We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (46 page)

I feel better these days. With summer ahead, my joints seem eased.

God will give Edward grace to rule wisely; After the Picquigny scandal, we cannot afford another war. I do not expect the King of France wants one either. Here am I scratching of politics, I who know naught of them. But Edward is full young; he will need advisers. But why does the Mother say the day is bad? Surely the Woodvilles—

Ursula almost caught me just now, writing. I wonder of late whether I should confess it to my holy father? But is it really such a great sin? The Mother says if you need to ask this question, then it is sin; where such doubt is, there sin is also. She is still unwell, and last week actually took to her bed for a couple of hours. What she said privily to me made me sore uneasy. She cannot mean
me
to... She cannot mean what I think. For she will live, many years. God grant it.

St Alban’s Day, and a strange letter from Katherine. A rider passed through their dwelling. Says that Richard has sent for tall fellows in harness, a desperate, urgent matter. It’s like her, of course, to skim the top off the news and leave you guessing, though it may be she knows no more than this. Men, to cherish the young King? But there will be a host of Palace guards. I know.

The Mother is stronger. I got her to leave off the bleeding for a while, and, made her take the wine of the valley lily. It made her heart beat good and fast. While she was reading K’s letter she waxed yellowish and murmured to herself, I was really frightened, I know the lily is so dangerous, and thought I had made the dose too rare. She said, ‘Ah, treachery!’ She mentioned, yet again, Grafton Regis. I gave her but cursory answer—I only want her well again.

I do not wish to think that we are a dying House. But even my money does not stretch as far as I would like, and we are hard worked. Ursula has started, once more, on the frontal. It must be right, she says, to God’s glory. I offered to help her with it. She was quite wroth. She is getting old. So low does she bend, her wimple makes a little dark cave for her work. I suppose in her mind’s eye she sees it finished, glowing on the altar with two fat candles and the Holy Gospel snug atop. Her life’s ambition, already, in fantasy, fair and fine.

Why should he write in desperation?

It is hearsay, anyway.

K. must have it wrong.

I am still stunned half-silly, I can scarcely write.

Richard Plantagenet is King, by grace of God.

And by an old stroke of destiny, but even to me, this could never have been presaged. Now I know that this kingship was implicit in that night at Grafton Regis. Now and now only.

The ungodly, May Day marrying.

Now I know who ‘the other’ was.

Alas, poor Eleanor Butler! Among all the rejoicing and speculation, I’ll make for her a special novena, share the dead sorrows of Edward’s rightful Queen. How could he have been so cruel? He was out of his mind.

It’s past and done, poor Eleanor.

For all the music in the psalter cannot house my jubilation.

My hand shakes, I’ve spilled the ink. Robin’s tracking feet make the page look like a spiderweb.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
.

Written Nat. J. Baptista, the first year of King Richard the Third.

May the King live for ever.

Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex!

I knew that by now he would have forgotten my existence, but I still dreamed, waking and sleeping, amid repenting. And he came, not as I had forecast, but upon his royal progress. Leicester had already learned how he refused the money offered him by other towns; they shouted their anticipation all the louder for it. They garlanded the streets, twined roses in the bush that hangs about the taverns. They cleansed the streets, at long last removing the rotting corpse of a cat from Town Ditch. Men went anxiously to see if Leicester Castle was habitable, while the Mayor preened himself and swept out halls. And they were ready.

I knew he would not look upon my countenance again. He would pass distantly with his vast train of knights and noblemen, his heralds and pursuivants. I did not for one moment think that he would visit our House, but I played with a fancy; I starched my wimple with arrowroot and laid my habit nightly among woodruff and rosemary, and lodged him as splendidly as we could afford, and saw him enter the church to prostrate himself before the altar, dignified and aloof, fittingly devout and earnest, with only the vague knowledge that behind him knelt a cluster of robed women and around him soared the high holy voices that he loved.

He came to Leicester and again I missed seeing him. Not even in the distance, which was all I had wished. And this time, as I had been so prepared for disappointment, the hurt was less. All I saw was a host of people beneath the jostling sway of the standards, the crowd breaking free of the cordon of King’s men and bailiffs and running with cheers; a splash of a gold pennon, the flash of a trumpet, a glimpsed knot of heralds shouldering aside a monk of St Mary’s, so that he rolled against an alehouse door and through it, and there remained. I saw all this in one instant’s peering through the outer gate, until the Mother sent for me. We were to have a guest from the royal entourage, and I must wait upon her. A lady renowned for piety and learning; I grew quite nervous.

When the page announced Lady Stanley it meant naught to me. I knew her as Lady Margaret Beaufort. I remembered her cursing me once for standing in her way. Her tight face was the same, with its prim mouth and narrow eyes, her stature scarcely higher than a dwarf’s. She had her chaplain, Reynold Bray, with her, and made straight for the church. The richness of her gown took all colour from its furnishings. She prayed lustily and long. ‘
Judica me Deus, et discerne causam meam
.’ Outside the streets grew quiet. But later, as I took our last flagon of Rhenish into the parlour, the King’s train must again have appeared in public view, for another great bursting cheer arose, and swarmed through the open window on a hot breeze.

‘By St Edmund! All this accursed pomp!’

I heard her distinctly, as I balanced the salver on my knee and fumbled the latch. Perchance she is weary, I thought. I went in and asked her, kneeling, had she a headache? Would she prefer a little violet cordial instead of wine? She answered tartly that she had her own physicians, and I felt my face scarlet for a moment. But she spoke kindly to me in the next breath, saying certes, the progress was exhausting work, but she already felt much refreshed. Then she prayed again, for hours, and after Compline sat reading aloud from a monstrous book of philosophy in the Greek.

So I missed seeing him for the second time, and could only remember him as before—sitting across the hearth from me, young and hurt, and ruefully smiling—or raising his hand in farewell, after a strange, glad, unhappy night.

Do I love him more, now he is King? I would love him were he King or beggar. The heart is no heretic. He is he, and I love him.

So wrote I, in my book.

Little do I know, for here all knowledge of the world seems slight. We are encased in our bubble. The days go on, a chaplet of constant, timeless prayer. Yet I imagine we know more news than most. The Mother seems
au fait
with London life, she it was who told me Hastings was dead. And Buckingham, whom last I saw gaily bending the knee to King Edward one Christmas, surrounded by Woodville wives. And gorgeous Anthony Woodville, who frightened me sore. Richard Haute too—him I do not remember.

And Dickon Grey, with whom I once played Hoodman Blind.

I might have wept for that one, remembering him as a little, wanton, naked boy—but the tear scalded my eyes, as if to direct their penance for a fleeting disloyalty.

For these men would have killed the. King. It is but lately I realize his double vulnerability. All Kings have enemies, and he is gentler than Edward. Five men dead, the Mother says. In lieu of five thousand.

Winter comes soon. The Mother bade us all give thanks. According to her we have just escaped a war. We sang a good
Deo gratias
. That Tudor will never invade again. Not after this latest, black-avised impertinence. One could almost laugh at him sparring for Richard’s crown. It is easy to forget that Lady Margaret is his mother. The next time, if she visits, I shall feel disinclined to serve her. Yet it’s duty, charity, to pray for her soul when she wishes it. And as the King still cherishes her at court, then so shall I.

For his wisdom was ever my wisdom, his way, my way.

Half a year since my last notation. Robin sits by me—the chaplain remarked the other day what a hardy bird he is. I had him the month of my profession and he is still chirpy and hale. I say it is my care of him in the winter. He is a housebird—sleeps nightlong in my closet on straw and feathers. Sin, to cherish him so. But at least he does not come jargoning into church to upset the others. So he’s an unholy, churchless fellow.

Lord! it seems that everything becomes a paradox, if you look at it long enough.

The
Ancren Rule
was writ primarily for female hermits but there’s a deal of sense in it. It says you should not overdo the bleeding. In one of my disputations with the Mother I brought this up, and she was bound to smile, while chiding me. Now I know for certain—she would like me to take office when she is gone. I just said ‘
Domine, non sum dignus
’ very loudly in church in response to the priest, and she looked at me while the candles flickered unsteadily. I
am
unworthy, in truth.

K’s last letter from Barnard made me blush. The Mother read out loud three phrases describing the joys, her new gowns, and the glamour of a recent joust. She is nearly fourteen, and no talk of a husband. I pray St Catherine she leads a proper life. It is a real little court they have up there, and I know the temptations.

His favourite saint is Ninian. This is news to me. His maxim was: ‘Even the highest shall learn from the lowest.’ One of the stalls at Middleham belongs to him who evangelized the Picts a thousand years ago. The Mother talked of the old custom of drawing straws for a saint to worship for one’s own. I said I’d choose Ninian, and she told me of the nun who once drew Jude the Obscure, was vexed and threw him behind the altar chest. He visited her that night, striking her with palsy. Apparently you cannot choose what you most desire.

After I closed my book and hid it again, I sat thinking about the nun who had the visitation from St Jude. I could imagine it very clearly. The Saint’s sad, militant face, possibly ringed with an angry nimbus of light, the powerful anger striking through the blackness of the dorter and across the woman’s bed. These thoughts led on to others of similar aspect. Before my lifetime, a nun, dying, had seen the Blessed Virgin herself. She came to bear her up, they said the perfume of roses lingered long after in the infirmary. And Ursula’s aunt had seen a fiend. He had waited for her when she went to bed, gibbering and frowning, and she had marched up to him, dealing him such a buffet on the ear that he howled for mercy, changed into a black dog and leaped through the window. I had not thought of these tales for years, but on this night they kept me awake.

I lay, and the moon peeped in on me. When I began to shiver, I wondered if in some way I had offended a saint, so said a few Aves with my beads under the clothes. But even the angelic salutation did not halt the feeling of melancholy, vague at first, which grew and enveloped me, worse than accidia, worse than the pain of a bad conscience, inexplicable, powerful, and terrifying. I thought that someone was standing against the window, very still. I dared not breathe or move. Once I would have leaped up and earned a penance by breaking silence, but this was no longer my way. Also I had no cause. No fiend attacked
me
. Only fear, the fear of fear itself, and a great sadness, of the same breed that had surged over me when I looked on Nottingham.