Some Touch of Pity

by Rhoda Edwards

  I took hold of his right hand, the hand that had gripped the sword. His fingers lay loosely in mine, no apparent strength in them. ‘Hush,’ I said again, ‘sleep now.’

  Some things are easier forgotten when spoken of first. ‘One of our men fell between the ships when we were grappling.’ I shuddered. ‘There weren’t many Scots left by the time we boarded her. The archers and the gunners knew their job. The rest turned tail.’

  Now the Scots were finished on the sea, they sued for peace, and we returned to York, then moved on to Pontefract. Soon after, bad news came from London. I think sometimes nothing but bad news ever comes out of the south. Not rebellion this time, but reports of small incidents of sedition and rumours, each seemingly trivial, but together to be seen as more menacing. On the eighteenth of July, worshippers going to early Sunday Mass at St Paul’s discovered a bill pinned to the great door, inscribed in large letters with a rhyme — neat, impudent and treasonable:

  The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our Dog,

  Rule all England under an Hog.

  I hated it. Richard shrugged, Catesby was flattered, Ratcliffe swore, Lovell laughed. The author of the treasonable rhyme had been identified as William Collingbourne, a Wiltshire gentleman who’d been involved in Buckingham’s rebellion, and a wanted man for the last nine months. He’d once been an usher in the household of the Duchess of York, my mother-in-law. Though he was still in hiding, a servant of his had been seen pinning the bill to the door of St Paul’s on that Saturday night. Collingbourne is thought to be still in contact with Tudor. He is not the only one; I believe there are many traitors among us.

  I’d thought a good deal about Henry Tudor lately. While he lives, we can have no sure peace. Remembering his mother Lady Margaret’s tears at my anointing, I thought: she should be in the Tower. It is her life’s goal to see her son crowned.

  In June Richard had made a truce with Brittany, agreeing to provide a thousand archers against France, in return for a closer surveillance of Tudor by the Bretons. But a month later, before the archers could sail, Tudor was warned, and fled from Vannes in the clothes of a servant, over the French border into Anjou. Now he’s as snug as a coney in its hole, and we can’t send a ferret in after him. He waits for another chance to invade England. We have the constant worry of this, and the frightening expense of defence; we cannot relax our vigilance until the winter.

  Richard decided that he should go to London, and went away, taking only a small household with him. I said nothing, for he had enough worries, but his going left me desolate. I was manifestly not pregnant, and had to admit to being relieved, as I felt exhausted and unwell. Yet I was reluctant to lose him, even for so little. The more I had of him, it seemed, the more I wanted.

  I prayed for his safety every hour of the days, there seemed so many dangers. London in August would be at its foulest; plague was bad this year, as the weather had been moist and hot. Richard would stay part of the time at Westminster, and part at the Wardrobe, in the City near St Paul’s. Plague knows no respect for rank — didn’t the second Richard’s Bohemian Queen Anne die of it at Sheen, which is a healthy place? I saw to it that they took with them the reliquary with the blood of St Sebastian, who is known to protect us from plague. I also sent one of my chaplains on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham, to make offering and pray for the King and myself, that we might, with God’s favour, be blessed with a son, though I now had a hopeless feeling it was too late. My prayers for Richard at least, must have been granted, because after three weeks, he came back to Nottingham safely.

  I discovered that while in London, Richard had ordered that the body of poor King Henry VI should be moved from its obscure grave at Chertsey Abbey, to Windsor, to lie in St George’s chapel. Henry of Windsor, he’d been called, from his birthplace, and it seemed fitting that he should return there, to rest in an honourable place near King Edward, who had destroyed him. It did not need a simple, Christian act like this to tell me that my husband is an honest man.

  I may know this, but rumours say other things. Because King Edward’s sons have been removed from London, and the people can no longer see them walking in the gardens of the Tower, they say that the King has killed them. They say God had judged us by taking our son. What can I do or say? I do not lie at night with a man who has killed his brother’s children.

  Another thing Richard had done while in London was to make his sister Suffolk’s son, the Earl of Lincoln, Lieutenant of Ireland. This is an office usually held by the King’s heir. Since our son died, Richard had named no heir. Edward of Warwick is barred by his father’s attainder, and not yet ten. Lincoln is twenty-one, and a capable young man. It seemed a sensible appointment.

  In September, on the Friday before Holy Rood day, the Scots ambassadors arrived, for the signing of a truce for three years in Border warfare. One could not have told they were Scots from their dress, which was very fine, though in the French fashion, but when they opened their mouths, their speech was all but incomprehensible. Those of us from the north probably understood more of it than the southerners, who were left at sea and needed interpreters.

  Archibald Whitelaw, King James’s Secretary, though a venerable pedagogue, had very Scots speech. He made an interminable Latin oration — it ran into pages — I could see him shuffling through them as he read. His spectacles didn’t seem very effective. I can follow some Latin delivered slowly in an English voice, but this might as well have been Icelandic; his r’s rolled round like escaped marbles. Richard was sitting like a carved image, his face more wooden than usual under such circumstances. This told me he could probably understand a large part of the florid Latin phrases, and, while remaining courteous, was wincing under a heavy load of gratuitous flattery. He knew very well the Scots had known him for years as a Border reiver, who’d put the fear of God into them.

  The Bishop of St Asaph was attending me, standing by my chair, and as Whitelaw said something about Cicero, my curiosity overcame me, and I whispered, ‘My lord Bishop, what does Dr Whitelaw say?’

  He whispered very quietly back, ‘He’s recounting his Grace the King’s virtues…“your goodness and generosity, your clemency, liberality, truth, great justice, magnanimity passing belief, your not human but almost divine wisdom… You show yourself gentle to all, and friendly even to the meanest of your subjects… A poet said of a Prince of Thebes: wise Nature never joined to a slighter frame, a greater soul or more strength of mind.”’ The Bishop’s large and beefy face remained perfectly serious, but at the last revelation, he gave the suspicion of a wink.

  Someone else evidently overheard the Bishop’s interpretation to me, and I would rather he had not. Sir William Stanley, Lord Stanley’s brother, was standing near. He did not attempt to hide an unpleasant grin. He’s a strongly built man in his late forties, with wide shoulders and a habit of standing aggressively with his feet wide apart, so he gives the impression of being made square, with angles. His face is very dark, needs to be shaved twice a day but often isn’t, and his hands have hairy backs, a ring on every finger. He fancies himself with women too; every time he kneels to me, I feel that as he descends or gets up, he is trying to look down the front of my gown. This is a habit of many men, but in others it does not seem so offensive. His kiss on my hand makes me shudder.

  When Whitelaw had finished his oration, Bishop Russell the Chancellor answered it on our behalf. When he in turn had finished, and everyone was shifting their feet in relief, Stanley said to his neighbour, ‘The man’s a windbag from eating oatmeal. Last time I heard a Scot comment on our monarch, it wasn’t so nice. “Yon wee bugger”, if I remember rightly. They couldn’t believe he was King Edward’s brother; thought he was some little reiver come out of Carlisle sands to get up their arse.’

  Dear God, I prayed, don’t let me blush and look foolish in front of this coarse, horrible man, because that’s what he wants. He’d better guard his tongue, it verges on the treasonable. I didn’t blush. I felt my chin stick out as Richard’s
does when he’s in a stubborn mood. I used my father’s technique of blank, uncomprehending disdain; Stanley is not even worth a sneer. I got up, followed by my ladies, and swept so close to him my sleeve brushed his doublet and he was forced to step back quickly to let us pass. He is my husband’s enemy, I know it, though he pretends loyalty.

  Francis Lovell knows that Sir William is discontented. Francis has good cause for hate; his mother became Stanley’s second wife, and was abused by him. She’s dead now, but Francis has never forgiven it. He told me that one day he found Sir William with his great muddy boots propped on the table, yawning and grumbling to his brother that he couldn’t even get leave to go home to Ridley in Cheshire for a couple of days’ hunting — ‘Old Dick’ll work us to death,’ he said.

  Sir William frightens me. Ever since I heard him break the news of her son’s death at Tewkesbury field to Margaret of Anjou, I’ve known he’s a cruel man to women. He tried to kiss and touch me then. I’d never told Richard, in case he did anything he’d regret. To be precise, and I blush to recall it, Stanley tried to grope me with his hairy paw, and in panic I bit him. I was fourteen and he about thirty-five. His eyes still mock me with it. I don’t know why I should feel so frightened of him now. Perhaps it is because I feel ill, and apprehensive about everything.

  By the time all the folk came crowding into Nottingham for the Goose Fair in the second week of October, deception was no longer possible. The truth looked at me every day out of my own mirror. Joyce Percy put me to bed each afternoon, urged me to eat more at every meal, as one does a finicky child, but her pleadings were in vain. I knew the nature of the sickness before any others did. The cough was impossible to hide, but the difficulty in breathing, the sharp, burning pains that cramped my chest, the degree of lassitude and despair could be kept from them, for at least a little longer. Some days it was hard to gather the strength to get out of bed, to set one foot in front of the other, to answer sensibly when spoken to; the world swung about as if I stood in the centre of a whirling sphere, or on the teetering steps of Fortune’s wheel, about to be cast down.

  There wouldn’t be a baby now; my body had ceased to function as a woman’s should. This wasting sickness is common enough: people I’ve known have died within months, or imperceptibly over years. For me, the time would be short. I dreaded the day when Richard found out. The doctors would part us, I knew, in case the King should take infection from me. He suspected already that something was wrong, for I caught him watching me sometimes, and he looked afraid.

  Another week, the feast of St Edward the Confessor, passed, and the thing I had dreaded happened. The cough was particularly irritating at night, worse when I lay down among the pillows. It was making sound sleep impossible for both of us. In the small hours of the morning, I was sitting up in bed, trying to stifle it. Though the fire had burned down and the room cooled, the effort brought me out in a sweat. Richard, who’d slept fitfully through the night, suddenly got up, and without summoning anyone, himself lit a taper for candles at the embers in the hearth, and brought me wine to drink. He held the cup for me, put his arm round me so I might lean against him, and when the coughing lessened, laid me down again, careful as a nurse. Then he put more wood on the fire, stoking it into life, until the dancing flames lit the far corners of the room, and I felt their warmth. Sitting up, I pushed back damp hair from my neck, where it had come loose from its braid.

  ‘Is it uncomfortable?’ Richard touched the long plait gently.

  ‘Yes — hot.’

  ‘Let me tidy it.’ He undid the braid, then combed it out, and began to re-plait it. He was much slower than my ladies, but very careful not to pull, and persevered until he’d made a neat job of it.

  ‘You’re clever,’ I said, managing a shaky smile.

  ‘No, but I can make a plait.’ It seemed to please him, to be able to do a little thing for me. When he’d finished and tied up the end of my hair with a ribbon, he sat on the side of the bed, folded back the covers and looked at me. He began to feel me all over, rather as one might to find out if a bitch is sound, encircling my wrists and ankles with his hands. I lay naked in his lap, watching him. I had to concentrate on breathing, because it hurt, and I didn’t want him to see. After he had completed his inspection, he sat for a while in silence, stroking me.

  ‘I can feel every bone in your body. Anne, you’re ill, aren’t you? I want the physicians to see you tomorrow. We’ll ask Hobbes.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I have eyes, my love. You grow thinner daily. What is it?’

  ‘Only a cough. It’ll go soon.’

  ‘Don’t tell me silly lies. On some nights lately, now the weather is cooler, I’ve woken and felt you in a fever. Look at this damp hair.’ He touched it.

  It was no use hiding in pretence. He was in no mood to be deceived. I refused to look at him. ‘Yes, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Dickon, I can’t give you a child — that matters.’

  For answer, he laid his hands over my face, shutting out the light, and his own expression. We seemed to have nothing more to say. I lay quite still, in the warm dark, until the thing I was always fighting happened, and I wept. Not that I made a sound, but tears like scalding water ran out under Richard’s fingers. He must have felt them, for he took his hands away and put them over his own face. Blinking, I looked at him. He’d sit like that when he was old and tired, and I not there to see. Presently he snuffed out the candles and got back into bed, pulling the covers over us. He took me in his arms, his face between my breasts, holding me tighter and tighter, until the muscles in his arms stood out like iron. When I thought he’d break my ribs and could no longer draw breath, I whimpered and he relaxed his hold and became gentler.

  ‘You mustn’t let this matter so much.’

  ‘Richard, you’ve just had your thirty-second birthday; it’s dangerous for you to face the future with no heir. You are the Ring.’

  ‘Yes, Christ help me. And I still don’t know if it is my right, or if this is my punishment.’

  ‘No one, no man on earth, could have done differently. You did right. I trusted you.’

  ‘Didn’t God punish me enough when He took my son? Oh my lovey, my dear, when I first asked you to marry me, you should have thrown your dish-water in my face and sent me away. I meant to protect you all your life. Instead, I’ve done the cruellest thing possible — made you Queen. You should not be punished for my sins — not you…’

  ‘No, no, no… Don’t, Dickon, don’t.’ I cradled his head in my arms, stroking his hair that wound, soft and curling about my hands.

  ‘My honey,’ he said, in a little, muffled voice, ‘my honey, don’t leave me.’ I thought: he knows I will die. I can do nothing to help him suffer it.

  When we left Nottingham to go back to London, it was early November, rainy and cold, the wet leaves already fallen from the trees. Two days after our arrival, Richard went into Kent again, to Rochester and Canterbury, because these parts were still troubled.

  He came back, and as I foreknew, it happened. At Westminster, the doctors, too many of them, asked questions that seemed pointless, and did embarrassing things, about which I did not care. I expected that Richard would not come to me that night. When he did, I knew the doctors had ordered otherwise, and he was trying to tell me, but couldn’t. Over the years I’d seen him in most moods, but never so completely tongue-tied. He started off several times, but couldn’t manage to be coherent. His lips were lead-coloured and stiff. At last I put my hand over his mouth and said, ‘I know. Don’t talk of it.’

  Nothing in this sad, short life happens as we wish it. Poor Richard, he’d come to me wishing to comfort me with love, but his misery engulfed him, and all he could do was cling to me like a child with night terrors. From the queer way he was breathing, I thought he would break down and weep. We lay pitifully in the absurd attitude of love, silent. I thought: this is despair, everything is finished for us. You are beautiful to me, my most beautiful man; before I could ev
en form my childish thoughts, you were lovely in my eyes. You have given me such delight, and now I’ve nothing to give you; I’m skinny and marked by sickness. You’ll have to watch me become like some deformity, and shrink from touching me.

  For a long time we lay sleepless, until full daylight, and I knew it to be late, but did not dare move. He was so still, I had a passing, stupid fear he’d stopped breathing, had died. When at last he slid from me, and rolled out of bed, he stroked my face softly once, with a hand that felt lost and unsure. Watching through my eyelashes, I saw him pick up his fur gown from the chest, drag it on, and walk to the door, barefoot and silent, forgetting his shoes. He stumbled a little, and put a hand to his head, as if very tired, or the burden on him too heavy. Out of habit, I turned into the snug place where he’d lain. I wanted to call to him, to bring him back, to reassure me it was all a dreadful dream, from which I should wake to a new day, hope returned. But I lay with screwed-shut eyes, choking, until the murmuring voices ceased and I knew he’d been shaved, dressed and gone away to his work. He’d never come back — never.

  Then my heart broke. People say this isn’t possible, but it is. It’s quite simple. I felt it snap.

  I began to weep, a horrible, loud and ugly noise that brought my women running. Joyce held me in her arms until it was all over, and held the basin, for I cried until I was sick, then cried again, and was sick again. I knew myself hideous and unhinged, and felt her fright, under her sturdy calm.

  Later, I tried to compose myself, and ask God for the strength to endure what remained of my life. I knelt in the confessional and said, ‘Father, I have sinned in my thoughts. Since it is wicked to wish away the gift of life, I am guilty. Father, I have wished to die, I want to die. There is no other way for me.’ He was shocked, stunned into helplessness. How can a celibate priest, however understanding, comfort a barren woman who has lost her child and her husband?