Mistress to the Crown (24 page)

‘I’ve been seeking you all morning, Thomas. This comes from Cecily. She says she hasn’t heard from you for a month.’

The shrug of the satin pads that gabled Dorset’s shoulders implied indifference. ‘Women always say such things.’

‘Cecily isn’t “women”. She’s your wife.’

Dorset finally turned round. ‘What am I supposed to do, Father Hastings? Bury myself in Devon at boring old Shute?’

‘That’s not the point, Thomas. You own the Bonville inheritance now. Time you took up the reins and showed your face once more to Cecily’s tenants but, no, you are content to wallow in the income like a hanger-on.’

‘I beg your pardon, my lord,’ snapped the Queen’s son. ‘I can manage my own affairs.’

Hastings still had a burr beneath his saddlecloth. ‘
Affaires
, yes, that’s about all you can manage, Thomas Grey. That and pissing. You need to grow up, lad. Cecily is only seventeen and she’s already had your child and is carrying another.’ He smiled with victory as Dorset jerked his head back in surprise. ‘Ho, so you did not know you had another babe on the way?’ He thrust the letter in Dorset’s face. ‘Read for yourself! She says she told you in the last letter she wrote you.’

Ready to bluster, the marquis reached out. ‘Listen, it was not definite when she last wrote.’

‘Definite?’ sneered his father-in-law. ‘A woman either has courses or she doesn’t.’

Spots of scarlet bloomed beneath Dorset’s fine cheekbones. ‘You know full well what I meant, Father Hastings – whether the seed has set or not.’

Hastings’ fingers curled into fists. ‘She’s your wife, not a jelly mould!’

Dorset carried the letter towards the window where I sat. I was surprised the sound of grinding teeth did not fill the angry silence. He might be keeping his temper, but the paper shook in his hand as he read. Hastings glared at his son-in-law’s back with
dangerous contempt and then looked across at me with a lift of eyebrow that invited my agreement.

I sent him a plea. There was a sensible limit to rubbing a young man’s nose in his own mess, but, no, humiliation was on Hastings’ agendum.

‘What a worthless dag of a husband you are, Thomas Grey.’

In reply, Dorset tossed the letter to the floor and, to my surprise, hauled me up. I squealed and struggled, trapped at the waist. Hastings’ eyes narrowed to serpent slits of fury.

‘Look in your own mirror, old lecher,’ Dorset taunted, his breath whispering past my cheek. ‘Why don’t
you
go and hang about
your
wife’s skirts, or are her breasts too saggy for you? These are better sport, make you feel younger, eh? What a shame Ned made you give these up. Poor old Father Hastings.’

‘Let me go, Lord Dorset!’ I snarled. ‘I am not part of your quarrel.’ I wrenched free, but in escaping across the chamber, I left them facing each other like spurred cocks thrust into the ring.

Dorset stepped mockingly forwards. ‘You’re just an envious, old hypocrite, Lord Chamberlain. Too long in the tooth. Can’t take late evenings. Can’t take the wine.’ His disdainful gaze fixed on Hastings’s hose flap and he flopped his wrist in the older man’s face. ‘Can’t fly the pennon any more.’

It was so fast! Hastings smashed his fist into Dorset’s jaw and sent him sprawling. A footstool skidded beneath the marquis’s knees as he fell heavily on his back. He rolled over, swearing, and hurled himself headfirst into my lord’s belly.

Hastings went staggering back into the chair with Dorset hammering him. Down crashed a great candle stand and a pretty small table into the snarling confusion of sleeves and flailing limbs. I grabbed up a laver of wine and tossed the contents over their heads, but it made no difference. A pity. It worked with dogs.

Thank God it was only fists. A tapestry tumbled. Another skewed sideways. I did not know whether to bar the door and let them punch the anger out of each other or yell for help, but it was the fresh blood pulsing from someone’s nose and the shattering of Ned’s blue glass flagon made me grab my skirts and run to fetch … Well, I’m not sure whom I intended, but as I raced through the second chamber, I almost hurtled into Ned and his entourage. I took refuge in my king’s arms with a sob of relief. Ned was no fool. He instantly drew me aside.

‘Hastings … and Dorset … fighting,’ I gasped.

‘Just a private matter,’ Ned announced loudly over his shoulder. ‘You have leave, gentlemen! Not you, Lord Rivers!’ He jerked his head in summons at his brother-in-law.

I could not believe they were still fighting. Ned took one look at the dishevelled chamber, grabbed the pair of them by the backs of their collars, banged their heads together and flung them apart.

‘You break my peace and my— Hell, you broke my Schweitzer flagon!’

‘I’ll break his worthless head!’ panted Hastings, trying to shake free of the guards who had seized him.

Rivers grabbed Dorset by the arms. ‘Whoa, nephew!’

Dorset’s nose was bloodiest, plopping onto his shirt and stomacher. One of Hastings’ cheeks was bruised and there was a ring scratch down its fellow.

‘By Our Lady, you can leave court, Tom! As for you, Will, you can go back to London and cool off in the Tower.’

‘What!’ His friend went white with rage.

‘Yes, go and supervise the cursed mint!’

Hastings’ mouth was a pen slash of resentment and he tugged his clothing straight and marched out head high.

Dorset was smirking. ‘Just because I stole a mistress from him like
another
here I could name.’

‘You know that’s not the reason, my lord,’ I exclaimed and turned to Ned. ‘The quarrel was over Lady Cecily. Lord Hastings considered my lord marquis should spend more time with her.’

‘Well, hop off and do so!’ growled Ned.

Dorset could not criticise the King openly but he could do it obliquely by attacking me. ‘You telltale old cow.’

‘
Old cow?
’ I walloped him across the face. ‘I may have five years on you but that is all.’

He staggered back. ‘She hit me, Ned.’

‘And I’ll put a boot up your arse. Get out of here!’

That left us alone with Rivers. He whistled with cynical amusement. ‘This will set the tongues wagging.’

Ned answered him with two short words and left the room.

With a sigh, I began to set the chamber to rights. Rivers picked up the scattered books. He made a show of examining them for damage but he was more intent on manipulating me.

‘Since you are playing the alarm bell so beautifully, Mistress Shore, perhaps you should warn Hastings that the activities of his officers in Calais on his behalf have not gone unremarked.’

I did not look up from gathering the shards of cobalt glass. ‘I daresay I’m being as dense as a November fog, Lord Rivers, but what exactly are you talking about?’

He crouched down before me and offered a cupped palm for the fragments. ‘As a housewife, I’m sure you understand skimming off cream.’ He rolled the word.

‘I’m out of practice, I’m afraid,’ I crooned back and rose to my feet, smoothing my skirts. ‘But –
as a housewife
– I have learned not to listen to idle gossip. I believe the King’s grace has, too.’ If Rivers wanted to plant the seed of suspicion against Hastings in Ned’s mind, he could use someone else.

He straightened gracefully and stared down at me from his fine height with the sleepy languor he always affected. ‘You should not have smacked the Queen’s son, Elizabeth Lambard.’

‘No, I agree with you, my lord, and I shall apologise next time I see him, but maybe if
she
had smacked him more, I should not have had to.’

He looked at me with blatant pity. ‘I see in you a poor deluded creature, still clinging to the mane of a weary old warhorse in case our sovereign lord kicks you out.’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said. ‘But
he’s always fought
on Ned’s side.’
Unlike some
.

Rivers’ eyes glittered. ‘As I said, deluded. There’ll come a time when you go grovelling to my nephew.’

There spoke the man who was tutor to our future king and it didn’t bode well, least of all, for me.

Once he had his temper lidded down, Ned returned. The chamber was back to its rich, serene character and he thanked me for it.

‘Brawling like schoolboys, I had to punish them,’ he said sadly, dropping down into the chair. ‘But did you see the hurt in Will’s eyes? I hope he understood.’

‘He’ll come about.’ I wrapped my arms about Ned’s neck and kissed the top of his head. ‘And I hope Dorset will forgive me.’

But I didn’t believe in fairies either.

X

Just before Christmas, George’s wife died. She had never recovered from bearing a stillborn babe two months earlier. Then in January came worse news: Ned’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, had been slain in battle, and Ned, fearful that France would now gobble up Burgundy, urgently summoned his two brothers to court. But George would not come straight away. In his grief, he kept his duchess’s embalmed body lying in state in Tewkesbury Abbey for five-and-thirty days. Then, when he did arrive at the council chamber, he was no longer in mourning but ardent to marry again.

‘If he stayed off the malmsey, he might see the world like a sane man,’ Ned exclaimed, pacing in my parlour in King Street like a caged beast. ‘Want to hear his latest nonsense, Jane? He will neither eat nor drink under my roof. Says his son is a changeling and I am to blame. Heigh, yes, I’m in league with the fairies as well as Italian poisoners. Pah, the brat is simple.’ He whirled his finger at his temple. ‘Moon-faced, know what I mean?’

The duke’s son and heir a village idiot! Oh dear!

‘Weren’t he and his wife cousins, Ned?’

‘Second cousins, love. They had a papal dispensation. But I know what you are hinting. Curse of inbreeding, eh?’

‘And your brother Gloucester is married to the other sister.’

He gave a huff of breath and shrugged. ‘So the Pope gave him a dispensation as well. Necessity of state. The last thing we needed was George getting his hands on
all
of Warwick’s lands.’

‘Are my lord of Gloucester’s children hale?’ I asked, replenishing the cider in his cup.

‘His bastards are. He managed three before he wed, so nothing wrong with him, but Cousin Anne’s not a good breeder. They’ve only managed a son so far – bright enough, thank God! I’m going to make him Earl of Salisbury.’ He took a swig. ‘Hell and Ballocks! You know what, Jane? George reckons he’s going to marry Mary of Burgundy. Imagine! He’d be Lucifer incarnate, allying with his greasy friend, Louis, to grab my throne. And now that Scots clod James has offered him his sister’s hand as well. Whoresons, all of ’em! I might as well sit on the mouth of a cannon and light the fuse.’

When the royal council fisted the board in disapproval of his marital ambitions, Duke George left Westminster in a mighty fury. For a few weeks he simmered in Warwick Castle and then in April he sent his henchmen to abduct his wife’s favourite tiring woman, alleging that she had poisoned the duchess. He had the poor woman hauled to Warwick town where he forced the local judge and jury to find her guilty. Then he hanged her.

Ned, furious at his brother’s rape of the law, summoned him to answer charges. George ignored him and made much mischief. Slanders about the King’s legitimacy flickered across England like sheet lightning in the summer clouds and Ned, give him due, weathered them until Harewell and Tapton, his spies in the duke’s household, delivered a disturbing report. Some of George’s retinue were employing the black arts against Ned and his son, Prince Edward, predicting that they would soon die.

That had Ned snarling. Several men, including George’s close friend, Thomas Burdett, were arrested and tried by a commission, and a week later, on Monday, nineteenth of May, they were found guilty of high treason.

I tried to stay out of it, but on the morning of the verdict, two women, one veiled, the other with a hood covering half her face, came to my door at Westminster. Isabel brought them up into my solar.

The taller woman wore a starched coif. Her gown was of fine wool and the most perfect black dye I’d ever seen, save for Ned’s doublets. Her eyes were beautiful, blue and sandy-lashed, and although her cheeks had the stretching that comes with age, she was remarkably attractive. A large, unadorned gold cross hung upon her bosom, but she wore no other adornment save on her ring finger and I assumed she was an abbess. Petitioners like her were the hardest to deal with. They did not like to be thwarted. When I made a courtesy, she merely inclined her head.

Her plain, younger lay attendant was round-shouldered and likely to acquire a hump if she lived long enough. Her cone headdress was of modest proportion, she was wearing a silver collar with a pendant ‘M’ and a wedding band, and her gown was of amber damask over a brown petticote. Thumb-sized shadows underlined her eyes and her face told me Life had taken a whip to her.

They declined refreshment. The older lady sat straight, her stare roving over my furnishings. Clearly, the buttering up that tediously preceded a plea for help would not come from her. It was the younger woman who leaned forward.

‘Mistress Shore, it is said that you have the stomach to speak out where there is injustice. Lord Hastings said you might be willing to help me.’ She had a Midlands accent, Warwickshire perhaps.

‘Come to the point, Margaret.’ The older woman’s tone was brisk but not without charity.

‘My husband is Sir Thomas Burdett, Mistress Shore, one of the men condemned to death tomorrow morning, and I assure you I can think of no one else to turn to.’

I was speechless.

‘I’ve tried to talk sense into Ned,’ said the older lady. ‘He won’t listen to Will either and Elizabeth is about to give birth.’

Ned
?
Elizabeth
? I stared at her, totally bewildered. She was too young to be one of Ned’s sisters but old enough to be …
his mother
? Jesu! The well bucket hit the water and I tumbled forward onto my knees.

Her grace of York rarely set foot outside Baynard’s Castle but here she was in my house.

‘Your grace, I didn’t—’