We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (36 page)

‘Certes, it’s good and deep,’ he said, peering, as water began to suck and trickle through. He turned the winch, tore his hands, cursed, and said: ‘An easy drowning death, I think.’

‘Not for me,’ one of us answered.

‘But for some,’ he said, grinning. ‘Yon sour-faced nun, perchance?’

Yea, he’s right, thought I. Here were the grasping depths, the darkness, the slime. The goal of accidia. Bridget could well drown herself, in one of her melancholy spasms. But he was walking back towards the house, and I was running, all thoughts of Bridget, and Adelysia, and Edyth flown from my mind, straining to hear. What did he say? That the King was taken to Pomfret by Warwick, and from there, rescued. And how cleverly they turned the trick! One shot an arrow into the bailey while His Grace walked the lawn, signifying their presence. Another climbed the wall and asked would the King go hunting. Edward liked the audacity, the jest. (What a man, what a King!) Made brash by their endeavour, he sent word that he would gladly hunt, an the quarry be fair. Send all my lords to Pomfret, he said, and I’ll go there to meet them.

‘But he was already at Pomfret!’

‘Nay, Middleham,’ he said, cross and careless. ‘Did I say Pomfret? Are you faint, mistress?’

‘I thought... the King were dead,’ I whispered.

(He was at Middleham. So near.)

‘’Twas but one of those flying tales.’

‘Who... who were the lords that rescued him?’ I could scarcely shape the words.

‘Hastings, they say,’ he replied. ‘Young Buckingham, that I do know. Suffolk, I think. A few good archers. Archbishop Neville is disgraced. The See of York will soon be vacant. Earl Warwick fumes, but can do naught. Daft Harry’s in the Tower again, Clarence in France, and Edward on the throne. Jesu, mistress! Aren’t you glad I came your way?’

Never was there a more garbled tale, like a skein on a loom all twisted, with the colours showing the wrong way round, yet with a semblance of truth. But if the colours shone bright, I cared not a jot.

‘And all were safe.’

‘Not a head broken,’ he said gaily. ‘A good young man, the King’s brother. Scarcely rest nor food did he take, till Ned was safe.’

‘Gloucester.’ Oh, the pain and bliss of saying it. A wound within the mouth.

‘Yea, Dickon. He’s in Wales now, Governor of the Marches. Didn’t I say Earl Warwick fumed? All his old commissions gone to the stripling Duke...’

A wound, born of a kiss.

We were at the door of the frater. Be good to him, Wales, fortunate Welsh. The players struck up again, each note a sweet, cold icicle.

Vientôt me secourir

Ou me faudra mourir...

Aid me or I die. He was beyond my call. He was conferring with his Welsh chieftains, hearing the oyer and terminer in wild valleys. Bards hymned him on the harp. He rode a black mare over the mountains. He did not think of me. He was alive.

He was alive.

Within me I felt the joy. It leaped and sang in my breast, in my belly. Startlingly potent, it turned and fluttered within my bowels, at the burning core of all my loyalty and my hope. Joy leaped lustily, with such vehemence that I swayed, clutched the cold, stone, searing wall, a wall of flame. Richard lived. My joy bounded through me like a bird.

His child reeled within me. Richard lived.

‘The Welsh seem greatly attached to him,’ said the lute-player, departing.

The room was full of people and shadows and pain.

‘This is surely the true penance,’ said an awed voice. Soft though they were whispered, the words lashed me like a running sea. My mind seemed split in two. One half was dead, the other knew everything sharp and clear. I did not know my name. I knew that the sun had shone all day, fierce for April. I did not know that they had built a great blaze in the hearth. I knew that night had come, but the sun’s heat still poured over me, they had brought the sun into the chamber. I knew that Edyth was in church, praying for me to St Bernard, yet Edyth knelt beside the bed—so Edyth could be in two places at once, sweet Edyth with her green marsh-face, and therefore she was a witch and I screamed for they were going to burn her. Nay, it was Jacquetta of Bedford they were going to burn. I took their pains upon me, double pains, too much to bear, and screamed in the flame. Yet it was meet they should burn Jacquetta, she of the mischievous potion and the little lead lovers twining beneath the moon. Vervain and cinquefoil, aconite and amanita, she had given them to the King. Nay, I had given them, had mixed them in his wine, and they were burning me. They burned me slowly, in a fierce foreign garden. Even white-muzzled Gyb had come to watch the burning. He sat on my belly and sharpened his claws, a cat painted from out of the air by a man with raw Spanish colour on his brush. He stroked the colours on me one by one. Each was a molten pain as it ran down, he moaned as he worked, he did not want to hurt me, but it was written, my daughter, men are fickle, fickle, forget not the other!

‘Jesu, mercy,’ said Elizabeth Woodville, and crossed herself. I fell at the Queen’s feet. I was in darkness for a space, while the fires died down. Above my head came a muttering.

‘The fever abates,’ I heard. ‘’Twas the yarrow-flower water she took. It never fails.’

‘Nay, the Saint answered. I looked just now. The candles are right down, and burning.’

Burning. I saw horsemen, their harness rent and bloody, arching dark vaults peopled by demons, the devils of the green fens with their malefic lights held high to shine in my eyes. They were tearing my sinful flesh with pincers. A shrieking voice curled around the ceiling. ‘O blessed Lady, help me! Sweet Bernard, succour me!’ I wondered, through my agony what poor soul cried in such anguish.

‘The creature is right small; I fear she’s not mighty enough in body.’ Hands stroked my hair, a rough stale touch unused to caressing. With difficulty I looked to see a stout red face, the sweat-soaked wimple clinging to either cheek. The lips moved.

‘Help me, child,’ they said. ‘Give life. Come, give life to your lazy lord.’

Monstrous, Gyb fell on me again, a swollen-furred tiger.

I did not know that Joan was such a skilled accoucheuse. She told me later she had learned her craft in Cîteaux, before entering the Founder House. They held a crucifix before my eyes; on that I hung, while my strength ebbed and waned and became as a mere dot of life, suspended for a spell, utterly in its stark shape. And the Cross spoke to me, in a woman’s voice, saying:

‘She has a maid—right fair and lovesome it is, too.’ Another wiped the sweat from out of my eyes and I saw the stern and kindly faces about my bed, then looked down, and for the first time beheld my Katherine, who had the nut-brown hair, to say naught of the blood royal.

A royal bastard maid. Born to glory, death and sorrow, like her father. Like all the ill-starred Plantagenets.

I had her named Katherine. All the nuns lost their wits over her. Even Juliana, the most unlikely person, kissed her often when she thought no one was looking, and gave her a blue beads to keep her from harm. Bridget kept away from her, and the Prioress said naught, which should have warned me. And the nuns exalted my choice of a name for her, as Catherine is the patron saint of maidens, and reflected well on all of us. Yet they did not know my own reasons for calling her thus.

I did it in remembrance of my Lady of Desmond, who had been kind to him.

I recall when I began, vainly, to care about Adelysia. It was the Feast of St Hilary of Poitiers, a sharp black January in the eleventh year of Edward’s reign, and I was teaching Katherine the opening passage of the Credo, and to say
Jube, Domine, benedicere
, though that will not go down in the chronicles. She was almost two, full of wit and fair beyond belief. Venus was strong on her natal day. I should not, cannot, speak much more in this wise. There are things past bearing, made harder because they are unforgettable. She impressed Dame Joan, ever vigilant for a show of sharp wits. She had her on her lap, giving her French endearments. This vexed me, I grant it. I went from the scriptorium, leaving them together. I was always jealous. I know not who petted her the most: Edyth, with her timid amorousness, Joan, who made her laugh or long-faced Juliana. It was only when I learned that Juliana, before being professed, had miscarried a child, that I understood. In those days I was so single-minded, clinging desperately to my heart’s one token, I was blind to the hardship of others. Kate was a fleshly covenant, and all beauty. And I wished with my soul that he could see her. I myself never wearied of looking at her. And what was it I sought? Of course, of course. In morning and evening light, I turned her about, smoothed back her rich hazel hair. I gazed in her eyes, and prayed for one glimmer, one shadow, striking in the same way. On the Feast of St Hilary, it was there. She looked at me obliquely, and my breath caught up in my throat. She sat in kind, cursed Joan’s lap, with her hands joined like a wreath of flowers. The winter sunshine made her eyes long and oddly tilted at the outer edge. She had in no way a childish face, there was scant roundness about it. The fine high bones showed clear. I saw that spiritual, fatal arrogance, that delicacy. I kissed her so hard that she was frightened, and Joan gave me a slap.

‘Cool off, Madame,’ she said sternly. ‘Don’t cry, doucette. Go, you. Pull me a bagful of roots for drying. Spring’s coming. There’ll be some travellers on the Scotland road. They’ll need my draughts to ward off all those heathen ills. Ah, she smiles, anon!’

Her mouth was not like mine, not red and full. It was not in the least like mine, nor were her eyes. Trembling, happy and sad, I tore myself away then and went into the knot-gardens. A year of my planting and nurture had wrought a difference. Each bed was enclosed by a thick, neat row of box. Some of the herbs were sleeping, but under the stiff brown earth I felt them with my mind, their life pulsed through my fingers as I scratched at the ground. It was all there, life abundant, not dead but slumbering, awaiting its own Resurrection; a silent token of faith beneath the soil. There were rabbit droppings, too. Though the winter had not been so severe, it seemed that lately these pests had braved the half-wild cats who roamed our estate and had come to scavenge my precious patch. I felt a strange, sharp anger. Little things seemed to annoy me more each day; I found myself snapping at Joan, at Edyth, closing my mind to the dreadful fear which accompanied these tempers. For it was unthinkable that I should fall prey to accidia. I was armed against it, yet often enough I caught myself thinking, in horror: Is this the beginning? They said it was allied to Tristitia and Sloth; therefore I kept well occupied and, to flaunt in the face of sadness, I had Kate, I believed in God’s infinite mercy. But I had heard strong, shattering words, I lived in a shaken world, and two things were uppermost in my mind. How long should I be here? and, unheralded by any forethought: Could I not write to him? But there was also Wanhope, which comes of too much outrageous sorrow, and the Duchess of Bedford had made me a gift of that. While she lived, I dare not write to him. I had been more than fortunate. I had my Katherine, and my life.

So I thought of Jacquetta and was minded of how it all began. With a herb border at Grafton, from which I peeped to see a King embracing his heart’s lust. I shuddered at the reality of my vision, for there were a man and woman standing in each other’s arms, right before my eyes, against the cloister wall. And it was as of old; I could not move, or look away. He had her close, pressed back against the sun-warmed stone, and he was kissing her neck under the barbe and wimple pulled aside, while his hands strayed over her body. His tonsured aureole flamed. Adelysia’s face was white, her head hung back, with eyes tight shut, as if to blot out sin.

Only an instant did I look before I fled, my hands full of earth and foliage, my heart pounding so that it hurt me. I ran desperately, dodging and weaving along the paths, through the untended grass. I think I moaned as I ran, under the burden of the great bell tolling for Sext. Full of shame and sympathy for Adelysia, I fled towards the church, more to pray for my own soul than to intercede against my sister’s damnation. For that sight, which had bruised my very eyes, had brought again, sharp as death, the remembrance of him and me, together. I, who had thought I had contrived to forget. Forget! My flesh had not forgotten his lips, nor my spirit his nearness... And the night when the marsh lights flickered about us in silent menace as we lay in the darkness of the tent, and it was not like that first time when we loved each other so swiftly and hastened partly because we were ’prentices in love and partly because we could have been disturbed at any moment. I said: ‘Shall I loosen my gown, my lord?’ and he said: ‘Yea, take it off,’ and tried to help me with the laces, his hands that were so sure in handling a bow, or a horse, or a pen, strangely, dearly awkward, and of a sudden he burst out laughing and said: ‘I would make an exceeding poor abigail!’ Then he laughed no more, but tore fiercely at the fastenings of my garment, I too casting all away until I lay in his arms just as I had come into the world, and knew no sense of sin, all was too fair... wicked, wicked me! Happy me! Ah, Richard, Richard.