooling him in all ways of urbanity and nurture.’ A little frown of contempt puckered his brow. ‘York could do well with some renewal of elegance. Lately it would seem that York breeds lechers, vulgarians. Bess–’ more urgently – ‘you must not let the King grow careless. How goes it with France?’
‘The Treaty will be signed, although he cleaves to Burgundy still … ah God!’ she said suddenly. ‘I am so afraid.’
He looked carefully at her. ‘The King loves you,’ he said slowly. ‘Pay no heed to his diversions … you have his heart and always will.’
‘It is Clarence,’ she said, her lips trembling. Anthony smiled.
‘Naught to fear, sweet sister,’ he said. This was not the Anthony who had been afraid to take her from Grafton Regis when she pleaded with him. This was a man who was erudite, calm, skilled. He said casually: ‘I know all Clarence’s mind. His murmurings against you and the King grow louder. He is fickle, treacherous and foolish. He will overstep himself, and my agents will see to it that he does, and is condemned for it.’
‘You’re sure?’ she breathed.
‘Be patient,’ he told her. ‘Clarence will be the architect of his own ruin.’
She could have told none the reason why she went to the Tower apartments of Margaret of Anjou. Only the itch of a long memory, or a ripple of forgotten duty unconsciously felt, led her through the cavernous vaults and up the twisted stairs. Margaret’s door was properly guarded by pikemen wearing the. rose en soleil. Waiting while they went inside to prepare the Frenchwoman, Elizabeth conjured memories. That frail, vital face; the eyes that could flash fury or soften with love. That gem-starred blondeness, and the voice douce as a dreaming bird’s yet capable of harsh command. She waited, and remembered; then one of the men returned to kneel before her.
‘My liege, she will not see you.’
‘What?’ cried Elizabeth. ‘I command …’ A little perplexed, she said: ‘Tell her that Elizabeth stands without the door!’
‘I did, highness. She fancies herself mocked. She is intemperate with grief.’ He folded his hands on the haft of his pike. On his wrist the marks of
five sharp nails dripped blood.
‘She may harm your Grace.’
Elizabeth felt in the pouch at her waist, found the dull coldness of a ring seldom worn. The pearl-and-ruby. The token of past friendship. The talisman of the beloved.
‘Show her this. Say I come in kindness.’
The man went in again, and she waited, tapping her foot. Impatience mingled with anxiety. Edward knew nothing of this excursion of hers. It could displease him. And who was Margaret, to gainsay her entry? Sounds crept through the studded oak; a voice raised in a scream, then silence, then sobbing. After a moment the pikemen held open the door. Elizabeth caught up her gown to ascend the worn stone step, curved like a bow from a thousand treadings. The guard said uneasily: ‘I must accompany your grace, and lock the door.’
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