The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III (144 page)

ourselves in such a coil. Grieving takes many guises, lass. We'd never accepted Ned's death, either of us, sought to find him in each other. I truly believe-
Tudor got no further; Bess snatched it from his hand.
"That be private, meant for no eyes but mine."
His pride and common sense spoke as one, advised him to let it lie. But the need to know what was in that letter was too strong and he held out his hand, said curtly, "I'm to be your husband. That does give me the right to know of your past."
She stared at him and then walked without haste to the hearth, very slowly and deliberately fed Richard's letter into the flames.
He was not a man to let his emotions show. "I think, Bess, that it be time we talked about what there was between you and your uncle." Only in the heavy stress laid upon the word uncle did he reveal the extent of his anger.
"I have consented to be your wife, Henry. I want no more war, no more killing, will do what I can to reconcile Yorkist and Lancastrian loyalties. I will do all that is expected of a wife, of a Queen, and God willing, I will give you sons. But there is one thing I will not do. I will not discuss Richard of Gloucester with you . . . not now, not ever."
"The choice is not yours to make, Bess. If you are to be my wife, I have the right to know the nature of the bond between you. You'd not deny that I have reason enough for doubts. The rumors linking your name with Gloucester's were such that he felt the need to make an unprecedented public denial. I heard it said at the French court that he would have married you if he dared, that he-"
"You heard wrong," she snapped. "Dickon loved but one woman in his life. I was not that woman. Now if you still have doubts, I suggest you learn to live with them, for I've said all I mean to say."
Her defiance rankled, but what bothered him most was the easy intimacy of "Dickon." He regretted ever having started this, aware that they were on the verge of saying that which could not be forgiven, of destroying whatever fragile hope they might have of reaching some sort of accord. But he didn't know how to back down, felt committed to press for answers he was no longer sure he wanted.
"Assuming that you're speaking the truth, you have only told me what Anne Neville was to Gloucester, not what Gloucester was to you. Bess, I'm entitled to know; you owe me the truth. Was he your lover?"
"No!" The mouth he found so desirable was contorted, rimmed in white. "Not that I expect you to believe me, but no, no, he was not!"
She was trembling, angry tears welling in her eyes, spilling

unheeded down her face, and he realized that whatever his right, it was a question he should not have asked.
"I do believe you," he said at last, put his hand on her arm. She jerked away from his touch, and he wheeled about, strode to the door. But his anger carried him no farther than the antechamber. There was too much at stake to walk away, to let this grievance fester between them; whether they liked it or not, he and Bess were stuck with each other, and he did not want a wife who hated him, who submitted to him in silent loathing. He wanted more than her body, wanted her goodwill, her respect. Turning, he reentered the chamber.
Bess was on her knees by the hearth, thrusting the fire tongs into the flames. He was close enough now to see her aim, to see what looked to be a charred fragment of paper in the ashes. She was sobbing, tear-blinded, seemed oblivious of his presence even when he leaned over her and sought to take the fire tongs.
"Bess, you'll burn yourself and for nothing. The letter's burned; it's gone. Come now, and give me the tongs."
She shook her head, clung with surprising strength. "No . . . there's part of it intact, I see it. . . ." She made a final lunge with the tongs, reached for the letter; it crumbled at the touch, fell apart in brittle flakes.
Bess dropped the tongs, buried her face in her hands and wept.
"Bess. . . . Bess, for God's sake. ..."
He was at a loss, at last put an arm around her, lifted her forcibly to her feet. She swayed against him, still sobbing, as a child would cry, without restraint or inhibition, soaking his doublet with her tears. He fumbled for a handkerchief, parted her back awkwardly. After what seemed to him to be an exceedingly long time, her sobs grew less convulsive; her breath no longer came in strangled gasps.
"Be you all right?" he asked, felt her stiffen against him as if realizing for the first time who was holding her.
"Yes, I... I think so," she said, very low, moved to put space between them.
"If you're sure. . . ." He raised her hand to his lips, very formally, turned to go.
"Henry."
He stopped, his hand on the door latch, and she said hurriedly, "I... thank you."
The door closed; she sank down weakly into the nearest chair. She'd been braced for a barrage of pointed questions, had been so sure he was going to begin harassing her about Dickon again. He'd just shown himself to be more sensitive than she'd have expected. But did he still believe her? If she had to choose three words to describe Henry, they would be clever,

secretive, and suspicious. If she had to choose but one, it would be suspicious.
She drew a deep, uneven breath. She was borrowing trouble, and for naught. Even if she had stirred up his suspicions again, it would be easy enough to allay them once they bedded together, once he was reassured that she was a virgin. But she didn't want to think of that now, God no. Coming abruptly to her feet, she began to circle aimlessly, tracking the confines of the room as she'd seen trapped lions in the
Tower pacing their cages.
Suddenly realizing she still held Tudor's handkerchief, she paused before the fire, thrust it into the flames.
They shot upward, blurred in a blaze of brightness; tears were filling her eyes again.
"I'm Elizabeth of York," she said aloud, "and I shall be Queen. God forgive me, Papa, Tudor's Queen."
The tears were falling faster now, streaking her face like rain. Henry had been right; Dickon's letter was gone, burned beyond recall. But she remembered, remembered every word. Memories endured; they could not be burned.
" 'Grieving takes many guises,' she whispered. "You were wrong, Dickon, you were wrong. I did love you. ..."
3 1
M E C H I N I A, BURGUNDY
July 1486
he
LENRY Tudor passed his first Easter as King in the walled city of Lincoln. While there, he was warned that Francis Lovell and Humphrey Stafford had fled sanctuary, were seeking to raise an insurrection against him, Francis in the North and Humphrey in Worcester. Deeming Francis to pose the greater threat, for the North still smoldered with discontent, Tudor dispatched three thousand men north, under command of his uncle, Jasper Tudor.

Francis and Humphrey were laboring under an all but insurmountable handicap in that while their aim was to dethrone Tudor, they had no candidate to put forward in his place; Jack de la Pole seemed to have come to terms with Tudor's kingship, and George's eleven-year-old son was under close confinement in the Tower of London. When Jasper Tudor shrewdly proclaimed free pardons to all rebels, many of
Francis's men had second thoughts about the risks of their enterprise, slipped away under cover of darkness. Francis made a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to ambush Tudor and, when that failed, he went into hiding in Lancashire. From there, he was able to make his way to the coast, to take ship for
Burgundy. Margaret had made of her court a garden for the White Rose of York; she welcomed him as if he were blood kin.
Humphrey Stafford was not so lucky. He chose to seek sanctuary a second time, taking refuge at the abbey at Culham. On Whitsun Eve, John Savage and sixty armed men burst into the abbey, took
Humphrey out by force. Despite his argument that his arrest was illegal since sanctuary had been violated, he was found guilty of treason. Taken to the gallows at Tyburn, he was there hanged, cut down while still living and disemboweled. He was then beheaded and his body divided into four parts, to be dispatched to various cities of the realm as a lesson to other would-be rebels.
At the same time, a London conspiracy to free young Edward from the Tower miscarried. The first challenge to Tudor's sovereignty had come to naught.
MECHLINIA was a fortified river city in the province of Antwerp, for a number of years the favorite residence of Margaret of York, dowager Duchess of Burgundy.
Veronique wandered to the window, stared down into a summer garden of an almost tropical brightness.
Swans were sunning themselves on the bank of the pond below, but as soon as Veronique appeared at the window casement, they plunged into the water, launched themselves toward her like a feathered flotilla. She leaned out, began to throw bread down upon the water, trying all the while to shut out the conversation going on behind her.
Francis and Margaret were talking again of Redmore Plain. She didn't want to hear them, felt as if every detail of that day were mercilessly etched into her brain. She knew how Richard had died, would to God she didn't. She knew, too, of the unspeakable indignities that Stanley's men had inflicted upon his body once he was dead, knew that as Tudor entered Leicester in triumph, the horse carrying Richard's body had shied and his head had smashed into the side of Bow Bridge in grisly

fulfillment of an old woman's prophecy, knew that his naked body had been exposed to the stares of the curious for two days and then rolled with scant ceremony into an unmarked grave. She knew that which she'd rather have forgotten, did not understand how Francis and Margaret could dwell upon memories so painful.
Why could they not see that vengeance was no antidote for grief? Even if they succeeded in overthrowing
Tudor, would it bring back the dead? And what of Bess? Margaret's niece, Tudor's Queen, already pregnant with his child. Veronique had tried once, only once, to talk of this with Margaret. The other woman had heard her out in frozen silence and then said in a voice glazed with ice, "I had four brothers, and now I have none. I loved my brothers, Lady Veronique."
Margaret had risen, was departing the chamber, and Veronique crossed to Francis, bent down and kissed him full on the mouth.
"Ah, love," she whispered, "can we not go away from here? Can we not try to forget? Let the dead bury their dead, Francis, I beg you."
"And vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," he said impatiently. "Well, it's not vengeance I seek, Veronique, it's justice."
"No, my love, you seek that which is beyond recovery. Oh, Francis, don't you see? You cannot redeem the past, not even in Henry Tudor's blood."
"No, but I can act to safeguard the future, can keep it from being structured on lies. Christ, Veronique, you know what that whoreson Tudor's saying about Dickon. Usurper, tyrant, child-murderer."
"Ah, Francis, you mustn't let it matter so. Richard cannot be hurt now by Tudor's lies, and none who knew him will ever believe it; they'll know the truth."
"And what of those who didn't know him? What happens, too, when all who knew him are dead, when people know only what they've been told? What truth will we be talking about, then? Tudor's truth.
Dickon doesn't deserve that, Veronique, and I won't let it happen. I swear to God I won't."
She turned away without answering. It all seemed so senseless to her. So much suffering. So many deaths. Richard. Rob Percy. Dick Ratcliffe. John Kendall. Robert Brackenbury. Jack Howard. All dead on that accursed plain with the blood-color clay. And what now? What of the children? The "Little
Princes in the Tower," she'd heard people call them, Edward's murdered sons. Was George of
Clarence's son doomed, too, to suffer for sins not his? And Johnny . . . would the day come when Tudor cared not that Johnny was baseborn, cared only that he was Richard's son7
"Francis. . . listen to me. I dearly loved Anne Neville and scarcely a day has gone by in these sixteen months since her death that I don't think

of her, that I don't miss her. But I accept her death, Francis, and I'm thankful that she's no longer suffering, that she's at peace."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because your hatred for Tudor has become a mortal sickness, what the doctors call a cancer, eating away at you from within . . . blinding you to all else. Grieve for Richard by all means; God knows I do.
But remember, too, his pain, remember how desperately unhappy he was in those last months of his life. I
cannot help thinking, Francis, that for Richard, death was a ... a release. Can you not try to see it that way, to accept it as such?"
"No," he said curtly. "No, I cannot. I do remember Dickon's pain, his grieving for Anne. But given time
..."
She shook her head. "He'd lost more than his wife, his son. He'd lost his ... his sense of self, and-"
At that moment, the door opened; Margaret reentered. "Here it is," she said to Francis, "my mother's last letter. There is something in it that I want you to read."
Francis looked down at the beautiful Italic script. "Your lady mother . . ." he said softly, "how did she take Dickon's death?"
"My mother is a remarkable woman. She accepted his death as she has all the other griefs that the
Almighty has given her. 'Our blessed Lord is not indifferent to the suffering of His children. In His infinite wisdom, He has called Richard home/ she wrote, no more than that. And yet..." Margaret frowned, said slowly, "It was almost as if she expected it, Francis, as if she expected Dickon's death."
They looked at each other, and then she put her mother's letter into his hand. "Read that, read what the city of York dared to do when they learned of Dickon's death. They had every reason for caution, knew their city's prosperity and well-being now depend upon the whims of Henry Tudor, and yet read what they inscribed into the city records for Tudor to see, for all to remember."
Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City."
As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears.
"My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph."

BERMONDSEY ABBEY
June 1492
LT was dusk when Grace rode into the confines of the eleventh-century Cluniac abbey. The Abbot himself was there to bid her welcome, for she was the Queen's half sister, and Bess's strong sense of family was known to all.
Following her escort through the quiet twilight-shadowed grounds, Grace could not imagine a more unlikely setting for the worldly, ambitious Elizabeth, and yet for more than five years now, Elizabeth's world had been bounded and circumscribed within the walls of Bermondsey, a life of isolation and enforced tranquillity only occasionally enlivened by brief court visits. It was, Grace thought, the ultimate irony that Elizabeth should have been accorded greater freedom by Dickon, who'd hated her so, than by her own son-in-law.
In February of 1487, Elizabeth had suddenly fallen into disgrace; she'd been stripped of her possessions and banished to Bermondsey. There was some suspicion that Elizabeth, an inveterate intriguer, had involved herself in Francis Lovell's rebellion, a suspicion strengthened when Tudor abruptly arrested
Thomas Grey and confined him to the Tower, kept him there until after Francis and Jack de la Pole were defeated at the battle of Stoke Field on June 17, 1487. Grace, however, never believed it. Elizabeth's entire life -had been shaped by the dictates of self-interest, and it strained credibility that Elizabeth should have wished to see her own daughter dethroned and George of Clarence's son crowned in Tudor's stead. The truth, Grace thought, was far simpler-that Tudor had seized the opportunity to rid himself of a woman he little liked and trusted less.
She was met in Elizabeth's antechamber by a beautiful woman in her late thirties, recognized Katherine
Woodville. Katherine looked disap-