Daughter of York

  Brother Damian took them to a lectern and invited them with a gesture to look at the book upon it. Margaret gingerly opened the heavy volume to a page of meticulously copied Latin text, the beginning letter of the chapter richly decorated in gold leaf, azure and emerald. Their heads bent together to examine the work, Margaret was distracted by Anthony’s closeness. She could see the stitches on his slashed sleeve, smell his perfume—what was it, musk, perhaps?—and feel his leg touching her gown. She forced herself to look at the book and was grateful when Anthony whispered a question to their host and they moved apart. He, too, must have sensed the uncomfortable intimacy, and he did not go too near her again.

  Shelf upon shelf of books lined the walls, and Brother Damian told them they had recently added a library elsewhere in the abbey to house others. They were astounded to learn that the abbey had a collection of more than three hundred books, all produced by the monks over the past two hundred years. Margaret was particularly taken with the music that was shown her. She recognized one of her favorite songs, “Sumer is icumen in,” with its neum notes for voice, and touched the two-hundred-year-old manuscript reverently.

  Anthony walked her back to her quarters following the visit, and they talked about what they had witnessed.

  “Not long ago, I was told by a visiting ambassador that in Germany a man has devised a way of copying text with woodcuts and a wine press. Have you heard of this, Anthony?” Margaret asked. “Someone must bring the invention here and relieve those poor old brothers. I suspect some must die at their desks, their fingers forever curled around their pens! Did you see their backs? To be so bent in one position for so many hours, sweet Jesu, it must be painful. But the books, the books.” She sighed. “Oh, so beautiful, were they not?”

  “Aye, they were. And, no, I have not heard of such a device as you describe. Are you certain the ambassador was not dreaming, Marguerite?”

  Hearing his pet name for her after all this time again made her heart flutter, and she was about to touch his arm to acknowledge it when he called out, “Eliza, I am here!” to a tiny woman in green and her companion coming along the path from the physic garden.

  Eliza Scales hurried to them, a plain, scrawny woman with a pronounced overbite, and when she saw Margaret, she dropped into a low obeisance. Margaret panicked. What does one say to the wife of the man one loves? Someone who clearly has no idea that the woman in front of her wants to claw her eyes out? But Margaret’s strict training allowed her graciously to ask Lady Scales to rise and greet her warmly. Anthony kissed his wife’s hand, taking her arm and tucking it under his.

  Margaret’s smile was sickly sweet, and she hated her own hypocrisy. “I am glad to meet you at last, my lady. Anthony has told me much about you,” she lied twice in the same breath. “And I am sorry you have not been well enough to travel with him lately. He and I have a passion”—she paused for effect, but the mouse was listening politely with no sign of understanding the innuendo—“for books,” she finished, not daring to look at Anthony, whose mouth was twitching with amusement at her audacity.

  “Aye, my dear lord does enjoy his books,” Lady Scales said, and Margaret thought she heard a hint of sarcasm, “far more than he enjoys his wife, I sometimes think.” And she began a false, high-pitched laugh that made Anthony wince. Margaret was embarrassed for him as Eliza continued to laugh until she was overcome by coughing.

  “Lady Margaret, the air is too cold for Eliza. I beg you to excuse us while I take her inside. I hope we may resume our discussion soon,” Anthony said, his eyes telling her he would far prefer talking with her than accompanying his wife to her chamber.

  Margaret inclined her head in the affirmative and wished them both a pleasant day. Lady Scales dropped a hasty curtsey, stared at Fortunata and trotted along obediently beside her husband.

  Aye, Elizabeth was right, Eliza Scales is a bore, Margaret thought, as she walked towards the physic garden. A bore with a marriage contract.

  THE ROYAL PARTY lingered for several weeks, enjoying the peace and quiet of the abbey and the abbot’s fine table and by the time the barges left the Reading wharf in late October, Edward had already promised his bride the betrothal of the first of her many siblings to one of the noble families of England. However, before he approved this marriage of Elizabeth’s next sister to Lord Maltravers, the heir of the earl of Arundel, he made sure that Maltravers’ uncle, the earl of Warwick, was out of the country. Angering the earl twice in a month was, Margaret told Ned, imprudent to say the least.

  “Meggie, you think too much,” Ned replied. “’Tis time you spread your wings and enjoyed life. Anthony is a bad influence. He, too, is always spouting philosophy around me. Where is young Harper? He would give you something else to think about, eh, Meggie.” He laughed, but, seeing her serious face, he remembered to add, “I know, I know, I have not forgotten my promise to find you a husband soon, but in the meantime, why not let the harper play your strings?”

  “Edward!” Margaret cried, trying hard not to laugh. “You are incorrigible!”

  8

  1465–1466

  Margaret did not return to Greenwich from Reading. She moved directly back into the Wardrobe but was often at Elizabeth’s side at Westminster Palace or at the queen’s town house on Knightridder Street close to the Newgate outside the city wall. The new queen found Margaret’s presence reassuring, she told Edward, and gradually Margaret grew to admire her sister-in-law for her dignity and courage in the face of the court’s disappointment with Edward’s choice. However, no one but Edward ever became the queen’s intimate. She was pleasant to her ladies but never betrayed her emotions to them. Her own household was run to a strict moral code, and the curious pondered on her resignation to Edward’s immoral one. Margaret saw that her brother adored his wife, and she knew Edward spent many nights in his wife’s bed—unusual for most married couples of rank—but she also heard the rumors that other women shared his attentions in his own apartments at Westminster.

  Although the royal circle disdained his choice of bride, Edward’s decision to wed an Englishwoman of lower rank endeared him to his subjects, who it seemed had adopted an aversion to things foreign since English lands in France were lost to them under Henry’s unstable rule. For a time their frustration with the young king’s many taxes was buried as they relished the thought of an English queen.

  Fortunata, who enjoyed slipping anonymously through the London streets whenever she could, had heard Edward praised for his courage in wedding a mere dame. But there were those who could not resist making fun of him. She was regaling Margaret and her ladies with stories of her exploits one evening after Vespers when she remembered a particular incident.

  “One man, madonna, who was very drunk, called the queen ‘the king’s Grey mare.’ Many people laughed. What is a ‘mare’?”

  Some of her ladies giggled, others gasped in horror, and Margaret stifled a chuckle. She could not allow Fortunata or the women to repeat this disparaging remark in the household, as it was certain to get back to Elizabeth somehow. These rumors always did.

  “I command all of you to keep the story inside this room, ladies. Fortunata, you do not need to know what the man meant. ’Twas cruel is all you need to understand,” she said sternly.

  The women nodded and bent their heads over their needlework, hiding their smiles. Beatrice resolved to keep a closer eye on Fortunata’s comings and goings. But she was so small and so good at disappearing, it would be a difficult task. Margaret had no such misgivings about her pochina. She encouraged Fortunata to tell her what she saw and heard in the streets. How else would one know what is really happening in the realm? And she alone knew Fortunata was able to fend for herself after her squalid life in Padua.

  Margaret changed the topic and told her ladies that she had been summoned to accompany the king and queen to Shene for the weeks before the queen’s coronation and that they should ready her things for the stay. The buzz of excited conversation took their minds off
the unkind remark about Elizabeth, as Margaret hoped it would. Inwardly she fretted over Ned’s choices, for following the betrothal of Elizabeth’s sister in October, the queen had been the target of more snide remarks when Edward gave her nineteen-year-old brother John Woodville in marriage to the sixty-five-year-old dowager duchess of Norfolk—Warwick’s aunt. Edward seemed bent on antagonizing the earl, she worried. The Woodville marriage had also been viewed on the Continent as a slap in the face for the earl, who was working hard for a treaty with Louis of France against Burgundy. Not only did Edward eschew the offer of marriage from Louis, but by marrying a descendant of the counts of St. Pol in Luxembourg, Edward could be perceived as allying himself with Burgundy.

  SHENE WAS AS she remembered it, except that now it was early spring and even more enchanting than when she had been there in June four years before. As a child, Margaret loved the season that coincided with her birthday, and she thought God was giving her his special blessing every year with the return of warmer weather. She dubbed April God’s golden month, when the fields, hills, woods and streams burst forth in the yellows of buttercups, marsh marigolds, cowslips, broom, daffodils and her favorite spring flower, the primrose. Even the new leaves on the willows, birches, aspens and hazels had a pale yellow tinge to them before the summer sun lent a depth to the green.

  England never looks more beautiful than now, she thought, meandering by the river between the palace and the orchard. She hoped she would never have to leave it, though she guessed she probably would. She bent and gathered several buttercups, examining their burnished petals and jagged dark green leaf fronds. She stopped and turned to Fortunata, who she knew would be right behind her, and held one of the blossoms directly under her chin. Fortunata frowned. “Madonna?” she questioned.

  “I am seeing if you like butter, pochina. And I see that you do,” Margaret told her.

  “What?”

  “Not ‘what’ but ‘forgive me’ or ‘I beg your pardon’,” Margaret corrected her. She bent over, gave Fortunata the flower and told her to hold it no more than an inch from under her chin. “Can you see the yellow reflected on my skin?”

  “Si, madonna. Very yellow!” Fortunata cried, fascinated. “Do you like butter, too?”

  Margaret laughed. “Aye, I do.”

  Fortunata ran back to the other ladies, who were also gathering flowers to tuck in their bodices. She tested each one, much to everyone’s amusementment, and Margaret watched her fondly. No one could have predicted the friendship that had grown between the tall princess and her dwarf, but with her quick intelligence and ability to read her mistress’s every humor, Fortunata was firmly established as Margaret’s favorite companion.

  “A silver penny for your thoughts, my lady,” a familiar voice from her past murmured behind her. She swung round to face John Harper, his yellow-brown eyes smiling into hers. She had forgotten how handsome he was.

  “Master Harper, you startled me,” she said, smiling back. “God’s greeting, sir. I do not remember how long ago it was when …” She tailed off, remembering exactly when it was he had given her that moment of ecstasy.

  He picked up her hand that still held a buttercup and kissed it. “Ah, my lady, but I do. Would you like to know how many days I have counted since then?” His tone was seductive, and Margaret was tempted to flirt with him. But knowing how many eyes were upon them from her immediate circle to others who might be at the dozens of windows in the palace, she resisted the temptation. Perhaps Anthony was among those observing this little scene, she thought. Besides, she realized somewhat regretfully, she had no desire for John anymore. His desire for her, however, seemed to be as strong as ever.

  “Dare I hope I have been as much in your mind as you have in mine, my lady? When I saw you among the queen’s party arriving from London, my heart stopped beating.” He was still holding her hand, so she gently but firmly disengaged herself from him.

  “Master Harper, I am flattered by your declaration, but I was young when we first met, and I must ask your forgiveness that I behaved as I did with you. Please tell me you forgive me, and that this must be an end to our …” She didn’t quite know what the correct word was.

  “Affaire de coeur, madam,” the crushed young man finished for her. “Ah, lady, then I must leave you with my broken heart.” He bowed curtly and strode over the grass to the palace. Margaret sighed. He was indeed appealing, but she knew she was destined for greater things. She hoped she had not been too cruel.

  WHEN SHE SAW Anthony dancing with his wife, her thoughts flew back to the meeting in the garden. If she had not rebuffed John and could be flirting with him now, she might have been able to give Anthony cause for jealousy. She was surprised by the resentment she harbored for Eliza Scales. The woman was quite obviously unaware of the magnificent man she had for a husband, for she hardly looked at him during the intricate steps of the basse danse. Certes, Margaret knew dance decorum ruled that a woman was not supposed to lift her eyes to her partner’s face, but tedium was written all over Eliza’s countenance. She was plainly bored with the dance, with her partner and with the whole court. Margaret wondered how she had taken the news that she was to be one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, an enormous honor for Anthony’s wife.

  Anthony was constantly by Edward’s side these days, much to the chagrin of Will Hastings, who was, however, still the king’s right-hand man. Through the years, there had been some bad blood over a land dispute between the Hastings and Woodville families, but Edward seemed oblivious to the hostility and trusted both men implicitly, making them uncomfortable bedfellows among his closest advisers.

  Margaret grimaced watching the couple now. How she longed to have Anthony drop his wife’s hands, take Eliza to a chair and come and invite her to dance in Eliza’s stead. She and George had spent hours with their dancing master at Greenwich and had become accomplished dancers, and she knew she would make Anthony a better partner.

  George must have thought about those lessons at precisely the same time, for there he was, exquisitely dressed in a peacock-blue doublet and spotless white hose, to ask for a dance. He tucked the trailing ends of his long sleeves in his belt behind his back and executed a graceful bow. Margaret draped the train of her skirt over her arm, showing off the brilliant blue silk underdress. The minstrels picked up their pace, the recorders, crumhorns, rebecs and tambourines striking up a lively saltarello, which allowed the dancers’ feet to leave the ground. Even though George was not as tall as Margaret, they were well matched in skill, and all eyes were on them as they made their way nimbly around the hall, her cream satin gown swirling gracefully behind her.

  Edward, already in his cups, applauded loudly as they made their bow to each other at the end of the dance. George basked in Edward’s admiration and slowly and deliberately led Margaret to the throne, where they both made their obeisance.

  “Why don’t you ask Bess to dance, George? I think she is every whit as good as Meg here. Go, my love,” he said to his wife, “I would see you dance.”

  Elizabeth rose, curtseyed to Edward and took George’s arm. Edward patted her vacant seat. “I have seen your Harper friend here tonight, Meggie. He seems down in the mouth. Why don’t you cheer him up?” Edward muttered behind his hand. “’Tis no good pining for Anthony—aye, I have seen you staring lovelorn at him. You need a good romp in the hay with a lusty young man who has no wife!”

  “Ned! Will you stop tempting me to risk my maidenhead,” Margaret said, also behind her hand. “I am in control of my behavior, which is more than I can say for you. You have been married but a year, and I have seen you make sheep’s eyes at several ladies in that time. And the rumors! ’Tis even said you have a bastard, and I cannot doubt it,” she tut-tutted teas-ingly. “How will Elizabeth put up with you? Does she know about Eleanor Butler, for example?”

  Margaret was not prepared for the reaction to this name from the past, simply the first name that came into her mind. She saw Edward grip his chair until his knuck
les were white, the color of his face when he turned and leveled his furious gaze on her. Had they been alone, she might have expected him to hit her.

  “What do you know about Eleanor Butler?” he hissed under his breath, so angry that she was truly afraid of him.

  “N-nothing, Ned, I swear. I only … Oh, I am so s-sorry …” She could not go on for the tears that welled up. She was grateful that they were set apart from the rest of the company so that no one could see her humiliation.

  “You swear you know naught of Eleanor?” he said again, a little more gently. “Why did you mention her then?” His blue eyes bored through her, and the fear in them surprised her back to her rational self. Why, he is afraid of the Butler woman, she thought. Why? She had not seen Eleanor at court for more than two years, and everyone surmised Edward had grown tired of her.

  “I know naught of her, I swear to you, Ned. Her name sprang into my mind, ’tis all. Did you cast her aside unkindly?” She waited, but Edward was sullenly silent. “Ah, perhaps ’twas she who cast you aside,” she said, certain she had hit on the truth. “Is that why you are so angry? Fear not, brother, for I did the same thing today in the garden with Master John Harper.” She was cajoling him to let go of his black humor, and when she saw his complexion regain its natural color and his full mouth turn up at the corners, she knew she had succeeded.

  “Oh, well, Meggie, more’s the pity. The young man might have given you a good deal of pleasure!” Edward chose not to answer her question about Eleanor, and he called to an attendant for more wine. Margaret sat back thankfully, her fear of him abating, and she vowed not to cross him again.

  A FEW DAYS later, when seasonal showers were keeping everyone indoors, Elizabeth summoned Margaret to her privy chamber. Margaret still had difficulty acknowledging Elizabeth’s superiority after so many years as the highest-ranked lady at Edward’s court after Cecily, who was rarely in attendance there. However, dutifully she hurried to her sister-in-law’s side, Fortunata and Beatrice in her wake. Margaret had not been sorry to say good-bye to Ann, whose new husband had begged to be allowed to take his bride to live on his estates a few months previously. Jane was in seclusion with her monthly courses and regretfully relinquished her place to Beatrice.