The Dragon and the Rose

by Roberta Gellis

  The dowager queen was to retire to the Abbey of Bermondsey, resign her dower lands to her son-in-law, while retaining only a pension of 400 marks, and the lands would be transferred by act of the next parliament to Elizabeth to demonstrate publicly Henry's trust in and affection for his wife. Elderly women often retired to convents, not to take the veil but to end their lives in peace and comfort. The move would fool no one who knew the dowager queen, but to the local squire who lived on his lands and never came to court it would seem natural.

  And to Henry the opinion of the local squire was of great importance. The great magnates he had under his eye and hand. Henry would never make Gloucester's mistake and trust his "supporters." He was constrained to "trust" the lesser men because he could not keep his eye directly upon them.

  Yet, in the last analysis Henry knew it was the local squire who had defeated Gloucester. Had every man Richard III summoned to his standard responded, his army would have outnumbered Henry's by ten to one instead of two to one, and the decision of the Stanleys would have been irrelevant. Had even the men who did respond fought wholeheartedly, instead of yielding and deserting during the early part of the battle, probably the decision of the Stanleys would have been different.

  Then they waited. Henry conducted the business of government, played with the children, rode out with Elizabeth. The pardon was published and Warwick was exhibited. At the end of February the first blow fell. Lincoln fled to Burgundy, openly joining the rebellion. From merchants who doubled as spies, Henry learned that Edward IV's sister, Margaret of Burgundy, had acknowledged the false Warwick and was contributing heavily to his cause. Through her means, Lincoln and Lord Lovell were hiring Flemish mercenaries.

  Henry responded by appointing commissions of array to guard the east coast against invasion from Flanders. As if to mock his black fears, England had burst into magnificent spring. The king was blind to beauty, however, as he rode through the country, checking the defenses and showing himself to the people. He veiled the horror in his eyes, and he gave justice and laughed away the concern of others.

  Fortunately there was much to encourage his supporters so that they did not need to lean too heavily on his confidence. The commissioners responded promptly to his orders and did their duty conscientiously—and many of them were men who had shirked similar duties for Gloucester. The people cheered Henry wherever he rode. But Henry's own spirits would not lift, and the strain was telling on him. Thus far the only one who realized how oppressed the king was, was the unfortunate Ned Poynings who, because he suffered unshaken, was exposed to Henry's worst moods.

  Kept in attendance almost night and day, Poynings was wearily watching Henry being fitted for clothes. The king was very hard on clothing because he always dressed in the most elegant fabrics. The delicate silks, velvets, and brocades did not last long under the wear and tear of much riding and hunting. Moreover, Henry believed in distributing his custom, for it was much to the mercers' and tailors' benefit if they could say that the king purchased from them.

  Whenever he stayed more than a week in one area, Henry bought clothing. Now he was clad only in hose and a white shirt, which was open halfway down his thin breast. Poynings frowned as he watched the too-quick pulse in Henry's throat and saw the flesh sucked in between the prominent ribs.

  "The white silk brocaded in gold for the doublet. That green for hose, but it must be clocked in gold, and the darker green velvet for a surcoat. That should be trimmed in the ermine you showed me earlier. All to be ready the day after tomorrow—for Easter."

  One of the tailors closed his eyes and muttered a prayer under his breath.

  "You can make up the yellow, orange and brown for Sir Edward, who is watching with so sour an expression," Henry added. "What is it, Ned? Do you disapprove of my taking pleasure in my dress?"

  "I think Your Grace dresses as befits your station," Poynings replied, unmoved by the lash of the tone under the light words.

  "Oh, you—" Henry had begun, when a very flustered and very young page interrupted him to crave audience for the marquis of Dorset. Henry's lips parted, closed tightly, and then softened into a smile. "Sirrah, come here."

  The child's knees knocked as he approached, but Poynings relaxed momentarily. Henry was never cruel to children, and this was a very new addition to the household.

  "What is your name?" the king asked.

  "Boleyn, Your Majesty, Thomas Boleyn."

  "Sir William's son?" The child nodded. "Yes. Well, you must never interrupt the king, even when he is merely jesting with an old friend. Now, you must have known that, so tell me what has frightened you so much as to make you forget your manners? Surely I do not look to be an ogre?"

  "No, sire, but the marquis said I must go to you, even when I told him it was not my duty. I was afraid not to obey him and also afraid to come where I do not belong."

  A clever child, Henry thought, fixing his name in memory. "Ah, the marquis insisted, did he? Very well. Tell him I will receive him here. Do you happen to know where the earl of Oxford bides, Thomas?"

  "He is just below in the great hall, sire. I was serving wine, and—"

  Henry touched the boy's nose with his forefinger. It was a smooth-tongued, talkative child—very good. "Hush. When the king asks a question, you answer as shortly as possible, yea or nay, unless you are asked for an explanation. Conversation comes when you are older. Run away then, and after you have given my message to the marquis of Dorset, tell the earl of Oxford to come hither to me at once."

  Poynings studied the embroidery on the cuff of his sleeve with great interest. He did not like what was going to happen. He did not like what had been happening to Henry day by day over these past two months. He took a quick glance at his master, who had cleared the room of tradesmen and servants and was watching the door sideways out of his long eyes with a touch of smiling expectancy.

  Probably, Poynings thought, he could stop what was about to occur with a few words, but that would be dangerous. Not dangerous to him, but to the king. Henry needed an outlet; he also needed a lesson, and it was far better for the king to administer that lesson to himself than to be told what might have happened by someone else. Ned returned to the involved stitchery of his cuff. If matters went too far, he could appeal to Bedford or Elizabeth … he hoped. Anyway Dorset was worthless, so it would not matter.

  Dorset entered, his fingers playing nervously with the edge of his surcoat. "It came to me quite suddenly, sire, that I—"

  "I thought you were in London," Henry said with deceptive mildness. "Did I send for you or give you leave to come here?"

  "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty." The marquis's face went pasty. "I did not know I was required to remain in London. I will return at once."

  "So you will. But now that you are here, what is it that you desire of me?"

  "Nothing. Nothing at all."

  If only the man were not such a coward, Poynings thought with exasperation. Then he stopped himself before he shook his head in wonder, realizing that, although it was true Dorset was yellow livered, Henry had a similar effect on men who were brave as lions. Oxford and Devon sometimes stumbled in their speech when under the king's eye. It was most puzzling because Henry was ordinarily both reasonable and just. Poynings suffered a moment of doubt as to whether the change he saw was really temporary, and stifled it.

  "It only seemed to me that I had never explained to you properly what had happened in France."

  Poynings uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise, and Henry looked startled. "But that was more than two years ago, and you have been at court, seeing me nearly daily for a year— Ah, come in, Oxford. Dorset has decided to explain what happened in France."

  "That I would like to hear. Thank you for summoning me, sire," John de Vere said dryly.

  Dorset's face was now shiny with sweat, as well as being pasty. "It did not seem important before, but now that there is doubt about my mother's loyalty, I wish to assure you of—"

  "Wha
t doubt? The dowager queen, my most beloved wife's mother, has retired from court to rest and see into her own salvation. If you doubt her loyalty to me, Dorset, you are alone in it."

  The icy words dropped into a frozen stillness. There was a small sticky sound as Dorset's lips parted, but whatever he wished to say was congealed in his throat. Slowly, as if Henry's eyes were exerting pressure upon him, Dorset went down on his knees. Henry waited, watching the sweat form beads and then rivulets that ran down Dorset's face, waited while he began to tremble, waited until even the hardened soldier Oxford turned his eyes away from what was on the floor. Such wanton cruelty in the king was a strange, savage pleasure. It released the tensions bred by months of smiling and guarding his tongue.

  "John," the Tudor said to Oxford, "Dorset desires to return to London. Would you be so kind as to see that he arrives safely. Perhaps, since he is so timorous, he would do better for a feeling of security. See that he is lodged safely in the Tower."

  Dorset cried out for mercy, but Henry's narrow eyes merely signaled Oxford to remove the prisoner, and he turned away. The room was still. Henry took a half-step toward the door and stopped. He clasped his hands together, pulled them apart violently, and let them hang loosely by his sides. Poynings could see a vein pulsing in his temple.

  "I am so beset, I know not where to turn," he said suddenly. "Is it only a king that has no right to strike out at his enemies?"

  "Is Dorset your enemy, sire?"

  "He would be if he had sufficient courage."

  "Well, you have struck him. Do you feel more at ease?"

  "I might as well have beaten that child that pushed his way in here. Dorset is weak and a fool, but he has done me no harm." Henry stretched out a hand blindly, and Poynings grasped it. "I will send after him and remand the order. Oh, God, I cannot. I have frightened him so much now that he is likely to turn on me and do something foolish for which I would really need to punish him."

  "Dorset is nothing. No one cares for him because all know what he is. Leave him in the Tower as a symbol of your power and your caution."

  "But he will be in torment. Do you think I wish even that half-man to suffer what I feel myself?"

  It was the opening Poynings had been waiting for.

  "What is it that troubles you, Henry? I know the whole kingdom is feeding on your flesh and drinking your blood, but that is nothing new. We have eaten you for years, and you have withstood that drain on your substance without weakening. Something else is eating you now. It is time to speak of it, to gain a companion to fight the danger before it swallows you whole."

  "Does one speak of sick fancies?" the king asked faintly, aware from the use of his name that Ned was offering himself as a friend to a friend rather than as a man to his ruler.

  "Devils fly out through the mouth," Poynings said calmly. "You should spit yours out."

  "To you?"

  Poynings shrugged. "I know my worth. Sick fancies and fears for the future hold no terror for me. I do not know why, but that is true. Just as it is true that tales and players hold no pleasure for me. Perhaps an inner eye is needed for these things, and I have it not."

  "I have." Henry fingered the cloth he had chosen for his doublet, holding its rich substance as if to cling to reality. "Do you know how the princes died?"

  Startled, Poynings did not answer for a moment. He could not see the connection between this subject and the last and wondered whether Henry was rejecting his offer of help. The fixed expression on the king's face, however, led him to believe the question was somehow important.

  "Many things were rumored. It was said most often that they were strangled or smothered in their bedclothes."

  "They looked doubtless like hanged men then."

  Ned swallowed down a momentary sickness. "Henry—"

  "It would take long to die thus. So much terror for such young boys."

  Poynings wondered wildly if the king had some secret knowledge, some secret guilt concerning the princes. But he had not been in England when they died.

  "Ned, when this invasion comes, if we fail, what will you lose?"

  The illogical leaping of Henry's mind was more alarming than any burst of passion. "I will lose my livelihood and my head," Poynings replied stolidly. "You can lose no more, Henry."

  "You are mistaken. My baby, like Edward's sons, would be heir to the throne. He knows me now. He smiles to me and stretches out his arms to be taken. And I see him with a blackened face, with bulging eyes and a protruding tongue—"

  It was fortunate that Henry was staring wide-eyed into nothing, for Poynings blanched. The king's mind was not wandering. Its logical path was all too horribly apparent. Poynings, too, played with little Arthur, and the word picture was so vivid that his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He pulled it free.

  "Then obviously, we must not fail," he said, but no effort of will could keep his voice steady.

  "Have I frightened you too, Ned?" Henry asked, meeting his eyes.

  "You have that," Poynings admitted. "You have also given me the strength of ten. With that vision to spur me, I will doubtless continue to fight even if I be struck dead."

  "I, too. But will it be enough?"

  Poynings shook himself violently. "Ugh! Henry, we are both fools—begging Your Grace's pardon, but it is true. Not even the direst enemy, the worst monster, would dare. There has been too much murder of babes in this land. I think the very beasts in the fields would rise up and cry against another such act. Prison, as you prison Warwick, yes, but not murder."

  "That is cold comfort," Henry said, but it was not. While there was life, there was hope. The vision had faded. It was still there; it would come again. But what Ned said had logic and the force of practical politics behind it. "I know what I will do about Dorset," the king remarked in a much more natural tone. "I will write him a letter and say that some have spoken against him, which is true enough, but that I believe him my friend—which is less true—so that I have placed him in safekeeping and whatever befalls he cannot be blamed for it. There, a weight has fallen from me."

  CHAPTER 20

  The thorn was in bloom. The white petals made clouds of hedges, carpeted the ground, filled the air with sweetness. The last sharp chill of April had been vanquished by the balmy mildness of May. Rain fell sweetly and then the skies cleared and the sun made rainbows in the pearly drops caught on spider webs and blossoms. Even old Kenilworth's grey walls looked welcoming to the party returning from a morning's hawking.

  The king smoothed the feathers of his falcon and turned to his wife who held her white mare close to his stallion's side. "Now you will have to take all the jewels off these gloves. You should never have presented them to me this morning and then tempted me to ride out in them. They are all marked with blood."

  Elizabeth leaned over to see, disturbing her own bird, which batted its wings irritably. "It is only the cuff. I will cut it off and sew on new ones. Who could suspect that you would wear white gloves ahawking."

  "You made them and they suited my clothes admirably."

  "And now I will have to remake them. Silk gloves, Harry, ahawking. It is a wonder the falcon has not torn your wrist. You could keep the glovemakers of the entire kingdom working with such extravagance."

  "You see, even my bad habits are to the nation's benefit."

  Elizabeth was about to make a tart remark on not permitting such reasoning to extend to other vices, when a rider came pounding toward them from the castle. Henry's mouth grew grim, and he set spurs to his horse so that he met the messenger halfway, leaving his entourage behind.

  His wife was the first to reach them, and the color came back into her face when she saw Henry's expression.

  "Is it good news, Harry?"

  About to say yes and tell her, Henry reconsidered. It was unlikely that Elizabeth would think the news good, and half the courtiers were now surrounding them. Too many would see the matter in the same light as Elizabeth without having her distress to spark their
fears. Nor could the methods by which Henry hoped to soothe his wife in private be used in public or upon those others. Henry looked sidelong at Elizabeth.

  "It depends," he replied with a curl of his mobile lips, "upon how one looks at things; but it is a good omen that the news comes now when I am ready to work instead of breaking our pleasure."

  The council assembled in their sweat-stained riding garments, for Henry's patience was strained by preparations that led to nothing. He was eager for action, and woe betide the man who was late when he summoned. He threw the letter on the table, tapping on it with the fingers of his white-gloved hand. The bloodstains from the hawk's talons showed red.

  "From Lord Howth in Ireland. Lovell and Lincoln with two thousand Flemish mercenaries have landed there. They brooked no waiting. The false Warwick has been crowned Edward VI in Dublin Cathedral."

  "This news you do not think bad?" Bedford muttered.

  "They are fools. Will the English love the crowning of their 'king' among the barbarian Irish? Setting that aside, we are ready for them now. If they do not come soon, the need for watchfulness and defense will last so long that none will really watch or defend."

  "If a trial of strength must be made, it is better to come to it with fresh spirit," Oxford agreed.

  "You have it, John. You have the command, also, which you will share with my uncle, as always. Bedford, write to Rhys to raise the Welsh. Devon, go at once to raise the south for me. Guildford, see to your guns. They must be fitted to travel far and fast."

  Devon had not waited for the end of Henry's instructions. He was already out of the room and they could hear him bellowing at pages to summon his men and order his horses saddled as he closed the door behind him. Henry raised his brows. Guildford, who had thought of following, sat still. There would be much riding for him, also. The artillery of key cities all over the country would need to be inspected and mounted for offense as well as defense.