‘So, my lady,’ said Gould, impressed. ‘You are perhaps a servant of the Countess of Richmond?’
She let it pass. The butcher remained cordial until she told him why she had come. A terrible change assailed his face and he came out of the shop so that he might spit lawfully. He said, thunderously, that he could take no message, wanted no part of the errand, and she argued with him, finding within herself undreamed-of resources.
‘He is here, though,’ she said eventually.
‘Aye. The murderer’s son is here. God rot him. Only at his Majesty’s pleasure do I have him under my roof. ‘Tis none of my wish.’ And then he stopped, said: ‘You are his friend?’ Grace answered painfully: ‘His acquaintance.’ Gould spat again, and said: ‘Go up.’
She threaded through bleeding carcasses, and the green birds hung head down and beautiful in death. The butcher waved his gaping prentices aside so that she might pass by the counter to the black studded door that led aloft. ‘Have caution, mistress,’ he said sourly. ‘That one has the devil’s temper, but as he came from the devil, who can question it?’ He opened the stair door for her, and shut it, so that she was closeted in narrow blackness with a chink of light showing from under another door above. She heard her own breathing, loud and sickly, hemming her in. She lifted her skirt and ascended, knocked and waited, and then the loudest sound in that tomblike space was her own heart, over the rumbling gnaw of the rats.
John opened. As if he had lately been asleep, he was pale and shivering. When he saw her face he made to bang the door swiftly upon it, but like a weasel she nipped inside leaving a shred of her cloak caught by the draught of his vehemence. So she was in his poor and sordid room, with the bed unmade and the shutters half-open, through which came the stench of offal and slaughter, enhancing that of his own desperate grief. Once she was inside he was not angry: his face was closed like a Sunday shop.
‘My lord.’ He was still so designated, although his Captaincy of Calais had been taken from him. He was the son of a king, as she was the daughter of one. He should not dismiss her today without a fair hearing. Determined, she struck deep and fearfully into the matter’s heart.
‘My lord, it is more than four months since Bosworth Field.’
‘My father is dead.’ He did not weep now, only repeated it like a dreadful nervous gesticulation. He walked to the window, pushing the shutter apart. He looked down on the coiling mass of men and women at market. On the corner Salazar was giving a free dance and making his monkey juggle two silver coins. Black Salazar, saying a Spanish prayer under his breath for an unknown maid, whose looks he liked.
‘John.’ She grew nervous, speaking his name. She had the wit not to call him by any of the endearments that had come to them both, among the flowers, in all their transient meetings. ‘Listen to me.’ He half-turned from the window, and again she saw his resemblance to the dead King; the sombre eyes, arrogant nose and thin lips. His looks made him a danger to himself. At court, the Tudors would think they came face to face with a ghost, and question their victory … No wonder he lived in these deep-hidden surroundings. Elizabeth, too: would the sight of him strike up old rancours? This was an unbearable thought; the two people she loved best were mortal enemies. She saw that his hands shook, although he held them hard against his sides. She longed to take his hands to her heart. His fine linen shirt was crumpled and soiled; she longed to make it fresh and fair. Yet there was an extravagance in his attitude; he needed only a smear of ash on his brow, and this emboldened her. She said again, steadily:
‘Four moons since the battle, my lord. You cannot grieve forever.’
He turned fully, and his face filled her with awe. It said: I can. I do. I will.
‘You are unwell, John,’ she said gently. ‘Have you food?’
He smiled his awful, remembered smile. ‘Why? You are hungry? You see, I have become a hermit and barbarous; My servants will attend you.’ He stepped towards the door.
‘Your servants?’
‘Gould’s prentices; they wait on me if I call loudly enough. Surly, greasy slovens … no! My father loved the common people. Much good did it do him,’ he said savagely.
Now she remembered what she had to say. ‘John! Kings have died before. Many have died. It is a part of life; to the strong, the victory …’
He crossed to her and stood so close that their bodies almost touched. His face was masked by loathing, and his lips were white.
‘Christ’s Passion!’ he said softly. ‘Of what do you prate, lady? You, who know naught of true princes, or of courage or of despair? The Tudor had no strength. His paid assassins, though sworn men of my father’s, did that bloody, day all that was needful. Stanley and his brother – there’s a special corner of Hell for them! Northumberland, who jealousy held his hand back from the fight until it was too late. And the others, devils every one, whose poisoned minds kept them from my father’s side.’
He spoke then of the battle, quoting the witnessed account given to him by Sir William Stonor, who, wounded ands broken, called at Sheriff Hutton on his way to York. He recounted, word for word, the tale that had almost stripped him of sanity and still haunted his heart.
‘…he would have killed Tudor; he was so near. Then Stanley made a flank attack, and the Household, a hundred against two thousand, was shattered, destroyed. Some of the Tudor’s men were the gaol delivery from France, desperate villains pardoned so that they might murder the King of England. Chivalry died that day. And the betrayal in battle was the noblest part!’
He swallowed hard, and said:
‘They stripped my father and threw him across a mule. They spat on him and struck him even in death. They brought him back, naked through Leicester with a rope about his neck, a rope such as common felons wear. Crossing the bridge, the mule ran amok and broke my father’s hanging head upon the wall. With knives they dishonoured his poor flesh … No more, mistress. Go away.’
He was again at the window, darkly silhouetted. Grace sat down upon the tossed and tearstained bed. Twice she tried to speak and failed. Then a whisper emerged.
‘Before God, I did not know of this.’
‘Yes, you did,’ he said, quite calmly. ‘If you live close to the witch, you knew it all.’
Like a blinding blow, remembrance came. She had witnessed Elizabeth, crazed by Richard’s rejection of Bess, saying: Let him be killed with ignominy. Let him be reviled. Do this, Stanley, in remembrance of me. And Stanley’s answer: It is done, Madame.
The tired, monotonous voice went on.
‘Tudor gave him no grave, no kingly interment. He lay in Leicester’s Swinemarket for three days while the flies and the buzzards drank at his wounds and the people came to curse him. Poor naked wretch!’
He made a queer sound, half laugh, half sob.
‘Where…’ said Grace.
‘Where does he lie now? A nun, whose place is sure in Paradise, came and took him away. She and her sisters buried him in their mean and holy house, and bought Masses for him. These were women! Shaped in the same wise as your mistress, and as remote from her as dove from serpent. Yes.’ He turned a little towards her. ‘Bear back this news, that Richard lies easy. Watch Woodville frown. She cannot touch him now.’
Grace’s fingers found the red-eyed ring. Slowly she pulled it off and held it in her palm.
Again John came to stand before her. His eyes were deeply sunken, as if weeping had drained them dry.
‘Did you not know she was evil?’ he said quite gently. ‘She is the canker in the rose, the scourge of dynasties. Men have died for her; men have died through her. Before our time, there was the fierce Queen Margaret. Men said she was of Hell, but beside her handmaid, Elizabeth, she was saintly. Weigh my words, and before you run back to your mistress shed a tear. For England and Plantagenet; their curse is accomplished.’
She was silent. She extended her palm where the ruby glowed. He looked down at it.
‘Would to God things had been otherwise,’ he said. ‘Why
were you not born a milkmaid or a tapwench, someone apart from the court? Like that poor maid who guided me when when I wept. I would have loved you as well. Why were you destined to serve my enemy?’
And she knew he was giving her the chance to denounce Elizabeth, to join him in vilification. Wearily, she bowed her head.
‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘Who can measure destiny? I love you, John. And I love Elizabeth.’
‘Despite all? Why?’
She looked at him again. ‘Would that I could tell you. Perhaps … because I am her one advocate in all the world!’
‘Whom she does not deserve,’ he said grimly.
‘I have always loved her. I have always been loyal. If I miscall her now, I betray my own loyalty.’
‘What is loyalty?’ he said slowly.
‘Your father’s raison.’ Her eyes were dry. If she must look her last on him; let it be clearly. ‘Loyalty binds me. He never swerved. When he had time to talk to me, my father King Edward, used to tell me of this.’
She took the ring, placing it on the carved windowsill between the shutters; it caught the sun, being bright as new blood, with rays of light making it a star.
‘Farewell,’ she said. ‘I sorrow for you, and love you. You need not see my face again.’
As if she walked through water, she crossed the boards of the small and dusty room. Faintness caught her for a moment; she touched the bedpost for support. Farewell, kiss; farewell, unknown joy. This little death has dignity.
‘O Christ! I want to die!’
His voice impaled her. She turned and saw him on his knees at the window, the ruby clutched in his hand. His head was bowed, resting on the sill. He trembled so much that one of the shutters, unlatched, swung to with a crash. So she came back to his side, and touched his slender, shaking back, and tried to raise him, but he had deadly heaviness so she knelt with him, and for the first time in months, laid her hand on his and touched his burning face, and kissed him. He whispered: ‘Don’t …’ and no more.
‘Don’t stay? Don’t go?’
He would never ask, she knew; his shame was great. But his answer was there in the drowning way he clung to her hand, and fumbled with the ring, hurting her finger as he pushed it on again. There was one more thing to say, and still kneeling, she said it, carefully, the private oath.
‘I, Grace Plantagenet, being neither wife nor leman to any man and by this reason free, do pledge my heart to my dearly beloved John of Gloucester. In this place, as God witness my deed. And should I swerve from John may God take my life and damn me eternally.’
‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. He raised her and took her in her arms, clasping her so hard that they both swayed against the wall, and his kiss brought a drop of blood into her mouth that mingled with their tears.
She had dreamed of love many times, thinking it to be a thing of softness, swift and gay as a butterfly, and as trivial. When he lifted her and took her to the bed it was the death of her dreams, and she was afraid. Love was not kind; it was a driving storm that stripped her spirit naked. Far away she heard her own sobbing and his words of love. He was the wind and she the leaf; in his arms she knew dissolution. She became the altar for his sacrifice, the balm for his wounds.
For a space they were apart from the world. The squalid room floated, a fragile rainbow bubble, and sheltered them.
He slept a little, wrapped in her hair. When he awoke, there was fresh colour in his cheeks, and he was John again. She held him, looking like a madonna down at his face. Outside a little breeze had freshened and the shutters slapped against the casement, creaking like the timbers of a galleon. He took her hand and filled it with kisses, then raised himself to gaze at her.
‘My lady.’ He looked at the marks of his mouth upon her honey flesh. ‘I have dishonoured you.’
She smiled. ‘You have bound me to you.’
He sighed, searching her face; she knew his mind. How long before the return to Westminster? The parting kiss, the void, doubly tragic after past joy. As if bidden, the brass note of Paul’s struck. Outside the chamber door, the stair groaned as someone trod, listened, and went away.
‘The butcher,’ said John bitterly ‘Or one of his louts. How many hours has that ear been at the door?’
She kissed him. ‘When I arrived the bell was sounding.’
‘So you must go.’ He turned his face away, and waited, holding his breath.
‘By my faith, love!’ said Grace. ‘This bolster is stuffed with rocks, I swear. How can you sleep?’
She felt under the pillows and drew out a leather bag. Gold coins spilled from it and rolled about the bed.
‘That is my pension,’ John said quietly. ‘My pension from the Tudor. Twenty pounds a year. I have not spent one penny, nor shall I, until I can use it against him.’
‘God knows,’ he went on, ‘why he has been so bountiful. Be sure though that he has spread word of his generosity, so that the public may applaud.’ He frowned, threw up a gold angel and caught it. Drawing Grace close, he laid his cheek, against hers. ‘And yet … it would pleasure me to spend the money. On you, sweeting. We could be merry with it.’
She closed her eyes. Outside, the quarter boomed. She must dress and leave, or it would be too late. John’s voice went softly on.
‘I keep it beneath my pillow in the hope that one of Gould’s lads might steal it, and then I could be rid of it. Graceless, unkindly fellows … and Gould hates me. He would poison me if he dared.’
Grace lay, breathing his warmth. Her gown and cloak lay on the floor. It was a hundred miles to walk and pick them up and put them on. Quiet and blissful, John set his lips upon the crown of her hair.
‘I am hungry,’ he said.
‘We have been here most of the day.’
‘Yes. And now …’
‘Now.’
‘Now you must return to the Palace.’ She sat up and looked down at his face, its sadness, the transiency of his joy.
‘I cannot marry you,’ he said gravely. ‘It would mean asking the Tudor’s assent, and I will ask him for nothing.’
She bowed her head, silent.
‘Go, go,’ he said roughly. ‘Already I feel the pain.’
She took his face between her hands, and found herself speaking words that might have been long rehearsed; words without which time itself were void.
‘I shall go nowhere without you,’ she said. ‘Have I not sworn? Never send me away, my dear love.’
Against her breast she felt the quick hard beat of his heart, so vibrantly alive.
‘You are sure?’
She nodded, smiling; he leaped up, seizing her discarded gown and bringing it to her where she lay.
‘Get up, my love!’
Between tears and laughter she looked at him.
‘We’ll go out,’ he declared. ‘To the best cookhouse in London. I shall be a merchant–’ he started to fling the gold angels about the bed – ‘and you a rich and pampered merchant’s wife. I thought I had forgotten how to be happy!’
Naked and laughing, he said, ‘Hurry, love; it grows late. Come, love, wife, my honey sweet!’ She caught his mood and, sprang up, quickly making herself fine again with the aid of his dingy steel mirror. But when they were ready, a doubt assailed her, and made her new joy bleak and terrible for a moment.
‘Elizabeth…’ she began, and saw his face change, and went to him, putting her arms about his neck.
‘My heart, don’t blame me; don’t chide me if I speak of her at times.’ He sighed, and held her close, saying: ‘What then, love?’
‘She will be treated fairly? She is in favour with King Henry.’ She said it as if to convince herself.
For a moment he was silent. Then he said: ‘Doubtless.’ He opened the door and Grace went down the dark stairs with a light step. As he followed her, he said softly, for his own peace: ‘Elizabeth! Tudor will see you damned!’
‘Way for Elizabeth, the Queen-Dowager!’
‘Welcome to Winchester, hi
ghness!’
The words were gold in her ears. Accompanied by Dorset, she walked into the splendid hall. She told herself: these words mean more than my estates, my jewels, more even than the bounty I have lately surrendered, and for which the King will pay me in lieu. These titles are more than Sheen, through which we passed on the journey, or Greenwich, or the Queens’ College, Cambridge, or Windsor, or Eltham.
Queen-Dowager! Highness! These hard-won words that break and vanish like bubbles on the air are more than the seat of princes. Does this mean that I have changed, grown old, less striving? Who knows? I am content with my saviour’s ordinance, and I will tell him so, given the chance.
Elegant and emaciated in dark blue, she entered Winchester, allowed for the first time to visit Bess. All around courtiers bowed down, corn in a gale. The familiar feeling of near-divinity touched her. The royal matriarch comes! Winchester itself she did not know well; only now, in Henry’s time, did it assume the stamp of majesty. She had visited the cathedral which stood rosily weathered in an emerald close. There, within the holy quiet she had seen the fabulous Round Table, the King’s innovation. Painted with the Tudor Rose, it lay beneath the Dragon banners with sunlight shafting down upon twelve empty thrones. Mystic silence surrounded it, as it awaited King Arthur’s return.
Summer was nearly over, and Winchester also waited, for Arthur’s practical incarnation. Henry’s progress was complete. As Elizabeth and Dorset travelled their southerly road, royal courtiers had overtaken them, crying of safety and success. Now, as Elizabeth and her son proceeded up the hall, the King’s mother rose to receive them. The Countess was not pleased; but after a summer of asking she could no longer withhold the sight of Bess. She kissed Elizabeth, and gave Dorset a gimlet look. Then she led him to the Queen’s apartments. Every door was guarded and the ways were clotted with monks and priests and nurses. Throughout the palace preparation for the King’s arrival was apparent. Servants smoothed fresh Arras on the walls, strewed a bushel of gillyflowers, bullied one another. Yet within the Queen’s chamber all was peace; an almost unhealthy quiet, a tomblike tranquillity.
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