The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  'And for me,' he answered. 'Forgive me for asking, but how have your affairs progressed since I left? I must know.'

  She glanced up at him. 'My husband bids me return. I have refused – and I have had my answer from Pope Benedict.

  'Benedict?' he exclaimed. 'Not Pope Martin? Benedict is a prisoner in Peniscola.'

  'I know, but he was Pope when I married Brabant. I have judgement not only from him but from a number of learned fathers. They say Brabant and I were too closely akin, so I have my annulment.'

  'You have it? Already?'

  'Yes.' Their eyes met and held. 'I saw no cause to delay and much to make haste.'

  He gave a low laugh. The corridor was empty and he put both arms about her. 'Am I right in guessing at your reason?' And without waiting for an answer he bent his head and kissed her hard and long, feeling her respond with no false coquetry. 'I knew it, he said at last. 'I knew it that day at Leeds Castle. And so did you!'

  'Perhaps,' one of her giggles escaped her. This tendency had deceived many people at court into thinking her frivolous and uncaring of her lost lands but they were wrong, for she added with the openness Humfrey expected from her, 'I found you very much to my liking, Duke Humfrey. I also believed that together we might retrieve my inheritance.'

  'We will.' He added with a note of pride, 'I have had much experience of soldiering.'

  'Under your brother's command.'

  'And with a free hand. I will win back all you have lost.' His grasp on her tightened. 'By God, Jacqueline, there is desire too. I must await Harry's return for his consent but must I wait for you?'

  She reached up a hand and slid it down his smooth cheek. 'I fear so, my lord.'

  'Humfrey.'

  'Humfrey, then. But I believe a woman in my position must be virtuous.'

  'No one need know,' he said impatiently. 'It is not unvirtuous to lie with your betrothed and we will make our promises today. Then I will show you what it is to have a real man in your bed.'

  'But not until that bed is blessed by Holy Church. Nor can we make our betrothal before your brother returns home.'

  'No one need know,' he said again. He had not expected her refusal. 'I can't see why –'

  She touched his lips with her fingers. 'You know better than that. What gossip ever escaped the tattlers at court? And I cannot go with you to any of your castles, that would be to feed evil minds.'

  'I never cared for them before.'

  'But you must now,' she said wisely. 'And when my lord of Bedford escorts the Queen to France you will be Regent and must have no scandal about you.'

  'I have had mistresses before,' he said and at once wished the words unspoken.

  An odd look crossed her face. 'Ah – mistresses maybe, women for your needs, but not, I suspect, of my rank?'

  Abruptly he said, 'I have my son Arthur living in my house. He's five now, and I also have a daughter. Will you be angry with me for that?'

  'Not I.' She sat down on a window ledge and took his hand in both hers. 'Are you not a man? Of course I have heard the gossip, the talk of your wild ways, but I have also met sober men from the city and they speak very differently of you. As for your boy, I will love him, I promise you, but was his mother a Countess? No, we must not create a scandal that would reach Flanders and France. We must be circumspect, my dear.'

  'You are right,' he agreed, 'but by Our Lady it will be hard.'

  When he returned to Baynards he sent first for Sir Abel Trent and then, dismissing him, for his wife. Avice came, her face alight with eagerness at Humfrey's return, but one look at the expression on his caused her to stand rigid by the door.

  'I am to be married,' he said without preliminaries, 'to the Countess of Holland.'

  The name meant little to her, and she was aware of nothing but the dying of hope, the coldness within. 'Yes, my lord?'

  'Yes,' he repeated and then came to her. 'My dear, we have been happy together for a while, but such things do not last. You are no serving girl that I can hide away in the kitchen and I do not want my bride to think –' he broke off, remembering his conversation not so long ago with James of Scotland. 'It is better that you should return to Pembroke. I have already told your husband.'

  At that she raised her eyes to his. 'It would have been kinder to tell me first.'

  He saw the desolation and answered. 'It seemed better it should be settled at once.'

  'So that I could not distress you by begging you to let me stay. I will not do that, my lord.'

  He put his arms about her and found for the first time her body stiff and unyielding. 'Avice, do not spoil all that there has been between us.'

  'I!'

  'You must have known that for state reasons if for no other I must soon wed. Let us at least part in love.'

  'Oh!' The rigidity went and she leaned against him, holding him close. 'There has been so much love.'

  He stroked her hair, loosening her veil so that it fell free. 'Was I wrong?' he asked suddenly, 'Was I cruel, my bird, to take you from your ignorance and show you what passion is?'

  She gave a shuddering sigh. 'Just now I think so. It hurts so much. But one day I shall feel it was better to know and to lose than to live all my life without knowledge – which was how it was with Abel. And will be so again.'

  He put his mouth to hers, aware for the first time of guilt. Yet he knew he would do the same again. 'I could not help desiring you,' he said, 'and what we've had has been good. Remember that.'

  Gently he released himself. 'You must go, my love. I have much business to see to now that I am home, and you will have preparations to make for your journey.'

  For one last desperate moment she clung to him and intuitively he knew she thought of the return to Wales, the lonely years ahead. 'I may come to Pembroke,' he said lightly, 'next year or the year after.' At that she let him go and gathering herself went to the door. 'If you come, my lord, you will not find me there.'

  When she was gone he turned to the window, staring out unseeingly and despite the much business to see to he remained there a long time. Only when he saw Jacqueline again was he able to thrust the affair and its ending from his mind.

  As the spring and summer followed he chafed at being unable to achieve his desire, nevertheless the hours spent hawking or riding with Jacqueline and her ladies, watching her as she sent her little merlin, his own present, soaring after its prey, dancing with her in the evenings, playing at skittles or more boisterously at hoodman blind, which games delighted her, these were hours of content. Sometimes he left and rode to Penshurst for a night or two with Margery, to Hadleigh where there were willing girls to welcome him back, or to Pembroke Castle where the daughter of the doorward accommodated him. When his impatience irritated him beyond bearing he and Elys, Cobham and Berkeley would indulge in an evening of drinking that sent him staggering to bed wanting only sleep. Affairs at home were quiet and news came from France of the harmony between Harry and his wife, the King and Queen of France and the Duke of Burgundy. In the south the Dauphin sulked impotently and besought God for a saviour while his cousin Orléans prowled about Pontefract and longed for freedom.

  A letter from John of Bedford brought the only anxiety Humfrey had in that pleasant summer. Harry had not been well; the dreadful ardours and strain of the last few years had told on him. He, like the rest, had suffered before from dysentery and now the disease had him again.

  'The bloody flux,' Humfrey said to Elys. 'It has always been the scourge of our wars.'

  'The King is strong, though,' Elys pointed out. 'He is only a few years older than you, sir, and young enough to throw it off. I know that pain in the guts well but it passes.'

  'Please God,' Humfrey said and broke off as Arthur came running into the room to beg Sir Elys to show him how to use the little bow that Seth the fletcher had made for him. 'Or will you come, father?' he asked. He had large solemn eyes and looked up at Humfrey without blinking.

  'I cannot, my tresâme. I must write to your uncle
the King. Perhaps later we will ride out together.' He swept the boy into his arms and kissed him. 'Now, if Sir Elys has no more pressing duties –'

  'None,' Elys answered smiling and went out with the eager boy.

  Humfrey picked up the letter again. He felt uneasy. As Elys said the flux was common enough, but when Tom Beckington came he bade him say the next morning's mass for Harry's recovery. Then he went down to his library and immersed himself once more in Sophocles. He too felt unwell today, and aware that his stomach was rebelling against his past ill-treatment of it. Often the morning found him nauseated, his face haggard, and he wondered for the hundredth time why the scholar in him could not be as abstemious as some of his friends at Oxford? Nevertheless when he was with Jacqueline the part of himself that he recognized for the better part reasserted itself and he waited impatiently for Harry's return, contemplating towards the end of the summer crossing the channel even without permission in order to gain the King's consent.

  August was hot and he took the court to Winchester, managing to be quite civil to his uncle, and it was not until the beginning of September that they all returned to London. He was in the King's solar at Westminster on the first evening, looking through various papers when a clerk, ashen faced, ushered in a bedraggled messenger. The man took one look at the King's brother and then began to sob, the tears trickling through the dust and dirt of travel.

  Half an hour later Humfrey was alone in the King's chapel. Almost savagely he had slammed the door on the Bishop of Bath and on Tom Beckington who would have come with him, offered him comfort. He wanted no one, told them to get out, to leave him. In darkness lifted only by the sanctuary lamp he stumbled to the altar steps and collapsed there. He sat there still, his arms about his knees, the force of his weeping shaking his body with uncontrollable tremors.

  Harry was dead. That stark undeniable fact beat at his brain. Harry, strong, healthy, no more than thirty-five years old and at the height of his powers, his enemies at his feet, conqueror of France, was dead. The manner of it he would hear again later for he had not been able to take in the man's account of the King's last hours, only the one truth – Harry was dead.

  He had loved no one as he loved Harry and into his mind came so many memories – their youth at Kenilworth, their wild days when they were green lads, the visits to Lewis John's or the Cardinal's Hat, the brawls, the escapades, the day of their father's death, and then the change in Harry, the years of campaigning in France. And now that was over and when Harry could have expected to come home to enjoy his wife and child, more children perhaps, in the very moment of fulfilment it was all snatched away.

  He turned to the altar, crying silently, 'Why? Why?' It seemed as if the very foundation of his life was knocked from under him, and he realized how he had leaned on Harry, depended on him. Even in France, at Cherbourg or Dreux, they had been in constant touch, Harry's advice and guiding hand always there. And now he was gone.

  It was impossible to realize it, to take in the fact that he would never again hear that martial stride approaching, nor the familiar voice requesting the hardest of tasks in a way that made them seem easy. He would never again see that smile that had won so many and so much, and even Harry's faults became dearer in death.

  He could not at this moment think of the future, with a King of England nine months old and John and himself in charge, nor visualize the shadowy figure of their uncle looming over all. It was only of Harry that he thought now. Shuddering, he stretched himself prone on the ground before the enshrined Host, his prayers, muttered between sobs, a jumble of words, 'Grant him rest, O God . . . and for me his strength. Without Harry . . . Oh Christ, where were you? Let light perpetual shine on him . . . Holy Mother, help me, help me . . .'

  Time ceased to be. He grew cold, the darkness deeper. Exhausted with his weeping he lay there, only now and again shaken by a deep shuddering breath. At last he raised himself a little and his eyes, used to the blackness about him, focussed on the statue of the Virgin. He had never noticed before how sad she seemed, her expression fixed, her carved wooden face gazing unseeingly. He had heard of miracles at Walsingham and other shrines, of the Queen of Heaven bending down, smiling, giving comfort, and he gazed upward in appeal. But there was no movement and no miracle for him, only a stiff wooden Lady in a blue painted gown. He rose, dragging himself wearily to his feet, and groped his way to the door. Outside cresset lights were burning, a guard on duty, and eyes were kept lowered as he passed, a pall of grief lying by this time over the whole palace. He went up the stair, along another passage. Blindly as if without thought he knew where he must go. When he reached her door he found it was slightly open, a chink of yellow showing from a sconce of candles. Forgetting even to knock he pushed it open and stood blinking in the light.

  She was not in bed but sitting in a chair, her hair unbound, wearing a long undress robe and she looked at him without surprise but with great compassion on her face.

  ‘Harry is dead,' he said baldly.

  'I know. I have been waiting in case you should need me.'

  'Need you? Mother of God, how could you know how much?'

  He crossed the room and knelt beside her, his head in her lap, and it was she who bent over him and gave him comfort, holding his head against her warm plump breasts.

  A few days later a copy of the dead King's will was brought to London. John Duke of Bedford was to be Regent of France and Normandy, Humfrey of Gloucester Regent of England during the minority of his son, now King Henry VI. His dying wish was that his brothers should preserve the precarious terms he had won in France, that they should not antagonize the Duke of Burgundy but press forward with the war against the Dauphin and the Orleanists, on no account freeing the Duke of Orléans until that was done. To Humfrey he left all his castles in the southern half of England, a munificent gift that stunned the recipient, seeing in it rightly an earnest of Harry's love and trust.

  'There was never anyone like him,' he said to Jacqueline. 'I wish I could go to Sheen – his favourite palace – and be quiet there for a while with you.'

  'Can you not?'

  'No,' he sighed. 'With John in France it is I who must attend to state affairs.'

  Bishop Langley resigned the Chancellorship, and Bishop Beaufort remarked in a silky voice that the Seal should only be handed to the Regent in the presence of the new King so that it should be clear it was received in his name. So Humfrey rode to Windsor and with the nine-month-old boy in his nurse's lap took the Seal and let it touch the baby hand.

  Writs were issued to summon Parliament, the business of the nation went on. Within a few weeks of Harry's death the poor mad King of France died and the English now called their infant lord King of France as well. Harry's body was brought home accompanied by the Duke of Exeter, the Earl of Warwick, and other nobles but John did not feel it polite to leave France at such a time. Humfrey had been wishing to see and talk to John in person, hoping perhaps they would find together some of Harry's strength, but instead he received only a letter. It was brought to him on the morning of the burial but he did not open it, his mind only on the sad event of the day. In deepest black he led the procession behind the coffin. He had not looked upon his brother for unspeakable things had had to be done to preserve the body during the two months interval between death and burial, but he gazed through a blur of tears at the pall bearing the arms of England.

  When it was done he would have liked to have sat alone with Jacqueline, but there was to be a Council meeting in the morning and he had much to do. He felt the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders and an impatience with the protocol that was going to be forced on him.

  In the chamber Harry had once used for his private work with his clerks he sat down and read John's letter. His brother wrote that during his absence Humfrey was to bear in mind that he was Regent only in his place and that he wanted the support of Humfrey's friends in the city and peace kept with their uncles. 'I care nothing for worldly worship,' John ended, 'on
ly to obey the law of the land and work for the good of the country.'

  High sentiments! Humfrey threw down the parchment. What John meant was that he did not want his position usurped. But that was not how he read Harry's dispositions and in a truculent mood he went to the morning's Council meeting.

  The trouble began almost at once. Humfrey objected to the wording of his Commission as Regent, that he should perform all royal functions by assent of the Council.

  'What is this?' he demanded. 'When has the Council ever been permitted to over-rule a King's rights?'

  'The King,' his uncle Exeter said sententiously, 'is a mere infant.'

  'And I stand for him. My lords, this is nonsense and a departure from precedent. No such limitation was placed on me when I acted in my late brother's place.'

  'But then,' Bishop Beaufort put in, 'the King was a man and able to return at any time to deal with a crisis.'

  Humfrey felt himself grow scarlet with annoyance. 'You are implying, my lord Bishop, that my brother only made me Regent knowing he could take over at any time. That is not true – he trusted me wholly, more,' he added rudely, 'than he trusted you for he took the Seal from you, did he not?'

  It was Bishop Beaufort's turn to be angry, the little veins in his nose and cheeks darkening. 'We shall get nowhere if you speak so discourteously, nephew.'

  'Lord Protector,' Humfrey said softly. 'That you are not.'

  'That is what my brother wished. I advise you to read the will again.'

  'We have all read it,' Warwick said gravely. His grief for Harry seemed to have aged him. 'And I mean no disrespect for our late King's wishes, nor to you, my lord Duke, when I say that under present circumstances the Council must have greater powers.'

  'Aye,' Lord Ralph Cromwell added his voice. His estate bordered on Beaufort holdings near Orwell and he always supported the Bishop.

  Humfrey ignored him, turning instead to Warwick. 'I see you believe it, my lord, but if you have your way over this, you could all keep Parliament in session all year should you so choose. Yet I have the royal right to dissolve it if I should so choose.'