The King's Grace (49 page)

The next afternoon Elizabeth again called for Grace to sit down beside her to take down the details of her new will.

“How I regret I have nothing to leave you good ladies,” Elizabeth said before she started. “But you know you have my gratitude—especially you, Katherine. I shall request that my body be buried beside my dear Edward at Windsor. ’Twas his wish, and mine, too. I would hope the king will allow this, but I doubt he will afford anything elaborate for me.” She gave a snort of laughter. “Certes, I cannot afford but a winding sheet and crude wooden box to house me. But I should not like to make the journey to Windsor alone. I pray you, will one of you accompany my poor body?”

All three of her attendants agreed in unison, although Katherine reassured Elizabeth that she should not speak of dying yet. “There is color in your face this morning, my dear friend. Would you like to see in the mirror?” she asked.

Elizabeth had not called for a mirror for several weeks, and she shook her head again now. “You are a liar, Katherine,” she said haughtily. “I do not need a mirror to know that I look like a hag. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me. Now, Grace, have you finished trimming that quill? Why are you so slow today?”

Grace smoothed the vellum, anchored a curling top corner with the inkpot and nodded.

“
In Dei nomine, Amen
. The tenth day of April, the year of our Lord God Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-two. I, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, late wife to the most victorious prince of blessed memory, Ed
ward the Fourth, being of whole mind, saying the world is so transitory and no creature certain when they shall depart from hence…” Elizabeth paused, and then chuckled. “’Tis true, I thought I would die last night.”

She stroked Poppy’s silky hair absentmindedly as she allowed Grace to catch up to her dictation and thought about her next sentence. “‘Item: I bequeath my body to be buried with the body of my lord at Windsor…’” She stopped, searching for the right words. Then she snapped her fingers, startling Poppy, who leapt off her knees and went to lie by the door. “I have it!” she cried. “Write this, Grace, and then Henry will have no choice but to carry out my wish. After ‘Windsor,’ write ‘according to the will of my said lord and mine,’” she instructed, “‘without pomp entering into it, or costly expense.’ Ha! Forever after, people will think kindly on me for eschewing a lavish funeral, and ill of Henry because he didn’t spend the money on one. Then I shall immediately plead penury thus: ‘Item: Where I have no worldly goods to do the queen’s grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure with, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech almighty God to bless her grace, with all her noble issue, and as with good heart and mind as is to me possible, I give her grace my blessing and all the aforesaid my children.’ Do you have that, Grace?”

She waited as Grace, who was mouthing to herself the exact verbiage, painstakingly scratched out the phrases. Katherine chuckled and remarked that Elizabeth was a sly fox indeed. “Ah, but you do not know how sly I am, Katherine,” Elizabeth murmured. “I shall name Bess one of my executors so that she will know to what depths her mother has fallen at the behest of her purse-pinching husband.”

Grace did not like to say that Bess did not deserve the scorn her mother might subject her to; it was one of the paradoxes of Elizabeth that she could give with one hand and take with the other without regard to moral or personal considerations.

Elizabeth also named her son, Dorset, and three other men Grace did not know as executors. Then she commanded Alison to fetch Father John and Brother Benedictus, the infirmarer, to witness the document.

“I do not trust Brother Damien as far as I can see him—which with my bad eyes is not very far,” Elizabeth said, amused by her own joke. “Prior John’s long nose may be put out of joint, but ’tis his own fault for violating God’s holy laws with the man.”

Once the will was witnessed and placed in the secret drawer in the bed, Elizabeth seemed to rally. She even expressed an interest in taking a walk in the garden. Alison and Grace helped her into her second-best gown—she was saving the purple velvet for her next visit to court, she had informed her attendants, although they guessed Elizabeth would never again be well enough to go. The women did their best to make their mistress as presentable as they could—the abbey inhabitants had not set eyes on the queen dowager for many months—but despite a few cosmetic tricks that Alison had learned, they could not conceal the ravages of time and ill health that had eroded her former beauty. Her dove-gray dress and white wimple only served to swallow up her chalky face, although her large almond-shaped eyes were still her best feature. Grace placed the wide straw hat over the linen coif and threw a veil over the top of it, protecting Elizabeth from the bright April sun and curious stares.

“I would walk apace alone with Grace, ladies,” Elizabeth said once they had half carried her down the stone stairs to the little yard. “Nay, Katherine, do not be offended. I need to speak of family matters, and Grace is family,” she said, smiling sweetly at the prickly Katherine. Grace gave the queen a gnarled walking stick to support her left side, and took her right arm. Slowly they processed through the main courtyard, and many of the laymen workers doffed their hoods and touched their forelocks as the queen passed by. Elizabeth nodded this way and that, and Grace could see she was smiling beneath the gauze.

“How is your husband?” Elizabeth asked suddenly, taking Grace aback with her directness. “Why are you not yet with child, my dear? I pray you are not barren, like my poor sister-in-law, Margaret.”

Grace stiffened. There was too much to explain, she knew. Elizabeth would not have the patience to listen to the complicated reasons for her failure to produce a child. After all, she had been married now—what was it? dear Lord, nigh on eighteen months? Nay, she does not want to know that Tom and I have spent only a few nights of intimacy together in that time, Grace thought. So, making a cross with her thumb between her fingers, she lied. “Tom insists on consulting the viscount’s astrologer, and it seems the man has been unable to predict my fertile time,” she said, not knowing where this preposterous explanation sprang from and begging God and Tom’s forgiveness for her indiscretion. Tom consult an
astrologer? She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so afraid of going to Hell.

“All is well between you, then?” Elizabeth persisted. “If I were to guess, I would say you were not pining for your husband as one would imagine a young bride would. Is he deficient in bed, my dear? Do not be afraid to tell me, for my mother taught me many ways to solve that little problem.”

Grace gasped. “N-nay, your grace,” she said, horrified. “Certes, it must be my fault, for Tom…well, he…um…performs…I mean…there is no problem on that score,” she finished in a rush, making Elizabeth laugh.

“I am glad to hear it for your sake, child. A good roll in the sheets can cure most ills in a marriage, I have found.” She then lowered her voice. “What I really want to talk about is my son, Dickon. Is there more you are not telling me?”

Grace steered Elizabeth to the herb garden and a stone bench she’d often rested on when she used to help Brother Oswald tend the plants. The fragrant bay bush beside it and the aromatic angelica close by scented the air, and Elizabeth breathed deeply and let out a satisfied “Ah.”

“’Tis a pleasant spot, is it not, your grace? Are you comfortable?” Grace arranged the gray silk around the dowager’s feet and picked an early lily of the valley to present to Elizabeth. “John went to his grave believing Dickon was alive,” she began, and although she felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of him, she no longer grieved for him. “He was captured and tortured for the information he might have about this man who, ’twas rumored, was Richard, duke of York. John knew very little, so he told me, but he was charged by Aunt Margaret with joining Lord Lovell in Scotland to prepare the way for an invasion by the young duke.”

“Dear God, so he gave his life for his cousin, brave boy. I know how your heart was broken, Grace. But John was not meant for you. Your Tom will suit you better, please believe me.” She sighed, pushed the veil back from her hat brim and let the sun warm her face. “I fear there is naught I can do from here to aid my son’s invasion. If I were well enough to travel I would go to France and see for myself. And if you had but met your half brother once, I would send you to tell me if he be Dickon or no. No matter; there are many who will know him when he comes, even if he is ten years older. Bess and Cecily will know him, and the doctor, Argentine. He had
Edward’s odd brow and a lift to his right lip, but otherwise his body was unmarked, unlike Ned, who had a birthing mark on his upper arm.”

Grace had many questions about Dickon, and as the two women sat quietly for half an hour, she learned other facts about the child—or those Elizabeth’s fading memory could conjure up. He hated the smell of cloves and loved the taste of mint, and his favorite fruit was oranges. He had been a small-boned boy, although at age eleven, it was hard to know if he would grow up more like his father. “And one more thing,” Elizabeth recalled, smiling. “How he loved to sing!”

She suddenly turned to Grace and gripped her wrist. “I would know if my son is this man, Grace. Promise me you will find out—one way or the other, even if I am dead.” Her tone was urgent and her eyes pleaded.

“I will do my utmost, your grace,” came Grace’s quiet response. She was promising much to those waiting to go to God lately, she thought and grimaced, but she put her hand over her heart anyway. “I cannot refuse you anything after all you have done for me. If I have not thanked you enough during these years, I am most heartily sorry. You are thanked in my prayers each and every day.”

Elizabeth patted her hand. “I know, Grace, I know. And if I understand that clever mind of yours as I think I do, you will unravel the mystery of the man across the sea.” She turned away. “Pray God I live to see it.”

A flock of starlings flew overhead, shrilly announcing their passage, and blackened the sun for a second. Elizabeth shaded her eyes to follow them, and then both women saw the single magpie as it chose to alight on the wall that sheltered the garden. They gasped in unison, and Grace quickly recited, “Good morrow, Master Magpie, how is your wife?”—the question that was supposed to ward off the bad luck.

“’Tis time for me to return to my chamber,” Elizabeth said, putting out her hand to Grace. “I have one more thing to ask of you, Grace. I would like to see my daughters. Can you send word to Cecily for me? I would like to see them all before I die.”

SPRING
1492

T
om formed part of the escort that brought all of Elizabeth’s daughters to the abbey on a glorious day in late May. Skylarks rose up from the fields, thrilling listeners with their soaring song, and lambs bleated as they frolicked beside their dams, each lamb’s voice different and known by its mother. Grace had learned that lambs always waved their tails in ecstasy while they suckled, and she had laughed delightedly when Brother Oswald had shown her how to manually wag a lamb’s tail so that it would accept milk from another source when the mother died in the lambing.

Word had spread of the visit by the royal princesses, and people from miles around abandoned their hoes, spades and weed-hooks or their barrows, laundries and spinning wheels to line the road from Southwark to Bermondsey. Bess, heavy with child, sat on a low, cushioned chair in the middle of the open carriage, its canopy richly decorated with the new Tudor rose and the lions of England, and she was surrounded by all her
sisters—Cecily, Anne, Catherine and twelve-year-old Bridget. “God bless our queen. God bless good Queen Bess,” they cried, waving their bonnets and throwing flowers onto the litter. Grace waited in the courtyard for the procession to enter, a posy of her favorite heartsease in her hand, and her heart swelled with pride for her family—and especially for Bess. How England loves its good, sweet queen, she thought. And she was ashamed of herself for thinking how little they had loved Bess’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, her mentor and protector. Ah, she told herself, but one of them was born royal and had nothing to prove; the other had royalty forced upon her and had spent her life trying to prove she was worthy.

All thoughts of Elizabeth and her daughter vanished as soon as she recognized Tom’s tall figure astride a chestnut palfrey. Had she stopped to notice, she would have been astonished at the sudden rush of feelings she had for him, but in her hurry to reach him, with her arms outstretched and a delighted “Tom!” on her lips, she did not have time. In a graceful movement from his saddle, Tom bent down and lifted his wife like airy thistledown into his arms. The dainty heartsease fluttered to the ground, forgotten.

“My dearest Grace!” he greeted her before kissing her waiting lips. Grace twined her fingers in his untidy hair and kissed him back, thinking he would squeeze the breath from her. The sound of high-pitched laughter floated up to the oblivious pair, and then Cecily’s commanding voice calling her made Grace pull away with an embarrassed “Oh!” The laborers, grooms and laundrywomen, not to mention several of the monks in the crowd, who had all come to respect Grace over the years, burst into spontaneous applause. Grace wilted into Tom’s protective chest, hiding her eyes and her blush. Tom waved at them gaily and expertly guided his horse towards the stable, one hand on the reins and the other cradling his wife. Edgar was there to take Grace from him and was grinning from ear to ear.

“God’s greeting, my lord,” he said, bowing to Tom. “It be clear to all that my mistress be glad to see you again.”

“‘Master Gower’ or ‘sir’ will be enough, Edgar. I am no lord,” Tom said, laughing. “I may be married to Lady Grace, but I have no right to a title as her husband.”

Edgar frowned as he took this in. “That don’t seem lawful, sir. A husband be more important.”

“Edgar!” Grace exclaimed. “I pray you, know your place.”

But Tom hushed her with a wink and, chuckling, leaned over to Edgar and said: “The sooner you learn that ’tis a woman who really rules the roost, all the better for you when you find yourself a wife. I do nothing without Lady Grace’s permission, believe me.”

“Tom!” Grace laughed. “Do not tease Edgar so. Edgar is my good and faithful servant, and I will not have you putting foolish notions in his head. Now go and see to her grace and Lady Cecily, before your behavior is reported to Lord Welles.”

“See?” Tom muttered to the flabbergasted Edgar and, hanging his head, he pretended to slink off with his tail between his legs. Grace was left staring after him openmouthed, surprised and warmed by Tom’s show of humor.

A
N HOUR LATER
, after Elizabeth was surrounded by her lovely daughters and wine and wafers were served in the privacy of the queen dowager’s chamber, Grace slipped out with Katherine’s nod of approval to go and find Tom. “I will tell her grace where you are. She will not notice you are gone, I warrant. She is contented as only a mother can be, God bless her.”

Grace flew down the stairs and around the side of the residence to the courtyard. Now that the excitement of the visit had died down, the smith was back at work, and she could hear the swishing of a carpenter’s adze as it smoothed the rough wood plank, the laughter of the laundrywomen and the clucking of the hens as they strutted around the courtyard pecking in the dirt. At the stable, the grooms were currying the queen’s carriage horses, and Grace called out to Edgar, asking if he knew where Tom had gone.

“The last I saw him, mistress, was a-walking in the field yonder,” he said, pointing towards the river. “It be not so long ago. Shall I fetch him for you?” Edgar rubbed his dirty hands on his tunic and then used a grubby sleeve to wipe his perspiring face. He reeked of sweat and horses and Grace waved him away. “Nay, Edgar, I will find him. Finish your work.” She hurried off through the herb garden, snapping off a stalk of mint to crush between her fingers and refresh the air. She was very fond of Edgar, but his lack of bodily hygiene distressed her.

It was not long before she saw Tom, his long legs striding through the long grass towards a small cow whose leg was stuck in the mud.

“Clover!” Grace cried, hitching up her skirts and taking off running. “Certes, it looks like Clover. Tom! Tom! Wait for me.”

Tom turned when he heard her and waved his hat. She caught up to him, breathless, and explained that this was the cow she had weaned the year before. Not heeding the wide swath of mud and cow manure that Clover was mired in, she waded through to the cow’s side, speaking gently to it. Clover was unafraid and seemed to know Grace was there to help, and soon Tom was easing the animal’s hoof out of the sucking muck as Grace slapped its scrawny haunches to get it to move. Eventually they succeeded, and when Clover slowly turned her head to gaze at them before lumbering off to greener pastures, they both collapsed laughing into the long grass.

“I could swear that cow knew you, Grace. ’Twas a look of love she gave you,” Tom said, taking off his muddy short boots and wiping them on the grass. “Were you not afraid she would kick you?”

“I did not think on it,” Grace said, shaking her head. “She needed our help and I was glad to give it. She might have broken her leg and ended up on the refectory table. I could not let that happen.”

“What a good farmer’s wife you would be—if only I had a farm,” Tom teased her, and them tickled her nose with a grass frond. “Did you come to find me to say the queen is ready to return to London?”

Grace looked up coyly from under her lashes. “Nay, husband, I came to snatch some moments with you alone. I know we have much to talk about, and I have much to be forgiven—” She did not have a chance to finish, as Tom pulled her to him and began to kiss her. He kissed her forehead, each eye, her nose and her lips and then worked his way down to her breasts. Grace allowed him to touch her under her chemise and her body tingled all over when he caressed her brown nipples with his fingers. Gently he unlaced the back of her gown and drew off the bodice. Then he untied her chemise and eased it down over her arms, leaving her naked to her belly. Grace thought she would swoon with pleasure when he teased her breasts with his kisses, and she felt a rush between her legs as her desire mounted.

“Come to me, Tom,” she whispered, helping him lift her heavy skirts. “I would have you make love to me like that afternoon at Collyweston. Do you remember?”

“Do I remember?” Tom laughed almost harshly as he untied his cod
piece. “It has lived in my dreams every night since that day. Now, I pray you, my sweet Grace, stop talking!”

Grace thought she must have been in Heaven for the next half hour as she was pleasured over and over again in the sweet-smelling grass, a ceiling of blue above her and the song of a lark drowning her rapturous little cries.

“I love you, Tom Gower,” she murmured into his corn-colored hair when he finally lay quietly on her naked breast. “Thank you for waiting for me to know it.”

“I would have waited until the cows came home,” Tom replied sleepily. And then he lifted his head and turned to stare off in Clover’s direction. “I suppose you could say that I did.”

Grace tweaked his ear, laughing, then pulled his head to hers and kissed him once more for good measure.

E
LIZABETH HAD TURNED
her face to the wall, Katherine said to Grace one day in early June. “Did you not notice how, after she had bidden her children farewell, she turned inwards?” she asked. Grace nodded, remembering guiltily how she had arrived back at the apartment flushed from her passionate rendezvous with Tom just in time to wish her sisters God speed. Cecily had wagged a finger at her.

“Why, Mistress Peasant, do look at your shoes, the grass stains on your gown and your badly laced bodice,” she murmured as they stood near the door while Elizabeth, her face impassive, gave her blessing to her younger daughters. Little Bridget was sobbing, but Grace noticed Elizabeth did not touch or comfort her. Truly she loves them, she thought, recognizing the suppressed sadness in Elizabeth’s eyes, which she dared not show them. And yet she has shown me love; ’tis a puzzle, in truth.

“I had to rescue a cow,” Grace said, her face not moving a muscle and her tone as matter of fact as if she were describing the weather. Cecily guffawed, making her mother look up and frown, while Alison helped Bess out of the chair, the young queen’s advanced condition causing her to reach round and support her aching back.

“There you are, Grace,” Elizabeth said. “I trust your time with Tom Gower was productive?”

Grace demurred with a small curtsy as Cecily whispered to her, “Enough
to produce a child, I’ll warrant.” Grace surreptitiously leaned back and poked her sister’s thigh, trying to hide her laughter.

As Elizabeth turned her attention back to her blessings, Grace stepped up to Bess’s side and slipped her hand in her sister’s. Bess looked down at her and smiled. “I remember you doing that all those years ago at Sheriff Hutton when I was so frightened of my future,” she said softly. “Now you do it to comfort me, as ’tis plain as a pikestaff we shall be grieving for my lady mother before long. Am I right?”

“You have the measure of it, your grace. I would have you know that your mother was always good to me, and believe me when I say I shall grieve as though she were mine, too.” Tears pricked behind Grace’s eyes as they watched Elizabeth from across the room. Catherine and Anne had risen and curtsied, but Bridget was still on her knees, crying. Bess let go of Grace’s hand and went to help her little sister up. “We must leave, Biddy,” she coaxed. “You can come again next week, if you would like.” Bridget turned into her oldest sister’s arms, and Elizabeth motioned Bess to take the child away. The meeting had exhausted her, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and never wake up. The sisters and Katherine filed out, leaving Grace standing quietly by to watch over Elizabeth.

In a gesture of complete respect, Bess, who by rights should have been thus honored by Elizabeth, sank into an awkward reverence in front of her mother and asked for her blessing again. Instead of giving it, the queen dowager suddenly leaned forward and hissed: “You have been here nigh on two hours, daughter, and you have said nary a word about my son.”

Bess was nonplussed. “Your son, Mother? Do you mean Dorset?” Bess responded evenly.

“Nay, I do not mean Thomas,” Elizabeth snapped. “I am talking about Dickon, your youngest brother. Certes, I have heard that he has been seen in the Low Countries and Ireland. If ’tis so, then the crown belongs to him, not Henry. Surely Henry—and you as his queen—must be having a few sleepless nights?”

Seeing her sister struggling to stand, Grace ran forward to help.

“Aye, there is a man who pretends he is Richard of York,” Bess retorted, using Grace’s shoulder as a crutch, “but none of us who knew Dickon nine years ago has set eyes on him since, and thus Henry is dismissing him as a mammet of Aunt Margaret and her arrogant son-in-law, Maximilian.” She
turned and began to pace, and when Grace saw the telltale hand flutter to her mouth for the ritual nail-biting, she knew Bess was trying to hide her nervousness. “Henry is gathering evidence as we speak to denounce the man as a fraud—just like Lambert Simnel,” Bess continued bravely. “Whoever this man is, he cannot be your son, madam. Your sons were murdered by Uncle Richard and Buckingham.”

Grace gasped at Bess’s tactless statement. Finding her feet and a last burst of energy, Elizabeth grasped Bess’s wrist. “My son is still alive, I tell you!” she spat. “He will come, mark my words, daughter. And your measle of a husband can slink back into the Welsh wilderness whence he came.” Exhausted, she sank down into the chair, and Grace hurried to fetch a cup of wine.

Bess gritted her teeth. “I honor you too much to quarrel with you, madam,” she said, rubbing her wrist. “It would seem to me ’tis the bile in you speaking and not your true self, and so I forgive your lapse of courtesy. But do not forget I am now the queen, and when you insult the king, you insult me.” She swiveled on her heel and made for the door.

Grace stepped in front of her, tears in her eyes. “I beg of you, your grace, put yourself in your mother’s place,” she whispered. “After many years of anxious wondering, she has heard that one of her sons may yet live. Can you not understand the hope she has in her heart?” she pleaded. Then, more boldly, she said, “Besides, we have no proof that he is or is not Dickon yet, so allow her to hope until then—please.” Seeing her sister relent, she put her hand on Bess’s arm. “Can you not see ’tis this hope that keeps her alive?” she murmured. “I beg of you, do not leave here angry, or you will regret it, for you may never see her again.”