“You will sign this agreement!”
Henry growled at his companion.
Hugh could not help himself. He had never thought to see desperation in Henry Bolton’s eyes, or hear it in his voice, but it was there. He burst out laughing, shaking his head as he did so. His laughter, however, dissolved into a fit of great coughing. He struggled to reach the goblet of medicine that his wife had brewed earlier for him. He could not reach it, and seeing what he sought, Henry moved it farther out of the dying man’s reach. As he actually felt his heart slowing to a stop, a look of understanding filled Hugh Cabot’s blue eyes, to be followed by one of vast amusement. He struggled to form the last words that he needed, and finally he managed to croak them out.
“You have lost!”
he gasped, falling back against his pillows, the light fading swiftly from his blue eyes.
Henry Bolton cursed softly beneath his breath as he pushed the medicinal goblet back near his victim so no one would know what he had done. He had failed to get Hugh’s signature. He dared not attempt to forge it. Still, with Hugh dead he was now his niece’s master once again. She would do what he wanted her to do, or he would kill her with his own bare hands. Reaching out with a hand he closed Hugh’s blue eyes. Then, rising, he departed the chamber, returning to the hall and saying, “Your husband has fallen asleep again, Rosamund. He wanted me to tell you that he would speak with you on the morrow.”
“You will remain the night, uncle?” she replied. “I will take you and my cousin to your chamber now.”
“Show young Henry the way, girl. I know where the guest chamber is in this house now, don’t I? I would remain here for a time. Bring me some wine before you go,” he instructed her.
She did his bidding and then led her cousin to the guest quarters, bidding him good night as she closed the door quickly behind the boy. Then she hurried off to see that Hugh was comfortable for the night. To her great shock she discovered her husband dead. Stifling her cry of distress Rosamund summoned a servant and said, “Go quietly and fetch Master Edmund. Be certain that my uncle Henry does not see him. And send Maybel to me.” She had earlier sent for Edmund yet he had not come. Obviously he had not been nearby. Pray God he was now!
“Yes, mistress,” the servant said, and left her alone again.
Maybel came, and seeing Hugh Cabot realized immediately what had happened. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“How?”
she asked.
“We must wait for Edmund,” Rosamund replied stonily. Then she sat down next to her dead husband and took up his cold and stiffening hand in hers, as if she might restore the life to him.
Edmund Bolton came into the chamber finally and posed the same question his wife had.
“How?”
he asked.
“I suspect my uncle Henry of some treachery,” Rosamund replied. “I am going to kill him with my own hands!” Tears began to pour down her pale face.
“Tell me,” Edmund said. “If you can convince me, I will kill him myself, and we will make it appear to be an accident.” His gray eyes were very serious.
“He came in to see Hugh. When he returned to the hall he said Hugh had gone to sleep, that he would speak with me in the morning. I left my uncle in the hall while I took his brat to his chamber. I then came here and discovered my husband dead.”
Edmund bent down and carefully inspected the stiffening body of his old friend. There were absolutely no marks of violence on Hugh. There was even a faint smile upon his thin blue lips. Looking up at his niece Edmund said, “Rosamund, he has died a natural death. We were expecting it.” He put his arm about his distraught niece. “You are in shock, my child. It came quicker than we anticipated.”
“Henry Bolton is involved,” Rosamund said stonily. “I do not know how, but in my heart I sense it, Edmund. Hugh was fine when I left him. Now he is dead. What else am I to think?”
“Even if your intuition is correct, Rosamund, there is no proof. Hugh was ill unto death. Everyone knew it. However, since Henry does not know he has died, or wants us to believe he does not know that Hugh has died, we will say naught until morning. Where is my half-brother now?”
“In the hall, swilling wine. I doubt he has changed, which means he will drink himself to sleep,” Rosamund said bitterly. Then she sighed deeply and straightened her shoulders. “Maybel and I will prepare my
husband’s body for burial.” She looked up at Edmund. “Have you discovered our informant?”
Edmund shook his head in the negative. “It may have been just a careless word on someone’s part,” he suggested. “And that gossip was picked up and traveled on the wind as gossip is wont to do.”
“My husband is to be laid out in the hall so he may be honored,” Rosamund answered. “I will pray by his bier tonight. It is unlikely that my uncle will even notice in his drunken stupor.” She looked at Edmund Bolton. “Hugh said he had made provision to protect me from Uncle Henry. He said you would know what he had done.”
“I do,” Edmund admitted; then he chuckled softly. “My half-brother could not have known the day he married you to Hugh Cabot that it would be a fatal misstep in his plan to gain Friarsgate for himself. Rest assured, niece, that I will not let Henry override your husband’s last wishes for your safety and well-being. Someone is coming, Rosamund. Hugh had hoped it would be before he died, but that someone will be here shortly, and then all will be revealed. We need the authority of our expected guest. Will you trust me?”
“Always, uncle!” she replied, her amber eyes meeting his.
Maybel swiftly crossed herself reverently. Then she enfolded Rosamund to her ample bosom, clucking with sympathy.
To her great surprise the girl began to cry, the sorrow pent up within her pouring forth. Neither Maybel nor Edmund uttered a word as Rosamund vented her anguish. Then finally she ceased, wiping her face with her sleeve, feeling relief and peace overwhelming her very soul. She had never been a girl to weep. Her amber gaze met those of her companions. She drew herself up straight, saying as she did so, “Let us begin. My husband’s body must be washed preparatory to being sewn into his shroud. Edmund, see that the coffin is brought here to his chamber.”
“At once, my lady,” Edmund Bolton said, and hurried off.
“Henry Bolton has had a hand in this death tonight,” Rosamund insisted to Maybel. “Edmund says he can find no sign of such a thing, but I know it to be so. One day I shall have my revenge on him for it.”
“If Edmund could find no sign, then there is none,” Maybel responded
thoughtfully, “which is not to say you’re not correct. A pillow held to the head of a weak man could kill him.”
Rosamund nodded slowly. “Whatever he did he will regret,” she said. “I will not let Hugh die unavenged. He was a good friend to me. As his wife I owe him that duty.”
Rosamund and her nursemaid set about preparing the corpse for his coffin. They stripped the nightshirt from the body and gently washed the stiffening limbs with warm water from a pitcher in the fireplace coals. Maybel went to the chest at the bed’s foot and drew out a piece of linen. She tore it into a long strip and carefully wrapped it about Hugh Cabot’s head and beneath his chin so that his mouth would not hang open. She fixed the linen strip with a small pin, even as Rosamund was pulling her husband’s shroud from the same chest where it had been waiting for this moment.
The girl and the woman struggled to wrap the baglike shroud about the body, drawing it up and around him so that he was finally fully enclosed within it. Only his head showed, and it, too, would be covered once it was time for the burial. His long arms had been folded across his chest beneath the cloth. A simple wooden crucifix was laid upon the body. Rosamund reached out to smooth her husband’s silvery white hair with a gentle hand. She felt the tears pricking beneath her eyelids once again, and forced them back.
Edmund returned. “Henry is indeed drunk with your wine, niece. I have had him carried to his bed. The men are here with the coffin to carry Hugh to the hall. The bier has already been set up with candles at each corner. The prie-dieu awaits you.”
Rosamund nodded, and with a final look at her husband departed his chamber to await his arrival in the hall. When the coffin had been placed upon the bier, she lit the candles herself and then knelt in prayer. “I will pray until he is interred in the ground,” she told her servants. “Make certain his grave is dug deep.”
“It will be done,” Edmund assured her. He looked to his wife questioningly, but she waved him away, and he departed.
“I’ll watch with you a while,” Maybel said.
“Nay,” Rosamund said. “I prefer being alone.”
“But child . . . ,” Maybel protested.
“I am no longer a child,” Rosamund replied softly. “Now go, but come back to me in the hour of the dawn.” She knelt down, her knees sinking into the little cushion of the prie-dieu, her hands clasped in prayer. Her back was straight, her head bowed.
Maybel looked at the young girl and sighed softly. Nay, Rosamund was no longer a child, but neither was she a woman grown. What was to happen to her now? She walked slowly from the hall. She knew what was going to happen. Henry Bolton would marry off his niece yet a third time, and a second time to one of his sons. The sniveling little boy he had brought with him would be the new master of Friarsgate, while Rosamund would remain a pawn for Henry Bolton to use. She sighed again. And yet, Maybel thought to herself, had not Edmund said something about Hugh making arrangements for Rosamund’s safety? But if she knew Henry Bolton, and she certainly did, he would probably ignore Hugh Cabot’s last will and testament. They would be able to do nothing about it.
Troubled, she entered her own bedchamber to find her husband waiting. “You left her alone?” he asked.
“She wanted it that way,” Maybel replied. She pulled her veil from her head and sat down heavily. “Lord bless me, husband, but I am weary. And surely my young mistress is even wearier, yet she will pray through the night for her husband’s good soul.” She paused, and then she said, “Do you think there is anything to what Rosamund says about Henry Bolton being responsible for Hugh’s death?”
“He was weak, and he was dying,” Edmund said softly, “but I did not think him ready yet to give up the ghost. I saw no marks of violence or physical force that would have caused his death, though. There was even a small smile upon his lips, as if he were amused by something that had been said. Yet his eyelids had been drawn down and closed. I have never, however, known Henry Bolton to be a man of wit.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was just Hugh’s time. We will never know for certain, Maybel. So we must be guarded in what we say, and we must make certain our young
mistress is also discreet. We can prove naught. What we may think, or even suspect, is another matter.”
“What will happen now?” Maybel asked him. “Did you not say that Hugh had made provision for our Rosamund? What did he do that your half-brother will now undo?”
Edmund chuckled. “Be patient, wife,” he said with a smile. “I can say nothing until the appropriate moment. Henry will be foiled, I promise you. There will be nothing he can do. Both Rosamund, and Friarsgate, are now safe from him and from his sons.”
“If I must wait to learn this miracle, then I shall wait,” Maybel said, standing up once again and beginning to unlace her gown. “It is late. The morning will come early. Let us go to bed, husband.”
“Agreed,” he replied, rising slowly. “Tomorrow will be a long and difficult day for us all.”
“Y
our husband is dead?” Henry Bolton feigned surprise. “Well, then, niece, I shall not need his signature to marry you to my son, shall I? You are now once again in my charge,
and,
you shall do as I tell you to do.” He smiled toothily at her. “Let us get him in the ground and be done with it, Rosamund. I think, perhaps, I shall take you home with me so you may be guided in your behavior by my good wife. Hugh has given you ideas unsuited your station. I shall, against my better judgment, put Friarsgate back into the keeping of my father’s bastard, Edmund Bolton.”
“My husband will be buried before sunset,” Rosamund told him. “His tenants wish to do him honor and have been coming into the hall since the dawn.” Her voice was measured and controlled although her heart was racing nervously. She would run away before she would allow Henry Bolton to remove her from Friarsgate, but she trusted Edmund, and she had trusted Hugh, God rest his good soul, to save her.
“If you wait to bury him late in the day, Rosamund, then I must remain here another night,” Henry complained.
“Hugh Cabot was a good husband to me, and a good master over the people of Friarsgate,
uncle.
He will be allowed an honorable burial, not hustled off havey-cavey into his grave because it is inconvenient for you and your brat,” she answered him sharply. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles about her eyes.
“Oh, very well,” Henry replied surlily. “Another day away from Mavis’
carping is to the good, I suppose, but we depart on the morrow, Rosamund.”
“I cannot possibly be ready to leave Friarsgate with only a day’s notice,” she protested. “Besides, Hugh’s will is to be read by the priest on the morrow.”
“His will can make no difference to you, niece!” Henry was getting a belligerent look upon his beefy face.
“He was my husband, and had charge over me. I must obey his last wishes, uncle, whatever they may be,” she answered him sweetly.
“His wishes are of no account. I am your nearest male relation. You are in my charge now, as you have in reality always been since your parents’ deaths. The law, both man’s and God’s, says you must do what I command you to do, Rosamund. I will hear no more about it!” Henry Bolton reached for his cup of wine, swallowing down a great gulp of it. Then he slammed the cup upon the high board. “Do you understand me, niece? I am your master. None other.”
“My husband’s last wishes will be honored,” Rosamund said firmly. Then she turned and left the hall.
“Little bitch,” Henry grumbled. “I think I shall whip her every day until her overproud spirit yields to me. And then she shall be whipped twice weekly just to remind her that I control her fate. Yes,” he said smiling. “The wench needs firm and frequent discipline. She shall get it in my house.” Besides, he thought, he had noticed upon his arrival that his niece was truly growing breasts. That meant her juices must be flowing. Best to keep a tight rein over her lest she disgrace the family. She would be a virgin when his Henry mounted her for the first time, or he would know the reason why! He intended to put his son to his niece when the boy reached the age of twelve. Seven more years. Rosamund would be twenty then. He would obtain a chastity belt and lock his niece up in it to assure her virtue. It was his grandson who would inherit Friarsgate, and none other. He glared at the servant by his elbow, and the man quickly poured more wine into his cup. Henry Bolton drank it down. Then, with a belch, he arose and stared down at the body of Hugh Cabot.
The Friarsgate folk were moving in an orderly line past his coffin. All
wore solemn faces, but some were weeping openly. What had they to cry about? he wondered sourly. Hugh Cabot hadn’t been family. He had been married to Rosamund to protect the Friarsgate inheritance. He had probably been soft with them, Henry considered. They mourned him because they feared a harsh new taskmaster, and that was all.
To Henry Bolton’s surprise his half-brother Richard was the priest saying the service over Hugh Cabot. “Why did they send for you?” he demanded rudely of his elder sibling. “Where’s Father Bernard?”
“Good day to you also, Henry,” Richard Bolton said, amused. “Poor old Bernard died three years back. There has been no priest in residence since his passing. Edmund called me for Hugh.” The priest looked the youngest of his brothers over with a sharp eye. “You are getting fat, Henry,” he said. “Too much food and wine is not good for a body.” Richard Bolton was a tall, slender man with an elegant aesthetic face. The black robes of his order, belted with its white silk rope, hung on him as beautifully as court dress.
“Let us get Cabot buried without further ado,” Henry snapped. “I must leave tomorrow. I am taking Rosamund with me.”
“You cannot depart until I have read Hugh’s will,” Richard said calmly. Then his eye lit on his nephew. “Is this your son, Henry?”
Henry Bolton the younger had been standing with his thumb in his mouth. Now his father snatched it from between his lips and pushed him forward, saying, “This is Brother Richard, the priest.”
“This is my holding,” Henry the younger announced by way of greeting the cleric. “The old man died, and now it is mine, but I don’t like the wife they have chosen for me. She is bold and speaks meanly to me. You must tell her she will go to hell if she does not respect me. My father says I am to be her lord and master.”
Richard Bolton swallowed back the shout of laughter that threatened to erupt from between his lips. His gray-blue eyes danced wickedly, and he very much enjoyed his youngest brother’s chagrin at the boy’s pronouncement. “Indeed,” he said, and nothing more, struggling further with his mirth as Henry the elder cuffed Henry the younger, and the lad set up a great howl and cry.
“You have the will?” Henry demanded. “What does it say? Not that it matters, for Rosamund belongs to me to do with as I please.”
“The will shall be read after the feast, as is customary, Henry,” the priest answered.
“Oh, very well, make a great mystery out of it if it pleases you, Richard, but it will change nothing,” Henry snapped irritably. He turned to his son. “Will you cease that sniveling, boy?” he snarled.
Hugh Cabot was buried on a hillside overlooking the valley. Rosamund kissed his cold lips before they nailed his coffin shut, and she wept for the good man who had been more father to her than any in her brief memory. She stood for a time afterward as the sun set behind the green hills. Then she returned to the hall to oversee the funeral feast for her husband. She stopped a moment to look at her three uncles seated at the high board. Edmund and Richard with their gray-blue eyes, both with almost noble faces, she thought. And then there was Henry. Plump and dyspeptic, a dissatisfied look upon his fat face, his blue eyes darting to and fro over the hall as if he were taking an inventory of everything there. She took her place between him and his young son.
The meal was gracious, as Hugh would have liked it. There was salmon, its pink flesh studded with rare green peppercorns. There was venison, roasted and in a pie. There was rabbit, goose, and duck, each with a different sauce. There was braised lettuce and tiny boiled onions, fresh bread, butter, and cheese. And afterward the last of the winter apples appeared baked with cinnamon and served with heavy cream. Wine and ale was plentiful, and the entire hall was served the generous meal, much to the delight of those below the salt who had expected little else but pottage and rabbit stew.
When the meal had finally been consumed Henry Bolton said, “Well, priest, what of the will? Not that it will matter, but the formalities should certainly be observed for the law’s sake.” He leaned back in his chair. “Remember I wish to depart with the morning.”
“And so you shall,
brother Henry,
” Richard Bolton replied, reaching into his robes, drawing forth a rolled parchment. “Hugh Cabot made this will in his own hand and gave me a copy.” He held the cylinder up for the
entire hall to see. Then he broke the seal that fastened it together, unrolling it slowly with a great show. “ ‘I, Hugh Cabot,’ ” the priest began, “ ‘do hereby make my last will and testament. I have but one possession on this earth, my beloved wife, Rosamund Bolton. I therefore give my wife into the keeping of my friend and liege lord, Henry Tudor, King of England. This is my last wish, and God have mercy on my soul, Amen. Signed this first day of March, in the year of our lord fifteen hundred and two.’ ”
There was a deep silence in the hall, and then Henry Bolton spoke. “What the hell does it mean?” he demanded. “I am Rosamund’s guardian as her nearest male relation.”
“Nay,
brother Henry,
you are not her guardian,” Richard Bolton said. “Not any longer. Hugh Cabot, as Rosamund’s husband and legal guardian at the time this will was written, has placed his young widow into the keeping of the king himself. You can do nothing about it. A copy of the will was sent to the king. A brief message was returned that the king was sending someone to take charge of Rosamund. You no longer have any authority over her,” the priest concluded.
“You have all plotted against me!” Henry shouted. “You cannot do this! I shall go to the king myself and protest. Hugh Cabot was Rosamund’s husband because I made him so in order to protect Friarsgate.”
Rosamund suddenly spoke up. “
Protect it for whom?
You have wanted this holding your entire life, uncle,
but it is mine.
I did not die when my parents and my brother died. I did not die when your eldest son, my first husband died. I am, praise God, strong and healthy. It is God’s will that Friarsgate belong to me and not to you. I am glad Hugh has done this for me. I dreaded with every fiber of my being the thought I should have to be in your
tender
charge again.”
“Be careful, girl, how you speak to me,” Henry Bolton warned her. “When I tell the king the truth of this matter he will give you back to me, and then, Rosamund, you will learn the things your late husband never taught you.
Obedience. Your place in life. Modesty. The virtue of silence in the presence of your betters.
” His face was almost purple with his outrage. His weak blue eyes bulged from his head. “This will cannot stand! I will not allow it!”
“You have no choice,” Richard said quietly.
“Why would the king give such favor to Hugh Cabot?” Henry wanted to know. “A younger son of no importance, a soldier, a wanderer, and finally thanks to my late wife, Agnes, may God assoil her soul”—he crossed himself piously—“a place in her brother’s house as little more than a servant. The king does not give his friendship to such a man as this.”
“Ah, good sirs, but he does,” came a voice from the far end of the hall, and there upon the steps they saw a tall stranger, still in his traveling cloak and gloves. “I am Sir Owein Meredith,” the gentleman said, stripping off his gloves as he walked into the hall and toward the high board. “I have been sent by his majesty, Henry Tudor, to investigate this matter of Rosamund Bolton and the Friarsgate inheritance.” He strode between the tables, handing off his cape to a servant while another servant hurried up with a goblet of wine for the visitor. “Which among you is Hugh Cabot?” he asked authoritatively.
“My husband died a day ago, sir,” Rosamund responded. “This is his funeral feast. We have finished, but let me have my servants bring you some food. You are surely famished after your time on the road.”
“Many thanks, lady,” he told her, thinking she was a very pretty young girl, just barely out of her childhood, but she had dignity and was well-mannered. “I have not eaten since morning, and should indeed appreciate a meal.” He bowed to her.
She liked him immediately, Rosamund considered. He had the same sort of elegant features that Hugh and her two elder uncles had. His face was long, as was his nose. His lips were narrow, but his mouth wide. He was obviously not a man who sat idle, for his skin was bronzed, and there were small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. But he was not close enough for her to tell their color. His hair, however, was a dark blond, and cropped short. His face with its square chin was clean-shaven, and there was just the faintest of dimples in the center of that chin. He was, Rosamund decided, rather handsome.
“Come, sir, and sit with us,” she invited graciously, and as he moved to join them she shoved her cousin Henry the younger from his seat,
hissing at him, “Get up, you little toad, and give your place to the king’s man!”
The boy opened his mouth in protest, but then he looked at Rosamund, and his mouth snapped shut as he scrambled from his seat.
“Thank you, cousin,” Rosamund murmured sweetly.
If Sir Owein had noticed the byplay between the two he was far too polite to mention it. A plate of hot food was brought to him, and he began to eat while his hosts waited politely for him to finish. His goblet was filled and refilled, and when he had mopped the last of the gravy from his pewter plate, he finally felt warm for the first time in almost two weeks.
“Well, sir, why have you come?” Henry Bolton demanded rudely.
To their surprise Sir Owein spoke directly to Rosamund. “My lady,” he began, “your late husband, Sir Hugh Cabot—”
“Sir Hugh?”
Henry Bolton began to laugh. “The man was no lordling, sir. Is it possible you have come to the wrong house?”
“Sir Hugh Cabot was knighted on the battlefield many years ago. He saved the life of Edmund Tudor, the king’s father, when he was eighteen,” Sir Owein said quietly. He did not like the man with the fat face. He was rude, and had he been worth the trouble, which Owein Meredith concluded he was not, he would have thrashed him soundly.