B004H0M8IQ EBOK

by Worth, Sandra

  All lies in the hands of Fate, she had thought with a shiver, for Fate had proven itself a malignant force in their lives.

  When the tidings came of Richard’s capture, Catherine had lain in seclusion in her room, ill with fever and fear. She had heard that he was put to shame in the stocks at Westminster Hall for two days, and was committed to the Tower on the third. Horror, black and chill, froze her breath and she bolted upright in her bed. Thrusting the blankets off, she rose. It was still dark, barely five of the o’clock; it had been a bad night. The queen had suggested she not report for her duties until she felt better, but she could no longer stay away. Time was poison to her; it gave her too much chance to think.

  With Alice’s help, she dressed quickly, and picked up her basket of silk thread, and together they made their way to the queen’s privy chamber. They exchanged a look of surprise as they entered the antechamber of the royal bedchamber. Light flowed from beneath the queen’s door and voices drifted to them, low and muffled. Catherine was disturbed by the anomaly. While the queen might stir from sleep at this hour, it was far too early for her to be up and entertaining company. Catherine approached anxiously. She couldn’t clearly make out what they said.

  “You don’t want to know.” Cecily’s voice.

  “Tell me,” Kate insisted. “I have a right to know.”

  Kate was there, too? How strange.

  “He could be my brother, too,” Kate added.

  So it concerned Richard! She tiptoed closer and laid her ear to the door.

  “You’d be looking into a very ugly corner of the human heart, Kate.” It was Cecily who spoke.

  Catherine peeped through the keyhole. Cecily stood in the middle of the room, her face close to Kate’s. They lowered their voices. Catherine strained to hear but she only caught mumbling, and then she heard Cecily utter words that would never leave her for as long as she lived: “For the love of Heaven, Elizabeth, how can you defend him! Do you not understand? Henry had him castrated—”

  Catherine screamed and dropped the basket of silk thread she carried. She put her hands over her ears and screamed again. She kept screaming, because only screams could blot the words from her mind. Arms grabbed her around the shoulders, around the waist; she let herself drop into them as the cold marble floor rose to meet her. “N-n-no-noooo!” she cried, reaching out to them.

  As she lay on the ground, moaning and writhing wretchedly, she saw Cecily and Kate staring down at her in horror.

  “Let it not be true—” she begged.

  Footsteps sounded distantly and voices came from along the passageway. The queen’s other ladies-in-waiting were arriving. They rushed to her side and helped her up, but she could barely stand for the shattering pain in her stomach. “What can the matter be?” “What has happened?” “Shall I fetch wine?”

  “Hush, hush,” Cecily told them. She took Catherine’s hand into her own. “’Tis her monthly cycle. She suffers from fierce pain, poor thing. Here, Catherine, come with us. Help me, Kate—come with us—that’s it, Catherine, one step at a time—” She took her into the bedchamber and Kate shut the door behind them, locking everyone out.

  Catherine looked at Cecily and took in the anguish on her face. Cecily is the only one who cares in this cold, heartless world, she thought. “O Cecily,” she wept. “O Cecily, Cecily . . .”

  A month had passed since Richard had been dragged back to his cell. He had lain for days in his own blood, groaning with pain and wishing for death. He remembered clutching his belly when he first arrived; remembered his legs giving out from under him; remembered falling to the floor. He remembered writhing in his own stinking vomit as he wept for what was lost forever.

  Catryn, he’d screamed into the blackness that surrounded him.

  But Catryn was gone, and if God was kind, she would never see him again. Not this way. Let her remember him as he had been. What was it she’d said about the mirror of the mind reflecting the past back onto us? Aye, memories helped; and prayer, too, though prayer could not fade his bodily agony. Oh, to fall into a deep sleep and never wake up! But sleep did not come as faithfully as he wished, and thirst was always with him. “Wine—” he had begged, barely realizing that he spoke, or that he pushed his cup through the steel bars of his cell. “Have pity—”

  One of his four jailors, Roger Ray, whom they called “Long Roger,” did show compassion. He filled and refilled Richard’s battered tin cup each time Richard passed it to him. And after drink had revived him, Richard always asked himself the same question. By what path did I find my way into this hell? The answer that came to him was always the same: The mistakes I made brought me here; one reckless step after another. And failure brought me here; one miserable failure after another. But most of all, pride brought me here . . . Hubris, the first deadly sin, the most dangerous of sins because it blinds our understanding.

  “From pride all perdition took its beginning, is that not right, my friend?” he asked, rattling his chains as he waved his empty tin cup through the bars of his cell. Long Roger undid a flask beside him and poured him more drink, his movements enlarged by the shadows he cast in the candlelight. “That’s right,” he mumbled. “’Tis what they say.”

  “Right you are, my friend—” Richard upturned his cup and downed a long swallow. Ah, that was better . . .

  He had committed the deadly sin of pride, and for that he had fallen into perdition. He had thought that all he needed to do was show himself to his people, and they would recognize him as the son of his father and restore him to his father’s throne. He had thought to prevail because he had righteousness on his side—and God, too. For how could God side with a tyrant? It was inconceivable.

  Pride had blinded him to the truth. Might, not right, won earthly kingdoms. He laughed uproariously into his half-emptied cup. God had not taken care of him, but the Devil had not failed his disciple, Henry Tudor. He shook his head in wonder.

  “The Devil takes care of his own, isn’t that what they say?” he demanded of his jailors. They threw him an indulgent smile, and went on with their card game.

  He had come into the tyrant’s lair as blind as a bat, without an army, and worse—with his heart stuffed with the pride of righteousness. And when he was brought face-to-face with the truth at Taunton, he ran from death. He was a coward—and not merely a coward. A stupid coward who had not seen the truth until it was too late.

  A stupid coward. He laughed uproariously, drained his cup, and held it out again.

  “How much wine does it take to knock you out, mate?” Long Roger demanded, slapping his cards down with annoyance this time, for now the flask was empty and he had to get up and refill Richard’s cup from the barrel of wine standing in the corner. Another jailor, Thomas Strangeways, perhaps a relative to the fellow James Strangeways of the king’s chamber, passed Long Roger the flask while he stood there, and Long Roger filled that also before returning to the table. “Here you go. This is the last time tonight, understand? I’m not getting up again.” He gave Richard his wine.

  “Understand—aye, I do understand—now,” Richard laughed. “Now I surely do—” In an abrupt change of mood, he cried out suddenly, as he had many times before, “I thought it was a blessing to be born a prince! All my life, I took pride in my royal Plantagenet blood, but Dear God Almighty, how happy I would be now to be a simple peasant—to be tilling the fields in rain and sunshine—to look up at the stars and kiss the girl I love! Like you—Long Roger—and you, Thomas Astwood, and you, Strangeways—and you, Walter Bluet! Do you know how blessed you are? Give thanks, all of you—give thanks for your low birth, that you were not born the son of a king, like me!” Abruptly, he covered his head in his hands, and sobbed.

  And this is your penance, you accursed son of a king, Richard thought. A penance sent by God, and delivered by the Devil’s disciple into whose hands he had delivered himself—that other coward, Henry Tudor. The one who’d fled Bosworth. The one who, in Brittany, had trembled so violently to re
turn to England that he’d almost died of fright in the dockyard at St. Malo.

  His sobs ceased abruptly and he grinned, imagining Tudor’s terror. Then his smile faded. The tyrant had lived because the Duke of Brittany had taken pity and rescinded the order to send him back to England. But where was the tyrant’s pity, where his humanity? He who had trembled to die did not shrink from acts of unspeakable cruelty and the taking of life in abominable ways. Like the poor friar who had burned at the stake when a word would have spared him. Like William, the sergeant-farrier, who had challenged the tyranny of his rule—

  William’s face floated before him. He screwed his eyes shut and put out his hand. “Go, William—go!” he yelled, waving him away. “I cannot bear to see your face, nor to know how many others I have sent into this hell that binds me now. Go, my friend—”

  He broke into sobs once more. Reckless, stupid fool that he was, among these others that he had delivered into the Devil’s hands were his wife and child. Catryn—he cried softly. Forgive me, my beloved—Dickon, my beautiful son, wherever you are, forgive me—

  He lifted his eyes, and lo! through the tears that blurred his sight he beheld the glory of what had been his wedding day. He, in white damask and gold, and Catherine, in velvet the color of snow, were swinging one another around with wild abandon, arms linked, eyes only for each other, and Catherine was shaking loose the lilies in her black hair as they danced to the frenzied beat of a Highland melody blown on bagpipes and clashing with cymbals. The vision vanished as if the golden bubble that encased it had ruptured in the air before him. But then Catherine came to him again from out of the shadows. He heard her silvery laughter and she took his hand, and together they threw caution to the winds and galloped out of the castle gates over the moors, to picnic in the heather and run on the windy hills. Once more he saw himself holding her in his arms at Huntly Castle, loving her in the tenderness of the night, with a love that he had not known existed in the world and an ecstasy that had lifted him to the fringes of Heaven. Together they had mingled their blood and begotten children . . . beautiful children . . .

  Oh, how I miss you, my beloved Catryn, and you, my Dickon, my sweet Dickon, angel child that you were—

  And how he missed the simple things of life: the stir of the wind through the trees, the smell of the earth on a cool spring morning, God’s creatures in the forest, delighting in the brief joy of their brief existence. The sun, the stars, the moon, the fragrance of flowers, the touch of the rain on his face—

  He laid his head back against the dank stone wall of his cell and closed his eyes. This hell is my penance but, Father in Heaven, it should not be theirs. Stupid coward that he was, he had not only come unprepared into the tyrant’s lair, thinking he had the protection of God, but had brought his wife and child with him. There was not penance enough for that.

  The jangle of keys in the lock broke into his thoughts. Two men were entering his cell, the whites of their eyes glowing strangely in the darkness, their burly shoulders blotting out the little bit of light from the candle on the table. Now he saw that Long Roger, Thomas Strangeways, and the others were gone. Terror gripped him. His gaze went to their hands, and he broke into a fit of violent shaking. Dragging his chains, he shuffled backward along the floor until he slammed himself up against the cold wall. For they held clubs in their hands, and he knew not what evil they had come to wreak.

  Chapter 15

  Season of Death

  The sun bore down on Henry’s back as he dismounted and made his way to the inner court of the Tower of London to see the Pretender, surrounded by the two hundred armed guards who never left his side. The thought of the Plantagenet tightened his mouth into a line that cut across his face like a blade. Sick of hearing how much he resembled King Edward, he’d taken care of it so that no one would ever see King Edward in his face again. Sick of worrying that he would escape and scatter his seed, he’d taken care of that, too—his son was as good as dead, hidden away where no one would ever find him, and there would be no more progeny from the father. Henry was determined to have it end, and he had ended it. He’d stamped the Plantagenet threat into oblivion.

  If all this was not enough reason for what he’d done to him, there was still one more. Catherine. Sick of seeing her gaze at his rival with adoring doe-eyes when she coldly spurned him and his gifts, he’d made certain to wipe the face she’d loved from the face of the earth—as best he could, without going against his oath to God before Prior Ralph. A brilliant stroke, even if he said so himself.

  Damn Margaret of Burgundy! he thought as he conducted the delegation from Archduke Philip the Handsome to the White Tower. Her support for the Plantagenet was a thorn in his side that had kept his nerves on edge for well over a year now. There was only one way to force her to stop plotting to free him. Show her that the Richard she knew no longer existed.

  He’d wanted to punish her for her myriad plots against him, but Philip and his new archduchess, Juana of Spain, sister to Prince Arthur’s betrothed, Catherine of Aragon, wouldn’t permit trade sanctions against Burgundy. Therefore he’d agreed to this meeting. Led by the archduke’s foremost councilor, the Bishop of Cambrai, the delegation had come to discuss trade, but for Henry, the Pretender eclipsed the trade issue. He had invited the Spanish ambassador, Dr. de Puebla, along to join the delegation. All the royal blood of Europe had to know how closely the Pretender was guarded and to see that his cause was dead. That included Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain.

  He strode purposefully up the steps into the entrance of the White Tower, accompanied by the Bishop of Cambrai and the members of his delegation. Henry’s thicket of soldiers peeled away to secure the premises as he crossed to the northeast corner. He took the turret staircase up to the chapel of St. John. Built by William the Conqueror in white Caen stone, in the Romanesque style, with thick, round pillars and a stunning two-story curved gallery of stone, it was an impressive place for what he hoped would be a decisive meeting. Guards thrust the doors open.

  “Truly magnificent,” murmured the Bishop of Cambrai, gazing around him reverently.

  Henry offered him a smile and led the way along the vaulted nave up to the altar where de Puebla already waited for them.

  As Philip the Handsome’s austere councilor, the Bishop of Cambrai, followed the king, Prince Richard was at the forefront of his mind. The trade agreement that had ostensibly brought him to England was not of sufficient importance to drag him away from his duties in Malines. He had a secret and more pressing purpose for this visit. To see Prince Richard, gain his freedom, and conduct him back safely to Flanders had been the sole true aim of his embassy to England. If that failed—God forfend!—then he wished to return to the Duchess of Burgundy with words of hope, and to assure her that her beloved boy was at least well.

  He bowed to the Spanish ambassador. When the crosscurrent of greetings had subsided, Henry spoke.

  “Whenever you are ready, the false prince, Perkin Warbeck, shall be brought before you, Your Highnesses, so you may hear the truth from his own lips, as sworn before you and God Himself.”

  The Bishop of Cambrai inclined his head.

  “Bring him in,” Henry said, turning to Digby.

  Digby left to fetch Richard, and Henry knelt before the altar in prayer. The bishop’s thoughts turned to Duchess Margaret. All her efforts so far to rescue her “dear darling,” as she called her nephew, had met with failure, and Cambrai knew that the only hope she had left resided in him. In his mind’s eye, he saw the duchess waiting for Prince Richard’s return, sitting by her writing desk of solid silver in a study where green velvet covered the table, purple taffeta hung on the walls, and her cherished companions, the books she loved, were laid out behind a grille. Few were admitted entry to her sanctum, but her nephew had always been welcome. Every evening they had taken a cup of wine together in solitude, two lonely souls united in blood and love, finding refuge in one another. Since his capture, she had fallen into a frenzy of soul, weeping
, praying, and pleading with everyone on earth and in Heaven to return to her her beloved White Rose. Aged, ill, and lonely, she dreamt only of him, and of his release.

  A sudden commotion sounded. The bishop’s thoughts fled as the chapel doors were thrust open. At first, he did not comprehend what he saw: a man-at-arms, and something that resembled an animal in tow. The creature, clad in hose and a shirt, was emaciated and hunched over, and balanced a contraption of metal across its shoulder and chest in the manner of a performing bear. From this nexus a plethora of iron chains ran down its body to the shackles on its feet, its wrists, and to the collar around its neck, encumbering its movement so that it shuffled along with difficulty, jangling and dragging its heavy chains on the stone floor.

  The bishop peered into the distance. Christe Eleison, it could not be! Father in Heaven—but it was—it was indeed—Without being aware that he did so, he who hid all emotion behind an impassive facade shrank back with a gasp and made the sign of the cross. All that was left of the glorious young prince he had known and loved, whose friend and confessor he had been, was a mass of matted fair hair, bloodshot eyes ringed with black and blue, and a face disfigured by a broken nose and the loss of teeth, and swollen with congealed blood and pus. It was a young face from which every vestige of youth had been torn. Here, in this terrible shell of humanity, dwelled the once magnificent son of King Edward IV, the darling of his Aunt Margaret’s heart, the last of her illustrious male line. What would he tell his poor dowager duchess now; she who had longed for a child and been barren; she who had known too much of grief and loss, and emptiness? This would kill her.