Queen of Trial and Sorrow (11 page)

Finally, wearing a lesser crown, I exited the abbey in stately procession with the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Essex preceding, and was led to a chamber furnished with a daybed where I was allowed a short rest.

“You did very well,” Anne whispered.

“She’s still doing well,” Mary pushed our sister aside.  “Oh, Bess, I’m not ashamed to admit I wept.  To see you like that…To actually see you crowned…”

Reclining on the bed, the crown winking on a cushion beside me, I gazed around the chamber.  It seemed half the congregation of St. Peter’s had followed me in and were talking very loudly.  I wished they would all go.  I wanted a moment, just a moment, to relish the simple facts that my future was settled; that I need never again worry about having no home and nothing to live on but the charity of my family; my unborn children would be royal; together Edward and I would found a new dynasty.  Married, crowned; all that was left was to produce an heir.  It was all quite overwhelming. I had never before felt such a compulsion to laugh and weep at the same time.

There was still a banquet to be got through, but I had little appetite.  The truth is, I’d had enough of ceremony.  I wanted nothing more than to divest myself of the heavy crown and curl up in the arms of my husband.  When it was all over and I was finally able to retire I could look back with pride on a day in which I had played my part with all the dignity and presence of any princess born.

Edward didn’t quite know what to make of my brother Anthony, who had a habit of asking questions about the nature of Purgatory or the implausibility of eternity.  He was a contradiction: an ascetic dandy, a pragmatic philosopher, and a peace-loving knight. 

One warm summer evening, we were sitting on the grass in Westminster’s garden.  Edward had ordered over one hundred rose bushes from Provence – white roses, of course.  They were in full bloom, scenting the air around us.  William Berkeley, one of the king’s squires of the household, was playing a gay little melody.  Lady Lute, he called his favorite instrument. She was his mistress and he played her like a lover, stroking her shapely body to coax forth throbbing sighs and moans of ecstasy, frenetic rhythms and squeals of joy.  It was one of the things Edward and I had in common, a love of music, and Berkeley’s sensual cascade of sound was often in the background of our lives.

Edward waved Anthony over and asked him: “Which is better – truth or lies?”

“Better for what?”

“Oh, by Our Blessed Lady!  You philosopher types.  Can’t you give a simple answer to a direct question?” 

“I’m not a philosopher type, Sire.  Just a simple man in search of the truth.”

Edward pounced. “Ah, so you favor truth?”

“He suspects a trap,” I said.  I was stripping a rose of its petals for use in my bath.

My brother sighed, resigned.  “Let us say, for the sake of argument and for the novelty of it, that truth is better than lies.”

“All right.  You are an advocate.  State your case for truth.”

That had Anthony flustered.  “Well… It ought to be self-evident.  Truth is… Only through truth can we come to understanding and enlightenment.”

“I can see you haven’t thought this through,” Edward said loftily.  “I am a proponent of lies, a champion of these most useful verbal tools.  Can you imagine a world without them?  It would be: No, sir, I do not like your new doublet.  It makes you look fat and you have handicaps enough with your brain and your manners.  Or: God save you, my lord, I almost forgot to mention: I swived your wife last night.  I’m not sorry and I intend to do it again next Tuesday.  And by the way, how old is that fetching daughter of yours?”  The laughter had been growing with each word, and he had to pause before he could be heard.  “Oh, the pandemonium!  The fights!  The feuds!  We should all bow down and worship the humble lie.  It should be venerated in place of truth – which is supremely overrated – for without it our world would descend into chaos.”

“Lies!  All lies!” Anthony giggled.  “In court and city, your Highness is known for your candor.”

“That is a façade I’ve fostered.”

“But tell me, why do you say truth is overrated?”

“Because it is so vague, so undefined, so open to interpretation.  How many times have you heard someone use the term half-truth?  Do you suppose one day we’ll hear about a quarter truth?  A fraction of truth?  A lie is a lie.  It’s absolute.  So, in a sense, it’s more honest than the truth.”

Anthony bowed, hand over heart.  “Sire, I concede.  Will you allow me to retire from the field?”

“What a sophist you are!” I said to the king, and he laughed and sprawled out beside me with his head pillowed in my lap.  I leaned over him, very close, and whispered: “I have a sweet secret.”

A slow smile spread, as if he already guessed: “Tell me.”

So I told him.  Those who wagered I would be with child before Christmas lost their money.  Those who said, surely before the coronation we’ll hear something were wrong.  It wasn’t until I had missed two courses that I was certain enough to call in a midwife who confirmed my suspicion. 

It wasn’t necessary for us to tell the court.  My husband’s behavior needed no interpretation.  Coming to his feet in one fluid motion, he plucked me off the ground into his arms, and spun me around and around, laughing with joy. 

“What beautiful babies we shall have,” he declared, and the courtiers gathered round, applauding. 

“Put me down!” I cried, but I was laughing too at his sheer exuberance.

It should have been a joyous day, but for me it was spoiled by Master Woodhouse, the king’s favorite fool.  He came strutting across the grass, shaking a staff with several bells attached to get the attention of the chattering groups of courtiers.  “King Edward!” he shouted, and Edward looked over at him.

“Sir Fool?”

“Sire, I protest, I had to wade through Rivers to reach you!”

Edward slapped his thigh and roared with laughter and the court laughed along with him.  I did not laugh.  None of the Wydevilles did. 

When the laughter had died down, the Duke of Clarence said: “Have a care you don’t get covered in mire!”  And the hilarity rolled forth in wave after insulting wave.

He was such a beautiful boy, but that’s all he was – a beautiful shell; there were no layers under his skin, no depth, no substance, no moral fiber; he was entirely and shamelessly selfish.  I disliked him intensely.

……….

The court was soon on its way to Canterbury on pilgrimage to offer at the shrine of Thomas Becket for the safe delivery of the child I was carrying.  I traveled in a horse drawn litter with the blinds open to allow me to look out at the beauty of the Kentish countryside.  Kent was called the garden of England for good reason.  Fields rolled out to the clear horizon in a glorious patchwork of green and gold, intersected by crumbling stone walls or hedges from which birds sang, and with sparkling streams or small rivers hugging their boundaries.  Fruit was already swelling in the orchards and market gardens were flourishing.  The air was nectar-sweet.  The roadside ditches were a palette of color: the purple of violet, the scarlet of pimpernel, the blue of speedwell and forget-me-not, the yellow of buttercup and the white of ox-eyed daisy. 

Farmers tending their fields paused to watch; villagers came out of their houses and other travelers stood aside, waving, doffing their caps.  Small boys followed the cavalcade down the road; milkmaids and goose girls flashed their eyes at the young knights and esquires until the tower of Canterbury’s famous cathedral, Bell Harry, came into view.

Kneeling before the fabulous, bejeweled tomb of the martyred archbishop, with my hands pressed tightly together and my husband at my side, I prayed as fervently as I had ever prayed in my life that God grant us the son that was so needful to secure the throne and to elevate me in the eyes of our subjects.

In the archbishop’s palace, where we were staying, we found a messenger waiting with glad news.  Henry of Lancaster, a fugitive in the north for the past two years, had finally been taken captive. ‘Daft Harry’ those of the house of York always called him.  In ’53 the burdens of kingship had so overcome his feeble mind that he had retreated into a darkness so complete that for sixteen months he hadn’t been able to walk, talk, feed himself, recognize or respond to anyone, and had to be swaddled in clouts like an infant.  The occasional return of that mysterious malady had so debilitated him that he was obliged to rely more and more on his domineering wife and her corrupt circle of advisers.  The people of England had truly loved their gentle, pious king, but in the end they were no longer able to stomach the rule of his fierce and warlike queen and ‘threw the baby out with the bathwater.’  Stifling any sense of pity, I wondered what effect living so long as a hunted fugitive would have had on so a frail mind.

“Do you feel better about chancing your future with me now, sweetheart?” Edward asked me.

“Don’t tease me about such a thing,” I chided, and then added.  “I just wish Margaret were in our custody too.”

Having soared from relatively modest beginnings to a dizzying pinnacle of prominence and soon, with God’s Grace, there would be a child at my breast, I lived with the fear that it could all be snatched away if Henry was restored to the throne.  The awful truth was that with another shift in the pattern Louis might find himself in a position to give aid to Lancaster, which was his preferred policy.  He surely must have slept more soundly with an inept like Henry on the English throne than the martial Edward.

“Margaret is in Bar, living in a modest chateau on the pittance her father allows her,” he said.  “She has been unable to raise even enough money to return to Henry’s side.  Louis, Charles and Francis, won't lift a finger to help her for fear of offending me.  Her brother is a shiftless idiot and her father’s poverty is well known.  So poor are her circumstances that she is able to maintain only a small household, and those lords who are her mainstay have been forced to leave her and hire out their swords in order to make a living.  So you see, she is no threat to us.”

“She will never give up.”  I knew this for a fact.  Crowned I might be, and the king’s child safe in my womb, but I would always fear Margaret.

Sometimes he was very careful what he said to me.  War to a woman is all wrapped up with home and family and the fear of loss, whereas a man somehow has the faculty of detaching himself from all other aspects of his life, even, according to Edward, to the extent of being able to enjoy battle.  I believe my husband was coming to see that having a wife involved him in emotional issues that he had not expected.  So although it wasn’t entirely true, he answered confidently: “Lancaster is dead, my love.  All that remains is to bury the bones.”

I forced myself to smile at him.  “Of course.  You have the measure of them all.  I know it.”

He turned to the archbishop.  “Eminence, there must be another procession tomorrow.  We’ll announce the news to the townspeople.”

……….

I spent a great deal of time at Shene, which I was preparing as a nursery for my sons, my wards, my younger siblings and my royal children when they came to be.  There were nurses, governors, tutors and servants to appoint, enough work to keep me occupied during the early months of my pregnancy.  As winter drew on and my belly swelled and even a short trip by barge required more effort than I was prepared to make, my ladies and I spent our time embroidering in my cozy solar.

We had been discussing the idea of embarking on a special project: an altar cloth, for example, or an inspirational tapestry.  And now we had one.  We would create a cover and canopy for the state cradle.  Angels and butterflies would be embroidered upon it and a border of roses and gillyflowers, which was my own device.  We spent several days comparing silks and choosing the best colors, all soft-hued, and then we wasted a good deal of vellum, attempting to draw designs.  Flowers were easy enough, butterflies more difficult and angels very hard.  Eventually, however, we had our design and, with a special prayer to St. Clare of Assisi, the patron of embroiderers, we went happily to work.  

My chambers were havens of peace and quiet, except for the sound of subdued female voices and the crackle of a fire.  My ladies were absorbed in their usual nightly tasks: the tiring woman was brushing my hair, while Anne massaged a lotion made by our mother into my hands.  Alice Fogge and Alison Courtney were preparing the bed, laying out wine and water and a snack, tending the fire and putting away my discarded clothes and jewels.  Mary was reading to me from the works of Christine de Pisa.

The king came to me every evening when we were under the same roof, chaffering with my ladies while I finished my toilette, and dressed only in a bedgown underneath which he would be gloriously naked.  I would think about the body under that robe and to what uses he would put it and become suffused with heat.  To fall asleep in his arms, to curl up against that long, strong body, was to know bliss.  I loved it when he woke me in the night to meet the demands of his lust.  Now that I was swollen with pregnancy, he was endearingly tender and gentle.

When my ladies had retired, we each went to our own side of the great bed and stripped off our robes.  As I was about to climb in, he said: “Take off your gown.”

I did as I was bid.  His eyes wandered over me, as tangibly as the touch of a hand, bringing heat in their wake.  I was aware that my breasts were fuller, the nipples plump as lush fruits.  The skin over my humped belly was stretched taut so that it appeared to have an almost silvery sheen in the soft glow of the night candle.  While one arm rested above the hump, I let the other curve below, holding the infant within in the circle of my arms. 

“Am I not ugly like this?” Like most women, I was utterly convinced that I was unattractive when hugely fervid.

“Not at all.  You’re still beautiful but in a different way.  You look… I don’t know… like some pagan goddess of fecundity.”

“How extensive is your acquaintance with such deities?”

He laughed and climbed into bed.  I fitted myself against his shoulder, my curving belly pressed against his waist.  “Here, give me your hand,” I said.  Finding it under the blankets, I placed it upon my naked belly, which suddenly bulged on the right side, and Edward smiled in surprised delight. “Did you feel that?” I exclaimed 

“Feel it?  My hand is bruised!  As soon as he pops out we’re going to have to instruct him that it’s unmannerly to kick his august father.”

“What about his mother?” I demanded, affecting indignation.  “All you feel is a little nudge.  I sometimes feel as if a tiny hand or foot is about to poke its way through my flesh.  Thomas was the worst.  He turned my womb to pulp.”