The Golden Widows Read online

  ‘Now his grace of York has gone to Hell, maybe you could spend some more time with the boys and me, my love,’ she suggested, primly setting his hands away from her breasts.

  ‘I wish so, too,’ he whispered, kissing her naked throat, ‘but there’s still Warwick who won’t crouch down and lick hands, not to mention York’s heir, young Edward. Distract me no further, madame wife. I am here at home now and horny as a stag in rut so let us see if we can make a daughter, a daughter as beauteous as you, Elysabeth,’ he murmured, deftly loosening the back laces of her gown, a skill he had learned early in their marriage.

  She did not tell him it was too late in the month for begetting.

  ‘John,’ she murmured, feeling her own desire kindling, as he pushed down her gown to the elbows and turned her in a masterly fashion to face him.

  ‘Look at you, four-and-twenty, and still the most beautiful woman in all of England.’

  She wound her arms about his neck. ‘No, the most fortunate.’ In his presence the world was steady and she was protected from the snags and snares of fortune. Mind, she could have wished his family a thousand leagues away but no matter, she thought, as he laid her down upon the bed and slid his hand up her petticotes, tomorrow was St Valentine’s Eve.

  Next morning they were slugabeds, making love again, warm within the curtained bed, heedless of the frosty February day dawning outside. John fell into a morning slumber and Elysabeth rose to cleanse herself behind the corner screen and pull on a fresh chemise. Then, clad in her rabbit fur wrap, she fastened back the lower casement shutters.

  The voices of the builders’ apprentices reached her through the diamond panes. Louder this morning. They were constructing a tower. Newfangled, ugly. Instead of stone, it was being built of small, hand-made bricks. This tower, John swore, would be the first of its kind in England and might indeed set a fashion. If he was pleased with it, he was going to build a new great house entirely of bricks and demolish Groby Hall with its dry rot, draughts and smoke-stained ceilings.

  Well, a brick dwelling couldn’t be colder than this one! Padding across to the hearth, she lifted off the couvre-feu, coaxed the embers into glowing coals and aided by the bellows and some fresh kindling, she persuaded the fire to provide some welcome heat. Satisfied, she sought out her hairbrush but instead of sitting by the hearth, she clambered back into bed, a far warmer place to comb out the tangles that were evidence of last night’s embraces. Behind her she heard a yawn.

  ‘Oh lord, is it morning already?’ John reached out an exploratory hand but Elysabeth smacked him away. ‘I thought you’d be exhausted.’

  ‘For you, never.’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Play my maid?’ She held out the brush. When he shook his head, she pointed to the window chest. ‘There’s a fresh shirt and hose set out for you.’

  ‘They’ll keep.’ He freed himself from the bedclothes, sauntered over to retrieve his beltpurse and came back to her with a tiny drawstring bag of black velvet, which he set upon her lap. ‘Happy St Valentine’s! I could not wait. Open it!’

  Elysabeth loosened the ties and shook out his gift, a gillyflower of gold set in a fretwork of leaves, fruited with tiny clusters of seed pearls. She had worn a chaplet of such pinks at their wedding and it was her favourite flower. ‘This is exquisite.’

  ‘You deserve it, my love. We’ll have a goldsmith fix it to the collar I gave you last year. I never liked the pendant that hung upon it.’

  Reaching for her hand mirror, she held the heart against the valley of her throat and he slid an arm about her waist, drew aside her long ash-blonde hair and kissed her throat. They laughed together and then, freeing herself, she hunted out the gift she had been saving for the morrow.

  It was a broad silken kerchief embroidered with his coat of arms – alternate horizontal bands of silver and azure.

  ‘You are getting better,’ he teased, examining the stitching. ‘I know full well this was a labour for you. I’ll carry it as a token, Elysabeth.’ Then he turned his head towards the window lights, frowning. ‘The builders are making an infernal to-do this morning. Worse than squabbling rooks.’

  She shrugged. ‘They’re noisiest when they are hoisting a pallet of bricks. Tom’s vocabulum of foul oaths has certainly increased, and, by the way, he is hoping you will spend today with him, perhaps ride over to Bradgate Park.’

  ‘No, that’s not possible, my love.’

  ‘Why not, John?’

  ‘I have to return to the queen. Today.’

  Elysabeth stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Don’t look so mardie.’

  ‘But you said nothing.’

  ‘No, I didn’t want to sour matters between us, m’duck. Now say no more! I only came back to please you.’ Winding a lock of her hair around his finger, he tugged her face towards his. ‘And be pleased that the roads were hard with frost so the riding was easy and…’ his breath was like a feather drawn along her lips, ‘…and that I was hard with desire for you.’

  She refused to be appeased. ‘Well, I wish all the cursed rivers would rise so I may keep you here with us. Does your mother know you are leaving so soon?’

  ‘Yes, and I asked her not to tell you.’ The admission bruised her. ‘One last campaign, my love,’ he murmured appeasingly, taking up his clean apparel. ‘The queen needs to take command of London. We know Warwick will try to block the London road but we’ll deal with him. It’ll be like swatting a fly with a mallet. And then we’ll free King Henry from the Tower. Our numbers are far greater and Warwick knows less about military strategy than the Archbishop of Canterbury does about women. Wipe his force out and then there’s only York’s lad and he’ll soon make peace if he knows what’s good for him. Otherwise—’ He drew a finger sharply across his throat.

  Elysabeth had been suckled on politics. Her mother’s first husband had been a royal duke and her father, Lord Rivers, was one of King Henry’s councillors.

  ‘But what if London shuts her gates against your army, John? Mother’s there and she said in her last letter that many aldermen have lent funds to York.’

  ‘Those fools will soon come to terms when they see which way the wind is blowing. Stop looking so anxious, Elizabeth. I’ll be back at Astley within the week, I promise you. And once we have London, I’ll ask the queen to take Tom as a page. Think of the golden future ahead for him. Maybe as friend to the Prince, Lord Chamberlain to our future king perhaps?’ He tweaked her nose playfully. ‘Now, be of good cheer!’

  Despite John’s optimism, her mind still writhed with misgivings. Queen Margaret might be wearing the laurels of victory at the moment but unless her captains could capture York’s son, Edward, there would be more battles ahead. Elysabeth’s parents and oldest brother had already fallen foul of Edward – a year ago.

  Now he was eighteen.

  ‘Where is Edward of York at the moment, John?’

  He shrugged dismissively. ‘Who cares? In the Welsh Marches somewhere? We’ll get to him when we’ve dealt with Warwick. I’ll warrant your father, for one, will be glad to see both their heads stuck on poles at long last.’

  Elysabeth grimaced. ‘Don’t you think…’ she began and then fell silent. Best to hold her tongue. Her husband’s time was too precious now to spend it arguing about beheadings. ‘Well, since you are leaving, I shall, too. Home to Astley.’

  His expression hardened. ‘No, my love, I desire you to remain here and make sure the masons complete the next floor of the tower. I’ve ordered the slate for the roof from the quarry at Swithland. It’s not the best, harder to split than Welsh slate, but it should suffice.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No arguments, Elysabeth. You will do that. Besides, Mother may not say so in so many words, but she could still do with your company. Having our sons here takes her mind off poor Reginald’s death.’

  He was utterly wrong. Tom’s presence reminded Lady Ferrers too vividly of her dead child.

  ‘John, I’m not sure that is
so,’ she began, but an irate knocking instantly silenced her.

  Speaking of John’s mother must have conjured the woman up. The door timber was shuddering beneath a fierce onslaught.

  ‘John! Elysabeth! Come and deal with your son! He’ll not obey me.’

  Since Elysabeth was already decent and John’s shirt covered him below the thighs, he unbarred the door. ‘What’s amiss?’ he asked calmly.

  His mother’s sharp eye took in the mussed bed, John’s half-nakedness and Elysabeth’s unplaited hair. ‘Pah, naught, I daresay,’ she sneered, ‘unless you call climbing the scaffolding and refusing to come down of no consequence.’

  ‘What!’ Elysabeth squeaked.

  ‘Oh, do not tell me you could not hear the hubbub? I wash my hands of this! Come and deal with him this instant!’

  Having dumped her ill tidings and relegated any decisions to her grandson’s irresponsible parents, Lady Ferrers disappeared like a spent tempest before either Elysabeth or John could answer.

  With a foul oath, John swiftly stepped into his hose and struggled to lace them up to his gipon. Elysabeth found his boots for him and swiftly tied his points, then grabbing up her own shoes, she hastened after him down the stairs and out across the frosty courtyard to where they were building John’s wretched tower.

  A wagon of straw with the oxen still in harness was halted between the gates that opened out onto the village’s main street. Its progress into the yard was blocked by the array of builder’s men, servants and villagers who were gaping up at her husband’s cursed, half-built monstrosity as though they were expecting the Second Coming. Only her arrival with her long fair hair unbound loosened their attention from the tower.

  ‘I am sorry, my lady,’ wailed Dickon’s nurserymaid, wringing her hands in her waistcloth as she waylaid her mistress, but Elysabeth waved her away. ‘Not now!’

  ‘What in Hell is amiss here?’ snarled John, asserting his lordship.

  ‘The young fellow won’t come down, my lord.’ The master builder, livid-cheeked from the slapping wind, gestured to the scaffolding flanking the unfinished third storey. ‘My apprentice Robin Steynforth’s up there trying to make him see sense.’

  She could see no one up there. John looked as confused as she was, and with a sigh of impatience he marched across to the doorless opening of the tower and peered up. She followed him in.

  The tower was hollow, open to the sky. Joists were in place between the walls but with no flooring as yet. At the top, two bricklayer’s platforms, scarce two wide, were linked to the outside scaffolding. A ladder, set horizontally, straddled the drop, and a pair of knees in new woollen hose were showing on the innermost side. Tom’s.

  ‘Thomas!’ roared John.

  The knees wriggled.

  On the scaffolding side, a young workman obligingly stuck his head over the gap. He seemed to be on all fours.

  ‘Well, sirrah?’ barked John.

  ‘He be not comin’ down, my lord.’

  Elysabeth put a hand across her mouth to staunch her laughter. It was not only the Earl of Warwick who could stage a rebellion. John, however, showed no amusement nor did Cowper, the master builder, who had followed them in.

  ‘I fear this is holding up the morning’s work, my lord.’

  John’s answer was brusque and haughty. ‘You’ll be paid, man, if that is your only concern.’ He gazed up again, fists at his waist. ‘Listen, Steynforth or whatever your name is, can you not get onto the ladder and haul him across? Damned child!’

  ‘Nay, he cannot, my lord,’ intervened Cowper. ‘It be too risky. Them rungs be slippery as grease, being open to the weather, especially if young Master Grey don’t come willing like. I’ve seen it afore,’ he added, with a curl of his lower lip. ‘Going up’s one thing, but…’ His confidence faltered. It was evident he dared not imply that John Grey’s son and heir might be a coward.

  John’s language was blasphemous as he marched back into the courtyard.

  Elysabeth gestured to Master Cowper to return outside, and called up to her son, ‘Tom, are you not frozen there? Pray stop being an ass and come down. You are holding up the work.’

  ‘Good! I hope it costs Father a great deal of money!’

  ‘Oh, now, that is not—’

  ‘Mother! He did not even ask me why I am up here.’

  ‘But Tom—’

  ‘Go back in the warm, Mama. This will take some time.’ That was said with less conviction.

  Elysabeth returned outside, back into the icy wind, and touched John’s elbow. ‘He wants to negotiate, I think.’

  John could do indignant huffs. This was one of his finest. She left him to simmer and found a vantage point across from the scaffolding.

  ‘I’m laying this at your door,’ Lady Ferrers muttered, arriving well furred and mantled, at Elysabeth’s elbow. ‘You should have talked John out of building this…this extravagance and… and didn’t I warn the children two days ago, when they were trying to build castles with the masons’ sand, not to go anywhere near, but do you support me? No,’ her voice dropped, ‘you tell me I’m a fussy old hag.’

  ‘I never—’ But what did it matter?

  John joined the women, his face grim.

  ‘Has anyone asked him why’s he’s up there?’ Elysabeth asked, but John’s quelling look made her realise miserably that not only was he worried for Tom but the Grey family honour was at stake. Was that what all the people here were thinking? That Tom was too craven to crawl manfully back over the ladder? ‘Find out Tom’s side of this!’ she persisted.

  John cursed beneath his breath and, striding forward, shouted up: ‘Thomas! Thomas, listen to me! If you crossed the ladder once, you can do it again. Robin Steynforth’s there to help you.’

  Her son’s voice yelled back without an iota of fear. ‘Only if you promise to take me fishing tomorrow, sir.’ The boy stood up now, his ash-blonde hair bright as he leaned over the unfinished wall and grinned cheekily down at his audience.

  Relieved laughter rumbled about the yard. So that was what it was all about. Elysabeth let out a pent-up breath. Of course, Tom was capable of crossing the ladder again, but his father’s reaction of smouldering anger boded ill, making her feel guilty that she had stolen John yesterday for her own pleasure especially when he had only been home two days.

  ‘Fishing?’ he snarled beneath his breath. ‘Devil take it! In February?’

  ‘I’d never have let you get away with such a jape, John.’ Lady Ferrers was stirring up his temper. ‘You’ve raised him to be a milksop.’ That poisonous morsel was for Elysabeth, who was gazing up at a boy who was far from cowardly. Could his grandmother not see that?

  ‘Mother, would you ruddy well stop berating us!’ growled John. ‘It isn’t useful.’ The Grey family pride was definitely under siege. He stepped forward again. ‘Listen, Tom, I’ll take you fishing now.’

  With a whoop of triumph, his son disappeared and Elysabeth heard him raise his voice in argument. ‘Oh, come on,’ he was saying, before he reappeared at the wall. ‘Dickon’s up here, too, but he’s afraid now. I am not sure I can get him back.’

  ‘Oh God in Heaven!’ Elysabeth exclaimed, clapping her fingers to her lips.

  John looked fit to have an apoplexy. ‘Why didn’t that fucking apprentice tell us? Here, take my mantle, Elysabeth! I’m going up.’

  He discarded his cote into her arms and mounted the scaffolding, leaving her prickly and afraid. Prickly because it was his fault in building this foolish extravagance when normal noblemen had always built in stone, but the fear for her menfolk was greater: some instinctive dread that she might lose all three of them – the human bricks and mortar that held her life together.

  ‘Make way!’ John called out as he reached the top and the crowd watched the lad, Robin, edge back at his lord’s order.

  Shielding her eyes with her hand, Elysabeth saw her husband crouch down. He must be at the edge of the ladder. The murmur of voices reached her. At least he and Tom
were speaking to each other. She hastened back into the tower, hoping she might help, and saw Tom crawl across above her. Thank God! But Dickon was another matter.

  She heard the cheers and whistles as if she was in a different universe. The most desperate prayers were on her lips and her heart was aching. Climbing up at his brother’s heels, little Dickon would not have realised how high Tom was leading him. Perhaps, to be charitable, Tom might have told him not to come but Dickon always followed Tom like a shadow. A frozen shadow!

  God in Heaven! How long had the children been up there?

  John was talking to the child too softly for Elysabeth to hear. She saw him venture his knee precariously onto the nearest rung. Then he reached out a hand, trying to coax the little fellow forwards. No doubt Dickon’s mind was dazed with fear not just the cold.

  ‘John, I’m coming up as well,’ she shouted.

  ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘There isn’t the room. In God’s name, don’t distract me!’ He edged further forwards.

  ‘Dickon, do what Papa says,’ she shouted and hastened out to the foot of the scaffold.

  ‘You go up?’ sneered her mother-in-law, swiftly setting a hand upon her sleeve. ‘For sure, in your skirts with half of Groby gaping. Leave it to John!’

  Whether Lady Ferrers spoke from malice or necessity to stall her, Elysabeth tugged away. ‘Do you think that bothers me, madame? My child’s life is at stake.’ She swung round, facing the cluster of house servants. ‘Sutton! Green! Fetch a featherbed from the house! The nearest! Quickly! Quickly!’

  ‘Your pardon, my lady,’ called out Cowper, ‘but a blanket might be better. We can hold it beneath.’

  Elysabeth ignored him. How could a simple blanket best a thick featherbed? Hastening back into the tower she could see John had shifted further forward.

  ‘Wait, my lord! We are putting a mattress below just in case.’

  The rungs must have been biting into John’s knees for he obeyed her, warning the child not to move.

  The servants hauled in a narrow featherbed.

  ‘No, no, fetch a wider one!’ Alas, there were two sides to the ladder but if she dragged the bed to lie at right angles…