The King's Grey Mare

by Jarman, Rosemary Hawley

  Elizabeth covered a sigh. No returning to Bradgate yet. Bradgate must wait, as it would always wait, secure and fair, gracious haven.

  For the twentieth time she opened the manuscript of verse and read aloud:

  ‘Benedicite, what dreamed I this night?

  Methought the world was turned up so down.

  The sun, the moon, had lost their force and light,

  The sea also drowned both tower and town.

  Yet more marvel how that I heard the sound

  Of one’s voice saying: “Bear in thy mind,

  Thy lady hath forgotten to be kind.” ’

  The Queen loved this poem, and Elizabeth read it sweet and true. Yet Margaret sat silent, and, looking up, Elizabeth saw sadness on the pale face. Half to herself, the Queen said:

  ‘Nom de Dieu! I have been kind. I have given him an heir to support his weakness. I have upheld him in all adversity. Henri! Le pauvre!’

  ‘Sweet your Grace,’ said Elizabeth, ‘be easy. My lord of Somerset will look after him.’

  She stretched her dull limbs. She would have loved to walk across the green pleasaunce to where beds of blossom flourished. There was a pool, too, where moorhens paddled from bank to bank. Yes, Greenwich was beautiful; but it was not Bradgate. Although she had been at Greenwich for only a few days, it seemed like years. Margaret’s nervousness harassed her. Sitting daily under a May sun growing fiercer, the Queen would talk, in English, French, and Latin, and sometimes to herself, with determination, with disquiet. And there was no question of Elizabeth leaving her yet. Although Bradgate called in a torrent of memory she must sit, reading, or singing in her boyish treble little airs treating of God and the heart. She could not play with the little Prince; his mother kept him close confined, and besides, he was not the kind of child one played with. Daily Elizabeth felt the burgeonings of her own fruitful body, suffered discomforts that the Queen never noticed. Daily the minstrels who had been engaged to plumb King Henry’s madness twanged and scraped in gallery and garden. Ennui dragged at Elizabeth. Once she had craved the court above all. Now she would have given blood for a sight of Bradgate.

  Jacquetta of Bedford had returned to Grafton, and Sir Richard Woodville had ridden with the levies to Leicester. Elizabeth thought of her brothers and sisters. She had not seen Anthony for months. He would be almost a man, ready for such knightly exploits as those on which his father and John rode today. Poor, sweet John! frustrated by his lack of knighthood. Perhaps if he acquitted himself well in putting the Yorkists to flight, the King might rouse himself to honour him. Then there would be more lands, more fee-farms, to augment Bradgate. She dared not ask the Queen when the army might be returning with their tales of Richard of York’s humiliation. Her only task was to divert the Queen from such thoughts. So she sat burned by the Greenwich sun, and read aloud.

  ‘To complain me, alas, why should I so,

  For my complaint it did me never good?

  But by constraint now must I shew my woe,

  To her only which is mine eyes’ food,

  Trusting sometime that she will change her mood …’

  The Queen was not listening. Elizabeth left the verse in mid-air and beckoned to one of the yawning lutanists. ‘Sweet Madame, will you not sing with me?’ Anything to relieve that distrait watchfulness. Margaret turned, smiling distantly. She sipped from the scarcely touched hanap of wine at her side, and suddenly looked almost gay.

  ‘I will sing them all to perdition!’ she announced, but she melted from her strait position and came to sit, sisterly, on the cushions with Elizabeth. A page, heartened by the sovereign’s changed mood, poured more wine and drove away a wasp. The lutanist struck a sweet chord: The Roman de la Rose, in a setting by Antoine Busnois.

  ‘Bel Acueil le sergent d’Amours,

  Qui bien scait faire ses exploitz

  M’a ja cite par plusieurs fois …’

  They looked at one another, broke off singing, and for no reason save the release of tension, both began to laugh.

  ‘Oh, Isabella!’ cried the Queen. ‘I well remember the time when you first came to court – so little, so vierge … abashed by my poor Henry’s humours. Now, you possess yourself well, and do I understand you are enceinte? May your son be as brave and proud as mine!’

  At last the Queen had noticed. ‘Sweet Madame!’ Elizabeth bent gratefully to kiss the small hand, and in that same moment felt it grow stiff, actually felt the blood leaving it so that it was icy, like a dead hand. She looked up, and followed where the Queen’s eyes stared across the lawn. A man was running towards them. Running wearily; he stumbled twice and all but fell; he clutched at his side. His surcoat was ragged, its once-gay colours dirty. Half his mail was missing; he still wore steel gauntlets and part of his cuirass, but his legs were clothed only in torn and filthy hose. Down one thigh there was blood, seen clearly as he came nearer at that gasping, tripping run. His head was bare, and the sun tipped its familiar tawny with raw light. Elizabeth rose, freeing herself from the dead weight of the Queen’s hand. She took a step forward but did not run to him. The despair on his face slowed her feet. With him he brought fear that almost vanquished the sharp joy of seeing him again.

  ‘John, my lord,’ she whispered. The blood was crusted on his thigh; it doubled her fear. He came on, running, the figurehead of a terrible catastrophe. Now he filled their sight; he fell before Margaret, fighting for breath.

  ‘Your Grace,’ he said, and retched, turning his head aside. In her own body Elizabeth felt the torment of his outraged lungs. The Queen had risen and was standing straight, her wine-cup overturned. The red liquor soaked the grass.

  ‘Madame, your Grace,’ he said. ‘The news is dreadful. I beg leave to acquaint you with most dreadful news.’ This sort of thing he said, over and over. Whatever he has seen, Elizabeth thought, terrified, it has addled his wits. She cried shrilly: ‘What, John, in God’s name?’ And went to him and caught him in her arms, seeing the dried blood flake off against her gown. ‘Oh, Christ, my love, you’re wounded …’ He looked down, saying tersely: ‘It’s not my blood. Would Jesu it were.’

  Not his blood. Oh, thank God, he is whole and sound, mine still, his beauty untouched. She clung to this, while his dreadful news came pouring out. The Queen’s face seemed to put on years, a year for each word he spoke, until she was eternally old even past death.

  ‘The Yorkists were magnificently arrayed, with a great force. All the Nevilles and their mercenaries; Salisbury’s troop alone outnumbered ours … they fought like devils. We were trapped, we had no chance. Your Grace, your lords have suffered … will you hear who died?’

  ‘I will hear,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Lord Clifford,’ said John, trembling as with ague. ‘Northumberland, and Buckingham’s son. Dorset, Devon and Buckingham were grievously wounded and taken prisoner. God knows where Wiltshire is; he fled the field. Sir Richard Woodville …’

  ‘Yes?’ said Elizabeth. She bit her lip; it bled.

  ‘Escaped by the hair of his head. He is safe, Isabella. Christ’s Passion! They were waiting for us, ready …’

  ‘What of the King?’ said the old woman that was Margaret.

  ‘They are bringing him back to London. They will not mistreat him, they say, because he is the King. But they proclaim their power, Madame. Your captains are hacked to pieces.’

  ‘And my lord Beaufort of Somerset?’

  Jesu, she is calm, thought Elizabeth. It is not meet for her to be so calm. She frightens me. John looked down again at his stained hose.

  ‘This is his blood, your Grace. I was close by him when he fell. Beaufort is dead.’

  Still the Queen showed no emotion. She said: ‘Where did this encounter take place?’ Her voice was like a chafed thread.

  ‘At St. Albans. We fought up and down the heart of the town.’

  Then Margaret began to scream. She threw herself down upon the grass, and the spilled wine soaked her gown until it was bloodily red like the imagined cor
pses of those she loved, and she screamed.

  ‘Cursed be the name of St. Albans!’

  John, his face sweated and grief-torn, went on talking compulsively, while the Queen’s shrieks faded to dry sobs and silence against Elizabeth’s breast.

  ‘The king is unharmed,’ John a vain comforter, repeated. ‘He …’ he laughed, a short, madman’s laugh. ‘He even jested with his captors. Love thine enemy, he said. He … embraced my lord of York.’

  The Queen raised her head. Blackness ringed her eyes, as if she had been struck in the face.

  ‘I will make York to stink in the King’s nostrils,’ she said. ‘Even unto death.’

  The victorious Yorkists came to London with a show of peace, demanding their inheritance. Sternly they insisted upon a voice in the Council. They confronted the Queen, who was for a time powerless. And so a fretful kind of peace obtained, shot through with bloody risings from Margaret’s party. And Bradgate shared this mockery of peace.

  Like a cradle, the little boat tipped at its moorings in the willow’s shade. It was an old boat discovered by Elizabeth during her lakeside ramblings. John swore it to be unseaworthy, yet she had ordered the leaks repaired with pitch and plaited rushes, and now, with mischievous triumph, shepherded her family into it for an afternoon of water-sport. She lay back comfortably in the stern. Her second son, Richard, slept in her arms. Three-year-old Thomas was pretending to fish. Renée who was not enjoying the outing, crouched miserably at her mistress’s side. John, stripped to his shirt, had been glad to tie up the boat and rest, shipping the oars he had unskillfully plied across the deep green water.

  ‘Well, my lady,’ he said, loving and cross, ‘I told you I was no mariner.’ He rubbed his upper arms. ‘This crossing has crippled me. Renée! Look to young Thomas! I did not get sons to see them drowned!’

  Undisciplined as a fiend, Thomas romped between his parents in the boat, falling flat as the wind-stirred ripples rocked it, bawling and laughing at the same time. Renée clutched at him. She was water-green with fear, and as the boat pitched under Thomas’s leaping, let out a muffled scream. Elizabeth spoke, a sharp rebuke, and the child quietened; with the silly young wench he could do as he pleased, but when his mother used that tone, it was time to act discreetly. So he sat down and treated her and his baby brother to a charming smile. Elizabeth thought him a lovely child. Wayward, yes, but so like John, with coppery chestnut hair and straight features. She cradled the baby closer. He too was lovely, and she had named him for her father, the best Richard living. The dappled sun touched her face. She trailed a hand in the water, feeling it cool as silk. Through the trees she saw the distant merlons of Bradgate, and closer, the face of John; eternally comforting, eternally fair. A wave of love filled her and unconsciously she smiled, a smile so dreaming and seductive that it was almost unearthly.

  It was four years since the dreadful day at Greenwich; only a vague memory which she held best forgotten. Now that she had her sons, John’s frequent absences were less painful, and always short. Bradgate entwined itself deeper and deeper in her heart. It was a surrogate John, who was often summoned to Calais, where there was a new master. Loathed by the Queen’s party but proud in his suzerainty as Captain of Calais, the Earl of Warwick sat with the Channel under his hand. Like some hideous spider, thought Elizabeth, and was thankful not to have witnessed Margaret being forced to accede to the appointment. She could imagine the Queen’s face and voice, and the fancies brought unease. John was speaking of London affairs now, and she sighed, for the green day was fair, the water deep.

  ‘This is the nub of the matter,’ he said. ‘The merchants and traders. The common folk are more powerful than a score of royal or rebel forces. The people want peace at any price. London is full of gossip and the Queen is the butt of most shameful ballads. Even John Hardyng – you remember him, he writes good verse – felt moved to express himself against the evils of the day.’ He fumbled in his pouch for a scrap of paper. ‘A copy was pinned to the door of St. Mary Woolchurch. None can punish Hardyng, for it’s only the truth.’

  Elizabeth took the slip and read.

  In every shire with jacks and sallets clean,

  Misrule doth rise and maketh neighbours war;

  The weaker goes beneath, as oft is seen;

  The mightiest his quarrel will prefer;

  The poor man’s cause is put on back full far,

  Which, if both peace and law were well conserved,

  Might be amend, and thanks of God deserved.

  She said silently: I know naught of poor men. My neighbours don’t war against me. Yes, I pity the weak but am glad I am not as they are. My needs are met; do not speak of things I do not understand. She handed the billet back to John without a word.

  ‘The people hate Margaret openly now,’ said John softly. ‘They will never forgive her for what Piers de Brezé did at her command, two years ago.’

  The Duchess of Bedford had brought that particular piece of news, smiling sardonically. The Queen is like a raging devil since Beaufort was murdered, she said. Now John said the same.

  ‘You would not recognize Margaret; she has become a fiend. That is why she allowed Piers to land and burn Sandwich to the ground. A country invading itself! That pretty little port! I swear, Isabella, the world goes mad.’

  A cloud crossed his face. He had been there, in the aftermath. He had seen children tossed into the flame, heard the screaming. The cobbles had been awash with firelit blood.

  ‘They raped the women; they impaled infants on pikes. I remember Sandwich well.’

  Elizabeth saw Renée’s face grow sickly with dread. Tom, too was listening. ‘Hé, Master Big-Ears!’ she cried. But still John talked.

  ‘The citizens of London are hot for York. They have heard Margaret’s oath: that she will pillage and burn and ravish to secure the supremacy for her son. King Henry is like a dead man but the people are still loyal to him. It is the Queen they loathe. They offer up prayers that York will deliver England from the French she-wolf. They cry the Prince Edward bastard, saying that the Queen lay with James of Wiltshire, or Beaufort of Somerset. In York’s Parliament, the boy was disinherited.’

  Elizabeth looked at the water’s depths, where dank reeds writhed. She felt the cool lapping turn icy against her fingers and withdrew them.

  For the first time she felt and understood the tingling infective madness of Margaret’s hatred. John said: ‘They will not harm the King. York only wishes to be named heir when Henry dies. Warwick …’

  ‘Warwick!’ Again, that name, clouding her summer’s day..

  ‘He has vast power. His exploits in the Channel are famed abroad. The merchants adore him. He has a way – proud and yet humble – that enchants the common man. His generosity excels.’

  ‘Pox take Warwick!’ cried Elizabeth, right in Renée’s shrinking ear. Then she began to laugh, remembering that other time, not so long ago, when she had cursed Warwick accordingly. Had Warwick had his way she would be wed to Sir Hugh Johns. She threw the sleepy baby up and kissed him. John did not share her laughter.

  ‘Sweeting, you would be safer at Westminster,’ he said gravely. ‘While I am away, Margaret’s men could descend on this place and kill you all. She is recruiting the men of the north, and the Scots, who, by my faith, are Antichrist itself.’ Renée stifled a moan. ‘I think it best you come back with me to London.’

  ‘Leave Bradgate?’ cried Elizabeth. ‘You’ll have to bind and carry me. Besides, Margaret loves me, she would do me no harm. I will never leave Bradgate!’ And she folded her red lips on the subject, while John gazed at her, thinking how little she knew. She had not seen Margaret, as he had, the last time; the ghastly, insane face, the eyes suffused with blood. Margaret’s mercenaries ravaged where they would and Margaret, obsessed with hatred, had forgotten whom she loved.

  ‘We shall none of us be touched,’ said Elizabeth, with a heart-stopping smile. ‘We are under Divine protection.’ From the lake’s centre a fish rose su
ddenly, like a warning light. An odd thought struck her, a thought of Melusine. Was Melusine ever jealous of God?

  ‘The Duke of York has sons,’ said John. ‘Edmund, Edward, George, and the little, sickly one, Richard. Edward is Earl of March, Edmund Earl of Rutland. I saw Edward, the warlike one. He is taller than any man I know, and but seventeen. He says that if his father falls, he will rise like a phoenix in his stead. The Queen has sworn to have his head on a pike.’

  For the sake of Thomas’s perked ears, he forebore to describe what else the Queen had promised for Edward of March, and continued: ‘He has a head of golden hair, and piercing blue eyes. A great broad fellow. I wish,’ he said sadly, ‘that as King Henry is so often wont to say, these lords could love one another. For when I saw Ned of March … enemy though he be, I liked him.’

  She said sharply: ‘Have sense, for God’s love! York and all his sons are our sworn foes. Usurpers and pretenders!’ John’s fair skin reddened.

  ‘Are you quarrelling?’ asked Thomas with interest. John ruffled his hair. ‘Nay, child, just husband and wife. When you have a wife, you must beat her often!’ They all laughed, and Elizabeth asked, as a diversion: ‘How does Lady Margaret Beaufort, and her noble Richmond Tudor?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? She wed and buried him almost within the year. She has a son, Henry, two years old. Poor Edmund never saw the child.’

  ‘Holy Jesu! What killed him?’

  ‘Margaret’s terrible learning, so they say,’ chuckled John. ‘With her philosophy and Greek, her disputations and dissertations, Edmund, unsure of his own wit, pined and died. But Margaret will be married again soon. To Henry Stafford. She is proud of the babe,’ he added. ‘Now being nurtured by his uncle Jasper, in Wales.’