By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  It was on the third day of packing, as Isabel sought patience in the priory garden, that she came upon Elizabeth of York. She had seen her in passing and at meals, of course, but Henry’s queen was usually so surrounded by ladies-in-waiting, nuns and courtiers that it was impossible to speak to her. Now here she sat, gilded by spangles of summer sunlight falling through an arbor of roses, reading a book with marble covers. She looked up, her face apprehensive, at the sound of Isabel’s footfall.

  “Ah, Lady Isabel, it’s you,” she said, her features relaxing into a smile.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Isabel said quickly as she dropped into a curtsy. “I did not mean to intrude.”

  “By no means, you are most welcome. I only thought it might be…” She paused, drew a quick breath. “Suffice it to say it is not you I seek to escape. Come, join me here on the bench. It is more than wide enough for two, even considering my present size.”

  To refuse a royal request was not possible. With a murmur of gratitude, Isabel complied. They sat exchanging the usual pleasantries for a few moments.

  “You are anxious to be off, I expect,” Elizabeth soon said with the glimmer of a smile in her fine sea-blue eyes. “The requirements of royalty can be tedious, can they not?”

  “Oh, I would not say so.”

  “No, being much too polite. I say it for you, who suffer it every day.”

  “In truth, I wonder that you can support it, especially just now.”

  The queen’s gaze turned wry. “Your departure may make it easier.”

  Warm color suffused Isabel’s face. “I apologize if I have caused difficulties for you by coming here.”

  “No, no, I only meant that you take my mother-in-law when you go, a great boon.” She moved a gently rounded shoulder. “Lady Margaret is a strong woman, stronger than I for all her small size. Her ideas of what is required to bring a royal child into the world clash with those of my mother, who gave birth to eight while married to my father so considers herself an expert. Their endless arguments, their conflicting rules and instructions, quite overset me.”

  “I can see how they might.”

  “I do carry a future king, of course, the progenitor of a new Tudor dynasty, as we are told. My lady mother-in-law is accountable to Henry for his safety, and so I must abide by her strictures above all else.”

  “I wonder that she has agreed to leave you.”

  “As do I, believe me. I can only suppose the need to be severe.”

  The faintest intonation of a question was in the gentle comment. It was on the tip of Isabel’s tongue to relate the cause and the events that had brought it about, but she caught the words back in time. How horrifying it would be if she so upset the queen that she went into early labor. “I am sure Lady Margaret will tell you everything if you ask.”

  “And I am sure she will not,” Elizabeth of York said. “I am cocooned against all unpleasantness for the duration. Or forever, as the case may be.” She put a hand on her swollen abdomen, rubbing it in a gentle caress. “I don’t repine, knowing it is for the good of the child I carry, which is also my father’s heir, and my own.”

  Isabel met the queen’s gaze, her own softening as she understood the daughter of Edward IV was well aware that the royal Plantagenet line of her family would continue, on the distaff side though it might be. After a moment, however, the true force of the words spoken by Henry’s queen consort struck her. Her brows drew together in a frown as she said, “If you know the matter is unpleasant, then…”

  “Oh, I know far more than that.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I am aware that Henry, naturally enough, brought a mistress with him from France, also that the woman had a child. I’ve heard whispers that the babe did not live, and am inclined to believe it after the mummery at your wedding to Sir Rand.”

  It made sense, as Isabel had thought before, that Elizabeth would learn these things at a court where anyone who resented her connection to the Yorkist regime might take revenge by disturbing her peace with gossip. Compassion for the lady, set about with those who were less than friends if not downright enemies, shifted through Isabel.

  “I am truly sorry,” she said in quiet sincerity.

  “You have a kind heart, Lady Isabel, but I beg you won’t refine upon my circumstances too much. I am where God and my fate intend that I should be. I only mention the small discontent in order to explain my gratitude for the respite you are providing. For that, as well as for the friendship you have so freely given, I should like to offer a boon. If ever there is anything I may do for you, you have only to ask.”

  It was a precious gift, and Isabel knew how to value it. Elizabeth of York did not scheme or pretend to influence in her husband’s court, but that did not mean she was ineffective. The woman who slept with a king and bore his children would never be without power.

  Isabel expressed her appreciation as best she might. Afterward, the two of them sat long under the arbor with the scent of roses surrounding them and petals drifting down like gentle rain. And in the two days that followed, she and Elizabeth of York met often in that same place, speaking there of a thousand things, including men and their foibles, of being wedded with reluctant consent, of learning to live with a strange husband. Isabel was briefly sorry, after all, when the time finally came to go.

  Depart they did, however, on a hot day as August came to an end. When the walls of Winchester were left behind, the column of outriders, guards, courtiers, servants, baggage wagons and provision carts moved with the slow and majestic state. Isabel, reining in her mount to the deliberate pace preferred by Lady Margaret, soon had a headache from heat, dust and improving lectures on everything from how to wear her caps and veils to the frequency of her prayers. She must act the smiling companion for the sake of future favors and, above all, be grateful that the inquiry into the death of Juliette d’Amboise had been set in motion, even if at such a deliberate pace. Never in her life had she been so glad to draw near the great sprawl of London and the shining ribbon of the Thames, or to turn with a great clatter of hooves into King’s Street, which led to Westminster Palace.

  She was soon installed back in her bridal chamber near the king’s apartments with her sisters near at hand. The next few days saw messages imprinted with Lady Margaret’s seal speeding in all directions. But though various nobles and king’s soldiery tramped in and out on the order of the king’s mother, no one could say who had commanded the detail that traveled north to take the Frenchwoman away from Braesford. No one had any idea who had served in it or where they had gone afterward. Some hinted the men-at-arms might have been mercenaries pressed into service and fitted out with royal accoutrement, but not a soul ventured a guess as to who had supplied them or for what reason. What could it matter, after all? The woman was only the king’s mistress, little better than a whore, so hardly worth the time it took to answer questions about her.

  Isabel, noting the attitude, could not but wonder if those questioned imagined they were protecting the king’s interest, and that of the house of Lancaster. It would explain much.

  But no, that was unacceptable, for if Henry was guilty, what did that say for Rand?

  In due time, the midwife who had been at Braesford was brought to Westminster, surrounded by the escort dispatched to find her. She was hustled directly to Lady Margaret’s council chamber, a long room fitted with paneling and wall hangings embroidered with a portcullis, the badge of her Beaufort family.

  Anticipation hummed along Isabel’s veins as she stood at Lady Margaret’s right hand, next to a discreet scribe who knelt with pen and paper resting on his bent knee while he recorded the proceedings. It seemed they might learn at last what had actually occurred at Braesford.

  The midwife, a plump woman with wide hips, round face and soft, almost shapeless nose seemed frightened out of her wits. Her face was pasty white, her eyes bulged and her lips trembled. Her clothing was rough and travel stained, and the plain linen scarf that covered her h
ead had slipped to one side so she appeared half-tipsy.

  Isabel felt a pang of sympathy for the woman’s weariness and terror, but hardened her heart against it. The more in awe the midwife was of her surroundings and the person asking the questions, the more likely they might finally hear the truth.

  “Your name?” Lady Margaret asked as a preliminary.

  The midwife went from white to fiery red. She pushed at her head covering, though without improving its appearance. “Dame Agnes Wellman, milady.”

  The questions went on, establishing the woman’s status as the widow of a freedman, where she resided, how long she had lived there, if she had children, how long she had been a midwife, how she came by the trade, how many babies she had delivered and how many had lived and a dozen other things. Finally, the crux of the matter was reached.

  “On a night this July last, you were summoned to a lying-in at Braesford Hall. Is this correct?”

  “Aye, milady.”

  “You arrived in good time to find a woman in labor, I believe. Tell us what happened then.”

  The woman looked as if she might faint. Her throat worked as she swallowed and she blinked so constantly the movement was like a tic. “I did me duty as best I know how. The lady was having a hard time of it.”

  “She was a lady?” The expression on Lady Margaret’s face as she put the question said plainly that she doubted it.

  “Aye, that she was, though a foreigner. She screamed out, praying in words I couldna understand.”

  “She was delivered of the infant?”

  “That she was, though it was a long, wearisome business. ’Twas a breach birth, see, but was finally turned. The babe was a girl child, such a pretty little thing.”

  “It was alive and healthy?”

  “Oh, aye. It cried and all, for I cleared the wee throat so it might. ’Twas a bit weak from the long birthing, but right as rain.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I showed her to her mother, didn’t I? And right proud she was, too. But the afterbirth was coming, see, and I had to tend to it. The gentleman who was there, Braesford himself, took the baby and walked away into the next chamber. I was that surprised, most men not liking to touch the wee ones. They fear to hurt them, see.”

  “Yes, yes, and then?”

  “Well, the poor babe hushed its crying, sudden, like. Which I didn’t think too much about, as the mother was bleeding something fierce. It was only later that I—”

  “The mother’s bleeding stopped?”

  “Aye, for I had herbs and simples and clean linen by me for such.”

  Lady Margaret nodded in satisfaction. “And how long before you thought about the baby again?”

  “Nigh on an hour, it may be. Braesford came back to ask about the lady. He said the lady’s serving woman had bathed the girl child and wrapped her in swaddling, and she was fast asleep.”

  “So then you left the manse. You were not asked to remain to look after the mother and child?”

  “Nay, milady. The serving woman, a foreigner like her mistress, knew a thing or two about birthing. She must, for she’d tried to deliver the babe before I was brought in. I was paid me fee and sent on my way.” The midwife’s lip thrust out as she spoke, as if in resentment at her dismissal when she had no doubt expected several days of nursing service with extra coin for it.

  “And then?”

  “Well, I went away down the stairs, didn’t I? I was met outside by the man who would take me homeward. It was while I was mounting pillion behind him that I smelled the stench.”

  “Stench?”

  “’Twas like flesh burning, I vow. I looked up then, and black smoke was pouring out the chimney pot of the room I’d left.”

  Lady Margaret frowned. “Could it not have been something else you smelled? A kitchen fire, say?”

  The woman shook her head, almost dislodging her head covering. “I’d say not, milady. ’Twas nothing like it. ’Twas more…more—”

  “Quite,” Lady Margret said, cutting her off with a regal gesture.

  Silence fell in the chamber except for the scratch of the scribe’s pen on parchment. It stopped as he caught up with what had been said. Isabel waited for the king’s mother to continue. When she did not, she cleared her throat with a small sound.

  “Yes, Lady Isabel?” Lady Margaret said drily.

  “If I might speak?”

  Assent was given with a wave of one small hand. Isabel turned immediately to the midwife. “Was a fire burning already in the fireplace?”

  “Aye, and it was. ’Twas a night of misting rain, damp, like, and chill, for all ’twas coming on summer. Lovely, it was, to have a fire in the chamber like that. I like to have hot water handy, see, to warm my hands before I set to work.”

  “So it was burning the whole time. You removed the afterbirth, I believe you said. What did you do with it?”

  “Why, nothing. It was got out of the way, left with the bloody rags and such. ’Twas the serving woman’s job to tidy the chamber. Afterward, I mean.”

  “Might she not have thrown rags and all on the fire? Could the smell have been the afterbirth burning?”

  The woman opened her eyes wide. “Well…well, I suppose it could have happened that way. But I never heard the babe again.”

  “The baby was supposed to be asleep. Would it have been so unusual not to hear it?”

  The woman gave a slow shake of her head. “Not really, when the birth was so hard. It was the gentleman coming and taking it away that was not as usual, see.”

  “Were you given any cause to think Braesford meant harm? Was anything said between him and the lady to make you believe injury might befall the newborn?”

  “I can’t say so, now I think on it.”

  “Still you immediately thought, on smelling cooked flesh, that the baby had been killed? What of the man who brought you? Did he notice it, too?”

  The woman’s face cleared. “Oh, ’twas not the same one as brought me. It were young Tom Croker, son of Old Tom, who came for me, you know. The man who took me home was another I’d not seen before, a gentleman, like. But he smelled the stink, right enough. He caught it first, asking what did I think, saying was it not a funny smell. It brought to his mind a time when his young servant boy fell into the fire pit, so he said, and was sore burned before he could be snatched out again.”

  16

  Rand finally trimmed the beard he had grown. He bathed because he could no longer stand himself. The miserable half pail of cold water provided by the guards at high price was a far cry from the sumptuous bath Isabel had prepared for him after the tournament. He missed the full, big tub with its comfortable linen liner, missed the scented soap, missed the linen toweling, missed, most of all, the tantalizing touch of the lovely female who had knelt to bathe him and that he had dragged into the water with him.

  God, but Isabel had been warm and tender, her skin like satin over ivory. If he closed his eyes, he could escape the stone walls that enclosed him, could imagine himself in their chamber once more with her in his arms. Her mouth had been so sweet, her hair a silken wonder, so soft he wanted to bury his strutted length in it. And he had, yes, he had.

  Wrenching from the rough mattress and coming erect, he shook himself, cursing viciously in English, in French and the lingua franca of the mercenaries in European armies. If he didn’t find something to do other than torture and titivate himself with memories, he would go mad.

  Lost in the violent fight against too-vividly remembered sensation, he failed to hear the key grating in the lock. He swung toward the door only as it opened. For a wild instant, he thought he was fevered or mad indeed, for it seemed Isabel swept into his cell-like chamber in a great whiff of fresh air, Saracen perfume and splendor.

  She was lovely beyond belief in a summer cloak of golden-yellow linen embroidered in red over a red gown of summer linen, a small red cap and a veiling of palest orange over her hair. In her hands she carried a covered basket from which c
ame aromas so delectable that his stomach growled in virulent anticipation. It was she he wanted to devour, however, every single inch of her without let or hindrance, stopping only when he was sated enough for eternity.

  “Well, sir,” she said, coming to a halt just inside the door while the yeomen jailer locked it again behind her. “You sent for me, I believe. Am I not welcome?”

  “Aye,” he answered, his voice husky with disuse. Tightness invaded his chest even as he spoke, and black anger surged through him like a lightning strike. “Where in God’s name have you been that it took so long?”

  She observed him as a bird might eye a coiled snake, wary yet confident in the knowledge that she could fly away. Skirting him with gliding footsteps, she placed her burden on the small table under the high window, moving aside a book he had been reading, his lute, a few sheets of parchment, his pen and cake of dried ink. He turned slowly to follow her progress, helianthus to her sun, watching with every fiber of his body in perilous strain. His stomach muscles clenched and the back of his neck grew hot as she slipped her cloak from her shoulders and draped it over his single stool.

  “I have been about the business of discovering the truth concerning Mademoiselle d’Amboise,” she said.

  Her voice was meant to be soothing, he thought. Instead, it acted upon him like a siren’s song so he took a step toward her. Annoyance for that involuntary movement lent an edge to his answer. “I sent word that you were not to concern yourself.”

  “What was I to do instead? Sit stitching on pretty flowers while waiting to hear you had been hanged?”

  “Waiting to hear, rather, that the curse of the Graces had been fulfilled and you were free.”

  Her lashes swept down, but not before he caught a flash of stark consciousness in the vivid green of her eyes. “I lacked the patience.”

  “Or the obedience you swore to before the priest.”

  “A mannish conceit, I think. At mass on Sunday last, the same priest declared women to be base creatures of overweening passions and no honor. If we are to be denied honor, then why trouble about a vow not of our choosing?”