The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  Now he said: ‘So be it. We’ll watch the world from our window. I’ll buy mutton from Master Gloom below, and have one of his boys cook it.’

  Grace prepared the table, brightening it with kingcups gathered in Paul’s churchyard. She and John played cards, made light, teasing love. He had a brittle uneasy merriment, as if his flashing temper were only just held in rein. After an hour, a prentice, carrying a tray, kicked at the door, entered, banged the meal down and left, clumping in his worn-out boots. Grace lifted the cover of the dish; the saddle of mutton was black on one side and raw on the other. When she touched it, it fell apart, white with maggots and stinking like a month-old corpse. John’s lips paled with fury.

  ‘Our host has a right merry humour,’ he said. He pushed back his chair. ‘God’s passion! How dare he treat us like this!’ He stormed from the room, and she heard him running downstairs, angrily calling the prentice back. His sharp imperious voice and the mumbling replies from the youth rose indistinctly.

  ‘Gould is occupied,’ he told her, returning. ‘Jesu!–’ pacing about with anger – ‘I have had my belly full of Gould and this place. Love, how would you like to leave it?’

  ‘Where could we go?’ She was surprised.

  ‘To Ireland.’ He knelt beside her and took her hands. ‘Sweetheart, they would welcome us there. They are still strong for my father. Desmond’s kin still live – both your father and mine loved them well.’

  ‘Desmond,’ she said slowly. A strange little memory, a cradle-dream, tantalizingly vague, crept in her mind. ‘The Earl died before I was born.’

  ‘I will write,’ said John. ‘A courteous letter; I’ll not press or commit them. Come to Ireland!’

  The door rattled discreetly; a young man entered bearing a fresh tray. This prentice was fair and sturdy, with melancholy blue eyes in a comely face beneath a straight-cut fringe. Without a word he replaced the stinking mutton with a fair piece of beef, perfectly cooked. The mutton he tossed out of the open window, where it landed in the gutter, to the rapture of a bony cur.

  ‘My thanks,’ said John, bewildered.

  The youth bowed. ‘Your pardon, highness. The other was a mistake. Master Gould is busy, and young Harry does not know bad meat from the Pope’s head.’

  ‘I’ve not seen you before,’ said John, frowning.

  ‘I’m new to the trade,’ said the prentice, and a cloud crossed his face. ‘Moreover, it doesn’t suit me. It’s a bad trade, with a bad master. I was to be trained for holy orders, but … No matter, my lord. Enjoy your dinner.’ He bowed again, and stepped back a pace nearer the door.

  John, carving-knife poised, said curiously: ‘It’s a far cry from the priesthood to the slaughter-house … or is it? What changed your fortunes?’

  ‘My father followed Richard Plantagenet,’ said the youth simply. ‘The wrong fortunes, therefore; I bore the reprisal …

  Very carefully John laid down the knife. His voice shook a little as he said: ‘You have my sympathy.’

  They stared at each other. Then the prentice said, with a kind of shudder: ‘My lord, I should beg your pardon for more than the meat!’

  ‘Well?’ said John softly.

  The young man’s eyes were fixed on his. ‘Walls are thin sir. My lord, I overheard your conversation. I heard you speak of Ireland. I cannot leave without asking forgiveness for my ears, or without offering my services.’

  ‘What services?’

  The prentice wiped his hands on the sides of his apron.

  ‘If you have correspondence for Ireland,’ he said very softly, ‘I could help you. With this new King–’ a look of utter abhorrence crossed his smooth face – ‘it is most difficult to transmit bills. His agents are everywhere. Even here.’

  Grace spoke, amazing herself: ‘This is treason!’

  The youth was trembling. ‘Lady, lady, I know! But I can help you both. For the love of God, don’t refuse my aid. And if you do, I pray you, forget I ever spoke of this.’

  ‘Be still.’ John’s eyes were far away. Colour stained his cheeks. ‘I did not know. Before God, I did not know there were still loyal followers who dared speak their mind. You, for one, risk your life. Gould is Henry’s man!’

  ‘The more fool he, to love a tyrant and a usurper.’

  ‘I would make use of your services, your good services,’ said John softly. ‘Come, sit down. Eat and drink with us.’

  The prentice laughed sadly. ‘And lose my employment? Later, my lord. Now, we have little time. Listen: I can transmit your bill. My brother is a sea-captain bound for Wexford. He sails next month if the tides be right. Sir,’ he said soberly, ‘I would take your letter myself if I could. I long for Ireland … the White Rose still blooms there. They drink–’ he was almost choking – ‘to Richard’s blessed memory.’

  John rose, and embraced the youth, greasy apron and all. When they separated, tears shone in both pairs of eyes.

  ‘Serve me,’ he said. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Ralph, sir.’

  ‘Serve me, Ralph, in honour of your brave words. You cannot know what you have brought me this day. The finest dinner in the world – a dinner of hope, of comfort. God bless you, Ralph.’

  ‘And you, my lord.’

  ‘I will write the letter.’

  ‘When shall I come for it? I must not visit you too often. Gould watches constantly, for any covert doings.’

  ‘In a little while. In a week or so. I must think how to write it. It is to friends I have not seen for years, and I do not want them to find me presumptuous. I’ll make some excuse to see you, send for you.’

  ‘Yes. Next time I’ll drink with you. We’ll toast Plantagenet …’ He looked quickly towards the door. ‘That is Gould shouting for me. I must go.’

  He raised his hand as if in blessing, went swiftly from the room and ran downstairs. Grace rose from the table and put her arms about John. He was weeping, shaking, smiling. He was changed. She had never seen him so happy – at least, not since his father’s death.

  Dorset was more frightened than he had ever been. His mother had come from the King’s privy chamber like a horribly animated doll. Straight past where he waited she walked, with her head held to one side and her face working as if struck by countless little blows. He remembered a tower at Grafton Regis when he was a child; a Jack-o’-the-clock, a small brass man who struck the hour. Like Jack, she went with one thin hand wagging before her; dreadfully stiff and steady she went towards the Queen’s room. She was turned away, and Dorset caught up with her, as she fell swooning to the stones.

  A physician pronounced the malady a rare palsy. Tincture of yarrow was prescribed, pennywort balm and daily bleeding. Desperate, Dorset followed these instructions faithfully. Gradually Elizabeth’s twitching subsided save for an occasional frightful spasm, but she lay without speaking. Dorset sat holding the bowl of trickling rubies. Each drop taken seemed to come directly from her face, and each shade of pallor seemed to drain the years away, so that she looked like a dying young girl. On the seventh day Dorset dismissed the leech. ‘Enough. Do you want to suck the soul from her?’ He wondered what had passed in the King’s chamber to bring his mother to this, and decided that he would rather not know. The Queen’s time was near, and Winchester was in a state of preoccupation. Twelve doctors and midwives were in residence and already quarrelling fiercely among themselves. Margaret Beaufort had taken her bed into Bess’s room and looked likely to remain there until Doomsday. So Dorset sat, ill-at-ease, in his mother’s chamber, his eyes fixed on her waxen catelepsy. Her servants had been changed; Renée had gone to France with a pension from the Countess of Richmond; Catherine, now not quite so complacent, was at Pembroke as wife of Jasper Tudor. Grace he scarcely missed. There were only about half a dozen women who spent their time leaning on walls, watching Elizabeth, and yawning behind-hand. They are waiting for her to die, thought Dorset, and he abused them in an uncourtly manner.

  ‘She will soon be strong again!’ he said fierc
ely. I pray that I am right. Without her I am alone, save for my uncle Edward, always at sea. I would not be alone in a Tudor court. He bent to his mother, stroked and massaged her left hand. She opened her eyes.

  ‘You have come back,’ she said. Then her gaze cleared and hardened on Dorset’s face. ‘Ah. It’s you, Tom.’

  There was a shiver around the wall as the women assumed attentive attitudes.

  ‘Take me …’ whispered Elizabeth.

  ‘Where, Madam my mother?’

  ‘Take me to Bradgate,’ she breathed. Dorset got up to ask the King’s assent to their congé. Wildly Elizabeth wagged her stricken head.

  ‘Do not ask him, or tell him. Take me to Bradgate. Do this, Tom, if ever you loved me.’

  As it had first been spring, now it was autumn, coloured in sadness. They rounded the bend in the long drive and she leaned and stretched out trembling hands to catch the last leaves before they crackled redly beneath hoof and wheel. Dorset rode a shining horse, its coat the colour of the leaves; behind the carriage came a handful of incurious servants picked and paid by Dorset in a hurry. The escape from Winchester had been delayed.

  Bess was brought to bed before her time, on the twentieth of September. Margaret Beaufort took sole charge, and it was only after seven days that the frail Queen-Dowager was allowed to view her puny grandchild. Henry was in the chamber, and scarcely looked at Elizabeth. He loomed lean and very pale over the cradle, and he had been weeping. The child was a boy. Arthur had come again. The token of greatness fleshed; the prophecy fulfilled. Because of this, did Henry acquiesce to Bess’s plea that Elizabeth should attend the baptism? Or was it only for appearances’ sake that the Queen-Dowager was included in the ceremony? Whatever the reason, before she could go to Bradgate, she endured the five-hour ritual. The baby Arthur had cried dolefully throughout; he had received the blessing of God, Our Lady, St. George, his father and mother, and possibly Cadwallader, for whom he was very nearly named. Once or twice Elizabeth had felt like swooning; only by holding her hands tightly within her sleeves could she control the palsy. She listened to the sonorous blessings and the infant’s sad mewling, and she watched Henry. Henry, who should have earned all her hatred, all her destructive powers. She realized numbly that these had been expended on others less worthy of them. Power was gone, leaving only despair.

  A gold leaf drifted into her hand. Queen’s Gold! The litter halted in the drive which, in spring, had been an artery in a bluebell heart, hymned by birds and festooned with primrose and violet. Like the echoes of a dream, voices sang, a horse tossed its head; John leaned and caressed her. Isabella! My heart’s joy! The drive was overgrown with great trailing thorns. Dying blackberries, kissed by the devil, mouldered in a tangle of briars. Decay and desolation answered the same in her heart. While the grooms hacked at the obstruction, she lay back with her thoughts. Some were too terrible; her mind leaped away like a wounded stag. Some were too poignant. She remembered the time when she, a young girl, was transfixed by admiration for the spell-casting Jacquetta, the fire and kindness of Marguerite, later turned warrior and vixen. Her mind moved through ball and pageant, gowns and gossip and aspiration; King Henry gibbered and pointed at her bosom; John was mirrored in Eltham lake … from this she trembled, sprang forward in time to where Edward, the Rose, kissed and clung and possessed; cried and cursed her over Desmond. The vision changed; the Fiend lay dead with a gaping wound in his side. Richard of Gloucester knelt to bless the corpse. Behind closed eyes she saw George of Clarence flaunting, she heard the whispers of his dreadful end. Marguerite’s yellow face and half-bald skull moved in a macabre dance, the hoarse voice sang a warning: Be kind, Isabella! Jacquetta whispered: Bury me at midnight. The Titulus Regius unrolled, a redlipped serpent. Hate boiled and bubbled, while Morton, Margaret, Bray, the Stanleys, crowded round, kind, deferential, advising.

  Detached she heard far away the grunts and oaths of the grooms, their axes chipping at the great thorns. Her own voice quavered silently. Have him killed, my lord. Bessy, how you do hate my lord of Warwick! Have Clarence beheaded, Edward! Bessy, look not upon those I love! Like a sad green bird, the slanted eyes of Mistress Grace flashed across memory’s path. Edward dead, and the funeral bell. Proud Cis, Richard’s old mother, black-clad with her jangling keys, her rosary. God keep you, Richard, through this night!

  Let him be killed, let his death be inglorious.; For his insults to me and mine. It is done, Madame. It is done. Richard, where are my sons? The odd disappointment in his face. The stubborn refusal, lighting fresh fires. Where are my sons, your Grace? Madame, you forget yourself: We are your Majesty!’ It is done, Madame. It is done.

  The path freed, the litter rolled on. Bradgate came into view. She leaned and looked, expecting vastness, soaring towers, a gleaming inland sea fringed by willow and rushes. She gasped. Bradgate was so small! Crumbling. The pleasaunce was untended and rooks occupied the tower, flying in and out with mournful cry. The lake was almost dry. It was shallow, clogged with mud and algae. As Dorset lifted her and carried her into the manor, she looked back wildly seeking the place where, naked, she had bathed in the moon, watching John touched by her own unearthliness. None would believe that night! It was, like herself, a thing of dreams.

  Laying her head against Dorset’s shoulder, she said: ‘Tom, you are good. You shall be rewarded.’ With what? Ah yes. The long-awaited pension from Henry, lately bestowed. An ex-gratia payment of ‘all profits and issues of all lands, honours and castles lately belonging to Elizabeth’ … How generous! she thought wrily. The estates granted to her filled six rolls of parchment, their buying back was contained in one little line. She had signed the receipts under Morton’s wattled eye.

  ‘Only live,’ said Dorset. I am afraid.

  Here was the Hall, where the Goliath tapestry had hung. The door, where the steward of the twisted arm had fallen back before the Fiend. The banister, where John’s two hounds had been unleashed and calmed by Warwick’s wizard hand. The stairs, passing swiftly under Dorset’s lightly burdened step. Here she had stood to witness John’s last returning. And now the bedchamber, where she had sobbed her last true tears, holding the baby Richard, surveyed by infant Tom. Tom, who now carried the ageing infant who had borne him.

  He laid her down. ‘Rest a little while.’

  A fresh pan had been hastily placed in the bed but it was still damp with unuse. The old faces and voices continued their dance. Little Ned, pale and overworked in his Ludlow schoolroom, Ned, the child come forth in Sanctuary, and the joy of fugitive Edward. Ned, who would have loved her, whom she would have loved, and did, too late. And his brother, young Richard of York – volatile, noisy, with his soldiers and his unfailing quest for mirth. How did they die?

  I killed them. She twisted, shuddering. Her hands sprang like a snared rabbit and she caught at it with the other biting her lips till they bled, holding her twitching fingers down in a hurting grasp. I killed them. I among others put them to death by whispers, destroyed my sons through word of mouth. Away, odious serpent, contaminator of my noble race! Send me a saviour, Melusine. The Red Dragon flared; midway between heaven and hell, Reynold Bray spat on the Boar, looked up at her tower and laughed like a schoolboy. The souls of those I love, Melusine! and their bodies too! I killed them. Like the Greeks, who, to ensure victory, act it out beforehand, I wrote their doom in chapter and verse. I cleared the road for Tudor, Beaufort, Morton. And the man who kept my sons safe I had killed with ignominy.

  There was torment in the bed. It was still light, the misty light of autumn. Bradgate will make me well again, she had told Tom. I could scream and tear my hair, as Morton once advised, but there would be none to mark it down for posterity. I could hurl myself from the window, but there would be no profit in it. Only a huddled sheath for bones, a triumph for Tudor, in whose side I must be one of the lesser thorns.

  She sat up, tall. ‘I will live!’ she said.

  She went stiffly downstairs and summoned lights for the Hall. Dorset
sat white and worried beside her at the table. There was bravado in her fragile sway at the board, and the way she lifted her eyes to the roof, the arching walls, sureying the last bastion of her domain. By sheer force of will he sat serenely in Bradgate Hall, while wind got up outside and pried around the crumbling manor like a friendless ghost.

  She arose early next morning and bade Dorset find a boat. Humouring her, he searched byre and barn and found a vessel scarcely worthy of water, yet one that floated, and had oars. She sat in the stern, while, knee-deep in mud, servants pushed off the rotting craft. Tom rowed and found deep water. He made towards the further bank where stunted willows grew. Anxiously he watched his mother.

  ‘You once fished in this lake, Tom.’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Do you remember your father?’

  Green scum clung to the oars. She looked down into the mysterious depths, the source of might, the fluent vehicle of power. She sighed, and trailed her wasted hand where leaves floated and waterweed wove its net. She gave a sharp cry. The drowned face of a child, with staring eyes and open, pleading mouth, looked at her. She clutched at Dorset and nearly upset the boat.

  ‘Tis only a big carp,’ he said softly. ‘A dead fish, Madame.’

  Other fish were attacking it. Smaller ones struck at the tail so that scales broke off, floating, silvering the clogged green surface of the water.

  ‘Let us go back,’ she said.

  When they entered the Hall, a man was standing before the fire-place. A stranger, dark, fatigued, cap in hand. Richly dressed, and splashed with the mud of haste. He had the most eager eyes she had ever seen.

  ‘No,’ she said. It was evening; the servants had been dismissed. She, and Dorset, and the stranger, sat before the fire. The flames leaped, warm as the stranger’s eyes.

  ‘If you would only listen, your Grace.’

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ He smiled, a kind weary smile.