The King's Grace (14 page)

“Aye, he will join my service in London after Henry’s brat is born. His uncle asked me to employ him, and in thanks for the Gowers’ loyalty, I am glad to do it. He is a good lad.” He picked a harebell from beneath the hedge and gave it to her. “Now, you must return to the carriage before you are missed. I am still a person of suspicion for Henry, and I do not want him to think we are plotting his downfall, you and I,” he teased her. As he bent to kiss her, he whispered, “Promise me you will not tell anyone of this. I must appear to be Henry’s man now, but this news is of great importance to me and to our followers.”

“I swear on Saint Sibylline’s holy name,” Grace whispered back, crossing herself. “’Tis my special saint—of orphans,” she explained, seeing Lincoln nonplussed. “And, my lord,” she told him confidently, “do not forget that I, too, am a York.” Then she turned, picked up her skirts and ran back to the carriage, hugging her secret and glowing with pride that she had been entrusted with it.

Lincoln’s eyes followed her slender form as he settled his soft hat on his head and hoped he would not regret the conversation.

“’T
IS A BOY
!” The cry was taken up and passed from the birthing chamber to those anxiously awaiting the news in the chapter house of Winchester Priory, chosen for Bess’s lying-in because crumbling Winchester castle had long since been abandoned as a royal residence. Henry was jubilant; he had sired an heir—and in the first year of his reign. What could be more perfect than that this boy was born in England’s ancient capital? Winchester had not seen an heir to the throne born there since the third Henry in 1207, Prior Thomas Hinton had told his guests proudly. “All thanks be to the Almighty,” he crowed.

“Praise be to God, a boy,” was all Bess could muster after her ordeal. She had not seen her mother’s sad eyes as she watched the wet nurse put Arthur to her breast. Fourteen years before, Elizabeth had lain in that
same chamber and given birth to a little girl who did not live to see that Christmas. She was lying in her tiny sarcophagus next to Edward’s at Windsor, and one day Elizabeth herself would join them.

“Arthur, his name shall be Arthur,” Henry exulted, raising his jewel-encrusted cup and exhorting those present in the refectory to do the same. His relief was palpable after many hours of hearing Bess’s pain echoing through the quiet cloisters of the priory in the cathedral grounds.

Henry was chagrined his mother was not there to share in the joy of his son’s birth. He had explained her absence to Bess, who had been as curious as her sisters about it, as being a natural reluctance on her part to witness a first birth when she herself had come so close to death during her labor with Henry at the tender age of fourteen. “Perhaps the next one,” Lady Margaret had said to him, “when a child slips more easily into the world. I shall go to Kenilworth and cede my place to Bess’s mother. Besides, ’twill be a sound diplomatic gesture, Henry.”

And so Henry had agreed, as he so often did when his mother gave advice. He would be eternally grateful to his parent for orchestrating his journey to the throne, and he knew she had a mind as agile as any man’s and wanted only the best for him. There was nothing he could refuse her, it seemed. He even condoned her walking only half a step behind Bess instead of the customary full step, and clothing herself as richly as the new queen. Bess had admitted to Cecily—who had in turn told Grace—that she was afraid of Lady Margaret’s influence with Henry.

“I believe he will never turn to me for counsel as Father did with Mother,” Bess confided to her sister a few months after her marriage, when Henry was away on his progress through the country. “As long as his mother is there, he has no use for another woman’s guidance. In truth, I am learning not to care, and now that I am with child, I see my role as a good wife and mother to Henry’s children. ’Tis enough.”

Lady Margaret had been right. Elizabeth, the queen dowager, was exultant that she would be at the birth without the domineering presence of the king’s mother. Elizabeth would never forgive Margaret for duping her into plotting against King Richard in the autumn of 1483, after Richard had been crowned and Elizabeth’s two sons were placed in the Tower for safekeeping. She had been led to believe that Richard’s cousin and closest adviser, the duke of Buckingham, would rebel against the king to help
her little son Edward regain his throne. Lady Margaret and Bishop John Morton had also duped the duke of Buckingham, who went to his death when Richard put down the rebellion. The two were working to put Henry on the throne, not the young prince, and rid England of the York dynasty in favor of Lancaster. Although Elizabeth’s involvement was never proven, rumor had it that she had been in communication with the plotters from sanctuary. Despite this, Richard had treated her and her daughters with deference after they left the abbey’s safety.

“It could have been a lot worse for me, Grace,” Elizabeth had admitted one evening as they enjoyed the late summer light in the herber of the abbott’s house. “I was grateful Richard and his wife were kind to the girls. I only wish I knew what has become of my boys,” she said, and Grace had watched as Elizabeth sank into melancholic ruminating, as she did each time their names came up.

E
LIZABETH’S SONS WERE
momentarily forgotten when she stood triumphantly beside the enormous black marble font inside the cathedral, which was reputed to have the longest nave in all of Europe. Unprepossessing on the outside, Winchester’s interior was a marvel of sky-high fan vaulting atop the delicately sculpted capitals of the stone columns. The royal party had waited a full fifteen minutes for the late arrival of one of the other godparents, John de Vere, earl of Oxford. Elizabeth glared at him, but the earl was in such high favor with Henry that she dared not voice her opinion of his rudeness. They all processed up the nave, stepping on myriad colorful tiles decorated with geometric patterns and mythical beasts, and through the exquisite rood screen into the quire. Behind the altar in the retroquire, just visible through another screen, was the newly positioned shrine of Winchester’s patron saint, Swithun. Grace craned her neck to see it, knowing this was the saint on whose holy day, the fifteenth of July, the whole of England prayed it did not rain. She amused herself by reciting the well-known rhyme in her head:

Aye, ’twould ruin the harvest, she mused.

The organ thundered a welcome to England’s newest prince, who screamed his displeasure at being awakened thus from a nap in his Aunt Cecily’s arms. Cecily carried the child to the high altar in the procession behind the bishop of Exeter—the old bishop of Winchester having died not a fortnight before—where she relinquished him to his godmother, Elizabeth. Flanked by Oxford and the third godparent, Lady Margaret’s husband the earl of Derby, the queen dowager placed him on the velvet cloth that covered the holy table, where the baby squirmed in his swaddling clothes, crying with rage. Elizabeth smiled indulgently, picked him up and hugged him to her, the floor-length silk christening gown pooling around her feet. She looked radiant, Grace observed, almost like the vision she must have been when, as a new widow, she had stood with her two little fatherless boys under an oak tree and won the heart of King Edward riding by. Grace wished she could have seen her then. How could Edward have deserted such a beauty to sire a child with my mother? she suddenly thought, as she and the others intoned the
pater noster
. What makes men desire us so? On her knees, her rosary playing between her fingers, she hoped—and prayed—that if Henry chose a husband for her that he would remain faithful to her. Adultery was a mortal sin, she had been taught. So why did so many indulge in it?

“Grace, did you hear me?” Elizabeth’s tone was sharp as she turned to speak to the girl. “Pick up my train. ’Tis caught somewhere.”

Grace saw that her own kneeler was the culprit and stood to release the purple satin gown. Elizabeth then rose to receive the baby back from the bishop, who had just finished dunking Arthur’s whole head in the holy water, further enraging the child.

“My lord bishop, pray bring the ceremony to a close as fast as you can,” Elizabeth hissed at the gray-haired Peter Courtenay, who was taken aback at this irreverent request. But, having served as dean of Windsor under Edward, he well knew the queen dowager as intransigent. Not wishing to jeopardize the possibility of being appointed to the recently vacated bishopric of this most important of dioceses, he spoke the blessing at a spanking pace, making several of the nobles present smile into their prayer-folded hands.

As the party came out into the gray Sunday morning, a lone magpie flew down onto the grass beside the path, and Elizabeth gasped.

“One for sorrow,” she murmured and crossed herself. “Pray God this is not an omen for Arthur.”

“Amen,” Grace and Cecily chorused hastily, signing themselves, and Grace surreptitiously spat out the bad luck into her hand.

H
ENRY HAD STAYED
away from the christening ceremony to be with his wife, but now he and Elizabeth presided over the banquet that day in the chapter house. Grace was asked to wait on Bess in her chamber so that Cecily could also attend the feasting, and she gratefully hurried to Bess’s bedside.

“How was it, Bess?” Grace asked about the birthing process. “It sounded very…uncomfortable.” She decided
agonizing
might not be tactful.

Bess laughed and immediately reached her hand under the bedclothes to touch her tender pubis. “Uncomfortable? Nay, ’twas how I imagined the rack, Grace. Just you wait.” She grimaced. Then she smiled. “Is the baby not beautiful? He is my heart’s delight. In truth, he resembles my brother Richard when he was born.” She looked over at the carved oak cradle being rocked by one of the ladies on the far side of the room.

“Aye, he is bonny,” Grace lied, her thumb between her first two fingers. In fact, she had never seen such an ugly red face before, its nose flattened into obscurity. The boy did not look anything like the cherubic statues of the Christ child she was used to. And it seemed to her that he never stopped screaming, when his face became one wide, gaping hole. But she smiled and patted Bess’s hand. “You must be happy you have a son.”

“Aye. Now Henry believes the succession is safe.” Bess lowered her voice so her attendants could not hear. “There is a rumor that our cousin of Warwick has escaped the Tower and has been seen on the isle of Jersey. ’Tis not good news for Henry. He thinks there is another rebellion fomenting.”

Grace was horror-struck. “What does this mean? Little Ned is attainted because of his father, is he not?”

Bess nodded. She was pleased that Grace now understood the full ramifications of a conviction of treason. Ned’s father, George of Clarence, had indeed been attainted and was eventually executed by his own brother King Edward; the father’s attainder was passed on to the progeny, unless lifted by the king.

“So who would follow an attainted boy?” Grace persisted.

“Anyone who was an adherent of York, Grace. They would not let that
stop them.” Bess pushed a wayward strand of golden hair from her face up under her cap. Her face was glum. “Henry and I thought our marriage would heal those wounds and stop these rebellions, but they never seem to cease.”

Grace was silent. She was thinking about her two cousins named John. Aye, they would take up the cause of Warwick, she thought, and she felt a tiny frisson of fear.

H
ER FEAR GREW
a few days later when she and Cecily were given leave to walk to the market in the center of the city. Once one of the largest in England, the market’s small size reflected the downturn in the city’s fortunes. Nevertheless, the two girls, escorted by a burly guard, spent a pleasant morning away from their duties exclaiming over trinkets, ribbons and gewgaws and spending their groats on greasy hot roasted finch and a shared capon pie.

“Make way, make way,” their escort growled as they eased their way through the customers jostling for the wares on the carts and stalls laden with everything from ginger, cinnamon, pepper and almonds to vegetables and salted cod, mullet and conger eel. Clothed in their plainest gowns, the girls did their best to melt into the crowd, but even so their elegant garb attracted some curious looks. They stopped to admire the three-level gothic market cross climbing to the sky past the rooftops of the surrounding houses. A jolly carter tried to sell them a slab of golden butter, but the girls demurred, thanking him and moving on.

“Fortunes! Have your fortunes told! A farthing for your fortune,” a woman in tattered black rags called to them, reaching out a bony hand with a beckoning finger. Cecily squeezed Grace’s hand in anxious excitement.

“Do we dare?” she whispered, eyeing the old crone with trepidation. The woman’s coarse gray hair straggled out of a filthy hood, pushed back to show a wizened face and black, beady eyes. She smiled at Cecily, revealing one diseased incisor in an otherwise toothless mouth. Grace had taken one look at the hag and attempted to hide behind Cecily’s larger frame.

“Nay, Cis,” Grace muttered. “’Tis against God’s law. And besides, she looks none too clean.”

As Cecily turned to cajole Grace into changing her mind, the fortune-teller spotted Grace, and her smile faded. Approaching the girls as near as the grumpy guard would allow, she pointed at the smaller girl and in
toned something incomprehensible. Grace clutched Cecily’s arm and tried to pull her away, but then the woman’s face softened and Grace could see that she might have once been quite lovely. The woman’s black eyes were mesmerizing, and Grace found she could not break her gaze. Something deep inside her stirred and she was afraid.

“Come here, child,” the woman coaxed. “You have naught to fear from old Edith.”

Cecily, curious, gave Grace a push forward and stayed the guard, who was ready to manhandle the old woman out of the way. Grace landed within arm’s reach of Edith, who gently led her to a quieter spot.