“When news of the rumours was brought to her, mother screamed and fell in a faint on the floor; yes, she believed what she had heard. But as time went by, she received other intelligence, your Grace, and she was no longer so certain.”
“Stop calling me your Grace, It is not necessary here.” The formality irked me; these were deeply personal matters.
“Uncle Richard then.”
“Not that, either. Just Richard. In private. Uncle makes me sound like some aged greybeard, although I dare say that is how you see me.”
“I do not.” Her tone was solemn, as were her eyes. Blue like mine, but darker. She sighed and continued, “Do you really think she would have come out of sanctuary and allow all her daughters into your care if she believed you had murdered her sons? Truly?”
“I long ago stopped trying to ascertain what is in the mind of Dame Grey.”
“She is no longer so certain about Henry Tudor swearing to marry me. It seemed a good idea at the time, Margaret Beaufort was pushing her, but Lady Stanley is not at court anymore and has lost influence on her. Mother has written to me, Richard, to say she is uneasy as to whether the deal would be honoured. And above all… I don’t want to marry this unknown exile.”
“You shan’t. There are only two ways this marriage could ever take place. For you to be smuggled out of England and sent to him, or for him to come here and defeat me in battle as he keeps threatening to do. He will have you only over my broken corpse, and that’s not likely to happen, now is it?”
“Do not even speak of such horror!” exclaimed Bessy, lifting her hand to her mouth in dismay.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Is this all, Bessy? I am glad your mother is warming to me at last; it may make my life and hers easier if she ceases to strive against me. But surely the news about her apparent change of heart could have waited till the morrow.”
“Richard…” She took a deep breath, emotions rippling across her face. “The truth is that long have I been troubled in my mind and I could bear it no more. Please, please, I beg you; tell me what has happened to my brothers! Where are they? If I could have the knowledge of their whereabouts, and confirm it to my mother…Well, many of the men who went to join Tudor might come back to you!”
“Ah Bessy, you are so naive.” And clearly, your mother’s sources are not so clever as she thinks…they do not know that your brother, young Edward, is lying in a hidden coffin in the chapel at Windsor. Harry Buckingham’s victim…but my responsibility. “If I were to proclaim to the world that the boys were alive, who would now believe me? Men would ask me to produce them. I cannot do that. If it were possible, it would benefit me nothing. Men might not account me a killer but those men who flocked to Henry—true, they might abandon him, being faithless and seeking their own advancement only, but then they would rise against me to restore your…your father’s line. And be handsomely rewarded by your mother’s Woodville kin when they are back in power.”
“So,” her voice shook, “is it true? Have you just admitted to me that my brothers are alive?”
“No. And I will not discuss this matter further. Not to you, not to anyone.”
Elizabeth smiled; it was like the sun coming out from behind storm clouds. “I knew they were alive, I knew it in my heart. You wouldn’t hurt my father’s boys, even if they had to be removed from the succession. Father always spoke much good of you; he knew you were a good man too, although I did once hear him say that he wanted to ‘smack Gloucester’s sanctimonious face.’”
“Did he truly say that?” I started to laugh myself, eager to turn the discussion away from the princes and their whereabouts. “I suppose I was sometimes sanctimonious.”
“He was proud of you, of how people loved you. I remember his pride when a band of scholars came from Cambridge University to greet you in London—the weather was foul and the roads night impassable, but they struggled on for six days just to see you.”
“You remember that, Bessy? I am astounded. You were but a little maid!”
“An inquisitive little maid…and I always listened to what my father said. Richard, I worshipped him. He was almost …god-like to me, as wicked as it might be to say such a thing.”
I took her hand, sad then; her fingers were cold and there was one solitary ring on them. I recognised it as one of Ned’s, passed on to Elizabeth as an heirloom. “He was to me, too, Bessy.”
We stood in silence for a few minutes. Outside I could hear the rain hammering on the stonework of the palace. In the halls there was distant footfall, voices murmuring. “The hour grows late, Elizabeth,” I said softly. “Look, I ask of you, go and look after Anne. I know she dismissed you and the others for the night but she is not herself, and I worry for her. I also have a care for your perceived honour. I know you are a decent girl, Bessy.”
“I will go to her Grace,” Elizabeth nodded. “I will do whatever you ask of me, Richard.”
“You are a dear child, Bessy. Life has not always been kind to you of late, and I have had some hand in your misfortunes. Amends will be made in the future, I promise. Now I must bid you goodnight.”
“Your Grace…” Bessy turned formal again, even shy. Her voice faltered. “May I kiss my uncle the King in farewell, and in gratitude for his cheering words to me this Epiphany Eve?”
“You may, child.” I lifted up my left cheek to her, expecting to feel the chaste touch of her lips to my skin, slight as the brushing of a feather.
Elizabeth leaned down—I could have almost laughed again at the discrepancy in our heights—but as she did, she tilted her bright head and suddenly her mouth pressed against mine. I felt her lips part, her tongue touch my teeth, unsure but asking. Almost instinctively, my arms went around her plump but pliant form. She lay against me, her long golden curls falling over her breast and mine. I could feel her heart hammering; mine was drumming no less.
What madness was this?
Shocked by Bessy’s actions and by my own weakness, I tore away from her. “Go to the Queen!” I barked at her. “Go!”
Head bowed, she scurried away and deeply disturbed, I hastened to my chambers. I lay abed for a long while after that, sleepless, staring up at the canopy above me that caught the spiders and other bugs that fell from the ceiling. Spiders…spinning their ensnaring webs. I wiped at my mouth; it seemed to burn where Elizabeth’s lips had touched me.
Had she gone mad?
Had I gone mad? She was my niece, and even were she not, I was married and had never dishonoured my marriage bed. Nor did I intend to.
After a while, when sleep still eluded, I crawled from the bed, donned a heavy robe, and knelt upon my prie dieu, a golden cross before me. Eyes closed, I prayed fervently to St Anthony that morality and constancy would continue to be mine.
The rain and hail had stopped. A weak sun shone over London, though ice glinted on puddles. After Mass, I summoned the best physicians in London to attend Anne, who was too weak to rise and join me.
Doctor Hobbes came to my closet, his brow knitted. “Your Grace…”
“How fares the Queen?”
“She has been given a draught and sleeps. She must rest, your Grace.”
“Yestereven,” I turned to him, “she told me she…had certain signs. However, she then denied their meaning. I am a man and know nothing of woman’s matters, but with this faintness and weakness, and her other complaint…Could she be quickening?”
Hobbes wiped at his brow, distress evident. His lips moved. “I fear not, sire. It is my thought that the Queen, sadly, is now barren and will bear no more children in her lifetime.”
A silence fell upon me, and a heaviness, as if great bricks thundered down upon my head and shoulders. I heard a rustle of robes as Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, who had been behind me in the closet behind me, turned around, suddenly attentive.
“Why should this be so?” I asked, my voice little above a whisper. “She has not reached old age yet.”
Hobbes shook his head. “Sometimes it
is just the will of God and no reason can be found. Other times…there are illnesses that appear to halt the natural functions of the body.”
“She is ill, then. With what?”
He nervously eyed the ceiling. “I cannot say yet, dread lord. I must deliberate with other learned doctors and ascertain the Queen’s digestion and disposition. I would ask you grant me permission to return to her side now, to continue my observations.”
I nodded. “Go. Let her know I shall come to visit later.”
Hobbes shuffled away and I leaned back in my chair, my fingers white on the armrests. “Barren…Christ help me, help us both,” I murmured. “What a bitter cup I have drunk from this past year. My son lies in his grave and my wife is barren.”
Thomas Rotherham had scuttled up behind my seat, listening to my torment. I had almost forgotten his presence. The Archbishop of York and former Chancellor was in London for the Christmas festivities. It seemed an age since he had given the Great Seal unlawfully to Elizabeth Woodville and I had imprisoned him for a month in regards to the Hastings conspiracy. Over the last few months, I had warmed to him slightly, for he was a man of great abilities, no matter that he had once served de Vere and was all too friendly with the former Queen. He had attended Eton and Cambridge and had studied Divinity, as well as lecturing in Theology and Philosophy. He had been an Ambassador to foreign lands.
“Your Grace,” he spoke in smooth cool tones, the voice of an orator like so many other churchmen. Offering God’s comfort to His fallen sons. “I grieve to see your highness in such distress at this unfortunate news. I understand that a king must have an heir.”
“You need not remind me, Archbishop.”
“There are ways, your Grace.”
“What ways? Sorcery? I sneered. “I thought you holy men were against that sort of thing.” King or not, I was unduly rude to this man of the church, hating that he witnessed my despair, looked upon my misery with that calm, all-knowing, godly face.
“No, not at all.” The smooth voice whispered in my ear. “I will say nothing, your Grace, but it has been known that one may get an annulment when cause is just.”
I whipped my head about, stared at him with hard, surprised eyes. “Let me continue,” he said quickly, as if fearing I would silence him, perhaps permanently, “you and the Queen are close in blood, cousins. Were your dispensations duly received? I once heard a rumour….”
“You heard wrong, “Rumours are never healthy to listen to, are they, Rotherham? Mark me well—the dispensations were received.”
Rotherham cleared his throat, pressing forward with his heinous idea despite my clear anger. “Your late brother of Clarence, did he not once bring into question the validity of your marriage? I mean no disrespect to the Queen, a most goodly and gracious lady, but a king must have an heir as your Grace has said. She might be well pleased, being now in ill health, to retire from active life to a convent, where she could take the veil and be cared for by the nuns.”
“Do you know on what grounds Clarence made his claim?” I spat. “He claimed I abducted Anne whilst in his care and a marriage through abduction is not valid. However, he saw himself as the over important player in this matter. Anne was his ward, but she was a dowager Princess and had some say in her affairs—she was far from an unwilling bride. What you say is ridiculous and offends me, Rotherham! Where, anyway, on short notice, would I find some other suitable fecund bride? Would you magic her from the sky? Or perhaps you have someone suitable in mind? ”
A knot of anger coiled in me and I longed to rail at him for his wicked presumption and I fought back the urge to shout, but suddenly I felt weary, so weary… I put my head in my hands, glancing away from the robed form of the Archbishop.
He pressed forward, breath hot on my neck, whispering into my ear like Satan: “Why not the daughter of your brother, your Grace? Young, marriageable age, of a family known for high fertility. The people love her. Many of the rebels who had loyalties to the late King would support her. Best of all, it would put paid to Henry Tudor’s idea of wedding her and uniting the White Rose and the Red. It would be more than a mere annoyance to this pretender; the whole fabric of his claim would start to unravel.”
My head shot up and I glared at him. He stepped back—it was a basilisk stare. What did he know? Had he heard a careless whisper, a gossip’s gleeful lie about last night?
Again, the urge to shout rose in me, died. “Leave us,” I said, ice-cold. “Do not speak of this matter in our presence again.”
He left, his long ecclesiastical robes swirling and skirling over the floor. My gaze followed his steps, willing him to leave before I threw something at him.
I felt as if the whole world had gone mad, falling into a topsy-turvy realm of nightmare. That which had haunted my dreams now intruded upon my waking life.
The physicians came to me, after their deliberation on Anne’s ailment. Black robed, they stood like crows, eaters of the dead. By their expressions, I knew they bore bad news.
Still as a stone, I watched them approach. Tap…tap…tap…Their heels struck the polished tiles, as their long gowns belled and made a wind that caused the tapers to sink low.
“Spare me naught,” I told them “Out with it.”
Hobbes had known me long, served my family well over many years. Despite this, he fumbled. “Your Grace, it is our belief…our belief…”
“I said out with it!” Irritation fuelled by fear soared within me.
“It is our belief that her Grace the Queen has consumption. Cold humours have dripped into her lungs and are destroying them.”
I breathed in through my nose as my head spun. Consumption! Christ not that, it was a sentence of death… “Treatment, there is surely a treatment!”
“Treatments can be administered—potions with a modicum of arsenic or mercury are known to sometimes give relief for a time But, it is also my opinion and that of my learned fellows…” he glanced uneasily at the other physicians, “that, regrettably, it is too late to do more than bring ease. Her Grace had admitted that there has been blood upon her lips and weakness and fainting. With great sorrow, I must tell you that in our learned opinions we believe she will not live out the month of February.”
There. It was said.
I sat as one turned to stone, immobile, frozen, a king carved of ice and granite. No outcry, no expression. But in my head, crazed words ran repeatedly like a malignant prayer, a cry to a deity who would not answer: No, Jesu, no, not Anne. First Edward, now Anne….Jesu, help me, no…
In Anne’s bedchamber, we were alone. She was sitting up in the vast bed, propped up by the bolster. Her women had made her fair, combed out her hair, and painted her cheeks with crushed safflower.
It was as if the scales had dropped from my eyes, however. For the first time I truly realised how thin she was, how gaunt. Her hands lay on the coverlet like dead white flowers, every bone showing through translucent flesh.
“I am sorry, Richard,” she said, “for bringing more pain.”
“Ah…Anne…” I could find no words.
“I will get better,” she then said, and it was as if a dagger struck me to the heart. She did not know! But of course—the physicians would not inform her before they had informed her husband the King.
“Anne.” Suddenly I was overcome. I pressed my hand to my eyes then buried my face against the soft silk that covered her lap. “Christ, Anne, I cannot bear it…”
“What? What is it?” Although her voice was still soft, a note of fear, of growing realisation, made it quaver.
I had to tell her. Had to. Blinking away the unmanly evidence of my grief, I glanced up. “My…my love, there is no easy way to say it, so I shall be truthful with you, as I always have been. Hobbes thinks you have the consumption. And…he fears I could catch it from you if we spend too much time together. He is displeased that I am visiting your chambers even now. I am the King… for the sake of my realm I cannot risk myself, that is what they tell me. Anne, Docto
r Hobbes says we must not share a bed from now onwards, that we must be apart.”
For a moment, Anne lay there in shocked silence. Then suddenly she writhed, as if in agonising pain. Her knees came up under the coverlet, striking me upon the chin with such force I was almost thrown backwards onto the floor.
“Christ, Christ! I have lost my child…Now I am to lose my husband, and I am dying, dying! ” My wife’s screams of anguish rang throughout the palace, followed by violent coughing brought on by her exertion and hysteria. Doctors and attendants came flying in to calm and restrain her.
Of unwavering courage in the face of my enemies, I had no courage before my dying Queen and her agony at the ending of our life together as man and wife. I fled her bedchamber, my own throat constricted with the pain of such a dreadful parting, uncaring that the courtiers gawked and stared as I ran past them seeking a solace, a sanctuary away from pain, away from death. Seeking something that now could never be.
We removed to Windsor castle on the 12th of January, Anne carried in a litter furled in black as if she were already dead. At the castle I went, in my usual way, to visit the tomb of my brother Edward in St George’s chapel. Before vast gates wrought in iron by John Tresilian, I knelt on the floor, humbled, my fingers wrapped on the bars, gazing through the gloom at my brother’s accoutrements—his gilt mail, wrapped in red velvet, and his banner bearing the Royal Arms. He had no effigy; he had ordered black marble from Burgundy to construct a cadaver, a momento mori tomb that showed the dissolution of the gross flesh of man…yet neither time not money existed to create such a statue. I was glad. It was not as I wanted to remember him, rotten and foul.
I remembered the young King who saw the Three Suns, symbols of the Trinity, the three surviving Sons of York. The King who crushed the Lancastrians at Towton, where the snow turned red with blood. The King who came to Baynard’s nigh daily to visit his small brothers, the King I had served loyally until his death. And then…
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 31
