A Secret Alchemy (28 page)

“Well, just send to him, then. Say that you have him in your thoughts, that you are his faithful wife, that you love and honor him as your lord. You need say nothing more.”

But it was many years since we had sent to each other with such words. Many a messenger went between us, but the words they carried were always of business to be done. Our lives were all business, even to when we would dine, or whether a child was sick, or what saint’s feast fell on which day of the week. Even to the getting of children itself.

“If you do not wish to wake one of the men, I can go,” said my sister.

“Wander around the palace in your smock? That you will not!”

“I shall have my nightgown. Why not? What harm can it do?”

“Your good name…”

“Stuff! Once you had more force of mind than that.”

I sat up again. “And so I have. Enough to care for your good name, with my lord Maltravers away. I shall go.”

“You?”

“Yes,” I said, pushing back the furs.

“If you do not care to send me, or one of the women, then send one of the watch at your door. I will write for you, if you would not have a clerk know what you wish to say.”

“No.” It was as if the frost tingled in my veins as it used to at Grafton, calling me out to ride across the fields, cheeks red and nose nipped with cold. I could not bear to sit in my chamber, waiting in the dark for Margaret’s return.

I stood up. “I shall go. I am the Queen, and that is my will. None will question it.”

“But—but what if…”

She was right. If Edward were not alone, it would be an insult to me that the whole palace would know of by the morning. “You may come with me, and ask if His Grace will receive you. I shall be hooded; they will not think that it might be the Queen. And if he receives you, I shall enter too.”

Sleepy guards looked up and saw us pass, Margaret leading the way with a nod to them, and my face hooded. Icy air whistled along the passages and snatched at our nightgowns as if we stood on a heath. Through the King’s presence chamber, where
pages and men-at-arms slept restlessly about the fire, through his great chamber, and his privy chamber, to his bedchamber door. When the guard opened it to bear Margaret’s message, the light from within spread across the floor at our feet and seemed to warm it.

Edward was sitting by the fire with a nightgown cast over shirt and hose, with Hastings and the page Grey—my oldest grandson, though I only acknowledged him privily—in attendance. I could not see that they had been dicing or singing, or doing anything but drink. They looked around as we entered, then rose. As I curtsied, I put back my hood.

“Madam,” said Hastings, astonished. His bow, though not steady, went full to the prescribed depth.

“Go to bed, William,” said Edward, coming forward to raise me but dropping my hand as soon as I stood. “Boy, escort my lady Maltravers to her chamber.”

They went out and he waved to me to sit, but stayed standing. He towered over me, the great bulk of him wrapped in velvet and gold, his eyes small and bright in the flesh of his face.

He said at last, “What brings you, Ysa?”

“I…” I began, but could not go forward. All I could think of was that which I must not speak of, unless he did so first.

“Are you wakeful?”

“No more than any night.”

“So why did you come? In this cold, alone.”

“I was not alone, I had my sister with me. I came because…” From somewhere close by came a giggle. The sound was like a blow in the face.

“No, Ysa, that is not what you think.”

“No?”

“No…Oh, for God’s sake, you know how it is with me! If it
were
a woman of mine, it would still mean nothing, and you know it!”

I pressed down my hurt.

He turned away. “Besides, it’s no woman, it’s young Hatton’s catamite. Will you drink Rhenish? Or would you have me call for a different wine?”

“No, no. A little Rhenish, if you please, my lord.”

He filled two cups, and handed one to me. He did not pick up his own, but held out his right hand to me, palm up. “And do you know what this hand has done?”

“Yes.”

“Say it!”

“It has signed the warrant,” I said.

“Of what?”

“The lawful warrant of execution of the sentence that His Grace the Duke of Clarence be put to death.”

“Of my brother. I have killed my brother.”

“You had no choice.”

“Oh, but I had, Ysa. I could have chosen as I chose before.” He turned away, then drank deep, staring into the fire.

“You chose to trust him and he betrayed you, time and time again.” The Rhenish was beginning to warm my cheeks, but my hands were chill. I held them to the fire. “Many men—many kings—would not have done so much. You gave him everything he wanted, and still he did as he did. The time had come to finish it. Now it is finished.”

He spoke low, as if to the infernal depths of the fire. “Perhaps if Edmund had not been killed…”

“Perhaps. Who is to say? We cannot know what might have been.”

He raised his head. “By God, you’re like your brother Antony when you speak thus. Are you a philosopher now, Ysa?”

“No, indeed I am not.”

He smiled. “I think you were born to be a queen.” He poured us both more wine. “Did you know it when you were a little girl?”

“No. I knew my fate would be as it first appeared: to be the wife of some good knight.” I drank. The Rhenish smelled of flowers. “And so I was. Though sometimes my father would jest that my mother might indeed have been a queen by her first husband, were it not for—” I stopped, but contrived to hold my face in the likeness of jesting.

He was not deceived. “Were it not for Henry?”

I was silent.

“So I am twice a murderer?”

“No!” I cried. “These matters must be ended, by whatever means is best. Finished. Sometimes it is in battle. Sometimes it is…otherwise. Great matters—the business of a kingdom, a man’s business, and a man’s end…” I got up from my chair and moved toward him, slowly enough to hold his gaze. “And you are a man, sire. A man, and more.” I put my hand up to his cheek. It was full and slack these days, cracked with sun and cold, stained with drinking. But it was still gold as well as red that glittered harshly along his jaw, and in his neck and collarbone the muscles were thick under my fingers. I saw his eyes arrested, and rejoiced even as I turned my head so that the candlelight might catch my cheek and the lock of hair that had escaped my cap and fallen on my breast. “A man, and a king.”

He took my hand from his cheek and kissed the palm. “In this light you might be Lady Grey again, and I a lad, crazed with desire.”

I pressed closer to him. “If I were Lady Grey, I would not be here.”

“Would you not?” he said, smiling as he smiled at my maids, my women, my ladies, my brothers’ wives.

I mastered my anger. “You know I would not.”

He gripped me to him and his fingers bit hard into the thin flesh of my waist. “No, you would not. But you are here, and I want you.”

He was hurting me, but I pressed my mouth to his. He tasted stale, of Rhenish and weariness. Then he pulled away and said, “You are not frightened to kiss a murderer?”

“You are no murderer, sire, so I will kiss you.” I made to kiss him again, but still he pulled away.

“Ysa, I am sorry. I am but poor company this night. Shall I call a boy to escort you to your apartments?”

I felt near to tears, but they would not help me, or him. I steadied myself. “Sire, I would not trouble you for the world if you are sad or weary. But I think you ought not to be alone tonight, and if you wish, I can bear you company. There is no need of more.”

After a moment he pulled me into his arms, resting his chin on the top of my head and letting out a great sigh. “Yes, I am weary, Ysa, and you too, I think. But with you I can hope to sleep as I have not these many days.”

I took his hand, and with my other snuffed all the candles but one between finger and thumb. “Then come to bed, husband.”

He let me lead him, meek as a lamb, and when we were in bed put his arms around me as a child hugs a much-loved poppet. I kissed his brow but said nothing, and lay watching the light from the fire painting the chamber dark red.

I thought that perhaps he slept. Then suddenly he spoke into the night. “They asked his will as to the manner of his death. My
brother jested that his will was to be drowned in a butt of good sweet wine.”

The watch called three o’clock.

He pushed himself up on his elbow so that cold air clutched at me. “It is done.”

“Oh, love.” I raised myself a little to kiss him. “Then you may sleep at last.”

“Ysa, my brother is dead. I have caused him to be killed. How can I ever sleep again?”

“He was confessed and shriven,” I said. “He was lawfully condemned. Now he is at rest, more than he ever was in life.”

Edward turned toward me. “Aye, that he is.” He smiled. “He is at rest…Oh, wife, I love you.”

He bent his head and kissed me, and suddenly it was as if we were young again, his mouth hungry for me and my body arching with desire.

We knew each other so well. It is not a thing that one forgets, and in remembering each other, we could forget ourselves, and the world. Only the arts of desire were in our minds, and our bones and bodies fitted together as well as they had ever done. And our souls too, I thought, in my heat, like two lutenists, twisting their song together and apart and together again. Was that not why he still wished for me on such a night, not the score of others, younger and sweeter, that he might have had?

We were hot amid the velvet and furs of his bed, and the linen clung to the sweat on his broad back. His eyes were glazed with desire, and when he pushed me onto my belly, I laughed again.

A hoarse cry sounded without the window. I felt Edward start, every muscle alert and his heart racing. Then frosty air bore in the sound of the guard: tramping boots, sergeants calling, the clat
tering of arms. For a moment I thought that all would yet be well. And then I knew it would not. His desire was gone.

He pulled himself off me and lay facedown.

I reached to touch the back of his neck. “Love—”

He shook his head as if my fingers were a fly that bothered him hardly at all. “We should leave one another alone, Ysa. I am no lad, and nor—with no discourtesy—are you a lass, to be tumbling together without a care in the world. We should have done with love. You should go back to your children, and I to my counting-house, and think no more of such things.”

Then he turned his back to me and pulled the covers over his shoulder, as one who will go to sleep.

What comfort could I give him, if my body were not comfort enough? Had I been a fool to think he still desired me, though we were ten years married, and had got ten children together? My body could no longer drive all sorrow and fret away for him, as once it had, leaving only desire. What words could I utter to comfort him instead? His women no doubt babbled flattery while he cuckolded their husbands or took their maidenheads. But I could not shape such falsehoods, for on my lips he would know them for what they were, and they would not reach him in his despair, any more than the pretty piping of a cabin boy will save a great ship from sinking.

I turned away from him and buried myself among the icy linen at the furthest edge of the bed that he might not feel the tremors that forced hot tears up into my throat and spilled them onto the pillow.

“Ysa?”

If I spoke, I would sob till dawn.

“Ysa, do you weep?”

I nodded. I felt the bed sway under me, and then his chest pressed to my back. He put his arms around me, and gathered me in to him. I was wholly held in his warmth, in the depths of his flesh.

He kissed the corner of my jaw, and I felt my tremors stilled by his warmth.

“Sweet, do not weep. We have done great things, you and I. We have made a kingdom rich and peaceful. We have rid ourselves of our enemies. And you”—gently he turned me toward him—“you have borne three fine heirs to the kingdom, and raised daughters almost as beautiful as you that all Europe wants for wives. Where would I be without my queen?”

I smiled, though the tears were still cold in the corners of my eyes. He kissed me on the mouth and I clung to him, so that the kiss went on even to the quickening of my desire, and his. All cleverness, all cozening had drained from me with my tears. He moved to the middle of the bed and drew me with him. For a moment my cheek touched his pillow: it was still wet with his own weeping.

We employed no arts of desire now. We held each other face to face and kissed, and when at last he took me and I him, it seemed that our love was plain and sweet and good.

Antony—Compline

Ned was three years old when we went to Ludlow. He had
Ysa’s pale gold hair, and the promise of his father’s great height in his long-fingered little hands that gripped the reins above mine as best they might. He is twelve years old now, almost a man. But even in his earliest years none could see him, still less hear him speak so wisely of weighty matters, and not think him the scion of his great father, of the blood of the Mortimers, even as the Rolls show it, even to King Arthur himself and thence to the great Brutus. At least, thus do the scribes and astrologers tell it, and the common people credit them, and look upon their monarch with wonder.

Louis and I could not always be together, for all men of worship must look to their affairs and those of the world. Nor were we inclined to give the world food for its malice by making a public
show of what was our private love. After our pilgrimage Louis owed his estates in Gascony much care and Edward still had a use for him in missions when secrecy was most needed. As for me, even without the care of Ned at Ludlow, and the ruling of the Welsh Marches, I had much to do in England about my own and the King’s affairs. And thus it was for some years: we would spend a few weeks together, then many months apart, so that we grew accustomed, and parted as long-standing lovers do, with much sorrow in our hearts but with little said and that of little things, for the great matters needed no words.

When the King’s messengers arrived at Ludlow, mud-spattered and weary, it was as if they must tell us that the sun were snuffed out. “My lord, the King is dead. God save the King!”

For the beat of a heart I would not believe them. But the Council seal on the letters they held out told that they spoke truth.

“May God have mercy on his soul!” I knelt, bared my head, bowed it before God, and crossed myself. A scuffle of men and spurs told me that the others followed my lead.

For a moment I held Edward’s soul up to God, for if he had indeed a great need of forgiveness, who on this earth had earned it more hardly?

Then I rose and turned to Richard Grey. “Nephew, where is the Prince? Or, I should say, the King?”

“With his confessor, Uncle. I saw them go out into the herb garden.”

“Let no man speak of this, or go to him, till I have told him the news.”

It was but two days after Saint Gregory, and the wind that blew in over the Marches from Wales had little of the warmth of
spring in it. For a moment I stood in the shadow of Mortimer’s Tower and watched Ned where he pranced between the rue and rosemary bushes. He spoke, Sir Peter answered, and they both laughed, Ned’s a boy’s laugh, light and easy.

This, then, was what nearly thirteen years of Elysabeth’s care and ten of mine, of our teaching, of our love, had come to. Such as he was—such a king as he would become—was of God’s and our making.

But I hesitated. Although God would not give Ned kingship at his crowning for some weeks yet, when I spoke, my boy would know himself to be Edward, by the grace of God King of England and France and Lord of Ireland, the fifth of that name since the Conquest. And try as I must—for the business of the kingdom waited on it—I could not bring myself to step forward and tell him what he had become. He is tall, it is true, but his body is a boy’s, lightly built, malleable, his bones yet fragile and his skin still thin. How heavy is the mantle that his father, in dying too soon, cast upon his son’s small shoulders? Ned’s hands are still so slender that in the sunlight you might fancy you could see the bones beneath the blue veins that thread through his white skin.

Anger gripped me then, as it grips me now, three months later, with the walls of Pontefract dark above me against the evening sun.

Edward knew well the weight of kingship, and never once regretted it. But Edward was a man, as strong and quick and clever as any in the world, and he chose his destiny for himself. Even so, when he had won it—when he had no enemies left to fight, but only daughters to sell—he let pleasure and profit, not philosophy, rule him. He grew high in flesh and slack, the bright gold of him tarnished. It was as if to govern a peaceful kingdom well—for so
he did—was not enough for him. He spent his strength on women’s bodies, drowned his quickness in wine, wasted his cleverness in choosing silks and sauces. Why did he not heed the wisdom of the ages and his doctors, and moderate his life? Had he but cared as much for his body’s health as for his kingdom’s, not given in to his flesh’s demand for pleasure, then it need not have fallen out as it has. To say that it is God’s will is true enough, but we are in part masters of our fate, for God has given us that mastery. And Edward was more master of his fate than most, for he was subject to no man. How dared he yield to the desires of the flesh, I raged, and leave my boy to bear the weight of a crown that is surely too heavy for a child’s neck?

It was a heavy weight indeed. Yet all would be well, I hoped and prayed, for Ned was wise and learned beyond his years. Richard of Gloucester would make as able and shrewd a Protector as a kingdom could hope for. Then there was Elysabeth and her son Thomas Grey, Hastings, and all the men of the Council, holy men and noble men all. Such enmities as they held for one another would not hurt Ned, for which of them did not have the kingdom’s good at heart? All would be well, I prayed, and believed.

I stood for one more moment, watching my boy in the last, laughing air of his boyhood.

Then I stepped forward.

Ned and Sir Peter turned and began to stroll toward me.

“Sire,” called Ned, “have you heard? There’s a band of mummers come to the town. May I command that they should come to the castle?”

“Your Grace, I have not yet given you your penance,” said Sir Peter. On another day I would have reproved Ned. But not on this day.

“Your pardon, Sir Peter,” I said. And then to Ned, “Sire, your father the King is dead. By God’s grace, long may you live and reign.”

I knelt before him, and Sir Peter did too.

Ned stood, spellbound.

Then he held out his hand for me to kiss, as if it did not belong to him anymore but to some stranger who had come to inhabit his body.

Elysabeth wrote publicly of the decision of Edward’s executors, of whom she was the chief. Though a full army would be an escort proper to the estate of the new King as he progressed to his capital, she wrote, she was mindful of Hastings’s advice: so great a show of force might inflame the embers of Lancastrian hate, most especially since our road from Ludlow to London must pass through Warwickshire and all but under the walls of Warwick’s castle at Coventry. So we were to muster but two thousand men: Richard of Gloucester would meet us on the road from York and join his forces to ours for the entry into London.

Privily, Elysabeth wrote that all seemed to be well, and that she would be joyful indeed to see her Ned. Dickon too, though she had told him that his big brother would have little time for play when he arrived. The exchequer was full, and Edward had done his best to set matters in order as he lay dying: he had commanded Thomas Grey and Hastings to be reconciled for the good of the realm. If Elysabeth knew that one cause of her son’s enmity for her husband’s closest friend was not only land and rivalry for the favor of the King but also for the favor of Elizabeth Shore, who had once been the most beloved mistress of Edward himself, she did not write of it. Nor did she write a great deal of her own grief,
save that she had no hours to spare for her sorrow, through press of the business of the realm. Whether this were true I could not tell from her secretary’s neat hand. I knew that she must grieve, for she had come to love Edward beyond the politic love that any queen must declare for her king. But to know truly what lay in her heart, I must wait until I reached London, and we could be private, for she did not readily speak of such matters in the presence of her household. In the meantime, I could only hope that Margaret and our other sisters would comfort her.

It took some weeks to muster the men and make all ready for our progress, for I decided to disband the household rather than bear the cost of maintaining it: we would not be keeping so many men and arms—such royal state—again. To my joy, Louis arrived, and paid homage to Ned, who smiled on him, for Louis was just such a bold-seeming knight as a boy will admire. Nonetheless, we had to make safe the Marches we were leaving behind us. Then there was fit lodging for ourselves to be arranged for the road ahead, and billets for the men. Nor could we hope to be in London in time for Saint George’s Day, so we must wait to celebrate it in Ludlow with particular ceremony. But we left on the following day, and were rewarded for the delay with better weather. The road was long, but the sun shone, and we had hawks and dogs with us, so that we were not without amusement when time permitted. I desired to show Ned that all pleasure need not be put aside now that he was King. He knew well how hard his father had worked, but too many of Edward’s pleasures had not been ones that I could speak of to a boy of his years.

Two thousand men cannot move fast, still less so when they have the arms and goods of a prince’s household to carry with them. We whiled away the miles in talking of the coronation, of
his Council, of what gifts and dispensations it would be proper to his state to make, and what would most surely secure the realm.

“Your mother will best advise you on these matters. She knows well what can be spared of rents and duties, and who deserves them most.”

“Will my uncle Gloucester not also advise me?”

“Certainly, and you will do as he advises. But until you are crowned he is Protector of the realm, and he will be much taken up with affairs of state. Besides, from his long ruling of the north, he knows less well what is toward with the London merchants, for example, and the contracts to supply the household.”

“I understand,” said Ned, and I thought that he did.

We rode through the steep green hills and red earth of the Welsh Marches and into the more open land around Hereford. The fields were just beginning to haze with green, and ewes heavy with wool butted their sturdy lambs away impatiently. I pointed them out. “There is your private wealth, sire, and England’s too. Your father has left you well provided for.”

We came to Stony Stratford on the last day of April, Ned sagging in the saddle with weariness when he thought himself unseen. “This was your great father’s favorite hunting lodge,” I said. “And it was here that he lodged when he was married to your lady mother.” As we approached, we saw a man riding to greet us, bearing Richard of Gloucester’s boar badge. Their Graces of Buckingham and Gloucester were arrived in Northampton already, he said, and begged that when I had settled the King and his train into his lodging, and myself in mine at Northampton, I would dine with them.

As many stayed at Stony Stratford as there was lodging, and among them was Louis, for we take care that no man shall know
us for lovers beyond that love that any man may have for a true comrade in arms. And it was politic, too, I said to him, as I made ready to ride back to Northampton. I would know what was talked of among the new King’s retinue. When all was in order, I left Richard Grey to guard Ned, jointly with my cousin Haute, and Vaughan, that loved Ned like his own son and had long been his faithful servant.

I have seen Rome, and Lisbon, and Paris, but when I was a boy, Northampton looked to me as grand as I imagined London to be, and the road to it from Grafton an Appian Way of promise. I smiled as we reached my lodging in the high street: one of three inns, all meet for the custom of the nobility and gentry, said the bowing landlord, though his inn, he trusted, was the best-appointed. Their Graces were housed in the inns on either side.

That night at Northampton we dined, and drank a little but not too much, and used each other courteously, making plans for the progress of the King and the coronation. I had not long since begged Richard of Gloucester to arbitrate in a dispute with one of my tenants, and we spoke of that and other business of our private estates. He has a quick mind for such matters, and an instinct for what is both fair and politic. At dawn I rose and made ready to go to Ned: we were but a day’s ride from London.

But the doors of my lodging were barred from the outside, and the men that held me prisoner were Richard of Gloucester’s.

They say that each man destroys the thing he loves the most. Through my agency Ned is destroyed, for though he lives, he is alone, and I cannot hope that he will ever be crowned. Day after day and night after night in the chill quiet of Sheriff Hutton I have known that it was my own failure, and no other, that Ned was
taken from my guardianship. By comparison with that, my own death is as naught.

And yet, wherein did I fail? Where—at what moment—did I decide wrongly? To this day I do not know. Sometimes I have thought that it would be easier to bear if I could comfort myself that we had fought Richard of Gloucester and been defeated in battle, that Ned was torn from my hold. I did mistrust Buckingham, for he hated all Wydvils, including his wife. But Richard was in command, a prince of the blood royal, and I did not know Richard for an enemy. He was my fellow in faithfulness to the memory of his brother, and in care for our new King. If he cleaved more to Hastings, and took his part in Hastings’s enmity for my nephew Thomas Grey and my brothers, it was no more than the usual matter of disputes over land tenure, precedence, and women.

I destroyed my boy because I trusted a man I had no reason not to trust: a sworn knight, an honorable ruler, the most faithful brother of our late King.

Men pray that they will know the hour of their death. You might say I knew it then, and but for the wild dreams of hope that overcome me in moments of despair, and make my despair worse when they flee again, I have known it ever since.

We were outnumbered and but lightly armed, for the main body of our force was with the new King. When they unbarred the doors, I was arrested in the Protector’s name, on a charge of attempting to rule the realm and the King, of plotting the destruction of the blood royal—the Protector himself. I argued my case: I was the King’s legal guardian by Edward’s own appointment; Gloucester was not yet confirmed Protector; I had done no plotting but only fulfilled the late King’s charge as best I might.