The King's Grey Mare (43 page)

Then Whitefriar, the largest hound, slipped his chain from the inattentive hand of a groom and sprang.
The stench of blood led him to his duty.
He was trained for the throat, and all was quickly over.
One stifled shriek, a flurry of torn clothing, brown flesh bursting into red, and silence.
Elizabeth sat frozen for a moment, watching Whitefriar whipped and chivvied into subservience, then fondled, then cuffed again by men uncertain of the Queen’s humour.
Then she rose, carefully pulling her gown away from the woman’s body where it lay.
I might have kept her to be my soothsayer, she thought, then, looking down: foolishness.
How could this mangled bone-bag have had the gift of sight?
She saw that the Princess was milk-faced and shuddering; this annoyed her.
She moved swiftly to her daughter’s side and pinched her wrist, hard.

‘Be still,’ she commanded.
‘Are you some half-wit, to snivel at death?’To herself she added: when I was seventeen no sight disturbed me!
She listened impatiently to the girl’s stammering reply.

‘It was her words, Madame … she said … she said … Madame, I do not want to be Queen of England!
I would liefer marry for love!’

‘Jesu, God!’
cried Elizabeth.
She could have boxed Bess’s ears.
Resisting the temptation she turned with an imperious look to the assembled company and said:

‘We have tarried long enough here.
We shall return to our Palace of Westminster.’

‘Mistress Grace!’
Rough hands, rough voice, roused her from sleep.
The flickering gold of a cresset pried through her darkness.
She moaned with fatigue and sat up in bed.
In the communal chamber, the other women were awakening too.
Renée’s cross voice said: ‘What is it?’
Grace, suddenly wide awake, peered into the face of a guard.

‘Mistress.
Rouse the Queen.’

He turned away as she fumbled for her clothing, her body like lead from the exhaustion born of the last few days.
The Queen’s tense mood had sapped vitality from all the women.
It seemed only five minutes since Grace had taken the last cup of cordial into the royal chamber, returning to fall into deepest sleep.

‘What time is it?’

‘Just on midnight.
Hurry, mistress.’

She shivered, wrapping a robe about her, and thought: Today is the third of May.
The day for which my Queen has waited and wished.
The young king must have arrived, with his uncle Anthony.
Today he will be crowned.
Grace wished that they had chosen a time other than midnight to arrive.
She wished also that she was not always the one to fetch and carry, to be roused because her trestle bed lay nearest the door, or was it because she was the youngest in the chamber?
But she was the Queen’s servant; this thought renewed her.

‘You may turn round, Master Jack,’ she said to the guard.
‘What is the message for the Queen?’

‘Desperate and urgent.
Bishop Morton waits outside.
I have bidden him to the Queen’s Council chamber.
For God’s love, there is no time to lose.’

Why this frenzy, if the Prince were here?
She looked once more at the man’s taut face and hurried through into the Queen’s bed-chamber.
Grace’s candle illuminated the unforgettable face, deeply dreaming.
As she watched, the broad white forehead creased, the lips puckered in some unknown distress.
Tenderly, Grace awakened her.

‘He is here,’ the Queen murmured, drugged with sleep.
‘Is the fighting over?
John, you have come …’

The utterance of that name bred warmth in Grace.
John of Gloucester would surely be brought to London now.
If they had killed his father as planned, he would be of as little account as any royal Plantagenet bastard.
One who lived between dark and light, humbled one day, revered the next.
She thought, with unconscious callousness: we shall be even more in sympathy; he will no doubt sorrow for his father, and I will comfort him.
To the Queen she said softly: ‘Bishop Morton begs audience.’
Instantly alert, Elizabeth threw off the bedcovers and said sharply: ‘Morton?
Why?’

She slipped her feet into high wooden chopines, snatched up a black houpeland with a cowl and swathed her slenderness in its dark folds.
The hood fell about her brow.
She looked like a pure youth about to take holy orders.
So enraptured was Grace by this sight that she fell dumb.
Elizabeth’s unexpected slap stung her cheek.
So be it: that’s a caress.
I love and serve her.

‘Will you speak?’
said the Queen.
‘Why is Morton here?
Have they arrived from Ludlow?
Great God!
I’ll see for myself!’

They passed through the room full of drowsy robing women who knelt before the Queen as she went, the black gown blowing about her swift walk.
Her lips were set, her eyes as clear as if they had never closed in sleep.
Grace followed a pace behind along tortuous ways stone cold with the night’s chill, and entered on the breeze of powerful black into the Queen’s council chamber, which was day-bright with torches, and choked with the ambience of disquiet.
Several people were there; Morton dominated.
He had come fast from Holborn through the night.
Thomas Dorset had been roused from the bed of Jane Shore.
Catherine Woodville was weeping into her sleeve.
Margaret Beaufort and her husband Stanley were present, standing with Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York.
Yet the Queen addressed Morton alone.

‘What news, your Grace?’

Before, the Bishop could reply, Dorset ran forward, sank on his knee before his mother.
He was almost in tears.

‘The worst possible news, Madame.
The Protector …’

‘Who?’
The Queen’s voice was outraged.

‘Gloucester.
He intercepted Anthony upon the road.
The ambush failed, and he’s read your letters, even the one bidding his death.
He has taken Edward, our prince, and rides on London with him.’

Morton spoke, sonorously calm against Dorset’s hysteria.

‘Lord Anthony, your Grace, has been taken north in captivity, for acting under your orders.
Likewise imprisoned is your son, Lord Richard Grey; also the Prince’s companions, our allies Vaughan and Haute.
It seems …’

Dorset interrupted.
‘… that we are culpable of high treason!’
He gave a short bark of laughter.
‘In that we did disobey the King’s last decree!
Gloucester came riding almost from Scotland.
He would never have known of our plan had not cursed Hastings sent couriers straightway to him.
He would never have conquered Anthony, had not Harry Buckingham ridden to him with reinforcements.’
The Queen looked at Catherine.

‘Sister, come here, I pray.’

Catherine, weeping, fell upon her knees.

‘Ingrate,’ said the Queen softly.
‘Your own husband has betrayed me.
Did I marry you to Harry Buckingham so that he might use me thus?
Are you my sister and cannot sway a man?’

‘Your Grace,’ blubbered Catherine, ‘he did as he liked.
And he told me he was going on pilgrimage, for our late King’s soul!’

‘I fear, Madame–’.
Morton’s voice rolled like a stroked drum – ‘that we have little time.
Gloucester is full of righteousness.
Remember, he holds York more dear than anything else.
What your Grace may have planned against his own person is a grain of sand in the desert of York’s betrayal.
York, to Gloucester, is God.
That decree of Protectorship from Edward’s dying mouth – that was no less than God’s ordinance.’

‘The Devil’s ordinance!’
she said savagely.
‘That any should usurp my heritage.
The Prince is mine!
Mine!
Ours, to be ours in might!’

Grace wondered whether the Queen might fall in a fit.
Beside herself, she spilled out tantrum.

‘Shall the blood of my inheritance go unrewarded?
Shall all my work be unfulfilled?
Who is this Gloucester, to take in charge the crown of my estate?
You, my lord Morton!
Why could you not prevent it?’
Morton spread his hands, smiled a sorry ecclesiastical smile.
‘You, Catherine, who have shared my splendour – without me you would be mouldering still at Grafton Regis!
You, Thomas!
Why could you not forestall this plague!’

As Dorset stammered nonsense, the door was flung open.
Breathless and dishevelled, Lionel Woodville, Bishop of Salisbury, entered.

‘You have heard all?’
the Queen demanded.

He nodded, his heavy face flushed.
‘My man rode in five minutes ago.
Our brother with your son and his followers have been taken to Yorkshire.
Their soldiers turned straight to Gloucester, who pardoned them for their part in the affair and sent them home.
Gloucester came in mourning, with a mere six hundred men.
He ordered a requiem for our late sovereign in York.
On reaching Northampton he met Buckingham who informed him of the ambush.
Gloucester caught our party at Stony Stratford.
Another half a day and the Prince would have been here, and crowned.’

‘Crowned and ours,’ she said furiously.
‘What does Gloucester, now?’

‘He brings the Prince, but to be crowned under his Protectorship.
He adheres to Edward’s decree – that his Council shall govern for the child until he is grown.
He has sent barrels of harness on into London so that the people may see the proof of our conspiracy.’

‘The arms show our blazon!’
said Dorset feverishly.
‘They declare us traitors to the Crown …’

‘The people have never loved us,’ trembled Catherine.
‘Because we are for Lancaster.’

‘My lord Bishop,’ said the Queen to Morton.
She spread her hands; the wide black sleeves fell in a graceful imploring gesture.
‘My lord, what now?’

‘Take your son,’ said Morton unhesitatingly.
‘Your youngest son, Richard Duke of York.
Take your daughters and your women and go at once into Westminster Sanctuary.’

Grace saw the Queen’s face set like an effigy, and she herself viewed the prospect of Sanctuary without relish.
To her, it was a vague time of chanting monks, of cold and sparse food, a time when she, a tiny girl, cried outside the door where the Queen laboured to bring Prince Edward into the world.
This prince over whom men now fought like curs with a carcass.

‘We are to retreat?’
said the Queen.
Morton smiled.
‘For the nonce, highness.
It is politic to have no discussion with Gloucester or his creatures.
All is far from lost.
Sir Edward Woodville still anchors in the Channel, does he not?’

‘Yes, with much treasure,’ said Dorset, brightening.

‘My daughter,’ the Bishop swung round to address Grace.
She had not realized he was even aware of her presence.
‘My child, fetch the Duke of York.
Don’t alarm him.
Remember he is only a little knave.’

‘Madame, let me come with you into Sanctuary!’
Catherine ran forward to the Queen.

Coldly she replied: ‘You are a traitor and a fool, but you are still my sister.
Make ready.’

‘And I?’
Dorset said unsteadily.

‘No, you will be more useful in London.
Watch Hastings, Gloucester, Buckingham.
Send me all news, discreetly …’ She turned and quit the chamber so swiftly that she left her son gaping and the three Bishops drawing together grave-faced, with whispers.

Grace awakened the small prince and helped him to dress.
Hand in hand they walked to the outer gate of the Palace.
A rosy-pale May dawn was streaking the horizon.
Scores of serving men ran across the cobbled strip which divided the Palace from the Abbey precincts.
The sound of the monks’ morning office came faintly; soft light waxed and waned behind the arched windows as the unseen chanters processed, each carrying a flame.
Outside the activity was frenzied.
Grooms and servants, each laden with a box, or a pile of richly bound books, or a sheaf of silk garments, ran like madmen towards the Sanctuary door.
One man carried two brachets slung over his shoulders.
Their jewelled collars flashed like swords in the dawn light.
Bumping down the Palace stair came the larger chattels; fardels crammed with gold plate, coffers so full of jewels that the lids were bursting open.
A gold chain slithered like a serpent on to the cobbles.
One man ran with a vast bundle of cloth-of-gold on his head; six others struggled with a carved table of Spanish chestnut.
The Queen’s gold-framed mirror, Turkish carpets, rainbow-coloured and rolled like battering-rams, were borne into the Sanctuary.
In went the Queen’s prie-dieu, studded with sapphires and diamonds, and two Flemish paintings of the late King.
An enormous oak dresser with handles of beaten gold defeated the men.
Cursing, they tried all ways to introduce it, finding the arched doorway too narrow.
One of the dresser drawers slid open, revealing the flash of diadems, golden wands, necklets, all clumsily, hastily packed.