Richard had prevailed, however, meant to propose to parliament an act providing that such involuntary donations be “damned and annulled forever.” Nor had he had any qualms about his decision. Such an act was not only right and just, it was a shrewd political move, one he hoped would go far toward reassuring his subjects that he did not mean to rule by fear or coercion. And perhaps…perhaps in time the murmurings of approval would drown out the whispering, divert attention from that utter and unnatural silence that had descended over the Tower, where his brother’s sons supposedly dwelt but were no longer seen.
Thomas Barowe was gathering up the papers spread out on the table, stuffing them into a large leather pouch. Chairs scraped in the floor rushes as the men came to their feet, flexing cramped muscles and remembering that supper was hours past.
“Will that be all for tonight, Your Grace?” Thomas Lynom asked hopefully, and Morgan Kidwelly gave him a playful nudge, shook his head in feigned pity.
“Poor Tom, with a hard night’s work still lying ahead of him at home!”
Lynom joined good-naturedly in their laughter, but stopped abruptly when Catesby jibed, “You’d best be off, Tom. You’d not be wanting your bride to get lonely, would you?”
In view of Jane’s dubious past, it was a singularly ill-chosen jest, and the other men were relieved when John Kendall deftly piloted the conversation off the shoals and back into safe water.
“I truly hate to tell you this, Your Grace, but there still be petitioners waiting without.” He made a mock grimace. “I vow some of them have been out there so long their faces have become as familiar to me as those of my own family!”
“Is there anyone I needs must see tonight? Tom isn’t the only one with a wife waiting for him, after all,” Richard said, and laughed. Laughter that froze on his lips with Kendall’s next words.
“There be those come to plead with you again on behalf of your late sister’s husband, Thomas St Leger.”
Richard’s face hardened. “St Leger was tried for his part in the rebellion before John Scrope at special assize in Torrington last month. Tried and found guilty of high treason. He doesn’t deserve clemency, nor will he get it, not from me.”
Catesby had been listening with a frown; St Leger’s friends had offered a not inconsiderable sum to have his death sentence commuted. “They hoped you might be merciful in memory of your sister….”
“My sister is seven years dead, and memories of her did not keep St Leger from seeking to bring about my defeat and death…did they?”
There was, of course, no answer Catesby could give; his shoulders twitched slightly, a gesture of concession.
Kendall had not expected Richard to relent; Thomas St Leger he knew to be hand in glove with Thomas Grey. Having already taken it upon himself to warn St Leger’s partisans that he doubted the King would hear their petition, he said impassively, “Shall I tell them, then, that you’ll not see them?”
Richard nodded. “Tell them,” he said curtly, “that the verdict stands.”
“If you can spare a few minutes, Your Grace, there is one, however, whom I thought you might wish to see….”
“Who?”
“Katherine Stafford, Duchess of Buckingham.”
Richard hesitated. He could think of no reason why he should grant an audience to the woman who was Buckingham’s widow, Elizabeth’s sister. But he’d come to respect Kendall’s judgment.
“You think I should see her, John?”
“Yes, Your Grace, I do. She’s…well, she’s not what you’d expect.” And with that cryptic remark, Kendall was content to wait for Richard’s response, knowing he’d virtually guaranteed her entry.
“Five minutes,” Richard said grudgingly. “No more than that.”
Kendall smiled and moved toward the door. “There is one thing more,” he said over his shoulder. “She wants to see you alone.”
Richard had seen Katherine Stafford only a half-dozen or so times, if even that, and those brief encounters had taken place years before, when they both were still in their teens; Buckingham had kept her secluded at Brecknock for much of their married life. He was startled now by the beauty of the woman being ushered into the chamber. She looked to be about his own age, thirty or thirty-one, was visibly nervous. As fair in coloring as her celebrated sister, hers was a softer, more muted appeal. There was an unexpected vulnerability about her, shadows of past pain in the downward curve of her mouth, in the lack of assurance so surprising in a woman blessed with such beauty.
Coming forward, she made a deep curtsy before him, more submissive than he would have expected from Elizabeth’s sister.
She wasn’t in mourning, and Richard was somewhat surprised by that. Even if the marriage hadn’t been a happy one, she’d still been Buckingham’s wife for nigh on seventeen years, had borne him five children, and few widows scorned altogether the conventions of mourning, no matter how little-lamented their late husbands had been.
“Madame,” he said, and gestured toward a chair, thus freeing her to sit in his presence.
“I…I’d rather stand, Your Grace.” Her voice was almost inaudible, sounded as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath, but whether that was nerves or her normal speaking pattern, he couldn’t tell.
“I wish to thank you for paying my husband’s debts for me, and for offering to provide me with a yearly grant of two hundred marks.”
Was this why she’d wanted to see him? Surely she must have known he’d neither want nor expect her gratitude? “My brother often provided pensions for the families of men attainted,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” she persisted, “but I am more than a rebel’s widow. I am a Woodville, too, and that makes your generosity to me and my children all the more unlooked-for….”
What had she expected, that he’d have turned them out to starve? Resentment flickered, faded. What else could he expect her to think, after all? She was Elizabeth’s sister.
“Was this why you wanted to see me?”
“No. I…I have a favor to ask of Your Grace. I want to visit my sister in sanctuary. Will you permit it?”
Richard nodded. “I’ll tell Nesfield to admit you, any time you wish,” he said, was surprised when she made no move to go.
“Be there anything else?”
“I…No. No….” But still she didn’t move.
Richard waited, and then reached for the bell to summon Kendall back. To his astonishment, Katherine leaned across the table, slid it out of his reach. Their fingers touched; hers were like ice, and even in so brief a contact, he could feel her trembling.
“No, wait…please. There is something else, something I must ask you.” Her voice was tremulous, had taken on an emotional intensity that riveted Richard’s eyes upon her. But he was not prepared for what was coming.
She swallowed. “I think…I believe…that my sister’s sons are dead, that Harry had them put to death. And you alone can tell me if it’s so.”
Richard had frozen in his chair. Katherine’s face was very close to his, her eyes a misted sea-green, her lashes fringed with tears. He watched one break free, roll down her cheek and, after a timeless span, splash upon his wrist.
“I see,” she whispered, and straightened up, very slowly. “I think I’d…I’d like to sit down after all….”
Their eyes still held; neither one could look away. “He actually admitted it to you?” Richard asked at last.
Katherine shook her head. “No…not in so many words. It was…I’m sorry, but I…I wasn’t sure I’d have the nerve to ask you. Not until I heard myself saying it aloud…. Thank you for not lying to me. Thank you for that.”
“Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have,” Richard said tiredly. “You had to see the truth in my face.” How strange to be able to talk so candidly with this woman, a woman he didn’t know and had no reason to trust. Except that she knew the truth. “Harry had them put to death,” she’d said, said with tears wet on her face, tears for Dickon and Edward.
r /> After a pause, Katherine nodded. “You’re right; it did show in your face. Just as…as it did in Harry’s.”
She seemed calmer, was no longer twisting her hands together in her lap. “I think I knew…knew as soon as Harry got back to Brecknock that something was wrong. Never had I seen him so excited. But it was a queer kind of excitement; he was high-strung, edgy, like a man who’s gambling and winning, but with more and more riding on each throw of the dice. He wouldn’t tell me anything, of course; he rarely did. But it wasn’t hard to figure out that something momentous was afoot. Bishop Morton had been sent to Brecknock under guard in June, and of a sudden he was being treated like an honored guest, was closeted with Harry for hours on end. And when I overheard Harry dispatching a messenger with a secret letter for Reginald Bray, Lady Stanley’s steward…well, it all fell into place.
“I confronted Harry with my suspicions, demanded to know if he was plotting with Morton and Lady Stanley to put Henry Tudor on the throne. I argued that he mustn’t do this, that if he was to become involved in rebellion, it must be on—” She stopped suddenly, staring at Richard in dismay.
Richard had no difficulty in guessing why. She had just been about to admit she’d urged rebellion on Edward’s behalf, and however natural her loyalties, they were also treasonous.
“You told him he should be acting for Edward?” he suggested matter-of-factly, and reassured, she nodded.
“But when I did, he just laughed at me, said that before there could be a rising for Edward, there would have to be a resurrection. And when I didn’t understand, he told me that Edward and Dickon were dead, told me that they’d died at your command.”
Richard said nothing, but Katherine read the accusation in his eyes, and flushed.
“Yes,” she said defensively. “I did believe him…at first. Why shouldn’t I?”
Because they were children, my brother’s children. But he didn’t say it. Remember who she is, for God’s sake. In her eyes, he was guilty of her brother’s death, guilty of usurping her nephew’s crown. She’s right; why wouldn’t she believe it?
“But you did begin to have doubts?”
“Yes,” she admitted, “once the shock wore off, I did. It…well, it just didn’t make sense to me. I know I’m not clever like Lisbet, but I’m not as stupid as Harry always said, either. The more I thought on it, the more I began to wonder. You could only have done it to make sure there’d be no risings on their behalf, so there’d be no point in killing them and then keeping their deaths a secret; even I could see that. Yet that’s what Harry would have me believe. And what would happen when people learned they were missing? No, it made no sense. And so…and so I began to think that perhaps Harry had lied, that they weren’t dead at all.”
“When did you learn the truth?”
“When Reginald Bray came to Brecknock. Henry…my youngest son…had been running a high fever and his nurse and I were up with him most of the night before Bray’s arrival. Around midday I began to suffer from the lack of sleep, so I went up to our bedchamber, drew the bed-curtains and lay down upon the bed.
“Sometime later I was awakened by voices. It seemed a God-sent way to find out what Harry was truly up to, so I just lay still, thinking to feign sleep should I be discovered. Harry was telling Bray that Edward and Dickon were dead, that you’d dispatched orders to Brackenbury after departing on your progress. There was a silence when he stopped speaking and then Bray, he…he laughed! He laughed and said how very obliging that was of you, to have done Henry Tudor so great a service!
“Harry became very defensive, demanded to know what Bray meant by that. Bray just laughed again, said not to mistake him, that he thought it a right clever slander. Harry snapped that it was more than slander, that it was true, and Bray said, very sarcastic, that if it were so, it could only mean that you’d lost your senses, and wasn’t it strange that none had yet heard about the King’s sudden fit of madness!
“Harry flew into a rage at that, called Bray a fool and worse, said he’d be damned before he’d deal with the likes of Bray. Bishop Morton tried to mediate then, but Harry was not to be placated and he slammed out of the chamber, telling Bray to take himself back to London at first light.
“No sooner had the door banged than Morton turned on Bray, began to berate him in language that ill became a Bishop.” Katherine’s lips twitched, in a ghostly parody of a smile.
“But Bray was not cowed, and said that the stakes were too high for such game-playing. He said that if you were to be accused of murdering your nephews, well and good; he was sorry he hadn’t thought of that himself. But he wasn’t about to go back to Lady Stanley and tell her that such a tale was true. She valued her son’s life too highly, he said. Suppose they did stake all upon this story that the boys were dead, and you then paraded them through the streets for all London to see! If Tudor was to risk all upon an invasion, seek to overthrow a crowned King, he was entitled to know the truth about the dangers he’d be facing, and he for one would not assure Tudor the boys were dead unless he was damned well certain that they were.
“Morton heard him out and then asked why Bray was so sure they weren’t dead. Bray was scornful; even your most bitter enemies, he said, had never accused you of being an idiot, and only an utter idiot would’ve gone about it in the way Harry claimed. You’d have waited till they grew to manhood, he said, and then found an excuse to send them to the block, or you’d have done it the way your brother did with Harry of Lancaster, but what you’d assuredly not have done would be to arrange for a mysterious midnight disappearance. They couldn’t, he said, have been so lucky!”
Katherine drew an uneven breath. “Lying there, listening, I felt a surge of pride. Here were two men as clever and worldly as any in the kingdom, and their conclusions were the same as my own! But then…then Morton asked Bray a question. ‘Assume the boys are dead,’ he said, ‘that they were secretly put to death in the Tower this past July just as Buckingham claims. Now tell me who would benefit and who would suffer.’
“Bray seemed to be humoring him, but he said, ‘As for those with the most to lose, that be easy enough to answer. The Woodvilles, for obvious reasons. And Gloucester, since he’d be saddled with the crime. Those who’d benefit? Well, we would, for certes! So, too, would the French.’ And he went on to say that had you been King eight years ago, there’d have been no Treaty of Picquigny, and the French well know it, that they dread the day when you’re secure enough on your throne to look Channelward, to seek another Agincourt.
“Morton wanted to know who else would benefit, and Bray said, ‘Well, Buckingham, of course; he can’t put in his own bid for the crown unless he can so discredit Gloucester that he’ll suddenly start to look positively pure in comparison!’ I’d suspected, of course, that Harry had designs on the crown for himself, but it was still a shock to hear Bray put it so baldly as that. And I wondered if Harry suspected that these men meant to use him the way he was using them.
“Bray had begun to laugh, was referring slightingly to Harry as ‘our hot-headed host.’ But then he stopped abruptly, almost as if a hand had been clapped over his mouth. There was a sudden silence and then I heard him say, ‘Holy Mother of God!’ But even then, I didn’t understand…even then. Not until Bray said, ‘You’re saying that it be Buckingham’s handiwork!’ And Morton said…he said, ‘You’ve redeemed yourself, my young friend, just in time. I was beginning to fear I might have to draw you a diagram!’
“I don’t remember much of what they said after that. Bray became very excited, and they agreed that he must apologize to Harry, eat humble pie if need be. ‘Smooth our pigeon’s ruffled feathers,’ was the way Morton put it. With that they left to find Harry and I…I lay there on the bed. I just lay there.”
Tears were filling her eyes again, glistened like liquid gold in the reflected glow of candlelight. Richard found a handkerchief, silently handed it to her.
“You said…said you’d seen the truth in Harry’s face?”
r /> Katherine nodded. “That night in bed, he wanted to lay with me and I…I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. I refused him and he…well, he became furious and we got into this terrible quarrel. One angry word led to another, until I heard myself screaming at him, telling him what I’d heard Morton and Bray say, demanding to know if it were true.”
She’d crumpled Richard’s handkerchief, began self-consciously to smooth it out upon her lap. “He denied it, of course, and I pretended to believe him. But in that first unguarded moment, I’d seen his face and I knew.”
They looked at each other as the silence spun out, the moments ebbed away. The fire had burned out; the hearth held only smoldering embers and charred ashes. Richard tilted his head, listening. He could hear a distant chiming, Gabriel Bells echoing on the icy night air. Glancing back at Katherine, he said softly, “I would never have hurt those children.”
Katherine’s eyes searched his face. “I believe you,” she said simply.
As she started her ninth month in sanctuary, Elizabeth made a halfhearted attempt to shake off the deep despondency that had engulfed her with the failure of Buckingham’s rebellion. Tom had been able to get away, was now safe in Brittany. So, too, were her brothers Lionel and Edward. Couldn’t she be thankful for that? She was; of course she was. But it just wasn’t enough. Not when her own future was so bleak, so barren of hope. What was going to become of her?
She’d learned from John Nesfield that close to a hundred men were to suffer forfeiture of property when parliament convened, and while that was less than the number Ned had attainted after Towton, it didn’t bode well for a future of forgiveness. Ten men had gone to the block, among them her son’s friend, Thomas St Leger. But Morton, who had the Devil’s own luck, somehow slipped through Richard’s net, had surfaced in France. And Lady Stanley had once again managed to evade the consequences of conspiracy. She didn’t get off quite so lightly this time, had been stripped of her titles and lands and remanded into her husband’s custody, but had I been Richard, Elizabeth thought coolly, I’d have introduced that slender white neck of hers to the axe.