The Uncrowned Queen (45 page)

Sonorous titles, but this old man's time would shortly be over and all in the streets today knew it; even George Neville, though he pretended otherwise. The people of London also knew that Edward Plantagenet was close and that fact alone made this sad parading of the past even more embarrassing. They'd all heard how Edward had ridden down the country from York, gathering the support of thousands. At this rate there was great hope he'd be in London well ahead of the old queen, Margaret of Anjou, who was still stuck in port on the other side of the Channel. Londoners had something to look forward to at last, for Edward, their young king, would protect them from the old queen and all her fearsome hordes. They were certain of few things in these topsy-turvy days, but they were modestly certain of that.

Then came the moment that most frightened George Neville. One by one the Londoners turned away and closed their windows and their doors; soon the streets were nearly clear of people. The
old king didn't seem to notice, but the archbishop did and his heart squeezed tight in his chest. The Great Wheel was turning once again; he could hear its iron rim grinding…

The mud-flurried herald came through
the door of the Jerusalem chamber so fast he skidded on the tiles. Heedless of the damage his filthy boots and spurs were doing to the floor, he knelt at Elizabeth Wydeville's feet, dripping onto the hem of her skirts. For once, she didn't care.

“What word is there? Where is the king now?”

The man was dazed but triumphant. “Not even ten leagues from the walls, madame, and he has a great company with him. Many, many supporters.”

“Clarence?”

“Clarence also.”

“Thank you, Lord Jesus. Praise to you, sweet Lord!”

It was a piercing cry of gleeful triumph and Elizabeth Wydeville, once a queen and close to that state again, joined the herald on her knees, mud and all. She crossed herself and crossed herself with such intensity that the happiness on her face could be mistaken for pain. That upset her baby son, Edward, who, wailing from fear in his grandmother's arms, had to be taken from the room to find comfort elsewhere.

“Lady Mary, Mother of Sorrows, Mother of the Lord Jesus, hear me. Support the king, I beg, in this journey. Bring him here, safe to me, at last, so that he may see our son, the prince.”

“Amen,” intoned Elizabeth's newly arrived confessor, the eerily oily Dominican, Brother Peter. Brother Duckshit they called him—well behind his back, however—so smooth was he. He'd not been seen since last October, “on retreat” as he'd styled it, but in recent days he'd popped up at the abbey again, declaring God had called him “back from the wilderness to minister to the queen.”

Elizabeth said nothing, welcoming him back as if his absence had been for days, not months. The wind was changing its quarter and this migratory bird was testament to that fact. Loathe him as
she did, resent his opportunism as she might, his presence filled her heart with fierce joy. She would deal with Brother Peter later.

Piously, the queen crossed herself for one last time and then a storm of activity was let loose in the holy surrounds of Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.

“I must dress! Mother! Where are you?”

It seemed to the suave confessor that women erupted as mushrooms might and filled the abbot's noble parlor in a twittering, chattering flurry as Elizabeth Wydeville, heedless of the presence of the priest, began tearing at the plain gown of tawny velvet she'd been wearing while praying the morning away with her few women. Brother Peter, a seasoned courtier, discerned that his presence was no longer required. There would be no more prayers from the ladies today; now Mammon must be served and, with him, primpings of the hair and the person that no righteous priest should witness or condone. Therefore, rather than offend the sight of God with worldly opulence, the retreat of his servant was to be preferred. Silently, the Dominican bowed to the queen and began to back away from the Presence. Elizabeth Wydeville barely noticed.

Poor lady, thought the monk as he left the chaos of the Jerusalem chamber behind him, poor faithful wife! Penelope to Ulysses. Surely the Lord was merciful to reunite this virtuous woman with her noble husband, the anointed king. And yet, as Brother Peter strode on through the abbey, bowing gravely to acquaintances among the brothers as they paced together in pairs, contemplating “heaven” in the center of the cloisters, were there not shortly to be two anointed kings within London? Could God—would God—allow that? Brother Peter shook his head. This must be part of the Lord's greater plan, or it would not take place. And it was not for him, a lowly monk, to ponder or question the doings and the will of the Lord God.

“The gold, Your Majesty, or the red?”

Elizabeth Wydeville was stripped to her silk undershift. Her women clustered around, brushing out her hair, swabbing beneath her arms with a sea sponge soaked in rosewater, adding color to her
lips with red geranium petals ground to pulp and mixed with sheep's lanolin and almond oil.

“The white. I want the white damask! Pure, holy, that is how he must see me first.”

Elizabeth Wydeville had worked hard to restore her figure after the birth of this, her sixth child. She had starved herself, resisting even her favorite violet comfits, since there was little else she could control in her life. Blessed by nature, she was one of those women whose body seemed made for children, since it was still supple and pleasing to the eye—supernaturally so, it was whispered.

Elizabeth was now seriously distraught, however, for when the delicate dress of glistening white damask was dropped over her head, it was too tight in the bust and the waist. She'd put on weight. Despair! Catastrophe! How would the king ever reignite his lust for her if she was fat! “I knew it. I should never have allowed that child suck! What will I do?” The queen began to drive herself into a tantrum, convinced she had become old and ugly in an instant.

Jacquetta attempted, unwisely, to calm her. “Now, daughter, it is well known that feeding a child strips fat from the body. Perhaps you might consider—” “No! I am the queen, not a cow! I only let the baby have my paps because he will be the king one day, and it seemed right to me that he should know his mother's milk, if only for a time. But now, what shall I do? Oh…” Tears and rage, in Elizabeth Wydeville's case, were potent and frightening twins. Once begun, the tempest was best left to run its course, which this one did in an unusually short time because Jacquetta, seeking inspiration, saved them all an hour or two of further anguish with a remarkable statement.

“I believe it has shrunk, Your Majesty. See, here and here? Yes, it is much shorter from the waist to the floor. And that explains the tightness in the waist and bosom.” It was a wild leap of logic, but a comforting one. “Those foolish laundresses—in cleaning this dress they have allowed it to shrink! They shall be found out and removed from your service! This cannot be tolerated.”

Elizabeth Wydeville raised a tear-streaked face made brick red with passion—an unbecoming shade even on skin as beautiful as
hers. “Yes. Yes! I see you are right, Mother.” Surreptitiously, all the women in the room turned away and crossed themselves. “But the problem remains. I cannot allow the king to see me as anyone but his queen. What do I have, after all these weary months, that is good enough, and clean enough?”

“Your Majesty?” An insignificant girl stepped forward from behind the other women. Though she was plain and drab as a sparrow, the expression on her narrow face, in her dark brown eyes, was disconcertingly direct.

“Yes, Lady Leonora?” The queen found the earl of Shafton's daughter set her teeth on edge, since she was generally silent, even dour; however, she'd been a faithful companion in Sanctuary and deserved civility, not least on account of her powerful father, an important Yorkist supporter in the north.

“Does this please the queen?” Lady Leonora was displaying a dress of fine silk-velvet of a shade between amethyst and purple. Silver flushed through the material as it slid through the girl's hands for the queen's inspection. There was a deep sigh through the room.

“Oh. I'd forgotten that one. Where did you find it, Leonora?”

“It was hung in the anteroom of the abbot's private garde-robe, Your Majesty. Many of your dresses are there, where we left them first.” She meant when the party of women had fled into Sanctuary at the abbey with the heavily pregnant queen.

“The poor abbot. We really have taken up far too much of his space for far too long. How happy he will be to see us in our rightful domain once more!”

All the women laughed, heartily and freely, for the first time in a very long while. Yes, it would be good to leave Thomas Milling to his own concerns. He would be particularly pleased to have his parlor returned.

“But do you think it will fit me?” The queen was eyeing the lovely dress fearfully as Leonora held it up to the light from the casements.

Jacquetta nodded vigorously. “Certainly, Your Majesty. Perhaps you would like to see for yourself? But first…” She made shooing movements with her hands. “Leave. All of you. Go, now.
And prepare for the return of our rightful king as his subjects should. With prayers. Go!”

Elizabeth breathed in happily and almost smiled, though at the last moment she stopped herself. It would not do for her mother to think she had found a way to influence her through understanding, in an uncanny manner, just what she, Elizabeth, most desired. In this case, she was grateful to try the dress on without her usual band of women. That way, if the fate of this lovely garment was the same as the white one, only she and her mother would know it.

Jacquetta advanced toward her daughter, a reverent expression on her face, the dress laid out across her upturned palms as if it were an offering to the Holy Virgin.

Regally, Elizabeth stood to receive her mother's gift. She would breathe in, and in, until the dress fitted her—with the assistance of tight lacing. And she would not eat until the king returned to her. That would help. She was the queen and, if she desired it, she would be thin. Edward would still love her, their little princesses, and now their son, his legitimate heir. All would soon be right with the world. She would be queen once more, her sanctified place in the bed of the king secure. And in his heart also. She would resume her place there because she had given him this precious boy.

Elizabeth Wydeville smiled as Jacquetta dropped the lustrous velvet over her shoulders, her breasts, her hips. It fitted like the skin of a snake. The queen rejoiced.

Where was Anne de Bohun now? Lost, long lost, and she, Elizabeth, had won.

With the help of women from Wincanton the Less, Herrard Great Hall felt clean at last; or, rather, that part of the building Anne wished to inhabit had been well scrubbed with ashes and river sand and all the walls whitewashed with lime they had made themselves from crushed and burned shells (the sea was not far distant) and powdered white clay, a seam of which ran in the bank of their own river. New rushes, too, had been cut and their fragrant smell flowed through the building like a sweet green tide.

Slowly, slowly, order was appearing out of chaos in Anne's domain: her house, her lands. The first thing she had done, after feasting those who lived in Wincanton the Less, was to consult the head man of the village, Long Will, to find out who needed food. And as the recent history of the hamlet was recited to her in answering that question, Anne had become more and more angry.

When she had gone into exile, Edward Plantagenet had promised that her lands would be well run by agents of the Crown. It seemed that promise had been kept for the first two years, but increasingly, as the country had fallen into the chaos of war, men had abandoned their long-unpaid posts and gone home. The Westminster-appointed reeve who had managed Anne's lands vanished one summer morning. The rumor was he'd gone back to his family in London when the fighting became desperate before the king's flight.

That was all the people of Wincanton the Less heard—that,
and rumors of war. And though the villagers saw no actual fighting, the occasional noise of battle and the screams of dying men and horses muttered like thunder in the distance. Even the traveling tinkers, reliable seasonal distributors of news, had failed to return with the swallows. The village was left alone by the world.

This last year had been disastrous. The weather had turned cold and wet with late and early frosts at each end of the growing season. A murrain had passed through the cattle and even the precious house pigs had died of the pest before they could be slaughtered, so there'd been little laid away ahead of an unusually hard winter—not even the usual bit of salt pork or sacks of root vegetables. Then sweating sickness had visited the village. Babies and the old had died, and now a spring drought had withered the fragile wheat planted before winter clamped the land. The hamlet was barely surviving.