“Francis, I want you to see the Lord Mayor, tell him I shall be speaking before the aldermen, sheriffs, and common council. Also the masters of the city guilds. See to it for me, and as soon as possible. I know this be Holy Week, but it cannot wait.”
“I’ll take care of it at first light, Dickon, but…but why?”
“Why? Christ, man, I should think that would be obvious after what you just told me! I do mean to make a public denial of these lies they be telling about me, and the sooner the better.”
“God Almighty, Uncle, you can’t do that! A denial from your own lips would but fan the flames higher! All you can do with such dirt is to ignore it, while putting about right sharp warnings that those caught spreading seditious falsehoods will be punished with all the severity the law allows.”
“Jack is right in that,” Howard said gravely. “A King doesn’t dignify slander with a denial, lad. Just think for a moment of what’s been said about those who do wear crowns. It’s common fame in France that Louis poisoned his brother, and all of Scotland was agog when Jamie’s youngest brother did die so mysteriously and conveniently in prison. To be highborn is to be subject to slurs and innuendo; that’s just the way of it.”
“Remember, Dickon, how Charles of Burgundy took to referring to Uncle Ned as Blayborgne, after that archer his enemies always claimed to be his true father? Or when your former brother-in-law Exeter drowned crossing the Channel coming back from our French campaign in 1475, how Charles told one and all that Ned had ordered Exeter thrown overboard? Don’t you think that if Ned had denied it, he’d just have played into Charles’s hands?” Jack would have pressed the point home, but Richard cut him off with an impatient gesture.
“I know you both mean well, but I don’t want to argue about this. It’s what I’ve decided to do, what I have to do, and to discuss it further would serve for naught.” And there was a finality in his voice that was no less effective than an outright command.
Francis lingered after Jack and John Howard took their leave, hesitating and then crossing the chamber to join Richard at the window. Below, the river gardens were drenched in rain, budding leaves stripped away by gusts of wind that threatened to keep spring at bay for a few days more.
“Can you understand, Francis, why I have to do this? Why this be one lie I cannot live with?”
Francis thought Jack and Howard were most likely right, that a public denial would do little to quell the scandal, that it might even, by its very novelty, give the rumors fresh impetus. But he’d said nothing, made no attempt to dissuade Richard, for he had enough imagination to put himself in Richard’s place, to be able to grasp how it would be to live for a year and a half with the knowledge that, in the eyes of many, he had been judged and found guilty of a crime beyond forgiving, and to know that there was no way he could prove his innocence. A rumor to cast a sinister shadow over his entire reign, one that could be neither disproved nor denied.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, Dickon, I can understand.”
Someone had opened the window, on this the first evening in April; the night air was mild, held out a delayed promise of coming spring. It was for Richard a regret as embittered as it was illogical—that once more the earth should be flowering anew and Anne should not be there to see it. Springtime, once a lucky season for the House of York. Ned had won Barnet on an Easter dawn. Tewkesbury had been a Maytime victory. He’d made Anne his wife in April, and in the spring, too, had come the births of all three of his children. And now…now three deaths in two years—brother, son, wife—and spring would be ever linked in his mind with death.
There were papers before him, but Richard wasn’t seeing them. He found his thoughts going back two days, back to that silent assembly in the great hall of the Priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The Lord Mayor, the aldermen, the Bishops of the Church, his council, the royal household. Had they believed him?
He marveled that he’d ever been able to bring himself to do it, to swear to a roomful of strangers that he’d loved his wife, grieved that she was dead, and had never thought to marry his niece. There had been an air of utter unreality about it; he’d heard his voice, cold and clear, as if from a great distance, did not recognize it as his own. It didn’t seem totally real to him even now—not that Anne was truly dead nor that men could be so willing to believe the worst of him. But no…he was lying to himself again. Why should there be surprise that these rumors about Bess did find such ready acceptance? What else could he expect, in truth? Who’d be likely to give the benefit of the doubt to a man suspected of putting his own nephews to death? For that was what it came back to, what it always came back to—to Buckingham and two children who died for sins that weren’t theirs.
Sometimes he even found himself searching the faces of his intimates, the men who worked with him every day, shared with him the burdens of government, wondering if he saw in their eyes, too, unspoken speculation about his brother’s sons. He’d been King for twenty-one months now, and for twenty of those months the boys had not been seen in London. Londoners had long since concluded that they were either in the North or they were dead; did his friends and councilors ever doubt, too?
Richard looked up now, his eyes moving from man to man—John Kendall, Will Catesby, Tom Lynom—saw only sympathy, and he realized that some time had passed, that they’d been waiting patiently for him to collect his thoughts, to come back to the business at hand.
“I’ve been remiss in offering you my congratulations, Tom.” Richard smiled at Lynom, said, “I understand you have a son?”
Lynom grinned, looked surprised that Richard should have chosen to mention it and delighted that he had. “I do, Your Grace, a fine boy born Tuesday noon. My wife and I…We look upon his birth as…as a miracle of sorts, a blessing bestowed by the grace of God.” Lynom stopped, suddenly self-conscious, as if realizing there might be an innocent cruelty in dwelling upon birth and joy to a man so recently bereaved.
A blessing…. Well they might think that. Passing strange, that after all those barren years in Ned’s bed, and Will’s and Tom Grey’s and too many others to mention, Jane should have at last conceived, have been able to give Lynom a son. But seeing Lynom’s discomfiture, Richard said with as much warmth as he could muster, “This Tuesday last? We share a day of good fortune then, you and I, for my son Johnny did turn fourteen that same day. Have you chosen a name?”
“Julian, Your Grace, because—”
One of John Kendall’s clerks had entered quietly, beckoned Kendall aside. Now Kendall cut Lynom off with uncharacteristic rudeness, said with obvious reluctance, “My liege, I’ve been asked to give you a message. Your niece be without, is asking to see you.”
Richard’s reaction was reflex, came without time for thought. “No,” he said, and Kendall signaled to the clerk. But as the man turned to go, he opened the door wide enough so that the men within could see the girl standing in the antechamber. Not Bess; Cecily.
“Wait,” Richard said, and as if she heard him, Cecily came forward, stopped just short of the open doorway.
With the court awash in rumors and Richard’s inner circle inclined to see Bess more as her mother’s puppet than as an innocent victim, it had taken courage for Cecily to come here like this, on her own. That alone would have gained her entry with Richard, for courage was the quality he admired above all others. He found himself studying her with contemplative eyes, this soft-spoken girl whose sixteenth birthday had passed almost unnoticed midst the preparations for Anne’s funeral. Like Bess, she, too, was lovely, a handsome child of handsome parents, but there was in her face that which he wouldn’t have expected to see in one so young; she looked as if very little could surprise her, not ever again.
Richard pushed back his chair, a signal the other men correctly took as their cue for a discreet departure.
“You wish to speak with me, Cecily?” Richard said gently, saw her relief, and realized that until this moment she hadn’t known what to expect from him, hadn??
?t known if he, too, blamed Bess for this scandal that had so suddenly entrapped them both.
“You’re sending Bess away.” It was not a question, but Richard nodded, said tiredly and a bit defensively,
“What choice do I have? As long as she stays at court, the talk will continue.”
“I know,” Cecily conceded. “I think you’re right in that. But…” She came closer, put her hand lightly on his arm, a gesture that surprised him somewhat, for while Bess was very much her father’s daughter, openly demonstrative with those she loved, Cecily was more reserved, more like Richard himself.
“But what I cannot understand, Uncle Dickon, is that you won’t see her. I would not have thought you could be so cruel.”
Anger hovered all too close to the surface these days, strained nerves seeking release in rage as a means, however briefly, of overriding grief. Recognizing that, Richard drew a deep breath, said very evenly, “What purpose would it serve, Cecily, except to give us both pain we could better do without?”
“Oh, but you’re wrong! Dickon, listen to me…please. For two days now, Bess has done nothing but cry. She won’t talk, won’t eat, just lies there on the bed and cries. And it’s not just because of those vile stories people are spreading, although she didn’t know about them until Lords Howard and Lovell came to her, told her she was to go to Sheriff Hutton. It’s not even that she’s been made to see how much you’ve been hurt by this gossip. It’s that you won’t see her, Dickon. By doing that, you’ve made her feel as if she’s done something shameful, unforgivable. And she doesn’t deserve that, she doesn’t. Don’t send her away in disgrace. I know Bess; she’ll never get over it. I love my sister very much, would have given the world to spare her this hurt. But you’re the only one who can make it right for her. You and only you.”
Richard would not have needed to be told Bess had been crying; her eyes were darkly circled, inflamed, and a heavy dusting of powder did little to camouflage the tear tracks, the lack of sleep. He’d rarely seen her look worse, and yet paradoxically, never had he been so aware of her as a woman. After a startled moment to reflect, he understood why, realized that he was suddenly seeing her with the mirror she herself had given him, as a beautiful woman who’d fantasized, however briefly and for whatever reasons, of being his Queen, sharing his bed and bearing his children.
In the four days since he’d listened, incredulous, as his friends told him what was being said of him and Bess, Richard had gone over again and again in his mind every aspect he could remember of his relationship with his niece. Yes, he had found her fair to look upon, had taken pleasure in her company. But beyond that? No, this was one sin he could absolve himself of; he had never envisioned Bess as a bedmate. But it mattered little that he had not; he saw that now, saw that his relationship with Bess was tainted, nonetheless, that there would be forever between them the specter of a forbidden sin.
Bess’s cheeks were flaming. “You hate me now, don’t you?” she whispered.
Richard winced. Christ Jesus, how young she was.
“No, Bess, never.” It occurred to him that she could so easily have denied her own feelings, could have claimed that Howard had misunderstood her, and at least, salvaged her pride. And yet he felt no surprise that she had not. She had that rarest of qualities, an integrity of spirit that allowed her to face the truth and its consequences without flinching. It was not true for him and he knew it; when truths were too painful, he’d invariably sought to deny them, blaming Elizabeth for the deterioration in Ned’s character, refusing to see that Edward and Dickon would not have died had he not taken the crown, unable to admit that Anne was dying. And had it not been for Cecily, he would have avoided this, too, would have failed Bess yet again, just as he’d done when he’d sent someone else to tell her that her brothers were dead.
“Bess, you understand why I’m sending you to Sheriff Hutton? There’s no other way to stifle the gossip.”
She shook her head, as if that mattered little. “Why wouldn’t you see me ere this?”
“I was wrong; I’m sorry, lass.” He made amends the only way he could, with the truth. “I was thinking only of myself. I just didn’t know what to say to you.”
For a moment their eyes held, but no longer. Bess blushed even deeper. “I’ve watched you in this past year suffer grief you never deserved. To lose your little boy and then…” Her voice faltered. “I know how you loved your wife, loved Anne. I wanted only to comfort you, to make you happy again. Was that…was that so very wrong?”
Richard hesitated. It was true that the Pope could have given a dispensation for such a marriage, but the English people would never have accepted it. Nor could he; to lay with his brother’s daughter would be one sin too many, a moral wrong not even the Pope could reconcile as right. But to say that to Bess would be to inflict needless hurt, to shame her for a sin that was more rightly her mother’s.
“Bess…listen to me, lass. It could never be. For me to marry you would be political suicide. People would see such a marriage as proof that I’d concocted the plight-troth as a means of usurping your brother’s crown. At the least, it would be a tacit admission that even I doubted my right. It would also be an admission that your brothers were dead, and to do that now…”
“I see,” she said in a small voice. “I…I think I always knew that, Dickon, knew it was a dream with no reality in it. Do you remember what I told you that night in the abbey, about how I’d make up happy endings in my head? I guess…guess I was still doing it.”
With a lot of help from Elizabeth, damn her. He didn’t doubt that she’d have seen Bess wed to the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire if a crown were in the offering.
“Dickon…you’ll not make me wed, will you?”
That was exactly what his advisers were telling him to do, to marry her off as soon as possible to a husband who could be counted upon to hold fast for the House of York.
“No, Bess, I’ll not force you to wed against your will,” he said impulsively, was more than repaid by the look of relief that crossed her face.
An awkward silence fell; it was as if years of intimacy had never been.
Richard suddenly realized how much he was going to miss Bess, realized for the first time what a void her going would leave in his life. He would have liked to have been able to tell her that, but it was no longer possible, and in understanding that, he understood the full measure of his loss, that the last link to his brother had just been broken.
26
Berkhampsted
May 1485
Candlelight was kind, and the stark severity of Benedictine garb suited her surprisingly well; the white wimple covered her chin and throat, thus camouflaging the most obvious evidence of aging, and the black veil framing her face set off skin a much younger woman might envy. What struck John Scrope most, however, was what he saw in the wide-set grey eyes. So, he thought, it be true then, that she has found in God that which had been denied her as Duchess of York.
Cecily watched him as he drank his wine, helped himself to the platter of dried figs and candied quinces. She’d greeted him with no apparent surprise, but all the while that she was making polite conversation, she was wondering why he was here. Ostensibly, his purpose was to see that all arrangements were made for Richard’s impending arrival, but this was not an errand a man of Scrope’s rank would ordinarily undertake. She could only conclude that he had reasons of his own for being here, and she waited now, with a patience all the more precious for having come to her so late in life, waited for him to reveal the true purpose of this visit.
For a woman who’d not left Berkhampsted since taking vows more than four years past, she was remarkably well informed about the world she’d renounced, and they spoke at length about Richard’s urgent need for money, about Henry Tudor and the likelihood of an invasion backed by French gold. It was some time before Scrope was able to maneuver the conversation in the desired direction, into reminiscing about two men who were fourteen years dead, kin
to them both, Richard and John Neville.
He talked for a time of Warwick, but soon shifted the talk to John, and as Cecily listened attentively, he spoke of the last months of John’s life, and for one never noted for eloquence, drew upon words of surprising power to describe for her a man in deep inner turmoil.
“I loved Johnny Neville. He was more than a cousin to me, Madame, was as good a friend as any man can hope to have in this life. It was his tragedy that he loved both his brother and his cousin. When he betrayed your son at Doncaster, he betrayed himself, too, and this I can tell you for true, that he never forgave himself for it. Whatever his reasons, however justified he thought he was, once it was done, he found he couldn’t live with it.”
Cecily stirred. She, too, had cared for John Neville, and she’d long ago learned that time did not heal; it only numbed.
“I’ve never forgotten,” she said sadly, “the look on Edward’s face when he told me that Johnny had gone into battle wearing the colors of York under his armor.”
Scrope nodded. “I won’t go so far as to say that Johnny was looking to die. But I do know he took the field that day with a handicap no man can safely shoulder. He was just going through the motions, Madame, like a man doing what’s expected of him but no more.”
Cecily leaned forward, caught his sleeve. “Why are you telling me this, John?”
Scrope set his drink down. “Because,” he said at last, “what I once saw in Johnny Neville, I see now in your son.”
Cecily had nursed the sick and buried the dead, had of necessity become as skilled in the arts of healing as any apothecary. She’d watched throughout supper as Richard measured his meal in mouthfuls, left a plateful of food untouched. She’d noted, too, that even though he was lightly tanned, his eyes were deeply smudged, bloodshot, and there was about him the taut wariness of a woodland creature in strange surroundings; when a servant carelessly dropped a chafing dish, Cecily had seen her son flinch like one struck. She’d said nothing, but as soon as Richard retired that evening, she sent a servant for her store of medicinal herbs, and with sure hands, mixed a sleeping draught of henbane, darnel, and dried bryony root. This she dissolved in a cupful of hippocras, and carried it herself on a tray up to her son’s bedchamber.