Perhaps I should take it now, Grace thought, as her fear mounted and her belly turned somersaults. “I thank you, Sir Edward,” she murmured. “You are very kind.”
They were approaching London Bridge, with three-storied houses perched precariously atop it and its many narrow arches spanning the river from Bishopsgate to Southwark. “Up oars!” cried the boatmen in unison as the boat shot through the fast-moving water beneath the bridge, and then they dipped them again while chanting “Rumbelow, furbelow” to regain their rhythm. Grace could see the tall tower of Bermondsey Abbey on the south bank in the distance now, and she wondered what the queen dowager would say when Cecily went to tell her that Grace was on her way to Burgundy. She trembled to think of Elizabeth’s possible anger and sent a prayer Cecily’s way. Brampton, believing she was cold, wrapped his short mantle about her.
“There she is,” he said, pointing to a small caravel anchored close to the Wapping wharves, the flags and pennants on its two masts fluttering in the wind. He hailed the ship and a heavy rope ladder was heaved overboard.
“I will go first, Mistress Grace,” Judith Croppe offered, seeing Grace was unsure of how to proceed. “I climb a ladder to my bed every night. Certes, this must be much the same. Follow me.” And to the surprise of the men in the boat below, she fearlessly negotiated the knots on the swinging ladder and was hauled up on the deck by two swarthy mariners. It was only ten feet to the lowest part of the gunwale, but to Grace, swaying in the small boat beneath, the ship’s side looked like a mountain.
Suddenly Edgar picked her up, threw her easily over his shoulder and clambered up one-handed. She closed her eyes and prayed, listening to Sir Edward laughing below. A sailor soon had her in his arms and set her lightly on the wooden deck. Edgar’s trusty staff and the bundle of clothes were passed up as Sir Edward called a greeting to the master of the ship. Grace peered over the gunwale and stammered her thanks and farewell. She had felt safe and comforted by Brampton’s easy confidence these past two days; now she felt small and vulnerable, watching the rowing boat pull away. Brampton and his servants would leave on the tide bound for Lisbon the next day, Grace remembered, as she gave him a final wave.
When the ship stood out to sea past Margate, Grace felt the waves beneath her roughen and the ship creak and groan like an old man rising from his chair. Far from being frightened, as she had imagined, she was exhilarated by the spray in her face, the billowing sails and the wind across the bow. She thought about taking Brampton’s powders, as she was convinced she would need them as a first-time sailor, but when she saw Judith’s green face and white knuckles gripping the gunwale, her concern was all for her companion. She took the packet from her pouch and went to fetch a cup of rainwater from the barrel lashed to the mast. Stirring some of the gray grains into it, she handed it to Judith and advised her to drink it all. As the young woman examined the contents suspiciously, Grace turned to see poor Edgar retching over the side and immediately ministered the rest of the packet to him. Heeding Sir Edward’s words that fresh air was best when the mal de mer struck, she settled both the servants in a sheltered nook on the foredeck out of the wind and found some old sacks to cushion their heads. They both stared up at her miserably, and they looked so wretched she had a hard time not smiling.
“I am sure the galingale will help you. Sir Edward promised it would,” she said cheerfully. “Is there anything more I can do for you?”
“A bucket, mistress, if you please,” Edgar moaned, heaving again. Grace looked about and saw a sailor tying off a line nearby and asked him to fetch a pail. The young man grinned, seeing the two seasick passengers huddled together. “Aye, mistress, leave it to me.”
Grace wandered back down to her quarters, a small cabin she and Judith had been given next to the captain’s. She removed her mantle and felt a momentary pang of guilt when she realized she was still in possession of Sir Edward’s handsome cloak. She folded it up carefully and covered it with the rough blanket on the hammock. It would add to her appearance when she sought an audience with Aunt Margaret, she decided. Her stomach was grumbling and she realized she was hungry. Had it really been so many hours ago in Cecily’s apartments when she had last eaten anything? The sun had gone down on the late June evening and the stars were starting to appear. Master Ward stomped down the companionway and called to her from behind the curtain that served as a door for the ladies’ privacy.
“Would you and your attendant like to join me and the other gentleman passenger for supper, Mistress Peche?” he asked. “The food is always good on the first night out from London.”
He was unprepared for the speed with which Grace appeared on his side of the curtain. “I would indeed, Master Ward,” she enthused. “But my tiring woman, Judith, is under the weather. She and our escort are as comfortable as possible on deck. I pray they will be able to sleep.”
“Ah, the mal de mer.” Ward laughed. “Aye, sleep will come—’tis often the first sign of seasickness, mistress. I see you are not suffering. Have you made other sea voyages, then?” He took her arm and conveyed her into his cabin, where two young cabin boys were setting out a haunch of meat, a pie, loaves of fresh bread and cheese for their captain and the London goldsmith, her fellow passenger, who was also going to Bruges. Grace saw the boys were no more than ten or twelve years old and was astonished to discover that most began their sailing apprenticeships so young.
After satisfying her hunger and sharing a glass of mediocre wine with the two men, she begged to be excused and fell exhausted into her hammock, pulling the soft wool mantle around her. “Dear Saint Sibylline, intercede for me with our Lord and Saviour and His gracious mother, Mary, for I do not believe I can stay awake long enough to pray…” She was asleep before she could whisper “Amen” into the pitch-black cabin.
THE WIND WAS fair and Master Ward was confident they would sight land by the end of the second day, and he was right. The flat lands of Flanders were a long, low line upon the horizon as the ship beat its way up the coast to the harbor of Sluis. “We are not small enough to be able to sail down the canal into Bruges, Mistress Peche, but we will unload at Damme,” the captain told her as she stood watching the first foreign land she had ever seen grow into recognizable beaches, with marshland and fields beyond, and the occasional church spire. It did not look much different from England, she mused.
“Do you speak French?” Ward asked. “The language of Bruges, or Brugge as it is called by the Flemish people, is Dutch, but most will speak some French. Indeed, ’tis the rule of the French-born dukes of Burgundy who turned this into a frog-speaking land,” he explained. “Our own Princess Margaret—King Richard’s sister—made this very same journey more than twenty years ago to marry Duke Charles, the present duke’s grandfather. I remember seeing the procession in London all those years ago when Lady Margaret sat behind the great earl of Warwick, as he led her through the streets to receive our farewell. ’Twas before you were born, I have no doubt, mistress. We thought ’twere a grand affair, but ’tis said it was a poor show compared with the welcome parade the people of Bruges gave their new duchess. Ten days of feasting and jousting followed! Imagine that.”
“Imagine,” Grace echoed with awe, pretending this was the first time she had heard of Aunt Margaret’s magnificent joyeuse entrée into her new country’s wealthiest city.
HER OWN ENTRY into Bruges was far more mundane. The Mary Ellen sailed into the Zwin estuary and up as far as Damme, where the passengers disembarked and goods were to be unloaded on the flat barges that plied the lowland waterways. Edgar and Judith gratefully stumbled down the gangplank and onto solid ground. Grace bade Master Ward farewell and paid one of her rose nobles for the voyage for all three.
“There is Sir Edward’s man, mistress,” the captain called after her, pointing to a rotund, rosy-cheeked man in a short black gown and high hat who was checking barrels as they were rolled down a parallel ramp. “Heer Gerards!” He called loudly in Flemish, “This is Brampton’s niece. Yo
u are to take her to Brugge.”
Gerards looked at Grace with interest. He had not known Sir Edward had a niece—and certainly not such a pretty niece. He waddled over and gave a small bow. “Mevrouw, I call myself Pieter Gerards. I in your service am.” His English was passable, and Grace breathed more freely. She had hoped he would not speak French to her, as she could read it tolerably well, but she could not speak it as fluently as her sisters did, as the nuns had been keener on knowing Latin than French.
“I thank you, Master Gerards,” she said as confidently as she could. “I am Grace Peche. Here is a letter from Sir Edward explaining my visit. I trust you can help me complete my mission. These are my servants, and they will be accompanying me.”
Gerards took the offered letter and broke open his master’s seal. He let out a whistle when he read the instructions. “You are to escort my niece, Grace Peche, to Madame la Grande’s court and arrange for an audience. I would deliver my message to her grace, the dowager duchess, myself, but our business interests in Lisbon have necessitated my returning there immediately.” The rest of the letter explained the nature of the trading problems in Lisbon, with further instructions on how to proceed with them in Bruges. Finally he wrote: “I am counting on you to give Mistress Peche every courtesy and to see her back safely on a ship to London as soon as possible.” The merchant puffed out his cheeks and let the air out slowly as he translated and took all of this in. Grace looked around the bustling port and admired the new town hall with its gothic ornamentation.
“I take you now to be refreshed to a herberg. Come, please,” he said, ushering Grace along a side street by the hall. She assumed herberg was a house, and when Gerards pointed to an imposing stone house with large, high windows she was pleasantly surprised. However, he passed it by, saying, “Princess Margaret of York by your country is together with Duke Charles married therein,” he told Grace proudly. Grace was intrigued and stared back up at the building, imagining the scene. Already she was experiencing so many connections to the only member of her father’s siblings she had not yet met.
“Your uncle say you to see the old duchess. She in Malines is resting. It is long way from Brugge, but we there will go in morgen—in morning.” Grace’s heart sank; she had hoped she would be able to deliver the letter there in Bruges. Sir Edward had not said anything about Malines.
When Gerards reached the entrance of a spotlessly clean lime-washed building a few doors away, its telltale sign swinging above them, he repeated “Herberg!” and opened the thick wooden door. Ah, an inn, Grace thought. ’Tis like auberge in French. They entered the low-beamed public room, where several people were sharing bowls of food on long tables. Judith and Edgar eyed the food eagerly after two days of purging. Edgar had grumbled to Judith on the way that “my belly is flattened against my backbone. Look’t, my tunic hangs off me now.” Judith admitted that she, too, was ravenous, although she could not see where Edgar had pared down one inch of his substantial girth.
Gerards ordered food and ale for them all and counted a few ridders out for the landlord. “I to the work must return, mevrouw. You keep yourself here. I return, ja?”
“Ja…I mean, aye,” Grace replied. “We are in your hands, sir.”
Puzzled, Gerards turned his palms up and inspected them, shrugged and left.
Several hunks of bread and cheese, a rabbit pie and a bowl of mussels later, the trio of travelers felt better. Edgar had downed most of the blackjack of ale by himself, and Grace did not admonish him this time after his suffering on the ship.
“Edgar, who is your overseer at the abbey?” she asked him. “I pray her grace the queen dowager will explain your absence to him. If you lose any wages because of this, know that you will be well rewarded for your service to me. In truth, I could not make this journey without you guarding me. But I warrant taking commands from a lady is not what you are accustomed to, am I right?” She smiled at him, hunched over his horn cup of ale, and his shoulders straightened and he lifted his head proudly.
“Nay, Mistress Peche.” He grinned, hoping she would notice he had remembered her new name, and she nodded an acknowledgment. “Brother Gregory holds the purse strings in the stables. He be not kind, and no one dares cross him. He has threatened us with Hell, and I be not inclined to go there,” he said, shuddering at the thought. “I be an undergroom, but I hope to be head groom one day, and…” he stopped. He had never voiced this ambition to anyone before. He waited for her to berate him for speaking so freely, but she sat patiently waiting for him to continue and so plunged ahead. “In for a penny, in for a pound!” he said under his breath. “If I do your bidding well, mistress, will you speak for me?” he said, gabbling on before he lost his nerve, and her nod of assent encouraged him to continue. “The others mock me and call me a simpkin, but I can talk to the horses, you know,” he told her, leaning forward and almost knocking over his cup in his childlike eagerness. “They listen to me.”
“I have seen you, Edgar,” Grace replied, her head cocked and her eyes guileless. “Perhaps when we return you could tell the horses not to frighten me so. I love animals, but horses…Well, they are so large, you see, and I am so…small,” she explained.
Edgar stared at the lovely young woman in front of him. He was only a lowly groom, and he knew she was really the Lady Grace Plantagenet, daughter of a king, and yet she was speaking to him. His simple mind tried to digest this extraordinary fact, and the only way he could think of expressing his undying devotion was to clamber off his bench, lumber around to her side, kneel and kiss the hem of her worsted gown. Several customers watched this little scene with amusement; Grace looked on with embarrassment.
“I pray you return to your seat, Edgar. We do not need to attract attention,” she said, more sternly than she intended, and his face clouded a little. “Master Gerards should be here anon, and so you should drain your cup.” She gave him a quick smile and he got up off his knees and sat back down next to Judith, who had not said a word since attacking her piece of pie.
Gerards was as good as his word, and an hour later he returned and escorted Grace to a barge that would convey them all to the Waterhall in Bruges, where the English Merchant Adventurers lived and worked. Their boat was pulled by a Flemish great horse, which was led along the three-mile towpath by its owner. As they drew closer to the towers of Bruges, the bells began to ring out the Terce. Soon they were gliding under the Dampoort gate and along a canal that boasted high, step-gabled brick houses on either side, graceful trees and pairs of swans that reached their long necks around to clean their feathers. Grace thought she had never seen such a beautiful place.
“You will in my house sleep, Mevrouw Peche. Tomorrow we to Malines journey, ja?” Gerards told the young woman, whose beauty and connection to Brampton were making him believe she would be an excellent choice of bride for his son, although he worried, with her dark skin, whether she might be a Jew.
Grace thanked him, looking forward to a comfortable bed after her time in the ship’s hammock.
Whether it was the unaccustomed beer made with hops or the eel pie that Mevrouw Gerards served for supper, Grace did not know, but that night she tossed and turned and dreamed of the old hag who had told her fortune in Winchester. “You will see both of them go to meet their Maker. It be dangerous for you to know them, but you will help them. Better not make friends of young men, my lady.” Ugly Edith’s face melted into Elizabeth’s fair one. “You will help me, Grace? You will bring me news of my son,” she pleaded, reaching her arms out to Grace, “before I go into my grave?” As she stepped back, Grace could see a freshly dug hole behind the queen and before she could stop her Elizabeth began to float, featherlight, downwards into the earth. Screaming, Grace desperately tried to catch the dying woman’s hand, but there was nothing to hold on to. Elizabeth’s ghostly body drifted down and down…
“Mistress Grace, wake up!” Judith whispered in the dark, shaking Grace’s shoulder. “You were dreaming, ’tis all.”
“I am very afraid, Judith,” Grace said, sitting up and clutching her servant’s arm. “I dreamed of death.”
“Sweet Jesu, ’tis a bad omen,” Judith muttered, crossing herself. She slipped out of bed and felt for the tinderbox. Within a few seconds she had lit a taper and padded across to fetch Grace a cup of ale. “Drink this, mistress. ’Tis said if you tell your dream it will not come true. Come, tell me quickly before you forget.”
“Maybe tomorrow, Judith,” Grace answered pretending to yawn. She could not risk revealing her identity by retelling her dream. “But say an ave for me.”
GRACE WAS CONVINCED Master Gerards had led them around in a circle when the towers and spires of Malines came into view late in the afternoon. They had passed neat farms and fields that ringed the city before slowing their horses to a walk to cross the moat bridge and ride through the fortified gate in the city wall. Except for the canals, the city was similar to Bruges, and Grace was impressed by its gothic grandeur. The market square matched Bruges for space and splendid buildings. St. Rumbold’s cathedral rose majestically behind it, and as the little group rode past, its double carillon of bells rang out over the city from its monumental tower, stopping conversation for those directly beneath. Grace was astonished at the multitude of people crowding the streets and asked Gerards if there was a special occasion that had brought so many to the town. He turned back to her riding pillion on his sturdy jennet and explained that while Bruges was the heart of commerce in Burgundy, Malines—or Mechelen, as the Flemish called the city—was the seat of legislative government.
“Forgive me, sir, but I thought you said Ghent had that honor,” Grace said, wondering why this country did not have one central city like London.
“Ghent seats the judges, mevrouw. Here the councilors of the duke sits,” he said in his broken English. “There is the council chamber,” he said, pointing to the newly refurbished cloth hall.