Mistress of Mourning (33 page)

I kept nodding off as I sat at table in the common room, eating tough roast beef with Nick and several other guards I’d come to know. Besides, each bite reminded me of that dead steer in the bog. I soon excused myself and went off to the small third-floor chamber I shared with two women from Prince Arthur’s former household, who were being returned to London. At least they were both English, but it was sad to see how severely the princess Catherine’s household was being reduced.

I collapsed in the single large bed, lying with my face to the wall while they whispered together near the hearth about hoping to find positions with someone else of import at court. I hadn’t shared a bed with anyone for such a long time, but the three of us would fit in this one well enough. If only, I prayed, we would not have to share it with bedbugs, or even the mice I could hear in the thatched roof above.

I drifted toward sleep the wiser that night, glad I had no part of Surrey…and his mistresses…for I was counting not coins but the hours until I would be home and see my
son again. I could not lose my dear boy, though the queen had lost hers and so much more.…

Queen Elizabeth of York

His Majesty and I had been forcing ourselves to eat, for we had no appetite. Sleep came no easier. I could tell he was restless too. I punched my feather pillow in the vast royal bed and said, “I do feel a bit better to know Arthur has now been laid to rest. Better, that is, unless we discover foul play, and that horrid gift of the heart seems to indicate that. My father used to say a spirit did not rest easy if it had been cruelly dispatched until his or her murder was solved and the perpetrator punished.”

“In other words, if someone dies in battle or is executed for a crime, they lose more than their life? They are haunted, or haunt others, for all eternity unless their murderers are repaid in kind? I don’t want to hear such heresy, and not from you. It isn’t civilized, and it isn’t Christian.”

“My dear lord,” I said, fumbling for his hand in the dark, “let’s not argue or have a philosophical discussion tonight.” He had been more than testy lately—entirely on edge. I understood that people mourned differently. A king cannot weep and wail, nor cling to painted waxen effigies of those lost as if they were flesh and blood.

“Nor is it Christian to torture someone in the Tower. Elizabeth, besides the loss of our heir, I realize you aren’t happy that I said you should not ask me about James Tyrell’s inquisition in the Tower—that I would tell you when there was something to tell.”

My heartbeat kicked up. “Then is there?”

“On the rack, Tyrell admitted several things. On the initial line of questioning, he confessed that he gave shelter and succor to several Yorkist enemies of our Crown when they passed through France—gave them food, drink, and a bed. I have no doubt that he offered encouragement and mayhap funding too”—his voice rose—“in
my
castle there, when he had vowed to be
my
man! That alone is enough to bring treason charges. And Lord Lovell was one of those men.”

“Not him again! Like a ghost, he keeps arising from rumors of his death. So they could well have been in collusion for other dreadful deeds. I vow they sound like a pair, Tyrell and Lovell! But you said Tyrell admitted to something else?”

“Your instincts were right about him. At first he merely confessed he was in and out of the Tower at the time of your brothers’ demise, and insisted that so were others and he knew naught else on the matter of the princes in the Tower’s disappearance and fate. And then, I believe since he knew he would be accused of treason anyway, he evidently decided to cleanse his filthy soul. Without further torture, he admitted that he and two rough fellows, now both dead, did enter the boys’ chamber in the White Tower and smother them with the down pillows and coverlets on their beds.”

I gasped and sat up in bed. Henry held hard to my hand, but with my other I instinctively threw my coverlet off and my down pillow to the floor. I wanted to collapse in sobs and beat the wooden headboard, but I continued to clutch Henry’s hand and stared into the darkness of our chamber, seeing it all, the horror and the children’s helplessness. In
their last moments of life, did they think of their mother and me? Had Arthur, too, thought of me?

“Done, I assume,” I finally choked out, “at my uncle Richard’s orders to strengthen his claim to the throne?”

“Yes. I am so sorry to tell you all this now, with our recent loss, but it seemed so important to you.…”

“Seemed? Yes. Yes! And my brothers’ bodies?”

“He swears he does not know. That the other two accomplices—”

“Tell me their names!”

“A Miles Forest and one John Dighton, both deceased. I looked into it.”

“And now we can tell the world what happened!”

Though I sat stiffly away from him, he sat up and tugged me into his arms. “No, Elizabeth. Listen to me. I do not want all this brought up again, noised about to churn up rumors and lies. Publicly, we will let Tyrell die for his treachery in France, not for this, but we will know the truth. Now is the time the nation must mourn our Arthur and soon enough celebrate Henry as the new Prince of Wales, once I think he’s really ready. We must move forward, and now that you know what happened, the past must be dead.”

I did not argue, though I disagreed with him completely. He had done what I had asked, learned who had murdered my brothers, who should have been the king and the next in line to him. But did he not know that, for me, the past was not dead? And though I might never have their bodies—bones and dust now, who knew where?—to bury with pomp as we had our Arthur, I had their waxen and cloth forms hidden away, so real they seemed almost to breathe.

I breathed too, letting out a huge sigh. I let my husband hold me as my mind went back over all he had said.

“Tyrell’s to be executed?” I whispered.

“Very soon, but not too hastily, not right on top of Arthur’s burial today. Beheaded on Tower Hill and that will be the end of that for him—for you too.”

I nodded, but, by the Virgin’s veil, I wondered whether Tyrell’s losing his head could really keep me from losing my mind.

Mistress Varina Westcott

When we arrived back on Candlewick Street in London, I dismounted in the chandlery courtyard and, leaving Nick and Rhys behind, burst through the door and ran into the shop. This was April the twenty-fifth, and I had been gone three weeks when I had thought I was going away only overnight.

No one was in the shop. Surely Arthur was home from school by now. I thudded down the hall and up the stairs to our living quarters. “Arthur! Mother’s home!” I shouted, and heard his voice and footsteps as he ran to meet me.

Heedless of how big he was getting, I swept him into my arms and spun him around the way I did when he was smaller, planting wild kisses on both his cheeks before I remembered that I hadn’t so much as invited Nick and Rhys in.

“My precious boy!” I cried, and set him down to hold his hands out from his sides to examine him. “My, but you’ve grown!” I cried as Gil and Maud ran in and gave me hugs, then began to rattle off all that had occurred in my absence.
Faithful Jamie, hat in hand, appeared from somewhere and waved to me before, I supposed, heading out to the courtyard to talk to Nick.

It was so good to be home, but I knew I could not stay, even now. Not after all that had happened. I had a half hour to bathe and change my clothes, for we were going to see the queen.

All the way on the barge to Westminster, as Nick frowned into the river and Rhys gawked at everything and held our horses, I kept silently rehearsing what I would say to Her Majesty. I planned first to give her the comforting news. How the Welsh and English alike had mourned and honored Prince Arthur. How Princess Catherine had seemed deeply grieved and in love with him. Perhaps then I would describe the funeral service—saving, of course, the news about the two crudely carved candles for last. Nick carried them even now in a saddle pack over his shoulder to show her. How I wished I could be giving her another of my carved angel candles instead, one with Arthur’s fine features etched in it, but I’d had no time or tools to make it.

We left Rhys with the horses, since for now he was to be Nick’s squire. With a nod from the guard at the outer door, as ever we went in the back way, up stairs, down narrow hallways, and entered the chamber where I had spent so much time carving the four royal effigies. The queen, who had been sent word we were coming, awaited us there, pacing among her waxen kith and kin. Full well I noted that a large, new block of fine beeswax for carving stood in the dim corner, but I said naught on that.

Nick bowed, and I curtsied. Her Majesty stepped forward and raised us. She was garbed all in pearl-studded black satin that whispered when she moved. “I thank the saints and the holy Virgin you are safe. I must hear all you learned, but the king is coming to my withdrawing chamber so that you can explain to both of us. Is there…is there much to tell of the special charge I gave you…of the prince’s death?”

“There is,” Nick and I said almost in unison.

I watched her expression change from hopeful to vengeful—I swear that is what I saw as she clenched her fists and her nostrils flared. I noted she was thinner, paler, with little crow’s-feet perched deeper at the corner of each blue eye.

“I knew it,” she said through gritted teeth. “And the king must too.”

It had been staggering enough for me to meet the queen six months ago, but to be called to explain all this to the king! My knees were shaking, but Nick seemed only eager as we followed Her Majesty to her suite of rooms. I tried to buck myself up that, after all I had been through in Wales, this was nothing to fear. The one to fear was the man who murdered anyone who got in the way of his treachery and vengeance.

As we entered the queen’s withdrawing chamber, I was shocked by the king’s appearance, but calmed by it too, for he seemed genuine in his grief. In processions and parades, he had looked great and grand, with broad padded shoulders and fine, flashing garments as he rode or strode past. Now he seemed shrunken, gaunt, his skin sallow and his hair lank.
How he must have suffered Arthur’s loss, not only as prince but also as son.

My heart went out to both of them, for I understood their pain if not their position. Why, if I learned my sweet Edmund—or my own Arthur—had been poisoned, I would hunt his killer to the ends of the earth! Yet how relieved I would be when they sent others besides me out looking for their son’s poisoner.

“Rise,” His Majesty said as we both bent before him. “The queen has told me of your covert mission in Wales, so what say you? Nick?”

Nick began to recount what had happened at Ludlow. I warrant it was best he spoke, for I would have colored it all with more emotion. But he stopped after telling them of our first visit to Fey and what we found in the cromlech, turned to me, and said, “Varina, why don’t you explain what happened when I wasn’t with you—the second interview with the princess and what happened in the bog?”

My voice trembled at first but picked up speed and pluck. I told of all that; then, with a nod from Nick, I explained my encounter with the mysterious man in the cemetery of St. Mary Abchurch in London nearly six months ago. I went on to what had happened to me in the crypt, omitting that Firenze and I had created the queen’s effigies, implying only that the artist and I were linked by the chandlery guild’s painted coat of arms. I included the best description we had of the peddler, broached the topic of the wild garlic, and mentioned the carcass of the king’s beast found cut open near the bog.

The king interrupted. “That’s where the traitor got that
heart he sent us! I believe this story can only get worse! Arthur was poisoned, wasn’t he? Our Prince of Wales was poisoned, and someone’s going to pay!” He crossed his arms over his chest, then grasped his shoulders as if to hold himself up. “Why in God’s precious name didn’t Surrey suspect any of this? But Arthur—out on a quest for a garlic love potion and with only two guards? Why did he think I sent all those guards along?”

“Your Majesty,” the queen interjected, “he was only a young man in love who wanted to make us proud by begetting a son. At least he had his wife’s love and ours too—he knew that, so it made him bold, bold as you have ever been.”

The king snorted and began to pace. He almost made me dizzy. Nick picked up the tale again, adding information about our visit to the herbalist and how he gave us the link between the harmless wild garlic and deadly meadow saffron.

“And, Your Majesty,” he added, “the peddler-poisoner’s knowledge of local lore and of the lay of the land suggests he was someone who used to live in the Ludlow area.”

“As did a huge rat’s nest of Yorkist loyalists, the ones who served Richard and were there with him before Bosworth Field and some at Stoke! Say on. Is there more? We owe you much in gratitude and payment, but is there more?”

With a nod at me to explain, Nick withdrew the two pieces of black candles with the grotesque faces on them. I told of how quickly and cleverly they had been hacked apart, crudely carved and thrown into the crypt, even how we had retrieved them.

“In and out of many a scrape, eh, Mistress Westcott?”
the king said. I vow there was a hint of admiration in his voice.

Each of them took a candle from us and gaped at it. The king swore a string of oaths and heaved his into the cold ashes on the hearth. “It’s…it’s worse than the heart,” the queen whispered, and, as if it burned her, she thrust her candle back at me and collapsed into a chair.

“We’ll get him!” the king vowed with clenched fists. “We’ve faced opposition before, but somehow, none as covert or insidious. Instead of raising rebellions around impostors or leading men in battle, the cowardly churl’s gone underground! It’s Lovell; I swear it is!”

He raised his head to look me straight in the eye, then back at Nick. I had no time to realize I should have lowered my gaze.

“Nicholas Sutton and Mistress Westcott, you have served us well,” the king said. “Nick, can you give even more information about this tall, caped, white-haired, bearded man with the raspy but commanding voice who dared to walk about our capital city and perhaps stalked Prince Arthur even then? And for some reason, he accosted Mistress Westcott in a city cemetery and a crypt—both places of mourning and the dead. Either or both of you, speak up again.”