The Witch of Eye (12 page)

For him, Westminster was the place to be. It was where decisions were made and Thomas Southwell dearly loved being among the decision-makers.

But needs must cross the Thames this morning, since there was royal business to discuss with Henry Beaufort who, in his capacity as Bishop of Winchester, held the office of Prelate of the Order of the Garter. The Dean of Westminster was responsible for the organisation of the Garter ceremony itself so Southwell, as a Canon of St Stephen’s Westminster, had volunteered to take charge of several details ahead of next week’s ceremony. In fact, these were minor, inconsequential things which could probably have been left until the day of the ceremony but Southwell, bursting with self-importance, thought they merited immediate discussion with His Grace and had requested a meeting with him. Southwark Palace was within view. He was nearly there.

For Southwell, it was a perfect excuse.

For Beaufort, it was an unwelcome interruption. He had a lot on his mind. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse in France since the untimely death of the Duke of Bedford. While he was alive, the Duke had managed to control the volatile French. Now, things had the potential to turn quite ugly. Not for the first time, Beaufort heartily wished that England had never been encumbered by the wretched country.

It worried him greatly that the Duke of Gloucester was keen to keep France under English control. Henry Beaufort had nothing but contempt for his arrogant nephew. And now the King had impetuously invited his flibbertigibbet of a wife to become a Lady Member of the Order of the Garter! Beaufort had little time for the Duchess, either.

His Highness had made another of his impulsive gestures in issuing the invitation to the wretched woman. Rather than take the advice of his ruling Council as he had always done hitherto, the young King appeared to be flexing his royal muscle by making more and more decisions for himself these days and they were not always the right decisions. Still, he couldn’t remain a child for ever; he would have to start making decisions some time. Perhaps the earlier the better, thought Beaufort on reflection, because the King’s decisions would then take precedence over whatever Gloucester decided and that would bring the arrogant Duke down a peg or two. If only the King could be persuaded to withdraw from France, then life would be a great deal more agreeable for everyone. Everyone, that was, except Gloucester. And Henry Beaufort couldn’t give a damn about Gloucester.

Southwell bustled into the room and took the seat offered him. ‘Of course, it is a very great honour for Her Grace,’ he enthused, as he settled himself comfortably, ‘is it not, my Lord?’

Beaufort was not at all sure that he liked this pompous little priest. He grunted non-committally.

‘As perhaps you know, my Lord, I have the honour to serve Her Grace in an advisory capacity as her personal physician and I have observed that His Highness the young King appears very fond of his aunt. So it is right and proper that she should be honoured. She is, after all, the highest-ranking lady in the country.’

Beaufort raised his eyebrows. ‘She ranks below Her Royal Highness the Dowager Queen Catherine,’ he pointed out.

‘Ah, the Queen. Yes, of course. But Her Royal Highness has chosen to absent herself from court. She surely cannot expect the King to honour her under the circumstances.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Beaufort. ‘But then again, perhaps she doesn’t seek honour; it may not be important to her.’ He kept his own counsel on the subject of the Queen. He had a great fondness for the widow of his late nephew, King Henry V, and would never spread malicious gossip about her. She had enough problems of her own, poor woman, without incurring the disapproval of this bumptious little man. He needed to steer the conversation away from Queen Catherine.

‘Sir Thomas Grey has been approved a Knight of the Garter this year,’ he said. ‘It’s about time: Sir Thomas doesn’t get any younger. Can’t be far off fifty and it’s well known that he acquitted himself admirably at Agincourt.’

‘So I understand,’ said Southwell, who made a habit of learning everything he could about influential people. ‘And you must be pleased,’ he went on, ‘that your nephew is to be honoured this year!’

Beaufort’s stony expression immediately softened. ‘Edmund,’ he said, smiling. The son of his late brother was the nearest he would ever come to having a son of his own and he was immensely proud of him. ‘Yes, indeed. A fine, upstanding young man. And you’re right, Southwell, I am pleased and proud of him, of course.’

‘He clearly takes after his uncle!’

Southwell had found that a little flattery would often grease the delicate mechanism of making an impression on powerful people. He had his eye firmly fixed on a bishop’s mitre as soon as he could acquire one and Henry Beaufort was a man with influence. It was worth keeping on the right side of him.

On the other hand, like everyone else, he was aware of the open enmity between Beaufort and the Duke of Gloucester. Henry Beaufort was without doubt the most important prelate in England; Gloucester was Protector of England and an authoritative member of the King’s Council. He was also heir to the throne. These two formidable characters might personally be at daggers drawn, but Southwell intended to keep on the right side of them both and, this morning, he needed to impress Cardinal Beaufort. He took a sheaf of important-looking sheets of parchment from the scrip he carried.

‘These are my plans for the ceremony, my Lord Bishop,’ he said. ‘I have brought them along for your approval.’

Beaufort yawned.

***

S
ilk. The sheen on it, the heavenly feel of it! Standing perfectly still, Eleanor felt a purely sensual pleasure in the way it draped over the elegant contours of her body. A royal seamstress knelt on the floor of Eleanor’s dressing room, adjusting the length of the heavy white silk gown which the Duchess would wear under a dark blue cloak at the Garter ceremony on the fifth of May.

The seamstress sat back on her heels and looked critically at the hem which she had been tacking in place. ‘There, my Lady,’ she said as best she could with half a dozen pins between her pursed lips.

‘There, Your Grace,’ corrected Eleanor without looking at her.

Removing the pins from her mouth, the seamstress got awkwardly to her feet. ‘Yes, of course, Your Grace. I’m so sorry. May I ask whether the shoes you are wearing now will be the shoes you will wear at the Garter ceremony?’

‘No, of course not. I shall have new ones, shoes of the finest pale leather, and the cordwainer promises to deliver them this afternoon. I can hardly wait to try them on. Why do you ask about my shoes?’

‘Because, Your Grace, depending on the height of the heels, they could make a slight difference to the final depth of hem required.’

‘So why didn’t you say that in the first place?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry, my L ... er, Your Grace. But might I suggest I leave the final adjustment of the hem until such time as you feel comfortable in your new shoes? Then every detail will be perfect.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Eleanor with a sigh, waving her away. ‘Go now. Leave me. And tell Sarah to come and help me out of this gown.’

‘Very well, my Lady.’

‘Your Grace,’ Eleanor corrected absently as the seamstress curtseyed and left the room, rolling her eyes heavenward as soon as the door was safely closed behind her.

By re-adjusting the mirror on her dressing room table, Eleanor was able to see almost all of the unfinished gown. Yes, the irritating woman was quite right; it was important that every detail must be perfect. Since the Dowager Queen had absented herself from court, the Duchess of Gloucester was the first and foremost lady in the land and all eyes would be upon her.

She stepped back and twirled slowly, humming to herself, smiling coquettishly at her own reflection, pleased by what she saw. She was a person of importance, wife of the heir to the throne of England.

Bending very close to the mirror, she turned her head from side to side and, analytically, noted that her skin was good, with very few wrinkles – she had Margery Jourdemayne’s compound of egg and powdered lily root to thank for that. It was worth every penny she paid for it. Her hair was still quite dark, too, with hardly a trace of grey but, more than anything, her bright eyes shone with all her old zest for life.

Straightening up, she ran the palm of her hand over the fabric of the sumptuous gown, smoothing it over the sinuous curve of her full breasts, her hips, her too-flat belly. If only her hand could trace the contour of a mound there, but hers was still like the flat belly of a virgin.

This overwhelming need to give her husband a child was proving more frustrating with every passing month and her chances of conceiving receded with every successive year. She would be thirty-five years old come summer and, however she looked at it, time was running out. What distressed her most was the realisation that the failure lay fair and square at her own doorstep because Humphrey had succeeded in getting other women with child. No, there was no question of his virility, and Eleanor had to grit her teeth whenever she heard that spoilt little brat Antigone call him ‘Father’.

Antigone Plantagenet. What a ridiculous name for a young woman at the English court! It was neither one thing nor the other, neither Greek nor French. The child had probably been named on a stupid whim of Humphrey’s when he was going through a classical phase. He would never talk about the mother of his children, dismissing the whole affair as a mere liaison, a dalliance with a woman he had met in France during the years of occupation which followed Agincourt. So much for a dalliance, thought Eleanor: it didn’t require an abacus to calculate that it must have lasted at least two years if it survived two pregnancies. Both children had been acknowledged by their father and were living in his household, and all she knew was that they had been born in France. The stern expression on Humphrey’s face warned her not to ask any more questions.

Eleanor had been more than pleased when Antigone had married the young Earl of Tankerville three months ago. It had been rather a grand wedding, graced by the presence of the King who was the bride’s first cousin. The bride’s father and his wife were naturally among the chief guests and it thrilled Eleanor to ride beside her husband through the streets of London in the bridal procession, being gawped at and cheered by the crowds. But as soon as the wedding was over, she could hardly wait for the young earl, who was the seventh Lord Powys, to take his new countess to the family’s ancestral home in Montgomeryshire. She was heartily glad to see the back of Antigone and, with luck, she might never have to see her again. Montgomeryshire was in Wales and no one ever went there unless they had to. Good riddance!

Humphrey’s other child was a boy named Arthur. To Eleanor, that was a far more acceptable name and at least Arthur was a folk hero to whom the English could lay some claim. No one enjoyed hearing the tales of the heroic King Arthur more than Eleanor did.

‘Enter!’ she called, in response to a knock at the dressing room door. ‘Ah, Sarah, there you are at last. What took you so long?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said her maid, dropping a curtsey. ‘You see, I was mending a rent in your ...’

‘I’m sorry,
Your Grace
,’ Eleanor snapped. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Sarah, how many more times must I correct you! Oh, no matter,’ she said, turning her back on her maid, ‘now you’re here, you can help me out of this gown. Then put it to one side. Carefully, mind!’

‘Certainly, Your Grace.’

***

T
he fact that the Westminster monastery was so near Eybury farmhouse was a mixed blessing. It meant on the one hand that Abbot Harweden was sufficiently close to take almost too much of an interest in the daily working of the farm, but it also meant that the monastery bell, ringing the hours of Divine Office throughout the day, was a reliable means of knowing the time. The bell had just rung the hour of Compline, the final Office of the day, as William Jourdemayne crawled into bed.

‘I have to be up early tomorrow morning,’ said his wife, pulling her shift over her head. ‘I’ll be out and about before dawn if I’m to collect enough Beltane dew for Her Grace to use before the Garter ceremony next week. She’s heard it’s beneficial for the complexion so I’ve promised I’ll get her some. She’ll pay a decent price for it.’

William muttered something incomprehensible as he moved over in their bed to make room for her beside him.

‘Mind you,’ Margery added, snuffing out the candle, ‘the Duchess wouldn’t know the difference if I bottled up a few drops of water from the stream. I could do that, if you like, then we could stay in bed.’

Blessed darkness at last meant the promise of sleep for William after the back-breaking work of sowing the barley. But it was not to be.

‘She’s an attractive woman,’ Margery said after a few minutes.

Why was it, he thought, that just as he had begun drifting towards that nebulous no-man’s land between wakefulness and sweet oblivion, Margery decided to hold a conversation? It was one of her more exasperating habits.

‘Who is? The Duchess?’ he asked from the depths of the bed, determinedly keeping his eyes closed so that he could drift back into no-man’s land again, as soon as he was allowed to.

‘No, the Queen of the Pea,’ said Margery. ‘Joanna.’

‘The Queen of the Pea? But that was Twelfth Night. Months ago. Anyway, her name isn’t Joanna, it’s Jenna,’ said William, still keeping his eyes firmly closed. ‘Jenna Harding. It’s a Cornish name, I believe, but she’s from Devon.’

‘You seem to know a lot about her!’

‘Of course I do, Margery. I gave her the job.’

‘As dairymaid?’

‘As dairymaid. You were not available at the time. Now, are you going to let me get to sleep?’

‘Yes. If you want.’

There was a pause, during which William allowed his mind to drift. There was a big drove coming in from Devon tomorrow afternoon and though it was always good to see Robin Fairweather, he knew he’d keep him up late tomorrow night, talking good-naturedly over more pitchers of ale than was good for either of them, so he needed all the sleep he could get tonight.