The Sun in Splendour (The Plantagenets Book 6)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Bess, her mind full of Arthur Plantagenet's story, kept thinking of herself and Edward. He too had bastards, she was sure, and now she was the more thankful that she had not borne him one. There were also various matters to settle with Humphrey's steward, and she stayed in Kent longer than she had intended. Finally the third letter from Thomas asking for her return had to be obeyed, but it was May when she at last came back to the London house that was now officially John's but where she and Thomas still lived.

  He was in the upstairs solar overlooking the street and seeing her ride in ran down to lift her from the saddle himself. ‘You have been away too long,’ was his opening greeting. ‘You are too near your time for the discomfort of a journey all the way from Kent.’

  His concern touched her and then she thought that after all it was probably mainly for the child. ‘I have come to no harm,’ she said lightly. ‘It is not usual to find you here at this time of day.’

  ‘It was not my turn of duty with the King,’ he said abruptly, ‘and I could stomach the court no more today. I suppose you have heard the news?’

  ‘News? What news?’ she demanded. ‘We have heard nothing on the way.’

  He glanced at Annette and lifted the girl down, but after kissing her sent her into the house. Then he offered Bess his arm and led her up to their solar without speaking further. There she stripped off her gloves. ‘What is it, Thomas? Tell me.’

  ‘It is the Duke of Clarence. He was arrested yesterday.’

  ‘Arrested?’ Bess turned to stare at him in astonishment. ‘What has he done now?’

  Thomas threw himself into the chair where he had once sat, to her indignation, to begin his courtship of her.

  ‘It is scarcely credible,’ he began, ‘but it seems it is true. The Duke accused some wretched woman of poisoning his wife. It was nonsense for the woman had been in the Duchess's service for years and was devoted to her, but still the Duke seized all her jewels and goods, gifts from the Lady Isabel over the years, and then dragged her from her home in Somerset all the way to Warwick. That was bad enough, for he had no right to do it, but there was worse to come for he bribed a jury, without real proof, and had her hanged all in the space of an hour or two.’

  ‘Good God,’ Bess said. She thought again of Arthur Plantagenet and all he had told her. Was the world to be always filled with hatred and betrayal and cruelty, with no room for peace or kindliness? ‘But why? What reason had he to do such a thing?’

  ‘God knows. There is more to it than we shall ever know. There are even rumours of a plot, hatched in Clarence's own household, to kill the King by sorcery. Maybe this woman was aware of it. I wouldn't put it past Clarence to use any means, however despicable, to dispose of Edward.’

  ‘His own brother?’

  ‘When has he ever cared for anyone but himself? And witnesses say he has been putting it about that he is the true heir, not Edward.’

  ‘That old scandal again?’ Bess asked scornfully. ‘Surely no one would listen to that now.’

  ‘There are always those ready to listen for their own advancement. Clarence blackened his mother's name once before and he has not hesitated to do it again, nor to spread another rumour – that the King was not legally wed to the Queen.’

  ‘That is wild talk, for he was not there and I was.’

  ‘You were there?’ he asked in surprise. ‘You never told me that.’

  She wanted to say that there was a great deal she had not and never would tell him, but she merely said, ‘I was at Grafton that day and would vouch for what I know before the throne of God Himself.’

  ‘Well, no one believes the tale,’ Thomas said, ‘but his grace is furious. He accused his brother before the whole Council of plotting to seize the throne, and there were high words between them, I can tell you.’

  ‘Jesu!’ Bess said. She remembered the day at Clarence's house, the Duke's hand on her wrist, the vicious expression on his face, and Anne in a kitchen wench's apron in that foul laundry. ‘I am glad,’ she said fiercely, ‘glad we are rid of him. Where is he now?’

  ‘In the Tower where he awaits the King's pleasure.’

  For a moment they sat in silence. Bess felt the child move in her womb and laid her hand on her stomach, thinking of Isabel and her dead babe, and the poor hanged woman. ‘What will Edward do?'' she asked at last.

  ‘I know no better than you,’ was Thomas's answer. ‘But it cannot be an easy thing to condemn a brother to death.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘You cannot do it, Edward!' Of all those gathered in the Duchess Cicely's solar at Baynards Castle, Richard of Gloucester was the first to speak since the reading of the letter that still lay in Edward's hand.

  ‘Do you think I want to?’ The King's face was drawn, his eyes half shut below drawn brows. ‘But what do you suggest? That I set George free to pursue his devilry yet again? He has insulted our mother, dared to question my own marriage, to call my sons bastards. When – when has he ever cared one jot for any of us?’

  ‘He is our brother.’

  ‘And my son.’ The Duchess spoke through stiff lips. She was very pale and this last blow had aged her as nothing else had done. Her brother-in-law Henry Earl of Essex set a hand on her shoulder and she went on, ‘George has lain in prison seven months now. Oh,’ she saw Edward's expression, ‘do not think I am not hurt by his wickedness, that he should yet again accuse me of wantonness when I was young – and so much in love with your father that I scarcely ever left his side? George has a cruel tongue and greed for what is not his. I've always known it, but he had only to smile and –’ She broke off, put jewelled hands before her face and the tears trickled through them.

  Anne of Gloucester came at once and knelt by her chair. ‘Dear madame, don't distress yourself. The King will find a way, even now.’

  The Duchess of Suffolk, sitting upright opposite her weeping mother, said tartly, ‘If he does then he is cleverer than the rest of us. Anyway I'd not have thought you wanted to save George's neck.’

  ‘It is Christian to forgive,’ Anne said with a simplicity that had no trace of smugness.

  ‘Of course,’ Richard agreed. ‘Good God, why do we talk of killing? You have enough fortresses, Edward, to keep George secure.’

  ‘And have him plotting again? I have forgiven him a dozen times and still he schemes against me,’ the exasperated King retorted. ‘And there is more behind all this than you know, any of you.’ He stopped abruptly, closing his lips on further disclosures.

  ‘If there is more then we should hear it.’

  ‘It would avail you nothing,’ Edward said. ‘I am surprised at you, Dickon, after the way he treated you that you should defend him.’

  ‘The past is done. And even in the face of this present black business you cannot send him to his death.’

  The Duchess lowered her hands, shuddering. ‘No, indeed.’

  ‘Dear Aunt Cicely,’ the Duke of Buckingham, the youngest member of the royal family there, spoke up from his place by the door where he leaned with arms folded, ‘if any other subject of the King's committed half George's crimes there could be only one sentence. Why should his grace of Clarence be exempt from what would see lesser men hanged?’

  The Duchess looked at him with acute dislike. She considered him vain and silly, far too wealthy for his own good and too near the throne for anyone's comfort. ‘Your opinion, Harry, is of very little moment. Edward, are you sure King Louis has ground for what he says?’

  ‘I am as sure as I can be. Louis likes to score a point off me and this is his best yet, but he would not do it if there were not some truth in it. He has spies enough, God knows, and they assure him Clarence has been writing to our sister, to Mary of Burgundy and a number of others, saying that if Mary will marry him he will have the means to seize my crown. Louis even says the Earl of Oxford is raising men for George in Holland.’

  ‘There, you see!’ Buckingham broke in. ‘Oxford should have been secure enough locked in Hammes Castle
but he got out by jumping into the moat – it's a thousand pities he didn't break his neck. Where could you keep Cousin George that he would have no chance of escape?’

  Edward began to pace up and down, his distress patent. His other sister, once Duchess of Exeter and now more happily Lady St. Leger, said, ‘You are importunate, Harry. Do you imagine the King wants a brother's blood on his hands?’

  ‘He's a proven traitor,’ Buckingham retorted, ‘and I doubt the lords of this realm will have any qualms as to what must be done.’

  ‘That is a different matter,’ Lord Essex said austerely. ‘Of course the whole case must come before Parliament if there is to be an Act of Attainder.’

  ‘As there must be,’ Richard said, ‘but that is not necessarily a death warrant. For myself, I've had little cause to love George of late, nor has my wife, but I can't forget he is one of us. Mother, Edward and I would not have had you hurt thus for anything nor would I see your sorrow increased.’

  ‘I know.’ She reached out a hand to him. ‘Merciful Virgin, what are we to do?’

  Lady St. Leger said, ‘Pardon him, Edward. At least give him his life if not freedom. We all see he cannot have that.’

  ‘There are too many who don't wish him to have his life,’ Buckingham pointed out. ‘You forget, all of you, that the Queen and her kin are against any reprieve. I imagine his grace must listen to what they have to say.’

  ‘Of course I listen to the Queen's opinion,’ Edward said sharply. ‘She thinks only of my welfare.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you must not be influenced by the rest of the Woodvilles who would like to see more of us out of the way, I doubt not,’ the Duchess said. ‘This is a personal matter, Edward, a family matter.’

  ‘No, Mother,’ he broke in, though his tone was more gentle, ‘it is far more than that. It is the country's peace that is threatened. George has caused more trouble than all the rest of my subjects put together. What I am going to do with him, I don't know – I wish to God I did. But I know this – I can never trust him again.’

  Richard came and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Edward, remember our boyhood at Ludlow – the three of us and the japes we played.’

  ‘We are not children now, nor are George's crimes to be punished by a beating as they were then.’

  ‘No, but I beg only for his life. Edward, for God's sake!’

  The King looked at them all, at his mother's pale face, the tears still on her cheeks, at one sister made cynical by years of unhappiness, the other who had always been so jealous of George's dominance over their eldest sister Margaret, at truculent Buckingham, at his uncle Essex, old and wise and yet without a solution to offer, and lastly at Richard, that most loyal of brothers. For a moment his figure slumped in the chair, his stomach pressing over his belt, the long sleeves of his gown trailing to the floor. Then he straightened. ‘Parliament will judge George, not I, though God help me I must accuse him. But it won't be until they meet in January.’

  There was a long silence in the room, different emotions warring in those present. Buckingham broke it at last, saying in his shallow way to no one in particular, ‘Dear God, what a cheerful Christmas we are going to have!’

  It seemed to Bess, safely delivered during the summer of a healthy boy, that a gloom hung over them all. Clarence, always a source of annoyance, always drunk at festivals, nevertheless was in the minds of his family, the knowledge that he lay not far away in the Tower, his life in the balance, making the King unusually morose, Richard silent. Only the Queen was cheerful and kept some sort of merriment going supported by her own kin. It was the Marquess of Dorset who finally roused Edward, calling the usher again and again to fill the King's cup, and thrusting himself between Lord Hastings and the King on every possible occasion. And when on St. Stephen's Day the King rode off into the city, it was Dorset and a party of young blades who accompanied him to a supper at the house he had bought for Mistress Shore.

  ‘How William dislikes that young man and his foolish friends,’ Catherine Hastings said to Bess. ‘William has been the King's companion these twenty years and now his own son-in-law pushes him aside. It makes me so angry.’

  ‘Nothing is as it was,’ Bess agreed, but she had been less unhappy this summer than before. Her little son, whom she had named Edward after the King, was a fine child and the King had stood godfather to him. Robert and Elysia were married and both remained in her service, Robert now as her steward. Somehow she was growing used to Thomas and nothing hurt quite as it did. It must be the passing of time, she thought, and reflected that she would soon be thirty years old. She was constantly busy, often at court and with many friends to entertain at home, and her greatest pleasure was the astonishing spectacle of John turning into a scholar. She owed that to Lord Rivers, and however unpopular the Woodville family might be she would not forget that. Catherine disliked them all, with the possible exception of Anthony, and Lord Hastings had turned more and more to friendship with the Howards.

  ‘I am glad Christmas is over,’ Catherine was saying. She had grown thin and angular with the years and wore a tall head-dress which did not become her. ‘There was little enough cheer about it, but there must be less in this coming wedding to please you.’

  Bess smiled. ‘I am not in the least upset, I promise you. A child espousal is always pretty and Prince Richard is welcome to his little bride as far as I am concerned, though I am afraid Thomas does not like it.’

  ‘Of course he does not. He wanted Norfolk's heir for your Tom, did he not? Giving Anne Mowbray and the dukedom to the Prince takes Lord Howard even further from the prospect of enjoying his cousin's patrimony. Yet I will say if he feels resentment he does not show it at court.’

  ‘No, he does not show it,’ Bess agreed. ‘But he hates it all the same. He is a – a very strong-willed man.’

  ‘And not the easiest of fathers-in-law. Well, what shall you wear to the bridals?’

  They settled into talk of gowns and jewels and it was not long after Catherine had gone that Thomas returned home. The grim look of the last days seemed lifted and he told her with considerable pleasure that he was to be knighted tomorrow. ‘At least now I shall be Sir Thomas and you will be Lady Howard.’

  ‘I am very glad – for you.’

  The pause, unintentional, stung him. ‘Oh? It makes no difference to you, I suppose. You have been ‘my lady’ before.’

  She saw that she had injured him, spoilt his pleasure, that it was a moment when she might make amends. ‘Thomas, I did not mean that. Indeed, I rejoice for us both.’

  A dusky colour rose up under his skin. ‘You called me Thomas,’ he said. ‘You have never done that before. Does my knighthood make so much difference?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she made a helpless gesture, ‘why do I always say what is wrong to you – or why do you always seem to misunderstand me? Pride has nothing to do with it. I saw that I had offended you and indeed it is a great thing that you have got your spurs.’

  He stood before her, hands behind his back in his usual manner. ‘I wonder how much you really care? We have shared our bed and our table for near six years. We have two healthy sons and two babes in their graves – yet we are as far apart as ever.’

  ‘Apart?’ She raised her brows. ‘We are no different from most couples.’

  ‘Oh, we are,’ he retorted coldly. ‘I told you once at Middleham how I felt and I hoped you would change, but you have not.’

  ‘I am sorry if I have failed you as a wife,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I have tried –’

  ‘Tried! If you have to try then it must be hard indeed to be my wife.’ He stalked out of the room.

  She sat where she was as dusk fell, all the careful endeavour of the last year or two broken once more. And she had no idea, now, how to mend it. Nor was the atmosphere in the house conducive to a reconciliation, for Lord Howard stormed round and delivered himself of an angry speech.

  ‘So this is how I am repaid! That boy will have everything that should have been min
e. I am Norfolk's cousin. I have Mowbray blood and the best right in the world. The girl should have wed Tom – what need has the King's son of her lands?’

  ‘It is a harsh blow,’ Thomas agreed. ‘You deserved better from the King, sir.’

  ‘It is the Queen's doing,’ Lord Howard retorted. ‘She will seize everything for brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, anyone with her blood which, as God sees me, is poor stuff compared to that which flows in Mowbray veins. But we are not done for yet. The boy is young and the girl sickly. With good fortune Jockey Howard may yet become Jockey of Norfolk.’

  Such ruthless ambition sickened Bess and she left them to talk, going up to the nursery where Aline, who had borne Fitchett a daughter, was acting as wet-nurse to both her own and Bess's babe. She looked at the girl's rosy happy face as she suckled an infant at either breast and wondered if she would have been happier had she been born to lesser estate.

  The wedding of the King's second son to the little heiress was celebrated with every possible luxury that could be devised. She was escorted to St. Stephen's church by Lord Rivers and the Duke of Suffolk's son, the Earl of Lincoln, and there Gloucester and Buckingham led her in. She was given away by the King and long before the feasting came to an end both children had fallen asleep and were carried away, Anne by her nurse and four-year-old Richard by the King himself.

  Thomas was duly knighted and acquitted himself well at the next day's tournament, riding under his newly clipped banner with its silver crosses set on a red ground.

  ‘How clever he is,’ Annette said rapturously. ‘Did you see, Mother, how he brought down Sir Richard Grey?’

  But the tournament was dominated by the Woodvilles, Anthony setting up a glamorous pageant for the opening, and the festivities lasted all day. They ended with a magnificent supper at which the King began to talk of further weddings.