Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

  That afternoon, I relieve my feelings in the shadows of the confessional, as well as the story of my brief second kiss. The priest tells me to give myself ten lashes with a frayed leather whip and ask God’s forgiveness for my wickedness. I do not mind asking forgiveness, but the lashes sound unnecessary to me. After all, it is not my conscience which troubles me.

  I am walking down the empty gallery two days later when the King’s Mother appears like a demon from a side entrance and latches onto me.

  ‘I have been informed of your potentially disastrous affair,’ she hisses.

  I stare at her. ‘You’ve made a clergyman your spy? Is there any corner of this palace where your sticky fingers are not poking? It is hardly an affair.’

  Beaufort still holds my arms in a grip of steel. ‘Tell me this instance, have you committed further carnal sins with that man, or are you still a maid as was the Holy Virgin?’

  My cheeks burn and I struggle to break free. ‘I am still a maid, if you must know.’

  ‘Good—if you lie, it will show. You may still fill a purpose.’

  ‘I assume you have picked one for me?’

  ‘You have to marry before the years damage you as they have damaged me.’ She touches her cheek where a web of wrinkles has sprung forth.

  ‘My mother and I will decide whom I wed. My father entrusted her with the task before he died.’

  ‘You foolish girl. You will have Viscount Welles.’

  I laugh joylessly. ‘I will not.’

  Ever since the joust, I feared she might press this matter, but she has not brought it to the surface until now. The idea may not seem outlandish to an ignorant onlooker; we both hold positions close to the throne. However, it takes a single glimpse on any hereditary chart to spot the obvious: Welles is the son of a baron while I am the daughter of a king, once destined to be Queen of Scotland. I might have been robbed of that particular destiny, and Father lying cold in his grave might have lessened my leverage, but a marriage to a duke would still be entirely reasonable.

  There is also the subtler, though perhaps even stronger, impediment. When I agreed to the temporary union with Ralph Scrope, Uncle Richard said I could pick a Lancastrian noble if Tudor took the throne, should it please me to do so. I almost considered it for some time, but there is a limit to how much I can take. A great magnate with vague Lancastrian connections, I could have stretched myself to accept. But Welles’ wealth and status are not sweet enough to overpower the tart taste of his allegiances. I simply cannot wed a man who is so evidently my enemy.

  Beaufort continues with a dangerous gleam in her eye. ‘If you persist in this impertinence, I shall announce what I have learnt, and more, to the world. You will be known as a fallen woman, not fit to be the wife of any gentleman, and your friend will assuredly lose any position he holds at court.’

  ‘You cannot do that,’ I whisper.

  ‘I can do more. I can charge you both with fornication—you remember what happened to Jane Shore?’

  I do remember. I remember her penance and fall from grace all too well. Of course, Beaufort could not prove what has not happened, but I do not doubt the lawcourt would take her word on pain of thwarting Tudor.

  ‘Welles is not an advantageous match.’ It is the only thing I can think to say.

  ‘He is of my blood, of the King’s blessed blood, and in high favour.’

  ‘But not even an earl! And even if he were a prince, he is everything I am not. His family have fought mine for decades.’

  Beaufort finally loosens her grip of my arms. ‘He is Lancastrian to the bone, it is true. Let us pray he can sway your own foul affinity.’

  ‘Our heirs…’ I have to pause for a deep breath at the thought. ‘Our heirs will have as much York in them as Lancaster, if not more, because I intend to raise them as such. Is that what you want for your nephews and nieces?’

  ‘Unfortunately, there is no way to keep the Yorkist line from blending with my own, as your sister’s marriage has already proven. Indeed, we have always shared blood through both ancestors and marriages.’ She is right, but it does not ease my pains.

  I clench my fists, fighting back tears. ‘You’re cruel. A cruel old crone, too fanatic for anyone to love, too embittered to realise you belong in a time gone by.’

  ‘My son the King loves me, Jasper does—and God. I am as good as your queen!’ Her voice could shatter glass just as she shatters dreams.

  Tudor summons me to his privy chambers. ‘Lincoln and his Flemish mercenaries have landed in Ireland. Lovell is with them. Apparently, his last failed rebellion was not enough to discourage him.’

  I pace before him. ‘How many soldiers, Sire?’

  ‘Two thousand, I am told.’

  ‘That is less than half what you had at the time of your own usurpation. It ought not be as great an obstacle as I expected.’

  ‘Be careful with the words you use. You are, furthermore, incorrect in your assumption.’ There is a knife-sharp edge to his voice.

  ‘How so, Sire?’

  ‘Le prétendant may have had two thousand troops at the hour they landed, but you can be certain the Irish are flocking to his cause as we speak. Lord Kildare might raise another five or six thousand, and then there are the English.’

  I shake my head. ‘With all due respect, if the Yorkist lords of England believed this rebellion to be worth the risk, I would know. No, you have caught us all under your yoke by begetting Prince Arthur. We see all the future we have in him now: half York.’

  Tudor drops down in the wrought oak chair and studies the rings crowded on his bony fingers. ‘Do you mean no respect when you say due respect, Madame? The prince is all Tudor. Now, you may leave. I have business to attend to.’

  As it turns out, the business involves arranging a public display of the rebellion’s invalidity. To prove Lambert Simnel is nothing but an impostor, Young Warwick is brought out from his cell and paraded through the streets of London like a trophy, though he is far from shiny. For more than a year and a half now, he has been isolated in a damp little room, barred from warmth and company. I never liked him, still pity stirs in my chest as soon as I lay eyes on him. His boisterous spirit is gone without a trace, his shoulders are scrawny and slumped, his complexion pasty and pale from lack of sunlight.

  Warwick’s sister Meg, who has blended into the court as if purposefully avoiding attention, can only stare as we stand watching the procession from a window. Anne wraps her arms around her friend and her shoulder is soon sodden with Meg’s tears. Our brothers may have died in the flesh—hers has died in the soul.

  A fortnight later, we receive the news of Lambert Simnel’s coronation as Edward VI in Dublin. Lord Kildare, the leader of the Irish lords, is steadfast in his support, as appears the Irish public, and naturally neither Lincoln nor Lovell wavers.

  Tudor amasses his men, or rather his magnates do, managing to scrape together an impressive force of twelve thousand. Twelve thousand Tudor rose badges, a deadly rose garden, where the white is mere dots in a sea of red.

  I am made to sit and hold Elizabeth’s hand as they ride out. Her otherwise enviable fingers give the impression of having been shortened, since she has once more bitten her nails to the skin at this point. Her grand bedchamber no longer feels so grand at all when she dismisses all the lavishly dressed attendants except for me. I cannot for my life understand why she would want me in this hour, but I have little choice, and it is my sisterly duty.

  ‘Oh, it is only his second battle, ever.’ Elizabeth sinks down on the bed, gesturing for me to do the same.

  Thought I know it to be true, the fact startles me. ‘Yes. Isn’t it remarkable? He won the crown in his first, then. I never thought we would have a ruler with neither experience of the sword, nor of governing.’

  ‘My mother-in-law says it is a sign of divine intervention.’

  ‘She likes to play God.’

  Elizabeth sighs. ‘I believe she is righ
t in this. It is one of the reasons I found it easy to accept him as my lord and master: God wished for this to happen.’

  ‘God, or Stanley? Stanley and Northumberland, Buckingham and our own mother. You do realise, do you not, that unless it was divine intervention, it was treason that brought King Richard down? Anyhow, if God is truly almighty, everything which happens is His wish.’ I look at her for affirmation.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Well, then it was his wish also that our uncle should be king, and that Tudor should fail in his first attempt. And how can God have wished for our poor brothers to die? It seems frightfully intricate to me.’

  ‘He works in mysterious ways.’

  I tilt my head to gaze up at the gilded canopy, where flowers are embroidered in silver thread. ‘If God wills it, your husband will return unscathed. If not, I shall remind you of his mysterious ways.’

  Elizabeth leans back to study the canopy with me, her face fallow as marble but her eyes animated. ‘Have I told you that Henry still suffers from nightmares about Redemore? About the cavalry charge, the man racing like a demon towards him… Pray do not forget that my husband is as human as you and I, Cecily. As human as our uncle was.’

  ‘It is difficult at times. Forgive me, but it is.’ I frown, though there is a spark of queer delight in my chest. ‘You called him our uncle. I haven’t heard you say that since before Father died.’

  ‘You know I am one with Mother in my opinion of him, but…but I did really love him once, as you still do. Before.’

  Once again, the deceitful ‘what if’ takes possession of me. ‘If he had only withdrawn his soldiers, sent for a new horse, ridden north to Yorkshire, where every man would have rallied to his standard—’

  ‘He was ever the gambler, unlike Henry, too careless.’

  I grant her a joyless laugh. ‘He cared a great deal, dear sister, but not for his own life, not during those last moments. Not when it counted the most.’

  During the following month, we receive scraps of news from messengers. Lincoln and his army—eight thousand strong, we hear—spend three days skirmishing with the Lancastrian cavalry, which is under the command of my uncle Ned, Lord Scales. The Yorkists having been delayed in their march, Tudor is able to join Lord Scales in Nottingham, and on the sixteenth day of June, the battle stands outside the village of East Stoke.

  York is crushed.

  Elizabeth concerned herself in vain. Tudor leaves the fighting itself to his vanguard, led by the seasoned Earl of Oxford, much like he did at Redemore Plain. It is a sensible choice, but it does not exactly fume with glory or bravery. What happened to the days when kings defended their realm with their own sword? I suspect that era died with Father and Uncle Richard, if not before.

  Lambert Simnel, the Yorkist figurehead and pawn, is pardoned and placed in the royal kitchens. There, he is sentenced to labour as a spit-turner for an unspecified amount of time, a humbling enough task to wipe out any glamorous illusions he might still have. I have to admit it is a stroke of genius on Tudor’s part, since he can add a sheen of clemency to his reputation while degrading the child as far as is possible without harming him and thereby angering the public. Furthermore, unlike the real Warwick, Simnel will be seen constantly, preventing rumours of his escape.

  The Irish lords are pardoned as well, for Tudor cannot risk their opposition again.

  Dorset is released from the Tower after having been confined there during the uprising. I do not know if there is a grain of credence in Tudor’s paranoia regarding my half-brother, if he truly was involved in any way, but Dorset has not been entirely trusted by the Pretend-King ever since he tried to abandon exile back in 1485. Whatever was spoken on that day of interception in Compiègne, Tudor’s suspicion remains, and not without cause, considering Dorset’s skittish character.

  Francis Lovell’s fate is a mystery. When I ask, some say he was killed, others that he was merely wounded and could escape back to Burgundy. Naturally, I pray for the latter.

  Lincoln is not as fortunate as to have his death doubted. I never hear how it happened, other than that he was slain on the battlefield, and I doubt he received a proper funeral. Mourning my cousin is beyond me after all that passed between us, yet it stings to know another Yorkist claimant lies mowed down. We do have his younger brothers, as well as the real Warwick and John of Gloucester still languishing in the Tower, but my hope dwindles with each passing day. Could any of them succeed, and do I want them to? I cannot tell.

  If I had been born a boy, I would make my own claim; I could trump both Tudor’s and Elizabeth’s, do away with him and treat my sister with kindness. But no—if I had been born a boy, I would be long dead. Mother once told me men fight on the field and women on the marriage market. I have rarely been glad to be a girl, but in this moment, I am. We face our share of danger, true, but at least it is rarely as fatal as if we had been of the opposite sex.

  I have pondered my own words to Elizabeth that day when Tudor left for Stoke Field. I have not said it out loud before, but I have thought of it often: treason. Tudor should never, never, have been able to defeat his opponent at Redemore. His troops were inferior in number and he himself was inferior both in experience, skill, and bravery. Oxford, who held chief command over the soldiers, was and is a seasoned warrior in truth, but not even he could have brought victory for Tudor without the rippling chain of treachery both before and during the battle. As I go about my daily pastimes, I explore the subject in my head.

  There are the more subtle treasons, such as my own betrayal of Lincoln which might have lessened his chances of success, and the Countess of Warwick’s betrayal of her daughter when she left a fourteen-year-old Anne Neville to more or less fend for herself at Tewkesbury.

  There are the coat-turnings out of pure necessity, such as when the Woodvilles abandoned their former Lancastrian allegiance when Mother caught Father’s eye, or when the Howards started to gravitate towards becoming Tudor’s new lapdogs. It is difficult at times to draw the line between betrayal and mere loyalty to one’s own house or even common sense.

  Treason was what nearly killed Father several times during his reign, and it certainly did kill Clarence, though he inevitably chose that for himself. What Uncle Richard said about his fate lives with me still. He crossed every boundary during a decade, yet the punishment did not come until…until it did. Could there indeed be something more to it? To me, the reasons I already knew of—one failed rebellion, one restoration of Lancaster to the throne, another suspected rebellion, having a sorcerer predict the King’s death, opposing the King’s justice on more than one occasion—always seemed plentiful enough for any gruesome death, and that was notwithstanding his abhorrent treatment of Queen Anne and his never-ending arrogance. But Father forgave a great deal of those unpleasantries, the way Father alone could forgive, though he never forgot any man’s lapses. Clarence’s death sentence made no mention of the woman against whom he was charged with having committed judicial murder. I know this because Mother basked in finally having her vengeance for the brother and father Clarence took from her, and she thought it was her persuasive tongue—not to mention her persuasive smile and carnal appeal—that brought it about, recounting every detail to me.

  I doubt it was thus. For nigh on nine years, she wished for her brother-in-law’s death before the wish came true, and as far as I can recall, Father was no more infatuated with her then than what was considered status quo. No, there must have been something more, like Uncle Richard said.

  A shadow of a memory resurfaces one night as I lay staring into the dark. Was not Bishop Stillington, the man who confessed to having officiated a plight-troth between Father and the late Lady Eleanor Butler, kept under arrest around the same time as the execution in 1478, allegedly for association with Clarence,? If he spilled his secret to Clarence, Father would have seen no other choice but to put Clarence to death, for he would not have risked his fickle brother turning on him once more, th
is time in the knowledge that he was the rightful heir to the throne seeing as we children were all baseborn. Or am I getting a headache over an imagined connection, musing over something that never happened?

  The sheets at once feel coarser against my skin, frustration prickling me. I would ask Stillington myself, but having no favour with Tudor, he involved himself in the recent insurgency and has sought refuge at the University of Oxford.

  I know of one truth alone: that this could be a mere fanciful speculation of a sleepless night, soon forgotten when dawn breaks. I shall have to leave the matter to the mists of the unknown.

  Chapter XX

  I PAY MOTHER a visit, but she has come down with a cough and a fever, and I leave her to the care of the nuns at Bermondsey Abbey to avoid contagion. I had hoped to ask for her advice regarding my marriage, or perhaps merely for her to confirm that I must indeed wed Welles. Crestfallen, I decide to turn to the only other person I can think of who might have anything truly sensible to say, and who would never spill a secret: Bridget.

  I have had precious little correspondence with my youngest sister, but she is not yet seven, and was never one for mindless prattle. The half-day journey to Dartford Priory is a relatively trivial enterprise, though, and guilt stings me for not making it sooner. When I step out of the carriage onto the farmland, my slipper sinks deep into the grassy mud. I cast my eyes at the rural building in front of me.

  ‘Is this where my sister lives?’ I ask the coachman.

  He nods, picking a speck of dust off the Tudor rose badge stitched to his sleeve. ‘It is indeed, Your Royal Highness. I will wait for you here.’

  The priory resembles a small, run-down country manor, the home of a modest gentry family. A lone cow is scratching its flank against a nearby oak and a cat as black as charcoal lies stretched out in a pool of sunlight by the main entrance. The only indication of human life is the plumes of smoke curling from the chimneys, contrasting against the bruised purple sky.