“You shouldn’t blame the doctors, love,” Anne chided softly, as soon as they were alone. “They do but fear, and rightly so, that you might become infected….”
“Let’s not talk of that now. Are you comfortable, Anne? Shall I prop your pillows up for you?”
Anne nodded, for the same reason she’d asked for wine, because she understood his need to do something for her, however trivial. Turning her head aside, she coughed into a crumpled handkerchief, let it drop inconspicuously to the floor. She knew the doctors had told Richard that her phlegm had begun to come up flecked with blood, but she did not want him to see the evidence with his own eyes. For herself, she felt only thankfulness that the blood-spitting was so mild; what had most terrified her about her illness was that she might hemorrhage, bleed her life away as her sister had done, and she now knew she was to be spared that much, at least.
“Poor Bella,” she said quietly. “I’ve been thinking of her so often these past weeks. How dreadful it must have been for her, Richard. It always be harder to die if you’ve had little happiness in your life, much harder. You feel cheated. I never told you, but I felt so guilty for the longest time after Bella’s death, because she’d had so little joy and I…I had so much.”
Richard reached for her hand. “The day I found you in that Aldgate inn, I promised I’d take care of you, and I thought…truly thought I could, Anne, thought I could keep you safe from all hurt, make it up to you for what your father and Lancaster—”
“Hush,” she said, “hush. You did, love, you did. All I’ve known of happiness has come from you, you and Ned, the son you gave me.”
She wished she could pull his head down to her breast, stroke his hair as if he were a child in need of comfort, as if he were Ned. But even if she could bring herself to so disregard her doctors’ warnings, she hadn’t the strength, needed it all to talk.
“My mother cannot accept it, Richard, my dying. She has too many regrets, too much she wishes she’d done differently. But you should have no such regrets, my love. Not for us. Never for us.”
“Anne….” Richard was unable to say more than her name, brought her hand up to his mouth, held it against his cheek. The long, lacquered nails that had been her greatest vanity were clipped short now, like a child’s; she’d preferred that to having them curve inward in one of the inexplicable manifestations of her illness.
“I don’t mind so much anymore, Richard, truly. The anger…it’s all gone now; even the fear. I’m so tired, love, so tired…. Sometimes I even think I’d welcome it, being at peace…and with Ned. I mind only leaving you, but I think I understand even that, think Ned does need me more….”
Richard’s head was bowed; she could no longer see his face, but she felt his tears on her hand. She tugged weakly at his sleeve, willing him to look up.
“Richard, listen, my love…please. I feel very close to God, in a way I never felt before, as if He’s with me now…just like Ned. And I know—I truly do know—that the Almighty be not a jealous God at all, but one of forgiveness. Does not Scriptures say the Lord is full of compassion and mercy, and saveth in time of affliction? My darling, if only I could help you to see that…. Richard, promise me you’ll try to believe that, to believe in God’s love, God’s forgiveness.”
Richard nodded, and Anne had to be content with that, sank back exhausted against the pillow. She wanted only to sleep, to drift down into oblivion; Ned came so often to her in dreams, waited for her. She struggled to stave off sleep a few minutes more, for Richard’s sake, and then felt him lifting her up, brushing her hair back from her neck, and she opened her eyes, saw that he’d taken from his own throat the silver pilgrim cross he’d worn since boyhood. He fumbled with the catch, and it took several tries before he could fasten it securely about her neck. It was tarnished, dulled with age, but warm against her skin, as if it still held heat drawn from his body.
Shortly before dawn on Wednesday, March 16, Anne was given the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. She died in midmorning, with Richard and Véronique at her bedside. Church bells were still tolling throughout the city when a queer noontime darkness began to settle over London, and as people watched in awe the sun was slowly blotted out, blackness radiating outward haloed in light. To a superstitious age, a solar eclipse was seen as a sign from God, was seen by all as an ill omen, and by many as proof that Richard had sinned against God in taking his nephew’s throne; for why else, people argued, should the sun go dark on the day of his wife’s death?
25
Westminster
March 1485
“How in Christ’s Name can any fool believe Dickon would ever wed his own niece?” Rob Percy sounded incredulous. “It’d be like proclaiming to all of Christendom that his claim to the crown was contrived! You’d think people would at least give him credit for enough common sense to look to his own interests. Even a simpleton could see that the girl could not be legitimized without her brothers being legitimized, too, and lest anyone forget, that would make young Edward King of England!”
No, Rob, Francis thought bleakly, it would not. But it would prove to all that Edward and his brother were dead, must be dead. He rubbed his fingers against aching temples, suddenly envying Rob, envying all of the men in this room who were not privy to the truth. Rob had stopped speaking, and he roused himself to say wearily, “Rob’s right. For Dickon to make an incestuous marriage that would all but impeach his own right to the throne, he’d belong by rights in Bedlam, not Westminster.”
Dick Ratcliffe stirred, said, “As farfetched as it may be, the tale’s all over London, gets uglier with each tavern-telling. The steward of my household came to me privately the other day, told me his son had heard men in a Southwark alehouse laying wagers as to when the Lady Bess would show herself to be with child, and that on Friday last, the very day of Anne’s funeral.”
“Can people truly believe such shit?” Jack de la Pole demanded in disbelief. “Believe that Dickon would seduce his brother’s own daughter as his wife lay dying? Or that Bess would play the whore with him and all the while attending Anne? God and all His angels, but the human mind be more befouled than the most stinking cesspool!”
“It matters little whether they believe it or not, lad,” John Howard said, sounding no less tired than Francis. “Chances are that many don’t. But it be a rumor few could resist passing on, not choice gossip of that sort, not when it involves the highborn and sins that be carnal. But the question before us is what mean we to do about it.”
“Surely there must be a way to spare Dickon this. Christ, it’s been but twelve days since Anne died and only three since her funeral. We can’t go to him with this now…not now.”
Rob leaned across the table. “What choice have we, Francis? God knows, trying to suppress gossip of this sort be like trying to put out a brushfire by pissing on it, but there are some measures Dickon can take to quiet the talk; sending the girl from court, for one. But if he does nothing at all, the gossip’s like to get even nastier now that Anne…now that Dickon’s free to wed again.”
“It already has.” Will Catesby, the only man present not one of Richard’s intimates, had so far remained silent. “It’s been reliably reported to me that Tudor’s agents are intimating that the Queen’s dying was taking overlong, that her death might have been hastened by one of the Italian poisons.”
There was a hushed silence; even John Howard, a man not easily shocked, looked taken aback.
“I expect that will be too much for all but the most gullible to swallow,” Catesby continued composedly. “All do know, of course, that the Queen’s illness was mortal, and few people will see the advantage in murdering a woman already sure to die. But I thought you should be aware that such a slander has surfaced.”
“People invariably whisper about poison when one highborn is stricken, unless it be a battlefield death or the like.” John Scrope was brusque. “I myself heard fools speculating about such in York after King Edward died, wondering if the
French might be to blame. Let’s keep to those rumors that are finding believers. As far as I can gather, the talk in alehouse and tavern is that the King be far too fond of his brother’s pretty daughter, that he grieved not at his wife’s death, and if there be no truth to these stories, then why, they ask knowingly, did God darken the sun as the poor Queen lay dying?” He spat into the floor rushes. “Southerners have mush for brains, God’s blessed truth, and these malcontent pox-ridden Londoners be the worst of the lot.”
“That accursed eclipse,” Francis said bitterly. “Why of all days…?”
Catesby had been absentmindedly fidgeting with his dagger, sliding it up and down its sheath with a rasping sound that was beginning to grate upon the others present.
“There be no tactful way to put this,” he said, “but it’s been my experience that few rumors are cut from whole cloth. Before we go to the King with these admittedly lurid tales, ought not we to be sure that…well, that there be no truth to them?”
The temperature in the room plunged to zero in the span of seconds. Only John Howard and John Scrope, older men both, seemed inclined to at least hear him out, and it was to Scrope that Catesby turned, saying hastily, “Your wife, John, and yours, too, Dick, were among the Queen’s closest friends. Both Alison and Agnes were in attendance upon her until she died. Well, my wife, as you all know, is Alison’s daughter, Agnes’s step-sister. They did confide in her and she told me what they suspected. So don’t you think, John…Dick…that we should bring it out in the open?”
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but already I don’t like the sound of it,” Rob warned, but John Scrope reached over, laid a restraining hand on Rob’s arm.
“Easy, Rob. He’s not implying that Dickon be hot to have the lass in his bed. I’d not have chosen to bring this up myself, but now that he has…my wife Alison thinks that the Lady Bess be overly attached to Dickon. She says women can see these things and the girl is suffering from some silly infatuation.”
“Sweet suffering Christ, but I…I can’t credit what I’m hearing!” Jack’s outrage was such that he was almost stuttering. “Yes, my cousin does care for Dickon; she always has. But it be no more than the natural fondness of a niece for a favorite uncle, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone say otherwise!”
Scrope was beginning to bristle; Jack had just called his wife a liar, if only by implication. It was that which decided John Howard; the potential for danger was just too great.
“Before we all begin saying that which we’ll later regret,” he said, “you’d best hear me out…especially you, Jack, because I’m about to break a confidence, and whether I be right or not in so doing, I honestly don’t know. About a month ago, Bess sought me out. She said she was much in need of advice, and because I’d been so close to her father, she felt I was the one person she could trust to tell her the truth. Something was greatly troubling her; that I could see at a glance. Well, she hemmed and hawed and finally just blurted it out.”
He paused to ease a suddenly parched throat. He had their undivided attention now; the room was hushed.
“She asked me,” Howard resumed reluctantly, “if I thought the Pope would be likely to grant a dispensation allowing an uncle and niece to wed.”
He heard someone catch his breath; someone else cursed.
“I know…. Why didn’t I say something ere this? Because I’m fond of the girl, didn’t want to see her hurt. I wasn’t aware then of how widespread the rumors had become, hoped that given time, she’d come to her senses, Dickon needn’t know, and what harm done?”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. That such a marriage could never be, for reasons that had nothing to do with a papal dispensation.”
“Did she believe you?”
Howard shrugged. “I couldn’t say. Most of us, especially women, tend to believe what we most want to believe.”
Jack found his voice. “She’d never have thought of marriage on her own; I know it. That’s just not like Bess!”
“No,” Howard agreed, “it isn’t. It is, however, very much like Elizabeth Woodville.”
Richard had listened without interruption, listened with an utter stillness that struck the other men as unnatural. It was Jack who put their unease into words, who said awkwardly, “Uncle Dickon…you do understand what we’ve just told you?”
“Yes, I understand. You’re saying London gossip has it that I passed the last weeks of Anne’s life in my niece’s bed.” Richard sounded quite matter-of-fact, as detached as if he were speaking of another man’s sins, and that alone should have warned them, but it didn’t, and they were all taken aback now when he began to laugh.
Richard saw them staring at him in sudden dismay, and it somehow seemed even funnier to him that they should be so alarmed, their consternation strangely comical, incongruous, and that only made him laugh all the more, brittle unsteady laughter that sounded unstrung even to his ears. He struggled to stop, found he couldn’t, caught up in dark undercurrents of emotion beyond his understanding, and perilously dose, as well, to being beyond his control.
Francis sat frozen, at a loss. Jack, too, seemed stunned, staring at Richard as if he were watching a man teetering on the very brink of a precipice. It was John Howard who acted. Without pausing to reflect, he was out of his chair, at Richard’s side. Grabbing the younger man by the shoulders, he shook Richard roughly.
“For the love of Christ, lad, get hold of yourself! We’ve not told you the worst. Tudor’s agents have not stopped at accusing you of bedding your own niece; they’re saying, as well, that you wanted your wife to die.”
They’d not meant to tell Richard that. It was a calculated gamble, but Howard’s instincts were sound; he saw that now, saw the shock had been great enough to sober.
Richard’s breath stopped; the laughter died in his throat. He turned away, blindly, and Howard had the wisdom not to follow. There was a wine flagon on a nearby table, and Richard reached for it, poured out a cupful. The wine sloshed over the rim, and he saw with self-loathing that his hands were shaking. He drank, choked, drank again. When he finally willed himself to turn back to face his friends, he was once more in control, but he could not keep an embarrassed flush from darkening his skin, and his words came with an effort, unevenly spaced, slightly slurred.
“I’m sorry, but…well, you did take me off-balance. That men would believe…”He shook his head slowly, said in dull wonder, “My brother used to chaff me for being naïve. I must be, for in truth, it never occurred to me that people could find evil in my fondness for Bess….”
Sitting down again, he rose almost at once, wandered aimlessly to the window and back.
“Does Bess know about these rumors?”
The question came so abruptly that Francis jumped, said almost at random, “I rather doubt it, Dickon. People would be no more likely to come to her with these tales than they would to you.”
Richard nodded. “I’ll have to tell her,” he said, looked up just in time to intercept a tense, wordless communication between Francis and Jack.
“What is it?” he asked slowly. “Be there more to this than you’ve so far told me?” And had his answer in the uncomfortable silence that followed.
John Howard at last did what Francis and Jack could not. Without elaboration or emotion, as concisely as possible, he related the essence of his conversation with Bess, and when he was done, Richard was trembling again, this time with rage.
“That bitch,” he said softly, but with such venom that Loki moved swiftly to his side, an uneasy growl starting low in the dog’s throat.
John Howard opened his mouth, shut it again. Jack looked both startled and aggrieved. Francis, too, was taken by surprise, and he did not share their protective concern for Bess, gave his loyalties without reserve to Richard. But that seemed even to him to be an unduly harsh judgment.
“You don’t think, Dickon, that you’re being too hard on the girl?”
“Hard…Good Go
d, Francis, you don’t think I meant Bess?” Richard looked down at the forgotten wine cup in his hand, drained it in one long swallow. It was inconceivable to him that Bess could actually have contemplated marriage; few blood bonds were closer than uncle and niece. Once, many years ago as a boy at Middleham, he’d been able to coax Johnny Neville into taking him on a brief trip into York. On their way home, they’d passed through a stretch of woodland recently gutted by fire, and Richard had been deeply shocked by what they’d seen—blackened earth, small charred bodies, smoldering embers, and the fetid stench of death where less than a week past he’d ridden under beech trees towering as high as a castle keep, unable to see the sky for the leafy clouds of aspen and sycamore and whitethorn. The devastation had been of such magnitude that he’d never forgotten it, nor that a landscape known and familiar and dear could so suddenly and savagely be transformed beyond all recognition. But until now, he’d not realized that relationships, too, were subject to changes no less sudden or inexplicable, and far more irrevocable.
“No matter what Bess told you, Jack, no one in Christendom can convince me those were her own words. Jesus God, can’t you see that, see who had to put the idea into her head? It would seem,” Richard added bitterly, “that Elizabeth has decided I be a better risk than Tudor.”
Francis came abruptly to his feet, moved to the table, and poured himself a drink. Dickon was right, of course; Elizabeth’s fine Woodville hand was all over this. He could even feel a flicker of grim, grudging admiration for the woman; like as not, she’d be bartering on her deathbed with the Devil for her due. Thank Christ Dickon was taking it as well as this…or was he? People said that those newly bereaved were often in a state of shock for weeks afterward, that grief was merciful in that it numbed first. But they’d had no choice; Dickon had to be told. Now at least he could take measures to damp down the scandal. Unfortunately, the means available to him were all too limited. Send the girl away from court, of course; find her a husband without delay; issue the usual oblique warnings that Kings make use of to discourage political slander, which were generally as effective as spitting into the wind.