Текст книги "A Dangerous Inheritance"
Автор книги: Alison Weir
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 35 страниц)
Katherine
November–December 1559. Whitehall, Sheen and Westminster Abbey.
My mother is dead, God rest her. She breathed her last at Sheen, with me, Mary and the devoted Stokes at her side. Although she had been poorly for months, her final decline came suddenly, and there was barely time to summon us from court.
I weep for my mother, and I weep even more bitterly for my dashed hopes – for her letter, that crucial letter, was never sent.
Three days later, the Queen herself summons me. It is with some relief that I escape from the black-draped house and my mother lying in her coffin on a bier in the chapel, covered with rich palls of damask and cloth of gold.
I find Elizabeth dressed in deepest black, against which the whiteness of her unnatural complexion makes her look like a ghost. It is the first time I have been in her presence since that dreadful day I lost my temper with her. Although her manner is cool and watchful as ever, I can sense she is upset.
‘I weep with you in your sad loss, Lady Katherine,’ she says. ‘Your mother was my beloved cousin and gossip.’
‘I thank your Majesty for your kindness, which I confess I do not deserve,’ I reply meekly, lowering my gaze.
‘We will not speak of that now,’ she says, her black eyes cold as ever. ‘I brought you here to tell you that I have arranged for your lady mother to be buried in Westminster Abbey, as befits a princess of the blood, and that I will defray the expenses of the funeral.’ I am sensible of this being a high privilege, and that the Queen is being uncharacteristically generous. Already she has a reputation for parsimony. She does not spend money unless she has to. So she must have thought very well of my mother to do this for her.
I fall to my knees. ‘I thank your Majesty for your magnanimity.’
‘You will have much to do, so you may depart the court now,’ Elizabeth says, dismissing me. ‘You have our leave to return to Sheen.’
I hasten away and look for Ned, only to learn from one of his friends that he has already left the court, bound for Sheen too, with the Queen’s blessing. Despite myself, I am touched, for Elizabeth knows that my lady regarded him almost as a son. Maybe there is in her some spark of kindness, that she has sent him to succour me and Mary in these dark days of bereavement.
Ned caught the tide; I did not, so he is waiting for me at Sheen when I finally arrive there. Stokes greets me mournfully, weeping at my news, and Ned takes me openly in his arms, not caring that the Duchess his mother and all the household officers and servants are standing by to see.
‘I came at once, sweetheart,’ he murmurs. ‘You will not endure this alone.’
My mother, being a staunch Protestant, would not have approved of prayers for the dead, so I fall wordlessly to my knees before her coffin. I cannot believe she is in there, that strong, tempestuous woman who has dominated my life; nor did I expect to feel so bereft at her loss. I comfort myself by imagining her being reunited with Jane and my father in eternal joy and peace, and weep afresh with the emotion of it all, burying my face in my hands.
When I sit up, dabbing my eyes with my kerchief, Ned is sitting quietly beside me. He waits until I have composed myself, and gently escorts me from the chapel.
We speak of my mother, the coming obsequies, and the Queen’s generosity, and then his face looks pained.
‘I heard of your confrontation with the Queen,’ he says.
‘Everyone has, it seems. In truth, I could not help myself. I wish I had kept my mouth shut.’
‘So do I,’ he mutters. ‘Not that what you said was untrue, but it can have done us no good.’
‘She was kind to us both this morning, after her fashion.’
‘She is a great dissembler! Nothing she does is without calculation. But even if she has relented towards you, you should beware of courting her wrath further at this time.’
‘You may depend upon that,’ I assure him grimly.
As soon as I get a moment to myself, I go up to my mother’s chamber and, trying not to look at the empty, stripped bed, search in the chest where she kept her private papers. And there I find the letter, as I had expected, written in a shaky hand. It is addressed to the Queen, and below the lines I had read already, my lady had written: This marriage is the only thing I desire before my death, and it will be an occasion for me to die quietly. There is no more, and no signature. She died before she could finish or send it.
Ned, the Duchess and Stokes are grouped by the fire when I enter; it is a cold evening, we are all huddled in furs, and Arthur and Guinevere are stretched out so close to the hearth that they are in danger of being singed by sparks.
I show them all the letter. ‘Read this, I pray you. You will see that it was my lady’s dying wish that Ned and I be married. Should we not send this now to the Queen? She can hardly refuse, in the circumstances.’
‘Elizabeth is not well disposed towards you at present, Katherine,’ the Duchess says bluntly. ‘You spoke unwisely to her, I hear. That was foolish in the extreme, and it betrays a want of prudence. One should never say such things to princes, only tell them what they want to be told. My advice is to wait a while until tempers have cooled.’
‘But the Queen spoke kindly to me this morning, and I gave her an apology,’ I protest.
‘The Queen has a long memory,’ the Duchess says. ‘I counsel you to wait.’
‘Mr Stokes, what do you think?’ I ask. Stokes was zealous in my cause: he will not abandon me now, and others value his wisdom.
But for once, he seems to be at a loss for words. ‘I cannot advise you, Katherine, until I know my lord’s mind in the matter,’ he says finally. Bewildered, I turn to Ned, but his eyes are fixed on my stepfather.
‘What do you want to do about the letter, my lord?’ Stokes asks.
Ned does not look at me. ‘I will meddle no further in the matter,’ he declares. ‘Burn the letter. In view of the late Spanish conspiracy and the Queen’s anger with Katherine, it could destroy us all.’ And Stokes takes it from me before I can gainsay him, and throws it in the fire.
‘But why?’ I wail, seeing my hopes char and curl up and burst into flame, gone from me for ever.
‘Because, my sweetheart, I will not risk either your neck or mine at this present time. We must be patient and endure this waiting a while longer, until Elizabeth’s wrath is truly abated. Our moment will come, I promise you.’
‘When? I cannot bear this uncertainty any longer!’
‘You can and you must bear it,’ the Duchess hectors me. ‘Make your move now, and all will be lost. Is that what you want? Besides, there are other considerations to remember.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘Ned has his way to make in the world; he desires to restore his House to the greatness that was once ours. He cannot do that if he has offended the Queen by marrying, without her consent, one whom she fears because she is the rightful heiress to the throne.’
I look at Ned, who is staring at his boots. I know that his mother speaks sense. Reluctantly I am coming to see that it wouldbe a bad move to approach the Queen now, and with a leaden heart I steel myself for another seemingly endless wait before my real life can begin.
As chief mourner, I follow my mother’s coffin to the high altar of Westminster Abbey. In deepest black, my face obscured by a voluminous hood, I strive to focus my thoughts on her whom I have lost, yet I cannot help reflecting, with some bewilderment, on the latest, unexpected favour bestowed on me and my sister at the Queen’s hands. I do believe that her Majesty genuinely sympathises with us, for she has been uncommonly kind. For these royal obsequies, she had been pleased to command that Mary and I be accorded the dignity of princesses of the blood. Considering how rudely I had spoken to her, this was magnanimity indeed. And thus, as tokens of my new status, my mourning train is carried by a Lady of the Queen’s Bedchamber, and I find myself and my sister kneeling on velvet cushions on the steps of the chancel, as the service begins amid a forest of banners and escutcheons – the whole panoply of a state funeral.
One of the heralds – Clarenceux King of Arms – commences with a ringing proclamation: ‘Laud and praise be given to Almighty God that it hath pleased Him to call out of this transitory life unto His eternal glory the most noble and excellent Princess, the Lady Frances, late Duchess of Suffolk, daughter to …’
I cannot concentrate. My mind is a turmoil of emotions and hopes. My grief for my mother overrides all on this dismal day, but beneath it there stirs new hope that this elevation of my status is a prelude to my being formally acknowledged as heiress presumptive.
Kate
April–May 1484. Nottingham Castle.
All that season, the land was quiet, save for the persistent rumours that rumbled like distant thunder. But Kate was so sunk in despair that she paid little heed to them, or to anything else – until something happened that jolted her back to reality.
The court was at Nottingham Castle, a massive stronghold perched spectacularly on a great rock overlooking the ancient town below, and Kate was lodged in the palatial apartments built by King Edward. Her betrothed had returned to his duties at Middleham, but John was still with the court; he kept well away from her now, although once or twice she glimpsed him watching her. He was suffering too: she could see that. Maybe he had been right to take a realistic view of her madcap plan to run away, yet still she could not face him. She was barely holding herself together as it was.
The King, however, was in a merry, satisfied frame of mind. He had overcome his enemies, he had given the lie to the rumour-mongers – or so he believed – and he was on his way back to the north, where he was popular. And the Queen’s spirits had lifted because soon they would be at Middleham, where she would be reunited with her son.
Easter came and went with its usual solemnities and celebrations. Then, two days later, a messenger came seeking the King.
The Prince was dead. That fair, delicate child had fallen violently ill with pains in his belly, and had suffered an unhappy death – eleven days ago. Eleven days! He had breathed his last, the poor, frail boy, as the court made its unwieldy way northwards, and had been lying cold in his winding sheet at Middleham as his parents feasted on Easter Day.
Kate could not stop crying, and her grief was not all for her half-brother. Some of it was for herself, and his death had created an outlet for it. The remembrance of her sad situation and her approaching marriage made her weep all the more; it was as if there was a fount within her that would never run dry.
As for her father and stepmother, their grief almost bordered on madness. The shock had been terrible, and nothing could console them for their loss. They would see no one, but remained shut off from the court in their private apartments. Kate could only hope that they were managing to console each other in their shared agony. She longed to go to them, but the remembrance of her father’s anguished face when he told her the news, and his terrible cry of pain when he doubled up and howled at her to go from him quickly, was enough to deter her.
She spent long hours on her knees in the chapel, praying to a God who seemed cruel and vengeful rather than kind and loving. One day, she knelt sobbing for an hour and more. Suddenly, there was someone there beside her. A hand came to rest on her heaving shoulder. It was John.
‘I am so very sorry,’ he said quietly. It was more than a conventional expression of grief, she knew. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Oh John,’ she wept, and fell into his ready arms. He held her while the torrent of weeping passed. ‘I have cried so much these past weeks that it is a wonder I have any tears left to flow. He was their only child.’ And you are my only love, and I have lost you too.
‘He was your father’s heir too, the assurance of his dynasty. And your stepmother is not a strong woman. Maybe she will bear another child, with God’s grace, yet I fear she may not.’
‘She loved Edward so much,’ Kate wept. John was still holding her, as tightly as if he could never let her go. Sad as she was, she was savouring this moment of closeness, knowing that it might have to last her for a long time.
‘When are you to be married?’ he asked, his voice hoarse.
‘By Michaelmas. The date has not been set yet. I hope it never will be!’
‘Would to God you could escape it,’ he breathed, crushing her to him. ‘But there is small hope of that. With the contract signed, and Huntingdon fattened with lands and offices, with more to come, I hear, the King will not renege on his word.’
‘I cannot bear the thought,’ Kate whispered. ‘I want only you. John – will you do something for me? Just this one thing, and then I will ask no more of you.’
‘If it is in my power, I will do it, you may be assured of that, my love.’ He looked at her uncertainly. ‘What is it?’
‘My heart, soon I must go to my marriage bed. I dread the thought. But I could bear it if I went to it knowing what true love really is.’ A faint blush tinged her pale cheeks. She knew she was taking a perilous risk that might rebound on her in various ways; and she feared that John might think her wanton. But that hardly mattered now.
‘You are asking me to take your maidenhead? To steal it from your husband?’ John’s face was a battlefield of warring emotions.
‘Yes. At least we would have that, a memory we could treasure all our lives.’
‘And if you should be with child as a result?’
‘In law, it would be my husband’s, if we lie together at the right time. He would never know. We are cousins, so any likeness could be explained.’
The aristocratic dynast in John was plainly at loggerheads with the lover. ‘But sweetheart, much as I want you, a man should be able to count on his heir as his own, not a cuckoo in the nest.’
‘Do you think I care about that? Huntingdon means nothing to me! And what better heir than the offspring of royal blood, yours and mine? He will never know, John. But if you have such qualms, then I am sorry I asked.’
He hesitated. For a moment she thought he would weigh the dangers more heavily than the joys, as he had before. Then his arms tightened around her again. ‘How could I refuse you?’ he whispered, and sought her lips.
Emerging from the seclusion of their mourning, the King and Queen were tragic spectres of their former selves. Richard’s face was hard-set and careworn, Anne’s white and ghastly. It did not help that some had chosen to see the hand of God in the Prince’s death. Preparing to leave the chapel one morning, Kate had overheard Bishop Russell talking to Lord Stanley in a closet that led off it, where they had probably thought themselves private.
‘Now we have fully seen how vain are the thoughts of a man who desires to establish his interests without the aid of God,’ the Bishop was saying, his voice low but loud enough to carry. ‘Some are saying this is a judgement on him – an eye for an eye, so to speak.’ His words made Kate’s blood turn to ice.
‘Without an heir, his position is even less secure,’ Stanley muttered. ‘I’ll wager this will drive many into the arms of my stepson.’
She could not bear to hear more. It was cruel, vile, that this tragedy of the Prince’s death should be interpreted this way – and it was disloyal. What hope was there for her father when even his Chancellor was faithless?
Calumny was not confined to the court. As Kate and Mattie wandered through the market in Nottingham one morning, they heard people openly giving their opinion that, in taking to Himself the usurper’s son, God had heeded the cries of the anguished Queen Elizabeth; others were shamelessly asserting that the Princes had been rid out of this world, and a particularly vociferous few brazenly claimed that it was the King who had had those innocents put to death.
‘Murdered between two feather beds!’ said a stout stallholder, shaking his head sagely. ‘And it was Sir James Tyrell that was sent to do it!’
That was news to Kate. She vaguely knew Sir James Tyrell; he had been in her father’s service for some years, and she had seen him about the court occasionally. Why people should think he had murdered the Princes was a mystery to her, and sounded far-fetched. What pressed on her more heavily was a growing awareness that the King had lost the hearts of his subjects – if he had ever won them in the first place. She was even conscious of a growing hostility towards him at court, where some had reacted with only muted sympathy to the loss of his heir.
‘I’d rather have the French to rule us than be under that hog’s subjection!’ a butcher in a filthy apron opined. The crowd laughed.
‘Forget the white boar – it should be the bloody boar!’ someone cackled.
‘Richard won’t last long,’ a merchant in a furred gown declared. ‘From what I hear, he can only keep people loyal by intimidation or bribing them with gifts.’ Kate winced at that.
‘He must know that people murmur and grudge against him,’ said an innkeeper.
‘He has the remedy in his own hands,’ the merchant declared. ‘All he has to do is produce the Princes alive. That would still the rumours and confound his enemies.’
‘But can he do that?’ the stallholder asked. ‘I don’t think so!’ Heads began shaking, and there were boos and catcalls of derision. Kate tried to shut her ears.
At last Mattie came back with her purchases.
‘We must go,’ Kate muttered, and steered her away.
‘John, what do you know of Sir James Tyrell?’ she asked suddenly, late that night in the chapel. It was past midnight and most souls were abed. She had made her way by stealth through the silent castle and flung herself into John’s embrace as soon as the chapel door was closed behind her. Now they were sitting in the choir stalls.
‘He’s one of your father’s retainers, from the north,’ John replied, stroking her hair. ‘He serves now as a Knight of the Body, guarding the King at night, and performs many labours for him. Why do you ask?’
Kate told him what people had been saying in Nottingham. He frowned.
‘They are ignorant fools and know nothing.’
‘But why should they mention Tyrell?’
‘I have no idea. Those peasants will seize on any gossip and make much of it. I’ll wager Sir James would be mortified if he knew. Just forget it, my love. We have better things to do than discuss Tyrell.’ He nuzzled her ear and drew her to him. ‘When will you be mine? I am aching for you.’
‘When I am to be married. It is the only safe time, if I am not to risk the shame of having a high belly before the wedding. Dear heart, I long for it, even though I dread what must follow.’
Lying in bed later that night, hugging to herself fond thoughts of her stolen hour with Lincoln, Kate recalled what he had said about Tyrell, and wondered if Mattie knew of the man. She was a veritable fount of knowledge concerning what went on in the court.
‘Mattie, are you asleep?’ she whispered loudly.
‘Nay,’ came back a cheerful voice from the pallet bed on the floor. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Guy.’ Guy Freeman was one of the grooms, a big, easy-going, handsome lad, and he was always flirting with Mattie.
‘He likes you.’
‘Aye – I think he does. He told me I’d make a bonny wife!’
‘He might ask for your hand.’ Delighted as she felt for her maid, Kate was envious. People of Mattie’s station in life never had to worry about marrying for policy – they could wed where they listed, and for love too.
‘It’s just a matter of time!’ Mattie giggled. ‘What did you want, mistress?’
‘Do you know anything about a courtier called Sir James Tyrell?’
‘Er, um … yes,’ Mattie muttered, her tone changing. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t find out.’
‘What?’ Kate was puzzled.
‘I don’t just know ofhim – I knew him very well, the bastard.’
‘You mean, you – he …’
‘Yes,’ Mattie confessed. ‘It was last year, on the progress. I’m really sorry, mistress – I shouldn’t have done it, and you have every right to tell me off, but he cozened me with sweet words and cheap trinkets, and then I let him. I wish to God I hadn’t.’
‘But I knew nothing of this. What happened?’ Kate was stunned. She had suspected nothing – and the coincidence was astonishing.
‘He went off south to London. Had to get stuff from the Royal Wardrobe for the poor Prince’s investiture in York. When he came back, he didn’t want to know. He’s one of those rats who lose interest once they’ve got what they wanted.’
‘I’m so sorry for you, Mattie. It’s lucky he didn’t leave you with child.’
‘I thank our Holy Mother for that. She must have had me under her protection that night. Oh Lord, I was a fool.’ She sighed. ‘Can I go to sleep now, mistress? I’m that tired.’
‘Of course,’ Kate said. ‘Goodnight.’
The next day she and Mattie looked for Sir James in the court. He noticed them staring at him and turned his head away. He was a handsome wight, Kate had to admit, but he looked vain with it, and too assured of his place in the world. She decided to ruffle his peacock feathers.
She did a daring and impulsive thing. She sent Mattie off on an errand, then went over to where Tyrell was standing. He leered at her.
‘My Lady Katherine,’ he said, bowing extravagantly.
‘I heard something rather disturbing yesterday, Sir James,’ she said. ‘It was about you.’
‘My lady?’ His expression was shifty now.
‘Yes. It seems you took advantage of my maid and then abandoned her.’ Kate was surprised at her own boldness, but reminded herself that she had every right, as Mattie’s mistress, to make a complaint.
‘Who said that, my lady?’
‘She told me herself when I asked about you.’
‘Oh?’ He looked nonplussed.
‘Someone had mentioned you in connection with a different matter.’ She paused; let that confound him! ‘I do confess, Sir, that I was disappointed to hear of such dishonourable conduct.’
‘She was willing enough,’ Tyrell said sourly.
‘I dare say she was. But she was very young, and you, Sir, are a knight, and a man of years and experience. It did not become you to use her so.’
He was angry now.
Kate continued: ‘Unless you wish to be reported to the King my father, I would suggest you do not treat any other ladies in the same way. You know how strict he is where morality is concerned.’
‘Are you threatening me, my lady?’
‘Only if you conduct yourself dishonourably in future. I must respect the example my father sets. I’m sure you can appreciate that.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘What is all this about?’ Sir James puffed. ‘You say you’ve heard about me in connection with another matter. Why did you ask Mattie about me?’
Kate lowered her voice. ‘I heard your name mentioned in the market place yesterday. Someone said – and I only repeat it – that you were sent by the King to the Tower to murder his nephews.’
Tyrell gave nothing away. His face did not change. If there was a tightening around his lips, it could have been put down to indignation that people could accuse him of such things.
‘You should not pay heed to gossip, my lady,’ he growled.
‘I did not say I heeded it, Sir,’ she sparred.
Tyrell gave her a hard look, as if he guessed she was testing his reactions. ‘Well, thank you, my lady,’ he said grudgingly. Then he nodded his head in the briefest of bows and stalked off.
With the Prince dead and buried, and having no need now to remain at Middleham, the Earl of Huntingdon – Kate could not yet think of him as William – rode south to attend upon the King. Having established himself and his retinue at court, he took to calling upon Kate every day, often with gifts. He never stayed long, for her manner was courteous but cold. She could not overcome the revulsion she felt. There was nothing between them, no affection or even liking. They remained two strangers. How would they ever make a marriage?
As she lay wakeful in bed one night, after a stolen hour with John on the battlements, Kate made a disturbing connection. She remembered Mattie saying that Tyrell had gone south to London to get stuffs for the investiture in York. That would have been on the King’s orders, surely. The investiture had been in September, and it had been soon afterwards that rumours of the murder of the Princes had begun to circulate, followed speedily by Buckingham’s rebellion. Had there been any connection between Tyrell’s trip to London and the Princes’ disappearance? Had he had another, more sinister purpose than just fetching necessary stuffs for the investiture?
After a sleepless night, she questioned Mattie after Mass, as they broke their fast over bread and ale.
‘I reprimanded Sir James Tyrell for his treatment of you,’ she said. ‘But I wondered … Did he say anything to you about that journey he made to London?’
‘He just said he had to go to the Tower to collect stuff from the Royal Wardrobe. I can’t recall him saying anything else – oh, he said it would be a fast ride: four days each way. I remember that because I was counting them on my fingers.’
The Tower. He had been to the Tower. The realisation sent shivers of ice down Kate’s spine. But again – where else would he have gone, with instructions to collect things from the Royal Wardrobe, which just happened to be housed in the Tower? His presence there did not mean that he had murdered the Princes.
This is becoming an obsession, Kate thought. Yet still there were so many unanswered questions, not the least of which was why her father had not shown the Princes to the people and given the lie to the rumours that were destroying his reputation.
Again she told herself that there would be an honest reason for his not having done so. What if the boys had died natural deaths? Disease was rife in London, especially in the hot summer months, and the elder Prince had not been well. Given the widespread rumours, if her father announced now that one or both Princes had died through illness, no one would believe him.
She was going round and round in circles with her arguments. Was she imagining a mystery where none existed? Did the Princes still live in the Tower, as John had insisted? She wanted desperately to believe it.
Fetching writing materials, she stayed in her chamber setting down everything she knew in note form. She wrote of the rumours that were damaging to the King; the likelihood that Buckingham had known the truth about the fate of the Princes, although he was dead and could not talk; that Bishop Russell had more or less said they lived yet; that Tyrell had been at the Tower, and more …
She recorded how both Brother Dominic and Bishop Russell had believed that her father had been determined to seize the throne from the first, although neither of them had actually accused him of murdering his nephews. She noted how the Bishop had dismissed the precontract story, yet said her father had chosen to believe it. But that did not make him a child-killer. And apart from the rumours, which could have been started by any of his enemies, and the fact that no one had seen the Princes since July, ten months ago, there was no evidence at all that he had destroyed his brother’s sons.
She had to know the truth about the precontract. Gathering her papers together, she tied them up with a length of hair ribbon and locked them in her chest, where they would be secure. It would not do to leave such contentious writings lying around, for she could not bear the thought of her father finding out what she was doing. She had already overstepped the mark with her questions as it was.
Locking her door behind her, just to be on the safe side, she made her way around the vast warren of the castle, hoping to find Bishop Stillington, the man who had laid evidence of the precontract before her father. She knew him by sight, a plump, ageing, high-nosed cleric who seemed to be always hovering in the King’s wake. By great good fortune, she ran into him in the chapel.
‘God’s blessing on you, Lady Katherine,’ he said unctuously. ‘You are a little late for Mass, I fear.’
She curtseyed. ‘No, Father, I heard Mass earlier. It is you I seek.’
‘I?’ He smiled. ‘If I can be of any service to such a charming young lady …’ She found his manner ingratiating.
‘Yes, Father. Something troubles me,’ she said. ‘Something I overheard.’
‘Tell me, child,’ Stillington said, ushering her to a pew. ‘Tell me all about it.’
Kate assumed an air of innocence. ‘Father, I know well that my father became king because the young King Edward and his brother were found to be illegitimate. There was something about a precontract …’
The little Bishop’s smile had slipped somewhat. He looked uneasy. ‘Yes, my child, there was, and your father’s title has now been confirmed in Parliament. What can possibly be troubling you?’
‘I overheard two men – I know not who, they had their backs to me – saying that there was no precontract and that it was a false tale used as a colour for my father to take the throne. In faith, I was very upset to hear such talk.’ She was making, she felt, a good job of playing the damsel in distress.
Bishop Stillington appeared discomposed for a moment, then collected himself with an effort, assuming again his urbane manner of moments before. ‘That is a foul calumny, my lady!’ he declared. ‘I wish you had marked the men who said it, then they should have been dealt with as they deserved. Even so, they were only repeating idle gossip.’
Kate tried to look relieved. ‘I am glad to hear you say that,’ she said. ‘I thank you for your words of comfort. That lady – Dame Eleanor Butler, was it? – what happened to her?’
‘She died long ago,’ the Bishop said firmly. ‘And now, if you will excuse me, I must attend on the King your father.’ And he sketched the sign of the cross over her and departed. She sat there a while, thinking that he was not a man she would trust; certainly he had not wanted to talk about Eleanor Butler.
When she looked up, William, her betrothed, was standing in the doorway, watching her in that disconcerting way he had. ‘Good day, my lady,’ he said stiffly, bowing. ‘I have been looking for you. We are summoned to wait upon the King’s Grace.’
Richard was seated in his closet, clad in deepest black, his only jewel the ruby and jet brooch with the drop pearl that he customarily wore on his hat. He looked shrunken, diminished by grief, his face a mask of sorrow; his voice was hoarse and his manner distant. Yet he welcomed them kindly enough, and embraced and kissed Kate.
