The King's Grace (65 page)
Authors: Anne Easter Smith
“Tom!” Grace cried, and then lowered her voice. “How could you laugh? I did not know what to do…say.” She paused. “But then I knew what he was doing. He was playing with me, and I took the bait. And now I must deliver the dire tidings to Katherine. I pray she has the courage to accept it—unless…” and her mind began to race, as it always did when an idea was forming.
“Unless?” Tom frowned. “There seems to be no way out of this, Grace.”
“Unless we leave court and try to find the boy,” Grace enthused, her
tears forgotten. “We could use Enid to navigate around the Welsh hills. I must help Perkin, for he may be my brother. Certes, you must know who took—”
“No!” Tom said suddenly, a hint of anger in his frustrated exclamation. “No, Grace. There will be no more harebrained schemes, I pray you. You are not alone now. You have a duty to two children, who deserve to live in comfort and safety. I will not permit you to help this”—he wanted to say imposter, but he did not need to hurt Grace further—“this man or his wife, no matter how deserving. In fact, I forbid it.”
Memories of their disagreements over John flooded Grace’s mind, and Tom felt her stiffen beside him. He tried turning her head to kiss her, but she refused to move it, and he could see the stubborn set of her jaw and tears ready to spill. He sighed. “Please, sweetheart, let us kiss and use this time to discover each other again. ’Tis Advent and a time of chastity, I know, but it has been too long. I do not doubt that God will forgive us.” He stroked her back, tugging at her laces. Even in times of tension between them, his desire for her never lessened.
“Nay, Tom. I cannot lie with you when I know that poor man cannot lie with his Katherine,” Grace explained. “I am sorry. But their loss will be like a shadow between us.”
Tom dropped his hand. “Ah, Grace. Once again I must share you with another man,” he said bitterly. “The precious moments I had planned for us here are gone, I believe. I could force you, as is my right, but I made a vow to myself when we were wed that I would never exercise that right. And so I will leave you,” he said, standing up and reaching for his doublet. At the door he turned and, for the first time since she had known him, she saw tears in his eyes. “Can you never put our love above all else? Must you always shelter weak creatures and put yourself at risk? It seems you are as elusive to me as the crown is for Perkin.”
“Oh, Tom,” Grace cried, running to him. “Do not leave me, I beg of you. I do not mean to hurt you, husband, truly I do not.” It was her turn to stroke him, while he stood solid as the door at his back. “Your words have reached out and touched my foolish heart. Until this moment, I did not know how truly I love you. The scene in the audience chamber unnerved me, ’tis all, and living beside Lady Katherine these weeks has saddened me beyond belief.” She reached up and took his face in her hands, feeling the
soft beard between her fingers. “You do not know how many times a day I thank God for the love we have and are able to show each other.” She went back to the bed and pulled off her stiff headdress and the cap underneath. Keeping his gaze, she unwound the glossy plait and allowed the freed curls to fall to her waist. “Stay a while, my dearest love, and you shall have my full attention, I swear.”
A single tear escaped from Tom’s eye before he groaned, “Ah, my sweet Grace,” and went into her embrace.
Although Grace gave in readily to Tom’s passion, she could not erase the memory of the two beautiful objects of Henry’s disdain touching each other so tenderly and in such desperation earlier. How could she not offer them her friendship and comfort?
N
O ONE REFUSED
a royal invitation for Christmas at Shene. It was unthinkable, especially this Christmas, when Perkin would be a focal point. Once Mass was celebrated, the king, wearing his ceremonial crown according to the custom of centuries, had laid hands on several afflicted subjects, who were expected to heal from the blessing. Only then could the festivities of the twelve days begin.
Lying next to Cecily after another evening of entertainment by mummers, poets, musicians and the court jesters, Grace dreamed she was back at Bermondsey. She floated through the winter garden, heard a pig shriek in agony near the cowshed as it was sacrificed for the winter provisioning and saw a monk coming towards her, his face hidden in his cowl. As she reached out to throw back his hood, flames started licking at his habit and the sickly smell of burning flesh assailed her nostrils. Then, out of nowhere, crowds jeered and taunted the man, but he did not seem to notice them or the fire. “Water! Fetch water!” Grace screamed at the mob, and then she saw the man’s face. It was John, and he was smiling at her, his face bathed in an eerie light. It was not fireglow she saw, but an unearthly, iridescent light. “Dearest John,” she cried, “you have returned.” He shook his head, and she thought he had never looked so happy. Shimmering as if in a mirage, a second figure appeared beside him, and Grace recognized his mother, Katherine Haute, who took his hand and gently pulled him away. “Look after yourself, Grace,” John said, his habit on fire and yet the flames not consuming him. Then she realized the burning smell of flesh was her
own and felt a searing pain in her leg. As the cacophony of voices deafened her, she thrashed at her fiery gown, trying to extinguish it.
“God’s bones, Grace!” Cecily cursed sleepily. “Stop kicking me, I beg of you.”
Grace’s eyes flew open and she realized with relief that she had been dreaming. She crossed herself and then frowned, wrinkling her nose. “’Tis no dream!” she exclaimed, sitting up and sniffing the air. “I smell smoke. Wake up, Cis!” An orange glow was reflected in the windowpanes from the king’s apartments, and she could hear distant shouts. “I’m not dreaming, there
is
a fire!” she screamed. She jumped out of bed and fumbled in the dark for her cloak.
Cecily came awake instantly. “Where?” she cried, flinging off the bedcovers.
Grace flung open the casement, and then the shouts could be plainly heard. Although the walls were stone, the interior of the old palace was constructed mostly of wood. Indeed, Henry had remarked just that night, as the Yule log sent out a shower of sparks that set the floor rushes aflame in the great hall, that with its vulnerable hammer-beam roof Shene was a disaster waiting to happen. It would seem, Grace thought grimly as she lit a taper, that his prediction was correct.
The women ran from room to room, waking the queen’s household, and Cecily and Grace helped Bess into an overdress and cloak to join them in her waiting chamber for news. Grace ran to the nursery to make sure Susannah and Isabella were safe and unafraid. The room was at the back of the palace, and when she entered all were undisturbed, as the noise and smoke had not penetrated those corridors. She held her candle aloft and for the hundredth time gazed in wonder at her sleeping children, curled up together in their tiny bed.
“There is a fire in the king’s apartments, Margery,” she whispered to the nursemaid. “’Tis a long way off and under control, I feel certain. But perhaps we should take the children outside to safety.”
Waking the older children and wrapping them in blankets, then each carrying the littlest, the two women made their way down the two flights of stairs to the door into the knot garden. Bella began crying at being so rudely awakened, which set off her cousin Mary, their wails adding to the chaos the little group found outside as dozens of servants and grooms ran
back and forth with buckets of water from the river to douse the flames or damp down the adjoining buildings. The chapel wing was blazing, which included the wardrobe where Perkin slept with his guards, Grace realized. Dear God, I pray he was not so foolish as to have set it. Why, he might have killed the king! She dared not contemplate such folly.
An hour later, when the fire had been isolated to one part of the palace, the queen’s household returned to their chambers and Grace let Bella and Susannah share her bed for what was left of the night, although few were able to sleep. As the day was dawning, Henry went to tell the queen that the fire had been contained but the wing was all but destroyed.
“It began in the wardrobe,” Henry said, his arm about Bess. “A candle,
certainement.
Praise God no one was hurt.”
“But that is where…” Bess paused, raising an eyebrow.
“Where
le garçon
sleeps? Aye, you have the measure of it, my dear. The two yeomen Kebyll and Sherwyn—his night guardians—slept beside him as always but swore they had snuffed their tapers,” he said. “They were fortunate to get out alive. Very fortunate,” he repeated grimly. His eyes scanned the room and found Lady Katherine, who looked quickly away. Grace felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Had Katherine helped him? Nay, she has not been out of anyone’s sight. Truly it must all be a cruel coincidence, she decided. Besides, it would have been certain suicide if indeed Perkin had set it.
It was a mystery, the courtiers whispered, why Henry has not simply accused the man of attempting to kill the king and could thus have rid himself of this tiresome Perkin prickle. Once again, Henry hesitated.
Within days Henry had ordered that the palace be completely rebuilt. He said Shene belonged to a bygone era and that in looking forward to a new century, Richmond Palace would rise from the ruins in its stead.
Malines
JANUARY
1498
H
enri de Berghes, bishop of Cambrai, waited for the dowager duchess to speak. He had been summoned to her private solar for her usual weekly confession and was surprised to find her waiting for him in her high-backed chair and not upon her knees at the prie-dieu. The exquisite triptych, commissioned from Hans Memling by Margaret, had not even been opened, nor were the two candles lit that illuminated the prayer book. The bishop’s handsome features remained impassive as he contemplated his steepled fingers and allowed Margaret to gather her thoughts. They were alone, as was customary for a supplicant and her confessor, but on more than one occasion the dowager had used the time to confide other than her venial sins to him. About the same age, they shared a strong bond of piety and mutual respect that had allowed confidences to flow freely between them over the past ten years.
“My lord bishop, I have troubling news from England,” Margaret began, her eyes sad. “It appears King Henry, not satisfied with capturing
Richard and torturing a confession from him, is subjecting him to the most degrading public derision while pretending to treat him as a guest at court.”
“Aye,
madame
, I had heard such a rumor.” Cambrai nodded. “’Twould seem the king is afraid to imprison one who may be royal and yet he is afraid to be seen as weak by not confining him. The young duke of York is in grave danger, I fear.” Margaret’s mouth turned down and Cambrai was afraid she was about to cry. He had had no experience of dealing with a woman’s tears—and especially not one this powerful—until the news had come of Richard’s capture and confession. Then she had been inconsolable for many minutes during that particular meeting, and he had been relieved when anger overcame her tears and she cursed Henry, astounding Cambrai with her vitriol. Now he sent up a prayer to his favorite St. Peter to stem the flood that threatened to engulf her again. “How can I help you,
madame
?” he offered.
Margaret composed herself and gave him a wan smile. “I want you to go to the English court and make sure my darling nephew knows I still support him. I fear Maximilian and Philip are losing interest in his cause because of the despicable trading restraints Henry has imposed on Burgundy. I am certain that your erudition and spotless reputation will give Henry no reason to refuse you a private audience with Richard. Any letters I write will never reach him, and”—she drew a deep breath, her tears close now—“I want him to know that he still means everything in the world to me, but that without Maximilian and Philip’s support, I cannot send an army to rescue him.” She fingered the white rose brooch she always wore, and Cambrai knew this trinket was a constant reminder of her York family roots, from which she took her strength even after thirty years in her adopted land. “Will you go, my lord?” she cajoled. “For me?”
Cambrai thought quickly. A brilliant man from a fine family who had served both Duke Charles and Maximilian well, he was acutely aware that Richard, duke of York’s future was not bright. And if the truth be told, he had never believed Margaret that this young man was the son of Edward of England. He could not believe he was a boatman’s son, either, and it had irked him that although Margaret trusted him in all other matters temporal and spiritual, she would not reveal to him the man’s true identity. If he went to the court as her emissary, he felt certain Henry would refuse to see
him; if he went secretly, he might succeed, but at what cost once Henry’s spies discovered the ruse? He would put his rather special life in danger, he suspected, and Cambrai had no intention of jeopardizing the power and luxury he had built up for himself. And yet how could he refuse the woman who had helped him get there?
“May I think on your request,
madame
?” He put a tiny emphasis on the word
request
, reminding her that he was not hers to command. “A visit to the English court must be carefully planned if it is to be successful, do you not agree? We must be better informed of the climate there before we endanger your nephew by putting our foot wrong.”
To his immense relief, Margaret sighed, got to her feet and stretched out her hand in agreement. “Aye, my lord, we shall think on it and not do anything rash. Henry of England may not know what to do with Richard, but let us be sure we do.”
London
SUMMER
1498
A
nd still Henry could not make up his mind how to deal with the peacock called Perkin. He took his captive down to Kent with him during the month of April. After celebrating Easter at Canterbury, Henry subjected Perkin to the humiliation of witnessing the king receive the captured standard from the failed Deal landing in a ceremony that included a singing of the
Te Deum.
There seemed no end to Henry’s debasing of his so-called guest.
When the court removed to the Tower in the middle of May, Katherine received a gift from the king that surprised even Cecily. A tawny gown over a black worsted kirtle, ribbons for her girdle and some white gauze to tuck around her neck were ordered for her, and for the first time since she was taken to Henry’s presence in Exeter, Katherine did not wear black.
“Do you suppose his grace is softening towards us, Grace?” Katherine asked one morning after Mass as they were walking in the tidy knot garden in the inner ward of the Tower. The king was lodged in the Lanthorn
Tower this time and out of sight of the queen’s apartments, which emboldened Katherine to ask the question. “My husband has shown he plots no more and is contented to be a guest at court. ’Tis said his aunt in Flanders has abandoned him…”
“Nay!” Grace exclaimed. “Do not say so. He—you—are not forgotten, trust me. There can be no communication at present, ’tis all. The Holy Roman Emperor still works to have Perkin returned to Burgundy, so Tom tells me.” True, the attempts at a diplomatic solution had lessened on the part of Maximilian since November, when trade sanctions had hit the Burgundian merchants hard, but Grace was convinced Margaret would never abandon her White Rose and believed what she was saying to Katherine. She changed the subject. “I can imagine your husband’s face when he sees you in your new gown, Lady Katherine. In truth, you will turn the head of every man at court. You are truly beautiful.”
Katherine dimpled. “The king is most kind. I cannot believe I warrant an expense such as this,” she said, holding up one sumptuously decorated sleeve and fingering the braid and ribbons.
Grace merely smiled. Katherine was an innocent, she had decided. Had she not noticed the queen’s worn-out clothes and wondered why the king did not allow his wife more of an allowance? Grace knew that Elizabeth’s shoes were of the cheapest leather because she spent much of her income on her own sisters’ upkeep and dowries. And the amounts she gave to help the poor and infirm often left her in debt. Then she had to beg Henry for a loan, which Grace told Cecily was degrading.
Grace looked at the radiant Katherine, who was admiring her new garment, and prayed the young woman could avoid hearing the common gossip about the king’s generosity. Even Viscount Welles had told Tom of his disapproval of his nephew’s recent crass remarks about the Lady Katherine to his privy council at Westminster. “He would have her to mistress, if he could,” Tom told Grace. “’Tis only the Scottish treaty and the need to see the betrothal between James and little Margaret come to pass that keeps the king’s hands off the woman.” And Grace had noted it was the first time Tom had been openly critical of his sovereign.
“Such a champion of young and fragile ladies you are, Sir Thomas,” she’d teased him. He had scratched his rumpled head of hair and given her his endearing sheepish grin, which made her stand on tiptoe to pull
his face to hers to kiss. “I beg of you, husband, look to your own lady and not at others. Am I not enough of a handful? Not to mention Susannah and Bella.”
Grace smiled as she thought of how he had picked her up by her waist then, and she’d wrapped her legs around him as they exchanged a kiss that might have led to further exploration but for their location in front of a window to one of the palace offices, where a balding accountant had tapped loudly on the window and embarrassed them.
Katherine’s voice interrupted her thoughts and, as she turned to apologize, she saw Robert Cleymond stomping across the courtyard. Begging Katherine’s pardon, she darted down the pathway to speak to him.
“My cousin of Warwick?” she murmured when he recognized her and bowed. “Is he well?”
Cleymond nodded, his smile guarded. “As well as can be expected under the circumstances. I am on my way to give my weekly report to Sir Simon, if you will excuse me, my lady.” And he bowed again and would have passed on but Grace stayed him with a raised hand.
“Tell my cousin that I have kept my promise,” she bade him. “I have prayed daily for his release, but I do not seem to have enough influence with the saints to matter. If my duties to the queen allow, I will try to visit him before we leave again, Master Cleymond.” She inclined her head. “I am sorry to have kept you.”
She thought she saw him smirk, but as he was an insignificant little man, she ignored it and returned to Katherine.
“Did you know my cousin, Edward of Warwick, languishes in the Byward Tower for crimes he never committed?” she asked by way of explanation for her absence. “’Twas his manservant I spoke to. Sweet Jesu, Ned was only nine years old when he was imprisoned after Bosworth. I still remember his screams as he was taken away from all of us.” She watched Katherine’s eyes grow as big as bucklers. “But Henry has always been afraid of him—just as he is afraid of Perkin. Aye, Katherine, that is the other side of King Henry you do not see. ’Tis the side I hope you—or Perkin—never sees.”
Katherine shivered. “Let us go inside, Grace. For all it is May, I am suddenly chilled.”
T
HE BARGES SWUNG
sideways to the ebbing tide and the oarsmen brought them into shore with ease. Once safely tied, the queen and all her company processed into Westminster Palace to rejoin the king’s court once more. Since the Tower, Henry had progressed to Woodstock and Hertford, and Bess had begged to be excused. In March she had lost a child she had carried for only a few months and it had weakened her constitution. And she still grieved.
As they wound their way up the spiral stone staircase to the queen’s wing of the rambling palace, they could hear music floating up from the great hall. It sounded as though someone was playing the round organ and singing, but whether the voice was male or female, Grace could not decide, but was less than tuneful. Later, when Henry joined the queen in her small audience chamber for supper, Dick the Fool came tumbling into the room and then began to sing in a high falsetto, preening and posing before the king and queen.
“He mimics
le garçon
, my dear,” Henry explained, grinning, and Grace winced at the demeaning moniker. He swiveled around to find Katherine in the group of ladies and called her forward. She sank to her knees in front of him, and his hand trembled as he put it out for her to kiss. “Your husband chose to give us a recital today, my dear Lady Katherine. He thinks because he was trained in a humble choir in Tournai that he can sing. Such arrogance. Would you believe he has even offered the wife of one of my ushers music lessons? ’Tis amusing,
n’est ce pas
? I have tasked Skelton to write a poem in praise of him. You shall be the first to hear it.”
Katherine’s eyes were now bright with tears, and she flinched.
“Your grace,” Bess chided him gently. “Is this necessary?”
Henry’s smile faded and he turned away, catching Grace’s eye so unexpectedly she was unable to hide the anger in it. “I see I am unwelcome here tonight. I do not seem to please you, madam,” he said to Bess, “or you, Lady Gordon,” he said to Katherine, still on her knees, “nor indeed any of your ladies,” he said straight to Grace. “I believe I shall retire, and so wish you all
bonne nuit
.” He strode from the room, leaving Bess full of remorse in his wake.
G
RACE’S ANGER MOUNTED
further when John Skelton, poet laureate, entertained the court the next night with his verses that he titled
Against a Comely Groom.
Katherine was told to stand with Perkin, facing the royal dais in the middle of the great hall upon the wide staircase leading back into the palace. Bess sat motionless on her throne, her eyes never wavering from the white hart badge of King Richard the Second engraved over the huge oak door at the other end of the hall. In anticipation of the poem, Henry’s mood was merry, and he told some of his courtiers to be prepared to wager well later that night. “I am in the mood for a game of chance, sirs. Make ready the tables,” he said, rubbing his hands and clinking his money pouch. “Now, Master Poet Laureate, pray entertain us.
Nom de Dieu
, I pay you well enough to scribble your lines,” he cried. “Let us hear the droppings from that witty tongue of yours.”
The hall was silent as a tall stick of a man came forward dressed in a flowing green and white robe that might have been fashionable in the Rome of Cicero and Virgil, and upon the breast of which was embroidered the word
Calliope
, his muse. A laurel wreath rested on top of his wispy white hair and his gleaming sharp, birdlike eyes roamed the room until they settled on the young couple standing alone upon the black and white marble flagstones. His pink cheeks flushed red and a slow smile spread from ear to ear, revealing several bright yellow teeth and an overactive tongue that darted in and out of his mouth like a reptile’s. “He is relishing this,” Cecily whispered to Grace. “He thinks no one should teach music but him. He thinks he is the sole recipient of the Muse’s gifts, and he thinks Perkin has tried to usurp his position. God help our poor imposter.”
“A sweet sugar loaf and sour bran bun
Be somewhat inform and shape alike,
The one for a duke, the other for dung,
A bit for a horse thereon to bite.
The groom’s heart is too high to have any chance,
Except in his scale to snatch what he can;
Lo, Jack would be a gentleman!”
A guffaw from Henry accompanied the line about “his scale,” and Perkin cast his eyes down to his feet, his toes nervously poking at the rushes. Grace’s heart went out to him, but there was nothing she could do but listen to the rest of the scathing diatribe that had the court in stitches.
“He cannot find it in sharps and flats
Though he sings the notes from ‘doh’ to ‘ti.’
He brags of his birth that was born full base
His music lacks measure, too sharp is his ‘mi’
He trims his tenor o’er his deficiency.”
There was even a line that referenced Katherine, who blushed from her bodice to her brow:
“Lord, how this Perkin is proud of his peahen.”
Skelton pronounced the initial p’s with a popping emphasis, gloating over his own prose.
When Skelton took his bow, Henry roared and encouraged the court to applaud with hands and feet thumping tables and the floor. Then he threw a rose noble to Skelton, who was ready and caught it deftly, bowing his thanks to his sovereign.
“I would see Perkin and his peahen dance,” Henry cried, waving at the musicians to begin. “Something sprightly, I pray you.”
Cecily drew in a sharp breath. “’Tis beyond belief,” she murmured to Grace.
“And look at his mother, beaming beside him,” Grace answered.
Cecily was silent; her friendship with Margaret Beaufort had deepened during the years Grace had spent in Westow, but she could not blame Grace for her unkind comments. The woman had treated Elizabeth with disrespect and encouraged Henry to send Grace from court.
Grace could see that Perkin and Katherine used the time on the dance floor to their advantage, caressing each other’s hands and brushing much too close during the crosses of the dance. They had been joined by others now, and so a few murmured remarks between the couple were not noticed, except by Grace—and possibly by Henry.
Later, as Grace and Katherine walked side by side up the staircase back to their quarters, Katherine whispered: “Richard can bear it no longer. He means to run away.”
Grace stopped in her tracks. “He cannot! ’Tis too dangerous. Henry will surely kill him.”
Katherine’s chin trembled. “He says ’twould be preferable to dying of shame each day as he is doing. I tried to talk him out of it, but he is stubborn. It seems the locks on the door to the wardrobe room are be
ing changed. His servants told him this today. He wonders if you would help us?” They were hidden in the doorway of a dark corridor, a flambeau lighting their way farther down the passageway. Grace nervously fingered her brooch—the gift from Elizabeth that always gave her courage. She thought quickly, which, Tom would have reminded her, often led to rash action on her part. But Tom was not there, and this man who had been, in name if not in person, so much a part of her life for the past twelve years needed her help. She could not refuse.
“Does he yet have a plan?” she asked Katherine, who shook her head.
How convenient that the locks would be changed, she thought. It would take the locksmith a day at least. Perkin was right to use the information to his advantage. If he could get past the two yeomen servants and whatever other guard might be outside the door, he could use the river to make his escape.
“I want to go with him,” Katherine interrupted Grace’s planning. “We shall go into Wales and find our son, and then we will flee to Europe.”
“You plotted all this during the dance this evening?”
“Nay,” Katherine admitted. “I have spoken with him a few times from the window in the wardrobe room at night when you—and his guards—are asleep. There is a ladder in the room, for fetching down items from high shelves, and Richard climbs it to reach the window. It is not far to the ground outside, but too far for him to jump, in truth. We can hear each other even though we whisper.”
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Certes, Katherine, and I thought you would not say boo to a goose. I am awed by your daring.”
Now Katherine drew herself up and leveled her gaze at Grace in the gloom. “I am Katherine Gordon, daughter of the earl of Huntly, and I grew up by the highlands of Scotland,” she declared, her brogue thickening with every word. “I have climbed hills higher than you boast of in England, hunted in dense forests and sailed in a miserable boat to Ireland for weeks while close to my birthing time. I have more courage than anyone at this lily-livered court, in truth.”