A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck (8 page)

“Richard!”

The boy, having grown used to the name ‘Peterkin,’ flinches at the use of his old name. The Duchess rises from her gilded chair and embraces him unexpectedly. He flounders in her embrace for a moment, and over her shoulder sees Brampton smothering a laugh. As soon as he is free to do so, he executes the special bow he has been practicing for this meeting while she smiles indulgently.

His aunt launches into a criticism of the recent events in England, and the boy cranes his neck about the vast hall. It is a long time since he has enjoyed such luxury, if indeed he ever has. Every interior surface, the doorways, the ceiling, tables and chairs are encrusted with gold, or something as much like gold as to make no difference. The hangings are the finest he has ever seen. Beside him, Brampton is unaffected by the splendour. He coughs and nudges the boy, indicating that he should speak.

Peterkin bows again and clears his throat.

“It is good to be here at last, Your Grace.”

“Dear Richard,” she says again, lifting his chin with her forefinger to examine his face. “So handsome; so very much like your father.”

She claps her hands and a serving wench enters with a tray of wine and three cups. She places it on a table by the window. The Duchess ushers them toward it and with a wave of her hand bids them admire the vast formal gardens outside. With a jerk of his head Brampton sends the girl away and begins to pour the wine. He bows as he offers the Duchess the first cup.

“I take it you were behind the fiasco at Stoke, Your Grace?” Although there is no one near, he speaks quietly, takes a gulp of wine and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

“It is of no matter. It was an experiment, to test the water. It proved to us that there are many in England who resent Tudor’s rule and who will rise in numbers should the right candidate appear.”

Brampton puts down his cup. “Not many chose to ride against Tudor on this occasion, Your Grace, but many died. How can that be of no matter?”

She fixes him with a sharp stare.

“They knew what they were doing. Both Lovell and Lincoln knew the boy they used as bait was nothing but a dupe. Had they won, we would have replaced him with Richard here, once it was safe to do so.”

She nods toward her nephew. It is strange to be called by his given name again; the boy has grown used to ‘Peterkin’ or ‘boy’. In the early days he saw the rustic name as an insult, but now it has become a term of endearment, a familiarity he has come to enjoy. He has few enough friends and now that he has left Overijsse, he misses Marin as much as he once missed Edward and his sisters. He wonders what she would make of all this.
What is she doing now?
Weeping probably, wishing for his return.

The boy drags his attention away from Marin’s charms and back to the conversation; his aunt is speaking, a flush of agitation spreading on her cheek.

“Next time, mark me, things won’t go as well for Henry Tudor. Perhaps this time we were a little impatient but we will learn from that. Had Tudor not held Lincoln’s father in such close custody, I have no doubt more men would have ridden out beneath our banner. Next time we will know better.”

“Tudor is no easy conquest. He is wily and wise; his life in exile has made him so.”

“Tudor is not made of the material of kings; he is an upstart and a usurper. He will be no match for us.”

The boy wonders how such a weak and feeble king managed to overthrow King Richard, who was one of the finest generals in England. But he says nothing. He can see the Duchess is growing riled. He looks from her to Brampton, listening intently, and for the first time begins to realise that men have actually died for the cause that was lost before it began.

“What of the boy, Simnel, I think they are calling him? What has Tudor done with him?”

Margaret’s laughter tinkles like a thousand tiny bells as she seeks to soothe him. “Tudor is a fool. He has set the boy to work in his kitchen; he is too soft to punish him properly, luckily for the child.”

Richard is relieved to hear it. It would be hard to hear an innocent lad had died on his behalf; a lad who, so they said, was little brighter than the real Warwick he pretended to be.

“Warwick will never be a contestant for any man’s throne. Tudor had him taken from the Tower and paraded through the streets to prove our boy, Simnel, was a pretender. My informers tell me your cousin can barely tell one end of his horse from the other.”

She throws back her head again. The boy watches her; the gaping mouth showing broken teeth, a thick coated tongue that wobbles in her throat as she laughs. The Duchess’s finery goes only so deep, he thinks, and not for the first time wonders if his quest is worth it.

The boy Warwick, whom she mocks, is her nephew too, and Richard realises he himself only finds her favour because he is strong enough to promise victory. Because of his resemblance to his father, the men of York will flock to his banner, but what are the chances of success? His main supporters are made up of one reprobate Portuguese and a dowager Duchess bent on revenge. The others who promise him backing are as yet faceless, too fearful of the Tudor king to join with him openly. The boy sips his wine, feels the thick red Burgundy soothe his throat.

“We need more support,” he says, putting forward his first proposal and moving a step closer to the adult world of intrigue. “France is no friend to England and neither is Scotland. Can we not approach them for backing?”

The Duchess plucks a grape from a piled up bowl and pops it into her mouth. It bulges in her cheek for a moment before she dispatches it to her belly.

“It is all in hand, my dear,” she says. “Now, I have had a chamber prepared for you close to mine. Nelken,” she summons the maid, “take my nephew to his chamber and make him comfortable. There are matters I would discuss with you, Brampton. I will see you at supper, Richard.”

Thus dismissed, the boy obediently puts down his half empty wine cup and follows the girl from the hall. She leads him along great wide corridors and up vast staircases that could take five men abreast going up, and another five coming down. At the turn in the stair she pauses, one hand on the bannister, and looks over her shoulder at him while she waits for him to catch up. He looks about him with his mouth open, overawed at the grandeur of the palace. As they progress side by side to the upper floor, a host of disapproving framed Belgian royalty watch them go, their painted eyes seeming to follow, an arrogant knowing quirk upon their brush-stroked lips.

She throws open the chamber door and the boy enters. The room is vast; the bed in the centre is itself the size of a small ship. There are windows on three sides looking across formal gardens to the wooded hillside beyond. Everything is splendid; dark carved wood, plush rich coverlets, thick bright hangings, and enough candles to illuminate a cathedral. It is far grander than he’d been used to in England and certainly grander than the humble monastery he’d recently left.

He turns from the window and looks on the bed, the promise of downy softness making him yawn. It is a bed made for sharing.

“Are you going to rest now, Your … Sir?”

She is unsure how to address him. After all, who is he? A king? A prince? Or a bastard his aunt has picked up on the streets? At the sound of her voice he turns in surprise. He had not realised the girl still lingered. He gives a half laugh and tosses his cap onto a nearby chair.

“Yes,” he says as he sits on the edge of the mattress. “Would you help me with my boots?”

She is pretty, plump and pink and probably fragrant. She kneels at his feet, her skirts swelling around her and begins to untie his laces, glancing up at him from time to time as she works. Her head is covered by her cap but at the nape of her neck a few strands of red hair have escaped. He imagines it flowing, cinnamon red and fragrant, about her shoulders. She looks up again and, from his advantaged position, he can see the swell of her young breasts above her bodice, a pulse in the base of her throat. The shape of her chin, the youthful curve of her cheek reminds him of Marin and loneliness floods him.

“What is your name?” he asks gently and the girl blushes, her face turning as pink as the rapidly setting sun.

“Mother? What is happening?” I turn a circle in the centre of the chamber where my mother’s belongings are in disarray. Her clothing and books are piled into coffers as if she is preparing for a journey.

She turns to me, her face grey with sorrow.

“The king is sending me from court. It seems I am no longer welcome here.”

I move closer, my head whirling as if I am entering a nightmare.

“Not welcome? Why now? I don’t understand.”

I watch in disbelief as she picks up a shift, examines it for stains and discards it on the floor.

“Then you are a simpleton. Your husband has been slowly ousting my influence upon you. First, in February, he commandeered my holdings and gave me a pitiful pension of four hundred marks a year. Now he is sending me into seclusion at Bermondsey.” She sniffs and pulls off her hood, shakes out her hair. I see threads of silver that were never noticeable before.

“Bermondsey?”

The abbey lies across the river, opposite the Tower. There is not another abbey in England more suited to ensure she never forgets for a moment to think about the life she has lost and the suspected murder of her sons. Surely Henry and his mother have not picked it for that very reason? I try and fail to imagine my flamboyant mother cloistered in a nunnery, on her knees in prayer when she could be dancing. Why is Henry doing this? Why now?

“Has he given a reason?”

She shrugs, looks down at the heaped finery upon the bed. She gathers it up.

“I will give this to Cecily. I will have no need of it where I am going.”

I step closer, lay my hand on hers and wait until she raises her eyes to mine.

“Why now, Mother?”

“He seems to think I may have had something to do with this latest unrest … at Stoke.”

Unrest is putting it mildly; according to my informers the battle was wild and bloody. Although Henry pardoned any who surrendered to him, the conflict was fierce and the losses high. There is always too much blood in war.

“And did you?”

“Did I what?” Her eyes are indignant now, a hint of colour in her papery cheeks.

“Did you know of it? Did you intrigue against us?”

She pulls her arm away and marches to the outer chamber, ordering her women to hurry up with their allotted tasks. “And find my daughter Bridget and send her to me,” she demands. “I would have one daughter about me who has some faith in her mother.”

I follow her, halt halfway across the room. “I have to know, Mother. I have to know if I can trust you. I am your first born. How could you betray me, and my son? Are we not Plantagenets too?”

She refuses to answer. Even when I demand it in the name of queen. She gives me a derisive scowl and continues to sort her belongings, angrily throwing some upon the floor and stashing others in boxes. I watch for a while, as unwanted as her discarded linen. After a while I turn away, and hurry to my own apartments.

The fear that she may have plotted against me will not subside. I try to remember who visited her chamber regularly, the people she writes to, but I am not with her constantly enough to recall them all. As I gaze unseeing from the window, I realise I should share my fear with Henry but I know I won’t. As long as he is unsure of her involvement she is safe but, my mother or not, the moment he has proof of her duplicity, her life will be forfeit.

I miss her more than I thought. At first I try to persuade Henry of her innocence, but he is immoveable. Without her I am alone; it is not until she is gone that I realise how often I turned to her for support or advice. My sister Cecily has become too close to the king’s mother for me to prove a reliable confidante, and my cousin, Margaret, is married now and making ready to accompany her husband, Sir Richard Pole, to Ludlow where they will have the overseeing of Arthur’s care. I am wary that she may confide my secrets to her new husband. He is the king’s cousin and Margaret is already in despair at his refusal to intervene on her brother’s behalf. She says that he has no desire to embroil himself in politics, so poor little Edward of Warwick continues to live apart from all his kin in the grim keep of the Tower of London. I sometimes fear he will remain there for the rest of his life.

*

It is late when Henry pays an unexpected visit to my chamber and I am already half asleep. I have been head-achey and weepy all day and my heart sinks when he takes off his robe and slips naked beneath the sheet. I am not in the mood for his lovemaking but I know better than to demur.

I try to show willing while he grunts and sweats on top of me, but the glimmering attraction I once felt diminishes as my sadness increases. Since he deprived me of my mother I have known little else but sorrow, and even went so far as to ask for little Arthur to come to court. It seems this was wrong of me. Princes should be raised away from courtly intrigue, in a separate household to the king; it says so in the king’s mother’s precious book. When Henry has done, he rolls from my body to lie at my side. He is breathing heavily as we stare without seeing at the high canopy above us.

“Are you comfortable?”

I jerk my limbs irritably. Why does he always ask that? It is as if he feels his manhood is so vast that I am too weak to bear it. I hide my irritation and answer that I am well.

He pulls himself higher on the pillows and reaches for a cup on the nightstand.

“I thought we could begin preparation for your coronation soon.”

At first I think I have misheard. Like so many things, my coronation has long been a bone of contention between us. I had begun to believe he meant to dishonour his promise.

“That will please the people; it is long overdue.”

He slurps wine from his cup.

“A king cannot organise his queen’s crowning in the midst of a rebellion. The delay is their fault, not mine.”

I know that is not the complete truth. Henry has been reluctant to crown me until he himself felt secure. Now he has wiped out most of the lingering Yorkist party, he feels safe to go ahead.

“When is it likely to be?”

“I thought November. That should give us time to arrange everything.”

“Mother will be pleased. Do I have your permission to visit her and ask her to attend?”

A long silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames in the hearth and the slight wheeze of his breathing.

“You may visit but do not invite her. She must remain where she is, out of the public eye.”

I sit up, shocked from my usual controlled calm.

“Henry, she is my mother. How would you like it if your mother was not there?”

I cannot keep the resentment from my voice, and the words ‘
your mother’
are replete with bitterness.

Henry remains unmoved. He turns cool hooded eyes upon me. “I would not like it at all, my dear,” he says. “But
my
mother’s loyalty is unshakeable. She would die for me.”

I slide from the bed, my hands shaking as I struggle into my robe.

“And that is what you want, is it, Henry? Complete subjection? Women who will die for you? Well, you won’t get it from me.”

The corridor, lit only by sconces, is dim; too dim for the guards to see my tears as I dash past them. I burst into the chamber that Margaret shares with my other ladies and locating her with some difficulty, I drag her from her bed.

“What is it, Bess?” She stumbles after me, still stupid with sleep. The other women peer curiously from their pillows and I know that, come morning, my midnight breakdown will be on everyone’s lips.

We hurry to a small antechamber and I fall sobbing into a chair. I am shaking from head to toe. I have crossed the king, for the first time I have spoken out against him. He could cast me off; shut me up in a nunnery like he has my mother.

At last Margaret strikes a light, and the candle illuminates her like an angel of mercy. She opens her arms and I fall into them. Her grip is solid and warm as she tries to make sense of my garbled, frightened words.

*

Henry does not come near again. For weeks I hear nothing more of the coronation. I visit my mother and tell her my fears, but there is little she can do to reassure me.

“You should have kept calm. There is nothing inflames a man like indifference. Now he knows your weakness he will use it against you. Warwick, me, the future of your sisters, are all tools he will use to control you. You must learn to turn the other cheek.”

I sniff and wipe my eyes on the corner of my veil. Impatiently, she hands me a kerchief. She is right; Henry and his mother use our family as if we are counters in a game. Although my little sister Bridget has made it clear she wishes to become a nun, the king’s mother wants to marry her to James, the king of the Scots. In the past she has gone so far as to persuade Henry to offer my mother to the Scottish king,too. Scotland is too close for comfort and, should they ever become a real foe, their court would provide a perfect nest for our enemies
.
Henry is desperate to get King James on our side.

I look about my mother’s humble chamber. It is comfortable enough. There is glass in the windows and hangings on the wall, but compared with the majesty she is accustomed to, it is a bleak outlook; almost as bleak as my future.

I let out a gusty sigh and she takes my hands.

“Listen to me,” she says as she strokes my brow. “No matter what sorrows come, there are always methods for making our lives sweeter. Henry has not treated me so badly. I am warm and dry. I am alive. And things could have gone much worse for you. Outwardly, I am nothing more than his prisoner, yet in here,” she taps her temple, “I am as free as a bird. No man can tell us what to think.”

I blink up at her, the soft tone caressing and sweet, reminding me of the times as a child when I took a tumble in the garden and she picked me up to rub my knees. As the meaning behind her words becomes clear, I begin to feel a little better. She continues to speak and as she does so, something unleashes in my mind and I realise what I must do, how I must behave.

“He married you, didn’t he, when he could have kept you under lock and key? And now, you say he plans a coronation. You will be queen, you will have everything. Riches, fine clothes, jewels… Be grateful. It could be a lot worse. Don’t be a bull like your father was, be subtle and spin your womanly web like a spider about him, until he is yours.”

I find I am nodding, but then I remember the flaw in her plan.

“But he has not been near me in private for months, not since I crossed him.”

She laughs merrily at my simple mind.

“He will, my dear. He hungers for another son. No king is safe with just one; look at your father, he wasn’t secure with two. You are beautiful, royal blood flows in your veins, and Henry Tudor has always coveted both. He will come to you, once he finds he can no longer stay away.”

I lay my head on her shoulder, inhale her familiar scent. “I am glad we are friends again, Mother.”

I feel her body shake with mirth beneath me. “You are my daughter. I will always be your friend, come what may …”

I sit up. Our eyes meet, full of love, full of gladness, but as I gaze at her, I realise hers are shadowed. Her smile conceals deeper sorrows than I will ever know.

“Mother, do you know what became of Edward and Richard? Do they live still? I wish you’d tell me.” My voice is all but a whisper.

She pulls down a shutter between us and turns sadly away.

“If I knew they still lived, Elizabeth, I’d not tell you for you’d carry it straight to the king. Your son and mine place a barrier between us, but it is only a silken screen. It will not destroy the love I bear you. Be content with that.”