A Secret Alchemy (32 page)

Mark holds out a hand to me, palm down, the way you do when you want to touch someone just a little, at a safe distance. “Yes, I stayed…” Our eyes meet, but not with the heat of our shared past and present as they did at the castle. He looks tired and a little sad. Maybe he feels I’m a safe distance away from him, safe enough to say these things, to ask for just a little help. His hand cups the back of mine for a moment.

The touch of him is like an ache and I long for more, as if only his whole body will assuage my hopeless exhaustion. And he feels it too. I can tell in the way his hand opens to grasp mine completely, in the heat of his palm and the grip of his fingers. We stand for a long moment, and my heart begins to slam in my chest. Adam, where are you?

I haven’t said it aloud, but almost as if I had, he seems to withdraw into himself. Then he stoops, and brushes my cheek with his lips. “Good night, Una. Sleep well.”

“Good night, Mark.”

Then we turn and unlock our separate rooms, and go to bed alone.

Elysabeth—the 1st yr of the reign of King Edward the Fifth

They called me froward that I would not heed the Council. They called
me a sorceress, and that woman of Edward’s too, Mistress Shore, at which I would have laughed if by the same man I had not heard that my lord Hastings was arrested in the Council chamber and killed within the hour. They said that Prince Richard, Duke of York—my
little Dickon—had no right to sanctuary for he had done no wrong, and his brother the King had need of young company in the royal apartments of the Tower while he made ready for his coronation.

With Antony a prisoner and Hastings dead, the two men on the Council that had the most care and love for Edward’s children were gone. The great and honest men left to govern had no other power than Richard’s by which to do the business of the realm. Yet, much though I heeded their concern that my refusal set the people against them, I would not give up Dickon.

They called me Medea, destroying my children’s liberty to avenge my enemies. But Edward was no Jason, and how could I be destroying the things I loved best in the world, my own two youngest sons yet living? I would not be beaten: point by point, I argued my case. I said that sanctuary protects the innocent as much as the guilty and that they might rather bring Ned here to Westminster if he was in want of diversion and a mother’s care. They put forth no argument that I did not refute.

The better to change my mind, they surrounded the sanctuary buildings at Westminster so tightly with Richard of Gloucester’s men-at-arms that they could have broken in at a word. From every window we could see them, and they us. To break sanctuary is a terrible thing. But I could not be sure that Richard of Glouces ter would not give such a word. Tewkesbury Abbey was not a chartered sanctuary, but many men still thought ill of Edward that after the battle he had dragged his enemies from it, and had them headed in the marketplace. And Richard had learned from his brother in so many things.

I knew on what errand they came that day, yet still I was glad to see good old Archbishop Thomas of Canterbury when he entered the Abbot’s hall with other lords of the Council. He was a
big man, Thomas, comfortable-looking in his cardinal’s scarlet, with a broad face that creased easily into smiles. Many times after yet another council meeting that had ended in shouting and the threat of challenges, he had come to my private apartments, and sat by the fire, and spoken calmly of how these squabbles could be smoothed over. Then we would pray, and I would kneel to him for his blessing, and that night sleep would come to me more easily.

It was but a week before the eve of Saint John. Mummers were to come, if they could be persuaded to do nothing that would offend on this consecrated ground, and I had promised Dickon and the little girls that they might go up onto the roof to see the bonfires. I stood on the dais of the Abbot’s hall, holding Dickon by the hand, Bess and Cecily in waiting on me. Had all gone well, they would both have been wed by now, safe in the care of their husbands. I was married to John Grey and a mother at their age. My beautiful Mary had been in her grave a year, but it seemed to me that she hovered between her sisters as she had in life. Was my son Richard Grey dead too, deep in the dark towers of Middleham? And what of Thomas Grey? When we heard of Antony being taken, he vanished to safety in Brittany, as we hoped, but we had heard nothing to be sure.

I banished such thoughts and stiffened my back, and listened as Thomas of Canterbury set forth the Council’s arguments yet again, that I should give up Dickon. At his words I felt weariness flood in where I would not allow terror to dwell. But there could be no rest for me until we were safe. I saw impatience grow on their faces for they could not make arguments that I could not crush, and they had no other lawful means of gaining my boy. I drew myself to my full height, and raised my voice to fill the room.

“My lords, I ask your pardon. It is not womanish fear or frowardness that makes me refuse your request, but a mother’s proper care
for her children. Did I fear to send my son Edward away to Ludlow when he was Prince of Wales, though but a babe? No, for it was for the good of the realm. But there is no good to be had by taking Richard, Duke of York, from my care, and much ill. The law allows no man to have custody of one by whose death he may benefit, be he Protector or any lesser man. I call only upon the laws of man and nature. You who have the well-being of my sons at heart will understand, I know. I know, too, that whatever his—his insults to me, which I will not repeat for scorn of them, the Protector would not do his soul so much harm as to threaten holy sanctuary. Therefore I thank you for your courtesy, my lords, and I bid you good day.”

There was a rustle among them, as if they would step closer and argue harder, for all I knew that they had no arguments left. Sure, I would be sorry if these good men wished me ill, most especially Thomas of Canterbury, and they certainly did not wish me well. But that would not make me change my mind.

Then Thomas stepped forward. He was not smiling, but looked very kindly on us. For a moment he put his hand on Dickon’s head; Dickon bowed under the blessing.

“Madam, we have dealt long and happily together, you and I, since I crowned you and anointed you so many years ago, here at Westminster. I give you my word that you need have no fear for your son. You cannot think that we of the Council would deceive you, or that we are so lacking in wit as to let the Protector deceive us.” He held up his hand. “I, Thomas Cantabriensis, Cardinal Archbishop, pledge my body and soul before God that your son, Prince Richard, will be safe both in his life and in his proper estate as Prince of the Realm and Duke of York. Amen.”

There was silence in the hall. Outside, there came the sound of marching and the clatter of steel brought to attention. Were they,
perhaps, mustering in greater numbers, waiting for the word to burst through the gate? Would they strike out at any man, priest or monk or valiant sanctuary boy, who dared oppose them? Would men, holy men, even God Himself, say that I had holy blood on my hands for being the cause of such a terrible thing?

I turned away, still holding Dickon’s hand, that I might see more clearly what I must do. I could trust Thomas of Canterbury, that I knew. Edward had trusted him for all the years of his reign, and never been betrayed as others had betrayed him. I could have faith in the kindness of his heart, and the holiness of his soul, and the shrewdness of his worldly wisdom. I could have faith in his pledge.

But it was so hard. Ned I loved, but it was Antony who saw him every day. Dickon was my little boy, and since my baby George was taken by God, he was my only son still to hang on my skirts, and hold my hand, and show me a book or a catapult or a cut knee, as once Thomas and Richard did all those years ago among the apple trees and cornfields of Grafton.

I knelt down to hold Dickon, and could not forbear to weep, though I smiled as best I might. “Son, you must go with the Archbishop, and he will take you to your brother. You may play and sing and read tales together, and be happy. When he is crowned, we will be together again.”

He gazed at me gravely, darker than Ned, with something of my mother in his long French nose and the quickness with which he looked at the great men now standing silently at the other end of the hall. He had a rheum, and his upper lip was still rough and red. “Madam, I want to see my brother, but I do not want to leave you and my sisters.”

“I know, my darling.” I took out my kerchief and wiped his nose. “But it is for the best, and you will like to see Ned. And it will
not be for long. A few weeks, at the most, and you have often been away from your sisters for that long. And you will be at the Tower. You may play Uncle Antony killing the rebels. There will be men there who defended it and can tell you many tales.”

As I spoke, I saw his face brighten. “I shall like that. Please you, madam, tell Anne and Katherine they may play with my knights, but only till I want them again. And Bridgie may have my toy dog. Now I shall soon be ten years old I shall have no need of him.”

I drew him into my arms again. “
Au revoir
, my darling. We will be together soon. And give my love and humble duty to your brother. Remember that he is your King now, and pay him all proper observances. God bless you both.”

He nodded. I rose, took his hand, and led him to Thomas of Canterbury.

“Madam, you are acting most wisely and well,” said Thomas. “The Council commends your wisdom, and is pleased that you have heeded it.” He took Dickon’s hand. “Come, sir.”

“You have pledged your soul and body,” I said to him. “Do not forget it.”

“I could no more do so than I could anoint any other king than your elder son,” he said.

Behind me, I heard a sob, muffled hastily, and then another. I could not go to comfort the girls, for if I did I would break too. The lords of the Council might think I had placed my trust in their honor; I would not let them think they had crushed me.

I stood without moving while they made their bows and kissed my hand, and I watched as Thomas of Canterbury led my son out of the hall and out of sanctuary, and all the other lords followed after him.

Antony—the Eve of Saint John

So near midsummer, so far to the north, the light takes an
age to die. The yellow sun clings to the towers of Pontefract, so that they glow like dirty gold, and touches the roof of the chapel, though the bailey, where a few men lounge about their business, is deeply shadowed. The stones still breathe the day’s heat. I have said the Office and now there is a whole night to pass. I have asked for a priest, but there is none can be here until dawn. I made my will before I began this last pilgrimage, but I must write to Elysabeth, and to my wife.

Behind me, I hear the iron shutter over the grating in the door open and close, and the bolts drawn back. Like everything of Richard of Gloucester’s ordering, they are well oiled and quiet. A servant enters, carrying the ink and paper I have asked for, and a flask of wine.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nowt.” A boy’s voice, half growl, half squeak.

“You are no gaoler.”

“Just helping out, sir. Your pardon, my lord, I should say,” says the lad. “I serve the Constable, Sir John, but he’s away south.”

“Ah.” The light has slipped from the roof of the chapel. I turn to look fully at him. He is dark and small, not like Ned in the least. “What’s your name?”

“Stephen, sir. Stephen Fairhurst.”

I reach for the flask, but my hands are shaking as they have not for years, not since my first battle, my first joust, my first woman. Not since Louis.

“If it please you…shall I pour the wine, my lord?”

There is no scorn in his voice. Perhaps he has not seen. “Yes, thank you.” The wine smells of sun and I pick up the cup to breathe it more deeply. I could get drunk tonight; I would not be the first. But how then could I comfort Richard Grey on the morrow, or pray with a whole mind, or greet my death, and my God, as I should? No, I will not get drunk.

The lad is staring at me. He is not a child, nor yet a man.

Suddenly it comes to me: he has been told I am his enemy. Does he not know that even an enemy’s hands may shake? I have known that ever since I stumbled through the trees at Towton and met Mallorie.

“Shall I pour some more?”

I hold out my cup. Now he does know. “It’s quiet, this evening” is all I say, however.

“Most of the men are gone south, my lord. His Grace sent for them?”

“Indeed.” He is older than Ned, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. “You were not sent with them?”

“No. Though why not, I don’t know. My master said as he must leave the castle well garrisoned. But I’m not a man-at-arms, only a page, and besides, there’s nowt happens here and all to do in London, they say. I would I were there…” He recollects himself, and ducks an untidy bow. “Beg pardon, my lord.”

“Stay for a cup of wine.”

“I—thank you, my lord.” He glances at the door behind him. “But—”

“Have it closed, if you like. You may call for it to be opened. Just for a little while? There’s a cup there, on the floor by the bed.” He ducks his head again, goes to the door, calls with careful ease that my lord has asked him to bear him company, and pushes the door to. The bolts slide home.

“Get the cup, and pull up that other stool.”

Stephen does so, but sits uneasily on the edge, and drinks with small, nervous gulps. I watch him. Only when he has drunk at least half of it do I ask, “So, you come from hereabouts?”

“No, I’m from Sheriff Hutton. My father was a tanner, but he died at Tewkesbury. My mother’s—friend, he got me the place here. He said there’d be ways of getting on, lords and such, all going about His Grace’s affairs. But mostly there’s nowt to do, and when there is it’s not me that’s chosen. I stand there, and some other man’s preferred. There’s only tenants and cottagers for the garrison now, and they care for nowt except being dragged away from hay-making. How can I make my way in the world, shut up in this place all the year round?”

His voice rises from proper humility to natural indignation, and then he blushes.

I drink. Is it thus with all boys? I, too, wanted to conquer the world, though more of it was offered me than a widow of Sheriff
Hutton may give her son. “And that’s what you want? To make your way?”

“Aye, that I do.”

Outside, the quiet is still hot. “But a man may also have enough of making his way. Once I was so weary of the world that I went on crusade.” His face lights up. “I said that I had rather serve God by gutting Moors in Portugal than stay in England to feast and dance and scheme. The King was not best pleased.” He stares at me. He can never have spoken to one who was the King’s friend. I could as well be speaking of King Arthur or King Agamemnon. “Edward forgave me, of course. He always forgave everyone, even his brother George. And when I returned, he gave me his son, the Prince of Wales. He charged me to…”

I cannot speak. I look away and drink a little more, and he does not break the silence. “It’s quiet tonight,” I say, when I can command my voice again.

“Aye,” says Stephen.

I am repeating myself. Does time roll over as in an hourglass, the same sand as before? When will God decide to break the glass, and shake the souls out, the better to pass judgment on them?

“And I went on pilgrimage to Rome, and to Compostela…” The thought that has been nagging at the edge of my mind suddenly takes shape. “It’s quiet. Is there no hammering, or is it that the sound does not travel?”

“No hammering?”

“Although…I must recognize that my end is not a public act. Why should Richard of Gloucester order a scaffold?”

That I should name his penultimate lord thus makes him
blush scarlet, as my talking of the King did not. “I—I don’t know. I’m—I’m sorry, my lord.”

I touch his hand. “A rhetorical question. No need for an answer.”

He smiles, relieved perhaps that he has not offended me. “More wine, my lord?” I am shaking more than I had bargained for. I wave my hand, and he pours.

I drink, drink again, set the cup down. “But a priest is ordered for—for the morning?”

Stephen clears his throat, then says hoarsely, “Of course, my lord. Sir John would have done it anyway, but His Grace most especially ordered it in one of his dispatches. He is a man of God.”

“So it is said. It is his desire to hold all earthly power that—” I stop. “Never mind…I must write some letters.”

“Will I go then, my lord?”

“No. Stay.”

There is no man that I may trust with a message. I must set what I would say down on paper, and any who would break a seal may read it—though any man might have listened to what I have said to my wife any time these ten years and found nothing worth the hearing. What would have come to me had the marriage to the King of Scotland’s sister that was proposed not foundered among the raids and bloodshed of the Borders? God knows; I cannot calculate such things.

Madam, I greet you well and send you God’s blessing and mine
.

Kind words, for though I have never loved her, yet she has been a good wife who brought a good portion, and I have a husband’s duty to her well-being of mind as well as body. I pray that the provisions I have made for her in my will are honored when I am gone.

When the letter is finished, I give it to him. “Will you see that it is sent? If you are able to wait, I should be grateful. I have only one more to write.”

“Aye, my lord.”

The light is fading fast now. I pick up flint and steel, but my hands are still shaking. Without a word Stephen takes them from me, lights the tinder and thence a taper.

I long to write to Louis, and I must not. It was through me that Ned was lost. I could not bear to think that it might be by my act that Louis were captured.

The candle flame buds and brightens as I write to Elysabeth.

At last I have done. And yet I wish that I had not: to end this letter is to end something forever. Through the window seeps night air, and what little I can see of the sky is like black velvet. I am very cold. The boy has sat quiet for all this time. Most boys cannot sit still for two minutes together, though perforce I schooled Ned in the bearing proper to a king. But this lad Stephen has a still thoughtfulness about him, which bears me company without troubling my spirit.

They tell me Richard of Gloucester will be acclaimed King tomorrow. If I cared for it, I would take it as a measure of his fear of me that he will not do so unlawful, so treasonous a deed until I am dead. But if it is a thing decided, then the law or the commons will not prevent him, any more than they have prevented him ordering my death, though the Council itself could find no grounds for arraigning me of treason. How do you fight a great man who will do as he wishes, though the rule of law says him nay? Perhaps it will always be thus while kings need great men to rule for them.

If Richard is to be proclaimed King, then my boy is lost. Richard knows better than most how easy it is to kill a king, when you have the keys of the Tower in your hand and the watch have been told to look the other way.

I am very cold. I fold my letter to Elysabeth, then take the candle and hold it aslant, putting the sealing wax to it. A heartbeat, and red falls in perfect drops onto the sallow parchment, pools into a great round, as wet and glossy as blood. The seal presses down, red lapping the brass. A breath, and up: a pilgrim’s scallop shell lies there, hard, and cooling fast.

Without a word the boy picks it up and puts it with the other, then says, “Will you take more wine, my lord? It’d warm you.”

“No, I thank you.”

“Will I fetch a blanket?”

“Yes, if you please.”

He wraps it around my shoulders. It is rough and heavy, and still I shiver. I cannot sit up all night. I have done so many a time, to pray or to make ready for battle. But I must not risk weakness of body or mind on the morrow.

The watch calls and changes. I know not how many hours I have, only that this midsummer dawn will come soon enough.

“Perhaps I should sleep now. Will you ask that I am roused when the priest arrives?” I take my rosary from the table; it is cold and heavy in my hand, for only prayer warms it.

“Aye, my lord,” says Stephen, his eyes on the click and fall of the gold beads.

I sit on the edge of the bed. “I could never sleep before a battle,” I say, and in the candlelight I can see that he is wondering how it feels to know there will be a battle on the morrow. I wrap the blanket tightly around myself and lie down, facing the chamber.

“Shall I snuff the light?”

“No. Leave it.”

My eyes are half-closed. Stephen moves quietly, slowly, putting the cups and half-empty wine jug on the tray. At length he goes to the door and raises his hand, but falters. Perhaps he thinks that I sleep, and does not wish to wake me by knocking loud to gain his freedom.

“Would you stay?” I hardly know I have spoken. It might have been a thought, not a voice. But no, he hears, and turns back.

“My lord?”

“Please, bear me company.”

So he does, and calls a message to the guards, who grunt assent.

“Take more wine, give me some, and sit down,” I say, pulling myself up a little. Stephen pours into both cups and gives one into my hands, before sitting at the table with the other. I drink, then lie down again.

If I can but think of Jason, at the end of his travels, killed by the beam of his own ship
Argos
, that was called
Dodona
for being the gift of the gods…If I can but think of him, and know that all that comes to me is God’s will likewise, then I may face death with the fortitude proper to a man.

But sleep does not come. I lie and think of Stephen. Does he know why I have asked him to stay? What can he know, truly, of what I know? He has probably never slept alone in a bed before, never faced a battle, never read a poem, never traveled further than York. He must learn: he must understand what he is yearning for.

“When I was first taken, I thought they would make away with me privily. I feared that I would not know the hour of my death.” He is staring at me. “I tried to keep my soul in readiness for the
end. I prayed all day, and every time I heard the bolts drawn back I would pray harder,
Deo, in manus tuas
. It was weeks before I realized that it would not be thus. For an hour or two I hoped. And then I understood that I would still die, and that how I died no longer mattered…” I am wide-awake. “You see”—I reach for my wine cup—“I saw that if my death need not be secret, it was because Richard of Gloucester did not fear revenge—knew Edward would never be King. And so I knew that N—that Edward must be quite in Richard’s grasp…If despair is a sin, I have sinned more since then than I have in all my years in the world.”

A drop of wine runs from the corner of my mouth and falls onto the pillow. I wipe it away. “And today I learned how right I was to fear for Edward. Did they tell you that Richard has thrust him aside?” Stephen is silent. It must be for his allegiance’s sake; he is Richard’s man, after all, wears his boar badge as well as his own master’s, as so many do. Or maybe he does not understand. “I would have wished they had kept it from me, except that there are still a few hours left to pray for Edward. Not for his rule, now. For his life.”

The blanket is falling away, and the cold air breaking through. I pull it up. “I taught him all I could. He learned of God and the saints, history, good government, the rule of men, jousting, singing, the chase…”

But these foolish things are more painful than any high matter. I must not let myself think them. “Bring me my book of hours. There, on the table.”

He puts it into my hand and I pull myself upright and open it. “Bring the candle closer, lad.” But the darkness in the chamber seems to smother the light, and I cannot make out the words. “My eyes are cloudy…Are you lettered? In Latin?”

“Aye, a little, my lord.”

“Come closer, and read me something.” I turn the pages, which are soft with study and handling. “There, the
Oratio ad sanctissimam Trinitatem
.”

He takes the book and looks at it. I had no time at Northampton, and this little book is all I could bring with me. I can see the lad is disappointed, in the book and its small, rough woodcuts, and in me as its possessor. “It’s a printed book. There are hundreds the same, made by a press, a machine, and sold for a shilling or two. You could have many yourself, full of prayers and tales and great deeds. Not just a missal.” I see his face, and laugh. “I know. Most boys do not care for book-learning. Even Ned had to be tempted to his desk, when the sun was out over the Teme and he had a new horse to try.”