Mistress of Mourning (37 page)

I
had never herded sheep before and was surprised how they smelled when woolen cloth did not. They didn’t seem very smart or to know their way, but then, they were not usually brought this close to the gatehouse of the large manor house. Lem, the sheepherder, said it made them nervous, especially the sharp shadows thrown by the walls and buildings when they were used to sun and open fields. I felt like one of the animals, not quite sure what I was doing, not very bright, shoved this way and that in my dark quest to find Arthur and Nick.

Tears filled my eyes in gratitude when, as we approached the manor entrance I had my eye on, a priest suddenly appeared, on his way out. I prayed that was a good sign.

“May we go in this way, Father?” I asked, before realizing I should trust no one except Nick and Jamie here. But this man could not be Lovell in disguise, for he was short and squat, quite young too, so he could not have been here
when Lovell was growing up. Unfortunately, I was so on edge I had also forgotten I was garbed as a boy and should have sounded like one.

“Do I detect a woman in lad’s clothes?” he replied, tipping his head to peer under my cap. “Most unseemly. Friends of yours, Lem?”

“No, Father. Visitors.”

“Not friends of Lem’s,” I put in quickly, “but of Nicholas Sutton, king’s man. Is he here?”

“Oh, aye, everywhere about the area and grounds for two days now. I was just blessing the manor hall—God’s mysterious ways are far better than man’s. I believe his guard Finn is just inside, and you can’t miss him. If you can get by Finn, you are welcome to enter. But to be so in disguise, when they are looking for a man in disguise, is most foolhardy and wayward, mistress.”

“They have not found Lord Lovell?”

He frowned at me, and I could almost hear his thoughts behind those watery gray eyes: How dared this woman dress like a male and assert herself like one too?

“Best you ask Finn and Master Sutton of that and not include Lem in your schemes. Lem, my lad, I warrant you have not been inside the estate since we closed up the narrow way, eh?”

“Aye, Father Mark.”

“You see, mistress, and…and your man here,” the priest said, frowning at Jamie too, “there used to be a narrow back escape gate from the early days, lest the hall came under siege, but it’s been bricked up. I gathered nigh the entire village here last year to preach on the ‘narrow gate, for broad
is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it.’ Take heed then,” he concluded with the sign of the cross made directly at me as if I were accursed.

I had no time to argue or explain but hurried through this wide gate without another word. And I saw there, as the priest had said, a guard, hopefully Nick’s companion, for he was the tallest, strongest-looking man I had ever beheld. He had been about to close this door when I pulled my hat off, shook my hair loose, and told him, “We are sent by the king and are looking for Nick Sutton. And, just like you, for Lord Lovell too.”

I barely had those words out than two other men appeared and then, from across the cobbled courtyard, Nick!

Queen Elizabeth of York

As I was being prepared for bed, I was surprised to see the king enter my chambers unannounced. He nodded to us, then asked me to send my ladies away, so of course I did. I had already dismissed Sibil Wynn from my service and was having her questioned by the king’s men, though I had made them promise they would not physically harm her. Whatever the poor girl, besotted of a former Yorkist loyalist, had done for him, I still had a tender heart for everyone—except for Lord Lovell, whom I saw as Satan incarnate.

“Do you have word of Lovell’s capture?” I asked Henry.

“No word yet. I need to ask you about something Sibil Wynn said during questioning.”

“You vowed you would not have her tortured!”

“Only threatened with ruination and imprisonment—
and torture for her lover, Nigel Wentworth. But she said the strangest thing, so I’m told, in her hysteria. She claims that Varina Westcott was carving for you not only what she called angel candles but also life-size death effigies of our lost children—and your brothers. And that they are secreted here, near these very chambers.”

My heart careened to my feet. I was caught! But then, I should have known he would find out, and I had been trying to muster the courage to tell him myself. At least Prince Henry had not betrayed me, perhaps because I had asked the king to invest him as Prince of Wales sooner than he had planned. But now—this.

“I was going to tell you, show you,” I said, floundering, “but you had so many things on your schedule and in your heart.”

“It’s true then? My dearest, why?” he demanded, and his voice had an edge to it now.

I stared at him, not seeing him for a moment as I rested my hands on my flat belly, so flat it seemed a dream that I carried a child there. Could my monthly flow have stopped for other reasons? No, I knew the other signs. Though I was stunned by this turn of events, my thoughts circled back to what he had just asked.

“I needed to have them near me,” I said in a voice calm and quiet, not my own, not the tone I thought would be mine. “To tell them I’m sorry I failed them.”

I saw Henry was keeping a tight rein on his temper, that he wanted to rail at me. “But you never failed them,” he insisted. “These cruel, unfair things happen in a world of woe.” He took my warm hands in his cold ones. “You must let the
past, all that pain, go or it might harm the babe you carry—harm us.”

“You won’t order the effigies destroyed? They are beautiful, peaceful.”

“But to hang on to death that way—especially your brothers. With Tyrell’s death, I thought we settled all that, put it to rest.”

“To rest? If my own uncle Richard ordered their deaths, I hope he is rotting in hell, but I will never rest!”

“I want to see the figures now. Will you show me or shall I go alone?”

I nodded jerkily and pulled my hands away. With him behind me, I walked the narrow corridor toward the closed door.

“We’ll need a torch,” I told him, taking one from its sconce on the wall. “It’s dark in there.”

I had almost told him,
I keep it dark so they can sleep.
I actually thought of it that way sometimes, that they were still alive. If he tried to take them from me, I would lose control, and our next—our last—child would be born to a guilt-ridden madwoman.

“Amazing,” I heard him whisper as I held the torch aloft and we gazed at the waxen images. “So real. When the shadows shift, I can almost imagine—”

“Yes. Yes!”

“But if you wanted funeral effigies near their tombs, we could have done that.”

“Hardly of my brothers’ tombs, for they have none. Only God knows where their bones lie.” I shook so hard the torch wavered, and he took it from me and placed it in a sconce. “I
wanted them near me—with me,” I whispered. “And I want one of Arthur too—see that block of wax there and—”

“No, I forbid it, forbid this! It isn’t healthful for you or the babe you carry. I don’t want you reminded of all this! Your brothers’ losses especially, long ago and over now.”

“Over?” I said. “Never over for me, never past!”

I could tell he was furious at my defiance. Oh, yes, I could read him and knew he would try to distract me from this big bone of contention. “She’s a genius, isn’t she, your wax woman?” he asked. “Elizabeth, if you keep these of our children here, I can accept it, but those of your brothers so long lost, what good is that?”

“It helps me atone for my sin, my guilt about them. I should have told my mother, ‘Don’t let them go. Beg that they be guarded better in the Tower!’ You don’t understand how hard all that sits yet upon my heart, for I was born and bred a Yorkist, though I am true Tudor now!”

I broke into sobs, my face in my hands. He pulled me to him, his trembling arms wrapped around my shaking shoulders.

“Yes, believe me, my dearest,” he whispered, “I do understand your grief and guilt. By all that’s holy, I swear I do!”

Mistress Varina Westcott

Despite everyone staring, I was in Nick’s arms, telling about Arthur’s abduction, Sibil’s possible treachery, Lovell’s orders to me. I admitted I had fled London under the cloak of darkness, so Lovell or his spies would not know I had come here.

“Damn Lovell! Sibil too,” Nick muttered as he steered me into the manor house itself. Following behind, Finn and
Jamie gave us a little distance as we crossed the great hall and ascended a staircase. “But what made you think Lovell would hide Arthur here?” he asked.

“From some things he let slip. Even if the king’s uncle once owned the manor, Lovell would want to be here—wouldn’t he? He was reared here. It was his family’s home for centuries. He must know it well, the perfect place for him to hide a boy.”

“For the last two days Finn and I and two others—all king’s men—have searched each inch of this place. But we’ll look again now for a boy as well as for the man himself. I have no doubt he has been in London of late, but once he sees you’ve fled, he might reappear here—come back, I mean. But listen now. There’s only a skeleton staff, since the king has not given this place to someone else since his uncle died. Rest here in my chamber, and I’ll send someone up with food,” he said as he opened a door to a large room that must have been the master’s suite, perhaps Lovell’s once. If so, I would rather have slept in the stables, but I nodded and obeyed, as Nick shouted, “Men, to me!”

“I’m going to help search too!” I called after him as he rushed into the hall. “And do you know,” I went on, as he turned back to me, “that there was once a small gate for escapes during a siege somewhere here—the priest said so.”

“I know where it is, but it’s bricked up. The red brick stands out in the white stone on the side by the river.”

“And Lovell mentioned some sort of tomb. Could he be hiding or have hidden Arthur in a church or cemetery?”

“We’ve searched both—the entire area—but I’ll look again.”

“I’ll help! I want to help!”

He nodded, then huddled with the men. Two of them drew swords. It comforted me to see that they were acting quickly. I must find someone to send for Hal, who was holding our horses near the woods, so he could help search too. I prayed that if Lovell was still alive, he’d keep Arthur alive too, even if only for a bargaining chip.

In teams of two persons, we searched until nightfall and then by torch and lantern. We all met briefly in the great hall each time the church bells tolled an hour. Even in the maze of rooms, the pealing bell was clear, since the church stood cheek by jowl with the manor’s outside wall. How I wished we had some Westcott candles, large ones. Each empty bedroom, storeroom, pantry, larder, and garderobe we searched in futility made me more frenzied.

I could hear my heart pounding each time I opened another door of a dark, dusty room or peered into a cobwebbed cubbyhole in the old church. No tombs there seemed to have doorways or entries. I felt continually sick to my stomach. What if I never knew what had become of my boy? Would that be worse than closing a coffin on him as I had on sweet little Edmund? To lose one son and then another—again I felt close to the queen, almost as if she were with me.

“Tomorrow at first light, we’ll search the town and surrounding farms again,” Nick had promised about ten of the clock before I lay down to rest. “It seems to me that Lovell’s gone to acting alone, but we can’t be sure, and some lackey could be hiding Arthur.”

Sometime before the midnight bell tolled the new day, I
took Jamie with me and went to find Nick and Finn. They had gone to search in the vaulted cellars again, full of dusty hogshead casks and empty racks for wine. Our torches made the shadows jump at us, and our voices echoed as we called Nick’s and Finn’s names.

“Find something?” Nick asked as he answered and we approached them.

“Can’t we search the church again?” I asked. “It was here when Lovell was growing up, even if Father Mark was not. Since Lovell said Arthur might be buried in a very special tomb, there must be a hidden cellar or some access underground.”

“Varina, you know we went through the church, tower to floor, but we’ll search again in the vault. The small crypt there is sealed. But considering how our prey has operated before, it’s worth a try, even at this hour, at prying it open. You’ve got to get some sleep. Go back to your room and stay there with Jamie outside your door. Finn and I will roust out Father Mark and take a look at the crypt, which is no doubt full of dead Lovells.”

“As this one should be,” Finn muttered.

Snatching at that glimmer of hope—a new place where they had not looked before—and absolutely exhausted, I went back to the master’s suite Nick had made his own. I lit four candles to push back the dark. I refused to lie down until he returned with his report—oh, if only he could find Arthur there!

I sat slumped over the table with my head on my crossed arms, trying not to grieve, trying to stay awake, thinking of that day we closed the coffin lid on my second son and how
I’d feared closed places since then. The thought of a dark crypt, smaller than the vast black one at St. Paul’s, pressed in on me. But I would gladly search it for my son.…However long I had gone without sleep, I should have gone with them.…
Please, dear Lord, don’t let my Arthur be closed in some dark place where he is afraid.…Please, I beg you, send my love to him; save him.…

I must have slept. I thought I heard something bumping in the hall. Footsteps? Nick must be back. I rushed to the door and opened it. The hall torch had guttered out, so I went back for two candles, though a torch farther down the hall burned low. Jamie was not in sight, only the bench he’d dragged there earlier to sit outside my room.

“Jamie?” I called, trembling at the memory of losing my guard Sim at the far end of the bog. “Jamie! Nick!”

At first I thought I heard a squeak or a strange echo of my own shrill cry. Or was I dreaming? For at the end of the dimly lit corridor, a boy in a white shirt gestured to me, calling, “Mother…Mother…”

I gasped and squinted to see better. What it a ghost or a trick of my eyes and ears? Perhaps I was still asleep. For certain, a boy’s form and face, but my boy? As it beckoned, I heard again, “Mother…Mother…” and was certain it was Arthur.