“Where’s your mother, lass?” Richard asked, and his voice sounded strange even in his own ears.
“She doesn’t know you’re here yet.” Bess squeezed her hands together, entwined her fingers to still their tremors. “I defended you. All these months, I defended you. When you arrested Anthony, when you executed Will Hastings, even when you took the crown…I found reasons for what you did, fought bitterly with my mother on your behalf. Now…now I do want you to tell me this. I want you to tell me why you sent Jack Howard and Brackenbury to us. Why didn’t you come yourself, Dickon? Surely you did owe us that much!”
Richard sucked in his breath. “Bess, I…I couldn’t.”
Bess found suddenly that she was blinking back tears; that was an admission she hadn’t expected. “These months past, whenever I felt I couldn’t stand any more…do you know what I did, Dickon? I would make up happy endings in my mind. Sometimes I’d pretend it was all a bad dream, that Papa wasn’t dead. At other times…at other times I’d tell myself that it would be all right if only I could talk to you. You’d explain it to me, make me understand why all this had to happen; you’d dry my tears just like Papa used to do, and then…then the hurting would somehow stop.”
Bess was tall for a woman; her eyes were on a level with Richard’s, and she was close enough now to see tears glistening on his lashes.
“Oh, God, Bess, if only I could,” he said, and her own tears began to flow in earnest.
“I’d almost forgotten,” she whispered, “how much you do sound like Papa….”
“Bess…you’re shivering!” Richard fumbled with the clasps of his cloak, stepped toward her only to remember Edward’s violent reaction to his touch that morning at Stony Stratford. But Bess hadn’t moved, and he reached out, draped his cloak around her shoulders.
“Bess, I want you and your sisters to come out of sanctuary. I want you to come back to court, back where you belong.”
He saw her hesitancy, thought he understood what it was. “You’re my niece, lass; the plight-troth hasn’t changed that, and anyone who forgets it does so to his cost. I want you and your sisters at my court, Bess. So does my Anne. She’ll help you, Bess, if only you’ll let her. We both will.”
Bess closed her eyes; even with Richard’s cloak wrapped tightly around her, she was still trembling. “You…you make it sound so…like coming home to a safe haven, and it can’t be like that, Dickon. Not ever again.”
“Bess…. Bess, I promise you it can be. Let me do this for you, for you and your sisters.”
She swallowed convulsively. “And what will you do for my brothers, Dickon?”
It was a devastating question, one Richard couldn’t handle. He backed away, bumped blindly into the Coronation Chair. What could he tell her? That he’d never meant for it to happen, that it was a grief he’d take to his grave? What was his remorse against the fact that the boys were dead? Ned had entrusted them to his care and he’d failed them. Blaming Buckingham couldn’t change that. Nothing could change that.
“Dickon….” Bess was beside him, tugging at his arm. “Look at me…please!”
“Bess, I didn’t know what Buckingham intended. I swear to Christ I didn’t know!”
“Oh, Dickon, don’t! You don’t have to say that, not to me. Never to me. Of course you didn’t know. I’m so sorry I said that. It’s just…just that I hurt so much, and what you were offering…You made use of the word belong and for so long now I’ve felt like I don’t belong anywhere, not anymore. And here you were offering me my world back again, what be left of it, promising to take care of us, and I wanted it so much…. But then I thought of Dickon and Edward, thought of us being back at court while they…And it seemed so unfair, so monstrously unfair….”
She was clinging tightly to Richard’s hands, her nails scoring his skin, leaving red welts neither noticed.
“I loved Dickon so much. He was such a dear little boy, so brave through all this, and I…I keep thinking that had I not talked Mama into letting him leave sanctuary, he might still be alive. Had I not interfered, not coaxed Mama into letting him go…”
“No, Bess, that’s not so. It would have made no difference. We’d discussed it in council, and Buckingham…Buckingham pointed out that a child, being incapable of sin, was therefore incapable of claiming right of sanctuary. Had your mother not given him up, we’d have taken him, anyway. So you see, you’ve nothing to reproach yourself for, lass, nothing.”
Bess was wiping away tears with the sleeve of her gown. “I wish I could believe you, Dickon,” she said softly. “But thank you for saying that.”
Elizabeth had taken the Abbot’s private entrance into the abbey. Holding a candle in her cupped hands, she made her way soundlessly up the north ambulatory. Approaching the steps leading up into the Confessor’s Chapel, she slowed her pace, sought to remind herself of all that was at stake. She hated the man waiting within as much as she’d ever hated anyone in her life, but she mustn’t think of that now. She couldn’t afford to. She’d been given one last chance and it was up to her as to what she made of it.
It was not until she reached the top of the stairs that she heard the low murmur of voices coming from within. Acting instinctively, Elizabeth blew out her candle, pressed her hand against her skirts to still their rustle.
“Does she blame me, Bess?”
“Mama? She blames everyone, Dickon. Everyone but herself.”
“But she does believe that Buckingham…?”
“Oh, she believes he gave the order. But she’s found guilt and more to spare for all concerned. Papa for the plight-troth, and even more, for not silencing Stillington. You for taking the crown. Brackenbury just for being the Constable of the Tower. Me for…for a multitude of sins, I suspect. For arguing that Dickon should leave sanctuary, for still believing in you, for not being able to hate Papa. Even my poor Aunt Katherine, for…for God knows what; being Buckingham’s wife, I suppose….”
Elizabeth had heard enough, heard too much. She stepped forward into the light.
Bess saw her first, gave a gasp of dismay. Color flooded her face, hers the discomfort of a child suddenly made to feel disloyal, faithless. “Mama…Mama, I…”
Elizabeth was trembling with rage, with a sense of betrayal so strong that it eclipsed all else. She had never been like Marguerite d’Anjou, had never been one to sacrifice all for vengeance. However intense her hatreds, they’d always been tempered by an inner voice counseling accommodation to superior strength. But now it was stilled, forgotten in her embittered outrage that her daughter should be here with this man, her hand on his arm, his cloak about her shoulders, giving to him the same blind trust she’d given to Ned. But not to her, never to her.
Deliberately ignoring her flustered daughter, she let her eyes move slowly, insultingly, over Richard’s face.
“You look tired, Richard, not well at all. But then I daresay you’re not sleeping nights. Assuming, of course, that Ned was right when he said you were the one in his family to be cursed with a conscience?”
“I can walk out now, Elizabeth, or you can listen to what I have to say. It’s up to you; I don’t much care either way.”
“The Hell you don’t! It happens to be very much in your interest to have me out of sanctuary and we both do know it. So don’t pretend otherwise; don’t try to tell me it isn’t an embarrassment to have your brother’s widow keeping to sanctuary while the whole country does wonder why!”
“You’re mistaken,” Richard said icily. “Very much mistaken.”
“Yes, your brother’s widow,” she repeated bitterly. “I was Ned’s wife! His wife, and nothing can change that, no plight-troth, no parliamentary act, nothing!”
“You can call yourself his widow if you choose; you can call yourself the Queen of Egypt for all I care. But your mistake, Madame, be in thinking that your predicament matters to me. As far as I’m concerned, you were the architect of your own ruin, and that of more people than I can count. I care about my nieces, ca
re very much; I want them back at my court. But you, Elizabeth, you could keep to sanctuary till you rot and I’d not care. I’d not care in the least.”
Elizabeth’s jaw muscles ridged; she tasted in her mouth the sourness of swallowed bile. That he meant it, she didn’t doubt, and confronted by a hatred no less implacable than her own, she struggled to regain her emotional equilibrium, to remember all she had to lose.
“Just what terms are you offering?” she challenged. “If I leave sanctuary, what may I expect?”
“The right to set up your own household and a yearly pension of seven hundred marks to maintain it.”
Elizabeth had hoped for more than that, much more. Her disappointment was such that she could not hide it, could not keep from jeering, “Your generosity does leave me speechless, in truth! Though perhaps I should be grateful that you’ve seen fit to offer me more than the meager grant you did give my sister!”
Richard shrugged, unmoved. “Not as gratifying, I admit, as having an entire kingdom to plunder as your own,” he said sardonically, “but times change. You may take it or not, as you choose.”
Elizabeth longed to scorn it as she’d longed for little in this life. Common sense stopped her, the deep core of pragmatism that had served her so well in happier days. And because she could not turn her resentment upon Richard, she loosed it, instead, upon Bess. Reaching out suddenly, she jerked the cloak from the startled girl’s shoulders, flung it on the floor with an oath.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” she snapped, “for going behind my back like a deceitful little sneak, for a disloyalty I don’t deserve!”
“Mama…. Mama, that’s not fair!”
Turning her back on Bess, Elizabeth demanded of Richard, “What of my daughters? If I agree, what will you do for them?”
“My nieces will be welcomed at court, will want for nothing. And when they come of marriageable age, I’ll provide dowries for them, arrange suitable marriages with men of good birth.” Richard glanced over at Bess as he spoke, a reassurance that infuriated Elizabeth all the more.
“They are my kinswomen,” he said evenly, “my brother’s daughters, and as such, my responsibility.”
“As were my sons!” Elizabeth spat, the words coming to her lips before she even realized what she meant to say. She saw Richard stiffen, saw his eyes darken with such fury that she took an involuntary step backward.
“And when did you ever care about your children, about Ned, about anyone or anything but yourself? My brother wasn’t even buried yet and your one concern was to get your hands upon the royal treasury, to secure your own power, no matter the cost in blood or grief! Well, so be it, then. If that be your answer, stay in sanctuary and be damned!”
Richard swung around, toward the door. But Bess was even quicker; darting forward, she caught his arm.
“No, Dickon, don’t go! Please don’t go!”
Some of Richard’s rage ebbed at sight of his niece’s unhappy face. He couldn’t do this; what was the matter with him? To walk out on Elizabeth would be to walk out on his nieces, too.
For the first time in many months, Elizabeth found herself thanking God for her daughter. Bess’s intercession could not have come at a more opportune time, brought her back to reality, the reality that Richard was King, that he’d won and she must surely be mad, for she was throwing away all she’d hoped to gain. Where were her wits? Look at his face, it was written there for all to see! He’d never turn his back on Ned’s daughters. The more he could do for the girls, the more he could absolve himself of any responsibility for Edward and Dickon’s deaths. Fool that she was, why hadn’t she seen that ere now?
“Richard,” she said abruptly, “when you took the crown, you said you meant to rule in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise. Was that merely what you thought people wanted to hear? Or did you mean it?”
“I meant it,” Richard said tersely, and a thin smile touched the corner of Elizabeth’s mouth.
“Prove it, then. Pardon my son.”
Richard was taken aback, didn’t answer at once. In the past ten months, he’d harvested a lifetime of regrets, but he had none at all for the command that sent Anthony Woodville and Dick Grey to the block at Pontefract Castle. To be asked to forgive Thomas Grey was a higher price than he’d been prepared to pay. But as he hesitated, Bess touched his hand, her eyes meeting his in mute appeal.
“I suppose he’s in Brittany with Tudor?”
Elizabeth was not in the least disconcerted. “Where else?” she said coolly. “Well? What say you?”
Richard looked again at Bess and then nodded. “Tell him to come home,” he said reluctantly, and Elizabeth felt a surge of stunned elation, unable to believe she’d won so easily as that.
Bess had surreptitiously retrieved Richard’s cloak from the floor; she held it out to him now, her lips forming a “thank you” her mother wasn’t meant to hear. Richard took it from her and replaced it about her shoulders.
Elizabeth’s mouth tightened. “And so what now?”
“I would suppose,” Richard said dryly, “that you do come out of sanctuary.”
“Oh, no, not yet! Not until I do have a guarantee that you’ll not change your mind…Brother-in-law.”
Richard looked at her with unconcealed hostility. “Will my word be enough?” he said sarcastically, and Elizabeth gave a mirthless laugh.
“Not bloody likely! No, Richard, if you want your nieces back at your court, you’ll have to be willing to first swear a public oath—before as many prominent witnesses as possible—setting forth the terms of our agreement for all the world to hear.”
For a moment she feared she’d pushed him too far. But then he nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Elizabeth expelled her breath, leaned back against one of the tombs, watching Richard with narrowed green eyes. How she hated him, this man who’d taken so much and left her with so little. This man who was now King.
“Richard, by the Grace of God,” she murmured. “Does it bother you any, that your title has been so lacking in luck? England has had but two other Kings named Richard, after all, and they both died young…and bloody.”
“I trust you don’t mean that as a prophecy,” Richard said coldly. “Lest you forget, to prophesy the King’s death might well raise suspicions of witchcraft.”
He saw Elizabeth’s eyes flicker at that and felt a grim satisfaction, for she knew as well as he that only treason was a more deadly charge than witchcraft. Less than seventy years ago an accusation of sorcery had resulted in the ruin of no less a victim than a Queen of England, and only forty years had passed since a Duchess of Gloucester had done public penance through the streets of London for the same charge. But then he saw Bess looking at him worriedly, and he realized he’d indulged himself not so much at Elizabeth’s expense as at hers.
Elizabeth was staring down at the marble tomb she’d been leaning against; with a shock, she recognized it as that of her infant daughter Margaret, the first of their children to be claimed by death. She didn’t move, not until she was sure Richard had left the chapel.
“Mama?”
Elizabeth turned, very slowly. Bess was still wearing Richard’s cloak, was looking at her mother with troubled eyes, eyes that asked for understanding.
“Mama, can we talk?”
“No,” Elizabeth said.
The marble was icy to her touch, cold and smooth and unyielding. After a time, she heard her daughter’s footsteps on the stairs, receding down the ambulatory, and then the muffled echoes of a slamming door.
“Damn you, Ned,” she whispered. “How much you have to answer for….”
19
Nottingham
April 1484
Perched on a steep sandstone cliff above the River Leen, Nottingham Castle had been for centuries the principal royal residence in the Midlands. A huge sprawling fortress that contained two halls and no less than four chapels within three separate baileys, each of which was protected by a deep encircling moat
, Nottingham Castle had long offered security from the threat of siege. Thanks to Edward, it offered comfort, as well; some eight years ago, he had ordered the construction of spacious new royal apartments. Richard had taken the restorations a step further and authorized the addition of magnificent bay windows. He was well pleased with the results, and for more than a month now he and Anne had lingered here in the heartland of their kingdom, their spirits soaring with every mile that brought them closer to Yorkshire, where their son awaited them and where none looked at Richard with speculative suspicious eyes.
Making his way through the great hall, Francis approached the dais, made a deep obeisance before the man who was his friend and his King. Richard smiled, beckoned him nearer so they could talk in comparative privacy.
“I’ve been looking for Véronique,” Francis confessed, “but with no luck.”
“She’s probably still over with Anne in our bedchamber, Francis. When I left them, they were trying to decide what Anne should wear tonight.” Richard laughed. “And from the way they were discarding gowns, Anne might have to make an appearance clad only in her kirtle!”
Francis laughed, too, and claiming a wine cup from a cupbearer, clinked it against Richard’s goblet in playful salute. “You sound like a man who’s just gotten some welcome news!”
“I have.” Richard lowered his voice still further. “The Duke of Brittany has had another fit of madness. Until his wits uncloud, his Treasurer Pierre Landois has the government, and Landois has been reassessing Tudor’s value as a political pawn. He’s offering to put Tudor into protective custody if I provide a thousand archers for Brittany’s quarrel with France.”
Richard’s face suddenly shadowed. “I know I turned down a similar offer last summer, but then…” He didn’t finish the sentence, didn’t need to. Last summer his nephews had still been alive and he’d not yet learned how vulnerable a King was to betrayal.
“That is good news for true,” Francis said with forced cheer, and then his eye happened to alight upon a young girl at the other end of the hall. Richard’s daughter Kathryn had joined the court as they passed through Leicester. As the King’s daughter, she was assured of more than her share of attention; being pretty, as well, she was soon glorying in her newfound fame, in the realization that she could turn male heads.
The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III Page 108
