Mistress to the Crown (25 page)

‘Well, why would you?’ she said matter-of-factly, flicking her fingers at me to seat myself again. ‘And this is a matter of extreme urgency.’

‘Mistress Shore, please,’ pleaded Margaret Burdett. ‘My husband is going to be executed for high treason and—’ She clapped a hand to her lips as if the words already made her retch.

I blinked hard, feeling myself much moved to pity. Burdett would be hanged. They would hook his entrails out while he was still alive and then hack the body into four and stake his head on London Bridge.

‘Dame Margaret,’ I said helplessly, ‘your husband was tried by—’

‘Five earls, twelve barons and six justices in the Star Chamber,’ cut in her grace of York. ‘Yes, due process of law, Mistress Shore, and he was found guilty. However, it is still possible for my son to grant him mercy.’

Trying to talk to Ned about Burdett would be like sleeping with a candle on a haystack.

I lifted my hands in frustration. ‘Your grace, I believe that no
man should die so cruelly, but I have only been able to help people with petitions about small matters.’

Dame Margaret gave an anguished gasp. ‘Please, the King’s officers will take my children’s inheritance. Our land, everything.’

I reached out a hand to clasp hers and waited until she had regained control before I asked gently, ‘Do you believe your husband is innocent?’

She looked me in the face. ‘He did spread sedition, but he believed what my lord duke said about—’ She bit her lip, darting a wary glance at the duchess.

I guessed which slander she meant. ‘But there were other charges?’

She nodded. ‘Alas, it’s true what he said about wishing the antlers of the white buck were in King Edward’s belly because he had been pursuing that buck for years and, yes, it was the King who killed it during a hunt, but Thomas didn’t really mean he wanted the King dead. He was just jealous when he heard.’

‘And the sorcery? Didn’t your husband’s body-servant testify against him?’

‘You mean Alexander Rushton, God forgive him, but I’m sure he was forced and they must have tortured Master Stacey, too, for him to accuse Thomas.’

I hoped not. Ned had always claimed he disapproved of torture.

‘Stacey is a fellow of Merton College, Oxford,’ the duchess informed me. ‘Thomas Blake, the other condemned man, is the college chaplain.’

Margaret Burdett nodded. ‘My husband met them four years ago when the duke commissioned them to draw up his birth chart, but I swear Thomas had nothing to do with any of their predictions this time.’

‘And the duke has sent no letter to exonerate any of them?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she replied angrily, ‘and it’s too late now. It’s not just, not just!’ Her fists hit her lap. ‘Why should my husband be the whipping boy? He’s been stupid, yes, but he did what he was told. For the love of Our Sweet Saviour, Mistress Shore, I don’t want him to die. But the King will not see me.’ She flung herself on her knees before me. ‘You are the only person left.’

I put my hands on either side of her shoulders and said solemnly, ‘I’ll do whatever is within my power, but pray don’t raise your hopes.’

‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ To my dismay, she kissed my hand as though I was a princess.

I looked across at Ned’s mother. ‘His grace leaves tomorrow for the Queen’s lying-in at Windsor and that gives me little time.’

The duchess rose to her feet. ‘Come along, Margaret.’

Burdett’s wife took her cloak from me. ‘I cannot thank you enough, you kind soul. God be with you, Mistress Shore, and grant you eloquence.’

I shook out the duchess’s cloak to arrange it about her shoulders but she held up an imperious hand and bade Dame Margaret wait for her downstairs.

‘Close the door if you please, Mistress Shore.’ I latched it and came back to face her. We were both tall so she was able to look directly at me. ‘You will be risking a great deal of displeasure if you intervene in this business.’

‘Yes,’ I said with feeling. ‘And, pardon me for my frankness, your grace, but you have raised that poor dame’s hopes too much by bringing her here. May I ask why?’

She gave me her cloak to put about her shoulders. ‘Because, as you rightly pointed out, Burdett and the others are small fry. If they are executed, George may … will … do something else foolish and God knows where this may end.

‘I don’t know if you have met George, Mistress Shore. Oh, you have. And have you ever seen a ball of quicksilver? It’s bright,
shiny, a perfect sphere, but poke it and it changes shape, moves fast and then becomes a ball again. That’s George. Irritable as a bull with a horsefly on its rump in May, but in June, talking, talking, talking, brimming with schemes that could encompass the whole of Christendom, by July, wallowing in self-pity and saying that the family hates him.

‘He thinks he’d be a better king but he can’t keep order on his own manors. And he drinks too much. How do you manage such a man? So, you see, it has to be Ned who makes the compromise, and I need you to point this out to him.’

‘You do not ask much,’ I said wryly.

‘No,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘But Ned always calls you his Jehane d’Arc.’ She tugged her hood forward over her starched coif. ‘Now, do give your father my good wishes when you see him, Elizabeth. I have not forgotten his loyalty to my late husband.’

I curtsied. ‘He will be touched that you remember him, your grace.’

She nodded to me to open the door for her. ‘If you decide not to speak with Ned on this matter, I won’t blame you but I’ll be disappointed.’

I waited for a quarter of an hour outside the Lord Chamberlain’s accounting room before one of his secretaries ushered me in.

Hastings did not ask me to sit down. ‘You had unexpected visitors?’ He signed a letter, then reached for another in the waiting pile.

‘I did. Very elevated, in fact, and thanks to you, I find myself at a crossroads.’

‘Now where have I heard that before, Elizabeth?’ He looked up, wearing his busy Monday face. ‘Ned expects you for a late supper – not too late, mind. He leaves for Windsor at daybreak.’

‘Too much excitement in London?’ I asked dryly.

His lips twisted. ‘Something like that.’

‘Why have you set me up for martyrdom, my lord? The rain will get in by the time Ned’s finished shooting holes in me.’

‘And you’ll look very holy, my dear.’ He saw I had the urge to throw his household book at him because his expression creased into a tepid smile. ‘Your pardon. The reason is you are the only one left and you do a good sniffle when it suits you.’

‘Ohhh!’ I fumed and sat down on a secretary’s stool and jabbed my elbows on the board so hard that the inkpots shook. ‘Do I care?’

‘Yes.’

I glared and he paused his quill.

‘Elizabeth, this Plantagenet quarrel is like that Roman mountain that blew its rocky top off. People will get hurt needlessly.’

‘Yes, we all know that, my lord, but there’s no harnessing Nature. And if peacemakers are so blessed, why aren’t
you
trying to talk Ned into signing a pardon?’

‘I’ve tried.’ He dipped the quill and resumed his task. ‘Go home and get some rest before tonight.’

‘Grrr,’ I said with feeling at his bowed head before I let the secretaries back in.

When dung comes, it comes in spadefuls. I returned to find a monkey’s tail of petitioners looping round the corner from my doorstep. Young and Lubbe were on guard and they hastened across the palace yard to escort me in. Scrolls and letters were thrust at me from all sides and my arms were full by the time I reached the stairs. But that was usual. Lubbe helped me unload.

‘Your brother’s ‘ere, mistress.’

‘I don’t think so, Lubbe.’ Petitioners used all kind of ruses to invade my privacy. ‘My brothers never visit.’

‘That’s what we thought, mistress, but this ‘un does have a look of you. Isabel’s up there with ‘im to make sure he don’t snaffle nuffink.’

Isabel opened the door for me, a duster in her hand, and her eyebrows at a questioning angle. Fidgeting by the window stood my youngest brother.

‘Jesu!’ I muttered to Isabel, as she took my cloak. ‘I hope nobody has died.’

Will watched open-mouthed as Lubbe deposited today’s missives on my board. ‘This is normal,’ I explained coolly.

Lubbe lingered. ‘You want the others shooed away until tomorrow, mistress?’

I shook my head. If Will was here to do a sermon on the mount, I’d need an excuse to dislodge him.

My brother came across and gave me a chaste kiss. He still seemed a stranger with the smell of church in his robes.

‘What brings you?’ I asked, drawing off my gloves. ‘No fevers or fires, I trust.’

‘No.’ He scowled at the door. ‘Is your maidservant right in her wits? She was watching me as if I was about to steal your silver.’

‘Perhaps you have a furtive look.’

He snorted like Father. ‘I haven’t time for jests, Elizabeth. I need your help and the matter is vital.’

‘Today is not a good day, Will.’

‘It’s about the hangings at Tyburn tomorrow morning and …’ He hesitated. ‘You do know about the high treason trial, don’t you? They were—’

I ignored his disbelief in my intelligence. ‘How does it concern you, Will? You’re not asking to walk with them to the gallows, are you?’

‘No, it’s because a parishioner came to see me this morning. Her name’s Marion Stacy. Stacey is—’

‘An Oxford fellow. And this Marion is his sister?’

‘No, his wife. He’s to be hanged tomorrow, Elizabeth. There’s no time for her to petition the King for mercy unless …’

I sat down and dragged my hand wearily down my face. ‘Will, you don’t know what you ask of me.’

‘Please, Elizabeth, please save Stacey’s life. I promised her you would. I know the man. He wouldn’t …’

‘He
did
. We are talking about high treason. Are you saying five earls, twelve barons and six justices are wrong?’

‘Yes, I am. His wife saw him when the guards fetched him from the Tower. She says he was walking like a cripple and he looked so old, she hardly knew him. They tortured him, Elizabeth.’

‘And suddenly your whore of a sister is the only person who can save him?’

A shameful scarlet flushed Will’s face. ‘If you want to bargain, I don’t blame you. I promise to say nothing more about—’

‘My sins? Well, I doubt there’ll be any more after tonight. If I speak of this matter to the King’s grace, I am likely to lose everything.’ I spread my hands to include the Flemish tapestry of Dido and Aeneas, the finely carved aumery with the gilded salt and chased goblets, my costly gown. ‘Would
you
risk all this, Will?’

My brother sat back in innocent astonishment. ‘Really? I thought you and he were like that.’ He held up crossed fingers.

I stood up and rang my little hand bell for Lubbe. ‘I think you had better go now, Will. I have plenty to occupy me, as you see. It was good of you to call at last.’

The sarcasm ran off him like a raindrop on a cered mantle. ‘Those people out there, they believe in you. I … I talked to them. They said no one is kinder hearted in all of London.’

I was touched yet I knew the limits of folly. ‘But, Will,’ I pointed out wryly, ‘this is
Westminster
.’

Teweksbury mustard is foul stuff on its own. I took a spoonful to make me sneeze and cleanse my head, but it did not rid me of the knotted cord sensation. Had they done that to Stacey, bound his temples tighter and tighter? And who were ‘they’? Every bridle path of thought led to Ned.

I made my way through to his apartments that evening with a heavy heart.

‘Ah, I forgot the time, love,’ he exclaimed, rising to embrace me. He looked at ease with his shirt loosely laced and an ancient, sleeveless doublet that he should have given to the poor and couldn’t button anymore, stretched across his back. He gestured to the pile of papers. ‘Clearing up a few matters before Windsor.’

‘So I see.’ He hadn’t even touched the platters of cheese and fruit set out on the small table. ‘Do you need to leave tomorrow?’ I asked sweetly, poking at his chest. ‘Her grace has not gone full term yet, has she? And don’t queens shut themselves away for a month beforehand?’

His laughter rumbled beneath my fingers. ‘Got me pilloried, eh? I’m going hunting. Clears the brain. I feel mewed up here like some damned hawk, but now that you’ve arrived …’ His hands curved around my buttocks and drew me against him.

We made love among the parchments. A swift untying of points and tossing up of petticotes, and afterwards I fed him while he dealt with the last of the dispatches. Eventually he wearied and came across to the window seat. Flinging cushions about my feet, he made himself comfortable against my skirts.

‘I wanted to ask you something, Ned,’ I murmured, licking the quince jelly from my fingers. ‘You may get angry.’

‘Send you to the Tower?’

‘Maybe.’ I removed the platter from my lap. ‘This trial that’s been going on in the Star Chamber all week, I thought you didn’t believe in torture.’

His back tensed against my leg. ‘I don’t.’

‘But hasn’t Doctor Stacey accused your brother’s retainer under torture?’ I held my breath to see how he reacted. This was hazardous, like walking through a marsh at night. I didn’t want to lose this intimacy, risk everything for three men I’d never set eyes on. All the other times I had intervened had been small matters; this was treason.

Ned lobbed a cherrystone at the hearth. It missed. ‘Must we discuss this? I’m going to be away for two weeks and you want to talk about the mongrels who tried to get rid of me and my son.’

O Jesu, this was folly, except that I could not stop thinking about the hooks and knives being whetted for the morrow. I stroked my fingers through Ned’s hair. He relaxed again, letting his head fall against my knee.

‘All London is going to be at Tyburn, my darling. Forgive me for speaking plainly but if the people feel that there has been injustice, there could be rioting.’

‘Christ, Jane!’ He swivelled round to glare at me. ‘The people will cursed well riot if there
isn’t
a hanging and drawing. Anyway,’ he muttered, settling back again, the royal arms folded, ‘it’s not as though it’s the first time Burdett and Stacey have been accused of sorcery.’