The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  ‘God’s greeting to my lords. Why are you come? I fear we are all unready for you.’

  Barnaby, picking his teeth, said, in a voice loud enough to make heads turn: ‘God’s Tongue! Why does he speak thus, unwarily? There’s much truth in politesse …’

  Warwick rose toweringly. His rose-dappled mantle swirled; black hair curled on his brow. Everything of him was puissant and challenging and might have said: Behold us! We of the blood royal, of Edward the Third …

  ‘My liege, we heard there was a joust, and have humbly come to see the sport. Also–’ he paused, enough to weight his words – ‘we wondered eagerly on your Grace’s health.’

  ‘The King is well.’ Queen Margaret answered, swiftly, coldly.

  Warwick turned smiling to the Duke of York, ‘Then, our hearts rejoice, eh, Dick? These rumours should be hanged at birth, like wantless pups … ’twas said your Grace was ailing.’

  ‘News of this joust has travelled fast,’ said Beaufort of Somerset slowly. ‘It was arranged very recently; a privy affair.’

  Warwick said, into the wind: ‘My lord of Somerset is skilled in knowledge of privy affairs. So much that others–’ he indicated Richard of York – ‘reck not what transpires in the royal Chamber of Council, though they have every right! And the fancies that are spread! for one, that in England, fair women rule …’

  Beaufort’s face turned to angry chalk. But the King answered, amiable, artless: ‘By St. John! I know not what men say! At Walsingham lately I had a sign. If my lords do but love one another, all will be well. Will you ride in the tourney, my lords? Some of my knights lack an adversary. My lord of Somerset is keen to pledge a great spear against a worthy opponent.’

  ‘Nay, my liege,’ said Warwick easily. ‘This day we are not equipped. But I’ll touch steel with you, my lord of Somerset.’ The breeze blew his hair into serpent coils and his jaw tensed. ‘Another time. Gladly.’

  The King laughed, a high, irrational sound. His eyes wandered mazedly over the three knights. He said suddenly: ‘And Richard of York? Well, cousin? How does your lady wife, the Rose of Raby?’

  Again, Warwick was the spokesman.

  ‘Thriving, both long and large,’ he said lovingly. ‘There’s no more goodly sight than a fair woman great with child!’

  And his eyes travelled insultingly over the Queen, her weasel waist and boyish breasts. She sat up straight, whitefaced as Beaufort, and the tear-drop pearls on her bodice quivered with her hard breathing. Warwick said musingly:

  ‘Children! they are strange creatures, my liege. Why, only lately, my cousin of York’s young son, Edward of March – but ten years old – talked of leading an army … all fancy, certes, yet what fiery blood! As if the spirit of dead warriors moves the child!’

  The Countess of Somerset gasped. ‘Jesu!’ she whispered to Elizabeth. ‘The dogs make no effort to hide their aspirations to the Crown. Why does the King suffer this goading?’

  Henry said gently: ‘Will you be with us long, my lords?’

  Richard of York answered in his mellow, distinct voice: ‘Alas, your Grace must give us leave to ride as soon as the sport is finished. I must to Fotheringhay again.’

  Salisbury added, laughing richly: ‘Yes, Sire. We save our strength. I promise you shall see us riding, armed, one day!’

  ‘For God’s love, start the tourney,’ breathed the Countess of Somerset. She looked appealingly at her husband and motioned towards the marshals, waiting with their white wands. Beaufort nodded and bent to whisper in the King’s ear. A look of utter blankness crossed Henry’s face. He looked up at the banners, the horsed knights waiting, their rich armour winking strongly at each pavilion. Esquires hung desperately on the bridles of excited horses. The King looked down at the green grass, as if seeking a sign, and was dumb.

  ‘Will you be seated, my lords?’ said Queen Margaret, in a voice like frozen rain. Warwick, Salisbury and York bent the knee again and withdrew. Elizabeth saw them advancing towards her own loge, Warwick growing bigger, taller, filling her sight. She shrank closer to the Countess, her eyes riveted upon the enemy’s steel and velvet, the reddish aureole of York’s flowing hair, Salisbury’s strength. Her disquiet grew. Mary have mercy! Warwick was taking his place in the loge beside her. She turned her face away, while the Countess, shaking with indignation, inclined her head stiffly and murmured a cool greeting to the Earl. Then, she heard him say:

  ‘Madame, you do not present me to this lady?’

  She heard the ‘Countess’s reply. Because there was no help for it, she turned and looked straight into Warwick’s eyes. Yes, she said inwardly; this man is danger. This powerful renegade is truly my foe.

  ‘Dame Woodville. So, Madame, we meet.’

  He was that rarity; a man who looked at her without admiration.

  ‘I had hoped,’ he said deliberately, ‘to have had a reply to my letter in your own hand, not your mother’s. I had imagined also that it would be far different from the one I received.’

  So Jacquetta had given him a straight answer. Haughtily Elizabeth replied: ‘Sir, I thank you for your interest in my affairs, but the matter is closed.’ She looked again towards the royal loge, where Beaufort and the Queen bent to King Henry, who gazed dreamily still at some mystery in the grass. It was an ant, carrying an egg on its back, and he appeared to be talking to it.

  ‘The King seems distrait,’ remarked Warwick.

  On the sward below, the first contestants, James Earl of Wiltshire and the Duke of Buckingham, sat their horses, holding great foil-tipped lances couched. The breeze fluttered the destriers’ housings, and the Earl’s beast pawed with a massive hoof. The trumpeters waited, silent. And suddenly, Richard of York laughed. It was a merry, sweet laugh, but all the danger in the world was in it. Queen Margaret moved swiftly. She rose, taking the royal wand from Henry’s lax hand. She shimmered, pearly and slender; the white oval of her face was savage, anxious. Her clear voice carried over the emerald sward.

  ‘I, Marguerite, as Lady Paramount, give the command. Earl Marshal, let the tourney commence!’

  Under the scream of the clarions and the yell of ‘Laissez aller!’ Warwick said, with a studied insolence. ‘So it is true! Fair woman do rule England this day!’

  Elizabeth slewed to stare at him. As the roaring thunder of hooves mounted and the two knights approached one another at a gallop, she knew that Warwick had not done with tormenting her.

  ‘Do not imagine I have forgotten the slight you offered my liegeman, Dame Woodville,’ he said, almost amiably.

  She looked away again, pretending to be absorbed in the joust. With a splintering crash, the two destriers met on either side of the palisade. Wiltshire’s lance, held crosswise at an angle, found its mark in the ornaments on Buckingham’s helm. Simultaneously, Buckingham’s point lodged in the decorations of his opponent’s gorget. Both knights were unhorsed. The riderless horses thundered on, one of them plunging into the barrier dividing the lists from the spectators. The air was rich with cries.

  ‘You could have had my good lordship, Dame Elizabeth,’ said Warwick softly. ‘Yet you called down a murrain upon my person.’

  One of the combatants was cast like a beetle on its back, helpless in his heavy armour. Esquires rushed to aid him. Elizabeth saw herself again in the hall at Grafton Regis, crying: ‘Pox take Warwick!’ and the outraged faces of the visiting Yorkists. Evidently they had lost no time in relaying her insult to their chief. She stared unseeingly at the lists. The contestants were horsed again and riding, faster this time, lances held loosely, ready for the moment of impact and the hard high thrust.

  ‘So, Dame Woodville,’ pursued the inexorable voice, ‘a knight of Jerusalem does not suit your lady’s palate. Likewise my patronage is to be spat upon … did you think it wisdom to make an enemy of me?’

  The assault of his eyes drove into her. Under that terrible look the high preparation of words cringed and died. She feared and loathed him. Then the Countess of Somerset, who had been
listening closely while feigning interest in the joust, saved her. Turning, she said kindly: ‘They fight like lions.’ (Wiltshire and the Duke were on foot, hacking at each other with broadswords.) ‘Isabella, is the sport too rude for you? Jesu! you are trembling. Will you not rest a while in our chariot? Barnaby – where is the boy? – will escort you.’

  ‘Merci, merci, madame,’ whispered Elizabeth. How clever of the Countess! A little of her courage returned and she cast one bitter glance at Warwick as he rose to allow her to step down from the loge.

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ he said softly. ‘You run from me. How fortunate are women – they may run while men must fight. Run, Dame Woodville. We shall meet anon.’

  Barnaby gave her his arm and she leaned on him, affecting faintness as they walked down the tapestry-hung passage between the loges, to where there was calmness and birdsong and the air was sweet with crushed grass and blossoms. Barnaby grumbled all the way; he had been enjoying himself. She dismissed him.

  ‘Will you be safe?’ he said. ‘God’s Eyes, I never thought to play wetnurse. Go rest then, lady. I’ll see you later! He ran off, eager to witness the next joust, which was to be between Lord Clifford and the Great Talbot. He had laid heavy wagers on Buckingham’s victory and was furious at missing the outcome.

  Elizabeth could see the litters drawn up by the roadside, with grooms and pages sleeping in their shadow, but she did not go to them. Instead, she turned and walked down a little leafy road, where Eltham’s crumbling palace stood among great oaks. There was a small stone archway through which she passed to find herself in a garden so beautiful that she stood entranced for a moment. Two or three tame peacocks bowed and danced upon the clipped lawns, yew hedges bounded the abundant rose-beds, and there was a large lake, white with lilies, their delicate stars nestling on broad flat leaves. Between the flowers the water was so clear that she could see every detail of her pale reflection. She knelt, and the pallid Elizabeth wavered up at her and smiled softly, with teeth like white seeds between scarlet lips, and eyes still shadowed with a remnant of disquiet. The friendly water welcomed her image. Far away, she heard the distant clarions’ scream and the rumble of hooves, like noises heard in a dream.

  Still Warwick’s pressing menace cast a cloud on beauty, even as the breeze blew a cloud across the lake to hide the sun. Melusine, she said wordlessly, where is my protector? For I need one now, if ever. I have made an enemy of Warwick. Where he is concerned, even the Queen must look to her protection. A feeling of doom made her shudder, and the mirrored Elizabeth shuddered, her body long and wavering in the water. Melusine, Melusine, have you forgotten me?

  Then brightness came again, but in the lake beside her image, a shadow remained. A young straight shadow that moved forward and became defined. A face that took gold from a sunbeam and mirrored itself brightly; a curving mouth that spoke of sweet temper and good sense. Straight features; one eyebrow set in a quirkish lift. Eyes that grew large in the lake. A face to cherish and to trust. A face to look upon for ever.

  She gathered her skirts and rose slowly to face him. He wore a tunic of sky-blue satin and knelt instantly at her feet. When he raised his face, with its innocent mouth, all ready to do her homage, she thought, without surprise: So this is he. He is here at last. Love, I have waited, and now the waiting ends. She heard his quiet voice murmuring an apology for startling her. His lips were warm on her cold hand. He knew her name, he said, he had watched her progress from the lists. She knew him not, he said: John Grey, son of Lord Ferrers of Goby. And then the courtly conversation ceased, and they looked at one another, as if they had thirsted for the looking since time began.

  ‘She met with Raymond by her home, the fountain in the forest, and took his wits away.’

  The coup de foudre. The power and glory of the heart. These were mere words, inadequate tools to describe the joy that was almost pain, the feeling of bodily dissolution, spiritual ecstasy. Words to skim only the surface of the deep water, the sure and sweet experience of mutual worship, the certainty that now the nucleus of the world breathed and lived.

  There had been no need for coquetry or wooing. Within five minutes of that first meeting, all was equal. Reality made nonsense of her one-time cherished tales of romance. Those chroniclers knew naught of love, love’s real implications. Only Chaucer, perhaps, had come a little close.

  The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,

  Th’assay so hard, so sharp the conquering,

  The dreadful joy, that alwey slit so yerne,

  Al this mean I by love ..

  The dreadful joy. The essence of pain, instinctive, unfathomable. A host of new, half-understood fears. Fear of the knowledge that this person, now so dear, was only mortal and would, one day, cease to breathe, to kiss, to laugh and sorrow with her. The dreadful joy of realizing that she was split in two, that half of her went with him through the world, into danger, or sadness, so that all his pleasures were hers and all his griefs, her misery. For the first time in her life, Elizabeth longed for self-abnegation. Pride slipped away; she wished to be fluid, invisible, to crawl inside his heart and be one with him for ever. If he were sad, she wept. If he rejoiced, she knew childlike gaiety. To her eyes, the sky seemed hard, a bright sapphire, and every flower, tall icy lily and blood-red rose, met her with an almost physical shock. Wherever she looked she saw his face, in searing beauty and fondness. His voice called her in the wind and the birds’ song, his very existence sharpened her senses. His name was a talisman, a comforter. The coup de foudre. So had Jacquetta named it, the passion few had known. Now Elizabeth held it in her heart, and was daily amazed, for she had not thought herself capable of such love.

  She became careless, forgetful, smiling gently whenever the other women spoke to her; she fell in with their plans where once she would have been obstructive and tantalizing. She kissed Ismania on the cheek and offered to tire her hair in the new Italian fashion. She loaned Lady Dacre the pearl-and-ruby ring. Only when rumour of her attachment crept through the Palace, coming to roost in the women’s chamber, was this new madness explained, and they laughed. Only a little, for John Grey was truly noble, favoured by powerful lords. Bradgate Hall in Leicestershire, the inheritance of Petronilla de Grandmesnil, whose father Baron Hinckley was tenant in capite there to the Conqueror himself, had been handed down to Lord Ferrers of Groby; Bradgate, therefore, was a fine drop of honey to lick from the thorns of marriage! The reason for their jealous laughter was chiefly Elizabeth’s mien; she epitomized the love-lorn maiden of song and ballad. She heard their mockery through an amethyst haze; she looked upon the world with gentle uncaring joy. When without warning the bubble burst, and Beaufort ordered John to accompany him to Calais, it seemed an evil trick of fate.

  On a day when autumn had cursed the trees leafless, John sailed, and Elizabeth went sadly about her duties. Going to the Queen’s bower, she passed the guard; one of the elderly knights chaffed her gently, saying that she looked like a maid preparing for death; her inborn swift anger, fettered for weeks by happiness, rose, an ugly beast. She tongued a cruel retort that brought the blood to the old man’s face.

  The Queen was alone save for a viol-player scraping a lonely French air, and, beside him, two seamstresses repairing a gown. The window was half-open and banged restlessly under the assault of the wind. Margaret looked once at Elizabeth; it was enough.

  ‘What troubles you, Isabella?’

  ‘Your Grace cannot wish to learn of my small affairs.’

  A little impatiently Margaret beckoned her nearer. The Queen looked unwell; her face was puffy, her eyes bright with unease.

  ‘Tell all, Isabella,’ she said. ‘I pray you, attend my hair. Take off this cursed headgear. My brow has an iron band around it.’

  Elizabeth lifted off the little coif which was like a crescent moon, webbed with tawdry veiling. The pale hair fell free; she set the comb to the Queen’s small head. The two faces wavered together in the mirror. The comb moved down like a fish through sunl
it water. Margaret’s expression was distant, troubled. Elizabeth thought suddenly: Can the Queen ever have loved as I do? All her world encompassed in that saintly, wandering King. She has been wed to him for seven years. Would to God that I were wed. John, ah, John.

  ‘Tell me,’ the Queen repeated. She took a strand of hair over one shoulder and began to braid it deftly. Sighing, Elizabeth said: ‘As you will, Madame. It is an old tale ever repeated. I have met the man I would marry and he has gone away.’

  ‘His name?’ said the Queen lightly, and Elizabeth told her.

  It is a good choice,’ said Margaret. ‘Grey will be wealthy, and he is strong for Lancaster.’ She went on braiding, with delicate, unerring twists, talking almost to herself, like a man who names captains, deploys armies.

  ‘So, he is of the Norman blood. C’est vrai! I believe the title comes through an heiress of Blanchemains to the line of Ferrers Groby. And Bradgate is a prize … their demesne stretches far …

  Elizabeth said, proud of her own extravagance: ‘Madame, I’d take him were he a beggar.’ And then her voice began to tremble. ‘For I love him. I loved him before I was born and I shall love him when we are both dust. With every vein of my heart and every hair of my head, I love him, sore.’

  There was no showmanship in this last speech which astounded even herself. It left her weeping, trying to nudge away tears with the bell of her sleeve. She looked into the mirror and found the Queen’s blurred face. Its expression was indistinguishable.