B004H0M8IQ EBOK

by Worth, Sandra

  He tore his gaze from the wretched creature that had been Richard, to the king who stood beside him, watching with cold gray eyes and a triumphant smile. At that moment, it was not the Devil that Cambrai feared as much as Henry Tudor. His gaze, moving back to Prince Richard, touched on de Puebla. The Spanish ambassador had turned a sickly green as he gaped slack-jawed at the prince.

  The guard gave Prince Richard a nudge, and he knelt down, slowly and awkwardly, rattling his chains as he moved. Henry stared at the bowed head before him for a long moment before he broke the dread silence that held them in thrall.

  “Why did you practice such deception on the archduke and his country?” he spat.

  The Bishop of Cambrai held out the Bible, and Richard laid his hand on its gilt and jeweled cover. With great effort, he forced his broken and still-painful jaw, swollen tongue, and bruised lips to form the words he had rehearsed: “I swear solemnly before God that the Duchess Madame Margaret knew, as I did myself, that I am not the son of who I said I was.” His voice was rough and guttural, and no longer bore any resemblance to what it had been, but he hoped the too-ready answer to a different question would send his aunt a message. He wanted her to understand his meaning, and appreciate his guile. He lifted his head and met the bishop’s eyes, praying that his double-entendre was not lost on him: I am not the son of the boatman of Tournai.

  “You see, Your Highnesses,” said Henry, “that the pope, and the King of France, and the archduke and the King of the Romans and the King of Scotland and the Duke of Milan and the Doge of Venice and all Christian princes have been deceived.”

  The bishop did not speak as he mulled over what had been said. The young prince had not denied his birth under oath but spoke a riddle. Aye, the duchess knew as the Pretender did himself that he was not the son of the one he said he was. But whose son was he? Before his capture, he had said he was the son of King Edward. After his capture, he had said he was the son of John Osbeck. Under torture, anyone would say anything. Cambrai had met the prince’s eyes, and the message in them was clear. Prince Richard’s reply might content King Henry. But to the duchess these same words would convey exactly the opposite meaning. He, Cambrai, would report to her that even under these fearful circumstances, her beloved nephew had found the courage—and the wit—to smuggle out a laugh at the usurper’s expense.

  Beside him, de Puebla stood silently. Though his sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, had not been mentioned, they, too, believed in the young prince, and Henry knew it.

  Henry turned to the Bishop of Cambrai. “You said you had news for this—this fraud?”

  Cambrai recovered his composure. He cleared his throat and regarded Prince Richard. “Her Grace the Duchess Margaret of Burgundy sends greetings and wishes you to know that she sorely misses your presence and prays for you daily. You live in her heart, and her remembrance. She will remind you, in case you forget, that God is Love, and that reward and joy await the righteous in Heaven. She also says to tell you that the wretched hound you rescued from the streets of Malines has birthed a litter of pups.”

  Richard caught the soft gaze of his old friend and confessor, and gratitude swam in his heart. The Bishop of Cambrai had understood. He hoped the bishop could see his smile, though it fluttered on a mouth now misshapen and contorted by the shattered bones of his face.

  July was a hot month in the summer of 1498. The drought parched the cornfields and thinned the grass, but the sun shone brightly every day. Catherine did not notice. For her, since Richard’s escape on Trinity Sunday, it was night, and never would the darkness lift.

  Many times she would go to the hall in search of him, forgetting that he was not there. At other times, tears would assail her at unexpected moments—in the midst of unrelated conversations, during a stroll in the garden when birds sang brightly, or when laughter erupted at the clever antics of a fool. Then she would plead a headache and excuse herself. At night, she kept to her room and stitched her embroidery feverishly, as if Richard’s own life depended on its completion. She knew that to be ridiculous, yet she felt driven by some inner force.

  Catherine spent Richard’s birthday—on the seventeenth day of August—walking alone in the gardens of Windsor. Now that Henry’s spies were not watching her every move, Alice sometimes accompanied her, and they spoke of him, and Dickon, and Scotland and the days of yore when they had been girls together in Huntly Castle, and life had been sweet. The summer passed and October came, bringing the nip of impending winter.

  “’Tis a beautiful season, autumn,” said Cecily as they strolled together in the garden. She had just returned from the Isle of Wight, where she’d been visiting a friend over the summer. When her husband had visited her there, he’d brought news of the Bishop of Cambrai’s visit to the Tower on the last day of July, and the uneasy rumors that came with it. “De Puebla could not fathom how Perkin could have changed so much in such a short time,” her husband had reported. “It seems he’s been horribly disfigured. De Puebla doesn’t expect him to live much longer.”

  Cecily was overcome with grief and revulsion. She was not one to weep often, but she wept now that this should be the cruel fate of the merry little brother she remembered from the days of sanctuary, the boy who had loved to sing. On her return to Westminster in October, she’d sought out Catherine, thinking she might have need of a friend, and was taken aback to find that Catherine was unaware of any of these happenings. Cecily didn’t want to be the one to tell her, and so she spoke of light matters.

  “The leaves turn into rubies and gold,” she said, “and the sky is never so blue as in autumn.”

  “I used to think autumn was beautiful,” Catherine said, lifting her gaze to the sky, turquoise like Dickon’s eyes. “My child was born in September.”

  Cecily took her hand into her own, and gave it a squeeze. For a while they walked along in silence, arm in arm. Then Cecily said, “My sister the queen hates the fall, though her beloved Arthur was also birthed in September. She calls it the season of Death.” Cecily hesitated for a moment, and added, “You see, the man Elizabeth had loved had been born in October, and autumn is always a heavy time for her.”

  The season of Death. “’Tis an apt nomer,” Catherine murmured. Last year at this time she had bid Richard farewell on the beach at Marazion; her golden child had been ripped from her arms; and her unborn babe had died in her womb.

  They both fell silent, mulling their thoughts. A pair of lovers strolled past, laughing, eyes only for one another. Catherine’s gaze went to a group of young people gathered around a fountain ringed by roses and a low hedge. Three fresh-faced youths sang to a lute and pipes as girls danced for them. They drew near to listen. Catherine regarded them, wondering how many of them would ever know the happiness of living with the one they loved, as she had done. Probably none. “Court is a place of broken dreams,” she heard herself say, speaking her thought aloud.

  Cecily had been feeling bereft as she’ d listened to the lament sung by the young people, and Catherine’s remark made her realize why. Neither of her husbands had touched her emotions or awakened any intimacy of body or spirit. She had missed something of great value, and she yearned for it, not knowing precisely what she yearned for.

  “What is it like to be wed to the one you love?” she asked.

  “That sweet ditty touched a chord of sorrow in you, did it not?” Catherine asked.

  “Aye, ’tis always so with a beautiful melody of love.”

  “Nay—” Catherine murmured softly, seeing a campfire on the shores of Loch Lomond. “There was a time when such a melody made me feel the exquisite beauty of Creation. For I was whole, and my heart was full to bursting with happiness. To be wed to the one you love is something sacred and as close to Heaven as it is possible to get on this earth, Cecily.” After a hesitation, she added, “Emptiness for me, when I had Richard, was but a memory.”

  Cecily averted her gaze. Once there had been a young man for her, too. Once, long ago, when she’d
been fifteen. She’d wanted him from the first moment she’s laid eyes on him—wanted him as unquestioningly as food to eat, or wine to quench her thirst. For eight months, he’d been her guard in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, ready to escort her along the cloisters to the small green turf where she sat watching over her playful little sisters and her young brothers. Even now she could see every detail of his face, his brooding gaze, his drowsy smile; the tilt of his fair head as he stood looking down at her; the shine on his boots, the gray of his fine woolen doublet that matched the color of his eyes. She would climb out the impossibly high window of the Chapter House and flee into his arms almost every night, and she could remember still, with vivid sweetness, the touch of his lips on hers when he kissed her. Her mother had never caught her, and her sister, Elizabeth, had never noticed. She’d evaded them all. To her deep regret, they’d never made love, but many times in the years since, she’d made love to him in her dreams.

  She looked out into the distance, seeing there among the withering flowers the glorious days of her imprisonment. Her sweetheart had marveled at her skill in climbing from such a high window. “How in God’s name do you do that? I didn’t think it was possible for a monkey to manage it!” She always laughed at his amazement. “I can do anything—almost,” she liked to boast. And it did seem that way to her then. Life had held an excitement that had made her feel vitally alive. Everything had seemed possible to her then, but her uncle, King Richard, had married her to some dumb-knuckle friend of his in Yorkshire who could never get two sentences out without stuttering whenever she looked at him, and life had taken a sharp turn for the worst. She’d felt as if she’d been buried alive in that dreary place, and she was certain she’d come near death many times from simple ennui. There was no one to dance with; no one to flirt with except the laborers; none to pass the time with except ancient people whose hands trembled when they raised their goblets to their mouths, and who mumbled endlessly about the Cause of York. There was only her bumbling idiot husband, smiling at her everywhere she went.

  The only good thing about King Richard losing the Battle of Bosworth was that she finally got back to court. She lost no time befriending Henry Tudor’s mother, and Tudor’s mother had her marriage annulled. Her merriment and celebration was short-lived, however, for Tudor’s mother married her off to her bald and tiresome half-brother, Viscount John Welles, who was even worse than her first husband, Ralph Scope. At least Ralph hadn’t been a hundred doddery years old. What a fate for someone who had almost been a queen!

  She turned her gaze back on Catherine. “What is King James like?”

  Memory brought a smile to Catherine’s lips. “He is charming, handsome, generous to a fault, and the most chivalrous king in Christendom. He keeps a lion as a pet, collects guns, and adores warfare.”

  “I could have loved such a man,” Cecily sighed wistfully. “I wanted to be queen very much, you know—and to think you and I would have been”—a hesitation—“sisters in Scotland, had I come.”

  “Aye, we would have been—sisters—” She lifted her gaze to Cecily, and Cecily looked into her eyes, and both knew the other’s thoughts: As we are now, in England, dear sister.

  “Life does have a way of twisting on us, doesn’t it, Catherine?” said Cecily.

  “Always.”

  A silence ensued as both followed into their thoughts.

  “Did you know a man called ‘O’ Water’?” Cecily asked at length.

  Catherine jerked her head up. “John O’Water, the Mayor of Cork?”

  “He’s been caught in Ireland and will die at Tyburn.”

  “Sweet Mother of Christ—” Again Catherine heard him calling across the years in his Irish lilt, Me lord, I bring ye news—good news! A delegation has arrived from Penzance in support o’ the Yorkist cause! Kind, gentle John O’Water, who had been loyal to the House of York through its many battles for the throne—She shut her eyes. Oh, how she wanted her father! When she’d been a child mad with fear, she’d buried her head in her father’s shoulder and cried until she felt better. More than anything in the world she wanted to bury her head in her father’s shoulder now.

  Cecily stole a sideways glance at her, wondering if she should tell her about Richard. The news of John O’Water had been a blow, but it might cheer her to know about Cambrai’s visit and Aunt Margaret’s efforts to gain Richard’s release—though she’d have to hold back on Richard’s condition. He had been defigurado, the Spanish ambassador had said, and was unrecognizable. More he would not say. Neither would her husband. All she knew was that Aunt Meg was still trying to gain his release, or at least to ameliorate his conditions. She had written Henry offering to apologize for her past conduct, promising she would never make trouble again for him, if he would only send Richard back to her. “I won’t send him back,” Henry had replied. “But if you do these things, I may not kill him.”

  Aunt Meg would never abandon him. Surely it would be a comfort to Catherine to know that? Cecily inhaled deeply. “Aunt Meg sent the Bishop of Cambrai here to report on—on—Henry’s prisoner.”

  Catherine stared at her wide-eyed.

  “She wanted to know how he is, and she managed to get Henry to agree to let the bishop meet our—your husband.”

  “When?” Catherine whispered.

  “They met four weeks ago, on the last day of July. You heard nothing?”

  “Nothing.” So that explained the looks she received each time she walked into a room: the silences, the fading smiles, the looks of pity, the averted eyes. Henry had forbidden her to see him in prison, though it was a wife’s duty to visit her husband under such circumstances. Filled with terror of losing his throne, he feared that she might somehow help Richard escape, captive and pauper though she was. Perhaps with the aid of the magic arts? she thought bitterly. “How is Richard, do you know?”

  “The Bishop of Cambrai says Aunt Meg has offered to apologize to Henry and to promise never to support another venture against him if it would help Rich—your husband.”

  Catherine regarded Cecily thoughtfully. She had avoided answering her question, and that was answer enough. Richard fared so poorly, she could not tell her. Catherine gave a cry and covered her face with her hands.

  “There is still hope, Catherine—dwell on that.” Placing a gentle arm around her friend, Cecily led her to a bench sheltered by dense foliage, away from prying eyes.

  The leaves of autumn were swept away by the winds of winter, but in February 1499, before spring blossomed over the land, Cecily’s husband, John, Viscount Welles, died. Cecily donned the black garb of mourning and tried to pretend she was sorrowful. But she wasn’t. It was the most natural thing in the world that he should die. He was old, and his heart had given out. Why should she have to pretend hers went into the grave with him? She was alive, and never had she felt more exhilarated! Everything was possible again!

  Beneath her black gown, she tapped her toes to the music of the minstrels as she watched others dance, and looked forward to the end of the official mourning period when she could join them. Then her eyes moving over the hall would alight on Catherine, and an ache would tug at her heart. For some there was no new beginning. She had a sense that Catherine could be in black forever and ever.

  Spring did come, and so did summer, but joy did not follow, not even for Henry. He stood at the window of his council chamber, gazing absently over the beds of crimson gillyflowers and delphinium that decorated the royal garden, his lightness of mood and peaceful slumber after the recapture of his rival a forgotten memory.

  The Plantagenet had been rotting in the Tower for nearly a year, but he was never far from Henry’s mind. He had proved himself a valuable bargaining chip and had secured for Henry many important concessions from the royal blood of Europe—all surrendered in the hope that he, Henry, might spare his rival’s life. Using the Plantagenet as a pawn after Taunton, he had pushed James into a truce with England, and after Cambrai’s visit, the Duchess Margaret had groveled
before him in the hope of gaining better treatment for her “White Rose.” Henry was still milking them both for concessions. James had sent missives protesting the treatment of “his cousin, the Duke of York” and the Scottish ambassador had conveyed his complaints about Henry’s penurious punishment of Lady Catherine, urging him to send her home to her native land. But Henry had made it clear to James that would never happen; Lady Catherine, he said, would never be allowed to return to Scotland, not even within a hundred miles of it, and he cared not a whit for James’s objections. If the King of Scotland wished to better his royal cousin’s position at the English court, he should consider marrying Henry’s daughter, ten-year-old Margaret.

  All this would be cause for celebration if not for the fact that plots were constantly being hatched to free the Pretender. Despite his confession, his humiliation, and his degradation, men still believed in him. Many had been at the Plantagenet’s side from the first. They had received Henry’s pardon, but kindness had failed to win them over. Men such as John Heron from the Plantagenet’s days at Beaulieu refused to change, and would never change. They were an incorrigible lot, undeserving of his mercy. The shaming and imprisonment of their prince made no difference to them—as it made no difference to the Plantagenet’s supporters outside England.

  Henry’s thoughts turned to Catherine, and he gave an audible sigh. I can’t let her go. He’d tried to banish her from his mind but he still loved her as desperately as he ever did. He was a tortured man, suffering a disease for which there was no remedy. When he looked at Catherine now, it was with ice in his eyes while in his heart raged a fire that would not be put out. As long as he kept her beside him in England, he had hope she would come to care for him one day. As he had expected, his treatment of her husband had exacted an enormous toll on her goodwill toward him, and now he faced another decision that could cost him what gentle sentiment might still remain. His rival was no longer a viable threat, but clearly, he couldn’t be allowed to live indefinitely.