‘I'll give Elizabeth to Louis's son,’ he said rashly, ‘Mary to be Queen of Denmark and Cecily perhaps to marry James of Scotland. Catherine might be plighted to Castile.’ He emptied his goblet and called for more. ‘Crowns for all our daughters, eh, my love? We spoke of it once before, long ago.’
‘Nothing less,’ the Queen agreed, ‘and a suitable bride must be found for Edward now that his brother is provided for and may live off his own.’
‘Come,’ Edward called out, and belched, ‘drink a toast, gentlemen, to my lovely daughters.’ He raised his cup, the princesses smiling and blushing and their grandmother, the Duchess Jaquetta, looking on with pride.
For a while the ghost of Clarence had been forgotten, but no one at the feast was unaware that Parliament was even then debating the Duke's indictment.
Lord Howard came a few days later to his son's house. ‘It is done,’ he said. ‘How could anyone pardon a man accused of so much? There was even a document produced bearing the seal of the late King swearing to make Clarence his heir if Henry's own son died. What more proof of treachery did we need?’
‘He is found guilty?’ Thomas asked.
‘Aye, as I predicted. Buckingham is made Seneschal of England and pronounced the sentence. He loves the sound of his own voice, that young man, and relished the doing of it.’
As her father-in-law talked Bess sat looking at her plate, the steaming meat, the fresh baked bread. She had loathed Clarence ever since his cruelty to Anne and his bitter enmity towards Richard, yet the thought of the King's own brother being executed filled her with a kind of horror.
‘Will he die?’ she asked.
‘Most certainly,’ Lord Howard said. ‘Not one man in the Commons or among the peers spoke up for him, but how it will be done only the King can decide.’
Bess thought of Edward with the weight of that decision lying on him, of the pressure of family loyalties, of the voices urging him this way and that, and she could not stop the tears springing into her eyes.
‘Holy Cross!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘Do you weep for the Duke of Clarence? I thought you hated him.’
‘I don't weep for him,’ she shook her head violently, ‘only for what he has done to the rest of us.’
‘He's done naught to you that I know of,’ Lord Howard said briskly. ‘There was that business with the Duchess Anne but that's five years gone. The court will be a pleasanter place without him, though. What's more, Bishop Stillington has been arrested, though no one knows why, but I suspect there is some secret business that is being hushed up, and the sooner Clarence is gone to where he cannot plot against the King the better.’
Two weeks passed while the King hesitated. Parliament besought him to sign the death warrant, Edward stared at the parchment, took it up, laid it down, paced his chamber.
The Queen, eating sugar plums though she was aware they would make her plumper, said to Bess in a weary voice, ‘I am so tired of all this delay. The Duke should have his head struck off and at once.’
‘Your grace, if it were Lord Rivers or your brother Richard who was in the same position –’ Bess began incautiously and was silenced by a cold look.
‘Once my father and my brother John were at Clarence's mercy in just such a situation and he did not hesitate to slay them. Do you want that traitor saved? If you do you are no friend to me or mine.’
Bess had flushed. ‘Not for his sake, your grace, but for the King's.’
‘For Edward's! My dear Bess, he is the King and for that reason must make hard rulings. He will do what is right and George will die. It is not your place to question.’
Arrogance mingled oddly with complacency in the Queen's voice. This was not the Elizabeth Bess had loved at Grafton. There was no thought in her for Edward's dilemma, only for revenge. Bess longed to speak to the King, to offer him some word of sympathy, but she never saw him alone except once in a corridor and then he strode past in a preoccupied manner with only the briefest smile. It was as if, she thought sadly, there had never been a passage of love between them.
She went to call on the Duchess of Gloucester. Since Clarence's arrest last May Anne had lived at Le Herber and when Bess was admitted she could not help recalling the last time she had been here.
‘I know what you are thinking,’ Anne said. ‘You are wondering how I can live in this house where I was so unhappy, but since my brother-in-law has been attainted it is mine and Richard and I have made so many changes that you will like it. Come into the room we use when we want to be private.’ She led the way into a pleasant chamber that looked out on to the small garden where the first snowdrops were nodding their heads in the chill wind.
When they were seated before the fire Bess said, ‘What does the Duke feel? How will he advise the King?’
‘Poor Richard. He hates the whole business. We'd no cause to love Clarence, but on the other hand Richard cannot forget the affection that there was once between them. I wish – I wish Clarence had died at Tewkesbury, anywhere. I can only thank God my sister is in her grave and has been spared this.’
‘Amen,’ Bess said. They tried to talk for a while of other things and soon after the Duke himself came in. He seemed startled on seeing Bess, as if for once he wished she were not there. His face was grim and paler than usual.
‘My brother is dead,’ he said abruptly.
‘Oh!’ Anne gave a little gasp and Bess sat stiffly in her chair. ‘How? We have heard nothing.’
Richard came to the hearth and stood leaning against the stone, staring down into the fire. ‘Edward decided it must be done.’
‘Then where? In the Tower?’
Richard was silent for a long time as if he had not heard his wife's question and once he seemed to shiver despite the warmth of the flames. His small neat frame was tense, the grey eyes hooded. At last he said, ‘It seems my brother feared death so much that – he asked to be allowed to drown. He thought – I remember when we were boys a sailor telling us it was the least painful way to die, and God knows our headsmen are not always expert with their axes.’ He saw a growing horror on the faces of the two women and added violently, ‘But how – how it was done, I don't know, nor do I wish to.’
There was another long silence. Bess's thoughts were once more with Edward, and her love for him perceived acutely what this death must have cost him.
Anne whispered, ‘Where is he to be buried?’
‘At Tewkesbury beside Isabel.’ Richard turned to face her. ‘God's Mercy, I've had enough of London. Those damned Woodvilles! Today they are as smug as can be. One brother is gone and they've caused a rift between Edward and me.’
‘Oh, no!’ Bess exclaimed.
‘Indeed yes. He knows I never wanted George to die. I begged for his life, so did our mother and our sister Margaret, but the Queen barely let Edward read the letter she sent from Burgundy. They want us all out of the way so that they may use Edward to gain their own ends in everything.’
‘Can anyone do that?’ Bess asked. ‘He is too strong, too great a King.’
Richard looked wearily at her. ‘He was, in the days when he fought Warwick, in the glory of Barnet and Tewkesbury fight, a golden warrior! But what sun stays at its zenith for all time? Don't you see what they are doing to him? The soldier is lost in the sybarite. They encourage him to feast and frolic and get drunk. They even let this strumpet Jane Shore wheedle him from state affairs. Well, they've taken George from him, but they'll not get rid of me so easily. I loathe them all!’
‘Not Anthony,’ Bess exclaimed, shaken by his vehemence. ‘Anthony is not like the rest. He has done so much for my John and he is a good man, a devout man for all his splendour at court. John says he often wears a hair shirt in his penances.’
‘As well he might,’ Richard retorted. ‘They are all of a piece, and Edward is welcome to them. I'll not stay at court one day longer. We go north tomorrow, Anne my love, where the air is clean and men are honest.’
‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘Little Edward
does not do well in London and he will be better there.’
‘So shall we all,’ the Duke said. ‘Your servant, Lady Howard.’ He bowed and left the room and Bess looked unhappily at the closed door.
‘I cannot bear to think of him and the King at odds. They have always been so close.’
‘I know,’ Anne agreed, ‘but time will heal this, please God, especially if we are away for a while: I trust in the King's love for Richard despite all the Queen and her kin can do. Visit us soon, Bess.’
Bess went home deeply depressed. Thomas returned very late, to her surprise for he had been on duty in the King's bedchamber. She was ready for bed herself, and Elysia, brushing her hair, curtseyed and withdrew as her master came in.
‘I did not expect you tonight,’ Bess said.
‘The King did not need me.’ Thomas's voice was abrupt. ‘He has gone into the city with young Dorset. Do you know what they are saying in the streets? That a butt of malmsey wine was found for the Duke to drown in. Some tavern-bush has made a rhyme about it already. I pray God the King does not hear it – unless it is true.’
Bess shuddered. ‘It is horrible.’
‘There is a lot that is unpalatable here in London,’ Thomas said. ‘The latest whisper is that Dorset shares Mistress Shore's favours, but I doubt even the King would let his stepson go swyving his mistress.’
‘I liked her. She did not seem a strumpet to me.’
He raised his brows. ‘Just the King's whore, eh? And the Queen does not care. Well, like his grace of Gloucester I have had my fill of the court. My father holds his office but I have asked the King and received his leave to retire from my post. I thought,’ he came and stood facing her where she sat on a little stool, ‘that we might go to Ashwellthorpe. Since your mother died your father would welcome us, and it would be good for the children to be in the country.’
Bess was so taken aback by this utterly unexpected suggestion that she did not answer for a moment. ‘You mean leave London, and the court, for good?’
‘Why not? Many gentlemen live on their estates in great comfort. I did not think you so enamoured of the city, and you often talk of how you love Ashwellthorpe above all other places.’
‘I do, but –’ she broke off. She was remembering how once she had asked Humphrey if they might go there for the summer and how he had laughed the idea to scorn, but since then she had lived so many years in the shadow of the court that she could not imagine not being part of it. And though it would indeed benefit the children it would mean Thomas would be constantly with her and she would never see Edward. To live without the chance of the occasional world, a smile – she did not know if she could do that.
Hardly aware that she voiced her thought aloud she said, ‘I do not think I want to leave his grace.’
‘His grace!’ Thomas's dark brows drew together.
‘I meant her grace. I have been the Queen's friend for so long.’
‘But you have said she is changed, that your friendship is no longer the same.’
‘Yes – perhaps – but –’ she floundered. ‘It was a slip of the tongue. I was thinking of both.’
He bent and seized her wrist. ‘I see what you meant!’ He sounded thunderstruck. ‘Oh yes, you did mean his grace. I understand it all now, so much I have wondered about. You are the same as all the others, are you not? Doting on the King, ready to go to his bed if he beckons – perhaps you have already done so. Have you? Have you?’
She gave a little cry as his grip tightened. ‘No, no. I will swear it – on that crucifix if you wish it.’ It was true, she thought, and no blasphemy, for she had never entered Edward's bed nor he hers; she had never been his mistress in that sense, for what did a few snatched moments under the yews signify, and that before she wed Thomas?
‘By God!’ he said and she had never heard his harsh voice so ferocious. ‘I pray you are not forsworn.’
‘I am not,’ she answered and broke into tears. ‘Oh, let me go.’
‘Do you deny then that you love the King? I have seen it in your face. Do you deny that you cheated Sir Humphrey as you have cheated me?’
She gave a sob. ‘I can't deny that I loved Edward from the day I was at Grafton when I was no more than sixteen, the very day he wed the Queen. But I did love Humphrey too, only differently.’
‘I suppose I should think him fortunate to have had that much from you,’ he sneered. ‘He fared better than I.’ He released her and went to the door. ‘I'll not bear this life here any more. You will be ready to ride to Ashwellthorpe at the end of the week, out of sight of his grace and your damnable desires.’ He went out and Bess slid from her stool to the floor, her head on her arms on the seat.
She wept until she could cry no more and then lay on her bed in utter misery. If only Edward had not forced her into this loveless marriage. What could she do? She could not see any way to free herself from Thomas, and he was not likely to let her go. And there were their sons to be considered. All night she tossed on the bed, torn with conflicting emotions, and in the morning, ignoring Annette's plea that she looked so unwell that she should stay in bed, she dressed with care and went downstairs. Thomas was nowhere to be seen and she ordered Fitchett to saddle her horse. When she arrived at Westminster with no clear idea of what she meant to do she requested audience with the Queen, thinking perhaps Elizabeth might press her to stay. She was shown to the Queen's chamber and there found not only Elizabeth but also Edward, sprawled in a large chair, the Princess Elizabeth playing at draughts with her little brother Richard, Princess Margaret sewing and Lord Richard Grey reading by the window. She was halted momentarily by finding so many of the family there for it would be all the harder to try to find words for her dilemma. She made a deep curtsey and waited.
‘My dear Bess,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I understand your husband has requested that you should retire to Norfolk. I shall miss you, of course, but I am sure you will be better content there.’ Her tone was cool.
She is glad I am going, Bess thought, glad because I am married to a Howard and the Howards are no friends to the Woodvilles. Involuntarily she glanced at the large figure in the chair. His face had grown an extra chin, his manner become more complacent.
‘It was good of you to come to take farewell of us,’ Edward said, ‘though no doubt Thomas intended to bring you to supper tonight as I suggested. God speed your journey.’
‘Thank you, your grace,’ she said bleakly. Was that to be all? She wanted to see him alone, to say – something! There had always been understanding between them and if she must go it was cruel that fate should refuse her this last boon. He did not even call her ‘dear Bess’ as he used to do, but at least he was smiling at her. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have had some merry times together, but you have much to attend to, a growing family as we have, and we are no longer in our green time. No doubt you will return occasionally to visit us.’
An argument had broken out between the two at the draughts table. Elizabeth spoke sharply to her daughter, and Prince Richard said mockingly, ‘Girls always cheat!’
The attention of the King was drawn to the children and after a few moments Bess curtseyed and withdrew. So that was to be it, a brief dismissal, all her love and devotion and loyalty of the years taken, accepted, laid down seemingly without thought.
Outside she leaned against the wall. She must not cry again. She had cried enough last night, only now her desolation was even greater for suddenly she saw her love for what it had been – the adulation of an inexperienced girl, an infatuation to which she had clung so obstinately to the cost of the two men she had wed. Even the brief achievement of her desire had not shown her the truth, but had only fed her pride in loving a king.
She straightened and with lagging steps went along corridors, up a spiral stair to the room allotted to Thomas when he was on duty, hardly knowing why except that he was not likely to be there at this time of day and she wanted to be alone. She opened the door and there saw a surprising sight. He was sittin
g on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his face hidden in his hands.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Are you ill? Thomas!’
He raised a face oddly ravaged. ‘You! What are you doing here? I did not think –’
‘It doesn't matter – it is nothing. But why –’
He let out a long sigh. ‘Perhaps it doesn't matter either why I am here. I have been facing the truth, that is all. Ever since we married I kept hoping that we might learn to be comfortable together at least. I know some of the blame was mine and I have lacked understanding, but I am not the man for easy talk.’
‘I know,’ she said in sudden pity. ‘I never expected it. The fault was mine.’
‘No, not yours. I knew when I wed you that you did not want me. But I thought that as nothing compared to what I gained. And so it would be to most men – land and money and heirs of the body, that is all they want of marriage. But I have found it has not satisfied me nor brought me content. You were right when you said you had been a dutiful wife, borne me children, but I wanted more. Only you could not give me a love you had bestowed elsewhere. That is why I was so angry last night, but I had no right to accuse you as I did and must beg your pardon for that.’
He had never spoken so openly, so much from a depth of feeling he had hidden so well, and her compassion grew. She had always thought him hard, taciturn, yet here he was with trembling hands and an uncertain voice telling her things she had not guessed at.
‘I see it all now,’ he said. ‘If you love the King it has been your loss, my poor Bess. What misery I must have brought you.’
‘Oh no, no! Thomas, you were never unkind, and you gave me Tom and Edward. It is I who loved where I should not, and even though I could not help myself I knew it was wrong.’
For a moment they stared at each other. Then he said, ‘Will you come to Ashwellthorpe?’
She thought of the recent interview in the Queen's chamber. ‘Yes, I will come. There's naught left for me here.’ She could not say she would love him for at this moment she felt only sore at heart, bruised, tired, but what there was left he should have. ‘I will try,’ she said, ‘I will try –’
The Sun in Splendour (The Plantagenets Book 6) Page 19
