Lady of the Roses (12 page)

With Somerset’s departure, calm descended over the castle. I spent much time in the chapel, beseeching the Virgin for help, even whispering the prayer of intercession silently during the hours I spent on my needlework as those around me gossiped and made merry. The great tapestry designed by the king for Westminster Palace was almost completed; soon it would hang in the great hall, where it would bring suitable reminder of the meaning of Yuletide to those who cared to ponder.
Thou Shalt Love Thy Enemies
was stitched below a scene of Jesus carrying the Cross to Calvary. Aye, forgiveness was a noble sentiment, and one sorely needed at court. Each time I gazed on the tapestry, the angry faces of Somerset, Clifford, Egremont, and others who had lost fathers and brothers at the Battle of St. Albans took form in my mind and replaced those in the mob of enemies that surrounded Christ.

I understood the king’s intent. Gentle Henry had chosen aptly, wisely, and purposefully. But would they heed?

Though I had reason to celebrate the queen’s assent to my match, I was thus seized with wanhope and yearning for John. The laughter and joyfulness of Yuletide assumed a strange hollowness around me, and I felt more alone and empty than ever in the midst of the merriment of the season.

JANUARY BLEW IN ON A LIGHT DRIFT OF SNOW,
and the throng of guests that had descended on Coventry Castle for Yuletide returned to their far-flung estates. I resumed my tasks of schooling the children, running royal errands for the queen, and attending the labors of the loom while awaiting missives from John. But no happy developments came to bring me joy. The queen, believing that the Earl of Salisbury could not—or would not—pay the mighty sum for my hand, actively entertained offers from other prospective suitors, thrusting me into a permanent state of terror that she would choose a match and pressure me to accept. So restless was the unease that dogged me in these early days of 1457 that I suffered from frequent headaches and slept with difficulty, even with the aid of warm possets.

On a bitter-cold morning, I returned to my room to find Ursula weeping, a letter in her hand. “What’s the matter, dearest?” I asked, taking a seat beside her on the gray comforter and stroking her red hair.

Ursula turned swollen eyes on me. “My father’s been taken to prison!”

My indrawn breath expressed the dismay I felt. “On what charge?”

“A false charge—the rape of a nun!”

I stared at her, stunned, shaken, at a loss for words.

“He didn’t do it! He couldn’t,” Ursula cried. “It’s all because of Elizabeth Woodville, I know it!” She broke into a fit of sobbing.

I gathered her close to me as my thoughts filtered back to her confrontation with Elizabeth in the tapestry room the previous week. The Woodville had been taunting a young, overplump servant for days until the girl finally dissolved into tears before us. Ursula had dared comfort her in Elizabeth Woodville’s watchful presence, and at some point the word
“Witch!”
although given in a whisper, had sounded in the room. It was true that Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, was thought to indulge in witchcraft as a means of securing the remarkable good fortune that seemed to pursue her family, but none ever gave voice to the accusation, except behind the Woodville’s back. To my relief, Elizabeth contented herself with a scowl in Ursula’s direction and let the remark pass.

“Surely Elizabeth isn’t that vindictive,” I reflected. “Does your father have an enemy?”

“No—it’s her doing, I tell you, Isobel! She’s a bad one, rotten to the core! She has the ear of the queen, thanks to the French blood they share, and has shown her power many times with others who stood up to her—have you forgotten?”

Evil did seem to befall those who challenged Elizabeth Woodville. One girl’s father lost his position as sheriff; another had her family home ransacked when her father left for London; and the lawyer father of another lost every case he argued in the London courts thereafter and was driven into poverty. Ursula attributed these misfortunes to Elizabeth Woodville, but I considered them merely unfortunate coincidences.

“What am I to do?” Ursula sobbed. “My poor father!”

“Ursula, I’ll write John and ask for his help,” I said, drying her tears with a handkerchief. “We’ll get him out. Your father is a Warwickshire knight, and the Earl of Warwick will surely take an interest in his cause. The Nevilles are not without influence, even against the queen.”

Despite my brave assurances, doubts assailed me as I composed my letter to John. The ignorant cruelties and violent prejudices of life weighed heavily on my spirits, and after many loving words to John, I paused my quill and gave vent to a few tears before continuing. Forcing a lighter note into my tone, I told him of my uncle of Worcester’s visit and all that had transpired with the queen. Then I informed him of Sir Thomas Malory’s predicament and begged his assistance in helping to free Ursula’s father from confinement.

Only days later, a messenger bearing John’s emblem of the griffin delivered John’s reply.

I brought the letter to my lips and imparted a kiss to his signature, which was given in a clear hand as devoid of flourish and ceremony as he himself. Nothing seemed impossible to John, I thought, folding his missive and slipping it into my bodice. His letter lightened my mood until the next morning, when Elizabeth Woodville appeared at my side on the way to break fast in the great hall. Ursula stiffened. I gave her hand a squeeze. Whatever Elizabeth wanted, Ursula had to hide her true feelings about “this venomous girl,” as she called her. For myself, I still doubted that Elizabeth was responsible for Malory’s imprisonment. Every stone has its flaw, but spiteful though Elizabeth was, I refused to believe she could stoop to such malice for no great reason.

“I have news,” Elizabeth announced, her nose in the air

“Good news, I pray, Elizabeth?” I said pleasantly.

“Splendid…I am to wed Sir John Grey, the heir of Lord Ferrers of Groby.”

I was stunned speechless for a moment. She had aimed high, and she had scored. Such things rarely happened in a world where birth determined how high one rose, and for the most part, one born a yeoman died a yeoman. Yet Elizabeth’s father, a mere knight with no lands or standing, had wed royalty, and now she herself would wed a lord. It was against all odds.

Elizabeth’s father, Sir Richard Woodville, had met Elizabeth’s mother, the newly wed—and newly widowed—fifteen-year-old Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, in France. He’d escorted her to England after her husband’s death, and the two young people had fallen in love on the journey. But Jacquetta, being of royal lineage and the daughter of Pierre I of Luxemburg, Count of St. Pol, required a royal license to marry. Aware this would be denied them, the young lovers had wed in secret and birthed three children before they were ever discovered. While Jacquetta’s royal relatives were disgusted at her marriage, Henry’s new French queen, Marguerite d’Anjou, enchanted by the love match, prevailed on her husband to grant them a royal pardon and then took Elizabeth into her favor.

I found my voice at last. “I am happy for you, Elizabeth,” I said truthfully. Her marriage meant she would leave soon, depriving court of her contentious presence. My mind touched on Somerset, who had been absent for over a month now. His absence had greatly enhanced court life as well. Nevertheless, I ached with a strange inner pain at Elizabeth’s disclosure. Heaven had seen fit to grant her prayers for power and wealth, while mine, for love, remained denied. “’Tis always a great blessing to receive our heart’s desire and God’s favor,” I continued in a sinking tone.

She smiled her catlike smile, and I realized she had caught the strain in my voice. Holding her head high, she swept past me to find a seat as close to the dais as she could wile an usher to give her.

FROM COVENTRY, COURT RETURNED TO LONDON
. Though I lit many candles for Ursula’s father, nothing was achieved with regard to Sir Thomas Malory’s release, and he remained in confinement.

“These things take time,” I sighed, reading to Ursula from John’s letter.

She nodded miserably. “But the waiting, ’tis so hard.”

I took her hand into my own. “I know, Ursula.”

Then came a letter to delight my heart, even if it still reported no movement on the case of Sir Thomas Malory. John was coming to London!

With Ursula at my side, I left Westminster Palace early on the eleventh day of January, the day before the Feast of St. Benedict, and with light steps walked to the Fleet, where I would meet John. With our last encounter in the castle garden at Coventry still fresh in our minds, John had decided we should meet in a saddler’s shop, where we might enjoy a measure of privacy.

The Strand lay quiet, even along Savoy Palace and St. Clement’s Danes, and we did not encounter many passersby, despite the fair weather, but once we left behind its elegant cobbled streets and turned into the Fleet, London grew noisy with the bustle of commerce. Everywhere, blacksmiths clanged their metal, street vendors hawked their wares, and donkeys brayed complaints as they plodded along, nodding beneath their weighty burdens.

The wintry day was bright with sunshine, but cold. We walked briskly in the wind, clasping our woolen cloaks tightly around us, taking care to avoid the potholes, mud puddles, and refuse piles that lined the roads. Peddlers called their wares to us. I passed up “hot sheep’s feet!” and stopped to buy a trinket from a thin, pale old woman who looked as if she would drop from illness. With her blessings following us, we turned into Shoe Lane, where the saddler’s shop was located. The narrow street, gloomy beneath the wooden upper stories projecting far over the lower ones of mud and plaster, was filled with litters bearing rich prelates and high-born ladies, and with horsemen in gorgeous apparel. Consulting John’s directions as we walked along, we finally spotted the gilded black-horse sign of Ye Olde Saddler swinging in the wind between a boot maker and an inn. With a flutter of the heart I stepped through the open door. The heavy smell of new leather struck me forcibly as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

John stood in profile, in a corner by a row of leather goods, admiring a saddle finely stitched with gold thread and studded with a ruby. As he turned, such a smile lit his face that it seemed bright sunlight had burst into the gloomy shop. The old saddler, hammering at the table, left his stool to close the oak door behind us and drop the bolt, and with another bow disappeared into a narrow passageway at the back of the shop. Ursula followed him, her receding footsteps ending in the loud thud of a shut door. In a lightning-fast motion, I was in John’s arms. He kissed me fiercely, sending flaming heat rushing through my blood. Weak-kneed, my head reeling, I leaned back in his arms and glanced to where the old man had disappeared. “Are we safe here?” I breathed.

John laughed. “As safe as we’ll ever be. Somerset’s in Wales, Egremont and Clifford are fomenting trouble in Yorkshire, and the shop owner’s a Yorkist, like most here in London. My family’s done business with him for years, and I’ve bribed him generously. He’ll not return lest we give the word, my angel.” He dragged me back hard against him and recaptured my mouth with savage intensity. I felt the shocking, surging contact between us and returned his kiss with reckless abandon. At last, my heart hammering beneath my ribs, I parted for breath.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me your angel,” I said, locked in his embrace and giving a small laugh as I recovered my composure. “Haven’t you noticed my hair is as dark as chestnuts? Angels have golden hair, my love.”

“You pose two very important points, Isobel,” he said gravely, gazing down at me with his twilight blue eyes. “First, in my own defense, let me say there is nothing I haven’t noticed about you, including your chestnut hair…. Second,
my
angels have chestnut hair.”

“Oh, John, my love,” I whispered, laying my head against his shoulder, “’tis heaven in your arms.”
Heaven, and Earth; sun, and stars; summer, and spring; all things beautiful are mine in this place where joy dwells.

He held me close for a long moment, his cheek against my hair; then he relaxed his hold, took my hands, and looked gravely into my eyes. “Isobel, my father is meeting with the queen as we speak to discuss the negotiations for your hand. I shall send you word as soon as we have news.”

Despite the doubts and fears that were never far away, a hot, wild joy swept me. “I shall pray for us, my beloved,” I said.

THE NEXT DAY, AS THE BELLS OF WESTMINSTER’S
clock tower chimed the hour of noon, a page delivered a missive to my room, where I paced nervously to and fro. I took it with a trembling hand. It came not from John but from his father, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, inviting me to the Erber, his residence in Dowgate. The earl’s barge would be waiting to take me there at the hour of three. Had the negotiations reached a final resolution so soon? If so, was I being summoned to be informed of exceedingly good news? Or exceedingly bad? And why had John not written himself?

I glanced down at my gown, crumpled from the morning’s wear, and picked up the small mirror from the bedside table to examine my face. I heaved a long indrawn breath and laid the mirror down again. Anxiety and sleeplessness had staked their claim; I looked dreadful. It seemed to me that I had waited all my life for this day, and now that it had come, I was unprepared to meet it.

I left in search of Ursula. She was not gossiping with the laundresses or the groomsmen to pick up news, but as I returned from the stables and emerged from the tower stairs into the arched passageway to the great hall, I spotted her bright red head leaving a near chamber where a gold merchant displayed his wares to a group of ladies. I caught up to her side and assumed a casual tone for the benefit of those within earshot. “Ursula, I have lost my silver brooch.”