The Golden Widows Read online

  Her mother’s favourite room was the south-facing solar and here a goblet of malmsey was set in Elysabeth’s hand and honeyand-oatmeal cakes were brought in for the children. Six-yearold Cat clambered onto her knee and Mary made funny faces at Dickon, who showed no reaction until John got down on his hands and knees and played at being a lion, trying to maul their ankles.

  ‘Why is Uncle John doing that, Mama?’ he asked.

  Elysabeth reached out an arm and drew him to her side. ‘He is trying to make you laugh, Dickon.’

  ‘Why, Mama?’

  Elysabeth made a face at John. ‘You know, Dickon, I don’t know either.’

  Over on the windowseat, her mother was attempting to winkle some conversation out of Tom. A curly feat. At least Tom was answering and he actually said something that made the duchess his grandmother give one of her husky laughs – or was she only pretending to be amused?

  Mary gave up on Dickon, bossily grabbed Cat’s hand and whisked her from the room without a courteous by-your-leave. Elysabeth disapproved. That would never have happened at Astley or Groby, nor had it been permitted when she had been in charge of her brothers and sisters. At least, because of the Yorkist victory, her parents were forced to be at home now for the younger ones and she must resist interfering. That might be hard. The love was here yet she sensed within days she would be yearning desperately for Astley, in charge of her own little patch of Christendom.

  But the wine was relaxing her now, seeping through to her toes and she caught Anthony watching her fondly. She nodded back, glad the depth of understanding that had always been between them was fresh as ever. Anthony was not just her brother but her oldest friend.

  In truth, she had shouldered more burdens than him, accepting responsibility as the oldest child whenever her parents had been at court. There had been little leisure time, especially when her mother had another babe due or was not yet churched, except perhaps a snatched walk in the meadows when Anthony would tell her about the book he had been reading or a summer twilight gallop together after tiny John and Jacquetta had been put to bed. Becoming a royal maid-of-honour at twelve had been like stepping into Paradise, no milk to warm, no tiny bottoms to be washed, nothing to be mended. But now here she was – at home again.

  Anthony must have observed the sudden release of her shoulders. With a grin, he languidly drew a cross of absolution in the air and Elysabeth laughed. However, Bessie, like a child in the middle trying to catch the leather ball, witnessed the rapport between them and tightened her lips.

  Clearly, Anthony was very much in the doghouse. Although the couple were sitting side by side on the second-best settle, they might have been England and France with the Channel between them. Bessie looked as though God’s hand had stuffed a poker down her spine while he was lounging back, utterly self-contained, his finely muscled legs crossed at the ankles and clearly unaware the worn-through soles of his beaked shoes were on display.

  ‘May I help myself?’ Elysabeth let go of Dickon and rose to her feet to replenish her goblet but she found the flagon empty. Turning, she met her mother’s shake of head and sensed Bessie’s raised eyebrows.

  Hard times for all of them, then, even a duchess. She sat down again noting the freshly turned cuffs that lengthened her mother’s sleeves, the snags in her veil that betrayed its age and the threadbare hem of her velvet gown.

  ‘Aye, lean times,’ began her father.

  There had been other less obvious defeats than Towton, he explained: her sisters sent home unwed, the betrothal about to be arranged for young John called off by the bride’s kinsmen; neighbouring gentlewomen refusing to acknowledge her mother on the street in Stony Stratford, and Lionel’s tutors in Oxford turning brusque and short of time. Elysabeth commiserated, sorry that relating her boys’ misfortunes was piling more dung on the Woodville midden.

  It was a relief to go into supper but the helpings of squab, rabbit and preserved pork were not generous and there were fewer house servants being fed at the lower tables and only three grooms, which meant that her father must have sold off some of the horses.

  After the meal there were serious signs of an ensuing family conference. The duchess shooed all the children outside and lured the older family members back into the solar with the promise of the sweetmeats she had been saving. ‘Sent from Uncle St Pol in Burgundy!’ Only three of Elysabeth’s siblings escaped their mother’s scoop net.

  Elysabeth helped her mother carry in the platters and sat down beside Bessie on the windowseat.

  Idly thumbing through a book of romances that one of his sisters had left on the small table, Anthony was wearing his most morose expression. John was sitting with his elbows on his knees, resting his chin on his knuckles and Lionel was perched before a small sloping writing table in the corner. Had he been older, he could have been mistaken for a notary at a manor meeting, for he was ignoring the Latin text open before him, humming as he sharpened a goose feather quill and watching everyone.

  ‘Are we about to have an entertainment?’ Bessie asked sarcastically.

  ‘You could call it that,’ muttered Elysabeth.

  ‘Out in the cold, that’s where we are,’ her father exclaimed. ‘And high time we stopped sitting on our hands.’ He usually took up a stance before the chimney mantle when he was in a haranguing mood, legs astride like a swordmaster holding a post-mortem on combat practice, but since the settle had its back turned to the summer hearth and his hip was paining him, he stood beside the settle, one arm resting on its back, the other leaning on his stick.

  Elysabeth could have answered but the trick was to let the men think they held the field.

  ‘Lost your tongue at Towton, did you, Anthony?’ Her father’s fingers tapped impatiently on the settle.

  Elysabeth’s oldest brother sighed. ‘It’s a fact that with the Yorkist sunne likely to blaze over England for several years to come, no one wants to show preferment to a family connected to mad old Henry.’ He raised an eyebrow meaningfully at his mother.

  ‘Or a marriage alliance,’ John added, provoking a quiet snort from Bessie. Easy to see that she regretted being married to a courtier who was out of favour even if he had the athletic physique that made most husbands look like scarecrows and…Of course! Bessie’s first husband had been a Bourchier. No wonder she was looking like a dog whose bone had been snatched.

  Papa, who had sat at King Henry’s council table, warmed to the argument. ‘Exactly, and if the Yorkists are yoked in for a long haul, we must shift with the times and find some means of acquiring our new sovereign’s favour, and raise our fortunes again. It’s a cursed nuisance that I haven’t been able to get to Westminster. Nominally, I’m still a royal councillor, you know,’ he informed Elysabeth, ‘even if I haven’t been summoned to the table.’

  ‘But which ruler of England are you talking about, Papa?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Father, the new king or the new ruler of England?’ Anthony tapped his fingers on the table with irritation. Elysabeth threw him a sympathetic look. At twenty-two, he must be frustrated – blocked from achieving high office by the change of dynasty.

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ muttered their father, tossing aside someone’s embroidery practice and seating himself. ‘I’m not for ingratiating myself with Warwick. Pox take him! Not after the shameful way he paraded us as prisoners at Calais behind his horse like some trumped-up Julius Caesar. Making your mother walk with us and—’

  Her brothers groaned.

  ‘Do not forget my husband’s death at St Albans, Father, and him being branded a traitor!’ Elysabeth said sharply.

  John palmed the air. ‘Doucement, doucement! If we are going to get into bed with the new masters of the realm – no, I did not mean that literally, Lionel, go back to your book! If we are to accommodate ourselves to the status quo, isn’t it wise to forget what happened at Calais? It’s over a year ago.’

  Anthony was ready with a put down: ‘You weren’t there, John.’

  Elys
abeth had not been either but she now understood humiliation. Her father had been at the port of Sandwich on the south coast mustering a force to protect the ships that had been captured from the Yorkists. The Earl of Warwick had mounted a successful, surprise attack. Not only were the ships retaken but her parents and Anthony were manacled and taken to Calais, where they were displayed as captives. She could imagine the ignominy of the torchlight procession and the public sneers of Warwick, Salisbury and seventeen-year-old Edward, the young braggart who had now acquired the crown. The three lords had harangued her father and Anthony as upstarts – lowly esquires not fit for the company of noblemen.

  John, irrepressible, shattered the brief silence. ‘My hypothesis, Father,’ he exclaimed, with a wink at their mother, ‘is that War-wick envied your Adonis-like appearance. That’s why he marched you both in at night.’ His brother and father’s scowls merely fuelled his irreverence. ‘What’s wrong with that, Anthony?’ he persisted.

  ‘It was you who reckoned Warwick got the dumpy Montagu looks from his mother’s side. Never fought in a tournament, has he, Papa? Some Julius Caesar!’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted their father, a former jousting demi-god, almost appeased.

  ‘Come, sir,’ John teased further, ‘Mama always said she married you for your calves.’

  ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t for my money, eh, Jacq?’ He met his wife’s superior smile and turned back to his sons. ‘Let’s keep to the path, John. Yes, Warwick may be the brains behind the new king but you can’t tell me the royal lad is going to behave like a nursery babe on leading strings for the rest of his reign.’

  ‘Is it true King Ned’s already had more harlots than King Solomon had concubines?’ Lionel asked. His answer was a clip on the ear from Anthony.

  Grabbing the bowl of cherries from the table, John tumbled to his knees, holding the vessel on his head like a crown. ‘“Beloved Cousin Warwick, may I have another pretty nurse to rock me to dreamland, so I can sleep through tomorrow’s royal council meeting and you’ll be able to do anything you please?”.’ He scrambled to his feet, preening at his mother’s laughter. Bessie ignored him and Elysabeth felt like giving him a clip on the ear as well. ‘Ah, I’m a genius,’ he exclaimed and lobbed a cherry at Anthony.

  The fruit hit the book. Anthony fastidiously examined the cover for a stain and then ate the offending projectile. ‘A pity the fool of the family has never experienced a battle otherwise he would not be so damned trite.’ He glared at John over the binding.

  Elysabeth winced inwardly, remembering past wrangles, and much as she loved the exuberance of her family, John’s high spirits jangled her nerves. Part of her felt like fleeing, seeking out some stile to lean upon where the wind in the leaves and the evensong of a robin might anthem her weary soul. A walk across the summer fields at Astley with her husband’s arm about her waist. Sadly, she brought her mind back to the present.

  ‘Why not aim lower first?’ she suggested. ‘Seek out the rising stars on the horizon, look where the favours are being handed out. These men will be the ones whom the new government must depend upon.’

  Across the chamber, her father drew his lips together digesting her idea but Anthony forestalled any comment. ‘Yes, forget about the king! And Hell will freeze over before I lick the Nevilles’ boot soles.’

  ‘Shall we make a list?’ piped up Lionel, pen poised above his writing board. ‘Give me some names.’

  ‘There’s the new Earl of Essex,’ muttered her father. ‘Bah! Be damned to him! I’ll not go grovelling to such a whoreson. O Jesu! Your pardon, Bessie, I forget that Essex was your former fatherin-law but he’s still a…Anyway, think, lads. Someone with growing power but still hungry to win friends.’

  Elysabeth gritted her teeth. Lads? She exchanged glances with Bessie.

  ‘There’s Sir William Blount and Sir William Herbert,’ suggested Anthony and rippled off a rollcall of lesser barons. He strolled over to peruse the list over Lionel’s shoulder. ‘Devil take it, I’ve left out William Hastings.’ He looked round at his father. ‘That’s our man! The new lord chamberlain.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed her father, chewing that further. ‘An affable fellow – apart from being a Yorkist. Nothing personal against us to my knowledge. No squabbles or skirmishes over any land. Yes, Hastings might be just the man.’

  ‘And he’ll be in charge of any tournaments,’ jeered John. He prodded his brother in the belly. ‘Anthony wants to joust again.’

  ‘What if I do,’ retorted Anthony loftily. ‘For me, the tiltyard may be the road back to favour and prize money, too. People forgive your sins if you give them a good afternoon’s entertainment. Didn’t your reputation increase when you won that tournament against the Spaniard, Father?’

  ‘Consider a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, brother.’ Still being tiresome, John flung a cushion with the family’s cockleshell coat of arms at him. ‘They may have forgotten that you fought on the wrong side by the time you come back. Sorry, Bessie, I thought you’d like the idea.’

  ‘You could always be a jester, John,’ suggested Elysabeth sweetly. ‘Warwick needs someone who can make him laugh.’

  John shrugged and retreated past the women’s skirts to the open window.

  ‘But what can we offer Hastings?’ muttered her father, cutting to the bone.

  ‘You can offer him nothing,’ Elysabeth informed them but her menfolk gave no appearance of having listened; the Woodville cart rattled off again.

  ‘How about a bride?’ John turned from the casement where he had been making faces at his young sisters in the garden below.

  ‘Isn’t Lord Hastings long in the tooth?’ Lionel asked. From his young perspective, nearly everyone was. ‘Surely he’s married already.’

  ‘He’s not,’ Anthony informed them authoritatively. ‘But that is nothing significant. He’s probably been waiting to see how things turned out.’

  ‘There you are then,’ smirked John. ‘So if he’s not gotten any unnatural leanings…’

  ‘He’d still marry,’ corrected Anthony, and broke off at the noise from outside. ‘Oh, Lord, Cat’s found that whistle again. Shut the lower lights, Bessie!’ His wife ignored him.

  ‘Just listen to those girls shrieking,’ spluttered their father, fisting his side. ‘You think Hastings would put up with one of them?

  If he’s past thirty, he’ll be wanting an heir and none of ours are old enough to breed. Besides, we haven’t sufficient for their dowries. John, close the poxy window! All that female pig squeal is giving me a megrim.’

  John fastened the lower light and leaned back against the stone transom but the squabble could still be heard.

  ‘Have we a cousin of marriageable age?’ Anthony mused. ‘A Haute or one of the Fogges?’

  Elysabeth rose to her feet. ‘I think Towton certainly affected your hearing, Anthony. I’ve told you Hastings needs nothing from us. Nothing! And you know why? I have already pursued the matter.’

  The masculine silence. Were they going to listen?

  Now it was she who stood before the fireplace.

  ‘I’ve had audience with Hastings, requested him to take Tom into his household but he refused because there’s no profit in it for him.’

  ‘Maybe you should ’ave worn a lower neckline.’ That absurd firecracker was from her mother. Was it Gallic humour or utter crassness?

  Elysabeth managed to keep her temper firmly chained. ‘Your pardon, Mama, I don’t think a low neckline looks becoming on a mourning gown, especially one so recently put on. And I also think low necklines are inappropriate for the daughters of duchesses who loved their husbands, don’t you? Now, if you will excuse me for a moment, I am going to see if my children are behaving themselves. Would you like me to check on yours as well?’

  She left the solar, dispensed justice in the garden, checked on Dickon, who was making mud pies with his young Uncle Edward, and returned to the stairs, wondering why she had bothered to return to Grafton. Perhaps she should reopen the hermi
tage up the street to find some peace!

  Bessie was on her way down, looking distraught.

  ‘Are you not feeling well, Bessie?’

  ‘I came away. To be frank, your family’s talk is so…so mercenary. It makes me wonder if I was chosen in such a manner.’

  Elysabeth shook her head. ‘No, by my faith, no. Mama always wanted you and Anthony to wed because she loves your mother so and Anthony always thought upon your father as a hero.’ Realising what she had just said, she quickly reached out to Bessie. ‘No, listen, of course he wanted you.’

  ‘Ha!’ Her sister-in-law pulled away. ‘Well, whether he did or not, I’m a disappointment. No children still and I cannot dissect the works of Boethius or…or St Augustine like—’

  ‘Bessie, Bessie, no one I know can. Come, walk with me in the garden and you’ll feel better.’ Today, it seemed, she must play so many roles, traveller, mother, daughter and now comforter.

  There were more sniffs behind her as they went out to the garden.

  ‘Here’s my refuge.’ Elysabeth’s favourite seat was sheltered by a northern wall and blessed by a hedge upon its eastern side. The stone slab needed scraping free of lichen but she sat down and patted it for Bessie to join her. There had been many times when she had been asked for counsel on this same bench. It had been her brothers mostly who had come to her. Her sister Anne was more the favourite with her mother or young Jacquetta.