Daughter of York (13 page)

An hour later, after bidding the last of her guests a good night, Margaret told Jane to fetch their cloaks for a short stroll in the night air. Jane hurried from the hall and pulled Ann with her. “Our mistress wants to walk in the garden,” she said, making a face. “’Tis freezing out there. What can she be thinking?”

Ann groaned. She had made some headway with a young squire in Edward’s retinue and was hoping for some stolen kisses before she had to ready Margaret for bed. “We had better put on our pattens, too,” she sighed, looking down at the long green points of her fashionable crakows peeping out from beneath her hem, “or these will be ruined. Do hurry, Jane. You are slower than a snail, I swear.”

“But I long for my bed,” the indolent young woman complained, but followed Ann out of the room.

Many of Edward’s younger retainers were already curled up in their cloaks near the still roaring fire as Margaret’s servants lowered the huge chandelier to extinguish the dozens of candles. Margaret left the hall on her steward’s arm, and he escorted her back to her chambers. They wished each other good night, and the man bowed and left. As soon as the door closed, Margaret called to Jane, who hurried in with her mistress’s cloak and pattens. Ann followed close behind. Without a word, Margaret crossed to descend the central stairway that led to the inner courtyard, and with the two bemused young women in her wake, glided under the archway in the west wing of the palace into the garden beyond. Less formal
than the inner court’s manicured lawn and low border hedges, it was a pleasant place with large trees, bushes and shrubs. In the summer it was a riot of colorful flowering plants, but now the leafless trees were ghostly in the March moonlight and made eerie shadows on the icy ground. Ann and Jane shivered, partly from cold and partly from fear.

“Do be sensible, ladies. There are guards at every entrance to the palace. Who do you think will attack us, pray?” Margaret teased them, picking her way carefully on the slippery path. “I know you think I have lost my mind, but I know what I am doing. I must ask you to be discreet and not divulge anything you may see. Do you understand?”

The women nodded, openmouthed. What was their mistress doing—except walking out in the middle of a cold night—that would be of any interest to anyone? And then they saw him, a man who stepped out of the shadow of a large yew bush and called, “Lady Margaret,” in a hoarse whisper. The two ladies-in-waiting strained to see who could possibly be expecting their mistress, but he kept in the shadows. Margaret told them to stay where they were and keep up a quiet conversation. She walked the few dozen yards to where John Harper waited. He whisked her out of sight of the women, and his lips were on hers, his tongue filling her mouth so that she could not breathe.

“Master Harper, I pray you, give me air,” she said, pulling away and laughing. “’Tis unchivalrous of you not to begin with some sweet words of love. Or to give me the respect due my rank!”

“Madam, you are cruel,” John said, taking her hand and covering it with kisses. “If I declare my love for you, you know it must be unrequited, certes, because of your rank, and so what is the point? I have longed for you since our last meeting and did not dare to hope you would grant me such an interview. I might write poems about your eyes, your lips, your grace and your kindness, madam, but I am no poet, I am ashamed to say.”

Again Anthony’s face was conjured up, but she quickly banished it from her mind. This young man was here and now, and she enjoyed his kisses. He was part of Edward’s household and as such was aware that his very fate was in her hands. He would not dare to tread where she did not wish to go. And what was the harm in a few kisses? But she was new to lovemaking and had no idea how urgent a man’s desire became once
aroused. She did not know she was toying with him, being naive in the ways of seduction.

“I do not need poems, John. I need you to
speak
to me of your passion. Your few words were a good start. Now tell me more about my eyes.” She was coy, and John knew it. But he was in love, and if that was what she wanted, he would not deny her.

“Your eyes remind me of the light that comes between sundown and night. Dusky gray I would call them, and of such luster I cannot describe. I can only imagine your hair—’tis always hidden by those monstrous hennins—but in my dreams I feel it in my fingers, thick and soft like the finest silk cloth.”

She pushed the voluminous hood of her cloak back from her headdress, lifted off the brocade pillbox hennin, unpinned the braid underneath and let her honey-colored hair tumble over her shoulders to her waist. It was too much for John. He took handfuls of the tresses and pressed them to his lips and then pulled her to him, their faces inches apart. He could just make out the smile that curved her mouth in the moonglow before he kissed her again, slowly. She could feel his hardness against her, and she was sorely pressed not to reach down and touch it. He seemed to be moving against her in a most erotic fashion, all the while kissing her more deeply. Suddenly he moaned in her mouth, and she remembered the scene in the bridge room at Baynard’s. Now she understood! ’Twas pleasure, not pain, she had heard. She was puzzled that she did not feel moved to moan until she felt him lift her skirt and put his fingers where even she had never dared explore. An explosion rocked her and she gasped and groaned at the same time. Her eyes flew wide as the exquisite sensation lingered for several seconds, and she saw John watching and smiling triumphantly. He dropped her skirt and kissed her gently this time, holding her wilted body close.

“Now I believe we are both pleasured, my lady. I trust we have not frightened your ladies.”

Margaret sprang away, her hand over her mouth. “Sweet Virgin! Ann and Jane! What must they be thinking? Do you think they heard?” She was so childlike in her confusion that he could not forbear taking her in his arms one last time, kissing away her embarrassment. “Nay, lady, you were very discreet, I can assure you! But now I must go before my master notices my absence.”

“Aye, and I must away as well.” Margaret tucked all her hair under her hood and hid her hennin under her cloak. “God speed, Master Harper. And … um …” She was at a loss whether to thank him or wish him good night as though they had merely danced again.

He spared her the decision. “Nay, thank
you,
my lady. In my dreams I could not be as content as I am at this moment.”

And he was gone, leaving her to gather her wits and allow him enough time to disappear inside the palace. Then she strained to see Ann and Jane, who had their backs to her and were stamping their feet to keep warm and chattering much too fast. They turned at her approach and pretended not to notice her disheveled appearance. But Jane bent down surreptitiously and retrieved the trailing veil that had come away from the hennin and had dropped behind Margaret as she walked back to their lodgings.

Margaret glanced up at the king’s private apartment and saw two figures facing each other illuminated by a single candle in a window. Edward was holding Eleanor’s hand. Margaret thought she saw a third figure, hovering in the background, make the sign of the cross. It looked like Bishop Stillington.

Nay, she thought, I must be dreaming, and passed under the arch.

“N
OT AGAIN
!” M
ARGARET
groaned when she heard the news that the Northumbrian castles had once more fallen into Lancastrian hands. “I suppose that means Edward will have to go north.”

It was high summer, and Greenwich was dressed in its best. Emerald green grass carpeted the courtyards, flowers of every hue graced the gardens and the river sparkled in the sunshine. A peacock strutted on the lawn in the inner courtyard, its tail spread in a proud fan of teal, blue, gold and green. George and Richard had finished their studies for the day and had been told this news by their tutor.

“Aye, he has gone north,” George grumbled, “and he did not ask me to go with him. Meggie, when will I be old enough to be considered a man?”

“Soon, George, I warrant. When you are sixteen.” Margaret dragged her eyes from her latest passion, Geoffrey Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales,
to answer her disgruntled brother. “You have only a little more than a year to
wait. Though ’tis a mystery to me why men hunger to fight. You could be killed or, even worse, maimed for life. Certes, I do not understand you.”

“’Tis our duty to fight for our brother, the king,” piped up Richard. “Just as it will be your duty to marry for him.”

George guffawed, and Richard looked pleased with himself. Margaret glared at them, turned her back and put her nose back in the book. She pretended to be reading, and, thinking their sport with her was at an end, the boys chose another and ran off to the archery butts. Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. She applied herself again to Master Chaucer’s words. She was reading the preamble to the tale told by the wife of Bath when she was startled by the lines:

Or where commanded God virginity?

I read as well as you no doubt have read

The apostle when he speaks of maidenhead;

He said, commandment of the Lord he’d none.

She looked around the room guiltily as though someone could see what she was reading, but her ladies were all occupied with their needlework and gossip, and so she read on:

Men may advise a woman to be one,

But such advice is not commandment, no;

He left the thing to our own judgment so.

Was this true? Saving one’s maidenhood for the sanctity of marriage was as innate to her as breathing or sleeping. She had wondered if John Harper’s wandering fingers counted, and she had whispered her confession of their tryst to the shadowy priest behind the grille in the confessional, praying he would not recognize her. She felt better afterwards, thinking God had pardoned her. She had worried she might be with child, having limited knowledge of how her body worked, and was relieved when her courses had reappeared later in the month. Now, if she understood the wife of Bath’s implication—and if she could trust in Master Chaucer’s knowledge of the Scriptures—losing one’s maidenhead before marriage was not breaking God’s law.

A bell rang the Terce and banished these thoughts. More by rote than by inclination, she picked up her rosary and ran through the empty king’s
apartments to the royal chapel and knelt on a tapestry-covered footstool before the altar. The chaplain smiled at her; she was never late for her prayers. As soon as she was joined by other members of her household, he began the service. Margaret prayed for her family, for the souls of her departed father and brother, and then she prayed for a quick end to any fighting in Northumbria and especially for Edward’s safety. Finally she sneaked in a quick Ave for John—assuming he was with Edward—and for Anthony. She had learned that Anthony had been keeping his wife company in Norfolk during the spring, and she had been in the doldrums for a while upon hearing it. She did not know that he had departed for the north once more with a body of men to join the earl of Warwick, who had followed his brother, Lord Montagu, to reclaim those pesky Northumbrian castles.

“Lord God, keep them both in your loving care, and I pray you make an end to all the fighting.”

It seemed God heard her and had acted quickly, for upon leaving the chapel, she was almost knocked down by Richard, who, intent on besting George with his bow and arrow, had not heeded the call to prayer as she had.

“The queen and her son are fled to Scotland! Montagu beat back their army! The castles are ours again,” the boy cried, breathless. “Sir John Howard has come to tell us. We are safe from the She-Wolf, Meggie. Safe!”

Margaret smiled at his excitement, took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the privy chamber nearby where Jack was waiting.

“Lady Margaret.” He smiled, doffing his bonnet and bowing over her hand. She noticed a circle of gray hair amid the black on the crown of his head. “I trust young Lord Richard here gave you the good news. ’Tis a week or two old, but I heard it aboard ship at Sandwich and came straightway to tell you. Nay, I was not involved in the fighting, my lady,” he said, anticipating her next question. “Your brother, the king’s grace, commanded I ready the fleet for possible war with the French. The earl of Warwick and his brother were victorious, it seems, and your brother and all his friends are now staying at Fotheringhay.”

Margaret nodded absently, for her attention was riveted on a diminutive creature with a saturnine countenance cowering behind the chair
Jack had just vacated. She was dressed in a miniature gown of a style Margaret did not recognize. The embroidered bodice was laced up to a plain, modest neckline. Enormous pleated sleeves, which were a different color from her dress, ballooned over the dwarf’s upper arms, making the shoulders appear disproportionately large. A piece of soft silk was pinned over her neatly braided black hair. Margaret saw that this little person was fastidious about her appearance, which surprised Margaret, for having never seen a dwarf before, she had preconceived notions that their ways were as abnormal as their bodies. She had always thought the condition was a cruel joke played by God.

And then she saw the eyes. Now wide with terror, as black as coal and framed in long, soft lashes, they were the girl’s most arresting feature. Margaret held them in her gaze, and her heart melted at the fear she could plainly read in them. Forgetting her first distaste, she smiled. “Who is this, I pray, Sir John? I do not remember her accompanying you before.”

Jack beamed, clapping his hat back on his head. “This, my lady, is Fortunata. She is a gift from me to you, if you will take her,” he said with a flourish.

Margaret was taken aback. “For … for me? ’Tis gracious, Sir John, but why for me?”

“Ah, I see you do not recall our last meeting, when you expressed a wish to have your own Jehan Le Sage to keep you company and amused, Lady Margaret. Certes, when I encountered Fortunata, I straightway thought of you. I pray you honor this simple man and take his simple gift. She is Italian but speaks English quite well, I believe.” John ushered Fortunata towards Margaret, hoping he would not have to answer any more questions. The dwarf, a grim expression set on her sallow face, made an awkward little bow.