by Livi Michael
There was no question in the duke’s mind that he was better for the country than King Henry.
There was another side to him, of course. He ate and drank too much, and, as if proving that as king he should have the most prodigious appetite, slept with a different woman each night, sometimes two.
In this also he was generous, sometimes proffering them to Henry Beaufort to try them first, or certainly afterwards – he might have any of the king’s women that he pleased.
It did not please the duke to have the king’s women.
‘But I heard that you have had the Queen of Scotland – and Warwick at one time proposed that I should marry her.’
The duke said nothing to this, lowering his gaze to his plate.
‘What do you think? Have I missed something there? Was she worth bedding?’
The duke smiled and raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Was she so unmemorable? Perhaps I was lucky to escape. Now the other one – our former queen – I can imagine she would be worth staining my sheets for.’
The duke could not help it; his face darkened.
‘But I hear you have tried her as well – is she as passionate as she seems?’
The duke muttered something inaudible.
‘It would not be surprising – she can’t get much satisfaction from her marriage bed.’ He made a gesture indicating limp impotence.
The duke sat back in his chair, aware that the colour had risen in his face in that annoying way it had. ‘Your majesty’s expertise exceeds mine in this as in all matters,’ he said levelly.
And the king laughed loudly and said he would be sure to broaden the duke’s experience while he was at court.
That was the way he was when drinking. A darker strain appeared in his humour and something other than his usual self looked out from his eyes. A low cunning; wary, like a trapped animal. But the duke did not feel as much aversion to this as he might have expected, though so many of the thrusts were directed against him. It was something he recognized and understood. So little of the true self could be displayed at court. Who did not feel that internal fracturing – the difference between thought and word, inner emotion and outward expression? And who would feel it more than the king?
If anything, it was what he liked about the king, that there were moments when the mask slipped, though he preferred it when the hostility was not directed against himself. But even then he felt he could trust it, more than he trusted the displays of affection, which only increased throughout the summer. It was as if there was nothing the king would not do to demonstrate his love.
But even he was surprised when the king invited him to sleep in his bed.
It was an old custom, practised by all the Plantagenet kings; a demonstration of trust in their closest companions – for when was the king more vulnerable than in sleep? Guards slept outside the chamber and no one could slip past, but the person invited into the king’s bed might strangle or suffocate him in the night.
The king was honouring him with this ultimate demonstration of trust. How could he refuse?
He tried, of course, saying that he snored too loudly and would keep the king awake, but the king said only that he was sure he snored enough for both of them.
Then the duke said that he hoped there would be no other party in the bed – he would not sleep if the king was practising Cupid’s sport.
The king laughed loudly and said if that was the case then he hoped the duke would join in and they would see finally who was the better man.
So there was nothing for it but to accept graciously.
That night they bathed together in adjoining tubs. The king’s chamberlain, Hastings, heated the water and tested it. The bed was made up according to an elaborate ritual involving two squires, two grooms, a yeoman and a gentleman usher. They tested it at each stage, as the under sheets were spread on it, then the upper sheets of bleached linen, the bolster and then an ermine counterpane. The bed was heated with a warm pan and holy water was sprinkled on it. The king took a shit and his arse was wiped by his chamberlain. He glanced ironically at the duke while this was going on, as if to say, Yes, this is what kings do.
Henry Beaufort considered putting his shirt back on, but it seemed that the king would go naked. He stood, massive and pink from the steam, issuing orders to those testing his bed, emphatic in his nakedness. His chest was broad and fleshy, only his legs were covered in tawny hair, and his member was mercifully limp; though at one point he took hold of it and shook it at one of his attendants.
All this time Henry Beaufort stood uncertainly, holding his shirt in front of him in partial concealment. He was conscious of his considerably smaller, leaner frame, but the king did not look at him. He saw to it that there was drink for the night and that the scented herbs were swept away; he said he would put out the last candle himself. Then he dismissed all his attendants and got into the bed.
The door of the room closed.
‘Are you going to sleep standing up?’ he enquired.
Henry Beaufort dropped his shirt and climbed carefully, gingerly, between the sheets. He lay on his back, at a distance of about four inches from the king. The king sat up and pushed the curtains around the bed back fully.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘As a boy I could never sleep if I felt closed in.’
Then he settled back down on his side, facing the duke, and for a moment the duke feared that he might touch him.
‘Are you comfortable?’ the king said, and the duke replied that he was perfectly comfortable.
He had never been less comfortable in his life.
‘I imagine that you never thought you would be here, in my bed.’
The duke said that was certainly true. Then the king said, ‘I suppose you never slept with your former king?’ and the duke tensed in case he was about to make some detrimental comment about the queen. But he only made an amused sound, like a kind of grunt, and turned on to his back. Then he said, ‘We could have been friends, you and I.’
The duke said that he hoped they were friends.
‘I mean, from our earlier days. We could have been like brothers. I feel as close to you as if you were my brother. Closer, even.’
The duke said nothing.
‘Shall I tell you something?’ the king said. ‘A secret?’
The duke was instantly alert.
‘Something that no one else knows – not even Hastings or the Earl of Warwick.’
The duke, sensing that he was expected to reply, said that he thought the Earl of Warwick knew everything.
‘That is a rumour put about by Warwick,’ said the king. ‘No one knows this. I have told no one. Apart from you.’
The duke shifted in the king’s bed until even in the darkness he could see the king’s eyes glittering at him.
‘There is a lady.’
‘Ah.’
‘No,’ said the king, starting to laugh. ‘This one is different. I mean, she is someone that I could love.’
The duke made a surprised sound.
‘I think I love her. At least, I can’t stop thinking about her.’
The duke thought of all the women that the king had slept with. ‘How is she different?’
‘She will not sleep with me.’
‘That is different.’
‘She says that while she is not good enough to marry me, she is too good to be my whore.’
‘She wants to marry you?’
‘There are difficulties.’
‘Is she already married?’
‘No. Not now.’
‘Not now?’
‘She was married. To Lord Grey of Groby.’
Even in the darkness the king could sense the duke’s surprise.
‘Yes – her father and her husband and her brother all fought against me. Just like you. And I have forgiven them all. Do you think me very foolish?’
‘No,’ said the duke, though in fact he wondered, then said, ‘The mind can offer no wisdo
m to the heart.’
‘No,’ said the king and there was a silence of a certain quality, infused with pain. The duke registered with some surprise the fact that the king seemed to be serious.
‘But you cannot marry her,’ he said, and there was a further silence.
For once the duke forgot that he and the king had been on different sides. ‘It would be a mistake,’ he said, groping for the words to convince the king. ‘She is a widow and not – not of a high enough rank. You – your majesty – will be expected to marry some foreign princess.’
‘His majesty is rather tired of doing what is expected of him.’
‘But I understood that the Earl of Warwick was already making plans to that effect?’
‘The Earl of Warwick,’ said the king, ‘is always making plans.’
The duke was silently amazed that the king could even contemplate such a step. It would divide the whole nation, turn the people against him. Not to mention the lords. But all he said was, ‘You say she will not sleep with you?’
‘You think that will make a difference?’
‘It might.’
Silence. Then the king said, ‘I do not know that it will make a difference.’
The duke thought of saying that between the sheets all women were the same, but restrained himself, remembering the woman who for him was different. The king gave a small sigh. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we shall see.’ And he yawned and turned over, releasing a prodigious fart as he did so, and mumbled that he was sorry and something about the pork. The duke had also eaten the pork, of course, but he did not suppose that he would be able to fart in the king’s bed at any point during the night. He lay awake as the king began to demonstrate his earlier point, about his capacity to snore.
Since his defection, when he had given away vital information about his former king and queen, and all their plans, the duke had often lain awake, seeing with closed eyes the ghosts of his father, his uncles and all his ancestors, who had been such stalwart supporters of the House of Lancaster, glaring at him accusingly. Also he could see the queen’s face, gazing at him with that startling directness, those fierce eyes, that soft mouth. At such moments the pain of what she’d said to him, that she could not or would not ever look at him that way, burned in him afresh, along with the shame of his desertion, so that he would suddenly weep. Now, however, these memories were overlaid with thoughts of an entirely different nature. For if the new king married inappropriately it would damage him more effectively than any war. It would be the first political disaster of his reign. Many things would depend on the lady that he loved, on what her true motives were, though the duke could not help but fear the worst. If she wanted him to leave her alone she had only to sleep with him. But it seemed apparent to the duke that she was playing a different game.
13
Elizabeth Woodville Plays a Different Game
[King Edward] was licentious in the extreme: moreover it was said he had been most insolent to numerous women after he had seduced them, for as soon as he grew weary of dalliance, he gave up the ladies much against their will to other courtiers. He pursued with no discrimination the married and unmarried, the noble and lowly; however he took none by force. He overcame all by money and promises, and having conquered them, he dismissed them.
Dominic Mancini
Her father had often said that uncertainty was what made a game worth playing, and certainly she was far from sure that she could win this one. She had not seen Edward, her suitor and her king, for several weeks.
On the last occasion his face had closed suddenly, and he’d left without explanation or goodbye. She had not heard from him since.
She’d affected indifference to this in the face of her mother’s strident comments, her father’s quiet reproof. She did not love him, this handsome boy, her king, but she loved the thought of him. Her life lapsed into dullness when he was not there. How could she accept any suitor other than the king? And how long could she continue to fend him off?
All her excuses were wearing thin.
She was still grieving for her husband – that had worked for a while. But it was nearly three years since her husband’s death, and recently the king had said that if she loved him, as she claimed, she would no longer even think about her husband.
‘It is because I love you that I will not give myself up so cheaply,’ she’d said, and, ‘If you loved me you would be prepared to wait.’
But on the last occasion he’d said, ‘Wait for what?’ and the look that sometimes entered his face was there, when he suspected she was playing him for a fool.
‘Wait until we can be together completely.’
‘Is it my crown that you love?’
He was no fool, this young man, though he could sometimes be so indiscreet. It was one of the things she liked about him, that he was not entirely open to her.
Of course, she’d said that she had no thought of his crown – she knew she was not good enough to marry him. But she was too good to be his whore. And he had accepted this, apparently. After a moment he’d said, ‘Then come back with me.’
‘As your whore?’
‘As my companion, my lady love.’
That was what, in her heart, she sometimes believed she would have to settle for. And she did not know that it would be such a bad thing. Alice Perrers had, after all practically run the kingdom and taken what she wanted from the third King Edward.
But that Edward had been in his dotage, whereas this one was young, and likely to grow tired of her and move on.
‘I will not come back with you,’ she said, ‘and play courtesan while you marry someone else. How could I?’
The young king’s face had darkened. ‘A king must marry,’ he said. It had nothing to do with love. Whoever he married, his heart would be hers.
‘Is that what you say to all your whores?’ she said.
He had looked at her with well-feigned surprise. ‘Since we met there has been no one else,’ he said.
She had laughed at him then and after a moment he had laughed too, and they had grown quite companionable. But then he had drawn her to the couch and kissed her.
She allowed herself, in such moments, to experience desire, because he had an instinct for pretence. In such close proximity he could sense the smallest shifts and fluctuations of her mood.
He wound his fingers in her hair and kissed her again, pressing her down. But she withdrew from him, becoming cold and still, until he released her. Then she sat up at once, touching her hair.
She could sense him looking at her with – what? Irony, frustration, rage? But she did not look directly back. She was afraid of him in such moments, of his own capacity to withdraw.
‘Such restraint,’ he said, infusing the word with a world of scorn. ‘You should pass on your skills, my lady – they are too exceptional to keep to yourself.’
She had nothing to say to this. She wondered if she should weep.
‘You should take care, however, that what you prize so highly does not grow old.’
She turned to him then, stung, for she was several years older than the king. ‘At least one of us should prize what I have to give.’
‘I can hardly prize it if you do not give it.’
‘And if I do,’ she said, leaning towards him slightly, ‘how long before you throw it away?’
And he had said, equally low, ‘We will never know, will we?’
She had stood up suddenly then, and harangued him in words she shuddered to remember; words that a mistress might use to her lover if she was sure of him, but that no subject would ever use to her king. She said that she was no fool; that if he treated her this way already, how would he treat her at court? Where she would be expected to sit not at his side, no, but in some lesser place, and smile while he courted some other woman, or wait in her room while he slept in some other woman’s bed.
As she spoke, some genuine anger rose in her, some buried rage at the impossible nature of the position she was in, so that sh
e was almost weeping in reality, tears of frustration and rage.
‘I will not grow old and fat bearing your bastards while you sleep with every harlot in court, and perhaps even fall for one of them!’
Someone younger, a virgin no doubt, because there will always be someone younger and prettier than me, she did not say, and the king did not say there would be no one, ever, that he would love more than her. He was looking at her with a mixture of injury and contempt.
‘Shall I take that as your final answer?’ he said, and when she did not reply he left.
As soon as he had gone she had wept quite noisily, as though her sobs would break her apart. But to her family she had to pretend that all was well; to her mother, who questioned her closely; to her father, who did not question her but gave her long, narrow looks. Then as the weeks passed and the king did not return nor send any of the usual tokens of his love, her father had asked her to accompany him on a walk.
‘It’s raining,’ she said.
‘Not any more,’ he replied.
She took her time getting ready, wrapping her cloak around herself slowly, for she knew what was on his mind.
He did not take long to get to it.
‘Your mother and I were wondering if you had heard from the king?’
Obviously they knew that she had not.
‘We were thinking that perhaps you should write.’
‘Write? To the king?’
‘It cannot do any harm.’
‘I cannot see that it would do any good.’
‘It might make him – reconsider.’
Elizabeth Woodville expelled her breath. ‘And then what?’
‘What –?’
‘If he reconsiders. What am I to do with him then?’
‘Then …’ Her father shrugged. ‘That is up to you. But it might be time to show him a little – favour.’
‘Favour?’ she said. A little leg or breast, she did not say. ‘And if I show him some favour,’ she said, ‘and he still does not come back for more – what then?’
Her father said nothing for a moment, then he said, in low, chilling tones, ‘Well, at least you will have tried.’
