Royal Mistress (62 page)

Sophie thrust the proclamation at her friend and sat down heavily on the bench. When Jane came to her own name, she gasped and turned pale. “What can this mean?” she cried. “I have not seen Tom since he left in September. Who even knew we were together?”

“You mean others besides those in this house? Ach,
niet,
no one here vould betray you.”

Jane nodded. “Certes, I know that. Nay, it must be one of the men who visited Tom that day I retrieved my treasure. Tom told me to stay away because he wanted no one to tell his mother or his wife he was with me. I forgot his command, and they saw me.” She sank down on the bench next to Sophie and read the rest of the document, which condemned the duke of Buckingham, the bishops of Ely and Salisbury—Tom’s brother, and other followers who were, according to Richard,

intending not only the destruction of the royal person of our sovereign lord and his true subjects, breaching the peace,
tranquility and common good of this realm, by abandoning virtue and the damnable and maintaining of vices and sin, as they have done in times past, to the great displeasure of God and as an evil example of all Christian people.

Jane let out an unladylike whistle. “Did you read all of this, Sophie?” she asked. When Sophie shook her head, Jane read aloud the final paragraph, which told the whole world what Richard’s people could expect from its king.

“Wherefore the king’s highness, of his tender and loving disposition that he has shown to the good of his realm, and putting down and rebuking of vices, he grants that no yeoman or commoner thus abused and blinded by these aforesaid traitors, adulterers and bawds . . .”
^III

Jane paused to contemplate the extraordinary language used by this king in his mission to purify the realm. He was obsessed with men’s morals, she decided, and from reading this proclamation, it would seem Richard was more concerned with punishing adulterers and bawds than traitors. No wonder he had come looking for her.

“Go on,” Sophie urged her quietly. “Is there more?”

“Oh, forgive me. Aye, there is.

“Those traitors and bawds shall not be hurt in their bodies nor goods if they remove themselves from their false company and meddle no further with them.”
^IV

She looked up at her friend and saw the question in Sophie’s eyes. “You think I should give myself up to the authorities, confess
that I lay in adultery with Thomas Dorset, and expect Richard to pardon me again? I think not.”

“But, Jane . . .” She got no further as Ankarette came huffing through the door laden with food from the market.

“Such a crowd at St. Paul’s today, mistresses,” she said, beaming at both of them. “But no one bargains better than Ankarette Tyler. Even one of the carters told those around me so.” She began taking the food out of the baskets and remembered the scene with a proud smile. “I told him my mistress taught me,” she boasted as Sophie and Jane helped stow the vegetables and bread. “ ‘And who might that be,’ the carter asked. ‘Why, Mistress Jane Shore,’ I proudly announced to all who would listen.”

Jane and Sophie froze midtask, and Sophie was incredulous. “Ah, Ankarette. You told everyone you were Jane’s maidservant?”

Mortified, poor Ankarette whimpered, “Did I do wrong? ’Tis no secret.” She looked miserably at Jane. “I am so—”

She got no further as a furious thumping on the door made Sophie drop her cabbage and Jane break two eggs she had been trying to place carefully in a pail. Ankarette went to the door and opened it a crack. “Who is it who makes such a racket?” she demanded. She was roughly pushed aside by two men-at-arms, who thrust open the door and stepped over the threshold.

“Mistress Shore?” one of them addressed Ankarette.

Ankarette tried to hide her mistress behind her larger bulk, but Jane gently pulled her aside and answered the man. “I am Jane Shore. What do you want of me?” She was astonished how calm she sounded, for her legs felt limp.

“You are to come with us to be charged on suspicion of harboring a traitor,” the man replied, looking around the simple house and wondering if they had the right woman. There was nowhere to hide a fugitive, he thought. And at that moment Pieter and a neighbor’s boy came charging into the house pretending to be knights with sticks for swords and followed by a barking Poppy.

“Are these your children?” the man-at-arms shouted at Jane over the din. Sophie stepped forward and claimed them as hers.

“Mistress Shore has been living with us for many veeks, sergeant,” Sophie volunteered. “You may search my house, but you vill find no hiding traitors. She is innocent.”

“Perhaps not at present, mistress,” the man said. “But Thomas of Dorset is a foul traitor, and it is known this woman has lain in adultery with him while he plotted his treason, and thus she must come with us.”

Sophie watched sadly as the two men bound Jane’s hands. “May I ask how you knew vhere she vas?”

The other soldier grinned and jerked his head in Ankarette’s direction. “This clatterer was prating about her bargaining skills in the market. We had been on the lookout for Mistress Shore and ’twas simple to follow this marvelous clack-dish home.”

This set Ankarette to weeping, and she begged Jane to forgive her. “I have betrayed my beloved mistress,” she wailed to Sophie as Jane was marched from the house between her escorts. “What will become of her? Oh, I am a wicked woman.”

Sophie ran after the little group with Jane’s warm cloak. “Where do you take her, sergeant?” she pleaded, giving him the garment. “She is like a sister to me.”

The man saw no harm in telling the woman. The arrest had gone smoothly, and he would soon be off duty and enjoying a flagon of ale with his friends. “For what ’tis worth to you, goodwife, she is going to Ludgate gaol.”

Jane stumbled and almost fell but for the strong hands that held her. “Please, God, no!” she begged, tears stinging her eyes. She did not think she could suffer through even one night in that infernal cell again. She turned to look at Sophie, who had faltered when she heard the news, her brown eyes filled with compassion.

“Pray for me, Sophie,” Jane called desperately over her shoulder,
although she was quite convinced that by this time God must have finally abandoned her.

A
nother of King Richard’s prisoners was also feeling bereft of God’s favor as he sat in his cell, his borrowed clothes in tatters and his body emitting an odor even the rats shunned. Harry of Buckingham was awaiting trial, and although he was miserable, he was convinced he could worm his way out of an execution. If only he could see Richard, talk to him, he thought.

He may not have enjoyed the irony that he had to face the acting constable of England, Sir Ralph Assheton, whom Richard had recently appointed to replace Buckingham, now deemed an outlaw. Harry was led in front of the commission, his head and his feet bare, and made to sit on a stool in the high-beamed town hall. After the charges were read, Harry began to unravel. He went down on his knees and confessed that he had been hoodwinked by the bishop of Ely into rebelling and revealed all he knew of the plot. In a desperate plea to save his life, he cried: “Gentlemen, I beg of you, let me see my cousin, the king. I will explain all to him. Surely I have the right to an audience?”

“The king has no wish to see you, my lord Buckingham. You have proved to be his grace’s most monstrous enemy, and he is done with you,” Assheton replied, lowering his brow and pointing his finger at Harry. “You will die a traitor upon the morrow. Now take him away,” he commanded the guards, scorning the royal duke’s tears.

Back in his cell, Harry demanded vellum and pen and scratched out a personal plea to Richard, reminding him of their friendship, of his support to put Richard upon the throne, and of the royal blood they shared. His words were heartfelt, flowery, and smudged with tears. He could not believe Richard would deny his cousin a final interview.

Whether or not Richard saw his one-time comrade’s desperate
missive, Buckingham never knew. As the bells in the tallest spire in England tolled over the marketplace, Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, rebel and traitor, was led to the makeshift scaffold, made to lay his head upon the block, and just as Will Hastings had done not six months before, he cried out to God to have mercy on his soul.

I
n his temporary lodgings at a house in the cathedral close, Richard sat staring at the blotched parchment his cousin had sent and listened as the bells sounded their death knell. “Christ’s blood, Harry,” he said bitterly. “I could have forgiven you your rebelling,” although he abhorred the man’s double disloyalty, first to him and then to the rebels by confessing all so readily to avert blame, “but I can never forgive you the foul murder of my nephews.”

Crumpling the letter into a ball, he threw it into the fire as though consigning his cousin’s soul equally to the flames of hell.

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“B
ack again so soon, Mistress Shore?” the warden of Ludgate goaded his proud prisoner. “Did not learn the first time, eh? You must be getting good at this harlotry lark.” He reached forward to squeeze her breast. “Might be I take a turn with you, Mistress Bawd.”

Jane eyed the grimy sausage fingers pawing her and stepped back. Had her hands not been tied, she would have slapped him. “May I assume you cannot get a woman any other way?” she provoked him.

In an instant, the fondling fingers turned into a fist that slammed into her face, making Jane cry out in painful outrage. She fell to her knees, tasting blood and reeling from the injury. “That’ll learn you,” the gaoler rasped. He nodded to the guard. “Take her upstairs. This time she’ll have to take her lumps. There is no fancy lord to buy her a bed now. Come down in the world a trifle has our king’s whore.”

And so Jane was half carried to the gates of the familiar cell, its foul stink taking her back to those dire days of June. The guard shoved a cup at her that would serve for both food and drink, and pushed her rudely inside, flinging her mantle on top of her.

A pair of gentle hands helped her to her feet, and a young woman of no more than sixteen gingerly touched the welt on Jane’s cheek. “Bastard,” she hissed. “The warden did that, did he not?”

Jane winced and nodded. “I suppose I deserved it. I insulted his manhood,” she murmured, and she tried to smile at the memory, but it hurt so much, she gave a little gasp of pain. She allowed
her new friend to lead her to a fresh pile of straw that she was willing to share with Jane.

“I am Anne, and I am in here until I can pay my fine.” She grinned. “I cheated my neighbor out of a chicken, and she went straight to the sheriff. When my father’s anger simmers down, he’ll pay to get me out.”

Jane was a little surprised at the girl’s nonchalance; stealing used to be a hangable offense, she had once heard her father say, but that was a long time ago, and society was supposedly far more civilized now. “I am Jane Shore, and it seems I am here for hiding a fugitive.” She refused to brand herself a whore or harlot. She felt her face and winced. “I suppose I shall have a black eye.”