by Diana Rubino
Amethyst sat back down and shuddered at a sudden thought. Topaz had once told her a particularly gruesome tale of a prisoner being tortured on the rack to extricate a confession. She had recounted the sound of bones cracking and flesh tearing, the victim wailing in unbearable agony as the guards tightened the ropes, streams of blood oozing from the victim's eyes, nose and mouth, dripping onto the floor.
Topaz was not supposed to have been there—she'd wandered away from her mother while strolling the ramparts, and had groped her way into the Black Tower, up a winding staircase, down a narrow hall, to find her way back. She'd followed the wailing cries and found herself at the entrance to an alcove, lit by the harsh glare of torches in their sconces.
The muscled backs of two hooded torturers had been at each end of a prisoner lying prone, naked, his arms and legs stretched out before him. She had turned and fled, but the victim's agonizing screams burned in her mind forever.
"Aunt Margaret, Topaz thinks of naught but this!" Amethyst said. "The news of Prince Hal's accession to the throne has just made it worse. She tells Emerald and me of the horrors of the Tower...the moans of starving prisoners, the clanking of chains, the stench of body dirt and excrement. I am glad I was so tiny when we were freed, and remember none of it. But she does recollect, and she relives it, again and again, relaying it all to us so clearly. 'Tis as if we, too, remember it all. It is that which drives her to such a passion. The quest for justice, for our father and for all who have suffered at the hands of the Tudors ever since Henry VII usurped the throne."
Margaret nodded and sighed. "I know. But this is a man's world and might makes right. She would do better to accept this now than end up like all the other rightful claimants to the throne."
They both shuddered. So many dead, all for one mere crown…
Amethyst glanced over at the music scores on the brass stand before her, graced with the swirling treble clef. The black points brandished dainty flags dancing on their staves, sprinkled with rests. Her gaze bounced up and down, following the playful jots across the score to the harmonious language as she translated the notes into the pretty tones ringing in her head. Music was such a joyous comfort, such a healing blend of concordance and harmony. Her fingers itched to strum her lute and fill the room with delicate strains. She had envied her sister in many ways, but she was glad she was not burdened with such a past, nor a mind tormented by a present and future that could never be.
"Aunt Margaret, will nothing ever make her forget?"
"Only time will heal her, Amethyst," Margaret said, her eyes still fixed on the doorway through which Topaz had fled. "Time, that immortal force with neither beginning nor end, can comfort and heal as no physician or devout prayers or magic potions ever will. By morning she will have regained her appetite and be the first at the breakfast table as usual."
"Another tantrum. I do hope they lessen as she grows up, she is so old already," ten-year-old Emerald said to no one in particular. "Her tantrums used to frighten me. Now they simply bore me."
Shaking her head, she returned to tightening the strings on her lute. "If she is indisposed again, does that mean I can sing soprano tonight, Aunt Margaret?"
Midsummer's Day brought forth a dazzling sun in a cloudless azure sky, enveloping London in welcoming warmth and the promise of a new reign. The city gates were flung open and the narrow, winding streets were thronged with crowds. Shouting joyously over their new King, rich and poor stood side by side, in drunken ecstasy from the wine flowing through the public conduits for the occasion. The gutters were swept free of the usual rotting filth. No slop pails would be spilled onto any heads today. People nearly tumbled out of the second and third-story windows of their crowded and crooked dwellings whose opposite rooftops nearly touched at the top.
Lady Margaret, Sabine, and the girls had all been invited to the coronation, but Topaz was staying behind. "I shall stay here and watch the grass grow and the sun sink and the moon rise," she'd insisted when asked for the last time to join the party setting out for London. "Those are natural, honest acts. What you are going to witness is a travesty. And God won't smile down upon any of you!" she shouted, shaking her fist as her family members and their servants began entering their carriages. "Hal Tudor be cursed, and may he meet a torturous end to his ill-gotten reign, spitting blood upon himself, just like his doomed father, that murderer!"
Topaz watched the carriages disappear around the bend of the wheel-rutted path. "May he never bring forth an heir," she muttered to no one but the twittering birds around her. "May he sire nothing but bastards! He'll be the last of the Tudors, either way, if I have anything to do with it!"
The carriages jounced amongst the clatter of hoof beats. "I should have talked to her. I could have convinced her to join us," Amethyst voiced her thoughts, sadly watching as Topaz's figure shrank into the distance.
No one had paid heed to Topaz's wearisome tirade, just as no one was listening to Amethyst. They were all tittering, in short spurts of half-complete sentences, of the splendid festivities they were about to witness.
"I wonder what Queen Catherine will be wearing...I haven't seen London in so long...I hear Henry the Seventh's Chapel is just magnificent..." all the way down the dusty road to London.
The procession marched into Westminster Abbey as the brassy tones of trumpets from the lofts above rang through the air. Lady Margaret, Amethyst, Emerald and Sabine were at the head of the procession which included squires and knights in ceremonial livery and Knights of the Bath draped in purple robes, followed by the peerage: dukes, earls, marquises, barons, abbots, and bishops in crimson velvet. The officers of rank followed: the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Chancellor, and assorted archbishops, ambassadors, and lord mayors.
Amethyst had never seen anything quite so grandiose as Westminster Abbey. The church in their cozy Buckinghamshire village was adequate to accommodate the villagers for Mass, but it was simple and modest, in need of repair, a mere reflection of their own austere surroundings. Westminster Abbey looked like the gateway to heaven itself. She vowed to walk through Henry VII's Chapel and pay homage to her late King, to kneel at one of these splendid altars and pray for her new King.
Someday I shall come back here, she vowed. No matter how long it takes, I shall see all of it. I must.
The little party took their seats which had been set up along the North Aisle, facing the great nave, where the King and Queen would make their entrance.
Amethyst made sure her seat was on the aisle, to get an unobstructed view of this once-in-a-lifetime event—and of Henry. Her picture of him was clear in her mind from the many times Aunt Margaret spoke of him... The flaming hair that framed his intelligent face, the graceful gait of his stride, like a colt breezing over the landscape, that was Prince Hal. He was also a talented musician, a lute virtuoso, a master of the organ and recorder, and was blessed with a melodious singing voice.
Ah, to engage in a musical interlude with the King! Amethyst thrilled at the idea. To strum their lutes and intertwine their voices in concordant harmony... She drifted away in a fantasy whirlwind of court festivities, draped in a satin gown billowing over layers of lacy skirts, alighting from a carriage at the palace gates, partaking in the elegant dancing and sumptuous banqueting, curtsying before her King. Perhaps at some later date it would be reality, perhaps.
For an instant she thought about Topaz, and all the hateful things she'd been saying about the Tudors all her life. Amethyst had never known her father, the man Topaz so brazenly defended, recalling and relaying that day to them so many times, repeating every detail. Amethyst listened patiently every time Topaz recited the line of succession, and studied the diagrams Topaz would scratch on parchment, in wet sand with her finger, or in the ground with sticks.
"This is our family tree, and this is where the throne went wayward, not straight down to me, but detouring through the Tudors. Taffy Harry is a murderer!" Topaz had pounded into Amethyst's head incessantly, so she knew the routine by rote. "He m
urdered our father! He is not the true king, and never will any of the Tudors be!"
Amethyst was afraid for her sister—she knew the punishment for treason and talk like that could get her killed.
Nevertheless, she was her sister. And she often wondered about her father, the blur of a figure who had stumbled through the Tower, been dragged over the flagstones, had suffered so much just for being an heir to the throne. She felt the pain in her mother's eyes, the tears that never fell, the unspoken grief interred deep inside her, hidden by her murmurs, "the King's pleasure, 'twas the King's pleasure."
But to speak out against the King—that was a death sentence in itself! She simply nodded in agreement every time, holding in her own anger and rage over the injustice. She knew how cruel Henry VII had been, but he was dead now and no renewed civil war could ever bring back all they had lost.
She knew Topaz's reactions were extreme. To try to displace the King was akin to committing murder herself. Who wanted to rule a kingdom anyway? Amethyst pictured herself as a courtier, delighting in the intimate circle of royalty. That was good enough for her!
The procession finally ended, and the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared at the Abbey doors. He strode down the aisle, nearly lost in the thick folds of his heavy velvet robes. His appearance meant one thing—the King and Queen were about to enter!
The gathering rose reverently. Amethyst, leaning out into the aisle, could see the two figures blocking the light at the entrance. They began their march toward the altar. Henry was on the left, closer to her. She glimpsed Catherine on the far side, waves of golden-brown hair spilling over her shoulders, her gown a cloud of virgin white. Amethyst felt a sudden pang of envy for the young woman at Henry's side who was about to become his queen. Then her eyes landed on him and she stood transfixed.
Henry was draped in a full fur-lined purple cloak, its train falling in gentle folds over an elaborately embroidered tunic of gold and glittering rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. The broad lapels of his shirt spilled over a crimson satin doublet, lined with alternating diamonds and pearls. Breeches fit his muscled legs like a second skin, threaded with stripes of gold silk. Black leather boots reached his knee.
She studied his features, trying to drink him all in as quickly as possible before he swept by—the shock of lustrous red-gold hair, the eyes betraying but a wisp of wisdom behind the youthful playfulness. His stride was confident, his movements graceful. They were coming closer, closer—the end of his cloak touched the toe of her shoe and for an instant their eyes met.
She wasn't sure she imagined it, but it seemed that at that very instant he slowed his step just slightly to let his gaze linger for another second upon hers. She held her breath and stood in adoring awe of this beautiful man who would within moments be her King.
Then he and Catherine were past them, approaching the high altar, as Henry went to the centuries-old coronation throne, its finish scratched and marred. He sat upon it regally as the High Priest turned to face the assembly and asked if they would have Henry for king.
"Aye, aye, aye!" The voices rang through the openness, fading away into the high arches reaching towards heaven. The High Priest anointed Henry with oil, then placed the glittering orb in his hand.
"All hail King Henry!" filled the hallowed space, rose to the high vaulted ceiling and died within the deepest recesses of the ancient sanctuary.
The people had a new King. Amethyst, as did all his subjects in the very first moments of his reign, adored him.
CHAPTER TWO
Marchington Manor, Buckinghamshire
Amethyst could hear the clatter of hoof beats approaching as she sat under her favorite oak tree strumming her lute. The instrument slipped from her hands as the messenger came into focus—was that royal livery he was wearing? The red dragon of Cadwallader blazed on a field of green and white, and the same finery draped his horse.
He dismounted, handing the reins to an equally startled stable boy. "Is the Mistress Sabine about?" he asked, as two other servants came bustling out of the house, clutching their skirts.
Amethyst rose and addressed him. "Mother is abed, Sir. She's got a frightful summer ague. May I deliver the message to her?"
"I suppose. It is from the King." He handed her a roll of parchment embossed with the royal seal.
"Indeed." Amethyst's heart gave a fluttering leap at the thought of holding in her humble grasp what had been touched by her great King. "I shall deliver it to her. It bears good tidings, pray God."
"I am but a messenger, my lady. I know not what news the parchment betells." He tipped his hat and turned back to his mount.
"Would you like to stay for the evening meal? We have food aplenty."
"Nay, my lady. I must be on my way." He pulled on the reins and the horse turned and began trotting back down the path.
"Well, I bid you Godspeed then..."
But he'd already galloped away.
She held the roll in her hands, stroking it with her fingers. 'Tis from the King, this actually came from the King.
She dared not open it, but headed back towards the house. She prayed her mother would recover a lot faster, if it were good news. If not, well…. She didn't dare think about that.
Amethyst met Topaz coming from the animal infirmary she'd set up in the south wing of the stables, wisps of dog and cat hair clinging to her skirts.
"What is that you hold?" Topaz peered at it more closely, her eyes squinting at the royal seal. "From the court? From Henry?" she gasped.
Never had she referred to him—or his late father before him—as king.
"Aye, a messenger just brought it. 'Tis for Mother."
"I shall read it, then," Topaz said, reaching out to snatch the roll from Amethyst's hand. "She's ill and if it bears bad tidings, 'twill only serve to make her worse."
"No!" She held her arm up out of Topaz's reach. "'Tis not yours! 'Tis for mother, and I shall deliver it unto to her. I'm sure it brings glad tidings. What bad news would King Henry have to bring upon our mother?"
"You naïve simpleton! It's probably our death warrants! He's planning to haul us back to the Tower just like our poor little cousins! Don't give it to her, Amethyst! Burn it, be gone with it! We shall say we never got it!"
"Oh, no, not again! Topaz, you're turning into a right lunatic!" Amethyst flattened her palm to her ear and turned to ascend the stairs. "I'm bringing it to her and 'tis up to her whether she would open it or not!"
"Take my word, Amethyst, when Mother reads that note you will be facing one very disturbed woman!"
"No, I won't, because you are staying down here," she fired over her shoulder as she continued upwards.
Sabine was sitting up in bed, propped up against pillows, drinking from a pewter beaker when Amethyst arrived.
"Do you fare better, Mother?" she asked, hiding the missive behind her back.
"Aye, but I would rather be out there enjoying the world," she replied, sniffing, wiping her nose with a linen cloth.
"Well, have I got glad tidings for you!" Amethyst could never imagine a message from King Henry being anything else. She held out the parchment, the seal facing her mother. "From the King himself! Open it, Mother! Pray open it! I'm dying to see what good King Henry has to say! Perhaps he wished to invite us to court for Christmas!"
Her mother shook her head, but did not otherwise alter her manner in any way. "'Tis but August, my dear."
Sabine broke the seal and calmly began to unroll the parchment. Amethyst would have torn it to shreds in her nervousness. She sat on her hands in excitement.
"Besides, why would the King want us..."
Sabine began reading, and just as Amethyst expected, a happy smile brightened her face. "Oh, Blessed Jesu!"
"What is it? God's foot, tell me before I scream!"
"Our great King Henry, our generous King, behold what he's given us!" She handed the note back to Amethyst.
There she read, in the King's own writing, the bestowing of an annuity of one
hundred pounds each to Sabine and to Margaret Pole to atone for the great injustice of his father Henry Tudor having had Edward Earl of Warwick executed.
"In addition, he is... Oh, Jesu! He's reversing the attainder against Father and..." She stopped to catch her breath, "full restitution is being made to the rights of the family! That means... Oh, Mother!"
"Aye, my dear. Warwick Castle is to be ours once again!"
"Do you know what that means, Mother? Lands! Our very own Warwick Castle! Titles! You're Lady Sabine, dowager Countess of Warwick. I'm Lady Amethyst. This will mean dowries for me and Topaz and Emerald! I must tell them! Oh, I must tell them!"
She could hardly take it all in. This restoration of her family's statues meant she was no longer the simple village girl doomed to the life of a commoner. She was now a lady, titled and landed, bursting with gratitude for her generous King. Once again the misty vision of court life unfolded from the remote fancy of her dreams to an immediate possibility.
