‘Oh, I listen,’ he said and bent to kiss her. ‘Especially to you.’
‘And then go your own way,’ she finished. ‘But beware of stirring up trouble with your plans for Elizabeth's family.’
Bess, when she heard of Sir John Woodville's forthcoming marriage to the aged Duchess of Norfolk, was horrified. Elizabeth talked in a satisfied manner of the lady's considerable marriage portion and laughed at the consternation on Bess's face.
‘He can find a mistress for his pleasure,’ she said. ‘I assure you he is very well satisfied with the arrangement.’
That evening at supper Bess found herself looking, as were not a few others, first at the stripling John Woodville and then at his future bride, wrinkled and elderly, a chain of rubies about her lined neck, and a stick nearby for her use when she needed to rise from her seat. She gave an involuntary shudder, imagining what their wedding night would be.
A voice beside her asked if she were cold and passed her a flagon of wine. She shook her head but took some of the wine. She was sitting next to Sir John Howard, a place she would not have chosen if she could have spoken quietly to the usher. John Howard was not tall but a big man and strong, with a large hooked nose, dark hair cut squarely about his face and a dark moustache. He had recently been made Treasurer of Edward's household and was frequently to be seen striding about the King's residences followed by a clerk with account books under his arm. He talked to Bess of his recent visit to her father and the state of affairs in Norfolk where he was sheriff and knight of the shire at Parliament. He and the Paston family had quarrelled violently over this last appointment and Bess, who had known the Pastons all her life, took their side, sympathizing with them when, through his cousin the Duke of Norfolk's influence, Howard had triumphed.
‘Your father keeps well,’ he said, ‘but begs you to visit him soon. I told him plainly 'tis a pity you've no sisters for an alliance with our two families would be no ill thing and Tom must have a wife before too long.’
She glanced across at his son. Thomas Howard was very like his father, but clean-shaven. He seemed to her to have no court speech and once when they had danced together, though he danced well, he had found nothing to say but: ‘I trust you keep in good health, Dame Bourchier,’ which hardly opened up a conversation. She turned now to Anthony Woodville who sat on her other side. He talked easily and entertainingly, gave her a racy description of a book he had recently received from France and promised to lend it to her. She found him by far the most pleasant of the Queen's brothers, for she thought Richard dull, Edward with nothing in his head but ships, and John with nothing in his head at all.
Presently the King's jester appeared at the end of the hall, pausing dramatically and ringing the many bells on the end of his bright red and yellow staff. His doublet was of the same two colours, his yellow hose rolled up to the knees and his feet bare.
‘Your pardon, ladies and noble lords,’ he cried. ‘I fear I come late to entertain you but I had to wade through rivers to get here!’
There was a sudden and complete silence. Everyone present turned towards the high table to see how royalty would take this jibe. The Queen's usual soft colouring had turned to dusky red and one hand clenched on her napkin. For a moment it seemed as if the jest would misfire, bringing down the King's wrath on the perpetrator's head, and Bess stared in some apprehension at Edward. There were one or two hastily stifled sounds and then suddenly Edward threw back his head and roared with laughter so that the rest of the court felt free to indulge their mirth. A wintry smile was forced on to Elizabeth's face and Bess, unable to restrain her own amusement, heard the King say, ‘A good joke, my love, but our rivers will flow despite the envious ones on the banks, eh?’
‘You may find more people on the banks than you bargain for,’ Clarence retorted in a spurt of belligerence.
‘Oho!’ From his place beside Bess Anthony leaned forward, still laughing himself, too secure for such a barb to do more than glance off his gorgeous costume. ‘Are you jealous, George?’
‘Jealous? Of what?’ Clarence demanded. ‘The King's brothers have no need to be jealous of any man, or woman either.’ He nudged his younger brother. ‘Well, Dickon?’
The Duke of Gloucester, sitting quietly at his meat, had indeed a slight smile on his lips, but he raised his serious grey eyes now to look, not at Clarence but at Edward. ‘Who heeds what a fool says?’ was his ambiguous answer.
‘By God!’ Edward threw down his knife and flicked a finger towards his cup. An usher hastened to fill it and as he picked it up he went on, ‘We have a wise head among us, it seems. You shall ride with me tomorrow to Eltham, Dickon.’
In the summer a joust was held at Smithfield for the Bastard of Burgundy to meet Anthony's challenge. Bess and Humphrey were present in the royal stand. They had a second daughter now, baptized Margaret. Bess was not unnaturally disappointed and the Queen, pregnant again herself and confident of providing the much-needed male heir this time, was gentler and more like the old Elizabeth, sending a present of a silver cup to the babe. She was not far from her time and must, Bess thought, have found it far from comfortable sitting in the warm sunshine, but nothing would have kept her from being carried in a litter from her house nearby to watch her brother.
London was full of foreign visitors, many Burgundians among them, and the vast audience watched enthralled as the two most famous jousters in Europe fought first on horseback and then on foot. Steel rang against steel as they battered at each other, both equally brilliant, and finally the herald, somewhat to the disappointment of the vociferous Londoners, called a draw. Afterwards there was a splendid and lengthy feast to round off the whole affair, but in the midst of this a dusty messenger arrived with the news that the aged Duke Philip was dead. The feast broke up and the Burgundians hastened home.
King Edward went that evening to the Queen's house, knowing that his sister Margaret was there. ‘The marriage must be settled at once,’ he said, ‘now that Charles is Duke in his father's place. You shall be Duchess, my sister, when Charles's mourning time is over.’
Margaret, tall and with a share of Edward's abounding energy, rose and came to him. ‘I will do whatever you wish.’
He threw his arm about her shoulder and kissed her forehead. ‘I know. Between us we shall keep France at bay. You will have a great position and great wealth. I pray that Charles will not be too ill a mate.’
The Queen handed her embroidery to Bess. ‘His portrait would not encourage me to sail across the Thames, let alone the sea, to him.’
‘My love,’ the King said affectionately, ‘a marriage such as ours is rarely achieved among the noble heads of Europe.’
‘I am not in the least afraid of doing my duty,’ Margaret remarked. ‘Be sure, Edward, I shall secure my future stepdaughter's hand for George. Duke Charles will find he has a wife who knows her own mind.'
Elizabeth rose. ‘I must change my dress before supper. You will stay, Edward? Bess, come with me.’ And in her chamber, with the door shut, she said with unusual vehemence, ‘I am much relieved Margaret is going. We do not get on. And if she can rid me of Clarence as well I shall be the more pleased.’
A week later the Earl of Warwick arrived home from France bringing a number of French envoys with him.
‘I was not aware,’ Edward said coolly, ‘that I had invited King Louis to send these gentlemen.’
‘I invited them,’ Warwick answered. ‘My meetings with King Louis have shown me we have much to discuss.’
‘Oh?’ Edward looked down from his superior height. ‘Then pray discuss, my lord, I am going to Windsor.’
He went to the antechamber, spoke to the envoys with icy politeness and then left the bewildered Frenchmen, who clearly thought the Earl of Warwick the power in the land, to be entertained by their sponsor.
Elizabeth laughed when told of it. ‘You have my lord of Warwick's measure, Edward.’
‘I never wanted to quarrel with him,’ the King answered. ‘Tha
t is what you will not understand. I owe my throne to his strength. But I have to make him see I am no longer the beardless youth he took under his wing when our fathers were slain at
Wakefield.’
‘And when you have your heir it will make all secure,’ she added.
But her child, born some six weeks later, was another daughter. She refused to look at it and burst into a paroxysm of weeping. Bess sponged her hot face and held her hands.
‘Your grace – Elizabeth – oh my dear, don't weep so. You will have a son one day, only be patient. God is good.’
Elizabeth's teeth were clenched in her rage and frustration. ‘Then He is slow about it. Holy Cross, did I not pray enough, light enough candles, pay for enough Masses? And you, of all people, to tell me that!’
‘Don't despair – I do not.’ Bess had sympathetic tears in her own eyes. ‘Come, drink this, it will soothe you.’
Edward did not let his disappointment show. He bent to kiss his wife and said, ‘We'll have a boy yet, dear heart. Let us call this little one Mary for Our Blessed Lady and maybe she will smile on us next time.’
As he sat beside Elizabeth, talking with so much kindness, calming her grief, Bess turned away. Lady Scrope was watching the midwife attend to the child and Bess busied herself with preparing the cot. It was hard for Edward, she thought, yet here he was, kind and considerate, holding his Queen's hand, his large frame and gleaming head dominating the room. She knelt by the cot and when the midwife placed the babe in her arms laid the tiny girl in it. This was his child, born of his love. Other women had known that love, it was even whispered already that he had other mistresses despite his devotion to Elizabeth, and for one moment Bess thought that she would have endured anything to have felt, just once, his arms about her, his desire for her. With a deep sigh she thrust the foolish dream away and began to rock the cradle.
CHAPTER FOUR
Coming home in the summer of '69 it seemed to Bess that little had changed at Ashwellthorpe. The shadows of tall trees slanted across the grass, sheep grazed quietly, there were doves in the dovecot and Bess went up the steps of the house into her father's arms. He lifted four-year-old Annette and kissed her cheek, though Margaret at two was shy and clung to her mother's skirts. Instead he took the baby from the arm of the nurse who had ridden pillion behind Wat Sable.
‘A fine lusty boy!’ Sir Frederick exclaimed. ‘And the image of you, Bess.’ He kissed the soft round head, and handed the boy back to his nurse. ‘Come in, come in, my dear. Your mother is waiting to see our grandson. Humphrey must be delighted, and my lord Berners.’
Annette ran about the hall exclaiming at the weapons hanging on the wall, the banner which had seen service at Agincourt with Sir Frederick's father, while Lady Tilney after a hurried kiss bestowed on her daughter, began to question the nurse closely on her care of the boy child so eagerly welcomed into the family.
For a while there was a general bustle with Bess's baggage being unloaded from the packhorses and carried into the house. The children had to be settled, her unpacking done, and there was little chance of real conversation until after supper in the small solar over the great entrance porch. There she perched herself on a familiar ledge by the window so that she could watch the sunset and see the shadows lengthen on the grass. As always the beauty of the place reached out to her as nowhere else.
‘I am glad to be home,’ she said contentedly. ‘The old dovecot looks in need of repair.’
Her father nodded. ‘Aye, much needs to be done this summer, but I fear you have come at an uneasy time. The county is unsettled and so I believe is a great deal of our poor country.’
‘I know. There is plague in London.’ Bess shivered. ‘A man fell dead on the very steps of our house and just the sight of him made me sick. I could not keep the children there.’
‘No indeed,’ her mother agreed. ‘But surely the court has moved away?’
‘The Queen is at Windsor but the King is on his way here, and Humphrey with him.’
‘Here?’ Sir Frederick was astounded. ‘To Ashwellthorpe? Can it be that he comes to settle our troubles here in Norfolk?’
‘What troubles?’ Bess asked.
‘Why, the Duke of Norfolk and Sir John Paston are quarrelling still. Sir John's mother is distraught because the King's own brother-in-law Suffolk allowed his men to wreck the manor of Hellesdon which he claimed but she has a right to.’
Bess smiled. ‘Lady Paston is not the woman to allow such an outrage to go unchallenged, and the Duke of Suffolk may well regret his men's folly. But the King is coming to settle greater issues than that.’
‘Do you say so?’ her father asked. ‘I thought the need was in the north. We heard that some mad fellow is causing a disturbance in Yorkshire.’
‘And the King needs men to rally to his standard. But he wants to visit Walsingham first.’
Sir Frederick nodded. ‘To show he asks for God's blessing before he deals with such rebels?’
‘Perhaps,’ Bess said. She looked down at her feet in their red leather shoes. ‘And maybe to pray for a son.’
‘Ah,’ Lady Tilney said with some satisfaction. ‘The Queen is not so fortunate as you, my dear. I am sure Lord Berners is pleased that you have given the boy his name.’
‘Humphrey wanted it so,’ Bess explained, ‘and at little John's baptism Lord Berners actually made a speech. Well, two sentences anyway.’
Sir Frederick smiled. ‘Then he must have been profoundly moved.’
‘But,’ his wife broke in impatiently, ‘did you say, Bess, that the King comes here to stay under our roof? If that is so I am sure I do not know why we are sitting here doing naught.’
‘He means to be here one day for dinner, that is all,’ Bess explained, ‘before he rides on to Norwich. One of the Chamberlain's men will ride ahead and let us know which day.’
‘Is Lord Hastings with the King then?’
‘Yes, and Earl Rivers with my lord Anthony and Sir John Woodville, and my lord of Gloucester too.’
‘And the Duke of Clarence?’ Sir Frederick was surprised by the omission of the King's next brother.
Bess clasped her hands about her knees and turned away from the window and the growing dusk. ‘Father, don't you know? He will do nothing for the King now. He scowls and glares at any of the Queen's relations and friends, he cares only for my lord of Warwick and he is determined to marry the Earl's daughter Isabel even though the King says he shall not.’
‘Foolish fellow to defy his brother,’ Sir Frederick said. ‘Anyway they are first cousins, are they not?’
‘Aye, but my lord of Warwick is trying to gain a dispensation for them. And it is worse than foolish,’ Bess went on. ‘The Duke of Clarence is with the Earl in Kent. Rumour says they are there to raise men for the King against this trouble in the north, but everyone doubts that. The Earl of Oxford is with them and it is known he hates the Queen and the King too, I think.’
‘Merciful God!’ Lady Tilney exclaimed. ‘I thought with the old King shut in the Tower to mumble his prayers all day the country was safe enough. Are we to have bloodshed all over again? My Lord of Warwick was Edward's man and with so strong a King upon the throne –’
‘The King is too strong,’ Bess agreed. ‘Humphrey says that is the cause of it. They are bound to clash.’
‘I mislike it all,’ Sir Frederick said gloomily, ‘and meanwhile we squabble here among ourselves in Norfolk. My lord Montagu kept good order in Northumberland since he was made Earl there – yet now they say this fellow Redesdale is running wild in York and has more men behind him than a few spears. The King shall have every man I can spare though it is a bad time with so much work to be done in the fields.’
Two days later, hearing in the manner that country news travelled that Lady Bourchier was at Ashwellthorpe, Margaret Paston called with her son, the younger John. She was a handsome woman, always vigorous, and she came in with a firm step, her son behind her. ‘Dame Bourchier, welcome home,’ she sa
id formally and then went straight to the main point of her visit. ‘I come to ask your husband 's intercession on our behalf. It has come to a poor state of things when country gentlemen can be set upon by noble dukes and have no redress for it.’ She looked sharply at Bess. ‘The King comes this way, does he not? We fell in with one of Sir John Howard's men and he says they are mustering to join his grace at Norwich.’
‘Pray sit down,’ Lady Tilney said, ‘and take some wine, my dear Lady Paston. I'm sure my son-in-law will do all he can for one of our oldest friends.’
Both determined women who had had many a dispute in the past, they were now united in their dislike of the Duke of Norfolk. Bess turned to their other guest. ‘Master John, I am pleased to see you again. It seems such a long time since I was here, though of course I have seen your brother once or twice.’
‘John likes London,’ he said. He was an ordinary young man, not ill-looking, with thick light brown hair that tended to flop over his face and an earnest manner that Bess preferred to his brother's conceit.
‘I wish he would return,’ their mother remarked. ‘I hear there is plague in London.’ ‘Worse than plague,’ Sir Frederick said. ‘Treachery, from all I hear. But the King will get all to rights. Pray stay with us until he comes, my lady, and some noble lord will speak for you, I am sure.’
‘The Earl of Oxford has always –’ John began, but Bess interrupted.
‘The Earl is with my lord of Warwick in Kent.’
‘Oh?’ John looked both surprised and cast down until Bess spoke kindly to him, promising Humphrey would do all he could to aid them. John caught her hand, putting it to his lips. He held it longer than he need and Bess released herself. ‘How is your sister Margery? It is long since I saw her.’
‘Don't speak of that disobedient girl,’ Lady Paston begged. ‘She imagines herself in love – in love if you please, as if that counted in choosing a husband – and with our steward! I have beaten her until she is black with bruises but all she will say is that she will have Master Calle.’
The Sun in Splendour (The Plantagenets Book 6) Page 6
