The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  ‘You must bear me sons, Bess.’

  Seriously he said it, as if on the moment she could fulfil his command. He stood at the foot of the bed. Propped on pillows, she watched his slender nervousness and the way he twined his hands together. She wondered why he did not come to lie beside her. Twice and thrice he had opened the chamber door to ensure that the Yeoman were vigilant. She could hear the barked orders as they changed duty, and the clash of pikes in salute. She lay, a doll, in a white embroidered high-necked shift and with the long-wheaten sheaf of her hair spread over the coverlet and flung out on the pillows. She was weary past weariness. The banquet had been long and sickly; the toasts had drummed in her dizzy ears. Lancaster! Cadwallader! Tudor! Tudor for ever! Bleakly and vaguely she wondered what her father would have made of it all, then ceased to wonder.

  ‘Bess?’ he said again.

  ‘Sire, I will obey to my best endeavour.’

  Secretly she thought there must be more to getting children than talking about it. Henry approached and sat on the bed. Blue hollows lay beneath his eyes. There was something he was trying to say, but neither of them knew what it was.

  ‘Did the revel please you?’ he said. She nodded.

  ‘I liked the woman who sang with the fiddle,’ he continued. (A Welshwoman, with a voice like an icicle to make the blood race like a mountain beck. Two shillings, and cheap at the price.)

  ‘Sire …’

  ‘For God’s love – I am Henry in this chamber.’

  She smiled, looked down and began to plait the tassels on the sheet.

  ‘What is it?’ he said gently. He began to think she was a simpleton; that was not to her detriment, as long as she bore him strong, clever sons.

  ‘My mother said …’

  The mother; that thin bright desperate face, seen only in a brief moment of greeting before the dais. Well, she had played her part. He would use her kindly, if she gave him no cause to do otherwise. Trust none. The talisman burned his brain. Trust no man, or woman. The face, a dying spark, wavered before him and was still.

  ‘She craved an audience with you,’ said Bess’s little, dutiful voice. ‘She has endeavoured to see you for weeks. Tonight … Henry, she was disappointed.’

  It was the last thing Elizabeth had said to her, before they were parted by a score of priests for the bedding ceremony. It would be wrong not to deliver the message.

  ‘Henry?’

  He was not listening. There had been a man who ate live coals, and cost six shillings and eight pence. And a little maid who danced – twelve shillings for her. Rather costly; but the Spaniards, full-fed, well-wined, with bulging eyes, had applauded. They would carry back tales of Henry’s court, to make a mark with their Isabella. Tomorrow, he thought, I must draw in my horns. The progress north must not be too expensive. I must consult with Morton about taxes.

  ‘… only wishes to thank you. Will you see her?’

  ‘Your mother?’ he repeated slowly, returning from his mental account-book. He drew back the covers and hoisted himself into bed. He picked up a shining strand of Bess’s hair. It was as healthy and pristine as an ear of wheat, and clung to his fingers.

  ‘What manner of woman is she?’ he asked. He had his own thoughts on this, but was none the less open to instruction.

  ‘I don’t know. She is …’

  ‘Proud?’ A nod. Of course. Had he not assessed her pride at their very first meeting? ‘Strong?’ Bess did not answer.

  ‘Not so strong, these days,’ he spoke almost to himself. He had guessed she was ill. With characteristic, uncanny intuition, he gave her five years more at best.

  ‘Strong in spirit,’ said Bess.

  ‘Ah!’ He lifted the tress of hair and set his lips to it. It smelled of gillyflowers, distilled in fatigue and fear.

  ‘She snared that old ram, your father!’ he said brutally, and was instantly shocked at himself. One should not speak so … or was anything permissible these days? In Edward’s court, free speech, free doings, had been legion. Curiously he said: ‘How was it done?’ then, ‘Blessed Christ! How should you know?’ He laughed and slid an arm about Bess’s shoulders.

  ‘She was most beautiful.’ It was only a whisper.

  ‘There must have been more than that! Beautiful women were conquered and left by Edward yearly. What more, Bess?’

  ‘He desired her,’ said Bess, blushing, and dived under the clothes like a seal.

  ‘What more?’ persisted Henry. ‘Ah, does it matter?’ sliding down under the mounded damask. ‘Come, Bess. Let us see if you have inherited your father’s lust!’

  Shortly enraptured, the cool part of his mind remained to say: There is no witchery here, and so the witch can wait…

  The bonfire outside Westminster Hall had melted the snow. The ground was ruddy, fluidly shadowed as the reflected flames leaped and ran between the tossing crowd of dancers. A hundred people capered with linked hands; men and women lifted snow-damp feet and skirts to the squeal of the fiddles and the rabid beating of the drum. Over a lesser fire the hacked remains of two oxen swung on a spit. A gang of prentices were playing football with an empty canikin. Although some folk were already drifting back to their homes, the noise was still ferocious. It was a wild gaiety; something of blood-sacrifice lay in its note. The joy was desperate, like the last dance before a judgment. The din drifted up the palace walls, drowned the office of the Sanctuary monks, and leaped across the icy river in which, reflected from the further bank, answering fires were seen.

  A bevy of ancient men occupied a bench and ruminated over the cups. Wool-muffled lovers played tag and fiercer, hotter games in and out of the shadows. Pickpurses made their own festival among the careless crowd. A whippet, flying in pursuit of a rat, upset a friar into a drift of ale-sodden snow; the prentices left their game to gape at the Church struggling in sodden habit. Above this scene, lights were going out all over the Palace.

  The Yeomen of the Guard were allowed no drink, so austere was their destiny, the avid protection of the King’s person. However, the gate-ward had had their smuggled fill. If they were careless, it was most ardently concealed. Their backs were as straight as ever; their iron grasp unwavering on their pikes. Yet some joined, under their breath, with the crowd’s song, and swayed a very little to the singings.

  Rutterkin is come unto our town,

  In a cloak without coat or gown,

  Save ragged hood to cover his crown,

  Like a rutterkin, hoyda, hoyda!

  It was an innocent-sounding lay, but it made them wink at one another. Mostly they were young men; when Grace, heavily swathed in a wool houpeland, and hand in hand with Renée, sought to pass through into the street, they knew nothing but pleasure. They chaffed the two women, throwing gaudy compliments. One of the guard put his arm about Grace, mock-sternly demanding her business. She looked up and recognized him: Master Walter, who had rescued her from the urchins outside Westminster Hall, who had taken her to Baynard’s Castle, to the warm alien caress of Anne Neville. She noticed he still wore a white rose; it was pinned half-under the facings of his tunic. He remembered her too, after a moment, and with rough tenderness, asked her how she was.

  ‘And you’re not going out? Into this?’ He gestured towards the revelry.

  ‘Parbleu! Why not?’ exploded Renée, who had dined well and was in a fierce good-humour. ‘We have leave …’

  ‘The King’s leave? The Queen’s?’ he said. Then, more softly. ‘God bless her. Sweet Bess!’

  ‘The Queen-Dowager’s leave,’ said Renée stiffly. ‘I heard that my cousins are come from France. I would find them, and you shall not stop me. Master White Rose!’

  ‘Red and White, mistress!’ He showed her the other lapel, on which stiff scarlet petals bloomed. He bowed, and let the women pass through. Grace glanced back once; there was something bleak about him, as if part of him had died.

  They descended the steps and crossed the square into the leaping firelight. The people surged like insec
ts, all buzzing song, curses and laughter. As the throng enfolded her she felt stifled. She smelled choking woodsmoke, sour ale, vomit, the void of bladders. She thought of the sweating sicknes and was afraid. A prentice still chasing his canikin dived against her, separating her from Renée. Grace’s hood was snatched back by the jostle; her loose bright hair took gold light, red shadows from the fire. The flames sought out the pale pointed face and the green eyes wide with alarm. She felt the buffetings of the people; despite this they seemed like mirages, as if her oustretched hand could pass clean through them. Across her vision passed the figure of the tall Moor, the man with the monkey whom she had seen the day when Walter aided her. He seemed ominous; a figure of fate. Out loud she said the old raison of reassurance.

  ‘I am the daughter of a King!’

  ‘Why, here’s sport!’

  There were four of them, they crowded her, their hot bodies pressing. They were young, their doublets smeared with fat from the wedding roast, their faces flushed with ale. Well met, sweetheart, they said, admiring her, a flower on a dunghill. She shook off a clasp on her arm, twisted from an embrace, felt fingers tickling her neck. There was a red haired girl with them, a pretty girl with a dirty face and a torn bodice half-revealing pearly breasts. She laughed scornfully as one of the youths succeeded in kissing Grace. His wet mouth, burning with ale, engulfed her mouth, nose, cheeks. She dragged her face away, and cried out. Renée turned and blundered back through the mob. With a savage hipswing she knocked the red haired girl aside, and tore Grace from the circle of arms. Her hands boxed, leaving red ears, and she let out a long string of complicated French oaths. A few were directed at Grace herself.

  ‘Could you not keep beside me?’ she grumbled as they fled. Damn you, Renée, Grace thought; it was only a favour that brought me with you on this social errand. I would rather have stayed with my lady, sleeping peacefully when last seen, with Catherine at the bed-foot. Sleeping like a child, Christ be praised.

  The cousins were discovered drinking wine outside a tavern on the farther side of the square. Renée launched herself at them with tears and kisses and endless questions. They had come from Harfleur with the Tudor guests. Grace found them intimidating, especially Alicia de Serrencourt, who viewed the spectacle of London at play with derision.

  ‘Alors! Regardez les anglais en fête!’ Her fishy eyes spoke of barbarians. Her husband, who never had the chance to speak, brought Grace a cup of wine, and leaned gloomily against the door-frame of the bustling tavern. The women gabbled – French endearments, congratulation, speculation. Did the King like his bride? What a day for France, and England … Spain too was coming around. Although the reconciliation was begun in Richard’s day… ah, vraiment. The traitor Plantagenet, gone to his master, Lucifer. Grace clasped her brimming goblet, looked disinterestedly around. The fire was burning down, and even the prentices were wearying of their play. One or two young men, heads throbbing with excess, stood apart, dazedly wondering what had passed during the last few hours. One in particular stood rigidly, his hand resting upon a buttressed wall, as if he sought security in its age and firmness. The dying flames lit up his face.

  She dropped the wine-cup and its contents splashed her with a deep red spray. She stared as if her eyes would burst, eyes already filling with tears of joy. She took a step forward and nearly fell. Was he real, or only another fleshly mirage, like the gay, strangely deathly crowd? Two people passed between her and the shadowed sight of him; a vagabond dragging spoils in a sack. Someone threw a broken cartwheel on the fire, and it blazed up anew. She saw him then, truly. He was John, unmistakable, alive, adored.

  It took a minute to cross the square; it took an hour, an aeon. A spark from the fire caught her gown as she passed, and someone slapped at it, while she walked on, unheeding. The cobbles were warm under her feet. She walked to him through Hell, she came to him through an inferno of delight. Her whole body grew molten with love; her eyes were washed with joy. ‘Mistress, take care, you’re on fire!’ Minutes later the words came back. Yes. I burn. John, I burn. I never knew until this night, how I do burn. Welldoers pressed about her, dousing her smouldering clothes with the dregs of ale, and unthinkingly she struck off their aid. Hair streaming loose, eyes a green mist of love, she reached his side at last. He turned, and she saw in him a devil.

  He was John, yet he was not John. He was made old and terrible and sad, by something manifest in his bitter eyes, in the cruel rancour of his mouth. She fell back as if thrust from him. He had lost much flesh; that was apparent from the cheeks sharp as blades, the harsh clean line of his jaw. But he was still elegant; his shoulders were broad and straight, his hair fell sleekly. It was a forced elegance that shrieked defiance and hatred. Hatred poured from him; an idiot could have sensed it. He smiled at her, a smile so awful that she glanced hastily behind to see who it was incurred his loathing, for she could not believe the look was directed at her. Even while seeing no one there she still did not believe, and she spoke his name in love and joy, while the tears in her eyes loosed themselves and poured.

  If he had once borne resemblance to King Richard he was now Richard in facsimile, Richard most troubled, with a ghastly indrawn pallor as if he had been tortured and then starved. The fire shone eerily on the tight planes of cheeks and lit up the malevolence in his eyes. He looked her over steadily, keeping his palm pressed so hard against the wall that his whole arm trembled convulsively. She said, greatly pleading:

  ‘John, my love. John, what ails you?’

  Still he looked at her, and presently said in a strong, controlled voice:

  ‘My father is dead,’ while tears darkened his eyes and fell smoothly down his face, which was like that of an unknowing sleepwalker who dreams and weeps.

  She said, as she had always planned: ‘Ah, heart’s joy, I know it … be comforted,’ and took a step towards him, recoiling at sight of the hand held out against her like a drawn sword.

  ‘Stay from me,’ he whispered. ‘Do not touch or goad me. Christ help me, I am no more master of myself!’

  ‘For God’s love, John!’ she said, her voice shaking.

  ‘Go back,’ he said. Tears ran down his set face and over his chin. ‘Go to your mistress. To the witch, the Woodville, the serpent, the murderess. To the breaker of lives, to the ruiner of dynasties, the shame of thrones. To the poisoner, the widow maker, to Our Lady of Sin. Go to her, Mistress Grace, and kiss her and fawn upon her, and stroke her brow. Succour her so that she may have strength to work fresh evil … to rob fair knights, fine men, of hope and peace and bring them down to death …’

  ‘Ah, what are you saying?’

  ‘She killed him.’ His voice and rigid face were thick with tears. ‘As surely as if she had taken the sword and struck him down. She forecast and ensured his death. And worse than death! Oh, Jesus, God!’ He wailed so wildly and suddenly that folk turned to stare. ‘Would that for one hour she were a man! They could burn me, hang me, but give me chance to shear that Gorgon’s head!’

  ‘For God’s love, stop!’ she begged. Still he raved, he sobbed.

  ‘You do not know what was done to him!’ He beat his head against the stone buttress, drawing blood from his brow.

  ‘It is not my fault.’ Timidly she stretched out her hand and with a violent movement he struck it away, hurting her. She said, more wildly: ‘Why?’

  ‘Today I watched you. I stood outside Westminster while the devil’s spawn married my wretched cousin, Bess. I saw you come out with Woodville, and clasp her in your arms, and lip her hand. She who made my father’s flesh bloody filth and his name a pestilence upon the earth. She who comes higher in your heart than any other … you lie nightly with her … plotting … ruin, treachery …’ Choking, he bowed his head.

  ‘I plot with none.’ Her body was ice-cold

  He spun away from the wall and she shrank. He raised his hands but dropped them quickly before they touched her.

  ‘You love her,’ he said, venomously soft. ‘Deny it!’


  ‘I do not deny it. Neither do I deny that I love you, John. Always, now and ever.’

  ‘Love me!’ His face came close. His breath was rank, his wet eyes stared. ‘Madame–’ with loathing emphasis – ‘God curse the day I ever knew you. May He burn me for a fool that I ever gave you my heart. In my folly I overlooked your treason, your false allegiance. To think that I ever held you dear!’

  She looked down at her feet. All around was filth; chewed gristle from the roast, sodden straw, black snow-slush. Rags and debris and madness. A cur nosed for scraps, while a ragged infant pushed at it for possession of a bone. Her mind shut itself off, rejected the senseless rage that beat about her. This was not John; he was of the swans and the sun and flowers. Very far away she heard her own voice saying: ‘I love you, my lord,’ and his loud, heedless answer.

  ‘Why don’t you drink, lady? It is the brave Dragon’s wedding-day! Drink! Hey, tapster, wine here! Wine for a Woodville-lover!’

  He cried this so loudly that across the square the tavern keeper heard him, and flapped his hands in a shop-shutting gesture.

  John whirled and cried again: ‘Is there no wine? Oh, Jesu, I will give them wine like blood …’

  The prentices’ red-haired slut came out of the shadows. She had been an avid if half-comprehending witness and was much amused. She held a half-full tankard.

  ‘Will ale do, sir?’

  He saw her and she was translated; with her torn gown and soot-streaked white bosom, she was a sharpened sword, an angel of revenge. Ignorant of his purpose, she had been eyeing him for minutes, his fine clothes, his dark anger, even his tears.

  ‘Drink, sir?’ She raised the mug towards him. Untroubled by his fierce eyes she sank back into the buttressed alcove, where the leafy stones leaned down. She smoothed her skirts and measured him, look for look. Grace, watching, began to tremble afresh.

  ‘Is there more of this?’ His tone was surprisingly calm.

  ‘Plenty, highness.’

  He took the cup, raised it, a sacrament. ‘Death to Henry!’ He swallowed, his throat moving fast and painfully until the draught was done. Grace caught a look of triumph from under swathed red hair, as John said to the girl: ‘Are you for Lancaster, maiden, or for York?’ pitifully casual, and the grimy white shoulders rose and fell. ‘Tis all the same.’ The victor, her eyes moved to Grace. ‘So long as I’ve food in my belly, and a man to pleasure me …’tis all the same.’