The King's Grace (56 page)

1494

T
he scene outside Grace and Tom’s chamber window was silent and white. Grace was lying-in and, although custom ordained the shuttering of casements to keep out the Devil, she could not bear the gloom and begged Tom to open one of the shutters so she could watch the snowflakes float effortlessly towards the ground, covering branches and bushes in soft, fluffy mantles of purity.

Alice Gower had insisted that Grace be rested before her ordeal, as Grace had come down with a fever and cold at Christmas and missed the festivities at Sheriff Hutton, where they had all been invited. “Tom, you are to be gentle with Grace for the next few weeks,” she had advised her son one morning after shooing Grace away from the barn. There was frost on the roof of the byre and ice in the water trough, and Grace’s hands were red from cold. Her head was pounding and her nose running, but she could not forsake the poor cows when the milkmaid had failed to appear that morning. Bundling her daughter-in-law up in her own woolen shawl,
Alice hurried her back to the warm kitchen in the manor house and told her sternly to stay where she was.

Grace thought back fondly to the scene as she lay snug in the bed Tom had fetched for them from Sheriff Hutton, a belated wedding gift from his uncle, Sir John. Tom had been almost as enthusiastic about taking her home to Yorkshire as he had been when she told him she was carrying their child. In fact, she remembered, he had been close to tears at the announcement. With time to daydream, she spent hours reliving the past—especially the past six months, when she had met her half brother in Flanders and, upon her arrival back in England, had been certain she was with child.

“What would you do if I said you were going to be a father, Tom?” she asked him coyly one night after he had made love to her at Pasmer’s Place. She laughed out loud now when she remembered his reaction. He had immediately moved a foot away from her and gently pulled her chemise down to cover her nakedness. “F-f-father?” he whispered as he accomplished his task, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I am going to be a father? When, how…?”

Grace giggled. “Foolish boy. You know very well how. But I do believe the babe will be born under the sign of the goat. A good omen for a farmer and his wife,” she teased, knowing he thought of himself more as a knight than a farmer.

Tom counted on his fingers. “Five months from now,” he said eagerly. Then his face paled. “But sweetheart, all those nights when we made love—and sometimes none too gently—why did you not tell me sooner? You could have harmed the child.”

“Foolish boy,” Grace said again. “Nature has a way of protecting the babe. And besides, ’tis good for the mother’s humors to know her man still desires her,” she said, purposefully running her finger down his chest to his belly and around his sensitive navel until she saw her goal achieved. She bent and kissed his prick and, whispering of his love, he rolled her on top of him and gently pushed up into her. “There, you see, ’tis as it always is,” she said as she felt her own passion mount. “You want our child to know what love is, do you not? Then, dear husband, I pray do not delay any further,” she muttered as a wave of pleasure made her gasp.

Grace smiled now, remembering and caressing her enormous belly.
Dear Saint Sibylline, at least this child will know both her parents, she thought. There had come a time when lovemaking had become too difficult, and the two of them had found other ways of pleasuring each other. She never got tired of feeling the baby kick, and right now she could feel a little hand or foot moving under her hand. She thought back to the first time the child had quickened and how thrilling the sensation had been. She frowned, but that day was also when she had had the terrifying audience with Henry and his mother. She did not want to think dark thoughts while she was so close to birthing, but the memory of those two faces glaring down at her from their higher position on the little dais was still so fresh, it burned on her mind and entered her nightmares.

She and Tom had returned to Hellowe after leaving Flanders and found only the two Welles daughters in residence. Jack and Cecily had joined the Lady Margaret at Collyweston to greet the King for his monthlong stay in Northampton. Tom had ridden immediately to join his master, leaving Grace happily tending her garden and playing with little Anne and Elizabeth. A fortnight later a messenger had arrived to instruct Grace to join Tom at Collyweston and report on her observations at the Malines court. Bess had arrived from Greenwich and was anxious to see Grace, Tom’s letter explained. She rode pillion behind one of the escorts and enjoyed the shade of the woods until the road ran alongside fields, some freshly reaped and dotted with sheaves and stooks that allowed further ripening of the grain in the hot late August sun. They passed hedgerows of intertwined blackthorn, with its blue-bloomed sloe berries, and thorny brambles, which still flowered pink or showed its juicy fruit. And here and there carpets of red poppies reigned supreme in those yet unharvested fields of wheat and barley. The drone of bees, the cacophony of birdsong and the bleating of sheep were all sounds that accompanied them, and Grace knew that she was happiest in the countryside.

Once at Collyweston, Grace had passed a pleasant hour with the queen and Cecily and told them faithfully of her impressions of Richard. Bess, seated on a small dais in a gilded chair, had not said a word during her retelling, but Cecily had interrupted with a hundred questions and great excitement. When Grace came to the end, eyeing the queen with her characteristic cocked head, Bess finally spoke. “I am sorry that you should be
so deceived by this foul dissembler, Grace. I had thought you a better judge of people than that.”

Even Cecily’s smile had faded as she’d watched her older sister’s stern face. “Come now, Bess,” she said, clearly irritated. “We both know Grace is not a dissembler. She has no reason to be.” Grace threw her a grateful glance before giving Bess her full attention again.

“Henry has uncovered a diabolical deception, which you must have known about while you were with Aunt Margaret,” Bess began. “This popinjay is naught but a boatman’s son dressed in fine clothes playing a pernicious part in Margaret’s mummery. To believe otherwise is to have treasonous thoughts,” Bess told them coldly, though her voice trembled.

Grace flushed and plucked nervously at her gown, noticing a dark stain on the damask and pushing the offending fold between her knees. “Dear sister, would you have wanted me to lie to you? You asked for my impression, and I have told you. ’Tis only
my
impression—”

Cecily jumped to her feet, interrupting her. “Christ’s nails, Bess,” she swore, making Bess’s eyes fly wide. “
You
asked Grace to go to Burgundy and report what she saw and heard. I see nothing treasonous in what she has said, and we know Grace does not lie. I have to confess that I am half convinced myself. Are you going to tell me that we are
both
traitors?”

Tears suddenly coursed down Bess’s face, and Grace knew in an instant how compromised her sister must be. She got up and knelt by the queen’s side, taking her hands and chafing them. “Do not weep, Bess. You have only done your duty by your husband, and Cis and I understand, don’t we Cecily?” she turned and frowned a warning at the still-indignant Cecily. “You have been kind enough to caution me that, should the king question me, I must tell a different tale. True?”

Bess nodded vigorously and then managed a smile. “I do not know how you do it, Grace. You are always such a comfort.” She pulled herself together and wiped her eyes on a lawn kerchief. “Believe what you will, my dear, but no one at court—except perhaps my other foolish sister—”

“Do you mean
me
, your grace?” Cecily cried. “Do you call
me
foolish?”

Bess ignored her outburst and continued as though there had been no interruption: “No one believes it, because it is not prudent to believe it.”

“Believe what, my dear?” a voice from the doorway froze the three sisters in their positions, until all fell on their knees in front of the king.
“Forgive us for the intrusion, but your steward knocked and was not heard for the din in here. ’Twas as noisy as a morning at Billingsgate, was it not, Mother?”

Grace’s heart sank into her knees as she saw Lady Margaret follow her son into the room. Cardinal Morton, as Henry’s favorite adviser, was never far from the duo, and soon his portly form joined them in, it seemed to Grace, an unholy trinity. The little tableau was completed by Henry’s pet, a white-whiskered monkey that capered beside him on a golden chain.

“Aye, fishwives is an apt comparison,” Lady Margaret said with amusement. “Lady Welles, my brother has not revealed to me this side of you,” she said to Cecily, who looked appropriately sheepish. “I believe I must have been fortunate not to have sisters.”

“Believe what?” Henry repeated to his wife, almost running over his mother’s words and raising Bess to her feet.

Bess blushed and hesitated. It was plain she was desperately forming a satisfactory answer. Grace’s heart went out to her, and she stepped forward and curtsied to the king again, who had ushered his mother to the chair on the dais and was ministering to her.

“By your leave, your grace, may I speak?” Grace said, so softly that Henry asked her to repeat herself. “May I explain?” she asked. Henry nodded, puzzled.

“Her grace, Bess, the queen—my sister…” She paused. Oh, no, I am rambling again, she thought, and she prayed to the Virgin to guide her words. “Her grace was explaining why our brother, Richard of York, who is at the court at Malines, is not really our brother, but an imposter. I had just finished telling her of my visit to our Aunt Margaret—”

Henry’s eyes narrowed and he jutted his head forward. “So, my lady, were you as convinced of his falsity as the rest of us? ’Twould be foolish if you were not, don’t you think?”

Grace stared at him miserably. “I cannot lie to you or my sister, the queen, your grace. I was not…entirely…unconvinced,” she whispered. “But my opinion is of such little value compared with your ambassadors’.”

Cecily hurried forward and stood between her sisters. “Lady Grace is right, my liege. ’Tis her word against your own ambassadors’. Do not forget, poor Grace never set eyes on Richard before her visit. Therefore, her opinion can be of no value to anyone, and that is why the queen was advis
ing her to forsake him and believe—as we all do—that this Perkin
est un poseur
,” she ended in Henry’s favorite French. She took her sisters’ hands and gave them a meaningful squeeze.

“Is this true, madam?” Henry asked his wife.

“Aye, your grace,” Bess replied, looking up at him and loosing Cecily’s hand. She gave him one of her sweetest smiles and stepped up onto the dais to peck him on the cheek. “Do not chastise Grace, my dear husband. ’Twas I who sent her—and with your permission. She is young and has no influence with anyone at court. She was taken in by the man, like so many others who are less informed than you are.”

Grace was aware that Lady Margaret was boring holes in her with her piercing dark eyes—black as a crow’s feather when she was angered. She hoped the woman was only staring at the stain on her gown and could not see her trembling legs beneath.

Henry bent and whispered something to his mother, and she whispered back. He nodded and fixed his eyes on Grace. “It would please us if you would leave the court for a spell, Lady Grace.” He watched impassively as all the color drained from Grace’s cheeks. “I shall ask Lord John to excuse your husband his duties until this matter with Warbeck is resolved once and for all, which”—he smirked at Cardinal Morton—“when Philip of Burgundy feels the burden of the sanctions I shall place on trade with him, should happen in the very near future. I command you not to speak of your impressions to anyone outside this circle, do you understand?”

Now Grace’s legs did give way, and she fell to her knees, trembling. “Do not punish my husband, your grace,” she begged, her tears splashing onto the blue and red tiles. “He is not of the same mind as I. He should not be disgraced because of me.”

Henry softened for a moment. “Come, child, ’tis not a weeping matter. Your husband will keep his place, but he must take responsibility for keeping you from court for a spell. No doubt he has family somewhere who will take you in.”

Grace nodded miserably and, getting to her feet, she would have stumbled had Cecily not taken her arm and led her from the room as several pairs of eyes watched them go in silence.

And so Tom had finally taken his wife home to the wolds, where she was far removed from worldly events. When he saw how frightened she
was, he had not chastised her but assured her that although she had not yet met her brother-in-law, Edmund, who now owned the Gower manor, he and his mother were eager to welcome her.

And so she did not hear how Richard went as Edward’s son and prince of England to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick’s funeral in Vienna in November. Nor did she hear how he sat at the right hand of Maximilian, now emperor, who had finally accepted Margaret’s nephew as duke of York and rightful king of England.

J
UST AS
T
OM
had predicted, his family welcomed Grace with open hearts. Alice Gower was the first to greet her, clucking around the diminutive Grace like a hen with her chick. “Well met, my dear, oh, well met!” she kept saying. First she kissed Grace on both cheeks and then decided to curtsy, unsure how to treat a lady of royal blood who was now a member of her own family.

Grace tried to be serious, but soon she was laughing and gladly taking the older woman’s arm into the familiar hall. She looked around her in wonder; the pleasant room looked exactly as she remembered it. She never thought that day ten years ago after her mishap in the stream that she would ever return. Alice was chattering on as they climbed the staircase to a small chamber she had prepared for the young couple. She swore she had seen a bright new star that night after Grace and Cecily’s unexpected visit and told Grace she was not surprised when Tom had taken her to wife.