Thy Name Is Love (The Yorkist Saga) (28 page)

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Valentine and his retainers came charging up the hill.
Denys, her heart pounding so hard it stabbed at her painfully,
tore across the courtyard to meet her husband.
He dismounted and she fell into his arms, her hands grasping his
hair in bunches, smearing his face with her tears. Their lips met
through quiet sobs as he lifted her off her feet and rocked slowly
from side to side.
"Are you hurt? Are you all right?"
"Dove, there is something I must tell you..."
"...hurt...wounded...are you sure..." Her thoughts were coming out
in fragments, her mind so befuddled with the torture of the last
few days, of not knowing.
"Valentine, did you kill Henry Tudor? Is he—"
"Dove, listen to me."
"Did Henry Tudor go back to France?"
"Dove, listen to me! Richard is dead."
She hadn't heard him. She was still asking Valentine how he was.
"Are you at all hurt? Did you—"
"Dove!
Cease
!"
He grasped her jaw between his thumb and fingers and forced her to
look at him. Her breathing evened and he let a second of silence
pass before he repeated it. "Richard is dead. Do you understand
me? He's gone."
No
. No,
Valentine, you must be mistaken. He cannot be!"
She shook her head, stunned by his preposterous statement. He had
to be wrong. Blinded by the stream of tears running down her face,
she grabbed his wrists in a painful grip.
"Please listen to me! It is true, Dove. He'd come so close, he was
within yards of killing Tudor himself when Stanley turned on him."
"No!"
"He'd been holding Stanley's son as hostage to ensure his loyalty,
but Stanley refused Richard's order for reinforcements, saying
that he had other sons. When Northumberland saw that Stanley had
gone to Tudor's side, he stood by and watched as all hope
vanished."
"No, it can't be true--"
Valentine sighed as he saw his wife crumple into a chair in shock.
"I saw it with my own eyes, love. Richard became unhorsed and
surrounded by Stanley's men. He was offered a fresh horse, but
refused, insisting to continue the battle, to either live or die
as King."
"No, please, there has to be some mistake..." she sobbed.
"Once Stanley's army attacked, he had no chance of surviving. His
last words were, 'Treason! Treason...'"
Valentine's voice cracked and he broke down in shuddering sobs,
releasing her and turning away, leaning against his horse,
dragging his hands through its matted mane. "We've lost him, my
love. He really is gone."
His muffled voice was ragged and strained, and she stood for
another second.
Then her knees gave out and she hit the ground, seeing nothing,
tasting dirt, hearing only Valentine's tortured sobs.
"No-o-o-o-o!"
At her anguished sobs, Valentine put his own grief aside to
comfort his beloved. He helped her up and guided her over to the
stone wall. The searing August sun burned her through her clothes,
yet she felt as though she would never be warm again.
Her eyes were shut tight. She did not want to see, did not want to
hear any more, it was all just too much for her.
"Thomas Stanley," she repeated several times, and she stood,
walked in a circle, sat and then stood again, walking, turning,
muttering to herself: "My mother's husband. She told me he was
going to betray Richard and enable Henry Tudor to win."
If her mother and her husband had not betrayed Richard, he would
still be alive and none of this would have happened. She heard
Valentine explaining to her about battle maneuvers, but could only
think of what her mother had told her. And she couldn't help
thinking she could have stopped it in time if only she had told
everyone the truth as soon as she had discovered it. Valentine was
saying Stanley's name and Margaret Beaufort's name. But she
couldn't tell him. Not yet.
Still walking in circles, she clutched her skirts, relaxing and
clutching again. She stopped in front of him and their eyes met,
misted with tears, each a blur in the other's vision. "Where is
Richard? I must go to him."
"His body is at the chapel of the Gray Friars on public view. He
is to be buried tomorrow."
"Where is that?"
"On the other side of Leicester, near the battlefield."
"Please take me there. Now."
The chapel was dark and unlit when they arrived late that night.
She took a candle from the back but could not see more than a foot
in front of her.
"I shall wait outside," Valentine said, and let her go. The door
groaned shut and she walked slowly over the flagstones, seeing
only her hand and part of her arm that held the candle. But she
knew he was here, she could feel his presence.
Then she saw the altar glowing softly in the light of her candle
just ahead of her. She held the candle out and lowered it as she
advanced. She saw a simple wooden box, no bier, no cloth of gold
hangings, no decoration. She peered into the coffin and could make
out a figure, in ghostly shadows as she approached.
Then she saw the dark hair, the face so white, as devoid of color
as the thin patch of cloth carelessly tossed over his loins. His
chest and arms were slashed with wounds, blackened with dried
blood and dust.
She swept off her riding cloak and laid it over his battered body.
She knelt before him and ran her finger over a deep gash on his
face that had spilled his life's blood in that final battle for
his crown.
"Oh, Richard, how could they do this to you... My very own mother
and brother..." she whispered, her tears falling freely now. She
spoke to him softly, promising him that she would watch over the
land he'd given them, that Valentine would carry on his work as
best as he could.
"Henry Tudor may be my brother by blood, but you will always be my
brother in my heart."
The candle burnt to the end just as the first weak rays of light
were drifting through the church windows and the gold gave way to
a hazy gray.
"Farewell, King Richard," she whispered, and finally she rose, her
legs weakened from kneeling upon the stone floor. She turned and
walked down the aisle in silence.
Valentine was waiting for her, dozing on the stone bench outside
the church, their mounts tied to a tree.
He rubbed his eyes and stood to embrace her. "Where is your
cloak?"
"I covered him with it. "Twas unseemly to let him be seen like
that. If anything, he should have been buried in his armor like
the true soldier he always was."
Her husband nodded, his eyes filling with tears.
"Do you want to say goodbye, to him, Valentine?" she asked, her
mouth dry, her eyes fully emptied of tears at last.
"I said goodbye yesterday. He knows I am here."
"He looks as if he's sleeping," she said, grasping his hand. It
was warm, alive. She shuddered nonetheless.
"He is," Valentine replied softly, leading her to her mount.
"Finally, after all the careworn years he served England so
faithfully, he is going to get some rest."

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Denys was about to let her husband lead her away, but then she
turned and guided him back to the bench.
"Valentine, I must tell you something."
"What is it, love?" They sat and she grasped his hands. They were
warm now, and hers had suddenly grown cold with the enormity of
all that had happened, and all that she needed to tell him.
"It's just that, well, I need to tell you that I've found my
mother at last, Valentine."
His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak. A smile broke
out, and it broke her heart. "Oh, Dove, how marvelous!"
"Nay, Valentine, you won't like this, won't like it at all."
His eyes widened. "Why, how can I not like it? Why did you not
tell me before?"
"I couldn't—" She choked on the words. Tears ran down her cheeks.
She was bursting with sadness, relief, joy, confusion, and even
disgust. But she'd held it in too long.
Now she must open up to him. "Valentine, my mother is Margaret
Beaufort. Thomas Stanley's wife. Henry Tudor is my twin brother."
She was so exhausted and mentally drained, she didn't have the
strength to tell him how she'd found this out; how she tricked
Elizabeth and how she vowed to get Richard to release her mother
from prison.
"Oh, Dove, no. It can't be." He looked like he wanted to cry.
"Aye, Valentine, it is, much as it pains me to tell you. She
married Edmund Tudor when she was twelve years old. He was King
Henry's half-brother and his heir. She gave me away because she
was afraid for my life, with my royal lineage from both sides. She
gave me to Bess as part of a bargain.
"I am Henry Tudor's sister—his twin sister! We breathed our first
breath together." Henry Tudor, the mortal enemy who'd seized the
crown from Richard, with funds from her mother and an army of
traitors under her stepfather.
Valentine's voice sounded like it was coming from far away. "‘Tis
uncanny." He shook his head, that same look of disbelief that
she'd seen the first time she looked into the mirror after
discovering who she was.
His hands slid through her hair. "‘Tis all right, darling, now you
know, at least you know."
"But of all people..." All the years of frustration and
resentment, the torment, the pain, it was all converging upon her
at once, and it was too much to bear. "Oh, why did it have to end
this way?"
"Nothing's ended, my darling. You are starting a new life. ‘Tis a
beginning. You wanted to know who you were and I wanted it just as
badly. Tell me, Dove: would you rather have gone to your grave
without knowing?" She hesitated, unable to speak. Could she have
lived the rest of her days as a lost soul? "Nay, Valentine. I now
know who I am, and I am relieved for that."
"That must be why Tudor pardoned me. Because I am your husband. He
knew all along that you were his sister."
"How?"
"Your mother must have told him. He would not have pardoned me out
of the kindness of his heart. I was the King's first general. All
the others fled or were arrested."
Her breathing had calmed as he wiped her tears with a linen cloth.
"I plan to meet with my brother. Then I shall find out."
"Shall I accompany you?"
Nay, I have to do this myself."
"Dove, I know how hard this is for you. But forgive him as we
forgive our enemies, and you will always know peace within your
heart. Go to your brother and let your hearts enjoin."
When they arrived home, she sat to compose the very difficult
letter...oh, where to start? Finally she wrote it plainly and
simply, telling nothing but the truth, she'd found their mother,
and now she was coming to Westminster Palace to meet him.
She heard another bit of disturbing news upon entering the gates
of London two days later. King Edward and Elizabeth Woodville's
two young sons, who were in sanctuary in the Tower during
Richard's reign, had suddenly disappeared.
She felt as though she were walking into the lion's den, but what
other choice did she have. Her whole future depended upon her
seeing Henry and trying to salvage what was left of her shattered
world.
When she arrived at the palace, the gates were shut. Squires and
men-at-arms were everywhere. "I am come to see Henry Tudor," she
told the most human-looking one.
She could not bring herself to refer to him as the King.
"Who do we say is calling?"
"His sister."
He looked at her dubiously, clucking, shaking his head this way
and that, looking her up and down.
"I am the Duchess of Norwich and the King's twin sister." She
thrust Valentine's badge into his face and he immediately waved
her on.
She trembled as she looked upon the palace. It seemed a different
place already. It bore a somber mood; the guards were surly and
abundant, and a starkness prevailed that she'd never felt when the
Plantagenets were here. Or was it the dark cloud cover that
suddenly appeared? Two armed guards escorted her through the
gates. She dismounted and was led down the corridor to the King's
audience chamber. Neither Uncle Ned nor Richard had ever
surrounded themselves with such a retinue of armed guards.
What was Henry Tudor afraid of? She should have felt nervous, or
excited, or happy at the thought of seeing her brother for the
first time, or contempt for his having slain and dethroned her
beloved friend. But she was surprisingly devoid of all emotion;
she was all cried out, her capacity for sadness exhausted. She was
numb, and knew she would be unimpressed at whatever he would say
in defense of his usurpation. But he was her brother, and now a
strange emotion was threading its way through her, a feeling she
couldn't define.
Two armed guards were posted at the doors to Henry's audience
chamber.
The door opened, the guards turned to face each other, crossed
their swords in the air and there he was, standing in the doorway,
looking at her with a bemused expression in his light green eyes.
He approached her and she gave an almost indiscernible curtsy.
Her eyes wandered over the thinning hair, abundant at the sides
but only a scant tangle of strands at the top, the same silvery
shade as her own. The huskily built figure bulged under a worn but
elegant robe, and she noted the absence of gems or other
embellishment. As her scrutiny finally met his, her eyes met her
brother's for the first time.
She remembered Valentine's words: "Forgive him as we forgive our
enemies and you will always know peace within your heart. Go to
your brother and let your hearts enjoin."
At that instant, all the emotion she thought she'd been drained of
came flooding back, nearly sending her reeling in its force. He
stared back at her, betraying a spark of recognition, as if he'd
seen her before but didn't know where.
The eyes looking at her were her very own, that same pale green,
the arch of the brows not quite so delicate, but still containing
that sense of determination, echoing her desire for truth and the
pain it took to find it.
"Denys, my dear sister, how very lovely you are," he said, and his
voice was not of the clipped English variety; it swam fluidly in
its frenchified eloquence, yet held an underlying Welsh harshness.
"Your Grace," she whispered, wondering why she was treating him
with reverence, knowing it was a betrayal of Richard's memory. Yet
he was her brother, and for the fact that he was flesh of her
flesh and for that fact only, she felt a fiercely powerful bond.
"When we are in private I shall call you Henry," she added,
knowing she could never let this go unsaid, and if he did not like
it, she did not care.
"As you wish, my twin sister," he said, and he grinned, displaying
a row of blackened and rotten teeth. He bowed his head and a few
strands of his thin hair fell out of place.
He held out both hands to her and she let him take her in his
grasp. His arms encircled her gingerly at first, then closed
tighter and she rested her head on her brother's shoulder, loving
him, hating him, refusing to recognize him as King, yet overjoyed
that she'd finally found her brother, even if it was Henry Tudor.
"My first order as King was to bring me some grapes, I had an
acute craving for grapes!" He laughed and she looked away from
those eyes that were so much like hers, but now sparkled with a
devious countenance she didn't want to behold. She wanted to
bellow at the heartless shite as to why his first order hadn't
been to treat Richard's slain body with some dignity.
"Did our mother ever tell you about me?" she asked evenly.
"Nay, Denys, never. But I knew I had a sister for quite some time
now."
"Then how did you find out, if not from our mother?"
"Elizabeth Woodville."
"Oh, Jesu." That name. She was hoping she'd never hear it again.
"She told me before my first invasion. When Gloucester took the
throne and Elizabeth realized her sons would never be kings, she
thought the next best thing would be to have her grandsons there
instead."
"Grandsons?"
"Aye. Quite a while back, she arranged for me to marry her
daughter Elizabeth."
She blinked. "You...are going to marry young Elizabeth?"
"It makes perfect sense. I shall reunite the houses of York and
Lancaster and Elizabeth Woodville will get her royal descendants
as we lay the foundation for a new house, the house of Tudor."
She continued to shake her head. She turned away, not wanting to
look at his face.
Henry's eyes darkened and he lowered his head, wiping his hands on
his robe.
"I didn't want to come forth and tell you who you were. ‘Twas I
who had you followed and had those people done away with who
could've helped you, bribed priests not to tell you the truth
about Foxley Manor. I also had your genealogical tables stolen.
"Anything to thwart your efforts. I felt that if you knew you had
a claim to the throne, your high-titled and ambitious husband
would have second thoughts about his loyalty to Gloucester, with a
potential queen as a wife. He would have been right there to place
you on the throne, forcing me to fight my own sister."
She resisted the urge to spit in his fact but gritted out,
"Codswallop! Valentine would have died for Richard! He never would
have betrayed him. They were closer than brothers!"
"One never knows what one will do when one's wife is of royal
lineage and but a step from the throne," Henry sneered.
"So here I am. Are you still worried we are going to take the
throne from you?" she said, spreading her hands wide.
"Nay, I pardoned him, didn't I? But I would be doubly pleased if
you would accept what I am about to offer you."
Her eyes narrowed. "What can you offer me that I can possibly
want?"
"Denys, as twin children of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort,
both our claims to the throne are equal at present. I have won the
crown by force of arms and bear it as being the eldest and the
male. However, as I have no male heirs as of yet, you are my
closest living relative. As such I would like you to be my heir,
until Elizabeth brings forth my first prince."
Denys felt the air rush from her lungs. She could hardly believe
what she was hearing. Was this offer supposed to be some sort of a
test? Or did he think it to be a gift? Would Richard have wanted
her to succeed him on the timeline of history?
Even as she opened her lips to spit back her scorn at the offer,
the recollection of Richard's handsome young face gave her pause.
Aye, she knew he would have loved her to have a chance to inherit,
since they were distant relatives. But as the sister of Henry
Tudor, never! She might be a Lancastrian by blood, but she had
followed the white rose of York her whole life. To succeed Henry
Tudor as monarch in such circumstances as these would be to betray
everything any of them had ever stood for.
"I have never aspired to the throne, I do not aspire to the
throne, and shan't ever want aught to do with the throne, do you
understand me, Henry? Should you die without issue, then I would
suggest that George Plantagenet's son Edward would be a 
worthy heir."
He shook his head. "The days of Yorkist rule are over, my dear. I
won the crown by right of conquest with the support of my faction,
and it is obvious that is what the people wish."
"Oh, you have not been to the north country, Henry," she corrected
the King with a wisdom far surpassing his with regard to the
wishes of the people. "The north is Yorkist country, and as such
the subjects there will always swear allegiance to the Yorkist
faction. I spent almost my entire life there, so I should know."
"But the Yorkist faction is no more. Richard of Gloucester is gone
and I am King now!" His voice took on a whining tone and at that
moment she wanted to smack him silly, knock him off his lofty
perch. Here he was the King of England and he was acting like a
spoilt child having grabbed a toy away from his playmate and now
crowing over it in triumph, though he had stolen it by the most
treacherous methods. "The north belongs to the same realm as the
south."
"We are not talking about chess pieces here, Harry." She
deliberately spoke down to him, as his uppity attitude was
beginning to grind on her nerves. "If you wish to rule like some
Turkish sultan, you have conquered the wrong part of the world."
Two sets of eyes blazed momentarily, that Beaufort stubbornness
coming head to head for the first time ever, pitting sister
against brother.
"Then my first progress will be to the north in order to capture
the hearts of my countrymen there. They will grow to trust me."
She shook her head. "Don't count on it, Brother. Leave the north
to my husband and the lords up there. Concentrate on getting your
house in order first. I suggest you sire some heirs of your own
quickly, for I have no desire to be your successor. Nor do I wish
to be a usurper. So you have naught to worry about regarding my
husband or myself. We want only to be left alone in our home."
"As you wish, dear sister. And to show you that I harbor no ill
will towards you or the memory of your fallen King, I shall
reverse the attainder against George Plantagenet and make his son
Edward heir to the throne until I sire my own. Just bear in mind
that is unlikely to happen, as he is a simple minded dolt who is
hardly fit to rule."