The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  ‘The fairest man

  That best love can,

  Dandirly, dandirly, dandirly, dan,

  Under the leaves green!’

  Each passing moment was a target for laughter. John recalled one night in Calais, when the others had fed him so much wine that he had danced on the table and thought that he could fly.

  ‘It’s love, not wine, that gives us wings!’ he cried. ‘Watch me, my love!’

  He put his restive horse at a quickset hedge. Elizabeth reined in, sat watching. The horse’s glossy quarters bunched in power. John’s hands were strong and light; fluidly anchored on the reins. His chestnut head bobbed against a tapestry of green leaves. He wore a red cloak; it tossed about him as horse and rider reared for the leap, rising until it seemed they would merge with the sun. They were silhouetted in blinding brightness, and John’s mantle glowed like fire. Fire? No, blood! He was clothed in blood. Elizabeth flung up her hands over her eyes, suddenly, senselessly demented. Thus blinded, she sat like stone. A timid touch stirred her sleeve. Renée, the little tiring-maid who had been given to her by the Queen, spoke softly:

  ‘What ails my sweet lady?’

  She opened her eyes. John was trotting back down the road, patting his horse’s foamy neck. His cloak was rich red velvet, her own wedding gift, and fell in orderly folds about him to his stirrups. That was no vision, she told herself. I am fatigued after the ceremony. And I do not have visions. To Renée she said: ‘Tis naught; go ride with the others.’ None the less, she kept John closely within her sight thereafter. When she caught his hand and kissed it passionately, he looked at her with a little wonder and much love; he lifted her from her horse to his, singing anew:

  ‘The fairest man, Dandirly, dandirly, dandirly dan!’

  ‘How much further to Bradgate?’ she asked.

  Two days’ journey, he said, if the roads were good. Incredulously he saw her pleading face. ‘Sweet, would you have us ride through the night?’ He kissed her, saying: ‘Nay, we must lodge tonight at some holy house.’

  ‘Must we? Can we not ride on? It would be one night less without Bradgate.’

  Something in the name called to her. She craved Bradgate, needed it. In its image there was strength. A rock, a haven redolent of John’s heritage and the timelessness of their future together. She begged for speed as the day grew old along the worn greenness of Watling Street. She was not weary, would never be weary. Finally John gestured towards the flagging entourage behind. ‘Look at your women and my pages, sweet cruel wife! We may be strong and adventurous, but they would fall on the road. And there’s our resting-place ahead.’

  The tented roof and towers of an abbey glinted in the sun’s last rays. Elizabeth pouted, feigned displeasure. When they were admitted by a porter she had a little, unlooked-for vengeance. The Abbot showed her to the women’s guesthouse and John the men’s quarters. Useless were his protestations – ‘Father, we were only married today!’

  The Abbot looked hard at him. ‘Fitting, then, my son, that you should spend the night in prayer. I too will ask a blessing on your union. We are a poor house …’ he said mechanically. John beckoned for gold from his esquire. He turned back to Elizabeth with such a comical expression of dismay that she choked on laughter. She whispered, while the Abbot stood severely by, swinging his keys: ‘It’s best, love. I would not begin our honeymonth within a cloister. My heart–’ still jesting, happy and sad – ‘what’s one night, more or less?’

  Her first sight of Bradgate was like a blow to the heart. They came upon it suddenly, riding down a path through densely wooded parkland. A tiny stream accompanied their progress and the boles of elms shone on either side. Banks of primrose and violet grew at the foot of ancient oaks; through a clearing there was a glimpse of bluebells like a still sheet of azure water. Wild orchids grew in profusion; rabbits fled nimbly for cover. Above the treetops arched in a lacy green cavern, filled with the song of throstle and blackbird and the mockery of the cuckoo. Crushing flowers, the little company galloped down the path and, amid a flurry of startled wings, around a bend where Bradgate lay in welcome.

  Its lattices gleamed like noonday stars, its merlons seemed, to quiver. The standard of Ferrers Groby sprang and billowed from the tower. The fortified manor stood with its feet in flowers, clothed in rich ivy among a splendour of green lawns. Spreading westward was a lake that made the pool at Grafton Regis a murky puddle by comparison; a lake crowned with a distant drift of swans and fringed by bright willows. A little waterfall spilled through an aperture in the low wall girdling the manor. Elizabeth looked again at the lake; a breeze kissed the water and silvered it to fire. There were shallow steps leading down to the waters of her heart’s desire. Tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Do you not like it?’ said John softly.

  Words could only dispel the depth of her feeling. John, the lake, and love were one. She turned and kissed him and clung, saying: ‘Aye, my heart. I like it well.’

  She dressed with care for the evening. The scarlet sarcenet was revived, with no fear of gloomy Henry’s curses. She bade Renée brush her hair and leave it loose to befit the maidenhood soon to be willingly relinquished. Shy little Renée, made bold by her mistress’s gaiety, chattered, exclaiming: ‘Like a queen, madam, like a queen!’ Incongruously the face of the dirty gypsy at Eltham returned to her, and she smiled. A royal prince, fair lady, shalt thou wed! She had proved the woman a charlatan, and was glad of it. She turned to embrace Renée briefly, crying: ‘Yes! I am a queen! Queen of Bradgate! My king is John!’

  ‘You are my prince,’ she said later to John. They sat at their own high table, surrounded by friends, eating spiced heron. Elizabeth had been drinking deep of the deceptively flowery Rhenish. The well-wishers were admiring her, envying John.

  He said, a little gloomily: ‘Sweet, it’s as well I am your prince. For myself, I am not even knight as yet. I pray I may be sent on campaign, where I may be dubbed … Calais again, though ’tis quieter there than for many months …

  She said aghast: ‘Already you talk of leaving me!’

  The company roared. John smiled adoringly, foolish. ‘Not yet, my lady, and not tonight, certes.’ He, the obliging host, began to sing.

  ‘Sweet mistress mine, ye shall have no wrong,

  But as yet grant me, sith we be met,

  That fair flower that ye have kept so long,

  I call it mine own as my very debt …’

  Under the applause, the laughter, he looked at Elizabeth and felt his manhood falter in awe. Sitting there in the candlelight with her pure pale face and shining hair, she seemed unfleshly and remote. He motioned for more wine, feeling a kind of anger at the sight of this spirituality; it made his own desire seem crude and unchivalrous.

  His steps were a little unsteady as he followed her up the flaring shadowed spiral to their chamber. He was weary from the journey, from wine and joy. The company bade them a merry good night, before themselves retiring to envious beds. The proud, fey delicacy of Elizabeth was apparent to them all; thus they refrained from all but the mildest of marriage jests, called from the stair-foot. Alone with Renée, she was unrobed of the scarlet dress and attired in a loose white robe de chambre. In the adjoining room John cursed under the ministrations of Giles, his page, a shortsighted youth who fumbled with knotted laces and mislaid his master’s bedgear.

  Then John sought Elizabeth and found her chamber empty save for Renée, sparkling nervously, arms full of discarded garments. He knew a swift irrational dismay, and thought: I imagined it all; the wedding was a dream, the ride here, her face against mine at the table. There is no Isabella; she was but my own desire made flesh. Renée saw his sadness and said gently: ‘Sir, my lady has gone to the chapel to pray.’ He smiled again, and gave her a gold half angel. She merged with shadows and left him alone.

  He walked to the window-embrasure and looked out. A full white moon shed its weird light on the lawns, the sleeping flowerheads, and turned the lake into crystal. He stood b
reathing in the spring light, unaware that the scene on which he looked was the same which had caused Elizabeth, moments earlier, to quit the chamber murmuring of prayer. He wondered whether he should join her in the chapel, to give thanks for this, the greatest of his life’s blessings, yet he was loath to leave the whiteness, the stillness. Then, at the edge of the lake, something moved. He craned forward with a stifled exclamation at sight of it. It was small and shimmered; it caught the moonlight and blazed in it like a slim white flame. He began to tremble. Others of his acquaintance had seen spirits, wraiths that played in the moon’s full and could take a man’s wits away for ever. He had scoffed at these tales. And yet, this thing was real, fixed in his sight. It walked on air; it stepped among the reeds, dipped until it was one with the water and indistinguishable from the silvery ripples. He felt real fear, for himself, and for Isabella. Before she returned from the chapel, he must drive away whatever it was that sported in Bradgate’s lake.

  He cast a fur robe about him and went swiftly downstairs. Moving quietly through the sleeping manor, he came upon the two great wolfhounds which he kept for game. Almost his hand went to their chains. These beasts would tear the throat from any enemy. Then he thought; should this enemy be of Hell, the creatures would die of terror. So he went steadfastly and alone into the garden scented by gillyflowers, and strode down towards the little watergate where the cataract bubbled and sang.

  His sight had not lied. Something played and plashed in the shallows, its outline diffused as if it were clothed in light. It slipped in and out of the water; it floated a white flower on the surface. Its shape lengthened and it raised two drifting arms, gathering handfuls of water, letting them trickle down like jewels. He took all his courage and stepped forward, saying firmly:

  ‘In the Trinity’s Name, be gone!’

  The shape gave a soft cry, a laugh, and began to glide towards him. Disbelievingly he heard it call his name, in the note of the falling fountain, in the high shrillness of the nightingale that sang from the trees.

  She rose naked from the water and came to him, her wet hair shrouding her body like a tumult of silver weed. Anger at her outrageous folly, and pure delight rose and fought within him. Delight won, swelled by the sight of her flesh, diamond-glittering in water and moon. This was Isabella, his bride, no longer the image of an untouchable saint, but wanton, mischievous, maddening. The reprimanding words were stillborn in his mouth. All he could say was: ‘Sweet heart, you will be chilled to death!’ He snatched up her robe, discarded on the ground, and sought to wrap her in it, while she whispered, excited, irresistible:

  ‘Forgive me, my sweet lord. It was the lake! Oh, the lake!’ And she came closer so that drops from her tender, lithe flesh trembled on his own clothing. His hands let fall the mantle meant to robe her and reached instead for the slender, damp body leaning eagerly towards him. He was losing himself in the cold glittering torrent of hair, lifting and carrying the luminous creature into the shade of a willow. The moss was soft beneath them. And here was the strange, beloved country, its long-besieged harbours opening for him.

  A single cry, like a night-bird, rose, shivering from her lips.

  ‘John! My one true love!’

  The lake rippled gently and was still.

  ‘It was an evil day,’ said Jacquetta of Bedford.

  Elizabeth glanced about her while her mother talked. The court had changed little in two years. Here at Sheen, the once-beloved palace of Richard of Bordeaux, burnt for grief after his wife’s death and later restored, the trappings were familiar. The hangings were perhaps a little shabbier, the wine they were drinking a trifle sourer. Otherwise there was no sign of the holocaust that had so nearly demolished the Queen’s party. Drinking from a dingy hanap, Elizabeth sat by her mother in the window-seat. Outside birds chirped merrily under the May sun, reminding her of Bradgate.

  ‘Two Augusts ago …’ said the Duchess.

  ‘Had his Grace been ailing before?’

  Jacquetta shrugged. ‘You saw how he was. Always half in the next world, but well enough. Then, with no warning…

  The King had dined at four, frugally. There had been only a few courtiers with him; the Duchess and Sir Richard Woodville had been invited by the Queen. His Grace had eaten a small portion of roast sturgeon, and had seemed himself, morose and fey, sitting close by the Queen, giving halfvoiced answer to all that Margaret said. There was nothing about him to show that he was possessed. All went well until an ambassador from Calais arrived. The ambassador was slow and soft-voiced and Margaret, seeing that the King appeared to be half-asleep, herself descended from the dais to take the dispatches offered. In her high-waisted gown and with her proud carriage, the presence of the royal babe was very evident. Her belly, said Jacquetta, burgeoned like a ship’s prow. Foolishness even to mention this, for all knew of the joyful condition, none more than the King. Yet there had been a sudden starting up from his chair, that familiar pointing finger, quivering and stabbing at the Queen. All had heard the King’s shrill cry, broken off short.

  ‘Forsooth! …’

  Forsooth what, Our Blessed Lord only knew, for the King had sunk in a rapid swoon, falling headlong across the steps of the dais, his black robes hitched about his lean thighs, his dusty head and hands suppliant, down-pointing. Folk rose in dismay to succour him.

  The King came to himself after a few minutes, when it was discovered that he could not speak. Stricken and mute, he looked uncomprehendingly at whoever addressed him. He was carried to bed, where he lay, his head turned to one side, gazing at the floor. The court was frantic. Master John Faceby had no rest for days and nights on end, desperately brewing simples or studying the planets’ courses for a reason for the King’s malady. Doctors were summoned privily from all over Europe; even a filthy wise-woman was consulted. This was August, and by Christmas the King had not uttered one word, nor had he lifted his eyes, even to survey the new Prince, England’s heir.

  ‘They carried the babe to him over and again, so that he might bless it,’ said the Duchess. ‘But it was useless. The King only moaned a little, and kept his eyes down. It was a terrible malady, a madness, carried in the blood. The King’s grandsire, Charles of France, was likewise stricken.’

  The disaster was so close kept that half England remained in ignorance of it. Yet the agents of York and Warwick were no less vigilant than in times past. That very Christmas a deputation headed by Warwick arrived at court with the time-honoured, sardonic request to know how the King prospered. There was no help but to reveal Henry to them, and the secret was no more. One look at that face as empty as a dry well, those quivering drooping eyelids, coupled with his silence, and they knew then that the King wandered in some private world, alone among shadows.

  ‘There was naught to be done,’ murmured the Duchess. ‘Cursed York and his claim … he was appointed Protector of the Realm, being the nearest of the blood. A great triumph for Warwick. The Queen was nearly demented.’

  ‘Yet she had her son,’ said Elizabeth softly.

  Out in the pleasaunce the birds were singing louder. Elizabeth dreamed of Bradgate, and folded her hands over the slight mound clothed by her green satin gown. Soon she would hold her own babe. She thought of John. He had ridden north to Groby to oversee some of his deceased father’s estates; he was bound for London soon, to join her. A little smile curved her mouth. ‘The fairest man, that best love can!’ Fairer than fair. The memory of all their days and nights together laid a veil over Jacquetta’s alarming narrative. All this talk of policy meant little, it seemed like the jousting of knights, spectacular but harmless. Lancaster had worn the crown for sixty years. What if the line did come only from Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt? What if York, as he was ever at pains to stress, did descend directly from Lionel of Clarence, the third son? Lancaster was supreme – Agincourt had proved it. She sighed, and stroked again the little roundness below her narrow embroidered girdle. She could see her reflection in a sunlit pane of the oriel. Fair, I
am fair. She cast a little sly smile at her mother. Fair enough to grace the ramparts of Lusignan! Then she said, dutifully:

  ‘And when did the King recover from this storm?’

  ‘The following Christmas. He awoke and was himself again. They rushed with the babe to his bedchamber and he cried: ‘By St. John! I bless this child. For it is surely one conceived by the Holy Ghost!”

  Thus York’s brief power was ended. He and Warwick were banished from court with threats and unsheathed blades. Beaufort of Somerset (whom they had used cruelly, said Jacquetta) was reinstated. People rejoiced. ‘Yet I feel,’ said the Duchess soberly, ‘that the people only love the Queen while Henry lives; were she alone, I fear that my sweet Marguerite …’ She left the sentence and looked through the window as if searching for an enemy. ‘There will be war,’ she said. ‘I feel it.’

  Elizabeth sat comfortably in the warm sunlight, trying to share the Duchess’s precognition, and failing. Again in secret she stroked the slight curve of her belly. The babe should be born at Bradgate. She turned to her mother, saying: ‘Madame, how much longer? When can I leave court? There is much to see to at my home.’

  ‘When the Great Council is over,’ said Jacquetta sternly. ‘Marguerite … the King wishes all his loyal friends to hear him.’

  Then Thomas Barnaby, graceless as ever yet oddly dear to Elizabeth, knocked and entered the solar. He grinned, gaptoothed; she smiled at him, remembering the day he had escorted her to the garden at Eltham. ‘Ho, your Grace! Ho, Dame Grey!’ he said. The Queen awaited them, he said, and grinned, and mopped, and Elizabeth marked his face down for some reason that meant nothing, as a face she might see again somewhere, and she put the fancies away. They went in procession to the Queen’s chambers. Margaret was standing with her face to the window; she was much thinner. Her waist looked nothing, her shoulders were spare and taut. Elizabeth knelt, with her mother, and presently felt the Queen’s kiss on her brow. Bright and young and arrogant, she looked up, and saw that Margaret was changed. Hard lines were limned about her mouth, her eyes had a fervent glitter and her cheeks were colourless. Beside her stood Beaufort of Somerset, his hair whiter now, with. Piers de Brezé, James of Wiltshire, all the Queen’s trusted favourites.