A Secret Alchemy (27 page)

“No, no, Your Grace, the peacock displaying is the sign that the design is
nearly
accomplished,” Wintersett was saying. “Has not your royal self been shown on the history rolls as the Feathered King, triumphant? The
dragon
is as mercury: great power for good, and just as great for ill.” The air was thickening with the fumes of ground gold and arsenic. “It must be poured quickly, and the vessel shaken with the other hand…” The room was tilting about me. I stiffened my back, and bit my tongue as I did when sickness threatened during an audience. It took all my power to stay standing, to keep my face and hands in some semblance of attention. When at last the mixture was set aside to cool, before the secret, final stage that even a king may not see, I knew not if new gold had been made, or only dross.

We had need of the gold. Edward’s great invasion of France to reclaim the lands King Harry won would cost the kingdom more than it could spare, and the royal exchequer too. He returned with no blood shed, a match with the Dauphin for Bess when she was of an age to marry, and a pension for himself, but no blood meant no glory like that of the fifth Henry. Neither Parliament nor the great merchants would willingly pay yet more in taxes after that.

And not all the new gold that the alchemists promised us seemed likely to satisfy George of Clarence, or the old gold snatched from Warwick’s widow, or the blood of my father and brother, or even Jason’s fleece itself. Nothing but the gold of his brother’s crown would do. At last even Edward’s power of forgiveness was worn to shreds.

Richard of Gloucester was in the north, ruling in Edward’s name. But George of Clarence was no anointed king. There was no need this time for the Tower keys to be put into such very safe hands, or the watch commanded to close its eyes. When Parliament was called in the new year, His Grace George, Duke of Clarence, was arraigned on a charge of treason, tried by his peers, and condemned.

But Edward would not sign the death warrant. I thought of his next brother, Edmund, that he had loved so well. I thought of my sons: Thomas and Richard Grey, grown men famous in the lists, Ned far away with Antony and learning to be a king, little Dickon still clinging to my skirts, and baby George, safe with God. All brothers to one another, these my boys: flesh of my flesh, brothers of the whole and the half-blood. I knew the warrant must be signed, and yet knew that Edward could no more set his hand to the deed than I could have plucked baby George from my breast and dashed his brains out.

I was not there when Dame Cecily Neville came from Baynard’s
Castle, and knelt before Edward, her firstborn son, to plead for her third son’s life. But she of all women had made Edward what he was. All that she won was his word that George of Clarence might be put to death privily, and in the manner of his own choosing.

I could not help but think of myself in her place. Lord God! I prayed. Defend my sons from such enmities, and me from choosing between them, from having to take sides. I comforted myself that my own son Richard Grey had no desire for the weight of duty and power that came to his brother Thomas along with his marquessate. Neither had he the capacity to discharge them well, and Edward knew it: he never gave but where he got good ser vice in return. Richard Grey whored and drank and, though it grieved me to hear of it, he had grown up at court and learned its ways, and I could spare little time from the business of the household to change them. But what of my little boys? What of Dickon? Would he grow up to hate his brother Ned, the king-to-be, as George of Clarence did Edward? To demand yet more riches and power, though he had not earned them? To turn at last to treason? Dickon did visit his brother at Ludlow, and Ned came to London: when Edward went to France he was here for many months as Keeper of the Realm. But my younger boys could not share their boyhood as Thomas and Richard Grey had done at Astley, or Edward and Edmund once did, growing up at Ludlow. Not only more years but also the training of a king stood between them.

I had last seen Ned at Ludlow, some months since. I did not take Dickon with me as I had planned, for he was sick, but I was sorry for it. Ned knelt to me and I raised him, and found him well grown for his eight years, his hair still pale gold and his face a little leaner and more tanned from his knightly exercises in these long, warm days. He was proud to show me his skill at the
quintain and when I asked how his studies went, even prouder of his translation of Horace. At my bidding he read a few sentences, and if he stumbled once or twice, it was only from shyness, not ignorance. Antony smiled: he knew the reason for my forbearance.

For four days we sat in meetings of the Prince’s Council, heard petitions, and gave banquets to reward those men that had earned them and some who had not. When I saw Ned sitting at the head of the Council table, my heart turned over. He listened carefully as we discussed the granting of market charters, a report from Ireland, two parishes that would not mend their bridges, and a commission of
oyer et terminer
. An innocent man had been killed by those hunting a band of outlaws that were said to have done murder, and there was some talk of this death being not an honest error but part of a feud that stretched back to the days of Glyn Dwr. Such matters feed unrest and must be ended. When a widow knelt and petitioned for aid in getting her only cow back from her son-in-law, Ned heard her out not with his father’s jests and kindly words but with the grave courtesy of Antony’s training. When she had stumbled to the end of her tale, he raised her and thanked her. “Mistress Griffith, you shall have justice,” he said carefully. “The secretary of my Council will see to it. Go now with him and you have my word that all will be well.”

On the fifth day Antony decreed a holiday.

The austringer and cadger were mounted as well as the menat-arms and the rest, for we were to make a day of it and dine on the ground wherever we found ourselves at noon. “Such a lack of ceremony will do you no disworship,” said Antony. “And it is good to show Ned that even his royal mother has no need of it.” We rode out from the castle gate and around by Dinham to cross
the river. As we left the lee of the castle walls and began to pick our way down the hill, the breeze caught us and two of the hawks bated and cried. “Do you remember my Juno?” Antony asked me.

“I thought you would die for joy of her.”

Ned looked around. “Who was Juno, sire?”

“A hawk I had when I was a little older than you are now. A goshawk. When you are older and stronger in the arm, you may have one.”

His words recalled to my mind a small commission from Edward. “Brother, is the country hereabouts open enough for falconry? The King is minded to give Ned a gift of a bird, and would send his own man to the next fair at Valkenswaard to buy it.” We were jogging over the bridge, and our path wound up the cliffs; the tops were thickly wooded. I turned to Ned. “Son, would it be happiness, or disappointment, to have a falcon that you might not fly within half a day’s ride?”

He seemed in want of an answer, and at last said, “Madam, I am grateful to my royal father for the thought, but I—I care not for the sport as my brothers do.” I stared at him, and as if he read my thoughts, he glanced at Antony and said, “Of course I have learned what I must know. But…”

On another day I would have inquired further, but there was a crack in his voice, and I would not for the world spoil our holiday. I held my peace and, as the path reached the level ground above, spurred my horse into a canter. Ned was eager to follow, and we rode through the woods knee to knee with the rest behind us.

That was a happy time, and as the year went on I had more and more often to turn to those memories before I could sleep. Clarence’s treason was clear: he had even tried to accuse my mother of
witchcraft in procuring my marriage. But still Edward would not sign the warrant.

By Twelfth Night the world seemed made of ice. The greatest logs heaped high and burning day and night could not soften the bitter cold that had settled on us, and the Candlemas processions were a penance indeed. In the second week of Lent the lords, longing for the warmth of good coal fires that might not be lit till they had done Parliament’s business, made a petition that the sentence they had passed be executed.

It was late, hours past Compline, and the wind getting up after the hard, still frost of the day. I dismissed my secretary and went to my bedchamber. I was too tired for the usual gossip with my women and ladies, with which we unwound our day and made ready for the night, and though I took up Antony’s new work, the
Morale Proverbes of Christyne
, to read while they worked, I could not have told what I read. I stood and let my ladies do as they would, and they heard my silence and held their peace. This way and that they turned me, unlacing, unbuckling, unpinning my hair, unhooking my bodice, untying my points, rolling down my stockings, and all with the due bows and kneelings. When I was bare of all but smock and nightcap, they wrapped me in my thickest nightgown, mink and velvet with a hood, and still I needed a shawl against the draughts. I sat down and they washed my hands; I had seen the water steaming in its jug not five minutes before, and yet it was all but cold. They cleaned my teeth and took down the hood to comb the crimps out of my hair. Then Margaret began to plait it—over right, over left, over right, over left—hiss-ing a catch softly between her teeth for none but me to hear, like a stable-boy grooming a horse. Her fingers worked their way down my back, and as she reached my waist I stood as I always did, that
she might reach the end without groveling on the cold floor. We did not stint our prayers, though I must hope that Our Savior forgave the speed at which I said them; perhaps the cold that struck through to our bones was penance enough in return.

When they had warmed the bed, and put me in it, then taken my nightgown and drawn the bed hangings, I dismissed all of them but Margaret. I lay back on the pillows, with the piled furs and blankets heavy on me, and draughts yet found their way in. Margaret trimmed the lamp that burned on the mantelpiece all night, got in beside me, and soon by the softening of her body I knew that she slept.

But as so often these days, I was too tired to sleep. The aches of the day and my years came and went and came again. Unwelcome thoughts nipped at me like the thin draughts that were as sharp as needles on my face. I curled down beneath the covers but found I could not breathe. I must write to my neighbor at Barn-wood Manor, who had been seen hunting on my land. Yet he was a good man and neighbor who must not be angered to the point of forswearing his allegiance. Mal had written that her pension had been late in the paying, so did that mean that others were too? I must find out. The bed was too hot, the air too cold, my body awkward and aching. How long was it since Edward had come to me? Not since New Year? I did not think so, for with Parliament summoned and men of worship come from across the land to sit at Westminster, business pressed in upon both our households, and on the courts and the exchequer too. Truly not since New Year? So many weeks? Perhaps I should not be surprised. I was older than he, and my body too lean these days for beauty and worn with childbearing. Though the songs and tales still called me beautiful, I no longer felt myself so; how, then, could he?

The coldest air yet caught at my breast, and I heard the creak of wood. I sat up and peered out at the window curtains: they shifted constantly, as if the shutters were not closed. I thought to wake Margaret, but she was snoring and I had not the heart to do it. I slid myself out of bed and down to the floor, my feet striking matting as cold as cathedral stone. One New Year’s Day, long ago at Grafton, I had tugged off my glove and put my hand through the ice and into the millpond, for John had wagered Antony that he would not swim across it, and as the oldest I would not be done out of my share of valorous deeds. Tonight the cold struck my skin like those same shards of ice. My nightgown hung on a chair across the room, as far away as the window was, for no one would think that I might need to get to it myself. To fetch it would take longer than the cold was worth. I went to the window in nothing but my smock.

Sure enough, the shutters were not latched, and the wind had driven them apart.

Across the courtyard, a light still showed in the King’s apartments. That was nothing new. I pushed the shutters to, latched them, and lapped the curtains over each other again. Even if Edward were drinking or whoring, he was doing business too, for Hastings and my sons were companions in all three. It was nothing new. But this night, of all nights…

I all but ran back to bed, and climbed in. My icy feet met Margaret’s warm ones; I pulled them away, but could not forbear to press as close to her warmth as I could without touching her.

“What is it?” she said, her voice muffled by furs.

“The shutters were not latched.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, like the seals we used to see in the waves off Walsingham, she raised her head and looked at me. “I could have done that. Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I am wakeful, nothing more.” Still she looked. “You know how it is with me, sister. Go back to sleep.”

She shook her head, and touched my cold arm with her warm hand. “Did you look out of the window? Did you see something?”

“Nothing but…There are still lights in the King’s apartments.”

“And you are anxious?”

“Sister, it is said that he has signed the warrant tonight.”

She nodded but said nothing, and I knew suddenly that there were no words—no songs, no stories, no sayings—for what had been done. Perhaps not even prayers, perhaps only
Pater noster…dimitte nobis debita nostra
.

Our Father…Forgive us our trespasses
…even as we do not forgive those who trespass against us, but rather kill them by Act of Parliament. I could not stop my thought before I thought it. I had to ask pardon for my blasphemy.

Margaret said, “You could send to him. Ask if he—”

I sat up. “If he what? If he regrets what he has done? How could he? But if he does…”