We Speak No Treason Vol 2

  It was not finished and done for me.

  Is there, I wonder, a force which moulds our destiny? Something apart from the God of Truth, or the Lord of Evil, an entity less positive than either power; something which can throw a whim, like a dice, into the unwarned mind, then sit back, waiting? A whim? A hankering, to be assuaged in free will, or, as freely denied, and one which, if acted upon, will often profit least the actor; at least three times in my life it has come upon me. I need not have spoken to Elysande that far-off day, when the wind-blown hawks hung on blue haze. Yet I did, and gained for myself great trouble. I could have rested the night, without Newark: I struggled on, and Edyth died. And there was no real cause for me to go to Walsingham, in the spring of Kate’s fourth year. But go I did, and ran from joy, unknowing.

  ‘Pilgrimages cost money,’ the Mother said before I left, then closed up her lips tight, as if she wished the words back. For she had forgotten for an instant, as I often did myself, that now I had money, plenty of it, that Kate was dressed in warm murrey edged with miniver, that there were two new short-horns in our meadow, and that the food I took no longer choked me with kindness.

  I do not know how she recovered part of my corrody from the Yorkshire House; all I know is that she brought it to me one day with as much of a smile of triumph as her meekness would permit; nor do I know by whose hand she transmitted my letter to Middleham. As always, I was content to suffer her good judgment. But I felt differently when the answer came from Richard. I wanted to know everything: the unseen bearer’s name, the date of carrying, and I could scarcely touch the parchment that had my name, and Kate’s, upon it; the letter, for the most foolish reason, brought grief. It was not written in his beloved, familiar hand. His secretary, Kendall, said the Mother, was a discreet, loyal man. It made no difference. No difference at all.

  ‘A reward’ the bill concerning me was called. There was unmeant irony in that term. The Mother had no need to tell me this was the usual designation for such favours. But I had loved him, loved him, and that love needed no reward. The grants to Kate were less impersonal. Here, he acknowledged her wholeheartedly; there were even the words ‘gladness’ and ‘affection’ in Kendall’s neat round hand. There was mention of a good marriage for her when the time was full. He wrote that she should stay at Leicester for the nonce. He acclaimed her as his daughter, a Plantagenet, niece of the King himself. He commended her to the Father of all.

  And at no place in the letter, turn it this way and that as I would, did he speak of coming to see her. Of course, he would be very busy. Lord of the North. He would be far too busy for that.

  I became a little embittered. Was that why I went to Walsingham? I chose Walsingham rather than Canterbury or any of the seventy other shrines in Norfolk because I remembered he had called there once, before he came to me at Fotheringhay. I would kneel where he had knelt. I went like a great lady, on a tall grey mare hired from the best stable in Leicester—dressed in satin lined with squirrel fur and a cloak of fine green wool caught with a silver brooch. The people turned to gawp at me. One of our ancient chaplains acted as my squire, poor Giles my page. He, who had never been more than half a league outside Leicester, hung midway ’twixt fear and excitement, a dribble of saliva running down a chin already rounder through the Mother’s cherishing.

  I prayed full heartily at Walsingham. I spoke to Our Lady herself, asking her to intercede for Adelysia, to take her quickly from Purgatory, so that she should be young and fair once more in Paradise; and for Edyth, for whom there would surely be no Purgatory; for my mother, my father and for the cleansing of Giles’s mind. Giles had had a seizing on the road. As my chaplain held him in the hedge-bottom he jerked and foamed with the strength of seven devils. After, he was mild as ever. That did not make the chaplain love this show of heresy any the more.

  The roads were flooded with travellers. And a great crowd at Walsingham; many nobles, mingling with the cheapjacks, the minstrels and the myriad, crawling beggars, lacking eyes, limbs, their faces festooned with suppuration, their wavering cries rising over the drone of prayer that wafted from the church. The taverns were bloated with the spring influx of pilgrims, and there was much drunkenness. In all the confusion I found what I wanted. I had longed to repay the Mother in some way for all her love and kindliness; two cows and my board were not enough. In one of the shrines I was shown a phial of the Virgin’s Milk; I touched it, knew it to be truth. Did I imagine the glow that rose from that little gourd? I have seen other lights, other stars. If so, the price of my fancy was not cheap. The chaplain hissed as I counted money out. Had he known I carried so much, he would not have come, for fear of being murdered on the road.

  Thus was my state as I returned from Walsingham: lightened by prayer, and almost happy, and longing to see the Mother’s face when she received my gift. She would say little, I knew, but I would be able to mark her secret delight by perchance a movement of her hand; I only wished I could have brought her a vision of the Virgin, but I was plainly unworthy and I would not lie, though I knew that many did. Giles had a fit outside Leicester, at the North Gate, holding us up; I was impatient, I wanted to see Katherine, and I had two cards of French silk for Dame Ursula, my only real extravagance, for her use on the frontal at which she was working. Green satin it was, powdered with silver roses. So it was to Ursula that I first flew, bursting into the room where her work was spread out over her knees and falling on the floor, a swathe of shining green like grass where lovers lie. I ran and kissed her seared old face.

  ‘Dame, dame, it’s good to see you!’ I cried, as if I had been away for a twelvemonth. ‘And where’s my daughter? And how’s the Mother? Wait till you see what I have for her, something beyond price, yet I priced it, and bought it, and...’

  She was shaking her bowed head, joy and exasperation mingled, striking a finger on her lips again and again. I laughed out loud, for once wishing that the lax law of the Yorkshire House obtained in Leicester. She could not speak; it was not yet the Hour. Her seamed eyes played and twinkled upon mine, she held both my hands hard in hers. Then I realized that she, too, had something to tell that was well-nigh killing her with its importance. At times I thought that she would burst. She sucked in her lips as if they were two demons to be crushed. She swelled with frustration; she ran up and down the room. She pointed at me, stabbing the air, she drew a figure on the table, the hour when she could speak. She patted the head of an invisible child, and my gladness ran away like a cold stream.

  ‘Katherine,’ I whispered. Something amiss had come to Kate. ‘Oh God, she’s sick!’ I cried, and Ursula went Nay, Nay, with her head. I caught her hands, hurting her, and she snatched away from me, parodying a horseman, held up three fingers, three times, in honour of the Trinity? Nay, nay, nine horsemen, she pointed to the ceiling—horsemen in Heaven? Speak, Ursula! This cursed waiting for the Hour!

  The finger pointed skywards again. High, merciful Saints, how high! ‘You have flown exceeding high, and may God have mercy.’ Mercy on me, indeed, against those ancient words. Horsemen. Of high rank? And her head going yea, yea, wimple all askew, and the satin slithering plop! off the table, marsh-green beneath our feet.

  ‘Lords, Ursula?’

  One finger raised. On it I could see the needle-marks, like holes in a pepper-pot.

  ‘One lord, Ursula? Here, in Leicester?’

  The hands became birds in flight.

  ‘Gone?’

  Yea, yea, yea. Say nay, Ursula, for if my mind has read your head and fingers aright, I cannot bear it. One lord, of high rank, with eight in his train. Who, Ursula? She was sewing frantically, at a little end of cloth. Though she had been at work on the frontal for years, none could sew faster than Ursula when she chose. Silver thread she used, with no heed of the waste. A great lord in truth. The needle caught fire. A silver shape grew, was burnt into the green, into my heart. After a moment or two she held it up, a perfect piece of threadwork, small and snarling and terrible, the emblem of my love and grie
f, the Boar.

  ‘Gloucester, my lord of Gloucester.’

  And the wimple going yea, yea, and the stabbing finger at my breast, and the clever fingers miming: he was here, and you were not. He looked for you, and you were gone. He came to see you—he saw you not. Ah, how did he look, dumb Ursula? What colour his eyes this day? What colour his thought? Sad-coloured, like mine?

  ‘He looked well,’ the Mother said slowly. ‘I have seen him before. Once. But I had forgotten he was such a fair young knight.’

  I could not ask her what clothes he wore, if he were still as courteous, kind and stern of mien, if he smiled that smile which was worth a thousand weeks of dolorousness. I could not ask the Mother these things; they were of the earth. I could hardly speak. She did all the talking. I listened avidly, desperately. Richard had been and I not there to greet him. What was she saying? Talk, Mother, so I may blot it out.

  ‘I am pleased with you,’ she said. Wretchedly, I thought she alluded to my gift. ‘’Tis naught,’ I said.

  Is there a force, I wonder, that by our own hand kills our joy? I think, nay, know there is.

  ‘You nursed the widow at West Gate right well,’ she continued. ‘You brought comfort to her spirit. And your hand is skilled with medicines.’

  She had been a dreadful woman. Kidney stones. Only the saxifrage root had broken down the evil, and she had cursed me for my pains. The Mother was speaking. Her words made nonsense. Richard had been, and found me missing. The Mother would like to see me professed. I knew it. I knew also she would not speak of it until I did. And the townsfolk thought she carried Christian charity too far. Richard had been, and I ridden away.

  ‘It is not nunly to leave cloister, even to visit the sick,’ I said, all in misery, and was appalled at myself. I had criticized her, for the first time ever. O holy God! Richard had been, and I not there to meet him.

  ‘This is a dying House,’ she said softly. ‘Like so many others. Corruption and poverty are consuming our Order. ’Tis not like two hundred years ago, an era of saints. Therefore we must do what we can. If nuns can break enclosure to dance and drink, why should we not do likewise, to succour the sick, the dying, the oppressed?’

  The Compline bell rang. Richard had been and I had not seen him.

  Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgine; was he disappointed? I could get naught from Katherine, save that a dark man, in fine robes, had set her on his knee. She had sung to him. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelum Archangelum, he had kissed her, he would have kissed me, in greeting and farewell, a courtly token, what would his eyes have said?... all saints, and you, Father, to pray to the Lord our God for me. ’Tis naught to him. ’Tis naught. The Mother wishes me to be professed. But will he come to me again? Will he?

  The Mother took down an old book from her shelf, the Mother knew all of my sorrow. The candles burned up steadfast and white in the spring dusk. Outside a blackbird sang, hesitantly sweet, sang of his departure.

  ‘He came,’ I said. ‘While I was wasting prayers at Walsingham.’

  ‘Are prayers ever wasted?’ the Mother asked.

  ‘He came!’ I cried. My voice was an echoing wail of despair. It frightened me. The blackbird flew away. Will he come to me again? Ever? Never? The old rhyming words, so loosely used in poem and ballad. The saddest words in the whole world. The Mother handed me the open book.

  ‘This is for you,’ she said. ‘Remember this life is a transient thing. All joy, all sorrow, are as naught beyond the grave.’

  Are they? Are they, in truth? If I had only seen him, not to speak, even, just in the distance, to brand his image fresh upon my mind, a buckler against the dead past, the dying future. Is it truly sin, to know such love, such longing? Passions older than the tide, and the moon that moves it. My love, my love, it is long since I lay, love-locked, in your arms! The Mother would have me professed. In charity. For my soul’s good. How can I, with these worldly thoughts? Then I read the prayer, and the sea of my trouble was engulfed in a far wider ocean, deeper than I had ever imagined...

  ‘Oh sweet Jesu, the son of God, the endless sweetness of heaven and of earth and of all the world, be in my heart, in my mind, in my wit, in my will, now and ever more. Amen.’

  But I loved him. Naught would change that, ever.

  ‘Jesu mercy, Jesu gramercy, Jesu for thy mercy, Jesu as I trust to thy mercy, Jesu as thou art full of mercy, Jesu have mercy on me and all mankind redeemed with thy precious blood. Jesu. Amen.’

  ‘There lies comfort,’ said the Mother softly.

  But not yet, not yet. Not for such as I, who found his presence in the same house an utter joy, his absence an affliction past bearing. Not with this hair, which armed me brown and gold, which he had loved and found so pleasant, which fell about me like a shroud.

  I wrote in my book, the book I should not have at all. I keep it behind a loose stone under my window, the same window where Robin came each dawn to kiss and sing. I often wonder if that bird loved me for myself or for the crumbs I gave him.

  I have said that the middle years are somewhat veiled. Therein, events were like an arrow’s passage through the air, a swan’s skimming flight across a lake; the air, the water, opens and closes, and all is as before. So were my years, passing without a ripple, a rustle, a sigh, not sad, not happy those days; flat and tranquil only, after Katherine went away.

  In my secret book I wrote rarely, with only a little guilt at heart, for it seemed meet to mark the times thus, and I know that others have written—there was an Abbess, during the era of saints, too, who made a treatise on Fishing. Nobody held her to scorn for it; in fact they hailed her wisdom kindly.

  Since Katherine went, I felt the need to do it. Even if it had been a great sin. Write, I mean. In this book, which I must burn before I die.

  The blossom is out. Our orchard groans with all that pink and white. Katherine was good, courageous; she seems older than her six years. On the Hour of None they came for her, we were both in church and they waited. She cut some blossom for me, pink and white. The weight of it was terrible in my arms when she had gone. John Skelton it was, come at my lord’s command, and who better to carry a child through paths unknown? I would have liked to talk with him about the old times; he once told me of Richard’s own flight, my poor little lord, fevered and raving aboard the night boat for Burgundy. But John Skelton did not know me; why should he? Years have passed since he called me fair, at Grafton; he was the first ever to call me fair.

  Kate’s sojourn here is ended. She is to live in one of Richard’s northern castles. Sir Robert Brackenbury’s young daughter shall be her companion, and under the protection of my sweet lord her father, how can she go amiss?

  She will be a great lady, but our House will lack her laughter.

  This evening the Mother sent for me again. She never presses me, but I know her heart. It would please her greatly were I to be professed. She fears the jeopardy of my soul. Never was woman so kind in all this world.

  I combed my hair for an hour before going to my empty bed. It served to stop me thinking of Kate upon the Fosse Way. I still have a glass, it shows my hair, so bright and sheen.

  John Skelton mentioned husbands. For me! It would seem that Richard is worried—a husband! I fear I laughed. I said, let them all come.

  Richard’s son does well. Edward, Anne’s boy. Skelton says he is his father’s joy and pride, loved beyond measure. I know all about love.

  This day parted Katherine and I, the Feast of St Barnabas, in the fifteenth year of King Edward’s reign.

  Tomorrow belongs to St Giles. I asked the boy what he would like for a present, but he did not understand. He is a good boy; today he worked like two men in the hayfield. Ursula and I went down to help. We have six hirelings this year, and the sheaves were stacked by nightfall. The stubble is full of larks now, gleaning. Giles caught one. He didn’t kill it, just sat holding it in his hands. Ursula and I took our dinner by the barn, and I sewed. S
he still gets cross with me if I make the lozenges too wide. When I told her it was a blood-band for the Mother she made me unpick it all and start anew. She herself has begun again on the frontal—the colours displeased her, the reds were too bright. Irreverent, she called them. Would that I had her patience!

  The Mother is pale today. I fear she bleeds herself too much. Some days ago I brought her a fine dish of Warden pears. Then this woman, sick of the bloody flux, came knocking at our gate. She begged the Mother’s skill. The latter made a cordial of those pears, which I hoped she herself would enjoy. It stopped the flow within hours. The woman scarcely thanked her. I thought her even contemptuous but it may have been my fancy. Sometimes I mislike these people of Leicester.

  No word from Katherine. I shall not write first. She must stand alone, but it is hard. Three months now, without her.

  Warden pears are ruled by Venus. They denote affection, content. They are also good for rheumatism. The Mother does not know what I suffer in that direction, or she would cosset me, and I am bound to myself to change. I think I am no longer such a faintheart, puling wretch.

  I am not changed in other ways, though. When that time comes this hand will have lost its power to write. The dreams are still as fierce, there was another last night. Some are almost like visions, clearer than truth. They stay with me for hours. That is why, all this day, the hayfield shone like beaten brass and Ursula’s face wavered in the smoke of my desire.

  The Hour was pleasant tonight. The Mother told me more of the Mirror of Our Lady. The nuns of Syon showed her that book, years past. She knows it from end to end. There is much in it, she says, for the ghostly comfort and profit of my soul. I saw her Bible. I have never seen an English Bible before, did not even know she had one. Some would think it Lollardy—that word makes me tremble. Yet she said calmly it is necessary to read thus, if only to aid our translation of the Vulgate. Sometimes I fear for her deeply. She is like one born out of her time. But Lord Jesu, how good!