The Widow's Kiss

by Jane Feather

  “But why can’t we?” Pen repeated.

  “I imagine your mother will tell you herself as soon as she can,” Hugh told her, setting Pippa on her feet again. “For the moment, you must accept what I say. Why don’t you write a letter to her and I’ll send it with her books and things.”

  “We’ll ask her why we can’t see her,” Pen said. “Come, Pippa, let's write it upstairs.”

  Hugh blew his breath between his lips in a vigorous exhalation as they ran from the hall. He glanced at Robin.

  “Is Lady Guinevere arrested, sir?” his son asked gravely. He knew without having been told that Lady Guinevere had not made this journey to London willingly, and he knew rather more about the workings of Privy Seal's world than did Pen and Pippa. It was a small step to guess why his father was being so evasive with the lady's daughters.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Hugh replied carefully. “Lady Guinevere will be obliged to defend herself on certain matters to the king's council in the Star Chamber in a few days. Until then she has chosen not to continue under my roof. The king himself designated her present lodging.”

  Robin looked at him in silence for a minute, then said hesitantly, “If you said you were no longer interested in the estate would that make a difference?”

  “No,” Hugh stated. “The matter is far more serious than that. Now, the morning advances and you have certain tasks to perform, I believe?” He raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir.” Robin turned, his lips tight set, and left the hall for his duties in the small steward's room where a ledger of household accounts needed balancing.

  Hugh stood frowning in the middle of the hall. He felt that Robin in some way held him responsible for Guinevere's predicament. But it was not his fault that she now languished in the Tower, it was entirely the fault of her own obstinacy. And, of course, of her lack of understanding of King Henry's changeable temperament, the ruthlessness of whims that he indulged arbitrarily. Of course she could not be expected to understand that, never having frequented the court before.

  Could he have prepared her better? If he hadn’t been so anxious to keep her in his bed, could he have provided more objective preparation for what lay ahead of her?

  God's blood! Every way he turned he seemed to be at fault.

  “My lord … ?” The magister's soft voice broke into his reverie. “You sent for me, Lord Hugh.”

  “Yes, I wish you to deliver Lady Guinevere's books to her. You will take Tilly with you … she's packing up her mistress's necessities now. Jack Stedman will escort you. I doubt you will be permitted to remain with her for very long, but discover if you will what else she needs for her comfort.”

  “Where is my lady?”

  “In the Tower.”

  The magister whitened and his pointed chin waggled. “The Tower,” he breathed.

  “The king made such disposition,” Hugh said aridly. “If your lady had a better command of her tongue, she would not be so housed.”

  The magister plucked at the soft skin beneath his chin. He sucked in his cheeks and pursed his mouth. He looked up at Lord Hugh as he stood over him. “ ’Tis a bad business,” he stated bluntly. “There's no way my lady could be accused of murder. And I believe you know that, Lord Hugh.”

  “It is out of my hands,” Hugh said.

  Magister Howard shook his head. He seemed to hesitate, then spoke up with a clear and decisive courage. “It's been in your hands, Lord Hugh, from the first moment. We who serve Lady Guinevere know who she is and what she is. She's no witch and she's no murderer. You wish for her land … land that is not yours by right … then be honest and say so.”

  Hugh felt the color suffuse his countenance. First

  Robin and now the magister. “You overstep the mark, Magister,” he said coldly. “I will not tolerate such insolence from a dependent of Lady Guinevere's. For the love you bear her, I will overlook it this time. But do not make such a mistake again. Not you or any other of Lady Guinevere's household.” He fixed the magister with a hard and icy stare, then turned on his heel and strode to the door.

  The magister drew closer into his furred gown. He stood by what he had said. With his lady in prison, he had nothing to lose by speaking the truth. He and Greene and Crowder and Tilly. They were nothing without their lady. And if, as Tilly said, there was more between Lady Guinevere and Lord Hugh than met the eye, then by the same token they had even less to lose by the truth.

  Hugh stepped outside into the gray early morning, wrestling with his anger. He supposed that he should appreciate the loyalty of Guinevere's household. He expected it of his own after all. But it still rankled. If they’d been a little less loyal, a little more concerned for their own benefit, they wouldn’t have caused him so much trouble since this business had started.

  The rain had stopped and a fitful sun flirted with the clouds, but it was cool, the lingering warmth of summer finally banished.

  There was one thing he could try. One way he might possibly influence the king in her favor.

  Guinevere would be furious, would be bound to accuse him of manipulation, but whatever she might say, she could not willingly choose imprisonment in the Tower over the companionship of her children and the basic creature comforts of his home. Not now that she’d experienced the reality of prison. He could not bear to think of her in that desolate place. If she insisted upon rejecting his loving, so be it. But she must accept the comfort and security of his roof.

  It was just after seven in the morning. If they took to the river without delay, they would reach Hampton Court by early afternoon. He turned back to the house and mounted the stairs with swift step. He knocked briefly on the girls’ chamber door and then entered. “Tilly, dress the girls in their finest gowns. I need them ready within the half hour.”

  Pippa jumped up from the floor where she’d been overseeing her sister's letter-writing. Moonshine and Nutmeg tumbled from her lap. “Are we going to see Mama?”

  “No, we go to see the king,” he told her.

  “Will the king take us to Mama?” Pen asked intently, nibbling the end of her quill. There was clearly no other consideration worth their attention in this matter of visiting England's sovereign.

  “I don’t know,” Hugh said. “But it won’t hurt to ask. Dress quickly now, we have no time to waste.”

  He left them and sent a servant to summon a barge at Blackfriars. A small, fleet craft if it could be found.

  Robin received the news that he was to remain behind in Holborn in stolid silence. He had never seen the king. He didn’t say that he wanted more than anything to accompany his father and the girls to Hampton Court, but he didn’t need to say it. It was clearly to be read in his bright eyes and stoic mouth. Hugh offered no consolation. He would find some recompense for his son later, when he could turn his attention to something other than the present mess.

  He changed his own dress for a ceremonial gown of green velvet over a gold doublet, and by the time he was satisfied with his appearance he was no longer angry with himself or anyone else. He had a plan that depended upon fate and good timing. If those two worked in his favor … if the king was where he hoped to find him … all then would depend upon Henry's mercurial temperament. And for that reason Hugh considered that his plan just might work.

  He gathered up the girls and walked to the steps at Blackfriars. They peppered him with questions. What would the king say to them … what did he look like … when would he say they could see their mother … why were they going on this boat … how long would it take … was the palace very grand … why did the rowers sing as they rowed … what was this place on the bank called, and that …

  Hugh answered steadily. Their barge was small and light, the six watermen powerfully built. They sped along the river with the help of the swift current to the accompaniment of Pippa's incessant chatter. Pen had subsided into a thoughtful silence broken only occasionally with a question or some reflection of her thoughts, all of which were once more with
her mother. Hugh recognized that the time had come for a full revelation, to Pen at least. But it was not a burden he was prepared to take on unless or until it became clear that Guinevere could not do it herself. If his plan worked, she would be back under his roof maybe even as early as tonight.

  The king stood foursquare in the center of the stable courtyard watching as his horses were paraded before him, the coursers and stallions that he rode himself in battle and in the jousting tournaments that he loved and at which he excelled. He nodded in high good humor as the magnificent beasts cavorted past, high-stepping, nostrils flaring, teeth bared. The best of them were of wild and vicious temperament, hard to manage by all but the most experienced horsemen.

  The afternoon sun had now some warmth in it and it brightened the day, seemed to ease the pain of the king's ulcerated leg, giving him a sense of well-being. He leaned a hand heavily on the shoulder of the man standing beside him and trod to the white fence that separated the pasture from the yard. He watched the mares running with their foals, the little ones skipping, kicking up their heels.

  The king chuckled and the elderly knight on whose shoulder he rested permitted himself a tiny smile. “Well, My Lord Rochester, you have the most excellent management of our horses,” Henry said.

  Lord Rochester bowed and beamed. “They are my delight, Highness.”

  “Aye, and ours too,” the king said cheerfully. He turned slowly, like some great ship of state under a fading wind. “I’ll ride to the hunt tomorrow. We’ll follow the chase in Richmond. You’ll be at our side, My Lord Rochester.”

  Lord Rochester bowed again.

  Henry nodded in amiable dismissal and swayed away. He had no desire for company when he came to visit his horses, it was one time when he could be free of the petty distractions and irritations of his court. It gave him a malicious pleasure to think of his courtiers disconsolately pacing the antechambers and corridors of the palace while their king was for a short while out of reach of their grasping and their plotting.

  He limped slowly out of the stable court onto the broad gravel path that led through the gardens that flanked the river and wished that he’d not left his stick in his chamber. He’d thought his leg so much improved he could do without the prop. It was a conceit for which he was now paying.

  Ahead, at some distance down the path he spied three people coming towards him. Henry frowned, peering from beneath thick reddish brows. “Who comes here?” he muttered to himself, annoyed that his peace was about to be disturbed.

  Then he recognized the man and grunted to himself. Hugh of Beaucaire. There was something about Lord Hugh that the king found refreshing. He lacked deviousness. Seemed to have little interest in lining his own nest.

  And he had two little maids with him. That in itself was interesting enough to arouse the king's curiosity. He considered himself to be a man with an inordinate love of children. He would conveniently forget that his fury with his older daughter's intransigence frequently led him to treat her cruelly: locked away, deprived of even the most basic necessities of fire and adequate food.

  There was a stone bench set into a little archway carved into the privet hedge and he sat down heavily. He stretched his massive legs out in front of him, folded his hands across the great overhang of his belly, and regarded the approaching trio with an air of mild and genial curiosity.

  Hugh had a child in each hand. He had hoped that the king had not altered his practice when at Hampton Court of visiting the stables alone on fine afternoons. He had hoped that the timing would be such that they would waylay Henry as he was leaving a spectacle that never failed to put him in good humor.

  So far, it seemed, so good.

  Pippa was unnaturally silent as they approached the great mass of the king, all dressed in squares of crimson and black, his flat hat tilted at a rakish angle. A huge emerald glowed in the brim of his hat and around his neck hung a small gold dagger. Everything about him was huge, not excluding the padded codpiece of striped silk. Her eyes found it and somehow couldn’t look away. She opened her mouth to say something and immediately Hugh squeezed her hot little hand in warning. Knowing Pippa as he did, it was not difficult to guess at what she was about to say.

  He’d decided to give them no directions as to what to say, but to let their own innocence and natural wit speak for them. Now, he could only pray that his strategy had been the right one. They came up to the king and he dropped the girls’ hands to snatch off his hat. He bowed low and the girls curtsied, bobbing up almost immediately, however, to regard their sovereign in wide-eyed awe.

  “So, Lord Hugh, who have we here?” the king asked in an amiable bellow. “What pretty maids are these?”

  “I am called Pippa, sir.”

  “It's Philippa,” Pen corrected, with another bob of a curtsy. “That is my sister Philippa, sir. I am Penelope.”

  “So, little Penelope, of what family are you?”

  “Our father was Lord Hadlow of Derbyshire,” Pen replied, her voice strong.

  A frown crossed the king's countenance. He rose from the bench, planting his feet firmly apart to aid his balance, his hands resting on his hips. “I have heard that name before.” He glanced interrogatively at Hugh.

  “Lady Mallory's second husband,” Hugh said evenly.

  “Yes, and we wish to go to our mother.” Pippa spoke up urgently, recovering from her awe of this great sovereign. “We don’t know where she is, but we have to see her. Please, sir.” She fixed her eyes upon him and unconsciously touched his hand.

  Henry looked down at her. He looked at her sister, met the intent pleading gaze of both pairs of hazel eyes. “You’ll both be as comely as your mother, I’ll wager,” he said.

  “We have to go to Mama,” Pippa repeated. “You will not keep us from her, will you, sir?”

  “She’ll be so anxious for us,” Pen said.

  “You would have the children plead for their mother, my lord?” the king said slowly to Hugh. “You know that We are weak in the face of a child's pleading.”

  “I know that Your Highness has a generous temper,” Hugh returned. “Lady Mallory knows nothing of the ways of this court. She spoke in haste. I would vouch for her present regret.”

  The king turned his padded shoulder to Hugh and stared back down the path towards the stables. His queen was due to present him with his third child in the next weeks. This child would be the son he craved and needed more than anything else. All the signs said so. The astrologers said so. The doctors swore to it. Jane, herself, was certain of it in her quiet way. Mercy and generosity befitted a king. And, mayhap, an act of kindness to these children would bring health to his newborn son.

  “Lady Mallory will accept your roof?” He spoke without turning back to Hugh.

  “Yes, Highness,” Hugh said without hesitation.

  “Then let it be hoped that she has learned to moderate her tongue and her temper,” Henry said. He pulled a ring from his finger and turned slowly back. He handed the jewel to Hugh. “Here is my authority for the lady's release.”

  He bent down with some difficulty and chucked Pippa beneath the chin. He did the same to Pen. “God go with you, little maids. You will remember that you have seen the king today.”

  “Oh, yes,” Pen said fervently. “Oh, yes, indeed, we will remember.”

  Henry beamed. He was an expert at detecting flattery and the sincerity in the child's voice delighted him. “Then go now.” He straightened and gave Hugh a shrewd look. “You know your king, it would seem, Lord Hugh.”

  Hugh contented himself with another deep bow.

  “Go.” Henry waved them away.

  Hugh backed off a few paces, drawing the girls with him, then turned and hurried them away back towards the water stairs.

  “Did the king say we could go to see Mama?” Pippa asked, puzzled by what had happened. “I didn’t hear him say so.”

  “He didn’t,” Pen told her. “But he said she was released.

  Is she in a jail, sir?”
She looked up at him, her eyes gravely questioning.

  “Temporarily so,” Hugh told her.

  “But why? Why would Mama be in a jail?” Pippa demanded, her voice rising with alarm.

  “Your mother is going to explain that to you herself,” Hugh stated, feeling like a coward. “We must make haste back to London. The sooner we get there the sooner you will see your mother. Good, the boat is still at the steps.” He swung them both onto the barge they had left a bare half hour before. Had they been any longer the boatmen would have been forced to yield their place to new arrivals and their embarkation would have been much delayed. As it was, they were once more in midstream with the turned current in their favor within a few minutes.

  The girls were quiet on the way back to the city. They were both hungry, not having eaten since an early breakfast, but the day's events had so overwhelmed them that they were barely aware of their grumbling stomachs.

  Hugh, aware of his own, cursed himself for being in such haste that morning that he had ignored such practicalities. He watched the sun's measured progress and bit his tongue on the urge to press the watermen to greater speed.

  It was close to six o’clock when they bumped the landing stage at Blackfriars. Hugh sprang ashore and lifted the girls beside him. “Wait here,” he instructed the watermen. “I’ll need you again in five minutes.” He took the girls’ hands and hurried them almost at a run back to his own house.

  He left them at the door then turned and ran back to the barge. “The Lion Gate at the Tower,” he instructed as he jumped aboard.

  The watermen took up their oars and pulled east down the river beneath the bustle of London Bridge to the Tower dock.

  The Lieutenant of the Tower regarded the king's ring when it was laid upon the table in front of him. He picked it up, examined the royal insignia. “So, Lord Hugh, I am to deliver the prisoner, Lady Mallory, into your charge.”

  “That is the king's will.”

  “She had visitors this morning.”