The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  Gravely he bent his head. His lips brushed Grace’s mouth. From a bowl of white roses on the table he plucked a bloom and placed it in her hand.

  ‘Madame, my honour and duty,’ he said. Anne Neville clapped her hands.

  ‘Perfect, John. Now, mistress, come and greet me. I have not seen you since …’ Her smile faded at some turbulent memory. ‘You were very young. You would not remember.’

  Grace sank low before the Duchess Anne. Fingers touched her shoulder and her bent head. Anne cried: ‘Why, child, you’re wet and cold. John, send for Lady Lovell. Fresh clothes, at once!’ She kissed Grace on the brow. Thoughts in chaos, Grace told herself: today, misery and banishment bring me again to John, my dear friend. And I am kissed by Warwick’s daughter … The feeling of disloyalty to Elizabeth gave her great unease, and she turned to look again at John. He was not really changed, only so much taller and broader. His cheeks, tanned by the northern wind, were leaner. He was fashionably dressed in the new tunic with slashed sleeves and a short swirling jacket trimmed with marten. On his fingers he wore several rings, and he was very self-assured. When he had left the room, Anne said: ‘He is the image of his father, and my constant companion, my dear foster son. It is a compensation for lacking my own son, Edward, in London.’ Her face grey heavy as she spoke.

  ‘I don’t like London,’ (as if to herself). ‘I have been ill, and the journey wearied me. I am often ill, you know. Edward, my little prince, also. Richard is the strong one. He will soon be crowned, and then perhaps we can see Yorkshire again.’

  She asked Grace: ‘How is Dame Grey?’

  Grace looked deeply into the bowl of flowers. In their close snowy shape there was pain. ‘She is sick with wrath and despair. You must know this already.’

  ‘Will she attend my husband’s coronation?’ said Anne quietly. Grace shook her head.

  ‘Will you, mistress?’

  ‘I cannot.’ Grace looked directly at Gloucester’s lady. ‘Any more than can Dame Elizabeth. How could she, madame?’ She heard the high thread of her own voice, saying: ‘Her heirs have been dispossessed. The crown passes from little Edward to your husband. She is robbed of everything, through Gloucester’s will …’ Tears burned her eyes; she stopped abruptly.

  ‘No,’ said Anne Neville, after a long time. ‘Do you not know, silly child, who brought this day about? None other than Edward Plantagenet, who through his folly cast his whole dynasty into chance and sin? Do you think my husband coveted the crown? In the north, we had our own kingdom. But the Council decreed Richard heir; there was none other, now that the boys are bastard. Even Clarence’s son is attainted by way of his father’s treason …’ She coughed dryly. ‘I will speak of it no further. I am weary of policy, threats, rantings. I only know that Richard will rule England. I have known him all my life; he will endeavour to do well.’

  Her mind sped through the past to Middleham where there was peace and breezes like wine, and the small son who was the light and the beginning of the world; and further back to the time when she, a sixteen-year-old maid, was sold in marriage to the French Queen’s son. When he died at Tewkesbury, a virgin knight, I was glad, she thought. Otherwise I would not have known marriage to my sweet, troubled lord, or a return to my home in the blessed North. A further bout of coughing paralysed her momentarily and she was frightened. London! this plagued, unhappy domain; it afflicts my breast. She got up and to ease herself, walked about the room. Melancholy shortened her tone.

  ‘I am sorry that I see you cannot love your new sovereign, or me. I had hoped mistress, that you would stay with us. Any child of Edward Plantagenet is welcome in my lord’s house’

  Grace watched her. She was so thin; her wrists were tiny, brittle as twigs; her waist a mere wisp of flesh. Her face was like a tragic child’s.

  ‘I’ll stay, your highness,’ said Grace. ‘But in fairness, it is because I have nowhere else to go.’

  Suddenly the door opened and, to Grace’s wonder, Margaret Beaufort entered. She was richly gowned, and carried her breviary like some diligent, knowing, female priest. The sight of Grace, standing now hand in hand with Lady Anne, caused the Countess’s mouth to fall agape; only for a moment. She clamped her jaw and bustled forward.

  ‘Well met, mistress,’ she said perfunctorily. ‘I heard you were with Dame Grey – but you are not. No matter. Greetings, Lady Anne!’

  Grace watched the Countess kneel. Anne said softly: ‘Mistress Grace Plantagenet is to remain with me for a time. How are you, Lady Margaret?’

  ‘The happiest of women,’ replied the Countess. She seized Anne’s hand and bestowed on it a dry kiss. ‘Today my lord of Gloucester has pardoned my husband Stanley. You, Madame, must have prevailed upon him. God bless you for it.’

  ‘I did naught,’ said Anne. ‘Richard has promised a pardon to all who swear fealty to the Crown. Stanley and Rotherham have taken the oath; others will follow.’

  ‘And I, my lady,’ went on the Countess, mixing meekness and exaltation, ‘am to bear your train at your coronation!’

  ‘I know,’ said Anne. Her mist-grey eyes looked at and through the Countess. Her thoughts moved frailly on. Oh, Dickon, are you wise? To pardon these traitors, to welcome, with such warmth this woman whom I distrust and dislike so heartily? Night after night, Anne had pleaded with her husband. Day after day, snatching brief moments with him between Council meetings. Grasping at conversations when she could cut through the bray of Harry Buckingham, who from the first had been determined to have Richard on the throne, or die …

  Always, Gloucester had said: ‘Sweet Anne, don’t trouble yourself. I have a credo: trust a man and he’ll prove worthy. I must have men about me in this task. This yoke of kingship needs stout steeds to draw the plough. And we shall carve a straight furrow, sown with the pure line of Plantagenet, you’ll see …’

  He was so anxious, so obsessed with the laws of God, with the plight of the commons. He had a revolution planned for the Statutes of England; he was bent on changing the old order and undermining the power of the barons. Already he was lauded for his dealings with lesser men. But that was in York, and York was not London. Anne shivered. Margaret’s measured voice cantered smoothly on.

  ‘I am to oversee the ladies’ wardrobe… twelve hundred lengths of sarcenet, studded with the Rose, the Falcon or the Boar. The skirts must be simply cut, or the Abbey will bust asunder!’

  She gave a shrill, unpractised laugh, while Grace stared sombrely at her. She was like a young girl, indecently gay.

  ‘Speaking of gowns,’ said Anne. ‘John must have forgotten his errand. Go, mistress, and find Lady Lovell. Put on dry clothes, and then, a walk in the sun!’

  As the door closed behind Grace, Anne sat down, suddenly exhausted. Listening to the hard cheerfulness of the Countess of Richmond, she thought: Dickon, where are you? Doubtless in Council, when you should be on the moors, or in your own northern court. Are you even now setting a hidden scowl on the barons’ faces with your new audacious laws? Come to me soon, for my day is dour without you. In London, this London that I fear will be both our deaths.

  Lady Lovell, after searching fruitlessly for a fitting headdress for Grace, advised: ‘Leave your hair loose then, doucette – so!’ She twined a lock, a tendril about Grace’s temples and throat. ‘So curly!’ she murmured. Unfashionable – but it suits you, somehow.’ She tugged at the hair until the girl’s brow was bare and high; she added a band with a small jewel and retreated to gaze at the result. ‘Dulcissima,’ she said. She called to the others, old Yorkist ladies unfamiliar to Grace: ‘I have made a pretty poppet! What eyes, child!’ The Duchess of Norfolk remarked: ‘You’ll make the wench vain’; and Lady Lovell waved white, frivolous hands, crying: ‘Go, child! Into the garden!’ So Grace obeyed, stepping slowly so as not to disturb the jewel, and leaving the Duchess muttering, as was their custom, about the ways, the general laxity of modern youth. They were never allowed to go unchaperoned, they observed enviously. But Lady Lovell, who loved to ma
tchmake and who had already seen John of Gloucester go into the garden, silenced their censure with a laugh.

  It was a small pleasaunce at the rear of the fortress, and neatly squared with rows of box, paved walks. Beds of little flowers, newly glistening from the rain, glowed like illuminations on a psalter. Blue and yellow iris thrust upward with proud languid lips. A sleek robin pecked and whistled at the flags and from a dovecote in the far corner came an amorous murmuring. Here was the joy again, the unknown, fragile happiness, voiceless yet heard, invisible yet unmistakable; the precious clue, the whisper of new worlds.

  He was waiting, he had been watching her as she came. He advanced swiftly, light-footed, his hair falling to his neck like the black folded wings of a bird. She had forgotten the colour of his eyes; it had never seemed important – they were dark blue, and very bright. She had, she knew, mislaid his image altogether. Here was more man than child, and with the bearing of a knight. This made her stiff and formal. Gone were the easy confidences, gone the sympathy, for she thought: my little John is a stranger. He was composed, assured; with light courtesy he complimented her, touching her hands to his lips, and he and she began a slow promenade along the rapidly drying pavement. The robin jeered sweetly at them and flew, swift and gaudy, a little way off, to contemplate them from a rosebush. Deftly, directly, with no art or skirmishing, John’s hand took hers. And instantly the old times were back; she could breathe deeply, enjoy the garden scents, be at peace. But as they reached the dovecote, his easy clasp tightened and became a pain. She felt the pressure trembling in his wrist and hers, and his fingers slick with moisture. The white birds whirred and murmured about them. He stopped suddenly.

  ‘Ah, God!’ he said. ‘If only I were older!’

  Surprised, she answered: ‘Life’s short enough, don’t wish it away!’ a platitude she had listened to herself, many times.

  ‘None the less, I do,’ he said. ‘I am an esquire now, you know. The life is hard – look!’ He flexed his jaw and turned his head so that a hairline scar showed white. ‘It’s dog eat dog in Hall,’ he said proudly. ‘But my adversary’s head was addled for two days! And I unhorsed three of my fellows in the tourney. It was only a mock tourney,’ he added sadly, ‘And yet … I am not old enough to defend my father!’

  ‘Your father?’ So, he was not altogether changed; his favourite topic of conversation was still the same. She felt oddly disappointed; the day was fair, she was fair, and yet he addressed her as if she were a fellow esquire, obsessed only with male chivalry.

  ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘that they tried to assassinate him. Twice.’

  She turned her head quickly away, and stared at the doves’ wooden house, which was festooned with greyish droppings. The flowerscents faded, leaving the stink of wet wood, of murder.

  ‘My grandfather was slain so’ he said. ‘By Margaret – and the Woodvilles are partisans of Margaret. I was so afraid – that history would repeat itself; it has an infamous habit of so doing.’

  And had this happened, now glibly she had imagined the scene; Gloucester murdered, and how she would comfort little John. Here was John, by now no means little and probably not so easily comforted. She was at a loss, and sought refuge in gaiety. She disengaged her hand, and took a couple of elegant, dancing steps before him.

  ‘No more! The sun’s too beautiful!’ she cried. ‘Lady Lovell had decked me – like a popinjay. I am a great lady today; not a bastard.’ She stopped short, feeling herself blushing.

  He looked at her, oddly adult, serious. Then he smiled. ‘Is there anything better than a royal bastard? Full privilege, yet unable to claim inheritance. Some might grumble at it, but the calling suits me well. And you … for we have never known another state. It must be hard, though, for Edward and Richard of York.’

  Grace bit her lip, remembering Elizabeth’s screams when they came to take Richard of York away. My lady, my cruel, lovely lady, she thought. How are you now? Deep sadness began in her, and faded as John took her hand again.

  ‘Let us walk,’ he said, and they went slowly while the sun, washed hotter by rain, burned their brows. He hummed a little song, stroked her first finger with his. She looked down at the brown ringed hand and the white entwined. Perfumed rain trickled from the calyx of an iris. The robin reappeared and tripped staccato along the path.

  ‘Do you remember the lake at Eltham?’ she said. ‘You brought me a lily.’

  ‘I will do it again,’ he said.

  ‘No, you’ve proved your chivalry once,’ she began, and saw him frown.

  ‘I know nothing of chivalry,’ he said, and again: ‘O Jesu, would that I were older!’

  This time, she said simply: ‘Why?

  ‘My father led campaigns when he was fourteen. He loved the Lady Anne. He could have married her, but his loyalty forbade it until Warwick was dead.’ He stooped, and picked up a pebble. ‘Now he will be King.’ He pitched the pebble to the end of the walk. ‘I made a good Deo Gratias for that! But I … I seem to be merely marking time. I have never fought, nor have I loved …’ As he spoke, he knew this to be nonsense. ‘What I mean is … I have never wooed, paid court, only in my mind, my heart.’

  She looked at him quickly. His face was red. He occupied himself with more pebbles, choosing flat ones and skimming them along the smooth pavement. She made a jest of the moment. ‘What do you know of love? Tell me, for I know nothing!’ Talking, she thought, like a jade, a wanton, like poor Jane Shore, who would speak thus in past days to madden the courtiers. Wretched Jane, now in Fleet prison for her treason, her folly.

  John threw one last stone. ‘I know all about love,’ he said sternly. From the pouch at his waist he drew out a crumpled yellow parchment; a mere scrap, thumbed and ragged. From this he read, self-consciously at first, then clearly and more positively.

  ‘It is not sure a deadly pain

  To you I say that lovers be,

  When faithful hearts must needs refrain

  The one the other for to see?’

  He stopped and looked at her. She said ‘That is a sad song, John.’ A breeze wafted the breath of the iris around them. The white doves called thoughtfully.

  He went on reading aloud, his cheek still darkly flushed the fragment of paper unsteady in his hand.

  ‘If you assure ye may trust me,

  Of all the pains that ever I knew

  It is a pain that most I rue.’

  ‘A fair, sad song,’ she murmured. ‘Did you write it?’ At Middleham they were trained to make verses as well as break each others’ heads.

  ‘No, it was written by someone long dead, to soothe my heart perhaps. When I was parted … from my lady.’

  So he had a love. At Middleham it was fashionable to be in love. The young ones were encouraged to dance together, in between learning to wear armour and weave cloth of Arras. There were many female wards at Middleham. Suddenly she felt old and isolated and sad. The light faded from her eyes; she looked down at the little Spanish shoes Lady Lovell had given her. Her downcast face had a tragic repose about it; John watched it for a long moment. Within the space of a breath, emotion crystallized in him, making nonsense of feigned love, killing the painted imagery of his unreal heartaches at Middleham. The love he had squandered on dreams was here; the unknown lady was blinding reality. Love, he realized, had always worn the face of Grace Plantagenet.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ he demanded, of himself as much as of her. As he put his arms about her so roughly that she gasped, he thought: here is something too precious, too clearly seen to lose. She was sweet and slender and perfumed against him. He laid his hand tenderly against her cheek and kissed her.

  ‘My Grace. My lady, my love.’

  She tried to answer: John, I have thought of you as a friend, a companion. Never did I dream you were the end of loneliness. But he kissed the words, and her face, eagerly, inexpertly; startled by love, he looked into the brilliant green eyes and closed them with his lips. Then extravagantly, hastily, he went up
on his knee before her. As if aware of time obedient to his ever fervent plea and passing more swiftly, he said:

  ‘From this day, this moment, I vow my heart and duty to you. God grant we may be betrothed one day. Soon.’

  ‘We’re cousins,’ she murmured. (Banned, by the Church …)

  He leaped up, smiled into her face. ‘My father and the Lady Anne are cousins,’ he said. Again he kissed her; the sun grew brighter, and the flowers blew, and at the parlour window Lady Lovell smiled with delight. While Lady Norfolk muttered dourly of the ways of modern youth.

  After many days of endeavour, Butcher Gould had penetrated Sanctuary. He came with only one prentice; of the other two, one had been killed in a Fleet brawl and the other was in Ludgate for striking the Watch. The remaining boy therefore bore the weight of a shoulder of mutton and a brace of pheasants slung about his neck. Garnet drops from their beaks rolled down his soiled jerkin. Master Gould was laden too; under each arm he carried a screaming piglet, and his pockets were crammed with sausages.

  ‘Perchance that’s why they cry so lustily,’ he observed, glancing down at the writhing animals. ‘They smell their ancestors.’ Grimly and gloomily he smiled at his own jest. One had to smile; one had to forget: Matilda gone. His pretty, silly, ribboned wife, snatched in a day by the plague, that pustulent curse that emanated from all the open ditches in town. It took friend and foe alike, and left bitterness. He sighed, rapped on the Sanctuary door, his ears deafened by the porcine yells which rose higher than the clochard spire nearby.

  He did this for Matilda. So long and so often had she talked of her one sight of the Queen; how she looked, her expression when she showed them the baby prince Edward. Gould thought of his visit to Sanctuary as a kind of Month’s Mind celebration – made in remembrance of a day that had brought Matilda joy. He tucked the piglets more firmly beneath his arms, and kicked the door of Sanctuary until at last someone came to admit him. The cloister was as forbiddingly chill as ever. Full of stolid melancholy he stumped through, and swung a further kick at the door outside which Matilda had shivered with excitement. It was opened by the Princess – Lady Elizabeth of York, he reminded himself. She looked ill and bored and weary, and swirled away without a second glance at him. Gould entered and knelt before the lady’s mother. Over the screaming of the pigs he uttered: ‘Good morrow, your Grace,’ and looking up, saw the pale face, scarred by old rages and tears, alight with pleasure at his salutation. All unwittingly he had given the best possible greeting.