The Tudor Bride (59 page)

He held the child at arms’ length, as if it were an animal that might scratch or bite. ‘All the monks are in the church for Lauds,’ he revealed. ‘I alone was told to wait for your call.’

Tutting my disapproval, I arranged the baby more comfortably, bending the young monk’s arms so that the bundle nestled against his chest. ‘Hug him close to your body and keep him warm until the Office is over,’ I instructed. ‘We must hope the Almighty will not take the life of a babe whilst the monks are singing His praises.’ He appeared so shocked by my lack of reverence that I was forced to give him a little push towards the door. ‘I have to tend the mother. Go!’

In truth I did not hold out much hope for the infant. The circumstances were far from ideal and Catherine’s determination to warn the king of the threat to his life had probably robbed the newborn babe of several weeks in the womb. What concerned me more was her condition. I could not tell whether her collapse was sleep due to utter exhaustion, or something more sinister and since I was unable to rouse her I was forced to conclude the latter. However, St Catherine was watching over her her body seemed to function automatically and I was able to deliver the afterbirth without incident.

Having gone without sleep myself for a day and a night, I felt confused and stupefied. I knew that if she was to make a recovery, Catherine would need a long rest and a nourishing diet, neither of which she was likely to receive among the monks of Westminster. I hoped that Geoffrey would come and help me to decide what should be done, for I was at a loss to know. Lacking any other advice for the time being, I knelt down before the crucifix on the chapel altar and offered my confusion up to God.

When the abbot arrived, he must have been gratified to find me thus employed for he seemed a good deal friendlier than he had before, his expression genial under his clerical tonsure. I envied him the few hours’ sleep I assumed he had enjoyed between Matins and Lauds. ‘I am delighted to hear of her grace’s safe delivery,’ he said. ‘Our hospitaller knew of a nurse who lives nearby and the child has been taken to her. I myself baptised him with the name of Owen, as her grace instructed. I take it that is the name of the father?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, not wishing to reveal anything more as I scrambled up from my knees. ‘Is she trustworthy this nurse? Her grace will need her name and exact location.’

‘Of course, of course – all in good time.’ The abbot gazed down on Catherine who was still lying, deathly pale and unmoving, beneath the statue of her patron saint. ‘How does she fare?’

‘She is exhausted.’ I crossed my fingers in the folds of my skirt, hoping this was true. ‘She needs rest and complete peace to recover.’

‘I anticipated such a situation and I have arranged somewhere for her to go that will provide for her every need.’

‘Her grace cannot travel far,’ I protested. ‘Her body is weary beyond bearing.’

‘Bermondsey Abbey is only a short way down the river. A boat will be here at the turn of the tide to carry her there. The monks of Bermondsey are a caring community, used to noble residents, both lords and ladies. I have sent them a message that the queen mother will be brought there later this morning, urgently in need of care.’

‘Have you informed the king of this, my lord?’ My heart was beginning to thump alarmingly in my chest. Things were moving too fast for me. No word had come from Geoffrey last night and at this rate I feared that before he appeared, Catherine and I might be gone. I could not let her go to Bermondsey alone, but nor could I be sure that there was nothing sinister in her swift dispatch from Westminster. I could not help recalling the Duchess of Gloucester’s arrival at the palace the previous afternoon.

‘Yes, Mistress, have no fear. His grace is fully informed. You look exhausted yourself. I will have refreshment sent to you immediately. Be ready to depart soon after Prime.’

Not for the first time in my life I had a sense of being swept up in events over which I had no control. There was only an hour between Lauds and Prime and by the time I had washed and dressed Catherine as best I could, swallowed a few mouthfuls of the bread and pottage the abbot sent and used the horn spoon to dribble some water down my poor, insensible patient’s throat, the four novice monks had returned with a litter to carry her to the abbey dock. In recognition of the rank of his departing guest, the abbot himself came to see her off and, thinking that he could hardly refuse to keep Catherine in touch with her treasurer, I begged him to speak to Geoffrey when he came and inform him of our destination.

I was assailed by doubts as to whether I was doing the right thing by allowing Catherine to be carried onto a barge which bore no mark or flag of identification and whose crew wore no livery badges, but short of flinging myself across her prone body I could not think of a way to prevent it. Even if I tried, there were plenty of brawny monks around to pull me off and lock me up somewhere, which would hardly be to the advantage of either of us.

They laid her litter under a tented shelter rigged over the rear thwarts of the craft. The pink light of dawn did nothing to improve the sight of her expressionless face with its sunken eye-sockets and prominent cheekbones. Despite the jolting of the litter she remained completely unaware of her circumstances and as the six rowers bent to their oars and the barge swung out into the tidal current, I was swamped by an overwhelming desolation, unable to rid myself of the dreadful feeling that I was travelling on some sort of floating catafalque. My brave and cherished Catherine lay in limbo with only me to pray for her.

A
lthough I had married a Londoner and stayed in the city on and off for the past seven years, I had never taken any kind of journey on the river or visited the south bank of the Thames, with the result that I did not really understand how much difference there was between the river traffic above and below London Bridge. Downstream from the bridge London was a busy port, with all manner of fishing boats trading their catches at Billingsgate market, seagoing ships by the hundred docked at the wharves around the Tower or waiting midstream in the Thames roads to do so, or else loading and unloading their cargoes to and from barges. Above the bridge the busiest flow of traffic was from boats plying across the river; small cargo wherries and passenger ferries carrying goods and people between the City and the Southwark bank. On these reaches a procession of barges carried cargoes to and from towns upriver, but relatively few craft actually navigated under the bridge and if they did it had to be at the turn of the tide because when it was at full flow, the rush of water was dangerously fast through the nineteen tunnel-like arches of the span.

When Catherine had lodged at the Tower as queen, I had noticed Bermondsey Abbey directly across the river, but from further upstream, in the City itself, it was obscured by the tall houses built across the span of London Bridge. Now, sitting on the barge beside Catherine’s litter, I realised that the abbey was on the other side of the bridge. The tide was already ebbing and, seeing the rush of water pouring through, I made the sign of the cross and changed my prayers from pleas to St Catherine for the life of my mistress to appeals to St Christopher for our safe delivery through those turbulent rapids. I did not witness the skill with which the helmsman steered us towards one of the arches because I kept my eyes tight shut, but I heard the swish and swirl of the water and felt the barge lift and surge as it was carried like a toy through the tunnel. There was a frightening thud as we were swept out the other side and the rear of the barge clipped the end of the long pier that supported the foot of the arch.

My eyes flew open in alarm and the first thing I saw was a long line of three-masted cogs waiting in mid-river for their turn to unload, then we swung to the right and the men heaved hard on the oars to take us across the flow of the tide and into the backwater that connected the Bermondsey Abbey demesne to the river. It was at this point that I saw a sight to make my stomach churn anew. Already moored against the abbey wharf was the galley I had seen the previous evening arriving at the Westminster palace dock, scarlet-painted and flying the royal banner of Gloucester. There was no sign of the duchess, but the intuitive lurching of my stomach told me it would not be long before I encountered her.

Like any great river, the Thames was prone to flooding and only poorer houses and workshops were built close to the southern bank. The Benedictines had wisely built their abbey on higher ground and the rowers shipped their oars and carried Catherine’s litter for a hundred yards up a sloping cinder path, past a herd of milk cows grazing on the lush grass of the flood-meadow, to a high wall where a river-gate stood open to receive us. I followed behind, dragging my feet, partly out of profound weariness and partly out of a reluctance to confront the situation that awaited me. Within the gate the bearers paused to catch their breath and when I caught them up, passing under an arch built through the thick wall, I was assailed by a sudden chill sense of leaving freedom for confinement.

Built of severe grey stone, the abbey precinct was a busy place and yet uncannily hushed; quiet enough for the summer chirrup of sparrows nesting in the eaves to be the dominant sound. Numerous tonsured monks in dark habits went about their tasks in silence, only the faint slap of their sandals on the flagstones marking their progress as they moved from place to place. A large church dominated one side of a rectangular enclosure, surrounded on the other three sides by a series of domestic buildings fronted and connected by a surrounding cloister. A formal garden filled the quadrangle, laid out with severely trimmed hedges, paved walkways and a carved stone fountain at its centre; and there, against the muted gurgle of its overflowing basins, we were met by the abbot and another monk who turned out to be the hospitaller and beside them, conspicuous against the monochrome surroundings in her brightly coloured robes and scintillating jewellery stood Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester.

There followed a weirdly formal ceremony of welcome in which both the abbot and the duchess addressed themselves exclusively to a prone Catherine, who remained unconscious and motionless on her litter, scarcely appearing to breathe. I noticed that the hospitaller regarded her closely and with some alarm, but obviously did not feel he could interrupt the ceremonial, even though I frowned, wrung my hands and rolled my eyes at him. Rather than unctuous words of welcome, Catherine needed urgent nourishment and care and I was becoming desperate on her behalf. So much so that when the abbot implied that she should be carried into the church for an altar blessing and prayers to its patron, Our Lord Saviour, I plucked up courage to intervene.

‘Forgive me, my lord abbot, what the queen mother most urgently needs is nursing and sustenance. I am certain she will wish to receive a church blessing later, at a time when she is conscious of God’s Holy Beneficence.’

Inevitably the duchess felt bound to challenge my temerity, not that she favoured me with any sign of acknowledgement, neither of my presence nor my suggestion. ‘My men will carry her grace to the church at once, according to your wishes, my lord abbot,’ she said, beckoning to the men who had brought the litter from the barge and were standing at a deferential distance.

I seethed inwardly, partly at her disdain but mostly because her words confirmed my suspicion that Catherine had been brought from Westminster to Bermondsey not by order of the king but entirely at the instigation and organisation of the Duchess of Gloucester. It was her barge, her posse of retainers, and her way of preventing the king’s mother from exerting any further influence on her son. I wondered how great a benefice had been promised to the abbey in return for what was effectively a conspiracy to abduct and imprison a helpless lady.

Fortunately the hospitaller did not seem to be in on the conspiracy and spoke up for the first time. ‘Her grace’s companion is right, lord abbot. The dowager queen is in urgent need of medical care. She should be carried to her quarters immediately and attended by our apothecary. We have a duty of care to the bodies of the sick, as much as to their souls.’

I held my breath and watched as the abbot and the duchess exchanged lengthy and meaningful glances, then eventually the abbot gave a curt nod in the direction of the hospitaller. ‘Very well, Brother Anselm. You have prepared our best guest chamber – let her grace be carried there now. We will say prayers for her at Tierce, if you would care to join us, your grace?’ This last was directed at the duchess in an apologetic tone.

Within the frame of her elegantly wired headdress, Eleanor’s beautiful face had flushed with anger but she did not object. Instead she cast a veiled aspersion at Catherine which she knew only I would fully understand. ‘Heaven knows there is much in her life that requires our prayers, my lord, but unfortunately I am obliged to forego the privilege. There are matters that require my attention at Greenwich and I must catch the tide.’ She watched her men lift Catherine’s litter to follow the hospitaller to the guest quarters, her lips tightening as she took a last look at the unconscious figure stretched out upon it. ‘I will send a woman of my household to assist in the dowager queen’s care and a messenger to keep me informed of her progress. I trust arrangements can be made for their accommodation.’

It was only then that the lady Eleanor deigned to look at me, a brief, appraising glance before she bent to kiss the abbot’s ring in farewell. But in that look I found the information I needed, for although it contained pride and contempt, there was not a hint of trepidation. I assumed from this that Margery Jourdemayne had not told her of my visits or my enquiries about the king’s caul and the wax images. Had she known of these I believe I might have seen my death sentence in Eleanor’s cold, violet eyes.

To my intense relief, Catherine returned to consciousness towards noon and I was able to spoon-feed her some nourishing barley broth sent from the monastery kitchen. Once out of the abbot’s hearing, the hospitaller had proved to be a valuable ally and all Catherine’s requirements were met, while the apothecary, having been told the extent of her collapse, had prepared a herbal tonic of lemon balm, parsley and purslane, which I took the precaution of testing on myself before giving to her.