A gust of wind caught her cloak and she shivered. There was no going back. No matter how generously Richard treated her daughters, they were at his court now only at his sufferance, branded as bastards by the parliamentary act that recognized his right to the throne. And for herself, there was nothing…. To be Lady Grey again, when for nigh on twenty years she’d been Queen of England? No, by God, she’d not settle for that. Tudor had sworn a public oath that he’d make Bess his Queen, and that was worth the gamble. Well worth it. She crossed the street, entered the courtyard of the inn.
A servant was watching for her; he at once ushered her through a side door, up a narrow flight of stairs. The room was small, shabbily furnished, reeked of tallow and sweat and stagnant air. The man waiting within was of medium height, in his late forties, with a slight paunch and reddish-gold hair receding back from his temples, thinning but untouched by grey.
His eyebrows rose at sight of her mourning attire. “My compliments, Madame,” he drawled. “You look the very image of a grieving widow of modest means. I can find but one small flaw in your disguise; if you mean to be taken for a mere knight’s widow, your barbe should be worn under the chin…should it not?”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “What a fool Richard was,” she said, “to have ever pardoned you!”
Reginald Bray laughed. “I daresay others do agree with you! I was fortunate in being cousin to Katherine Hastings, even more fortunate in that Gloucester heeded her entreaties on my behalf. Passing strange, wouldn’t you say? It’s not often that the widow of a man executed for treason can expect to have the King’s ear, after all…. Conscience pangs perchance?”
Elizabeth jerked back her hood. “I’d rather not waste time with trivialities. If I may get right to the point of this meeting?”
“By all means…Madame.” Bray grinned, and the irony in his voice brought a surge of angry blood up into Elizabeth’s face.
“It’s been more than a year since Henry Tudor swore a solemn oath before the High Altar in the cathedral at Rennes that he meant to make my daughter his Queen. I want you to tell me if he does mean to stand by that vow.”
“What makes you think he wouldn’t?”
“Anne Herbert,” Elizabeth said flatly, saw him react to the name.
“Who?”
“I thought we agreed not to waste time,” she snapped. “You know who I mean. The woman’s kindred have considerable influence in Wales, do they not? Rumor has it that Tudor’s made overtures to the family, that there be talk of marriage. I should like you, Master Bray, to tell me why.”
“How did you hear about Anne Herbert?” Bray said sourly. “Your son, I suppose?”
“Hardly. Tom’s not exactly in Tudor’s confidence these days. No, it happens that there are many among Tudor’s followers who feel his interests could best be served by marriage with my daughter. Just as there are those,” Elizabeth said pointedly, “who would do what they could to sabotage such an alliance. And now that we’ve cleared that up, perhaps you’d like to explain why a man who did publicly pledge to wed Bess suddenly seems to be on the verge of changing his mind?”
“I daresay your daughter remains his first choice, Madame; he’s well aware that many do feel she was treated rather shabbily, would welcome such an alliance as a true reconciliation of the Houses of Lancaster and York. But Henry Tudor is a pragmatic man, and if the girl is no longer…available, well then, it’s to be expected that he’d look elsewhere, seek to make a match no less advantageous.”
“And what makes you think that Bess is no longer available? Did I not assure Tudor that I’d be able to gain her consent to the marriage? Bess has a strong sense of family, will do what’s expected of her. Assuming, of course, that Tudor does what’s expected of him, and claims the crown in more than name. Lest you forget, Richard of Gloucester be the one sleeping nights at Westminster and has for these past eighteen months. I should think,” she said sarcastically, “that Richard would be Tudor’s greatest concern!”
“All in good time.” Bray moved to the window, reassured himself that the street traffic below was normal.
Elizabeth couldn’t resist. “Seeing shadows, Master Bray?” she mocked, saw her dart hit home.
“You surprise me, Madame,” he said icily. “For a woman so well informed about the workings of Tudor’s inner circle, you seem woefully ignorant of what be taking place right here in Westminster under your nose.”
“Such as?”
“It’s been how many months since your daughter came back to court…nine? Ten? Not being there yourself, perhaps you aren’t fully aware how much favor Gloucester has shown the girl. I understand that on New Year’s Day she did even appear at a court fete in a gown of the same cloth as that worn by the Queen. But perhaps you didn’t know?…”
“White damask cloth of gold threaded through with silver and turquoise,” Elizabeth said impatiently. “What of it?”
“It caused talk, Madame, was hardly appropriate for a girl now no more than a King’s bastard. People are beginning to notice how close they are, Gloucester and your daughter, how often in each other’s company.”
“So? Why should that occasion comment? There’s more between them than blood, after all.” Elizabeth’s mouth thinned. “They do,” she said, “share a patron saint, St Edward of York.”
She at once regretted it, regretted revealing her bitterness so nakedly before an enemy like Bray.
“You still don’t see, do you? If I must spell it out for you, Madame, it be two months now that Gloucester’s been forbidden his wife’s bed. That be a long time for a man to sleep alone, especially a man as young as Gloucester, and your daughter…” He shrugged. “None would deny that she’s a beautiful girl.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open. “God in Heaven!” Her shock was genuine; Bray saw that, said in surprise,
“So you truly didn’t know? I just assumed you were either indifferent or approving; it seemed so obvious, after all. Whatever the girl wants, he gives her, and as for her…well, hers is an easy face to read, Madame.”
Elizabeth found her voice. “You must be mad! She’s Richard’s niece, not his harlot!”
“And blood will tell, will it not? She is Edward of York’s daughter, after all, grew up at a court no better than a cesspool, watched her father flaunt his sluts and his vices like badges of honor! As for Gloucester, is a man who’d put his own nephews to death likely to balk at incest?”
Elizabeth stared at him with loathing. “What a pious hypocrite you are! No one has ever pretended my husband was a saint; we leave that to the House of Lancaster, to those of you who’d have us believe that because Harry of Lancaster was simple in the head and impotent in the bargain, such failings do somehow make him a candidate for canonization! But Ned loved his daughters, and none can say otherwise. As for Richard, you know damned well that I’d never have given my daughters over into his keeping if the blood of my sons were on his hands. So don’t throw that in my face; that cock won’t fight.”
“Madame, I doubt that there’s anything you wouldn’t do if it did serve your interests,” Bray said scathingly, “and that does include coming to terms with your children’s murderer.”
“Oh, enough! Save the lies and moral indignation for the gullible and the naïve, for those who don’t know the truth. You don’t believe Richard murdered my sons, you never did…. You be the man, after all, who told Morton that Richard would have to have been an utter idiot to have them secretly put to death, to arrange a—how did you put it—a ‘mysterious midnight disappearance.’ So don’t talk to me of coming to terms with a child-murderer, because you knew Buckingham was guilty, God damn you but you knew, and yet you still embraced him as your ally, as—” She stopped suddenly, for Bray was gaping at her, eyes widening with superstitious unease.
“ ‘A mysterious midnight disappearance,’ ” he echoed, incredulous. “How in Holy Christ could you know I said that?”
Elizabeth spared a brief blessing for her sister Kath
erine. “Second sight,” she jeered, began to fasten her cloak with fingers made clumsy by rage. Bray still looked stunned; she walked toward the door, then turned back to face him.
“I don’t care what mud you use to smear Richard with. Say what you will about him, but I’ll not have my daughter dragged into that mud, too. Be that clear? Little wonder Tudor be looking elsewhere for a wife, with the garbage you’ve been feeding him, but it’s to stop as of now. Discredit Richard however you can, but not at my daughter’s expense. I’ll not have her name sullied. Do you understand?”
Bray’s face had hardened. “You seem to have forgotten that you’re no longer in a position to give commands…Lady Grey. So don’t tell me what you will or will not ‘have,’ not when there be nothing you can do about it.”
“You think not?” Elizabeth said, and there was something in the glittering green eyes that gave Bray pause. “And what if I do go to Richard, tell him of these slanders being spread about him and Bess?”
Bray paled. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“No? Do you truly think I couldn’t find a way to warn Richard without implicating myself? That would be a fool’s wager, I assure you. I assure you, too, that it would give me great pleasure to tell Richard of the rumors you be putting about. Rumors which not only compromise him and besmirch his niece’s honor, but which, if not stopped, might reach the ears of his dying wife. Need I tell you what he would do? No, I see that I do not. So you think on that, Master Bray. You think on that long and hard, because I don’t bluff and I warn but once.”
Coming out into the street, Elizabeth was dismayed to see an early winter dusk settling over the city. Much to her relief a member of the Watch was passing by, gallantly agreed to escort her back to St Paul’s. The man made a few polite attempts at conversation but soon gave up, attributing Elizabeth’s absentminded responses to the distraction of the newly bereaved.
Elizabeth had already forgotten her benefactor; Reginald Bray occupied her brain to the exclusion of all else. As satisfying as it had been to see fear upon Bray’s face, she knew her threat to be an empty one. Even if she’d succeeded in silencing Bray, the damage had already been done; she was enough of a realist to know that. He’d already planted the seeds, and nothing took root faster than rumor. People didn’t have to believe it; it was enough that they’d pass it on.
Now that her first surge of rage was receding, Elizabeth wondered how she could have been so taken by surprise. What was more common, after all, than sexual slander? It was as much a weapon of politics as the cannon was a weapon of warfare. She had only to think of all that had been said about Ned during his lifetime; nor had his family been spared. Those hoping to prevent Margaret’s marriage to Charles of Burgundy had so slurred her name in the weeks before the wedding that many of her Burgundian subjects remained convinced to this day that she’d come to her marriage bed a jaded wanton, and when, as dowager Duchess of Burgundy, she sought to keep the French King from swallowing up her stepdaughter’s domains, Louis had spread the story that she’d taken the Bishop of Cambrais as a lover, had borne him a bastard child. Nor was the House of York the only target for such innuendo and aspersions. Gossip had Charles of Burgundy to be guilty of the vice of Sodom, while long-ago Yorkist slander challenged the paternity of Marguerite d’Anjou’s son.
Elizabeth mouthed an oath so unlikely to be on the lips of a grieving widow that her escort did a double-take, decided his ears had deceived him. Elizabeth ignored him. She’d too often been the victim of such slanders herself not to have developed a bitter resentment, a deep-rooted contempt for her credulous countrymen who took gossip as gospel, hearsay as truth on high. No, she should have expected something like this. A young King with an ailing wife and a beautiful niece; the ingredients were already there for scandal, waiting only to be seized upon by the unscrupulous, by men like Bray, who cared only about discrediting Richard, cared not at all if Bess should be hurt in the process.
Elizabeth felt now a new anger, directed against Bess and Richard, for being so careless of gossip, for not realizing that it was no less important to avoid the appearance of impropriety than it was the impropriety itself. How like the two of them to be so blind, she thought in disgust, and then she came to a sudden halt, startled into immobility.
Could it be there was any truth to these rumors Bray was spreading? Not all gossip was totally unfounded, after all. If Édouard of Lancaster had truly been a son of Harry’s loins, that should rank as no less a miracle than that of the fishes and loaves. And like as not, there was some truth, too, to those rumors about Charles of Burgundy’s taste for boys. What, then, of Richard and Bess? She’d told Bray there was more between them than blood; had she spoken greater truth than she’d realized?
Yes, they were uncle and niece, but sexual passions sometimes burned all the more intensely for being forbidden. Didn’t Scriptures say as much, say something about stolen waters being all the sweeter? Nor was incest all that uncommon. The first Plantagenet King had taken as his mistress the young girl betrothed to his own son. While Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine had a blatant love affair with a young uncle, and just a few years past, the French court had been scandalized when a nobleman named d’Armagnac contracted an incestuous marriage with his own sister.
Elizabeth frowned; it was difficult to be objective about a man she hated as much as she hated Richard. He had never made any secret of his fondness for Bess, and Bray was right; Bess was beautiful. But was that enough? Ned…. Ned had been a rakehell hot to lay with anything in skirts, but Richard had a reputation for being rather straitlaced in carnal matters, and if he’d strayed from Anne Neville’s bed in some twelve years of marriage he’d been remarkably discreet about it. Elizabeth couldn’t say with certainty now that he’d not have conceived an incestuous passion for his niece, but to take Bess to his bed, to flaunt her as his concubine before his dying wife, a woman to whom he’d always seemed devoted…well, it might not be impossible, but it did seem wildly out of character.
What, then, of Bess? Her vulnerabilities were more readily apparent. She was not yet nineteen, after all, still grieving for the father she’d adored beyond reason. Could she have sought in Ned’s brother the father she’d lost, only to find her emotions complicated by her first sexual yearnings? Richard was only thirty-two, dangerously young for an uncle, and he’d been very kind to Bess since her return to court. Had her emotional dependence developed into something more?
Elizabeth’s frown deepened. Yes, there was a certain plausibility about it. But she didn’t believe it. Bess was no actress, was as transparent as springwater. When she came home to Waltham to visit her little sisters, she talked often and easily of Anne, of her many kindnesses, her grief over the loss of her son, her illness. Could Bess be so natural, so sympathetic if she were involved in a relationship both adulterous and incestuous? Could she have accepted Anne’s generous offer, let Anne’s dressmaker make her a Christmas gown from Anne’s own cloth of gold, if all the while she was sleeping with Anne’s husband? Elizabeth knew the answer to that, for she knew her daughter. Bess simply wasn’t capable of duplicity like that, could not be betraying a dying woman with so little compunction. No, if she and Richard were guilty of anything, it was of stupidity, of playing into the hands of men like Bray.
Elizabeth toyed briefly now with the idea of carrying through with her threat, of going to Richard with what Bray had told her. The temptation was considerable. Once he was forewarned, Richard would be better able to guard Bess against gossip, and by alerting him to the danger, she’d be putting him in her debt. Best of all, she’d get to see Bray die a traitor’s death, in prolonged agony. But if she betrayed Bray to Richard, she was forfeiting all chance to make Bess a Queen. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t surrender that last vestige of hope, however unlikely or farfetched, that Tudor might one day win England’s crown, claim Bess as his consort. Moreover, how could she sever all ties with Tudor as long as Tom was being held at the French court as surety for her c
ontinued cooperation?
By the time she reached St Paul’s, she’d made her decision. She’d go at once to Westminster, go to her daughter. Bess must be warned how easily tongues could be set to wagging, must be made to see that the scales be weighted unfairly in this life, with innocence counting for little and appearance for all.
Leaving one of her servants with their horses, Elizabeth had her other attendant engage a boatman to take them upriver to Westminster. It was quite dark by the time they docked at the King’s Wharf. The inner-palace bailey was lit with scores of torches, thronged with expectant people. Elizabeth found herself looking out upon a sea of spectators, and she cursed herself for a fool, for having forgotten that this was Epiphany.
How often she and Ned had marked this, the end of the Christmas festivities, in high style, with court fêtes and masques and feasting. So, too, had Richard and Anne celebrated this Twelfth Night, with a lavish banquet in the great hall of Westminster. Elizabeth knew from Bess and Cecily that Anne had defied her doctors, stubbornly insisted upon presiding with Richard over the Christmas revels. She gathered from the conversation swirling around her that Richard and Anne were about to make an appearance before the crowds waiting so patiently for a glimpse of their sovereigns.
Elizabeth found herself caught up in the crowd, carried along against her will as the people jockeyed for position. Blinded by torch-fire, Elizabeth’s eyes were drawn, mothlike, to the gleaming gold of Richard’s crown. A pain that was physical lodged just under her ribs, a hollow hurtful yearning for what had been hers and was now irretrievably lost, all because Ned had scrupled to murder a priest.
Beside Elizabeth, a matronly woman clicked her tongue against her teeth in sympathy, said, “Oh, the poor lamb!” Elizabeth tore her gaze away from Richard, looked for the first time at Anne Neville, and drew a sharp involuntary breath.