Royal Mistress (38 page)

Jane stared at the jewel aghast. “I cannot . . . nay, I will not accept such a valuable gem, Edward. The queen will notice. She will say I stole it.”

Edward shushed her. “Elizabeth has always hated this ring. She calls it my little ostentation. I shall tell her it fell off in the river on the way to Windsor.”

“But, my dear lord, that will not work. You are a terrible liar,” Jane exclaimed, laughing, then she teased, “I shall take this because I dare not deny a man so stricken . . .”

“I am not dead yet,” Edward told her, although his vision was still blurred and his tongue did not seem to work. “Come, kiss me, Jane, and lie with me. To the devil with the queen.”

And although fully clothed, Jane slid beside the king in the soft tester bed and kissed him tenderly on his waiting mouth. “Ah, sweetheart, you will never know a greater love than mine,” Edward assured her, removing her simple cap and letting her golden hair tumble around him.

T
he next day, Edward’s headache became a raging storm in his brain, and he complained of pains in his leg that kept him in bed. Although the king was only in his fortieth year, he seemed to know
he was dying. His doctors had declared Edward had been stricken with apoplexy, for which there was no cure.

“Hastings, send for Catesby,” Edward commanded after he had struggled to the garderobe and back. “I shall write a new codicil to my will just in case I do not rise from this prison of a bed. You trust him, do you not?”

Will nodded, helping his king back under the covers. “Aye, he is of my affinity and so I must. One cannot fault a man for being ambitious. Although why you believe you are expecting the Grim Reaper, I cannot fathom,” he said, cheerily, hiding his underlying fear. Edward’s resignation to his fate was plain. Making matters worse, the physicians were huddled in the corridor, shaking their heads, examining the king’s urine and consulting the stars. Will’s faith in Edward’s astonishing strength was faltering as he watched his friend and sovereign sink lower on the pillow. The speech impediment was getting worse, Will thought, although he still understood Edward. “You have a chill, ’tis all. We should not have spent so much time on the river in such cool weather.”

Edward smiled. “Always the loyal companion, Will, telling me what you think I need to hear. In truth, for once I want you to listen to me and not argue. Promise me that.” He saw Will put his hand over his heart and was satisfied. “Elizabeth will not be pleased when she discovers she is no longer an executor. But I have always known which way the wind has blown with the nobility as far as Elizabeth is concerned, and although I have tried to raise the gentry to places of trust on my council, there will be those of nobler blood than hers who will wish that she and her Woodville relatives fade from power. Including you, Will. Nay, do not deny it. I know not whom you despise more—Elizabeth’s son or her brother, Rivers. You would not rest easy if they held the power, would you?” Will could not hide the truth of Edward’s statement
from his face, and Edward nodded. “So you see, I believe Elizabeth is less at risk if she is not made executrix.”

Will saw the wisdom of this but doubted Elizabeth would. He signaled his agreement. “ ’Tis imperative you appoint someone to protect the crown for young Ned,” he warned, “or there will be trouble.”

“I am ill, not stupid,” Edward teased his chamberlain. “Gloucester shall be protector, and I doubt any will gainsay my choice. In fact, I will die peacefully knowing I have left England in Richard’s good hands. Will you pledge your support?”

Will bowed his head. “I will, sire. And I will be as loyal a counselor to him as I have been to you. Together we would steer England right should aught happen to her captain.” He paced to the window and back to the bed, obviously wanting to say something more.

Edward cocked an eyebrow. “Well, my lord? What else?”

Will pulled a stool up to the bed head and made sure no one was within earshot. “I need to know if anyone else knows your secret, Ned? Anyone else at all? Your brother? The queen?”

Edward bit his lip. “Sweet Jesu, I have tried to forget that nasty little complication.”

Nasty little complication? Will was taken aback by Edward’s cavalier description of an event that could sever his line to the throne. If the precontract with Eleanor Butler were ever brought to light, Edward’s children would be declared bastards, and a bastard could not inherit the crown. Will realized what a precarious position he had been put in with this knowledge, and he shivered. “If it comes to light after . . . well, later, it will devastate the lives of Elizabeth and your children. Have you thought on that possibility? ’Tis why you must tell me who else knows? Well, sire?”

Edward held out a heavy gold cross to Will that his chaplain had given him. “Swear upon this cross that you will take this secret to your grave, and uphold my son Ned’s claim to the throne.
God’s teeth, after all these years, who will believe Elizabeth is not my one true wife, and my children legitimate heirs of Plantagenet blood.” Will swore and kissed the cross.

Edward eased his inflamed leg into a more comfortable position and thought for a moment. “Aye, there is someone else who knows,” he finally admitted. “The only other is the priest who heard me plight my troth to Eleanor Butler all those years ago—Stillington, bishop of Bath and Wells.”

Will let out a whistle of surprise. “That graybeard? And he has held his tongue all these years? I am impressed.”

“Aye, praise God. It seems he takes an oath of fealty to his king seriously. And he has been paid royally for his silence, if you remember. I made him chancellor for a good many years before ill health incapacitated him. And now I employ him as an ambassador, as you know, so the man has done well in exchange for keeping my small secret.”

Not so small a secret, in fact, Edward thought guiltily, after Will had left to find Catesby. It was then he resolved to call for Stillington and tell the old man that he was not the only one to know about the plight-troth: Will Hastings had been sworn to secrecy as well.

I
t would be night soon, when all of Edward’s bad dreams would come alive in the shadows of the firelit room. Damn Will, he thought as he listened to the chamberers stoking the fire, taking away the half-finished platters of food and closing the shutters against the darkening sky. His chamberlain had kicked alive the embers of George’s execution with his question about the plight-troth and the bishop who had witnessed it.

It was time for Edward to face his demons, if he was to meet his Maker so soon.

What Edward had not told Will was that Robert Stillington had also been in peril of his life in February of ’78 when George’s pathetic
note had been put in Edward’s hands. It had slipped Edward’s mind back then that as one of George’s confessors Stillington may have revealed the secret. And now Edward began to piece together that long-ago scene when he had received George’s missive:

Gracious king, beloved brother and companion of my youth, have mercy on me in this cold place. I beseech you to come and see how ill I am kept at the Tower. But if you come, be prepared to grant me a pardon for I have information that is of the utmost importance pertaining to you that you may not wish to be made public as long as you are king.

Edward recalled he had been puzzled at first, but then he remembered the rumor George had circulated about Edward’s bastardy: that their mother—their noble, upstanding mother—had taken to bed in Rouen an archer named Blaybourne when her husband, the duke of York, was campaigning at Pontoise. George must be desperate to resurrect such gossip, Edward remembered thinking then, and he had crumpled the parchment and launched it at the flames in the hearth.

The scene faded as Edward pondered that rumor about his mother, and fighting the sleeping draught de Serigo had given him, he redoubled his efforts to remember what happened next back in that fateful February of ’78. His heart constricted, as it did every time he thought about his brother’s death. He was certain that of all the sins he had committed, this one would keep him in purgatory the longest—if not in hell. Even more than violating his plight-troth with Eleanor, committing adultery a hundred times, condoning the violent death after Tewkesbury of Edouard, Prince of Wales, slaughtering countless thousands of Englishmen in the name of the house of York, or ordering the quiet death of King Henry to secure his throne, this sin against his brother would be the hardest for God to forgive.

In his anguish over his brother’s treason, Edward had visited George one night by barge from Westminster and been taken quietly to the Garden Tower. Edward was disgusted to find George slumped over the table, his chemise stained with wine, snoring in a plate of cold fish and boiled vegetables. A rat had joined him on the table and was feasting on the leftovers.

“My lord of Clarence,” the Constable Dudley had said, shaking George awake. “His grace the king is here.”

“Leave us, my lord,” Edward remembered commanding Dudley as he proceeded to pull George to his feet and hold him upright. George had struggled to give his brother the silly smile of a drunkard. “Why, Ned, how nishe to she you,” he slurred, hiccoughing loudly.

Edward had shaken his brother then and given him a quick slap on either cheek, which had caused George to yelp but get control of his swaying body. Edward seized the earthenware bowl of water left for George’s ablutions and flung it over the astonished drunkard’s head.

“Christ and hishaints, whassthat for?”

“I will give you five minutes, George, no more,” Edward snapped. “Now sit down and tell me to what secret you were referring in your letter. Five minutes.”

Edward frowned now, recalling George’s glee that he had succeeded in goading his brother into visiting. George had then revealed that he had known about Eleanor Butler for a few years. “Bishop Stillington blurted your secret to me. He was angry when you removed him from the chancellorship and considered taking revenge. What do you think of that, big brother?” And George had jabbed his finger into Edward’s chest. “But, if you pardon me, I swear neither he nor I will divulge the truth to a living soul.”

Edward caught George’s hand in an iron grip. “ ’Tis a lie!” he had snarled. “And you had best forget it, George. Your life depends upon it.”

George had paled, Edward recalled, hating himself again for lying to his already condemned brother. But the information had signed the death warrant for the hapless duke, Edward now admitted, and following the execution, Edward had placed Robert Stillington in the Tower until the cleric had renewed his pledge of secrecy on pain of death. With Eleanor dead, there was no one else but Stillington who had witnessed the event, and besides, who would believe the old coot, Edward had reassured himself.

Thinking of the old man now, the king breathed deeply. The bishop had given him not a moment’s worry since he was freed from the Tower later that year, and had in fact distinguished himself in several diplomatic missions for his king, for which Edward had rewarded him. Nay, Edward felt sure the old man was his loyal subject and the secret of the beautiful Eleanor was safe with him.

But it was a worse sin the contrite king grieved over as he willed the poppy juice to take effect and erase his guilty memories.

It was George’s death that caused Edward to fear the hellfires most. Duchess Cecily had used the word
fratricide,
and ever since that fateful day Edward had kept hearing it reverberating around his brain each time he had gone on his knees to his confessor. The only salve to his sorry soul was promising George to make provisions for a bastard, which Edward had accomplished by sending the boy to their sister Margaret in Burgundy. But even that was a lie, Edward thought sadly now, knowing full well it was he who had really sired the boy and then tricked George into believing the bastard was his. Was there no end to his sinning, the dying king asked himself as, mercifully, the potion finally quietened his mind and allowed him sleep.