by Diana Rubino
It was five o'clock. The King would have been rising soon for Mass anyway. However, this morning, he ordered another groom to go to Cleobury, bring treacle with him, and if the child were still well, to fetch young Harry and bring him back to the palace where he would be safe.
He then sat with Amethyst and tried to calm her.
Exhausted from the ride and weak from hunger, she fell into the King's bed and drifted off into a dead sleep from which she did not awaken until noon, when bright light flooded the chamber and she could hear the scurryings and voices of another ordinary day at court.
She asked an usher to find the King, and he appeared a while later with Harry in his arms. "He was safe, Amethyst, Dr. Butts looked him over and found him fine. He's had treacle, been fed and he fares well."
"Oh, thank God!" She clasped her son tightly and he wrapped his chubby arms around her neck, as she crooned to him softly, rocking him back and forth until he drifted off. She laid him on the bed and the King sat next to her. "Thank you, Henry, thank you. You've saved my son's life."
"Me and the groom and your good servant," he said modestly.
She had to ask the next question, "And how is Mortimer?"
The King's face told her at once. His eyes, usually mean slits of deep thought and concentration, were darkened. "Mortimer has left us, Amethyst. Mortimer has been released of his earthly misery. May he rest in peace."
"Oh, God..."
A thunderous flood of emotions, sorrow, pity, relief, all converged in her heart. Her eyes filled with tears, and she began laughing hysterically. At the same time sobs racked her body as tears poured forth, and she felt the King's warm comforting arms around her once again. She felt as if she had come full circle, and somehow it all felt right.
Mortimer was buried with his family in the graveyard adjoining Saint Stephen's Church down the road from Cleobury. There was no eulogy. Mortimer had not many friends, and the villagers, many of whom had been stricken by the sweat, had either died or fled the epidemic.
Amethyst slid the thin gold band off her finger and placed it upon Mortimer's chest just before they shut his coffin and lowered it into the ground.
She inherited Cleobury, and Swandlinbury, another manor house in Norwich that Mortimer owned, as well as their London home, and the money, jewels and plate he had left behind, and there was a great deal, as Mortimer had been miserly his entire life.
She was now an exceptionally wealthy widow, but she wanted nothing from Mortimer Pilkington. She planned to sell everything he'd left her and donate the proceeds to the poor.
The previous evening, she'd taken her wedding gown, folded it tightly and placed it in her hearth. The flames had consumed it, turning it to charred blackness as she had turned and walked away.
Sabine turned to Amethyst at the burial site, just as the first shovelful of dirt fell atop Mortimer's coffin. "Matthew could not attend, but he extended his condolences."
With the mention of Matthew's name, Sabine unleashed a rush of emotions in Amethyst that she could no longer harbor deep inside her. Leaving the small party standing rigidly at the graveside, she turned and fled into the church, like a black phantom, and rushed to the altar and knelt.
"Give me strength, Lord," she prayed. "Give me the strength to raise Harry in Mortimer's name and live with this terrible lie. Let me always be respectful to his memory. Let me be the best I can be."
The King invited her to join him on his summer progress through the shires, and she accepted gratefully, eager to embark on a fast-paced journey that would give her little time to think of Matthew and the terrible way she'd wronged him.
When Mortimer was alive, she had always given in to her fantasies and let her mind take her to that far-flung dream world of the past where she and Matthew had shared those blissfully happy moments together. She had held that memory in her heart like a precious jewel in a velvet box, and closed the box when it was time to return to the real world.
She shoved any thought of Matthew from her mind as she and the King sped down dusty roads overgrown with lush greenery, over fields of bluebells and the dark marshy fens of East Anglia.
They sat talking after dinner one night at Eltham in Kent, a splendid old manor house that had been Henry's boyhood home.
Suddenly the King said, "Amethyst, I believe you should tell Harry of his true parentage. Harry is still too young to understand, but by the time he is older, the timing will be right. You created a living legacy that truly belongs to the Gilfords. Matthew and Harry should no longer be deprived of the joy they will know in one another, and you and Matthew should no longer be deprived. You should also be together."
"But he is still married to Topaz," Amethyst said.
The King thought for a moment. "And what if she were to grant him a divorce?"
"She never has. She never will. She has no reason to divorce him and set him free. Why should she?"
"Why should she indeed? Perhaps she needs a good reason," he said, his brow furrowing.
She saw those golden eyes narrow into calculating slashes once more. He pressed his palm to his head as he always did when deep in thought. It was during this time that she did not dare interrupt him, for to break Henry's train of thought could mean the very doom of the kingdom.
"Would you threaten her, sire?"
He shook his head. "Nay. She is your sister, and it is for that reason that she lives."
"But you are right. Your son and his father must suffer no longer."
He nodded. "It is especially unfair to the child. I never meant any harm to the child. All I wanted to do was punish you and Gilford. I never would have wanted to go through life not knowing who my true father was."
"'Twould break both their hearts if they knew, as long as Topaz—"
His furrowed brow cleared. "I shall see if Topaz loves her own sons more than the husband she refuses to set free. I shall give her what no other prisoner languishing in the Tower will ever have. A choice. Then we shall see."
"Thank you, Henry. You have no idea what this means to me."
"I think I do. He could have been ours. I have been mean out of spite and, well, envy, but again, it was all of my own doing. You have been the wife of my heart, even if not in name, for so many years. It is time that I let you have the joy you have given me."
Topaz received a message from the King stating that if she granted Matthew a divorce, she would be allowed to see her sons.
Her choice was made in an instant, as Henry knew it would be, without a moment's thought for the consequences, only the immediate gratification of her desires.
"My darling babies in exchange for that mindless buffoon? Aye, I shall grant him a million divorces! Where shall I sign?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Tower of London, September, 1542
Matthew strode through the main entrance, the four peaks of the White Tower capped with thin streaming banners looming up ahead of him. The imposing structure made him shiver as he recalled the history those walls had beheld.
The guards walked him across Tower Green, where his eyes avoided the scaffold site. They approached the rounded structure of the Beauchamp Tower and he glanced up at the small black openings cut into the stone; the windows.
He thought of Edward of Warwick spending his entire life here; of the girls' births, of Sabine's stoic tolerance of a lifetime of imprisonment—just because her husband Edward had been a helpless victim.
The guards led him inside and up a winding staircase lit only by slices of light spilling in from the narrow arrow slits in the stone wall.
They approached a large wooden door bolted with a rusty lock. One of the guards opened it with a skeleton key from a ring of similar keys.
The door swung open and he stepped into a small stuffy cell, the walls closing in on him already, one window crossed with bars, letting in barely enough light to see the straw pallet and battered table, the only two items of furniture in the room. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he glimpsed at th
e pile of logs smoldering in a pit in the corner. A small figure was huddled before it.
He recognized the dark auburn hair in the shadowy light. It hung loosely about her shoulders, thinner than he'd remembered, ratty and unkempt. He could see the outline of bones jutting out from the thin shawl wrapped about her shoulders.
She finally turned and rose to face him. Her eyes, in the faint grayness surrounding them, were sunken into her pallid face, and seemed lifeless and dull, lacking the spark he had once known so well. They bespoke nothing but defeat.
They did not light up with recognition at the sight of her husband. She merely gave a barely discernible nod, as if waiting for him to speak first. He looked into the lifeless orbs and with pity at the shadow of the woman he had once loved.
He heard the door clang shut behind him and the guard clear his throat—a signal, perhaps, to state his business.
"Topaz, I come to thank you."
"Have you seen my sons?" Her voice was soft, almost feeble, echoing her defeated and ruined appearance, and he had to strain to hear, for he wished not to take another step closer to her.
"Aye, just a while ago."
"The King is going to let me see them. Do they fare well?"
"They are quite comfortable. They do not complain. They keep well occupied with their books and their prayers."
"Lutheran prayers, no doubt."
He sighed. "It matters not how they worship, Topaz. They are prisoners here and shall never escape these confines."
"You come to thank me for granting your divorce, and begin bellowing about the fate of our sons."
"Amethyst's husband died from the sweating sickness in June."
"Oh, I am sorry to hear that." She knew almost nothing of her family's goings-on since her imprisonment. "He was rather old, was he not?"
"Not extremely old, but not at all young, either."
"How is their child?"
"I have never seen him, but I trust he is well. I have not heard otherwise. Amethyst and I have not been corresponding."
"I suppose she is going to return to court, since Henry is a widower again. That information I was able to procure first-hand, from this very window." She smirked.
He shook his head. "I know not if she plans to return to court. That is why I have come to thank you for granting me the divorce. I think it only fair to tell you that if she will have me, I plan to marry Amethyst. I am in love with her and wish to be free of the marriage you and I entered."
The cunning eyes narrowed. "Ah. You finally admit it then?"
"Admit what?"
"That you have loved her all along."
He gaped. "What do you mean? You knew?"
"Emerald told me you two were rather cozy that Christmas at Kenilworth. But this no matter to me if the King wants to pass his used doxy along to you. The joy of seeing my babies outshines any further benefit I derive from being married to you."
"It did not happen until much later, I swear it. You and I had been estranged for quite some time."
She waved his protest aside. "And now you want to marry her, you say."
"Aye. My love for her has waned not one bit over the years, for I miss her even more now, and was hurt when she married Mortimer. But I knew it was on the King's orders and she had to obey."
"Aye, a more obedient servant there never was. How she held him in check all these years is a wonder to me. She must have a fine quim indeed."
Matthew stiffened. "She and Henry were as close as two people can be, but do not share the love she and I now do. So I ask you to set me free to marry her now. She arranged for your release the first time. I gave you your beloved sons. We both did very well by you. Now that the King has given you this choice, you have no reason to hold onto our marriage any longer."
"No, I do not. I wish you both well. She is my sister. I do not approve any of her choices, but as with me, she has the right to make them."
"If the King wills."
"Or the Queen."
She turned to face the window and he glimpsed her profile. It was sagging, haggard. She had aged so many years since he'd last seen her. She'd taken many years off her life fighting for her cause. He could almost admire her for it. Except she had never become queen, despite all her efforts.
"You are right, Matthew. There is no reason for our marriage to remain intact. You are granted the divorce. Go and marry Amethyst. And hurry, before she marries the King! Then you will have to wait another year or two before she is widowed again."
"Thank you again, Topaz."
He approached her this time, and knelt as he took her hand in his to kiss it. It was thin and felt like the papery surface of parchment upon his lips. There was an odor about her, of too many months without fresh air and fresh water.
He bowed out of her cell as if she were royalty, to grant her that one last dignity, then nearly fell over his feet getting out of there, his stomach heaving. He exited the Tower gates, jumped upon his mount, spurred it on, and tore down the road to back home to Warwickshire, to start living the future he had only ever dared dream of.
Sabine was leading her grandson Harry around on his brand new pony, Maggie. She gripped the reins with one hand and wrapped her other arm protectively around the spirited toddler who thumped the horse with his pudgy legs as if to spur her on.
"Nay, she's only a pony, Harry!" Sabine laughed with delight at her precocious grandson. "When you get to be a bigger boy, then you can ride a stallion through the countryside and jump fences and ford streams! But all little Maggie can do is walk around the grounds. She's only a baby just like you!"
The clatter of hoof beats approached the stables, and Sabine turned to see who her visitor was, for she was expecting a delivery of material from Paris.
The rider swept his hat off as he came into focus and she saw the wind slapping the dark blond hair across his face. He tossed his head and grinned, waving his free arm in greeting to Sabine, shouting something she couldn't discern, but sounding very joyful indeed.
"Sabine!" He jumped off the mount and ran to embrace her.
"Why, Matthew! Whatever brings you here?"
"I must see Amethyst! But first..."
He suddenly looked at the boy. He and Harry met for the first time. They studied each other for a long moment with equal curiosity. Matthew regarded the life that Amethyst had created to be a part of her, a part of the woman he loved. He felt a pang of remorse for the boy who had just lost his father. "I am Matthew Gilford. You must be Harry."
Matthew clasped the boy's hand, feeling an instant bond, thinking to himself, I am going to be this boy's new father.
He turned to Sabine and brushed another lock of hair off his face. "Is she here?"
"Aye, she is. I believe she is in the solar playing the virginals."
Sabine called a stable boy to take Matthew's mount and with another look at the handsome child, he sprinted towards the gatehouse to Amethyst, his future wife.
A servant led him through the corridor and knocked on the door of the solar. The double doors opened, and light flooded the darkened corridor. His gaze remained fixed to the open door.
Then she was there, a slim figure in the doorway, a silhouette blocked out by the rays of light glowing from inside, but he knew her figure—the shape of her hair as it fell in soft waves, the curve of her shoulders, the cinched waist, the way her skirts billowed out about her hips and lay in graceful folds about her feet.
Her eyes widened in wonder as she took him in, with nearly as much awe as when she'd floated through the rooms of Warwick Castle for the first time.
She stepped back, and could see the muscles in his arms, his sturdy torso heaving as deep breaths expanded his chest. His loving gaze met her dumbfounded stare. His hair feathered over his ears. His face was golden, bronzed by the sun. A neatly trimmed beard shaded his squared off jaw and parting lips, which broke into a dazzling smile as he entered the room and her features converged before his eyes.
"Matthew," she whispered,
one short utterance that spoke not of denial and refusal like last time, but of wonder, gratitude, with a longing he hadn't sensed since their last night together.
She was dressed entirely in black, in her widow's weeds. It looked so unnatural on her, so morose, turning her skin to a sallow paleness, so unlike the bright hues that reflected her ebullient nature.
"Amethyst, I am free!" He spoke the words he'd been bursting to tell her during that long agonizing ride from London, the words he'd spoken in his mind over and over again, over so many years.
"Free? How?"
