The Rose at Twilight (41 page)

“Aye.” He signed to Jonet to leave them, and she did so with an alacrity that astonished Alys. “Come back here,” he said then, “and soften your temper. I do not want to brangle.”

Seeing desire in his eyes, she felt her body respond, and said impulsively, “Take me back to London with you, Nicholas. You cannot know how much I have missed you.”

“Had you mentioned me before London, I’d believe you.”

“Oh, you enrage me!” She whirled from him, and would have stormed from the room, but he grabbed her and pulled her back.

When he kissed her, she melted against him, and when he scooped her into his arms and carried her to their bedchamber, she made no protest. In truth, she had missed him sorely, but if she hoped to find him more agreeable to her wishes once he had slaked his thirst for her, she was disappointed.

“Elizabeth’s temper is uncertain, lass,” he said, stroking her hair. “She is attended constantly by both her mother and Lady Margaret, and ’tis said the pair of them are driving her mad. And although everyone insists that the child will be a boy, she must be terrified of having a girl, for she is unpredictable and moody. You’d soon find yourself in the briars again.”

“I can take care of myself,” Alys said.

“Nonetheless,” he replied, “she has not asked for you and you will not go.” He shifted his position to look at her and said gently, “It is not safe. The court goes to Winchester soon to await the birth, and Harry has ordered transcripts made of the papal bull that both confirms his title and marriage and threatens excommunication to anyone who impugns either one. The contents will be read from pulpits across the realm. The bull has even been set in type, printed like the new books, so it can be posted everywhere for men to read for themselves. Under the circumstances, ’twould be unwise to allow you to go where you might annoy Elizabeth. Now, no more chatter,
mi calon.
We have better ways to spend our time.”

Agreeing with his last statement, if not all the others, she recognized that further argument would not move him, and decided to make the most of the short time he was able to spend with her before he returned to his duties. They had only one other dispute during his visit, when she learned the fate of the Stafford brothers, whose rebellion, like Lovell’s, had failed.

“The leaders fled into sanctuary,” Nicholas told her, “but they were soon dragged out again by the king’s men—”

“The Tudor ordered them taken from sanctuary!” Alys exclaimed, unable to believe her ears.

“Aye,” he said. “Humphrey Stafford was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in London, though Thomas was pardoned.”

She remembered what Lovell had told her about the Tudor policy of pardoning and punishing, but the tale horrified her. “How can you bear allegiance to a man who would break sanctuary?”

Nicholas said calmly, “He did what he had to do. Traitors claim immunity wherever they can find a cross, and Culham is not a proper sanctuary. Harry is a wise man, and I bear him allegiance because I believe he is good for the country.”

“For Wales, you mean!”

“Nay,
mi calon,
for England too. We need a proper king, a man, not a youth or a child over whom men wanting the power of the throne would continue to fight. Now, enough. I would go riding with you today to see more of my land.”

And so she rode with him and dined with him, debated with him and slept with him, enjoying his company and his attention so much that when the time came for him to leave again, tears welled into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

He paused to kiss them away, murmuring, “It will not be so long now, and you have plenty to do here, although methinks you have done little to please my brother. The poor fellow is more dour than ever. Must you brangle with him all the time?”

“I do not, sir,” she said, mopping moisture from her cheek with his handkerchief. “He has been like that since you sent Madeline away. I cannot think how you ever imagined they might make a match of it. She did seem a little attracted to him for a time, but if he heeded her at all, it was only to criticize her.”

“At first,” Nicholas said, “he saw only that it would be a good match, but now I think ’tis the lass he wants. I warned him that she was accustomed to be much admired and flattered, and that she paid little heed to any amongst her many admirers.”

“But he makes no effort to please her. He cannot want her.”

“As to that,” he said, twinkling at her, “you have never watched him coax a wild horse to take sugar from his hand. He stands and waits until the animal becomes so curious it cannot stay away from him. Now, Hugh tells me the wench was a rare handful for him on the road to London, and I can tell you she has not been in good humor there, either. Her father has presented a string of suitors to her, all willing to praise her beauty and woo her dowry, but she will have none of them.”

“She insists she means never to marry any man,” Alys said.

“Aye, and my answer to that is
‘baldarddws.’
Her father is a doting fool. Had he sense, he would thrash obedience into her as any other man would, but he does not. He says only that she is a wench with a mind of her own.” He sighed. “Gwilym says, and in truth, I agree, though you will not, that such indulgence has done her little good. She will be the better for a husband’s stronger hand; and there
will
be a husband, lass, one day.” Then turning before she could argue the point he shouted to Hugh, “The lads are ready to ride. Have you said your farewells?”

“Aye,” Hugh shouted back with a grin, “and would have got my face slapped, could she but have reached it. The wee minikin’s got a right limber tongue though. Called me a prick-eared maggot-pate and said I was bound for the devil. What a woman!”

Chuckling, Nicholas turned back to Alys, gave her a hug, and then with one last kiss, he was mounted and gone. He had promised to write, and he did so, but though she looked forward to his letters, they continued to disappoint her, for not one included an invitation to join him or to return to the court.

Madeline’s letters, though haphazardly written and carelessly blotted, were far more satisfying. When she wrote to share the court’s delight after Elizabeth was safely delivered of her son in September, Alys felt as though she and Jonet might almost have been there in attendance with her.

“Lady Margaret, thinking the queen too inexperienced to handle such matters,” Madeline wrote from Winchester, “did devise all the plans for the lying-in, the furnishing of her grace’s chamber, the cradle, the christening, even for the nursing of the prince. It was she, not the king, who decided the baby should be born here at the legendary home of King Arthur; and Alys, they have christened the baby Arthur! The Earl of Oxford was to stand godfather, and we waited three hours in the cathedral for him to arrive, but at last the service began without him. Torches were lighted, the grand procession to the high altar was made, and two hymns were sung before Oxford galloped in like a destrier blown, right into the midst of it, in time to see the dowager queen lay the baby on the altar for the long ceremony. Elizabeth lies abed still, and there was another magnificent candlelit procession to take him home to her again. He is a fine laddie, Alys, and makes me yearn for one of my own. We go downriver to Greenwich soon, so do beg Sir Nicholas to permit you to come to us. I am become maudlin, for life at court is tiresome without you.”

Alys found herself wishing that Nicholas, not Madeline, had written the last line. Thinking about Greenwich with its green parks and open vistas across the Thames, she could almost hear the lapping of the water against the banks and the cries of the gulls overhead. But Nicholas never wrote such lines to her, nor did he grant permission. Her moods soon became as unpredictable as Elizabeth’s had been, and her health began to deteriorate.

At first she thought she was truly ill, once even fearing a recurrence of the sweat, but then, with Jonet’s help, the reason for her capricious bouts of sickness became clear. Both elated and alarmed, she wanted one moment to tell the world and the next to tell no one, for she was certain that if Nicholas learned of her delicate condition, he would never allow her to travel to London. In point of fact, she was a trifle concerned herself about the journey, but by the time he did grant his permission, in December, she was feeling perfectly stout, and thoroughly delighted with her interesting condition.

Gwilym brought her the news, saying in his blunt way, “I’ve had a letter from Nick. We’re to join the court for Christmas.”

“At last!” she exclaimed. “But where are they now? When Madeline last wrote, they had removed to Sheen again.”

“Westminster be where we’re headed,” Gwilym said, “and our family will be there, as well. Nicholas has hired a house in London for them. But here, the lad brought you a letter, too. We can be ready to depart in three days’ time, I’m thinking.”

She snatched at the letter he held out, but even before she opened it, her heart began to sing. They were returning to court at last, a fact confirmed in the first line of Nicholas’s brief letter. The rest was only a carefully worded warning that she behave herself, a warning upon which she felt no necessity to dwell. She rushed to take the news to Jonet and to begin preparing for the journey, hoping the weather, which had been threatening rain for a week, would remain dry enough to travel.

It did not rain, and Sir Nicholas, riding from Sheen, met their party at Waltham, where they put up for the night. Though the order at Waltham Abbey was much poorer than their brothers at Burton, they provided excellent accommodations for travelers, and lay brothers to look after them. Nicholas was in a festive mood, and he snatched Alys up in his arms in the guest hall and gave her a great, smacking kiss, his eyes alight with laughter and delight at seeing her again.

His mood was contagious, and she grinned at him. “Put me down, sir. You will shock the good brothers, should any so far forget himself as to peep out at us from the cloister.”

He chuckled, setting her on her feet. “You have become demure then, madam. Why, I recall, not so long since—”

“Hush,” she said, putting a finger to his lips. “I am determined not to quarrel with you, but if you are to cast up all my past mistakes for the world to mock, I shall not be held responsible for my actions.”

He squeezed her hand, then turned to greet his brother, clapping him on the shoulder and demanding to know if he had left the estate in good hands. “I was torn,” he said with a smile, “between my need for you there, and my lady wife’s requirements on the road. I hope she has not led you a wicked dance, Gwilym.”

“The trip was uneventful,” Gwilym replied with a smile. Alys had seen his mood improve almost hourly on the road, as had Jonet’s for once, though Jonet’s comments upon her palfrey’s paces did not bear repeating. Gwilym said, “No doubt, Nick, we have you to thank as much as anyone for the peaceful journey we had. The land is quiet for once.”

“Thank the weather,” Nicholas said. “There has been little snow, but the sky threatens a storm every day. There is thunder brewing even now. I hope we can get safe to Greenwich tomorrow without being struck by lightning. It can tear at the land all it wants once we are safe within the castle walls.”

“We’ve little enough distance to cover,” Gwilym said, adding with a brisk nod when Hugh entered the hall, “Ah, man, ’tis good to see you.” He held out his hand, and Alys watched it disappear into Hugh’s great paw, conscious of Jonet stiffening beside her.

Hugh glanced at both women and said cheerfully to Gwilym, “I see you managed to bring our
meistr’s
lady safe to us, and that lovely but peevish butterbox of a maid of hers as well.”

“Peevish butterbox, is it now?” Jonet muttered indignantly. “The blathering, totty-headed gowk!” Making a small, dignified curtsy, she said in a louder but much more polite tone, “How delightful to see you again, Master Gower, and to hear more of your pretty compliments. My lady was just saying we had naught to entertain us here, and here you are to put her to the lie.”

Hugh bowed deep from the waist, saying, “Now, now, my sweet igniferent bawd, much though it goes against the hair with me to find fault with so toothsome a wench as thyself, thou must not call thy mistress a liar. ’Tis downright disrespectful.”

“Igniferent bawd! Disrespectful!” She stared at him in amazement. “Why, I’ve never heard the like. How dare thee rebuke me in such terms, tha’ great clubfisted clenchpoop!”

“You miss the cushion there, sweet cosset. I am no clown but the truest penny going, albeit a trifle woman-tired.”

“Daffish dogbolt,” Jonet said provocatively.

“Popping doxy,” he retorted.

“Dizzard!”

“Giglet!”

“Giglet? Tha’ wouldst name me doxy and giglet? Why, tha’ pesterous, gorebellied lobcock—”

“Gorebellied?” Hugh cried, stung on the raw at last. “By God’s sanity, lass, I am not fat, just well favored. It fair topsy-turns my brain to hear thee say such a thing of me.” In an aside to the other two men, he said, “She’s a filly as bites on the bridle now and again, but you watch. I shall soon have her as tame as her own palfrey, and eating out of my hand.”

“Tha’ wilt not, tha’ cankerish, cocksure, pigeon-livered hoddypeke,” Jonet snapped. “Tha’ hast nerve enough, and size, but nowt save a wee pea for a brain, and—”

“Now that was very good,” Hugh interjected to the others in a tone inviting agreement. “A man likes a minx to hold her own.” Smiling at Jonet, he said, “I cry creak, lass. Once more hast thou belabored me with thy tongue till I be fair crow-trodden.”

“Tha’ looks it, tha’ great gowk,” she retorted gruffly, but this time she blushed and looked at her feet when she spoke.

Putting an arm around her shoulders, Hugh said gently, “Snick up, lass. Put up thy sword, and come away with me to the fire. I’ve more compliments to impart, to be sure, but I’d as lief make a gift of them to none but thy lautitious self.”

To Alys’s astonishment, although Jonet looked up at him warily, she walked away with him without another word.

Sir Nicholas shook his head. “Hugh has fallen harder than we knew, Gwilym. ’Tis a thing I never thought to see.”