“What is it today, Master Caxton?” Bessie asked.
“Pilgrimage of the Soul,” he said.
“Another unholy tome,” she joked.
It had not always been easy for William Caxton, bringing the press to England. The Church considered the machine as an “un-godly instrument,” and anyone who practiced the trade the devil’s own.
Too, there’d been much opposition by the London Guild of Stationers, who felt that machine-made books would eliminate the need for scriveners and text writers who copied books by hand. It was purely the support of Bessie’s family that, in the early days, had kept the angry mobs from storming the shop to destroy “the evil within.” Or so William Caxton liked to say.
Sight of the royals and their noble friends frequenting the Red Pale soon turned the tide.
William Caxton oversaw the swabbing with an exactitude that had earned him a reputation for perfection. Too much ink would leave smudges, too little and words would be unreadable. An imperfect page was always thrown away, and with paper as expensive as it was, mistakes were costly.
The printer nodded to Jan. A sheet of clean paper was laid down on the form. Then the apprentice stepped away. Normally Caxton would pull the lever on the inaugural page. This day he smiled at Bessie. “Princess,” he said. “Will you honor us by printing the first page?”
“I’m the one honored, sir.” She stepped forward and, feeling suddenly shy, allowed Nell’s father to help place her hand on the lever, just so. He whispered a few words in her ear and stepped back.
With a long, firm stroke she brought the handle down, feeling the friction of wood and metal and paper.
“Good!” said Caxton, and came forward with Jan.
Bessie stepped back and watched as the apprentice carefully peeled the printed page from the press. They all gathered round to view the result.
“Perfect!” Caxton exclaimed. “Excellent work, my boy,” he said to Jan de Worde, and clapped him on the shoulder. “And a firm, clean stroke from our girl!” He beamed at Bessie, who was glowing with delight. “I shall make sure you receive the first bound copy.”
“Thank you, Master Caxton!” Bessie reached up and gave the elderly man a hug.
“Come on, then,” said Nell. “Let’s leave the men to their work.”
The girls moved through the back room, where William Caxton designed and made his own type. He had become well known for typefaces that showed artistry but were, at the same time, easy to read.
Nell and Bessie moved out the back door through the small garden that shared its beds of herbs and flowers with Caxton’s crates of paper and great bottles of printer’s ink. They climbed the stairs of the residence, a modest-size but richly appointed half-timbered house.
Nell had a lovely room of her own with a canopied bed, a writing table, and a chair by the window, large and comfortable enough so that she could sit for hours by daylight and read to her heart’s content.
“Now tell me the truth, Princess.” Nell suppressed a smile.
Bessie hated it when her friend addressed her so. “What caused you to turn several shades of violet down there?”
“I did no such thing! You are a dreadful creature, Nell Caxton.” Bessie tossed a pillow at Nell, who ducked and laughed.
“But did you see the look that passed between my aunt and uncle?”
“There were several,” said Nell with a wry grin. “To which do you refer?”
Bessie tried to form her thoughts into coherent words before she spoke. “The one that was rife with love and devotion and . . .
understanding and . . .”
“Lust?”
“Nell, be serious.”
“I’m perfectly serious. The pair of them are steeped in lust.” Nell regarded her friend carefully. “You’re blushing again, Bessie.” Bessie gave an exasperated sigh and found herself at a rare loss for words.
“You’re not in love with him, are you?” Nell asked.
“Of course I’m not! He’s my uncle. ”
“What has that to do with it? He’s very handsome.”
“Do you really think so?” Bessie asked, suddenly eager to hear confirmation of her own opinion.
“Perhaps not to every woman’s taste. But yes, he’s got a beautiful face.”
“Beautiful and brooding,” Bessie insisted. “His eyes . . . did you notice the way he looked straight at you when you talked together, holding your eyes with his. Deep, dark pools . . .”
“You are in love with him,” said Nell, with a maddening matter-of-factness.
“I’d wager he hasn’t any mistresses,” said Bessie, without trying to refute Nell’s accusation. “And only two bastard children, born before he married Anne.”
“Does that make you love him more?”
Bessie thought for a long moment. “I think it does.”
“You’re mad! You love him more because he’s faithful to his wife? My God, the future Queen of France—”
“Don’t remind me.”
“—would be her uncle’s mistress.”
“I would not! I never said such a thing. And don’t be horrible. I only mean that—” Bessie shook her head. “I don’t think I know another man who is faithful and still adores his wife after so many years of marriage. All my uncles and cousins and stepbrothers—”
“And your father.”
“Particularly my father,” said Bessie, not needing to finish her thought.
“I’ve heard something recently,” said Nell, tantalizing her friend with the teasing come-on.
“Well, out with it.”
“Do you promise not to be cross with me? I’m only the messenger.”
“I swear I shan’t be cross.”
“Your father has a mistress named Jane Shore.”
“I know that, Nell. All of London knows that.”
“Well, does all of London know that he shares Mistress Shore’s intimate favors with Lord Hastings?”
“My father’s best friend?” Nell’s eyes widened with real surprise.
“And Lord Grey.”
“My stepbrother!”
“The very one.”
“And my father doesn’t mind?”
Nell shrugged, herself perplexed at such an idea—a king who shared his favorite concubine with other men.
“Does my mother know her firstborn son is swiving her husband’s whore?” said Bessie.
“You mustn’t be rude about Jane Shore,” said Nell, only half jesting. “She’s not a whore, but a true courtesan. She’s said to be lovely and bright and companionable. A very fine woman indeed.”
“It’s still horrible,” Bessie insisted.
“No more horrible than the thought of you swived by Richard of Gloucester.”
Bessie began pummeling Nell playfully.
“Where do you hear such tawdry street gossip?” Bessie demanded to know, falling back on Nell’s bed.
“I keep my ears open here at the shop,” Nell answered. “My father’s couriers come in from everywhere. But where I learn most everything is on Totehill Street. The shopkeepers are best for juicy tidbits, but the prostitutes are helpful, and the cutpurses know much more than you would imagine. I think,” Nell continued, “that if you asked your friends the almsmen what they really knew about the inner workings of Westminster, they would tell you a sight more than stories about the old days as hide tanners or royal dog keepers.”
“I never considered such a thing,” said Bessie, turning on her side and propping her head on her hand.
“By my reckoning, there is an entire world of intelligence lurking beneath the one we see. A network, of sorts. Imagine the intricate crisscrossing of avenues and buildings in London.” Nell was warming to her subject. She sat down in front of Bessie, her eyes glittering excitedly. “Westminster—the palace and abbey, and our little street of shops inside the wall. And without, Totehill Street and the alleys jutting from it—St. Paul’s, the Strand, the Tower of London. The wharves and docks and warehouses. The Thames itself with ships sailing in and out, to and from the whole world. ’Tis like”—Nell closed her eyes, and her hands in front of her moved slowly apart—“a great and intricate web that you can see with your eyes. Very coarse and solid and dirty and filled with clamor. But underneath it all”—
she opened her eyes again—“is a second web. Invisible to the eye. But just as real.”
Bessie was transfixed, enthralled by her friend’s description.
“This is the web of intelligence. Wherever there is a person along the web, there is a small repository of information. Two women talking across the backyard fence share their information with each other, a tidbit they heard from a friend who works as a laundress at the palace. One of those women will tell it to her husband, who will go to the alehouse that night. By next morning the tidbit—its details likely changed along the way—will have spread through an entire neighborhood, with every husband telling every wife, who, in turn, spreads the word at the baths, or the well, or the Wednesday market on Totehill Street. Not only do the shopkeepers hear, but farmers from the surrounding countryside who’ve come to sell their wares. That is how news moves through London and beyond its walls.”
“And I presume you are the ‘Mistress of the Web,’ ‘Lady Spi-der,’ who creeps along the gossamer strands gobbling up every tidbit of intelligence.”
“Come, don’t be unkind, Bessie.”
“I’m not at all unkind. What you say is altogether sensible. I simply marvel that my best friend thinks in such a way. Oh!” Bessie cried, suddenly sitting up. “I never told you why I’ve come here in such a hurry today. You are invited on Progress to Wales to see my brother.”
“I am?” said Nell, her jaw slack, her eyes twinkling. “I am?!”
“Yes, yes!”
Nell crushed Bessie in a hug.
“Oh my goodness,” said Nell, suddenly sober. “How can I go?
Who’ll mind the store? Who’ll mind Father?”
“Nell, there’s a whole staff to make sure he’s fed, and dressed in clean linen. And Jan de Worde can see to the bookstore. Your father will want you to go. You know he will.”
“He will. Yes. Oh goodness!”
Nell jumped up and stood silently at the bedside, though
Bessie knew her mind was a whirlwind. She could not help but smile, seeing her friend so excited. “Do you have enough to wear?” Bessie asked.
“I don’t know.” Nell raced to her cupboard and flung open the door. It was crammed with gowns, some plain for work-days, some pretty for coming to court. She pulled out a tawny kirtle and a moss-green overdress and held them up to herself.
“How many outfits will I need?”
“Quite a few.” Bessie stood next to Nell, examining the contents of her wardrobe. “Why don’t we look at them one by one and see what you have?”
t had been the most glorious spring Bessie could remember.
IOne, she was sure, that would always be fixed happily in her memory. Now she walked along the long line of the Royal Progress, which had stopped, for the moment, to water the horses and the small herd of cattle that fed the members of the train as they traveled along the rutted road west to Wales.
She’d left Nell behind in their conveyance, having been summoned to see her parents in theirs. The mile-long procession of carriages, carts, and chariots, shaded and decorated with colored silk canopies, was a sight to behold. It was no wonder farmers and their families came out to wave and gape at the magnificent sight, though Nell had quite rightly observed that the unfortunate nobles who lived along the four-day route and were forced to feed and entertain the thousand-person Progress might be crying behind their welcoming smiles.
She passed the long line of soldiers uniformed in blue and gold, steel helmets so highly polished their glinting blinded the eye. Some members of the party—royals, courtiers, clergy, and servants—had emerged from their vehicles to stretch their legs.
Bessie arrived at her parents’ conveyance—a fabulous enclosed caravan, its gilt sides and arched roof glittering, a hundred gay banners fluttering from a hundred poles atop it. A footman helped Bessie step up inside. It was dark and warm, the down-filled opulence of plush velvet cushion and tapestry. The air was rich with smells of candle wax, her mother’s French par-fum, and her father’s wine-reeking breath. The king and queen were on opposite banquettes. Bessie curtsied to them one at a time, her father first, then her mother.
Queen Elizabeth, her back straight as a ramrod, greeted her daughter with the wary smile of a woman who cannot tell whether the one approaching is a friend or foe. For two years past they had been engaged in an endless domestic battle, the queen expecting her strict authority to be honored, Bessie maddeningly defying that authority at every turn. Bessie knew that no one beside herself could provoke the queen to such parox-ysms of shrill fury. But she did not care, for she misliked her mother. Not for the rampant ambition that drove her, or the careless use of her power to enrich her large family of brothers and sisters, and the sons of her first marriage. She misliked the queen for the ice that coursed through her veins. The shallow-ness of even her most valiant attempts at motherly affection.
Her father was easier. Once an unsurpassed warrior, a fearful force on the world stage with which to be reckoned, who had gone soft in recent years, sodden with drink and debauchery, he was yet a cheerful, warmhearted parent. His once fine-skinned cheeks and nose were crisscrossed with broken red veins. Now he reclined like a great, beached whale amidst down cushions, cradling his skin of wine in the crook of one fat arm.
“Come, girl, sit by me,” he said to Bessie.
She sat near his feet and tried not to stare at the wrinkles in his hose or feel pity for what he had been and, now, had sadly
become. Moving with drunken languor, he lifted the wineskin and sprayed a stream of it down his throat.
“We’ve had some news, Bessie,” he began.