Queen by Right (12 page)

In the light of a candle set in a sconce upon the bedpost, Alice reddened. “I confess I like Richard’s hands on me,” she said haltingly, but she did not confide any more.

Cecily screwed up her face. “Ugh! I do not want to think of my brother—or indeed any of my brothers—naked and . . . and . . .” She frowned. “What did you call it?—fornicating?—riding you like a stallion. ’Tis too disgusting to contemplate.”

“But Dickon?” Alice asked. “What about with Dickon?” And she laughed, a rather loud laugh for such a tiny person, Cecily thought, but the sound always wanted to make her laugh too.

This time, however, Alice’s face suddenly tightened and the laugh turned into a groan of pain. She clutched her stomach and raised frightened brown eyes to Cecily.

“The babe!” she whispered. “Sweet Jesu, I think the babe is coming.”

Catching her foot in one of her long, dangling sleeves as she uncrossed her legs, Cecily almost toppled off the bed in her haste to fetch help.

“Quick, Rowena, call for the midwife. Lady Alice is having her baby!” she cried, pulling on her soft leather shoes. “I shall find my mother.”

She ran down the corridor to her mother’s solar, where Joan was taking her usual afternoon nap. Not stopping to knock—and hoping she would not be
upbraided for it—she hurried to the bed to shake Joan awake before the attendants could stop her.

“Oh, do wake up, Mother,” Cecily pleaded, bending over the snoring woman. “Alice needs you. The babe is almost here.”

Joan’s eyes flew open and a slight frown creased her forehead when she saw Cecily’s unkempt hair falling around her face. She reached up and pushed an offending tress back behind Cecily’s ear and muttered, “’Tis time you began wearing a headdress, Daughter.” Then she sat up as Cecily’s announcement sank in. “The babe is almost here? How long has Alice been laboring, and why did someone not fetch me before?”

Cecily knelt and put slippers on her mother’s feet. “She had a pain a few minutes ago and told me the baby was coming. Hurry, Mother, or we shall be too late.”

Joan winked at her ladies, and they all laughed, irritating Cecily, who stood anxiously glaring at them. “Why do you laugh at me, pray? Should I not be respected as the countess’s daughter? My lady, tell them,” she demanded, wheeling round to Joan. “Tell them I am no longer a child to be mocked.”

Joan clicked her tongue and stood sternly in front of her, shooing the ladies away. “Know when to keep your pride in check, Cecily. You must not act so impulsively and you must learn when to assert your rank. You are still a child and, in front of my ladies, who at least deserve the respect due their age, you will never use such language or tone again, do you understand?” Joan held her youngest’s mutinous expression with her own unflinching gaze and waited.

“I am truly sorry, my lady,” Cecily said after a pause, “but one day you tell me to be proud of who I am and the next you scold me for it. Oh, it is too confusing. How can I ever please you?”

Joan softened. “It is a fine line, I grant you, but you will learn to walk it, I know you will. Now let us hurry to Alice.”

“My brown worsted cote, Mary,” she told the oldest woman, while the others busied themselves around their mistress, tying the neck of her chemise and slipping on the overdress.

“We were laughing, Cecily, because the likelihood of a child slipping into this world in five minutes after the first pain is one in a million. We all know how long it takes to birth a first or second child—oft-times a whole day—because we have either experienced it ourselves or been in attendance.” She gave a short laugh. “Although you, my dear, as the fourteenth, did catch us all napping. You were here within the hour!” she recalled. “But today you will watch
and learn what happens so that you will not be surprised when your turn comes.” She held up her arms for the braided belt to be tied at her waist. “And a simple cap today, I think, ladies, and then we must go.”

Cecily tugged at her mother’s skirt as the little procession made its way back to the west wing. “If ’tis something you can laugh at, then why was Alice so afraid?”

“Poor child. I heard her first lying-in took more than a day and a night. You forget that she did not have the advantage of a mother or sisters to teach her. Now cease your questions for once. Just watch and listen.”

Alice’s chamber was a hive of activity when the countess arrived. Joan nodded approvingly as pipkins of water were boiled over the roaring fire and Alice’s two attendants tore strips of linen for swaddling bands and washing their mistress. Cecily was the last into the chamber. As she was about to close the door, Rowena stayed her. “Nay, Lady Cecily, leave the door ajar to ease the birthing pains and let the Devil slip out.” Cecily did as she was told, noting but not questioning the custom.

A moan from the bed announced another spasm. Cecily saw her sister-in-law propped up on pillows, the blankets thrown aside and only a sheet covering her bent knees. Joan and the midwife each held one of Alice’s hands and conferred over the swollen body.

“It be a mite early, my lady,” the elderly midwife murmured, “but Lady Alice be strong and the babe’s stars be in a good place, so the soothsayer told me when I arrived. It’d be better for the child if he got his own mother’s milk, if I may be so bold to say, my lady. But the wet nurse be waiting, in case.”

Joan pursed her lips and nodded. She did not approve of ladies of rank nursing their own children. Breast-feeding kept a woman from conceiving, she knew, and it spoiled the look of her paps more rapidly, but she respected the wise woman’s ancient knowledge and did not gainsay her. After all, the woman had seen three of Joan’s children into the world, including this child’s father.

“So be it,” Joan replied, gripping Alice’s hand as the young woman writhed in pain again. “Although for a short time only.”

The midwife raised the sheet to better examine her charge’s progress. Her gnarled fingers probed and prodded as she clucked and muttered to herself. Cecily stood as far away as she could from the horrifying scene and winced as Alice shrieked with more frequency, calling out to God, the Virgin, St. Monica, and even the Devil as she flailed about, trying to expel her child. This fearful scene lasted for a full six hours before the midwife called for the birthing
chair and Alice was helped onto it. Cecily watched with worried fascination as Alice grunted like a wild beast, and finally, with the midwife’s ceaseless encouragements, released a foam-flecked head.

“’Tis almost here, Alice!” Cecily heard herself announce. Tears of joy ran down her cheeks as the rest of the slippery body was deftly extracted from the birthing passage by the midwife’s gentle hands. Exhausted, Alice slumped against the sloping back of the chair, and Cecily thought she seemed removed from the extraordinary miracle her body had been witness to.

“You have a daughter, my lady,” the midwife said, as though she were commenting on the weather and, to Cecily’s horror, she turned the baby upside down and spanked its slimy rump. A delicate objection to this indelicate treatment came from the tiny pink creature, making Joan laugh. “In truth, ’tis a young lady you have birthed, my dear.”

Upon hearing her daughter’s cry, Alice thrust out her hands to take the child and caught sight of Cecily gazing open-mouthed from across the room. “Then she shall be called Cecily, after her ladylike aunt. How should you like to be her godmother?” Alice asked, smiling through her exhaustion. “What say you, Cecily?”

Cecily clasped her hands to her chest and cried, “Are you sure? Oh, I should be so proud, Alice.”

Once the midwife had settled the young mother back into a freshly made bed, little Cecily, now wrapped in fresh linen, was put into her namesake’s arms. Cecily was awed with the perfection of God’s creation. “Praise be to Him, who has wrought this miracle,” she murmured to the screwed-up little face under hers. “But by the sweet Virgin, I hope you grow up prettier than you are now.”

When Alice was finally left in the care of the nurse and two attendants, Cecily followed her mother out of the room with Rowena a step behind.

“I tell you this, Rowena,” Cecily confided in a whisper. “I think I shall avoid having children. Or perhaps one, so I will know what ’tis like to hold my own babe. But how mother had so many after seeing what Alice has been through, I shall never know.”

Rowena was shocked by Cecily’s candor, frowned a warning, and jerked her head at Joan’s stiff back. “I believe his grace of York will be the one to determine that, my lady,” she whispered back. “He may have a dynasty in mind for the two of you.”

“Then he may have to do it all by himself!” Cecily retorted.

5
Leicester, Summer 1426

W
ith Alice recovered and the Erber running smoothly, Joan decided it was time she and Cecily went north, this time to Leicester to join the king. Baby Cecily was a noisy child, demanding to be fed at all times of the day and night, but she was thriving, and after the first two anxious weeks, she was given to the wet nurse. Alice endured a few days of unpleasant consequences due to halting the suckling, but she assured her mother-in-law that she could manage by herself until her husband was able to take them all to Bisham Manor in Berkshire, seat of the earls of Salisbury. She wanted to spend the summer with her two children in quiet tranquility under the beeches at that childhood home on the banks of the Thames.

On the first day of May, the small retinue set out from the Erber’s high-walled courtyard into Carter Lane and Dowgate. Encountering throngs of young people with garlands and flowers making their way to Chepeside and the maypole, the captain of Joan’s escort cursed himself for agreeing to leave on this the merriest of holidays and led the way toward Aldersgate along quieter lanes that could only just accommodate the large carriage. Cecily peeked through the curtain with longing at the exuberant young faces singing and laughing on the route, and resolved that she too would participate in the very first May Day after she was wed.

Joan had no time for such foolishness, telling her ladies, “’Tis a pagan holiday and leads to immorality among the young. I am surprised that the bishops do not put a stop to it,” she declared. “If my brother ever becomes a cardinal, I shall suggest he ban the festivities.”

Cecily rolled her eyes at Rowena, who pretended not to notice but covered her mouth to hide a smile.

“What is so bad about dancing around the maypole, my lady?” Cecily asked.

Joan pursed her lips. “’Tis a pagan festival of fertility. It leads to lust and wanton dalliance,” she retorted. “And I have kept my daughters from it for that reason.”

“Aye, well we know,” muttered Cecily, stroking Jessamine’s silky back, pleased she now understood something about men’s lust. Why is Mother so opposed to babymaking when ’tis certain she has engaged in it at least fourteen times?

C
ECILY HAD NEVER
seen anything as magnificent as the great hall of Leicester Castle, even at Raby, she decided. She stared about her as the brilliantly clothed courtiers milled about, laughing and talking. Looking down the hall to where the noonday sun was streaming through two lofty stained-glass windows, Cecily was unaware of the attention she was attracting. While in London, Joan had brought her own and Cecily’s wardrobes up to date, including the obligatory mourning gowns. Cecily liked the purple silk dress that floated around her from the wide belt above her girlish waist. She thought it made her look older, especially as Joan had insisted on hiding Cecily’s mass of golden hair under two horned templettes of stiffened fabric fastened to the sides of her head and decorated with gold filigree netting. Draped over the horns—thus creating a heart shape for her face—a piece of white silk with dagged edges floated down her back. Around her neck hung her sapphire, and Richard’s gold-and-ruby betrothal ring weighted her index finger. Joan was gratified to see more than one admiring woman murmur to her neighbor and nod toward Cecily.

And then Cecily saw Richard coming toward her, a welcoming crooked grin on his face. After watching him make a reverence to the countess, Cecily held out her hand for him to kiss, which he did with enthusiasm, taking both hands and raising them to his lips.

“I hardly recognized you, Cis,” he told her, sliding her arm through his. “You outshine even the beautiful Eleanor Cobham.”

“Who?” Cecily asked, her cheeks pink with the pleasure of seeing him again and satisfaction from his graceful compliment. “Is she here?”

“Oui, ma belle,”
he said, showing off his newly acquired courtly skills. “She is the woman in green and gold silk over there,” he said, nodding in the woman’s direction. He had forgotten about Joan, who was searching for Richard Neville among the courtiers but whose sharp ears never missed a piece of interesting information.

“So that’s the common-kissing wagtail that has so beguiled Gloucester,” she murmured, discreetly examining Eleanor from under her lashes. “Compared with his whey-faced wife Jacqueline, I suppose I can see why.”

Unused to hearing such vulgar words from the countess, who looked as prim as a nun in her widow’s wimple, Richard glanced nervously at Cecily. To be sure, she was too young to understand what a wagtail was, he decided, and diverted her attention to the musicians’ gallery, where four trumpeters prepared to welcome the king to the hall with a fanfare.