He turned and she saw it was Harry Buckingham. He did not bother to greet her even with a false smile.
“Mistress Caxton.”
Nell found herself livid at the sight of him. “What right have you to be in my room, examining my belongings?”
“I am Constable of England, and what goes on within the walls of every royal castle in the kingdom is very much my business.”
“Have you found what you were looking for?” she inquired in her most caustic tone.
“Not really. But then, I have no need to discover incriminating evidence against you for my purposes.”
Incriminating evidence? What is Harry Buckingham up to now?
“And what are your purposes?”
“To inform you that your services to Master Edward are no longer required.”
The message he had delivered, whilst unpleasant, came as no surprise to her. What struck her with greater force was that Buckingham seemed to take such great pleasure in calling her royal charge by the much-diminished title “master.”
“I believe, my lord,” she said in the most haughty tone she could manage, “that even the illegitimate son of a king is your superior.”
Buckingham’s face grew red and hateful. He took a menacing step toward Nell, but she stood her ground and held his eye.
“You have two hours to gather your things and be gone from here. Do not attempt to see the boys again, or I will have you arrested. Do I make myself clear?”
“Your motives have been clear to me since the first moment we met at Northampton Inn,” she said. “You’ve a transparent mind, my Lord Buckingham, and whilst Richard of Gloucester may be blinded by your false brilliance, others can see what I see. Many others.”
“A guard will be at your door to escort you out in two hours’
time,” he said. “Be ready.”
Buckingham turned on his heels and slammed out of her room.
Indeed, well before the two hours had passed, Nell heard a sharp rapping at her door. She was packed and ready, though she’d not had time to write more than the briefest note of farewell to Edward. This she had slipped into a pile of dirty linen, one she knew would be collected by Nan, her laundress, and discreetly delivered to the boy.
The four red-liveried guards who collected her—as though one was insufficient to escort a lone woman across Tower Green—spoke not one word to her during the walk from her quarters to the West Gate. As she approached the postern she heard her name called.
Nell turned to see Lady Margaret, diminutive and compact, her features set in a somber and rigid expression. Nell knew at once that Margaret Beaufort was privy to news of Gloucester’s coup. Nell said nothing, waiting for Lady Margaret to speak first.
“Circumstances change with the speed of lightning,” she said in a voice that seemed too low and modulated for such a tiny woman. “To survive, one must be ready to shift with the same such speed.”
Nell thought the sentiment odd, but remained even-toned.
“That seems a sensible piece of advice, Lady Margaret.”
“In light of the changing circumstances,” the older woman went on, “would you consider a position in my household, that of secretary?”
Nell was dumbstruck. King Edward’s deposing was not two hours old, neither public nor official, yet this brazen woman was offering the poor boy’s closest companion her next job!
Nell’s first instinct was to shout at Lady Margaret that she was heartsick and angry and could no more consider a new post at the moment than she could dance on her mother’s grave. But a cooler head prevailed. Nell inhaled deeply and released the long breath before her reply, and she found that her voice was surprisingly calm and even.
“How very generous an offer, good lady. But I am being rushed from the Tower by Lord Buckingham’s guard just now, and I have no time to give it proper consideration. I hope you’ll forgive me. I must go.”
“I’ll visit you at your father’s establishment,” Margaret Beaufort said, unfazed. Thick skin shielded her from insult and inso-lence. “I assume that is where you shall be returning now. We can discuss my offer in a few days’ time.”
“Of course,” Nell agreed, finally out of clever, evasive retorts.
It had been a day filled with horrible surprises. Such days, it seemed since the evening of Antony’s arrest, had become not the exception, but the norm.
When, she wondered, would it ever end?
Bessie slipped quietly out of the ground-floor door of the Sanctuary Tower and joined the throngs surrounding and pouring into Westminster’s walled compound. As she moved toward the cathedral’s entrance she could see that it was the greatest gathering she’d witnessed in her lifetime. Of course, she’d missed her brother’s entry into London and that, she’d heard, had been a fine and massive congregation.
This was different. This was the crowning of the king himself, and that man was not the one expected, the one for whom preparations had been in the making for more than three months. Today the nobles, city fathers, guildsmen and merchants, all dressed in their richest finery, were wary, subdued, whispering amongst themselves, and the mood of the crowd was different than one would expect had the crowned head been that of the young, golden lad, son of a beloved king. Instead that head was darker, older, and the result of an unnatural order of succession.
Certainly there were some who were grateful that their new king was not a child ruled till his majority by a grasping and despised woman, but a seasoned soldier, long trusted by his brother.
It was the way in which Richard had come to this day that had left everyone uneasy. Just a week before, Harry Buckingham had stood in the pulpit of a London church after Sunday sermon and publicly exposed her father’s precontract with Lady Eleanor Butler and, in a passage shorter than a psalm, nullified King Edward’s marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, making bastards of all their children.
It had shocked and dismayed virtually everyone that the council had offered the crown to Richard of Gloucester. It was not that he was hated, but that he was known to so few. Bessie’s uncle had stayed very much to himself in the north, and in the months of his protectorship had gone ahead very quietly with state business in the young king’s name. For Richard to suddenly usurp Edward’s throne and ascend it himself was altogether unheard of, unsettling.
Yet here they all were, the highest and mightiest of Englishmen and women, foreign ambassadors, cardinals, bishops, and priests in gaudy church vestments, and tonsured monks in their modest brown robes. Heads of state from the continent were here as well, having made their way to London in the past weeks, expecting to see the boy king crowned.
Conspicuously absent was the newly dishonored royal family. Bessie’s brothers in the Tower had refused to attend the crowning of King Richard the Third, and their mother, having lost the title of queen dowager through her husband’s bigamy, had not even bothered to refuse the invitation when it arrived at Westminster Sanctuary.
In attending the coronation, Bessie had boldly defied her mother. The former queen had forbidden her daughter to go, but such was the chaos that ruled their house, and the misery that afflicted Elizabeth Woodville, that Bessie had dressed and quietly slipped away unnoticed.
Was it perverse of Bessie to wish to see her uncle Richard crowned king? she wondered. Had it been Edward taking the throne, it would have been a joyous day, despite all the confusion and death preceding it, for it meant that the future, if not the present, was assured. Now it seemed there was no future at all for Bessie and her family. The boys were no longer princes—
simply royal bastards—and the girls were hardly marriageable.
The real joy of this day for Bessie was the long-awaited reunion with Nell. Their plan—for Bessie to meet her friend under Caxton’s sign of the Red Pale—was obviously untenable, she now realized, what with the river of humanity flowing toward the cathedral and away from the printshop. Nell would perceive the problem and would surely find Bessie where she was standing, at the right side of the cathedral’s great doors.
She could not very well keep her head down, for she wished Nell to easily find her, but thus exposed, anonymity, invisibility, proved impossible. Everyone entering the soaring church chamber saw her, and all knew her. She had been “Princess Bessie,” beloved daughter of a beloved king. Now she was merely fodder for gossipmongers. She heard the pitying whispers all round.
Titters. This made her angry, and strangely proud. Bessie lifted her head and thrust out her chin, remembering the posture she had taken as a royal princess amidst her father’s subjects. She would not be cowed by their cruelty. Bastard or not, she was still the daughter of a great king.
Her eyes scanned the crush. There was Nell! She was flanked by her father and his apprentice, Jan de Worde, and she too was searching the crowd for her friend. Bessie began waving, conscious of the commotion she was causing, and ignored the annoyed stares of the clergy lining the steps of the cathedral.
Damn
them!
thought Bessie.
I’m not a princess anymore. I shall do as I please.
It took Nell and her small party more than ten minutes to reach the door, and such was Bessie’s anticipation and excitement that the time seemed an eternity. When the girls were finally in each other’s arms, the kisses, hugs, and laughter were sweet. William Caxton looked on with delight.
“Jan and I will find our places. You two will want some time together, but do not tarry too long or someone will fill your seats.”
“Yes, Father,” Nell said, and the men disappeared inside the cathedral.
Bessie and Nell found a quiet niche between two stone but-tresses and just stared at each other for a long moment. Then they burst out in relieved laughter and embraced again. When they finally pulled apart Nell looked deeply into her friend’s eyes and spoke with the gentlest irony.
“Lady Bessie.”
“Indeed. Princess no longer.”
“Is it awful?” Nell asked.
“What is awful is living with my mother. She’s taken to her bed and ceased speaking to anyone, though the fury festering inside her needs no words to infect the household with poison.
My sisters sit and cry, and the letters I get from Edward and Dickon make
me
cry.”
“I know,” Nell agreed. “I hear from Edward regularly too. I most worry about his infected ear.”
“I wish we could get them home.”
“I’ve thought of a way to see them,” Nell said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Oh, Nell!”
“Next time we meet, I’ll explain.”
“I’ve something to tell you as well,” said Bessie.
Nell moved closer.
“Do you remember me writing to say that my mother had been approached by Hastings to be part of his plot, but had refused to be involved?”
“I do.”
“What I did not know till now is that she’d
always
known about my father’s precontract with Eleanor Butler. Indeed, she’d gone to extreme lengths to hide it. At the time Stillington told my parents—five years ago—she’d had him jailed. My uncle Clarence learned of it, and she had him silenced.”
“You mean
executed.
”
“Some would say murdered.” Bessie thought back for a moment. “When Lord Hastings and Bishop Morton came to sanctuary trying to involve my mother in their plot, it was the
precontract
she feared Bishop Stillington had revealed to Gloucester and Buckingham the first time they met.”
“There was a meeting with Stillington previous to the one I overheard?” Nell asked, surprised.
“Apparently. My mother was very nervous when Hastings and Morton mentioned that Stillington had come to see Richard, but the moment she learned that the meeting had been
brief,
and that plans for my brother’s coronation were continuing as before, she visibly relaxed.”
“She must have realized that Stillington could not have di-vulged your father’s bigamy, or the meeting would have gone on longer.”
“Yes. That was when she realized ’twould be neither necessary nor safe to join Hastings’s plot to overthrow Richard.” Bessie noticed Nell’s shoulders slump at her last words. Realizing the melancholy thought she had evoked in her friend, she put her arms about her. “I’m so sorry about Uncle Antony. Oh, Nell—”
Her friend accepted the comfort for only a moment before straightening. “I mustn’t think about that. If I do, I shall weep myself into a puddle. Now it’s time to go see your uncle Richard crowned King of England.”
Bessie shook her head in disbelief. “I can hardly comprehend that it’s come to this. We were at Ludlow just a few months ago celebrating as a happy family. Now Father and Rivers, Lord Grey and Hastings are dead. My brothers are prisoners in the Tower of London, and I am a commoner.”
“There’s nothing about you that’s common,” Nell said with great matter-of-factness.
Bessie clutched Nell’s hands. “Everyone should have a friend as good as you are.”
Nell smiled bravely. “We’ll see this thing through together, you and I.”
“Right.”
Linking arms, the pair pushed their way back into the throng and entered Westminster Cathedral. The summer heat, the press of a thousand bodies, and the smoke of incense had already made the place oppressive. As they walked down the nave’s central aisle, Bessie could feel that all eyes were on them.
In silent agreement, they kept theirs straight ahead, seeking Nell’s father. Bessie could see him waving them to his place to the right of the altar near the front. They took the empty seats William Caxton had saved for them, and Bessie concentrated on the scene before her.
It was the first coronation she had ever witnessed, a scene she had long imagined, not just for her brother Edward, but for herself, for she had been meant to be crowned queen of
some
realm, as Nell had always reminded her she would be. That, of course, would never happen now. Now, thought Bessie, she’d be lucky to be married at all. She could very well end up in a nunnery—an awful thought, but altogether possible.
Her eyes sought the gilded pew once habited by her family—
and found to her astonishment that in it sat one person alone.