The Tudor Bride (32 page)

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To Her Grace the Dowager Queen Catherine from her son Henry, King of England and France,

My beloved lady mother,

After receiving your last letter with news of the Count of Mortain’s offer of marriage, I have thought and prayed long and hard. As you suggest, if God were to be gracious enough to grant you children from such a marriage I would, of course, be bound to welcome them as my brothers or sisters. From our brief acquaintance I have personally found Edmund Beaufort of sound and sober character, but I am advised by my governor, the Earl of Warwick, and other wise counsellors that it would not be appropriate for my mother to take a new husband while I am still of an age to be influenced by the affinities and opinions of a stepfather. Therefore I cannot in all conscience recommend this marriage to the Council of Regency.

I dearly hope that we may soon meet together and that, meanwhile, God will keep you in good health as He does me.

I am, as always, your loving son,

Henricus Rex

Written at Windsor this day Monday the nineteenth of March 1428.

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Catherine did not usually show me her letters from her son but this time, after she had read it, she handed it to me without speaking. When she saw that I had absorbed its contents, she said, ‘So you were right, Mette. They do vet my correspondence. I cannot even trust the words of my own son because they are not his.’ Her hand went to her forehead where she rubbed at the fine lines which had not been there a month ago. ‘Is there no one in the world of men whom I can trust?’

I passed back the letter and gazed at her with troubled eyes. ‘It seems not, Mademoiselle.’

Suddenly she reached out to open the small gold-banded chest in which she kept her most recent correspondence. ‘Perhaps you are wrong. There is one man who may be less full of self-interest than the rest. Where is that letter from Bishop Grey?’

She riffled through the box and brought out a letter bearing a large official-looking seal. It was longer than most of the replies sent by the other council members from whom she had sought help and it took her several minutes to re-read it.

‘Like the others, Bishop Grey does not offer public support but he does make a kind suggestion. See here, Mette,’ she pointed to a passage of the close script, ‘he says that if I wish to retreat somewhere peaceful and private, I might like to consider staying at his episcopal palace of Hadham and he goes on to describe it and the manor around it in glowing terms, saying that it is a place where he has always found tranquillity and release from the world’s iniquities. It is not a grand palace apparently, but he believes I could use it in conjunction with Hertford Castle as somewhere I might stay privately and discreetly, away from what he calls “the prying eyes of the court”.’ She paused, eyebrows raised. ‘It might be an escape from castle walls at least. What do you think, Mette?’

‘Like you, I am intrigued, Mademoiselle. Why do you not send Master Tudor to take a look at this manor and report his impressions?’

Catherine compressed her lips, considering this suggestion; then she flashed me a rather mischievous grin. ‘I have a better idea,’ she said. ‘Hadham is less than ten miles from Hertford. It would be a pleasant ride. I think I will accompany Master Tudor so that I can judge for myself. And I would be glad if you would come with me, Mette, for two views are always better than one.’

I was pleased to see a bit of the old sparkle reignite in her eyes. ‘I would be delighted to accompany you, Mademoiselle. When would you like to go?’

‘As soon as the rain stops, Mette, and tell Master Tudor we will not require an escort. I want only companions I can trust, not those who might spy for others. Let us go incognito. You might ask Master Vintner if he would accompany you, for I know you find him good company. We could pretend to be two couples on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of St Edmund.’

I was pleased that Catherine approved of and trusted Geoffrey enough to include him in her secret expedition and although I knew he had pressing business calling him back to London, I found myself hoping that he would delay it long enough to join us. During the past few weeks, while he stayed at Hertford acquainting himself with the dowager queen’s affairs, we had enjoyed each other’s company, but we had not shared the light-hearted intimacy of the early days of our friendship. I wondered if he found the formality of the royal household rather daunting and hoped Catherine’s spontaneous escapade might bring his cheerful good humour back to the surface.

‘You realise, your grace, that we may find the manor house at Hadham quite uninhabitable,’ said Owen as our foursome set out soon after dawn a few days later. ‘We do not know how much use the bishop makes of it or whether he keeps servants there.’

Catherine’s riposte rang out loudly in the crisp, frosty air. ‘Firstly, Master Tudor, please do not address me as “your grace”. We are supposed to be a pilgrim couple, remember. Catherine – or if you must be formal, Madame – would be more appropriate from now on. And secondly, this is supposed to be an adventure. It does not matter if the house is falling down. We will be back at Hertford before dark.’

Judging by her teasing tone, the awkwardness which had arisen between them after the broken stool episode was now forgotten, at least on her part. Owen, too, was relaxed enough to nod jauntily and raise his broad-brimmed pilgrim’s hat. ‘It shall be as you command … Madame Tudor. Perhaps I am permitted to say how fetching my goodwife looks today? That hood is quite the latest style!’

I had acquired suitable clothes for our disguises at a second-hand clothes stall in Hertford market and the hood I had found for Catherine was a mud-coloured homespun garment from the previous century, finished at the back with what I had been told was a liripipe, an extended tail tipped with a tuft of fur like that of a lion. Responding to Owen’s mock flattery she pretended to simper girlishly, pulling it over her shoulder in one hand and twirling the tuft at him. ‘Why thank you, kind sir. Do you not think it flatters the colour of my eyes?’

Unfortunately the whirling movement caught her mare’s eye, causing her to shy in fright. Taken by surprise, Catherine’s other hand lost its grip on the reins and she tipped sideways, grabbing desperately at the horse’s mane to try and stay in the saddle, a movement which further spooked the skittish animal. Seeing her perilous position, Owen quickly kneed his horse in beside her and, putting his hands firmly on her rear, shoved her unceremoniously upright again. ‘Take care, Madame,’ he warned, catching up the reins and steadying the mare. ‘You do not want to fall.’

Catherine had gone quite pink and flustered. Her skirt had flicked up and, seeing his gaze wandering to her exposed ankle, she swiftly adjusted it and arranged her grip on the reins. ‘Thank you, Master Tudor. Once again, you come to my rescue. You are right, I do not want to fall. That will teach me not to be flippant.’

My steady little mare Genevieve had plodded on, unperturbed by the excitable behaviour of Catherine’s palfrey, and I had noticed Owen’s cheeks colour violently when his hands and eyes had made contact with parts of a lady’s anatomy not usually made available to male appreciation. His embarrassment did not stop him fashioning a compliment, however.

‘To liken your eyes to that sludge-coloured hood is not flippancy, it is sacrilege,’ he declared roundly. ‘They are to be compared to the blue of the Virgin’s robe or the sea under a summer sun.’

His own brown-velvet eyes trapped hers in their gaze as he said this and I almost felt the bolt of recognition that seemed to flash between them, destroying in an instant their wall of carefully constructed denial. I turned to look at Geoffrey riding beside me and I knew that he too had felt the force of that invisible thunderbolt. One of his bushy eyebrows had risen like a browsing caterpillar and he tested the air with an audible sniff. ‘I would say that spring has suddenly sprung, would you not agree, Mette?’

I looked again at the couple riding ahead. There was nothing apparently different about them. They were silhouetted against a blazing dawn sky and studiously scanning the empty road ahead, but I noticed that their knees were now touching as they rode side by side.

I nodded in answer to Geoffrey’s question. ‘But there is also a saying that red sky in the morning carries a warning.’

He gave me a broad smile. ‘Is that so? Well, I have the feeling that on this occasion it may not be heeded.’

We crossed the River Lea at Ware and for the rest of the journey followed a less-trodden trail along the secluded valley of the River Ash, through well-tended woodland and pastures already lush with fresh growth. Along the banks the attendant trees after which the river was named remained bare, but their branches were liberally speckled with crimson buds – latent promise of lush summer green. As the sun began to warm us, we rode in high spirits, enjoying the dappled shade and the starry clumps of primroses peeking through the grass. Birdsong filled the air and an occasional musical plop rose from the gurgling stream as a fish jumped or an otter dived. We skirted only one small village, dominated by its small timber-framed church and passed a few outlying farms, but otherwise there was little sign of human habitation. As the bishop had indicated, the valley of the Ash was a tranquil, serene place.

Our track approached the manor of Hadham between two large strip fields, ploughed and sewn and already sprouting a haze of emerald shoots. Several men and women out hoeing the rows stopped work to stare at us and a couple of dogs rushed up barking, but were quickly called off. A scattered clutch of meagre one-roomed cottages with lath-fenced gardens were dotted along a path leading from these fields to a row of hedged orchards and, on higher ground, a stretch of common land where a herd of goats, bells jangling on their collars, could be seen browsing the whin. On the edge of the village we passed a sturdy water-mill with a large wheel straddling a leet cut to bypass a fast-moving stretch of the river but, obviously, the miller had nothing to grind that day; the wheel was still and the leet was dry. Chickens pecking in the road squawked and fluttered out of our way, scuttling across the village green as we admired an unexpectedly handsome flint-stone church with a crenellated bell-tower and an extensive churchyard. Beyond it, through a row of bare trees, we had our first sight of the manor house.

‘Oh look, Mette, it is pretty!’ Catherine turned in the saddle to smile at me.

Because it was one of their bishop’s residences, it was called Hadham Palace by the diocese of London, but it was hardly of a size even to be called a mansion. Boasting only two stories and a floor of dormered attics, it surrounded three sides of a stone-flagged courtyard and was large enough to accommodate the bishop’s chosen hunting companions, but definitely not large enough for his episcopal entourage. Perhaps that was why Bishop Grey had recommended it as a place of retreat. It was built on a framework of ancient-grained oak beams, filled in partly with flintstones and mortar and partly with mellow red bricks baked from local clay and laid in a miscellany of criss-cross patterns as if each mason had chosen one of his own. It gave the building a picturesque, quirky appearance that was endearing rather than stylish, presenting an impression that it had grown organically out of its surroundings. A series of small, leaded casements glinted in the upper dormers above the grander, mullioned windows on the two lower floors and the steep roofs were covered with mossy red tiles. A moat licked at the foundations of a brick wall surrounding the bailey, but both were probably a defence against the incursion of wildlife rather than any human foe, for the house was set in the bishop’s extensive hunting park, where small herds of roe and fallow deer could be seen fleeing through the trees, away from the sound of our horses’ hooves.

A drawbridge over the moat led us to confront a lowered portcullis, but again this was a defence against browsing animals more than people for it was quickly raised when Owen called out at the gatehouse and we trotted unchallenged into the court beyond. It occurred to me that the bishop must have warned his staff that the queen dowager’s representatives might make a visit because a man in livery came out to meet us and said he was the bishop’s seneschal. He looked a trifle puzzled by our unprepossessing garb, but he made no comment. Perhaps he assumed it was part of a Lenten vow. Owen did not engage him in conversation, but merely requested that we be given refreshments and allowed to wander at will around the house and grounds, requests that were readily granted.

There was no great hall with dais and screen at Hadham Manor, but there was a large central chamber with a substantial fireplace which served the same purpose, as a place for meeting and feasting, and from which a carved oak staircase led up to a long, windowed gallery linking the upper floors of the two accommodation wings. A hunting lodge would not have been used during Lent, especially by a bishop, and so all the bedchambers were dusty and musty, but there were sufficient of them to house the number of people Catherine would bring with her if she chose to come. The bishop’s own suite of chambers, filling the ground floor of one of the wings, were all spacious and equipped with decorative stone fireplaces and highly polished furniture, including an imposing bed whose crimson tester was emblazoned with the crossed swords of the diocese of London.

‘If I came here, I would bring some of my own fittings,’ said Catherine, frowning. ‘I am not sure I could sleep beneath the bishop’s arms.’

Before we set off to inspect the domestic buildings, a meal was served to us in the central chamber by a pair of cheerful lads who looked very similar to the two who had taken the reins of our horses on our arrival. Rather mischievously, I asked one of them if they had also cooked the meal but he replied quite seriously that he had only chopped the vegetables for the pottage and that there was a cook in charge of roasting the fat tench that was also placed before us. I wondered what such a skilled cook did when the manor was unused for weeks on end, but by the time we ventured outside to the kitchens the fire had been banked up and there was no one there. Hadham Manor preserved an aura of sustained mystery, as if a magical interlude had been prepared by invisible hands especially for us.