The King's Grace

by Anne Easter Smith

  “Aye,” he admitted ruefully. “She has put several forward, and even my bastardy does not seem to turn them away. I have learned that the good Duke Philip had twenty-three bastards—aye, three and twenty—here at court, but only one legitimate child, Duke Charles, who was Aunt Margaret’s husband. So we are in good company, it seems.” And they both laughed.

  “So you are not promised?” Grace asked.

  John grinned. “Nay, I am not. I told my aunt that I would only wed an Englishwoman, and she has not attempted to fob me off on anyone since. I am twenty years old and know I should think about a wife, but in the meantime…” he paused, spearing a piece of meat on his knife and waving it about. “In the meantime…”

  His smirk irritated Grace, who pushed away her trencher, got to her feet and exclaimed: “In the meantime, because women throw themselves upon you, you do not see the need. Is that what you would say?”

  John’s fork stopped midway to his open mouth as he stared at her and did not heed the milky gravy that ran down onto his sleeve.

  “You still take me for a green girl, John, when I am a grown woman and should have a husband of my own,” she declared, two pink spots appearing on her cheeks. “Why do you boast of your conquests in front of me?”

  John was at once contrite. “Forgive me, Grace.” He got to his feet and took her clenched fists in his own to stop them from trembling. “I would not hurt you for the world. You are the best friend a fellow ever had. Forgive me?”

  Henriette cleared her throat, and the pair sprang apart, remembering they were not alone. “Pardonnez-moi, Messire Jean, mais le repas refroidit,” she apologized, pointing at the food.

  MARGARET INSISTED GRACE stay at the palace that night and sent word to Pieter Gerards that he was to wait at the inn with Judith and Edgar until Grace was returned to his care. “I would read you a letter from a young protégé of mine after I have shown you the gardens and we have taken some fresh air. There has been plague in the city, I have heard, and my doctor allows me to walk only when ’tis not hot or cloudy, and then not at noontime. Now is perfect,” Margaret said after putting her head out of the window. “John, will you accompany us?”

  The carillon of St. Rumbold’s rang the None as the small group stepped into the formal gardens behind the residence. “I do like it here,” Margaret said, sniffing the air, which was perfumed with roses. “Ten years ago this month, I had just landed in England for the first time since my marriage.” She sighed, absently pulling petals from a half-spent rose. “I have not been since, but I fear ’tis not as I remember, and so I stay here.”

  John chuckled. “Aye, aunt. From all I hear, you would be most uncomfortable there, as it appears Henry looks upon you as the sharpest thorn in his side. I doubt he has forgiven you for the Lambert Simnel affair.”

  “But that was not all my doing, nephew!” Margaret retorted. “I lent my support, aye, but I knew the boy was a pretender from the start. Did you not see him? He had all the bearing of a kitchen lad—which is where he ended up, n’est ce pas? I hoped Lincoln and Lovell would be victorious and release the real Edward of Warwick from the Tower.” She looked around and, seeing only the requisite retinue of her own attendants trailing behind her, said low: “I have a far bigger burr to place under Henry’s saddle, when the time is right.”

  “Will you tease us, aunt, or spill the beans?” John asked boldly. Grace was in awe of his easy way of talking to their imposing aunt, but the duchess appeared to enjoy John’s familiarity.

  “Not so fast, nephew. My plan is not fully hatched, although, certes, you will play a part in it. Aye, I see that pleases you.” Margaret chuckled, and Grace saw that her aunt had lost several teeth. “As you may guess, the news that Dickon of York has been found must be significant to it. But I want Henry to chew on his nails for a good, long time once this rumor reaches him and before we act.”

  “You know where he is, don’t you, Aunt Margaret?” John gasped, and Grace trembled with excitement when she saw the answering smile.

  “I will say no more, impertinent boy,” the duchess retorted, “beyond that soon it will be put about that my nephew—he who all thought had perished with his brother in the Tower of London—is alive. That should put the fox among the hens,” she told them, rubbing her hands together. “Also, you should expect to go on a journey in the not-too-distant future, John, when the plans are ripe.” She turned to Grace. “And by giving Elizabeth my message about her son, you, too, will be playing your part. Let the rumors begin! We shall send you back to Master Gerards on the morrow, but I will insist he put you on a ship out of Antwerp. ’Tis faster from here. Now smile for me, child, it reminds me of my brother.”

  “Tell me more of him, I beg of you, your grace,” Grace said, hoping she was not breaking with court convention. “I never knew him, you see.”

  “I would have thought Elizabeth could have given you a more intimate portrait,” Margaret said, her eyes twinkling in her long oval face. She may not have been beautiful, Grace decided, but with her height, golden hair, creamy English skin and large gray eyes, she must have attracted attention when she was younger. “As his sister, I saw a different side to him, I am sure. He was brilliant in the early days, Grace, especially on the field of battle—a born commander, and his people loved him. We had some arguments in our day, and often he behaved like a child, but for all his magnanimity—especially in the case of our brother, George—you learned not to push him too far. I felt the lash of his tongue on more than one occasion,” she admitted with a rueful smile. Then she shook her head, her sapphire earbobs catching the light.

  “But he let himself and his people down with his choices sometimes, not the least of which was his choice of friends. Will Hastings encouraged the philanderer in Edward, in truth, and the drinking and eating to excess. The last time I saw him he was grossly fat, and he knew his humors were not in balance. It was three years before his death, but the signs of a decline were there for all to see. I know not if he thought he was immortal or he did not care, but the day he died, it was a blow to our family,” she said on a short, sardonic laugh, “and that is an understatement.” Her walk had slowed during this long speech and, shading her eyes with her hand, she pointed to a stone bench in a shady spot under a linden tree and made her way towards it. “Are you satisfied, Grace?” she asked kindly. “Is there aught more I can tell you?”

  “Lady Hastings is the queen dowager’s only other attendant, your grace, and she does not like me. The two only speak ill of their husbands, I am sorry to say, so I am glad to have another view of my father,” Grace told Margaret.

  “My dear child, ’tis not your character Katherine Hastings dislikes, ’tis the daily reminder of her husband’s—and Edward’s—inconstancy that irks her. She is a Neville, Grace, and in her eyes her family name was soiled by Will’s behavior. She is visiting her anger at her husband on you, ’tis all. I am sorry for you, my dear, and I hope Elizabeth treats you better.”

  John guffawed. “Aye, if you think keeping poor Grace locked away like a nun is kind.”

  “It is not our place to question the queen dowager’s actions, John,” Margaret said sternly and changed the subject. “Now, let us sit. I tire easily these days. My grandson Philip ran me ragged for many years after his dear mother died, but soon he will be ready to take on the mantle of majority and rule Burgundy instead of his father—if Maximilian will ever let him.” She sighed and sat down, arranging her patterned satin gown in graceful green and gold folds about her and inviting Grace and John to sit on the grass at her feet. The attendants gathered in a group at a respectful distance from their mistress, and Grace noticed that Henriette and her handsome husband stood a little apart in close conversation.

  Margaret drew a scroll from a velvet pouch on her belt and smoothed it flat. Then she took out a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles and held them up to her eyes while her two young companions waited, Grace picking a sprig of lavender and holding it to her nose.

  “The
greeting is the usual respectful salutation,” Margaret said, scanning the first few lines, “and I shall be translating this into English from French as I go, so forgive the clumsy reading.” She did not give her niece and nephew the writer’s name, nor did she say the letter was in code—not French at all—but as John and Grace sat at her feet, they could not see the words. “My protégé is learning to sail the ocean with his master, a Breton merchant,” she said, “and I thought his descriptions might impress you,”

  “When I am the lookout and at the highest point of the main mast, my feet lodged firmly in the rigging, the wind tearing at my hair, billowing my smock about me and trying to tug me loose from my perch, I feel at one with the ship, the waves and the very universe. Dare I say it, I am as close to God as any man on earth. You told me once I was the son of a boatman, and I truly believe I was born to be at sea. The first time I had to leave the safety of the deck, find footholds on the hundreds of knots in the rigging and see my fellow mariners become as ants below me, I did not think I had the fortitude to reach the tiny crow’s nest above the yardarm. Did you know there are crows up there, your grace? Every ship carries one or two in a cage, and one of the tasks of the lookout is to feed the birds. They are there so that when our ship stands out to sea, the sky is overcast and we cannot see the shore, the bird is let loose and flies straight in the direction of the land. The first time I saw this, it amazed me. The bird was not mistaken, nor are they ever, so says the mariner with whom I share my hammock.”

  “Can you not hear the wind in his words, feel the waves under his feet?” Margaret said proudly, lowering her spectacles. “He is indeed a poet.” She looked back down at the letter.

  “But the most awful and awesome experience by far is a tempest at sea. In the midst of the torrents of water poured upon us from the heavens, the rivers of seawater that swept all in their path over the decks, the flashes of lightning as bright as day and the cracks of thunder enough to deafen Neptune himself, I felt God all around us, and I was not afraid. It seemed to me I was being saved for a higher purpose than mere death by drowning in something as natural as a storm.”

  Grace crossed herself, but John’s focus was riveted on Margaret’s face and the writer’s imagery. “What higher purpose can there be than to die trying to survive God’s wrath, for surely that is what storms are—God’s wrath shown upon us poor sinners?” John whispered. “Methinks your protégé is a little too full of pride. But I agree, he is a poet.”

  Margaret looked peeved and her response was terse. “You do not know him to berate him thus, John. I know him like my—” She stopped herself. “Would you hear more, or no?”

  Grace was puzzled. Whoever this person is, Grace thought, watching her aunt intently, he means as much to her as any of us—her own family. She knew the dowager had borne no children of her own but that she had been like a mother to her stepdaughter, Mary. And then, upon Mary’s untimely death from a riding accident, Margaret had been given the charge of Mary’s two babes—Philip and another Margaret—by their father, Maximilian, who now ruled Burgundy as regent. It was said his step-grand-mother had more influence on Philip than his father had. These were Margaret’s surrogate children, as everyone knew, and when her namesake was taken from her at age three and sent to live with her future husband, Charles of France, she was brokenhearted. So, who was this man—a boatman’s son and a common mariner by all accounts, but one who could read and write? How Grace wished she were brave enough to ask, but etiquette forbade such questions of one of the most powerful women in the world at one of the most formal courts in Europe.

  “Certes, Aunt, we would hear more, and I beg your pardon,” John said dutifully.

  Margaret reached out and patted his hand. “I am not angry, John, just a little tired,” she lied. “There is only a line or two more that is of interest to you, my dears.”

  “We came to Cork in the green country of Ireland. Everywhere I go I am reminded of you. Your family is much beloved here, so my master, the merchant Meno, tells me. But they have an odd way of speaking and many only speak the Celt, so I am mostly content to stay quiet, watching and learning as Master Meno trades his cloth, and I scribble the accounts. ’Tis a strange thing, your grace, but when you tread on dry land again after many weeks at sea, your body wants to sway with the waves, and I find myself listing from side to side along the wharf as though it is heaving. They tell me it will pass in a few days, and I am hoping ’tis so, for it is disturbing and not at all amusing—except to those watching me.” Margaret folded the paper and laughed. “The first time I went on board ship was to come here for my marriage with Charles. I remember thinking I was born to be a sailor—for about an hour! And then I was not seen again, except with my face in a bucket, for a full day. And my dear Fortunata—my servant—could not go on the river in a barge without turning green.

  “Now, mes enfants, I think we should return to my apartments and I will challenge John to a game of chess. We need to find a place for Grace to lay her head tonight as well.” She rose and stretched her long torso from side to side, grimacing as she did so. “The bones are old and no longer move the way they should. But what would you two young people know about that?” she said, reaching her hands out to both of them. “Come, let us walk, and Grace shall give us news of my other nieces.”

  GRACE HAD TROUBLE sleeping that night, mostly due to the labored snores of the elderly attendant with whom she shared her bed. John’s face danced before her in the dark, and she indulged in fantasies as she tried to go to sleep. In her imagination, instead of pulling away from her on the settle that afternoon, he pulled her to him, whispering: “I wish with all my heart you were not my cousin so I could wed you tomorrow. Let us run away together to a distant shore and live in a cottage by a river. My love, my Grace, my little wren.” The thought of a river made her think of that scorching day by the Thames after Stoke, and she saw John again, water running off his strong young torso and his wet breeches clinging to his thighs. But this time he was coming towards her, his eyes full of love, his arms outstretched, and she went into them, lifting her face for his kiss. As John bent to her breast, which had somehow been freed from her bodice in her dream, a tingling sensation hardened her nipples and sent clear messages of desire through her entire body as she lay still in the bed. Take me, take me, she whispered to the dream John, but a snort from her bedmate jolted her from the fantasy and she gritted her teeth in frustration. It can never be, she told herself miserably. He does not love me, and we are first cousins. By the sweet Virgin, how many times have I hated being the bastard daughter of King Edward? But never so much as now, when I am denied the right to love his brother’s son. How cruel were the fates at my birth! How cruel God is! she railed silently, then crossed herself for her impiety.

  She must have kicked her bedmate in her anger because the woman stopped midsnore, muttered in her sleep and turned over, only to start the racket again. Grace giggled, turned away on her side and closed her eyes. She heard the watch call out an hour that sounded like “three” to her English ear, and willed herself to sleep for the two hours before cockcrow.

  GRACE GAVE MARGARET deep reverence after breaking her fast alongside her bedmate in a small hall reserved for Margaret’s ladies in waiting. Her stomach was still full from the rich food the night before and now, after the smoked herring, cheese and bread for breakfast, she thought she would not be able to eat for a week. It seemed to her that life was lived more extravagantly in Burgundy than in England—at least at the dowager duchess’s palace of Malines—and she marveled at the amount of gold leaf on the walls and ceilings, the diversity of dishes, the excessive fashion and even the water piped in to her washbasin in the attendants’ quarters.

  Margaret had given her several gold florins for her return journey, insisting that Gerards be compensated for his extra night at the inn. Judith and Edgar, too, would be paid from the duchess’s generous gift, “and the rest, my dear Grace, you should take as thanks from an old aunt who
enjoyed your company, if only for one day. From all you have told me, you will receive nothing for your years of service to Elizabeth, thanks to her miserly son-in-law. If Elizabeth’s health is as bad as you report, you must think of your own future when she—” She stopped when she saw Grace’s look of dismay and reached out to stroke the girl’s cheek. “It surprises me you have not had suitors for your hand, being that you are of royal stock and pretty as a gillyflower, in truth. If you were to stay here with me, I warrant I would find you a willing husband inside a sennight.”

  “I thank you, madame, but I am content to do my duty by her grace; she has been good to me,” Grace replied, carefully adding the coins to the remainder of her English nobles in the pouch under her bodice. A dumpy little man was approaching, whose face might have served as a model for one of the gargoyles that leered down from the roof of Bermondsey. Grace waited to be dismissed, but Margaret turned and greeted him like an old friend.

  “Ah, Messire de la Marche, veuillez attender un moment, s’il vous plaît,” she said. Her chamberlain bowed and withdrew to the window. “And now, my duty calls, Grace. You have my message for Elizabeth committed to memory, I hope, and rest assured I shall write to my niece, young Bess, and make sure she takes better care of her mother—without revealing my source, bien sûr,” she added, seeing Grace’s consternation. “I wish you God speed, and for the journey to Antwerp, you shall have a small escort.” She put out her hand for Grace to kiss and said in a louder voice, “Farewell, Mistress Peche. I pray you give my greeting to Sir Edward, your uncle. My nephew, Lord John, will see you reach Heer Gerards safely.”

  Grace murmured her farewells and, feeling John take her elbow, backed away to the door. The last glimpse she got of her aunt was of the tall dowager bending down to plant an affectionate kiss on her wolfhound Lancelot’s massive head.

  “I may see you sooner than you think, little wren,” John murmured as they walked through the antechamber to the large hall beyond, where Gerards was waiting. “Our lady aunt has work for me in England—or perhaps Scotland, where my old master, Lovell, now is. There have been many Flemish vessels sailing back and forth between here and Scotland ever since James came to the throne. I am anxious to be gone from this court and back home to England. But as I left in disgrace, I shall have to be careful.” He smiled down at her. “If I need help, I know where to go,” he said, pressing her hand. “Now, which one is your Pieter Gerards?”