Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

  ‘But—’

  ‘Forget it, Cecily!’ she snaps. ‘Just because your own husband is not as passionate.’

  ‘No, no he certainly is not.’ I have never seen her this defensive—I will get nowhere by pressing the matter further. ‘Well, won’t you tell me about something else? How is Kate?’

  Anne smiles, our spat apparently forgotten. ‘She is glowing, God’s truth. Little Hal and Teddy are chafing against her nerves, though.’

  I can imagine it: eighteen-year-old Kate, still every bit the sprightly young girl, trying to talk to her friends over the noise of wailing babies, pouting at the helpless wet-nurse and rockers. Still, two healthy sons in two years of marriage is a feat most women would drool over, and in due time, her husband William Courtenay will inherit the earldom of Devon.

  The rest of the evening passes in idle chatter about everything from Kate’s new daring headdress to European politics. I take care not to mention Thomas Howard again, for I do not want to lose my sister’s confidence and affection. However, I shall have to keep as close an eye as I can on their marriage. If he does not behave in the future, then…then there is very little I can do about it, but I have an obligation to poke my nose in it at the very least.

  In the morning, I write to Elizabeth, hoping she might be able to persuade Tudor to reconsider his leniency towards Perkin Warbeck. Though she does not show it as far as I know, she has been as wounded by the impostor’s existence as I have. Her hope, too, must have been lit and extinguished; she, too, must have spent endless nights lying awake wondering whether she has failed to support her long-lost brother or whether it was all a cruel trick.

  I seal the letter and give it to one of the servants with instructions to ride to Greenwich, where the court currently resides. The pained look in his eyes almost makes me change my mind, but no, he will have to live with the cold, lengthy ride. Perhaps, just this once, my eldest sister will adhere to mine and her own wishes rather than Tudor’s.

  Anne, Welles, and the girls are waiting for me in the great hall. The table is decked with bread and cheese, milk and spiced wine, and porridge. I take a seat, ravenous as always after a night on an empty belly, reaching for my spoon. This being my own household, there is no need to follow to the norm of having a feather-light meal or nothing at all in the mornings.

  Welles coughs into the crook of his elbow for a good while. When he has finished, he appears mortified. ‘Pardon me, ladies. I believe I have contracted a chill. It was not my intent to make such a fuss.’

  I swallow a laugh. ‘Do not concern yourself with us, Husband. We have survived worse.’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to take to my bed.’

  ‘Do so. I’ll have a tray sent to you—some tea and honey, and the rest of your bread.’

  He pushes his chair back, gives my hand a squeeze, and retires upstairs.

  Anne frowns, slowly stirring butter into her cloggy porridge. ‘Your husband does not seem healthy, not at all.’

  I dab a smear from Annie’s cheek, secretly glad Welles cannot tell me that this, too, is the nurse’s task. ‘He is prone to sore throats and runny noses, and always has been. He says he enjoys winter, but I doubt it.’

  ‘Will you go to him?’

  ‘He can sleep awhile first. I promised the girls we might show you the puppies in the stable—did I not?’

  Eliza nods fervently. ‘Yes, yes, please let’s.’

  Having finished our meal, the four of us embark on our little expedition: across the inner ward, through the guardhouse and over the bridge, to the stable on the other side of the outer ward. One of Welles’ greyhounds gave birth to nine squealing little bundles of fur and wet noses a week ago. Apart from my own babies, they are the sweetest thing I ever saw, and the others share my opinion, squatting in the rushes.

  Once we return to the castle, I order the tray for Welles and follow the Irish kitchen maid to the main bedchamber. She puts the tray down on the side table, curtsies, and scurries back to her safe domain in the kitchen.

  I sit by the foot of the bed. ‘Are you awake?’

  Welles grunts something before erupting into a fit of sneezing, and I shuffle farther back as discreetly as I can.

  ‘Oh dear… Do forgive me,’ he says.

  ‘No matter. Take your remedies and we shall have you on your feet tomorrow.’

  However, Welles’ ailments are slow in passing, in fact, they increase rather than pass. Five days come and go, and he is still tucked up under four blankets with a fever and hoarse voice. The children, Anne, and I do what we can to brighten his spirits, but to no avail.

  On the sixth day, my sister departs early, for fear of contagion. I am reluctant to let her return to Thomas Howard, but what can I do? Her eyes sparkle when she mentions him; perhaps she is leaving due to longing, not merely risk of infection.

  ‘Promise to write to me, and spare me no details of how you fare,’ I tell her while the carriage is being prepared.

  She kisses my cheeks. ‘Of course I will. Prithee do not worry about me, but think of Lord Welles instead.’

  Chapter XXIII

  TOWARDS THE END of January, I summon a physician from Boston to Tattershall for the second time. He brings leeches, hoping to balance the humours in Welles’ body.

  I stand flat against the wall while the crook-nosed Bostonian applies the greenish-black, slimy animals to my husband’s exposed, pasty arms and stomach. It is a good thing he is sleeping heavily—and better still I gave him an extra glass of our strongest wine—for he shares my disgust of the ungodly beasts. I have to press my hand to my mouth to stop myself from vomiting as I watch the leeches draw blood. I would have picked ordinary bleeding myself, but the physician knows best.

  ‘Have this, Lady Welles. Be certain Lord Welles takes it every morn and eve till he be healthy again,’ he says once his work is finished, pressing a small wooden tub in my palm.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Seeds of celery mixed with honey, anise, wine, and pepper. It is a useful remedy for those suffering from coughs.’

  I nod. ‘I shall give it to him. Grammercy.’

  I pay the physician his costly fee, and he departs, leaving me standing by the bedside. I have to sleep in one of the turrets from this point forward, perhaps in the little room below that of my daughters’, to avoid catching the disease. Unlike some of my sisters, my health has always been strong, and when others have crumbled under sickness’ yoke, I have remained standing, but I would rather not tempt fate.

  Eliza and Annie are intrigued, though fear lurks in their eyes like a shadowy cat sneaking on its prey. They have seen their father ill in bed before, and have suffered similar ailments themselves, but this is different. For almost three weeks now, Welles has shown no signs of improvement, rather the opposite, and I know the chills sometimes shaking his body scare our daughters, hence I keep both my girls away from Welles as much as possible. To my despair, though, it is too late, because Eliza is soon overtaken by similar symptoms as her father. Is it my fault? Should I have been more restrictive regarding her whereabouts earlier? In such a small child, fever and lung diseases are all the more dangerous, this I do know. Children are always vulnerable—that is the first thing one learns as a mother.

  I spend my days switching from my husband’s bedside to my daughter’s and back again. I spend my nights twisting and turning in my own provisory bed. I move Annie down two floors and set up a temporary new bedchamber for her as well in a desperate attempt to protect her from the evil spreading in our household. Is it God’s wrath over my lack of proper piety, at last spilling over? Or is it a curse laid upon us, or perhaps merely nature’s cruelty? It is impossible for me to tell.

  Eliza appears smaller than ever as she lies ridden with painful coughs and burning with fever. Gone is the fiery, thriving girl I used to know. She squeezes my hand relentlessly, her little fingers red from the effort.

  One day, she tells me: ‘Lady Mother? I’m afr
aid.’

  ‘Afraid of what?’

  ‘Of dying. I do not want to die. I want to do so many other things.’

  Her words bring tears to my eyes, for I am every bit as frightened as she is. ‘You shan’t die, my love. We just have to wait for the worst to pass, and then you will feel better.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  A knock on the door. The Irish maid, Joan, sticks her head into the room. ‘Pardon, m’lady. You might want to see to Lord Welles. He’s not doing so nicely.’

  I sigh, push the chair back and rise, then blow Eliza a careful kiss. ‘I will be back before you know I was even gone.’

  As I enter the main bedchamber, I am nearly blinded. Dust dances in the streaks of white sunlight, the dark velvet curtains surrounding my husband creating a stark contrast to the otherwise bright room.

  Joan was certainly not exaggerating. My husband’s breaths come quick and shallow; he presses a hand to his chest as if to stem pain. He has lost weight, too, over the past month, and the bones jut out under the chemise from his already skinny shoulders. The sight brings images to my mind of Queen Anne shortly before she died.

  ‘Come,’ he wheezes.

  I comply, halting halfway through the room. While I do not have the heart to deny my daughter my immediate presence, I lack the courage to take as great a risk for my husband.

  Welles continues, his voice unrecognizable. ‘I have made a will...I bequeath all my castles and manors to you, dear wife.’

  I fail to form any proper words of gratitude. I could never have guessed he held me in such high esteem, nor that his love was so ardent. Perhaps a person’s true colours only show on their deathbed—for that is what this must be—if they have lived a too restrained life.

  ‘Do not leave me, John,’ I say, hiding my clenched fists between the folds of my gown. ‘Please. The girls need their father.’

  ‘You are the most capable woman I could have married. They shan’t lack anything in the way of protection or riches.’

  ‘Your sister will have us removed from Tattershall. What if she and Tudor pick another husband for me, and our daughters are made someone else’s wards? What then? Their new guardians would marry them to their own sons and take their inheritance before I could so much as wink.’ Widows are rarely granted the custody of their own children, and this frightens me beyond anything.

  ‘There is a letter…in my desk. Give it to the King. He will know then that my last wish is for you to be free to choose both your own and the girls’ husbands. Tattershall…it is true. You may have to move elsewhere, but the other castles are not of poor standard. I have committed my last wishes regarding the burial and so forth to paper also.’

  A cold trickle on my cheek. I reach up only to discover my eyes are leaking. After everything this man has cost me—my freedom, my ambitions, a large chunk of my pride—he now gives me back my own agency. I may be approaching twenty-nine and am not as fertile as my husband and Margaret Beaufort might have wished, yet I have maintained my appearance, and as a wealthy widow I will be more independent than ever before. I will be in a position to wed whomever I like, or at least have a far more free choice than last time. And still…I mourn Welles already. I never grew to love him as a husband, but he was—no, he is—a friend and has been kind when it has been within his power. Without him, Eliza and Annie would not have entered my world.

  I swallow my tears and tread the last steps towards the bed. Kneeling, I clasp my hands in a feeble prayer.

  ‘Forgive me, Cecily.’

  I turn my eyes to him, hesitating a moment. ‘There is nothing to forgive. I mean it.’

  ‘Then you will pray for my eternal soul?’

  ‘I will, though I do not think my prayers will do you more good than your own record of actions.’

  He moves his head in what could be interpreted as a nod.

  I do not have to deliver Welles’ letter, nor break the seal on his official will. It is a miracle. The morning after what I thought would be our last words to each other, the disease loosens its grip on him ever so slightly. I can only gape along with Joan as we watch him eat a bowl of turnip soup without coughing it up. Perhaps the leeches were just slow in working, or perhaps it is divine intervention. Whatever the case, nothing is the same. He has exposed the sentiment closest to his heart in the clutch of death, and I have known the anguish losing my husband would bring. The air between us is thick as the castle walls. If this bout was to test our marriage, we have passed, and still, a sense of embarrassment tarries. I understand the blessing granted me, truly, but I wish I had not pleaded for him not to leave me. Despite the length of our union, despite all the emotional bursts I have put on display, I have never before felt this vulnerable under his gaze. He must be wondering whether I love him. I do not know yet if I do, but I have a sneaking suspicion. Surely, there are many ways to love a person. He is neither a lover nor a father figure to me, and not like the friends I have previously had, but he does play the third most central role in my life and that does entitle him to a kind of platonic affection.

  Although he improves a little day by day, Welles is still too weak to rise from the bed for another fortnight. His breath may have begun to calm, but his strength remains diminished, and I wonder if it will ever return entirely. Like a bird with broken wings, he is a tad broken himself. Someday I will lose him, for his powers to resist death will not always be what they were on this first stroll along the edge of the dark abyss.

  A few days after Welles eats that first bowl of soup, I spend the night in the chair I have drawn up to Eliza’s bed. The governess, two servants, and I have tried to feed her broth and bread, but what she does manage comes up again moments later. With each passing hour, she fades a little further and I grow a little more fearful. The sound of her merciless cough and exhausted lungs is starting to creep into my nightmares, just like when Queen Anne perished.

  The physician from Boston visited once more yesterday, extracting another heavy fee. I would pay him every single penny I have if he could cure my girl, but the bleeding does not seem to help and she refuses to swallow the herbal remedies. The physician says this sickness is very common—I know it well enough myself; I have seen chills worsen like this before—and we can only wait. I loathe waiting. It is the worst kind of torture of the mind.

  When I wake, Eliza is looking at me. The windows are still curtained and the darkness casts heavy shadows on her taunt little face.

  ‘Lady Mother?’ she whispers. ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘I know, my love. There is no need.’

  ‘Tell me a story.’

  ‘Which one would you like to hear?’ Her hand stirs but she says nothing, hence I pick one myself. ‘There once was an evil queen called Marguerite d’Anjou. She had come from a faraway land across the sea to wed a king called Henry when she was very young. Now, Henry was not really a king, for his grandfather had taken the throne foully from a tyrant. Sometimes we need to remove a tyrant, but this was not done in the right way, because the crown should have passed to the usurper’s cousins, who were first in line. What was more, Henry was too feeble and too indecisive to rule, rather like a small child, caring only for saints. So, Marguerite married him, and the years went by. After a time, the kingdom was very tired of the King’s silly non-rule and people had started to fight. So, do you know what happened?

  ‘Your great-grandfather, the Duke of York, said he could rule and then the kingdom would be a happy place again. But the evil Queen said no, she would rule. Some people thought this was a very nasty thing because she was a woman, but the truth was it was bad because she was from another kingdom across the sea, and so she had no right. Evil Marguerite had a wicked son, whom she had had through a wicked love affair with a man who was not Henry.

  ‘Marguerite and your great-grandfather fought very hard and very long, and her army was known to pillage and loot the country. At last, your great-grandfather died and y
our grandfather fought on in his stead and won—’ My words fall flat.

  Eliza does not move. Alarm bubbles in me as I bend forward, hoping to feel her short breath against my cheek—and nothing.

  ‘No, no, no…’ I murmur as I put two fingers to the place below her jaw where I have seen physicians check the pulsating of the blood. Again, nothing.

  No. No, no, no. A strange hollowness fills me, then pangs of panic. I want to cry out but no sound emerges.

  Is this what my own mother felt when Mary died? What about all the others…baby George and baby Margaret who passed away in infancy, my brothers in the Tower, Grey on the scaffold? How could Mother survive losing six of her twelve children prematurely when I can barely breathe having lost one? Perhaps she was made of sterner stuff than I am. Perhaps she found comfort in Christ, or something else pushed her to go on.

  I close my eyes. Eliza’s hand is still warm in mine, yet limp. I see her against the black of my eyelids: swaddled for the first time, the midwife placing her in my arms, her grey eyes gazing into mine as if she already knew my every secret. I recognised those eyes instantly, and how I cherished the fragment of my uncle that I found in them.

  I see her smiling for the first time. I laughed then, as did Welles. I see her taking her first wobbly steps in the nursery, like a fawn on ice. I see her face sticky with strawberry juice in summertime, her fury when anyone tried to manage anything for her. Was it all for nothing?

  Mayhap I have failed. I tried to not let my slight favouritism for her sister show one wit, because I know how painful such a thing can be. Annie took an extra ounce of my love because of her sweetness and her dependence on me, but Eliza will always be my oldest, my first, the one most like myself.

  No, not will be. Was.

  Judging by the burnt-down candles, several hours pass before I struggle to my feet and let go of my daughter’s hand. The warmth is gone now. My knees are sore and flattened, my cheeks clammy with tears. I bend down and pull the covers up to Eliza’s shoulders, smoothing the wrinkles and arranging her arms neatly by her sides. There. Prettily tucked up in bed, prepared for the night.