Daughter of York (51 page)

Winter 1469

Margaret could not remember when she had laughed so much. Guillaume was teaching her to skate on the frozen lake in the Hesdin castle park, and it was a painful beginning.

She had watched Londoners strap sharpened animal bones to their boots and glide along the ice on the Thames one particularly cold winter. It looked so easy and so exhilarating. She and George had begged Cecily for the chance to try their skill, but Cecily had raised an eyebrow and stated, “’Tis a sport for peasants, children. How would it seem if they saw a duke’s child upended on his arse?” And the brother and sister had giggled at hearing their mother use such a coarse word. But dutifully, they returned to their perch high above the river in the warm solar and watched from the window.

Margaret had been delighted to know that everyone in Flanders knew how to skate, and ever willing to be accepted as one of them, she had agreed eagerly to Guillaume’s suggestion that she learn the art.

Instead of bones she wore sharpened metal blades strapped tightly to her little boots when she gingerly stepped out onto the ice, the hood of
her short fur-lined cloak keeping the wind from her face. She stood there, not daring to move, but with her ladies’ encouragement, she attempted a step forward. She could not believe how swiftly the skate slid out from under her. Trying desperately to gain her balance with the other foot, she shrieked as she sat down ungracefully, her heavy skirts protecting her. She could not help but laugh, remembering Cecily’s prediction. Guillaume was there in a flash to help her to her feet, and this time he suggested she hold tightly to his arm and let him guide her until she got a measure of balance. This proved to be a lengthy process, but Margaret was determined to traverse the pond once on her own before the lesson was over. Mary and Jeanne were laughing and applauding her progress, and Margaret watched with wonder as little Mary flew over the ice and even skated backwards for her.

In the meantime, Margaret watched as Guillaume gave one of her younger ladies a skating lesson, too. Henriette de Longwy was from an old Franche-Comté family, and Margaret could see the girl was hanging on Guillaume’s every word. Aha, she thought, I think I will foster this. It would give her pleasure to arrange a match that would have a better chance of happiness than her own.

Mary flew across the ice to her. “Come,
belle-mère,
I will take one arm and Madame de Halewijn the other. Now follow what we do.” Mary’s eyes were shining. She was never happier than when outdoors, and as well as mastering this slippery art, she was the best horsewoman Margaret had ever seen.

During Fortunata’s two months’ absence at the convent and hospital of St. John’s in Bruges, Margaret had found herself more and more in Mary’s apartments or the girl in hers. Jeanne was no longer jealous, and after a busy morning with administrative duties, Margaret liked nothing better than to listen to Mary play her lute or challenge her to a game of trictrac. Margaret was also teaching her chess, “so you can play with your father when he comes, sweeting. ’Tis a way to pass the time with him.” A pinched look always crossed Mary’s face when her father was mentioned, and Margaret’s heart ached for her. She was virtually an orphan, and so Margaret gave her as much love and attention as she could.

They had all spent Christmas in this favorite of Duke Philip’s castles, and she was accepting of Charles’s absence. In fact, she was much happier
without him. She still missed her family, but her homesickness had dissipated somewhat over the months. Two letters had brought the feeling rushing back, however. The first was received a few days after the feast of the Epiphany. Margaret’s eager fingers made short work of the familiar seal.

“
Christmas greetings to you, Margaret, from Windsor,
” her mother wrote in her flowery script.

“Edward and Elizabeth are gracious hosts, and we have kept the feast of Our Lord cheerfully. You were remembered in our Christmas Mass and in Edward’s toast at the feasting each day. You would not recognize St. George’s chapel now: Edward’s masons must be inspired by God as they enlarge and beautify it.

“I worry that my nephew Warwick has too much influence on George, but if he is given a choice, I have no doubt George will follow Edward. ’Tis not a happy situation. The rumor that Louis of France is helping that other queen does not bode well for us.”

She knew her mother could not bring herself to write the She-Wolf’s name, although in a happier time Cecily had thought to honor the queen by naming Margaret for her.

“But I daily pray her threat to invade comes to naught and your influence on your husband will lend us his aid in preventing it.”

As ’tis the first time I have heard the rumor and as I never see Charles, I doubt I can have any influence, Margaret sighed. In truth, I have seen him on only twenty-one occasions in six months of marriage.

“I hope you keep my counsel, child, and daily read the good works of St. Bridget.”

“Aye, mother,” Margaret said aloud, smiling to herself. She still thinks on me as a child.

“And I pray to hear news that you are with child. Motherhood has been the joy of my life, and I would wish you to know it also.”

So do I, Mother, oh, so do I.

“Write more often, Margaret, I would know if you have found your heart’s desire.”

Margaret smirked as she read the last sentence, knowing her mother
was referring to the night she shared her dreams of a husband in her mother’s bed at Hunsdon House on the way to Fotheringhay. I would hardly call Charles my heart’s desire—far from it.

Cecily ended the letter with:
“Do not forget Proverbs, verse 11: A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband,”
at which Margaret rolled her eyes. “Aye, Mother,” she repeated. Then she read the letter all over again before folding it carefully and setting it aside to answer.

Her hand had shaken when the second letter was given to her by a much chastened Fortunata, who had returned from the good sisters of St. John in time for the feast of Candlemas.

“From Master Caxton,
madonna,
” Fortunata said conspiratorially. “I saw him many times.” She longed to tell Margaret of one night beneath the Waterhall, when William had given in to her flirtations and given the dwarf her first taste of a man’s mouth and of the lust it evoked. The encounter had gone no further that night, but it had left Fortunata ecstatic that someone found her desirable.

Margaret was too flustered by the letter to admonish Fortunata for escaping the convent, in secret she assumed, or notice the glow upon the servant’s cheeks as she pronounced Caxton’s name. Margaret broke the merchant-adventurer’s seal open impatiently. As she surmised, a smaller letter was enclosed, and seeing
Dame Elaine Astolat
written on it, she thanked Fortunata and walked to the window to read it. Fortunata curtseyed and withdrew into her own world of lustful awakenings.

Snow was falling over the hillsides and covering the rooftops below in its soft mantle. One of her ladies was playing a recorder, and Margaret recognized the French ditty:
Ah, si mon moine voulait danser
. She felt like dancing around the room to the sprightly tune, waving her letter from Anthony and behaving like a lovelorn milkmaid instead of a demure duchess. Instead, she carefully broke the seal and opened the missive. A carefully pressed white marguerite slipped out of it, the tips of its snowy white petals turning brown. A lump came into her throat as she began to read.

“My beloved Elaine, I greet you well. Why does six months feel like six years? Your letter found me in the Isle of Wight after the failure of our fleet to find our enemies. You will be glad to know that the
mal de mer
did not affect me so much in those weeks at sea, and I began to believe it was
mal de coeur
I was experiencing on
the
Ellen
in its stead. My heart still hurts for you, and I beg of you, never doubt its devotion to you.

“There is much unrest in England, my love, and I wish your oldest brother had your wise counsel to guide him through this morass with the earl.”

Margaret knew he was talking of Warwick.

“I fear they will never be reconciled and I fear he will soon be caught in a web of his own making—or of the spider over the water.”

Louis of France, Margaret thought. How clever Anthony has been to disguise the names in the letter in case it fell into unfriendly hands.

“Your young brothers are well, but the older’s loyalties concern us all.”

George, George, did you not heed my words last summer?

“’Tis rumored the younger is a father, but doubtless he fears your mother’s wrath and so keeps his peace.”

Dickon a father, ’tis hard to believe. She smiled, remembering the young woman with the beautiful voice. She did not blame Dickon for keeping his peace with Cecily, whom she had overheard rail at Edward when his little bastard Arthur was born and acknowledged.

“As for myself, I yearn to travel and go on a pilgrimage, but your brother has much work for me, so I will have to wait. Would my travels took me to you, my love, but in the meantime,

I am your devoted, Lancelot.”

The letter with the daisy was now tucked inside her bodice, rumpled and tear-stained from so many readings. She knew she should burn it as agreed, but she could not bring herself to part with it just yet.

T
HE VILLAGE OF
Hesdin was situated at the confluence of the Canche and Ternoise rivers. Its castle, in earlier centuries a stronghold with high walls and ramparts impregnable from the valley below, rose sentinel over the town like an extension of the strategic hill it sat upon.

When they first arrived in November, Mary could not wait for Margaret to experience the surprises at the castle. Duke Philip was a man
with an impish sense of humor, Lord Ravenstein had told her before they journeyed there.

“But I will not spoil it for you, your grace,” he said, his grave face belying the twinkle in his eyes. He was wearing a chaperon of such enormous proportions that Margaret wondered how his head could support it. He was a stiff-necked man at the best of times, but that day he had to turn his whole torso to summon a waiting page and ask for wine. Margaret imagined a whole nest of mice might happily reside in the hat’s many folds.

“I hope they are pleasant surprises, messire,” Margaret said, unwittingly, “like the delightful mechanical animals that carried in the dishes at my wedding banquet.”

“Aye,” Ravenstein nodded. “But these mechanical contraptions are less visible. Just do not believe everything you see there, ’tis all I will say.”

Margaret thought back to that statement as she stood in the exquisite great hall at Hesdin with Mary by her side, gazing up at the wooden vaulted ceiling painted in brilliant azure and studded with stars of gold leaf. The paneled walls were polished like burnished chestnuts and the wall hangings were even more beautiful than the ones at the Coudenberg.

“Mary, where are the surprises I was told about?” she asked, looking about her and seeing nothing unusual. Mary grinned and with a grand gesture entreated Margaret to go ahead of her.

“Come, Fortunata, let us see what no one dares tell us about,” Margaret called to the dwarf, who tiptoed behind her mistress, suspicious of every chair and stool. One of the ladies had told her about the tricks at Hesdin, and she was ready for anything.

They walked through the hall, eying every nook and cranny as though ghosts would jump out at them, to the threshold of a gallery beyond. Again Margaret was struck by the beauty of the painted walls and ceiling. Six statues stood on either side of the gallery, and as she walked through the doorway to admire them, she suddenly felt icy water spurt up under her dress. As she looked down in dismay, one of the statues squirted water from its mouth, its spout hitting her in the arm. She shrieked and ran to a lectern on which rested a magnificent book. Fortunata had not avoided the water spouts from the floor either, and she ran helter-skelter into the center of the gallery, wiping her legs with her petticoats, and was then confronted by a mirror that distorted her poor stunted body into that of
a four-feet-wide and two-feet-tall midget. Curious, she stepped forward to touch the strange mirror, which triggered a small bag of soot that she had not noticed above her to empty its contents onto her head. She screamed and turned to see Mary still outside the room, now creased over with laughter. When Mary looked up, she saw Margaret about to turn a page of the book and too late cried out to her not to touch it. A white cloud of flour was puffed into Margaret’s unsuspecting face and she jumped back with another cry of dismay.

Fortunata seeing her mistress’s white face could not forbear to laugh. “You look like a dead woman,
madonna,
” she said.

Margaret laughed. “And you look like a Moor,
pochina.
Come, let us go quickly before anything else befalls us.” Taking hands, they made for a door at the other end of the gallery. But Duke Philip had not finished with them. Thunder and lightning suddenly erupted overhead and water rained down on them from the ceiling as they reached the door and pushed it open. Something padded thwacked Margaret on her backside and then hit Fortunata on the head before they emerged into another chamber to face an anxious group of courtiers whom Mary had made sure would be there. Seeing their faces, and knowing Mary had meant no harm, Margaret, who was now drenched from head to toe and had flour dripping like glue down her face, began to laugh. Relieved, the company laughed with her, while Jeanne ran forward with a dry cloak to wrap around Margaret’s shivering body.

“Wait until I get my hands on young Mary,” Margaret said, hurrying up the stairs with Jeanne and leaving a water trail behind her. “Certes, I am thinking up a few surprises of my own for her.”

Jeanne might have been worried for her charge but for the chuckle she heard from Margaret as they reached the door to her chamber.