Rebellion (23 page)

‘I hope you realize that we are very fond of
your son – and proud of him too – just as if he was our own.'

He is not your own
, she did not
say.

‘He is a fine young man – very intelligent
and quick to learn – oh yes. Much quicker than I was at his age.' He laughed a little.
‘But then, I was only ever really interested in horses. And fishing.' He laughed again,
and she waited impatiently for him to finish.

‘I know this must be difficult for you
–'

‘Why should you think that?' she asked
sharply, and he smiled a little, continuing as if she had not spoken.

‘You have not been able to see much of him
over the years and I regret that. I hope we can rectify it in future.'

She did not reply. She did not want to
jeopardize any chance she had of seeing her son.

‘Probably it came as a shock to you – the
news that we are already considering his marriage.'

‘Not at all,' she said evenly. ‘It is your
right.'

‘It is our honour,' he said. ‘I hope you
know that it is a mark of our especial regard for him that we want to keep him as our
son.'

She turned to face him fully, smiling. ‘He
is not your son,' she said.

‘I know that, of course,' Lord Herbert said.
‘He has received all the education and training befitting his especial status.'

She waited.

‘I would not have it any other way – if he
is to marry my daughter, he must have his due – everything according to his background
and estate.'

‘Yes,' she said tightly. ‘He has much to
offer.'

Lord Herbert paused only for a moment. ‘My
daughter has
much to offer also,' he said slowly. ‘In that respect,
they are well matched. But if you have any objections –'

‘It is not for me to arrange my son's
marriage,' she said. ‘I think the king gave you that right, did he not?'

‘But I would not want to arrange anything
against your wishes,' he said. ‘I thought that keeping him here, in Wales, would be a
way, perhaps, of giving him back everything he has lost.'

Everything you've taken from him
,
she thought. ‘That is very generous of you,' she said, and unexpectedly Herbert laughed.
Then he said quietly, ‘It is time, perhaps, to let the past go.'

She looked away, remembering Edmund
suddenly, vividly, golden and laughing. He had never seen his son.

‘It would be better for all of us if we
could be friends.'

She stared at him.
It is not
enough
,
she was thinking,
that you have taken everything I have,
my husband and my son, but we must also be friends.

‘The past,' he was saying, ‘it carries us
along in its grip, like a tidal wave. But old wounds must heal sometime if we let them.
The old enmities cannot last for ever.'

When she still said nothing, he said, ‘What
happened – was not meant to happen. I did not intend any harm to your boy's father. I
was obeying my lord, as he was his – he understood that much, I think. And I have done
my best by his son.'

She could see that he was in earnest – he
believed what he said. He had felt no personal enmity towards Edmund – they were just on
different sides of the same war. And it was one of the rules of war that the victor
should take everything from the vanquished.

Yet he had been a good guardian to her son.
Henry could only gain from an alliance to this family. And the fact that Herbert would
consider marrying him to his daughter was a mark of his affection and esteem.

That was what she must believe. Lord Herbert
believed it and so should she. It fell to the victor to determine what must be
believed.

Lord Herbert was looking
at her with those wide, earnest eyes; waiting for her to speak.

‘I am sure you will do your best,' she said,
a little unevenly, ‘for both our children.'

And his face relaxed into a smile. ‘Thank
you,' he said.

Then she said that she was tired and he
walked with her a little way towards her room, then bowed and left, wishing her an
excellent night's sleep. And she opened the door to her room and lay down, fully
clothed, on her bed.

How would she bear it
? she thought.
She could not bear it.

Help me to bear it
, she prayed.

The next day they were taken on a tour of
the grounds, shown the view from the tower. They visited the schoolroom where Henry
parsed sentences for them in Latin, a small frown of concentration between his eyes. His
shoulders were bowed from the weight of his efforts, but he parsed all the sentences
correctly, and then looked to Lady Herbert, who clapped. Margaret smiled.

They watched as the boys played football,
and her husband joined in and they defeated him easily. Lady Herbert turned to Margaret
with her wide smile and said, ‘He is a very amiable man, your husband.'

‘He is my closest and dearest friend,'
Margaret said. Lady Herbert seemed a little startled by her vehemence, but all she said
was, ‘That's very fortunate for you both,' and they left her husband with the boys while
Lady Herbert showed Margaret the orchard and the lake.

And after that they had a little plate of
cakes and sweetened wine, and Lady Herbert said they should visit the new chapel, where
a chantry had been recently endowed, but Margaret said, ‘I would like to see my
son.'

Lady Herbert's face registered surprise. She
had just seen him, of course, but Margaret said, ‘I have a gift for him.'

‘The children will join us at dinner.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘Now?'

‘I should like to see him.'

Lady Herbert was silent for a moment, then
she said, ‘In about half an hour he will be practising with his falcon. Would you like
to see him then?'

‘I would,' Margaret said.

After a brief respite, therefore, she
followed Lady Herbert through a courtyard and then through the herb garden, then a rose
garden. There was no sign of the bad weather that had afflicted them at Woking. The sky
was a luminous blue.

Probably the sun always shone on Raglan
Castle, she thought, and she wondered, not for the first time, whether some people
really could pass through life unassailed by misfortune. And if so, how could they help
but feel they were specially favoured by God? Lord and Lady Herbert knew they were
favoured by God – how could they doubt it? God loved the Herberts, if He loved no one
else.

Lady Herbert stopped finally on a track
beside a field. ‘There,' she said.

On the far side of the field there was a
small figure. Margaret's heart contracted.
He is alone
,
she thought.
Then she saw that he was not alone. A short but very broad man stood some distance from
him, holding one arm out. His fist was clenched and, as they watched, a bird landed on
it.

‘That is Master Hywel, our falconer,' Lady
Herbert said. ‘He is the best falconer in all of Wales.'

But Margaret was already walking towards her
son.

She crossed the field rapidly, then stopped
a few yards away from him. The falconer was speaking to him. Both of them seemed
engrossed and neither of them looked round.

‘Henry?' she said, and he turned.

There it was again, that wariness in those
light, clear eyes. He stood, neither smiling nor not smiling, as she approached. ‘How
are you?' she said, feeling at the same time that it was a foolish
thing to say.

Henry did not answer immediately. He looked
at the falconer, who nodded slightly, then back towards Margaret. Then he bowed.

That gesture, its awkward formality, almost
undid her. But she would not show it. She stepped closer and extended her hand to him in
a formal greeting. He took it and bowed slightly again. Master Hywel bowed also and
retreated a little way. Then for a moment she and Henry looked at one another and she
saw again the uncertainty in his eyes. He lowered his gaze and stood as if not knowing
what to do. And all the words she had planned to say seemed to be lost somewhere between
her chest and her throat.

‘What is your falcon called?' she asked.

‘Electra,' he said, and he turned to watch
the bird, which was wheeling round the falconer.

‘The goddess of storm clouds,' she said, but
he did not reply, absorbed, apparently, in the motion of the bird.

‘Will she come to you?' she asked.

For answer Henry gave a long whistle and
held his arm out and the bird flew directly to him. He flashed her a quick smile then,
pleased with himself and with the bird. It was the first real smile he had given her and
she clapped enthusiastically. Then he showed her the range of things he could do,
encouraging the bird to wheel round him, to respond to different calls and even to
change direction mid-flight. She understood that he loved the bird, also that she must
respect his reticence. So she stood a little distance from him, providing an audience,
asking questions: how long had he been training the bird, was it his first bird and so
on. But soon they were joined by Lady Herbert, and then she became his audience and he
performed all his actions for her.

She told them that some food had been sent
to the children's room and the falconer returned the bird to its cage.

‘Henry,' Margaret said,
before he could leave, ‘I have brought something for you.'

She had imagined this moment many times, but
in her imagining the two of them were alone. And the nature of the gift would
communicate something between them; something of his lost father, his inheritance and
the love she had felt for him would pass from the small jewelled dagger to her son.

He took it from its cover and looked
uncertainly at it.

‘It was your father's,' she said, and Lady
Herbert said, ‘It is a very fine dagger,' and he glanced at her questioningly as though
she would tell him what to do.

‘Well, Henry,' she said, ‘what do you
say?'

He lowered his eyes again. ‘It is a very
fine dagger,' he said, and he pushed it into his belt.

‘I'm sure he will make excellent use of it,'
said Lady Herbert. ‘But he will not misuse it, I hope,' and she ruffled his hair. ‘Go
along now, your food will be waiting,' she said, and Henry turned at once to leave.

‘He has a sword already,' Lady Herbert said,
and Margaret wished her and her unborn child in hell.

But she would see him again, she told
herself, following Lady Herbert back across the field. She had the rest of the week.
Somehow she would break through her son's reserve.

It didn't happen. All week she watched him
at his studies or at play; jousting with the older boys, practising archery, playing
football with the younger ones.

There was nowhere they could go privately,
that was the problem. The household was so large that someone was always present, and
the other children were always there.

But he was happy with them. He liked them
and they liked him. Slowly it came to her that it was a better place for him here, among
all these children, than with her and her husband alone. And he was in Wales, which was,
after all, the land of his fathers.
And if he did, in fact, marry
Maud, then he might well come into his full inheritance one day.

What could she offer him, by comparison?

Even as she thought this she realized how
fiercely she had determined to remove him if anything had been wrong. If there had been
any sign of unhappiness in him she would have contrived somehow to take him away, in
defiance even of the king. But there was no such sign, she could see that. If she took
him away he would miss all the other children, the falcon, the knightly training, the
great mountainous spaces of Wales. And he would miss
her
, Lady Herbert, though
she did not single him out for any special favour. Margaret watched her keenly for any
sign of prejudice for or against her son, but found none. She regarded all the children
with the same slightly detached affection that called forth their adoration. He would
miss her, perhaps, even more than he would miss all the others.

And she had thought there could be no new
dimensions to her pain.

One night she lay tormented by this,
sweating and unable to sleep. Finally she got up and rested her head on the cool stone
near the window, then looked across the fields to where a great yellow moon hung
suspended as if by magic in the sky.

Oh God help me
,
she
prayed, then,
give me just one chance.

Nothing answered and no breath of air
stirred.

But the next day, which was the day before
they were due to leave, she asked if she could walk with Henry alone in the gardens. And
Lady Herbert said of course, though she seemed to think it a strange request. But she
arranged for Henry to take some time from his lessons and come to her.

They walked together through a series of
enclosed gardens. Twice she changed direction to avoid people who were coming towards
them. And to avoid silence she told him the names of plants and herbs and how she liked
them, and what she did with them. And he said nothing but he listened. Then they came to
a
wall and she said, ‘Do you remember how you used to love to look in
the crevices, to see how many creatures were there?'

He looked at her doubtfully; she could see
that he did not remember. So in desperation she said, ‘Your grandfather came from Wales,
you know.'

And she began telling him the story of Owen
Tudor and Queen Katherine, whom he had married, and how Edmund, his father, had been
their first child, and how he loved Wales.

But then she stopped, because she could
hardly tell him how Edmund had died, held prisoner by the man who was now his guardian.
Or that the same man had beheaded his grandfather. She looked away from him for a moment
and closed her eyes.