He is well. One of the hirelings knows a kinsman of Francis Lovell. Second and third hand this news may be, but it tells me that Richard spends most of his time fighting the Scots. He’s not wounded. He is well.
Still she does not press me. I told her this night: wait till the husbands have come, then I’ll decide! We both laughed. But already I know the answer.
How should I marry, who have no heart?
Hard weather, for St Cecilia. The Mother makes me, Lucy and Ursula drink a posset of honey and cinnamon every night. I have finished my new flannel shift just in time, and breeches of the same for Giles. I helped him put them on—his fingers are useless for laces and delicate things. I know what it is to be cold in winter; his face is chap-covered where the spit runs down. He cannot keep a closed mouth; he talks well to me, most of it nonsense but with such a charming air. He it was who let in the first of my suitors. Mary have mercy!
Sir S. was tall. My head came up to his padded elbow. He was direct, too, put his cards squarely down, and told me his estate was not all it should be, that he badly needed a moneyed spouse and further, one who could grace his table, engage his friends and enemies alike in blithe, strategic talk, sing and play while he laboured to mend his dwindling affairs, a mistress who could make a good dinner out of slender means. There was one lord, whose favour he lusted to obtain. Woman could often succeed where man might fail. I asked him, did he know that I had borne a child? and he said he hoped I would do for him the same, strong sons to lengthen his line, not daughters, as maids were a veritable plague to dower and marry, whereupon I said, yea, behold one! at which his watery, white face reddened. We were just sitting looking at each other, he drumming on the table, his countenance unstable as water, and uneasy, when Giles, who had been told to stay without, rushed in, bearing in his hands a half-frozen robin; I put my arm about him, the better to hear his slavering tale, and the bird, like an ice-lump, in my bosom. When I looked again, the chair opposite was empty.
Lord, I could laugh! Not only at poor Sir S., halfway to London now, thinking that Giles is mine! but at Sir J., a clown in truth and far less honest. He flung himself at my feet. All the furniture shook. He likened me to Diana, said that my eyes struck him with bolts of madness, and that he would have none other but me. Then he found himself fixed, being not so young as he himself had thought, and portly. I had to raise him from the floor. I tugged and heaved; he clutched me with hands covered in reddish hair, and well-nigh brought me down too, and my hennin fell off and was crushed under his rolling, which angered me, for it was new that day...
Robin is thawed, and sleeps, with but a little quivering, in a casket on my sill. His feathers are soft, his face warm and bright.
I will have him for my lover.
A letter from Katherine! My Katherine, how I miss you. That little bill, with its sprawling capitals, brought it right home. It is dated from Sheriff Hutton, ‘a windy place’ she calls it. She and Brackenbury’s daughter will soon be moving—she is not sure where, but it will be farther north. Middleham, perchance? She says his Grace her father called to see her, on the way to London, before Christmas. Merciful God, she says ‘he was not in good heart.’
I wish she would not tell me this. Now I worry and wonder, wishing beyond this world to comfort him. Are my prayers enough? The prayers of a sinful woman are less effective than those of a nun. I was ever his true beadswoman, as well as his fleshly leman. If he came to me sad, he left me smiling. Always. Even the night when Warwick, and George, laughed at him.
George will laugh no more. This day we heard that he was dead. A strange mystery. They say that he drowned himself in wine, but in the Tower; The Mother had this news, privately, from London. She seemed at pains to discuss it with me. Always she harks back to the night at Grafton Regis. I try to give her pleasant answer, but it is something which I would forget. Whichever way I reply, she frowns.
She is pleased with my Shrove-cakes, though. You need new cheese, ground fine in a mortar, with eggs beaten to thistledown, and coloured rich with saffron, baked in coffins of pastry, not too long; I sprinkled nutmeg. They broke in the fingers.
Robin takes food from my lips. Faithful unto death—he has proved it. The first day I let him fly I thought never to see him again, but he came back calling at my window in the morning, and has remained ever since. Now spring is coming, he’s a lusty lover. His little beak is like a tiny sword at my mouth. Shameless, singing Robin!
Yesterday I went to nurse a lad with rotten lungs. Rose-petal jelly. Only the red rose will do. Therefore I have no faith in it, so surely am I wedded to the House of York! Giles came with me. He is strong as a bull. He picked up the youth, and a tall fellow he was, in his arms for me to make his bed. Coming through Swine Market a man tried to fondle me and Giles knocked him down. I hate the hands of men.
So he was not in good heart. Lord Jesu give him joy again. Whatever the reason, let him not be sad.
Written on St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, the seventeenth year of Edward’s reign.
Could I pray better for you, love, were I a nun?
‘It can’t be vanity!’ said the Mother.
She had known my heart; the moment had come. Our bench by the dovecote was the only cool place. Beyond the circle of dark shadow where we sat, Robin strutted with the plump grey doves, jostling fearlessly for their grain. Now and then one would peck at him, angered by his lewd courage, but he merely tripped his fluttering dance to safety. Across the glaring, sun-white yard, a brindled cat was watching, a strange, meagre beast.
‘Is that Willowkin?’ asked the Mother, shading her eyes. ‘Nay, it’s too scrawny.’ Willow, our own cat, was lazy and too old to menace Robin, who often sat impertinently upon his head. I threw a pebble. The strange cat rose noiselessly in a pouring leap over the high wall and disappeared. For a shameful moment I wished I were that cat. The Mother had a dispensation to talk with me outside the Hour, and here was I, wasting time. She stretched her fingers out to Robin. He put his head on one side and watched her, motionless.
‘Play no games with that one, Robin,’ she said.
I looked down at my hands. Burnt almost black by the summer’s fieldwork, there were callouses on the palms, the nails were short and ragged.
‘Mother, it’s not vanity.’
‘Do not fear accidia, either,’ she murmured. ‘You would find only deepest joy. I warrant it. I would give my life to see your peace. Your soul at anchor.’
And I wanted it too. Sweet Jesu in my heart, my mind, my wit, my will, for ever. Yet I knew in this there could be no compromise; while my spirit still roved the moors, or was sad with him in London—there could be no division. For he had come to me once, and he might come to me again. Would he? Ever? Never? Robin hopped on my thumb. I rubbed my cheek against his fluffy poll.
The Mother, watching, knew my every thought.
‘He will not come again,’ she said softly. ‘He dotes upon his wife. That broken reed, that sweet, ailing woman, Anne.’
I did not know that she ailed. But she would have the best physicians, second only to the King. Whatever her malady, they would set it right. Or would they? If the sickness were deep-rooted, the bad humours firmly in the ascendancy... Oh God! what thoughts!
The Mother seized my changing face between her hands.
‘Fight it,’ she said sternly. ‘This is not you, but the Devil himself. He will not come.’
But the dreams said otherwise, the dreams in which I never saw his face, heard only his whispering voice in the dark, felt his hands among the lustrous toils of my hair. If he should come, and find a shaven head, a habit...
‘How say you this, Mother?’ I asked, rough with longing. ‘Have you read it in the stars? Are you a prophet?’
For a long space she was quiet. ‘I am not of the Wise, nor would I wish to be,’ she answered finally. ‘Neither do I intend to embark upon a disputation. Yet, you wag your hypotheses before me, and for your good, I’ll answer them. If he should come, yea, if, and
seek your comfort...’
‘All that he ever sought!’ I cried.
‘There are better balms than kisses,’ she said. ‘Services that only a woman of God can perform. Sweet charity, a Mass, devotions. Have I not said that this life is a transient thing?’
The sheen on the white pavement hurt my eyes. There was the smell of thunder inside my head. Even as I looked, a cloud blotted the sun, and to the west an artery of light hung twitching on the air.
‘Do I speak the truth?’ asked the Mother.
I could not deny her, or what was right. Robin was eating the crumbs from the doves’ table. The Duchess of Bedford had said it. All is written, long ago. Crumbs would be my portion. I stood up.
‘Forgive me, Mother,’ I whispered, bending for her embrace. The only time she kissed me in the future would be in church, the unfleshly salutation of the Pax.
‘At least,’ I said, ‘I shall be able to sign my name on the letter of profession. Not a great untidy X. I’ll serve you well, Mother...’
‘Pride!’ She held up a finger, but she laughed, and I also. I could laugh, for now the dreams were surely ended, and I needed a jest against that fact.
But that night of all nights, he came to me. I ran towards him, across the green lawns of Eltham, through the little stone archway, where God knows how many lovers had breathed one breath. He had his back to me. He wore a sky-coloured doublet, long boots of light doeskin. My feet made no sound—I fancied that I flew, caught up in the longing to join with him in love, to live and die with him, to rise one spirit... his in heart and thought, in the heat of the sun with the crying birds lifting in dreadful joy.
He turned. I saw his eyes, his mouth. He smiled, held out both hands. This time, I would never let him go. I flung myself, wanton, holy, wanton, upon his breast. I called his name, and my voice became a bell.
I woke, and there was only the voice of Prime, and the hurrying nuns in the stone passage without, and the selfless kiss of Peace.
Written on the Beheading of St John Baptist. I took my Vigil yesterday. A long night. Now I find my wrists and elbows swollen, shiny red, as if they had been tied. I must embrace the pain. Today is a Fast, but later I will infuse the White Bryony, peerless against jointgripings. Last night the church seemed very large. Midnight dwarfed the candles, and in all four corners there seemed to be wraiths, rising whitely. Between the prayers and chanting the silence was immense.
I am learning. All I can about being a nun. My own ignorance haunts me. Only lately did I learn that Dame Johanna tricked me—she could not have taken Kate! Under this land’s law a maiden is not recognized as professed until she is twelve. What a fool I was! The Mirror of Our Lady holds some sad tales. One little nun, yet a child, died and came again to her sisters, to be purged of the sin of whispering in church. If this be so, those at the Yorkshire House will spend half eternity before the altar! I must not judge, I shall learn my fill. I could now apply myself to the duty of any of these: Treasuress, Precentrix, Sacrist, Fratress, Almoness, Chambress, Cellaress. I could lighten Ursula’s load. For in truth we are so small that the above are but courtesies; jills-of-all-trades, each of us helps the other.
I have this book. Old Ursula has a secret too. ‘One lock,’ she said guiltily, and tucked it in her purse. After her busy clipping my head felt like a puffball in the wind, light and cool and fragile. She stared down at the brightness that lapped her ankles. I thought she looked sad. I did not look at all.
I wonder if she will weave it in with her embroidery. Not on the frontal, of course, but in some little personal thing. Anyhow she has one lock of my hair.
Martinmas. A terrible screaming from the byre, where Giles is slaughtering. For all his baby’s mind, he can turn his hand to anything. He tells me he has awful dreams, but I cannot define their sense. Strange he should come to me with dreams. He is killing the great hog we had sent us lately. It was a heriot—the dead man owed tithes, and the Bishop thought kindly of us. We shall be set up for the winter—it must be salted down immediately. Giles has been promised the pig’s bladder to play with. He loves football, for all King Edward has forbidden it.
The King is not here to see him play.
No news of the other.
And K. writes infrequently, from a place called Barnard Castle. All her letters to the Mother now, and I can only answer her under the common seal.
Robin is still cross with me. He pecks at my wimple, sits on my shoulder with most lewd looks into my face. He does not understand the wimple—at first he tried to pull it off. The band is tight above my eyes, and the barbe presses at my throat.
Blessed be God.
The Sixth after Trinity, and a day in truth.
K. came, unheralded. Barnard Castle is being cleansed and they have stayed in London. Sir Rbt Brackenbury’s daughter was with her, but I had eyes only for K. She was so gorgeous, blue and silver; she even had a sparrowhawk on her wrist. I noticed her purse worked with the device and a belt of the same. Though she gave me a good devotion I fancied there was something imperious about her—captivating, but dangerous. She is ten years old now; no husband yet, I asked, and she laughed.
She tells me she has seen King Edward. She was most unflattering about his looks—what she said I dare not write, but he cannot surely have put on all that royal flesh! Though it is nineteen years since he first wore the crown. Long may he reign.
She spoke of the other. He remains north. The sparrowhawk was from him. I had to shut Robin in a cupboard while I caressed it.
We heard Mass together. In the dusk, her face was like a flower.
Jesu preserve the King, and all those of the blood.
I thought I should not have time to write it. All day we have been besought. There was a courier at the North Gate before sun-up, beating with the flat of his sword. The bells go on and on. Some town folk have bought candles to place on our altar. A ceaseless Requiem tolls, backed by those thin voices, rising higher and higher, like a spool of silk drawn up to the sky.
For King Edward is dead.
The Mother swooned during the Gradual. I think she is not very well. She said some strange things this day. According to her it will be a bad day for England. She says if the Woodvilles gain power there will be many wives widowed. Like the old days, the bad times. I must cosset her. And it will be a Fast tomorrow, for Edward’s soul. It is not like her to have this melancholy.
Written April, in the first year of King Edward Fifth’s reign.
St Dunstan of Canterbury. The sun shines through a fine rain spray. The old pear tree has bloomed early and hangs over the garden wall like a tired man longing to sit down. Robin sings from a cluster of blossom; the garden is fair. In this light rain the gillies and scented stocks shimmer like some beautifully illuminated page, red and yellow and gold. A growth of speedwell is pushing through the moss right under my window, and a lilac bush comes into flower.
Some of these flourishing herbs spread everywhere. Even unto the cloister where our long-dead sisters lie. Some of those stones are very old, too old, I think, to be bothered by the rude ground-ivy. Gill-go-over-the-ground, they sell it in Swine Market. Gill tea is very good. Bind-weed and periwinkle tangle up the garden. I do not seem to have the time to dig them out; anyway they have a prettiness all their own, so let them multiply, all the more for our simple-store.
I have been thinking of him riding down from Middleham for the funeral, the coronation. Someone said that King Edward was chested already, but this I cannot believe. They would not be so hasty. I wonder how the child king will be. It’s an ordeal for so young a knave. But he will be beside him, so what shall he fear? He will be there to escort Edward at his coronation, being the nearest of the blood. I hear there is quarrelling among the monks our neighbours. Sister Lucy even believes they draw lots for who shall attend the Abbey at Westminster. Foolish. It all depends on which has the Bishop’s ear.
I feel better these days. With summer ahead, my joints seem eased.
God will give
Edward grace to rule wisely; After the Picquigny scandal, we cannot afford another war. I do not expect the King of France wants one either. Here am I scratching of politics, I who know naught of them. But Edward is full young; he will need advisers. But why does the Mother say the day is bad? Surely the Woodvilles—
Ursula almost caught me just now, writing. I wonder of late whether I should confess it to my holy father? But is it really such a great sin? The Mother says if you need to ask this question, then it is sin; where such doubt is, there sin is also. She is still unwell, and last week actually took to her bed for a couple of hours. What she said privily to me made me sore uneasy. She cannot mean me to... She cannot mean what I think. For she will live, many years. God grant it.
St Alban’s Day, and a strange letter from Katherine. A rider passed through their dwelling. Says that Richard has sent for tall fellows in harness, a desperate, urgent matter. It’s like her, of course, to skim the top off the news and leave you guessing, though it may be she knows no more than this. Men, to cherish the young King? But there will be a host of Palace guards. I know.
The Mother is stronger. I got her to leave off the bleeding for a while, and, made her take the wine of the valley lily. It made her heart beat good and fast. While she was reading K’s letter she waxed yellowish and murmured to herself, I was really frightened, I know the lily is so dangerous, and thought I had made the dose too rare. She said, ‘Ah, treachery!’ She mentioned, yet again, Grafton Regis. I gave her but cursory answer—I only want her well again.
I do not wish to think that we are a dying House. But even my money does not stretch as far as I would like, and we are hard worked. Ursula has started, once more, on the frontal. It must be right, she says, to God’s glory. I offered to help her with it. She was quite wroth. She is getting old. So low does she bend, her wimple makes a little dark cave for her work. I suppose in her mind’s eye she sees it finished, glowing on the altar with two fat candles and the Holy Gospel snug atop. Her life’s ambition, already, in fantasy, fair and fine.
We Speak No Treason Vol 2 Page 34