As the guests gathered and marvelled, the musicians began to play on their tambours and dulcimers, fiddles and crumhorns. Singers joined them, their voices true and clear, rising in a song to Our Lady who gave Birth to Blessed Jesu in this season and brought light to a darkened world:
Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine:
Gaudete!
Tempus adest gratiae,
Hoc quod optabamus
Carmina laetitiae
Devote redamus.
Ezechielis porta
Clausa pertransitur
Unde Lux est orta
Salus invenitur.
Ergo nostra contio
Psallat iam in lustro,
Benedicat Domino
Salus Regi nostro.
Then, their serious and worshipful song over, they bowed to the audience and began to play a jaunty Saltarello to heighten the mood. Dancers filtered out upon the floor in a flood of silks and velvets, high hennins and jaunty hats…although not William Stanley’s new hat, which still lay on the tiles, stewing in a puddle of frumenty. He had stormed out of the Hall in a temper.
I turned to Anne, white and still beneath her canopy, and extended my hand.
She looked at me in amazement. “Your Grace, I fear my days of dancing with such wild abandon are long over. I would rather sit and watch. Why not dance with your brother’s daughters, young Cecily or Bessy? They would be most honoured.”
I swung about and saw Edward’s second daughter, Cecily, eyeing me hopefully. She was that unfortunate girl who had once been betrothed to Prince James of Scotland and then dangled in front of the Duke of Albany, who had already discarded one wife and had another he was willing to discard for Ned’s amity and the Kingdom of Scotland. She was a slim, fair thing, bearing much resemblance to her Woodville mother, less tall and rounded than her elder sister. Like Bessy, she could be a target for ambitious men with a desirous eye set upon my crown, and I planned to marry her off soon to Ralph Scrope, the brother of one of my loyal household members, Thomas Scrope of Masham and Upsall.
“My Lady Cecily…” I approached the girl, hand extended politely.
“I would be most honoured to dance with you, your Grace!” Her high-pitched voice blurted out, cutting me off before I had even asked her the question. She bobbed up and down in a series of low curtseys, fairly trembling with the excitement of it all. In my limited time with my brother’s children, I noted that Cecily was of a more highly-strung and competitive spirit than Bessy; it would be the apex of her evening to dance with the King.
I took her dainty hand and we danced; Cecily chattered like a magpie, nervous no doubt, but aggravating to the ear. Bessy, from what I had seen as she served Anne, was at least quiet and thoughtful, holding her tongue when it was sensible to do so.
At the end of the dance, I parted from Cecily as swiftly as I could, sending her in the direction of her soon to be family, the Scropes. Returning to the side of my Queen, I beckoned the musicians to come forward and serenade her. Clustered below the dais in a semi-circle, they sang in high, fair voices, sweet as angels:
In a glorious garden green
Saw I sitting a comely queen.
Among the flowers that fresh been
She gathered a flower and set between,
The lily white rose I thought I saw
The lily white rose I thought I saw
and ever she sang:
‘This day, day dawns.
This gentle day, day dawns. This gentle day dawns
and I must go home. This gentle day dawns. This day, day dawns.
This gentle day dawns
and we must go home.
In that garden be flowers of hue:
The gillyflower, that she well knew,
The fleur de lys she did once rue and said, ‘The white rose is most true
This garden to rule be righteous law’.
The lily white rose me thought I saw.
and ever she sang:
‘This day, day dawns.
This gentle day, day dawns. This gentle day dawns
& I must home gone. This gentill day dawns. This day, day dawns.
This gentle day dawns
and we must go home.
When the minstrels had finished, Anne’s eyes grew hazy with unshed tears; I did not know whether of happiness or of sorrow. She blinked them away then regained her composure as a new subtlety was carried out before her throne, sculpted into a sea of white roses. “Come, Bessy,” she called to Ned’s daughter. “You can share this delight with me. I could never eat it all.”
Anne’s lack of formality in a room filled with so many surprised me, and young Bessy looked fairly shocked too, but duly joined her mistress as requested, taking one of the confectionary flowers and placing it daintily in her mouth. In the corner of the room, I could see a few clerics huddled together like crows in an ill wind, their faces peevish and disapproving. Well, let them grizzle. There would be more for them to whisper about before the night’s end.
A trumpet roared. The doors at the end of the Hall clattered open and in raced a contingent of tumblers and saltatrixes, spinning and diving and turning cartwheels. A fire-eater dressed as a bear lumbered forward, blowing flames from his mouth, while a motley-clad Fool rode upon his back, hooting and beating the bear’s buttocks with a pig’s bladder. Stiltwalkers followed, wearing the costumes of wild wood-woses.
The lead saltatrix began to twirl and gyrate in the centre of the floor, contorting her lithe frame into shapes that seemed scarce credible in a human body. Wildly, in her immodest paynim garb, she performed the dance of Salome’s seven veils before the court, to the enjoyment of almost all the men present both highborn and low. John Howard’s eyes were fairly bulging and he was mopping at his brow with his sleeve…when he wasn’t cheering her on. The prelates and clerics however were most dismayed by the rather lewd show, scowling and whispering, averting their faces in obvious disapproval.
The wild music that accompanied the dance died and the saltatrix dashed from the Hall, her veils trailing in her wake. The other tumblers sprang together and clambered one over the other to form a human tower, upon which the Fool climbed monkey-fashion, waving his pig’s bladder over his head like a banner. “I am the Lord of the Feast!” he yelled. “Above King and Courtier, Above Dame and Beast!” He made a farting noise and wiggled his buttocks at the fire-breathing bear.
The revellers roared with laughter and the fire-eater, taking his cue, let out a great blood-curdling roar and waved his furred arms at the jester as if threatening to tear him limb from limb.
Then down tumbled the Fool with a high-pitched squeal, landing straight onto the Bear’s head. Both landed in a tangled heap on the floor, to more shrieks of laughter. The Fool got to his feet and started to run for the door, the Bear bounding after him blowing a stream of flames from his jaws. The tumblers and saltratrixes leapt and bounded away after them, as everyone in the Hall applauded.
My minstrels returned solemnity to the Hall by starting to perform the music of the Basse Danse. Once again, I approached Anne. “My Lady, it is Christmas.” She looked very worn, lacklustre, the gold of her dress now drawing colour from her cheeks.
“I cannot, Richard,” she said. “My legs will not hold me. I...I must have consumed too much claret. I am content to watch. You’ve danced with Cecily; why not Bessy now?”
Feeling slightly exasperated, I turned from Anne to my niece, standing near at hand in identical robes to my wife, with her long hair flowing like a river of spun gold beneath her crown of berries. “Would you accompany me, Lady, since the Queen cannot?”
Bessy blushed. “It would be a great honour, your Grace.”
We proceeded on to the floor and started with the Reverence—a bow from me, a curtsey from Bessy. The Basse Danse was a slow and very stately affair and my niece moved with great dignity and grace; I matched her, having always been a good dancer, despite the pain that often needled through my
back.
It amused me that Bessy towered over me by a full hand. She was like her father in that regard, tall and upright, with a straight long nose and clear eyes. A handsome girl, full bodied, creamy-skinned and red-lipped…and to think, Henry Tydder believed he had some kind of claim on her! He was not worthy to kiss her shoes, even if she was the bastard fruit of Ned’s false marriage.
The dance continued: Pas simples to the left and to the right, pas double, three steps. Then the démarche, a step backwards and a shift of the body going forward and back, forward and back, forward and back. Lastly the branle, a graceful step to the left, with a shift forward of the torso, the drawing close, closer…
Bessy smiled down at me from her lofty height, her eyes like sapphires. “Your Grace, it seems so long since I have danced at Court. You are so…kind.”
“Kind? It is rare anyone says such to me.” I gave a harsh laugh.
Bessy blushed. “Your Grace…Uncle Richard, I know how you loved my father. I know. You were always loyal. He spoke of you with such affection; I know you wouldn’t willingly…” She trailed off, I looked at her, and her face went from pink-tinted to the colour of flame.
“Wouldn’t I? You are a sweet girl, Bessy. Sweet and naive. May it always remain so.”
The dance was over. Again, the reverence; I bowing, she curtseying in her sun-like golden array, with her loose hair haloing out around her.
“I hope there are other banquets like this one,” Bessy sighed as we returned to the dais. “I have enjoyed myself tremendously this evening. You dance well, your Grace, if it may be permitted to say so.”
“There will be more feasts, more merry-making,” I retorted. “Maybe we will even dance again…There will be much dancing and revelry when a husband is found for you. I must think deeply on the matter of a match for you. Soon it must be…”
“A husband” She glanced at the floor, blushing.
“Aye, someone of fitting rank to have you and love you. As I promised before the entire realm.” I grinned. “Do not worry, little niece, it won’t be the Tydder or anyone equally unworthy. But it must be soon; you are not getting any younger. ”
“I am not yet nineteen, your Grace!”
“Old enough to have children. My own daughter, your cousin Katherine, is already a wife to William Herbert and she is younger than you”
“It shall be as you will, your Grace,” she whispered. “You are the King, my uncle.”
“Yes, it will be as I say. Go, now, Elizabeth, and attend upon your Aunt Anne; it is time for the night to end, and she looks over-weary, as if the crown upon her brow crushes her.”
Dropping in a brief curtsey, Elizabeth left me and summoned Anne’s other ladies-in- waiting, who escorted the Queen from the dais to the private exit to her apartments.
And not a moment too soon. At the far door there was a commotion, and winter wind blasted down the length of the banqueting hall, making the candles and flambeaux gutter. A cloaked courier escorted to my seat, where he knelt and presented me with a scroll, roughly tied by twine and daubed with mud.
A report from France. Henry Tydder and his allies were in renewed preparation for war, aided by the French. The time was set. There would be no turning back. The invasion of England, led by Jasper Tydder and John de Vere, would come in the summer of 1485.
A grim smile on my face, I crushed the parchment in my hand. Long had I waited for definite news, been made fretful from the long wait, not fearing the confrontation but impatient, eager to end my woes with the Welsh adventurer.
The time was coming. Soon Henry Tydder would die. It was a merry Epiphany Eve indeed.
Shortly after retiring to her chamber with her ladies, Anne became unwell. Elizabeth Parr came in a rush to tell me that the Queen had fainted as she was being undressed for the night. What was she to do, as it seemed no mere faint; Anne could scarcely be roused.
Without thinking, I had come to my wife’s side at once, unusual thought that might be.
“I should call Doctor Hobbes, Anne,” I told her with severity as I entered the Queen’s chambers and gazed down upon her. She lay upon the bed, stretched out like a corpse, her face the colour of the snow that dusted the courtyards outside. Her ladies were waving pomanders, trying to freshen the air around her and bring her to full wakefulness; I chased the women away with a flick of my hand, irritating by their fluttering presence.
“No, no,” Anne insisted. Her eyelids flickered; below, her eyes looked dull, half-extinguished lamps. She pressed a broidered kerchief to her lips as a sudden cough seized her. “It is just the cold air. The excitement of Twelfth Night. The servants in the kitchen who have coughed and sneezed all week. And my gown was too tight; I couldn’t breathe. Sleep…that’s what I need more than the prodding of some physician. Sleep.”
I motioned her ladies to pull the coverlet over her limp form. She allowed them to tuck her in, then with a sudden strange expression on her face, hissed at them to leave the chamber. I had never heard my gracious wife use that tone of voice before; it startled me.
I noticed Bessy go out, casting a worried backwards glance over her shoulder. Alone, Anne and I gazed at each other in silence. Outside the palace, the wind was moaning, sobbing; hail was rattling the shutters on the windows.
“Richard, come closer,” she said, her voice quavering, almost like an old woman’s rasp.
I bent over her; she had shut her eyes again. A thin film of tears glittered like diamonds on the end of quaking lashes. “Anne, what is it?” An unknown terror seized my heart; she had seemed well enough since Scarborough—that terrible night of fevered coughing had not been repeated. But now…
“Richard…” Her mouth twisted. “I…I have not had my courses. Two months.”
“You—you are with child?” The horrible fear transformed to a terrible hope.
She opened her eyes, the water leaked down the sides of her sunken cheeks—when did Anne’s cheeks have such hollowed grooves carved in them? “No,” was all she said, her voice the toll of a mourning bell.
Outside the window, the gale ascended, rising to a shriek that pierced my brain. The shutters rattled as if something clawed at it from without. As if Death clawed, waiting. My fingers curled on my dagger, went numb, released.
I had to go. I could bear it no more. I fled for the door, the safety of the hallway beyond. Behind me, Anne lay still, offering no words of parting.
No words.
The corridor was dark, the torches burning low. Why was there no light? I screamed at the servants to get the torches lit again. As they scrambled in the gloom, faces filled with panic, I marched onward, pushing aside drunken revellers on their way from the Great Hall to their quarters. They fell into the walls, trying to affect wobbly bows. I ignored them, stalked on.
The shadows began to fade as the mortified servants ran on before me with strike-a-lights. Darkness whirled and parted, and in an alcove in the wall, I saw a figure that shone, a beacon amid the shadows. Gold, vivid as the rising sun, a sun of York…but not a Son of York. A daughter.
Bessy, my niece.
Her presence vexed me, for she was unaccompanied by any attendants—dangerous for a young girl of her status. I would be more than furious if I found out she was of low morals and seeking an assignation with some lover. She was too valuable on the marriage market, even as a bastard, to hurl her honour away lightly. “Elizabeth! What are you doing out here away from your mistress, the Queen?”
She curtseyed low; her dark cloak curtained wide and I saw that below she wore but a thin kirtle as if she was ready for bed. Or a lover. Averting my gaze from too much flesh, I bit on my lip, angered.
“Your Grace, Aunt Anne dismissed me and the other ladies from her presence, do you not recall? She seemed most upset.”
“Oh yes, yes, Anne did tell you to leave…but that is no excuse! The Queen is unwell; it is your duty to linger nearby even if claims she does not want to see your face. Be discreet! And I will not have you wandering abou
t alone in…in such unsuitable dress. It is not seemly, especially at this hour. Go back to your chambers at once. ” I frowned, realising I sounded like some prim cleric or fussy old nurse.
“Your Grace,” She hung her head. “I have not been quite truthful with you. I know it is my duty to remain near to Aunt Anne, no matter what, and yes, I prepared to lie down outside her bedchamber, on a pallet on the floor. But I was taken by restlessness and had much on my mind. The true reason I came out into the hall is …I wished to find your noble person. To talk.”
I was as exasperated as I was perplexed. What was the girl playing at? Kinswoman or no, this meeting was not exactly the height of propriety. Yet I felt I had some obligation to hear Bessy out because of what had happened to her…and to her brothers. I flicked my fingers so that my knights of the body, squires and pages moved on to a respectful distance. I trusted most of the elders of that company, having been chosen from loyal northern families, but darting looks and suppressed grins passed between many of the younger lads who I knew not so well. Tongues would flap as tongues always did.
Trying to hide Bessy’s very presence with the bulk of my mantle, I pushed her deeper into the alcove, although I knew attempted subterfuge was a useless effort due to her height. “Speak girl, and make it swift. I am weary and the Queen is unwell, as you know.”
Bessy licked her lips. They looked very red, like the cherries in the songs of troubadours. Small and rosebud, like her sire’s. “I am very sorry for Aunty Anne, whom I do love as Queen and kin, but it is of my mother I wish to speak.”
“How is Dame Grey?” I said with obvious disinterest.
“Well enough. You know, she does not believe the rumours about my brothers. Not any more.” The words tumbled out in a rush; I could see she was shivering, knowing she trod upon dangerous territory.
“No? Are you sure, Bessy? She conferred with Margaret Beaufort and put you forward as a wife for her son, while he claimed the Crown…my Crown. She must have thought both your brothers dead to do such a thing.”
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 30
