And we quickly realised that Richard was regarded with suspicion by both sides. The Queen’s party thought him Warwick’s spy; the others thought him Edward’s. That was the climate of suspicion at Court – no one seemed willing to believe that Richard was simply a boy who admired and loved his brother, and never had a disloyal thought.
So life was not easy. One had to consider every remark, be friendly in all directions, avoid the faintest appearance of conspiracy or even favour.
We became used to it, however. We made friends. Behind closed doors the five of us – for Rob Percy, John Milwater and Tom Parr had soon come down from Middleham – could say what we liked. People like Lord Hastings – the William Hastings of my first encounter with Edward, and now his Chamberlain – and Lord Howard, known to everyone as Jock, and the new Earl of Pembroke and his son Will Herbert were strictly neutral and could be trusted; and, to be fair, the Queen’s brother Anthony Woodville was another who treated us very kindly and had no truck with feuds. The Queen herself was civil to us in her remote way, unbending a little after she visited the nurseries and found Richard, Rob and me building a castle for Bess. In fact, the Woodvilles themselves were the least of the problem, unless, like Warwick, you counted their mere existence as a provocation. (Though of Thomas Grey, the Queen’s elder son, I’ll say nothing, for I hated his guts. The feeling was mutual.)
Thus 1468 came towards its end: no more Lancastrian trouble, Warwick sulking at Middleham, George about his own business, Richard and I and our friends giving the London taverns plenty of business and our respective mattresses a good thrashing.
Then after Christmas I met Innogen.
Red hair is said to be the sign of the devil, of the witch, of the harlot. So I should have been warned, should I not?
~~~
I was away from Court over Christmas, for Warwick had invited me to spend the season at Warwick Castle. He asked Richard too, but to no one’s surprise Edward made a graceful excuse. Francis Lovell was there, however, so with him and the Warwick girls I had good company. It was a pleasant enough occasion, for no one mentioned politics or the Woodvilles, yet I missed Richard and my usual companions, and I was glad when Lord Hastings, similarly spending Christmas in the country, rode back to collect me. Never suspecting that my life was about to change forever.
Running up the stairs at Westminster I almost collided with a lady coming the other way. ‘Madam, your pardon.’
‘No, sir, yours.’ She was carrying a dog, a plump spaniel, and trying to hold her skirts up.
‘May I help you? Let me take the dog.’
‘That’s kind, sir; I would be grateful.’ The dog snuffling limply across my arms, I followed her back down the stairs. Smoothing her skirts she bent to fasten a leash to the animal’s collar. ‘Belle is young and in need of training, she doesn’t understand stairs yet. It was easier to carry her. Thank you, sir.’
In the light from the doorway I could see her properly. She smiled as she thanked me, and my senses jumped. If her voice hadn’t already told me she was a lady, her dress and bearing would have done so. Also she was beautiful, and the sexiest girl I had ever seen. It was hard to know in what that impression lay, for her gown was modest and there was nothing bold in her manner – except that for the space of a heartbeat her eyes had travelled over me in the way there is no mistaking. Not blue eyes as I had thought at first, but that soft, changeable grey that alters to reflect the colour of the wearer’s clothes. The fashion then was for high pure foreheads, and ladies shaved off their eyebrows and plucked back the first inch or two of hair to achieve the look. I thought it ugly, the little blunt caps then in mode seeming to be perched on bald skulls. But this girl was so new to Court that she had not yet learnt to copy the Queen, and I could see that her hair was red. Not auburn, or copper, or gold: bright, flaming, defiant red, and the little wisps around her face were curly and rather coarse. Her skin was nearly as pale as the Queen’s, but the Queen would have dealt with the little golden freckles that lay like a band of pollen over her cheekbones and nose. With that colouring her lashes should have been sandy, but they were dark (or darkened). Also curly and thick.
I wanted to ask her name and in what capacity she had come to Court, but with a bow and a final smile she let the dog tow her outside.
Leaping up the stairs, I decided not to mention her to Richard.
It was three days before I saw her again. Instead of the usual disguising after supper the Queen had her maids of honour dance for us, some country floral dance with the women dressed in the pale clear colours of spring. It was a pretty conceit, but I had eyes for nothing but the girl in the lilac gown. My redhead.
Catching her eye, I bowed elegantly. The left corner of her mouth curved a little, and she turned away. One glance and I was lost. I would have her, or die trying.
Staring after her as they left the floor, I did not for a moment see the King’s jester come in. He was a clever Fool, his jokes always witty, but this time puzzled silence followed him as he trudged the length of the hall up to the high table. He wore enormous boots and a flopping pilgrim’s hat. His doublet would barely have fitted a five-year-old. He was soaking wet, and he helped his weary steps with a long marsh pike, the kind they use in the Fens to punt their boats along. He squelched to a halt, water sloshing from the tops of his boots, and stared sadly up at the King.
‘Why, Jack,’ said Edward, ready for a joke, ‘whatever is the matter that you’re so wet? A hard journey?’
‘Aye, Your Grace, a hard and weary journey, for I have travelled the length and breadth of your kingdom to reach you and everywhere I went the rivers were risen so high there was no crossing them!’
Oh, Jesu. The Queen’s father was Earl Rivers. But it was too good a joke, and too apt, for anyone to think of danger. A great, joyous, uncontrollable laugh rose to the ceiling. The King gave one startled crack of laughter, then sank his cheeks on his fists and giggled. Earl Rivers, butt of the jibe, was laughing in a jolly, good-sport way, and even his son Anthony looked mildly tickled. Only the Queen sat like Medusa, glaring at the Fool. The king’s jester is by tradition sacrosanct, he can say or do what he likes and often he is the only person who dares tell the king the truth, but as the Queen looked at him I remembered her mother’s reputation for witchcraft. George of Clarence showed no amusement, eyebrows raised as at a mild breach of protocol, but the glint in his eye told me he had been behind the joke.
Mopping his eyes, the King threw the jester a coin. In a parody of rustic suspicion the Fool bit it, mimed huge surprise at finding it good, threw it in the air, changed it into a bunch of flowers, and backflipped away. Tactfully the minstrels at once struck up a tune for dancing, and the King led the Queen onto the floor.
Of course I tried to dance with my lovely redhead. No luck. At my first attempt she was dancing with Lord Hastings – and him a married man, the old goat. (Come to think of it, his wife was Warwick’s sister.) Next she was claimed by Harry Buckingham, not a day over fourteen. Then she danced with the most high and mighty Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Cambridge, KG, KB, and see how famously they are getting along, all smiles and promising looks. For revenge I danced with a little brunette who had been making eyes at me for weeks. Then the Queen, who was nearly seven months pregnant, retired, taking her women with her.
You can imagine how closely the good squire Martin Robsart dogged his master’s steps over the next few days, anticipating his every wish until he said it was like being haunted and had I nothing else to do? No, I had not, and the following week I was at his elbow when he went to see his nieces.
It was one of those clear, sunny days that come so suddenly in winter, and the Queen was in the garden with the children. Also with her were the nursery maids and some of her own ladies. Including my redhead, who with a pinafore over her gown was training the dog she had carried on the stairs.
‘Uncle Richard!’ Lady Bess ran to him, holding up her arms. Like most pampered, adored children she
loved everyone in her world, but Richard was a prime favourite. So was I, I am happy to recall. ‘Uncle Richard, Cousin Martin, I have got a pussycat now! Mistress Innogen gave him to me.’ The darling, clever child flung out her arm toward the red-haired girl.
‘How kind of the lady. Where did she get him?’
‘I don’t know. Mistress Jenny, where from you got Bess’s pussycat?’
Her hand firmly on the dog’s collar, the girl came over to us. She curtsied prettily, her grey eyes flickering from Richard to me. ‘Princess, the kitten came from my house here in London, the mother had a litter of five.’
‘Do you breed cats, Mistress –?’
‘Your Grace, I am Innogen Shaxper.’ (Oh, see them bowing and smiling at each other.) ‘And I breed cats only by mistake. When I mentioned the matter, Her Grace was kind enough to allow me to give one of the kittens to Lady Bess.’
‘It made a pleasant gift for the child,’ the Queen said benignly. I had never known her so easy and gracious, and I guessed the king had been at pains to compensate her for the Fool’s jibe at her father. She looked very beautiful in her cloak of tawny velvet lined with fox furs, but then she would have looked beautiful in jute sacks stitched together. And she was in a good mood – not only that freely offered remark, but now a gesture inviting us to sit beside her.
‘You are new-come to Court, Mistress Shaxper?’ I asked, admiring Mary toddling about in her baby-walker.
‘Yes, Master Robsart.’
‘And glad we are that we invited her to serve us,’ said the Queen, ‘for she has a gift for handling dogs, and Belle has never been so well-behaved. A firm hand makes all the difference when creatures grow wilful, do you not agree?’
There was the tiniest pause, then Richard said, ‘Indeed I do, madam.’
A wiser woman would have left it at that. The Queen, however, went on, ‘The King is glad of your loyalty, Gloucester. Perhaps you should discuss with him your views on firm control of…wilful elements.’
‘Madam, I shall; although His Grace pays little attention to my views.’
Mary’s baby-walker ran out of control and she fell over. The head nurse whisked her up and took her inside bawling, and with a murmur about the cold wind the Queen followed. She did not give permission for Innogen to stay behind.
~~~
The next week the Queen went into the customary retirement before her confinement. As one of her most junior maids of honour, Innogen was seldom required to wait upon her, and so had more freedom. In the Queen’s absence Court life grew freer, still decorous enough but with an edge of licence. Men openly paraded their mistresses, women took lovers. And I took Innogen, my Innogen, and the first time was in the gallery overlooking the Great Hall, after supper.
Not even at sixteen was I so crass as to plan it that way. Half in love with her, I wanted more than a quick fuck up against the wall in a public place. But that is the way it happened.
We danced together, and the touch of our hands was enough. My question and her answer were dealt with in a glance. No one saw us slide discreetly from the hall and up the stairs. The gallery was dark, empty, and although I had meant to wait until we were in my room I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. Her mouth opened under mine, and passion leapt between us. I had known nothing like this with other women. Her hands were in my hair, our bodies moving pliantly together. I slid my hand inside her gown, and her nipple sprang hard against my palm. Still kissing her, I tugged up the skirts of her gown. She touched me intimately, her fingers nimble on the fastening of my codpiece. I cupped her bottom in my hands and lifted her against me, and she flung her legs around me. Moaning, I entered her, knowing I couldn’t last. I felt her response, stopped her gasp with my mouth, and was lost forever. Mindful, I withdrew at the last moment, and completed her pleasure with my hand.
Trembling, I set her on her feet again. She leaned against me, holding me, and I felt her heart hammering.
‘My dear, Innogen, Jenny, never before... Nothing like this.’
‘No. Martin.’
I began to say something else, but we heard men approaching, a group of them laughing as they came up the stair. At once Innogen straightened her gown and hair, and became a respectable woman who had merely paused to speak to a friend.
‘Come to my room,’ I begged.
‘No. But you may come to my house the day after tomorrow. It’s in East Chepe.’
~~~
I had not realised she was rich. I had assumed that like me she was well-born but of small fortune, the orphaned ward of some courtier. Chastened, I looked up at the handsome house with its glazed windows and painted front, but had she been the Queen of Sheba desire would have taken me inside. A maid showed me into a parlour, and here again were all the signs of wealth, and of a taste new to me. Above the panelling the walls were painted with a frieze of twining flowers. Carpets the colour of jewels covered the floor. A livery cup-board held gold and silver plate of a quality the King might have envied, and there was a shelf of exquisite glassware. Two carved chairs flanked the fire – and of course chairs are common now, quite ordinary people have them these days, but back then few but the richest or grandest people sat on anything but stools or benches. A lute lay on the table beside a stand of books in Latin and French as well as English; nearly a dozen books. Most extraordinary of all, on the walls hung two paintings. They were quite unlike any I had ever seen; foreign, I could tell. In one, two gentleman played chess, the squares of the board echoing the black and white tiles of the floor, and I swear you could see every detail of the chess-men, and every hair of the fur of the dog at their feet. Behind them a lady sat sewing in the light from the window, and again I could have sworn the lady’s clothes and jewels were real, so cleverly were they worked. The other painting showed a hunting scene: courtiers and their ladies in beautiful, foreign clothes, and you looked over hills and valleys in which every leaf and blade of grass seemed to tremble in the spring breeze.
‘Flemish,’ said Innogen behind me, and for a moment I was too absorbed to turn to her. But only for a moment. I took her hand. ‘My father traded much with the Low Countries and France. Do you like the pictures?’
‘They’re beautiful. All your house is. Was it your father’s?’
‘Yes. He died three years ago. Would you care for wine?’
‘Thank you.’ And that too was of a quality I’d rarely known. ‘Did your father buy his wine in France?’
‘Often. So did my husband.’ She wore no wedding ring – that had been the first thing I’d looked for.
‘You’re a widow?’
‘Yes. For two years. More wine?’
‘No. But thank you.’ She reached for my empty glass, and our hands touched. Let me make it plain that from the first I liked Innogen, I wanted to know everything about her and be her friend; but I was so far gone in desire I had no mind to sit making polite conversation.
Nor, as it happened, had she. She leaned forward and kissed me, and then we were hurrying to her bedchamber. Here, I reached for her at once. She said, ‘No. Wait.’
‘I cannot.’
‘Oh yes you can. You’ll see.’ Smiling that curving little smile again, she stood back away from me and lifted her hands to her headdress. Those butterfly headdresses were all the rage then – a veil of transparent, stiffened gauze, intricately pleated over fine wire to stand up like a butterfly’s wings from the front of the head. It was a pretty style that I wish would come back – but I had never realised how many pins it took to hold them. And Innogen took her time about pulling out those pins and setting the veil aside. Then more pins, before her jewelled hennin cap was put on the table. She took off her shoes, then her belt, then her over-sleeves, and turned her back for me to unlace her gown. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly find the hook under the collar, and I nearly pulled the lacings into an impenetrable knot. I managed, however, and loosened the lacings until the gown’s own weight pulled it down off her shoulders and to the floor. She stepp
ed out of the pool of velvet and stood there in her lace-trimmed undergarments. I said, ‘Please...’ but she shook her head, smiling. Slowly, slowly, off came the two outer petticoats, and her smock was of lawn so fine she might as well have been naked. Then that too was off, and she stood there in nothing but her fine clocked stockings and black garters. God but she was beautiful – slender and finely made, rounded where it matters, her skin taut with the sheen of youth. Again I reached for her, and again she shook her head, smiling. Then one by one out came the pins that held her hair braided up on her head, until the whole glorious rippling red mass fell around her.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘now it is your turn.’ Of course I began to wrench at my clothes, but she put my hands aside and did it herself. And there were twenty tiny silk buttons fastening my jerkin, and six more on my doublet, and Innogen undid them one by one, slowly, her eyes never leaving mine, smiling. She unlaced my shirt, sliding her hands over my chest, then carefully untied the points fastening my hose to my doublet. And then everything came off, and there we were.
‘I knew you’d be beautiful,’ she said, running her hands from my shoulders to my thighs. ‘I knew from the moment I first saw you.’
‘And I you.’ I kissed her, then swung her up in my arms and carried her over to the bed. And if there had been pleasure before, in that quick fumbling in the gallery, now I truly understood what delight and passion are, and the picture that will forever be in my mind is of Jenny on top of me, the slender length of her, her hair falling down around us both as she kissed me, moving to work her passion out.
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