The Golden Widows Page 5

  John was leaning forward again. She could see Dickon’s little knees on the nearest rung on his side. He held an arm out to his father’s, then jerked it back crying. John coaxed him again. The child let his arm be grabbed. John placed his other hand on the ladder rung and grasped the little boy by the back of his jacket.

  Elysabeth jerked her fist to her mouth, her breath held, and then was startled as a thin young body huddled into her. Tom had buried his face in her skirts and was sobbing out an apology. She clutched him to her. He felt so cold. Was Dickon her babe as cold as this?

  So slowly, uncomfortably, warily, John was backing as Dickon moved forward. He seemed to have gotten a good grip on the child’s jacket but it was hard to be certain from below. Elysabeth, clutching Tom’s shoulder warningly, silently urged him back towards the doorway. For an instant, all seemed well above. She watched, not daring to breath.

  And then.

  Dickon made the mistake of looking down and screamed. He slipped awkwardly, weakening his father’s hold, probably forcing the man’s wrist against its natural turn and John could not…

  Not keep hold!

  The wrong side. The wrong side.

  She screamed as her child’s weight plummeted into her. It was a miracle she thought afterwards. Somehow she sprang sideways as his body filled her arms and the momentum flung them both across the mattress.

  Intense pain surged up her forearm in an agonising wave. Dickon was a dead weight across her left arm, his skin ashen, his eyes open, unfocused, and a scarlet stain was spreading beneath his head onto the featherbed.

  Was he still alive? O God, O God, be merciful!

  ‘Shall we move him, my lady?’ asked Cowper, his face dour.

  A canopy of labourers’ faces peered down at her.

  ‘Yes, no!’ Her voice was frantic. ‘Dickon, Dickon, it’s Mama. Can you hear me?’

  Please, not dead! No, please God, no! The little boy’s face was already white as an alabaster tomb monument and still the ugly, vivid insult of scarlet blood beneath him was spreading.

  Her maid, Tamsin, was kneeling by her now and then the scaffolding outside rattled fiercely as John, his breath ragged, pushed through the people blocking the doorway.

  ‘Elysabeth?’

  ‘I tried to save him.’ More pain as she attempted to lift her head.

  ‘Fetch clean cloths and blankets!’ Lady Ferrers was behind him giving orders.

  Falling on one knee, John lent over Dickon, feeling for the pulse in the boy’s neck. ‘In God’s name, stand back!’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘Give us light for pity’s sake!’

  ‘John?’ Elysabeth asked fearfully.

  He did not, could not answer yet, too preoccupied with running his hands over Dickon’s ribs and limbs seeking for broken bones.

  ‘Alive? Yes, praise be, but…’

  Yes, now she saw for herself. A slow tide of pink began to rosy Dickon’s cheeks and the boy’s eyes opened fleetingly. Just enough for her to glimpse the light rekindled in his eyes as though a forgiving God had once more lit the candle of life within him.

  ‘Thanks be to Our Blessed Lord for the child’s deliverance,’ boomed the chaplain, falling to his knees, his hands clasped in prayer. Too soon. Too soon, Elysabeth thought. But the good news passed. Those in the doorway descended to their knees in a reverent whisper of praise, which flowed out into the yard.

  John had no time for reverence.

  ‘Thank you, thank you! Hell! Now get out of here, all of you! Mother, see to it! No, do not block the doorway in God’s name!

  We need the light!’ His fingers were exploring the back of Dickon’s head and puzzled, he eased the boy’s head off Elysabeth’s arm. ‘Well, I’ll be cursed, it’s you who are bleeding, sweetheart. Let’s get him completely off her! Take his ankles. Gently now!’

  Relief from Dickon’s weight was fleeting. Trying to sit up unleashed nausea and more pain. Squinting sideways, she saw her upper sleeve was bloody.

  ‘Stay still, my duck!’ John’s fingertips were exploring along her arm for broken bones. ‘I can feel a break here, Mother.’ Dear God! Elysabeth gritted her teeth, no longer hearing what Lady Ferrers was saying. The faces around her were fading behind a spangled curtain. ‘Darling, keep it still!’

  She must have fainted. She opened her eyes to find the Groby steward stooping over her, proffering a clean, soft towel. Tamsin stood beside the featherbed, hugging a great bear of blanketing.

  ‘Dickon’s belt buckle caught you, I reckon.’ John pressed a wad of cloth against the slash on her arm just above the elbow. ‘The bleeding will soon stop.’

  Lady Ferrers sat beside her now, cradling Dickon in her arms and Tom stood above her. Elysabeth could feel her older son’s fear, see the distance people left around him as though he was a leper.

  She tried sending him a smile of reassurance. It fell short, like her own hope; why had Dickon neither spoken nor given any sign of recognition?’

  ‘Best we carry the lad to bed,’ John was saying. ‘And you need your arm set.’ Letting Tamsin take over the pressure on the cut, he put his arm about Elysabeth, and helped her to her feet. She nearly fainted again.

  ‘See to Dickon, John,’ she pleaded, and surrendered to Tamsin’s support.

  John lifted the child sufficiently so that they might cocoon him in a blanket, then careful as Our Lady would have been with the Christ child in her arms and, with Lady Ferrers holding the tail of the blanket, he carried him out.

  ‘I seen this before,’ Elysabeth heard one of the workman mutter, as they passed through the courtyard. ‘They be never the same again. Pity, eh?’

  John set Dickon down among the cushions of the daybed in the women’s solar and Lady Ferrers drew a coverlet up over the cocoon of blankets. Elysabeth sank down on the settle, still feeling dizzy.

  Would Dickon recover? Would he speak again? The workman’s remark was still echoing. Had the fall turned their son into a village dolthead?

  ‘We all need a strong drink and a dab of it across that cut would be a wise notion,’ John’s mother said, patting Elysabeth’s good shoulder. ‘I’ll see to it. Oh, out of my way, you wretched creature!’ That was to Dickon’s nursemaid who had followed them in.

  ‘My lady, my lady, please forgive me!’ The wench almost grovelled at Elysabeth’s feet, all tears and wailing, like a recanting Lollard fearing the stake. Absolution was unthinkable. Elysabeth exchanged glances with her husband and the fool’s future was sealed.

  ‘Send my esquire Weston to me and inform the kitchen we need egg whites, flour, fat and a large ewer,’ John commanded. ‘And that’s your last order from us. We want you gone from here within the hour!’ The girl disappeared, sobbing.

  John placed his hand on Dickon’s forehead. ‘My feeling is that he’ll mend. He might not know his arse from his elbow for the next hour and he may never remember climbing up the tower, but you saved him from internal injury.’

  Had she? She could not stop watching Dickon’s breath rising and falling beneath the bedding. Gratitude that her little son could even manage that poured through her. Gratitude combined with a feverent wish that Lady Ferrers would return with a flagon.

  ‘Mind you, that was a cursed foolish thing you did, Elysabeth,’ John commented, leaving the bedside. ‘Dickon could have damn nigh killed you.’

  ‘He could have killed me in childbirth. The next one might.’

  Sitting beside her, John took her good hand in his. ‘You know what I’m saying. I thought I’d lost you.’

  ‘Then don’t be angry. We need to pray for him, John, not snarl at one another. Why have you called for Weston?’

  ‘You’ll need to have your arm set. Would you trust my esquire to do that? If he wasn’t born a gentleman, I reckon he’d have made a wondrous good bonesetter. I found him watching the queen’s chirugeon at work after Wakefield.’

  ‘If you trust him, then so shall I.’ Her broken arm needed to be bound to a straight piece of wood by strips of
cloth. Saturated in the right blend of egg and flour solution, the swaddling should dry hard as a board. The skill would be in setting the bone so that it would both look and feel wholesome again. She lifted the cloth from her cut. ‘It’s stopped bleeding.’

  ‘If you were one of my men, I’d cauterise it but we don’t want to make an ugly scar. When Mother comes back, we’ll daub it with wine and hope that cleanses it. If you start feeling feverish at any time, you must let me know. The sleeve is a ruin. Perhaps you should start a new piebald fashion. Sleeves of different colours.’

  It hurt to laugh but it was not the discomfort he read in her face that made John’s smile ebb fast.

  ‘Will Dickon get better?’ Tom stood round-shouldered in the doorway, like a small pathetic question mark. Behind him, towered his grandmother. Perhaps she had marched him in for retribution. ‘Will he, Mama?’

  ‘I do not know, dearest,’ whispered Elysabeth.

  ‘Sometimes the damage does not show itself straightway,’ remarked Lady Ferrers, half-filling three goblets from the tray on the small table. ‘You knocked yourself out once, John, when you and Edward were riding at the quintain but no harm came of it. And, let us be honest, Dickon has always been rather slow-witted for his age.’

  Oh, by the Saints, by all means be honest, Elysabeth fumed. The woman had the tact of a jester at a funeral.

  ‘Here you are, son John, sup up! Now have you a clean cloth? You’ll need to cleanse that wound, Elysabeth.’

  John drowned the contents of his goblet and set it down loudly. He was staring at his older son and the colour of his countenance showed white-hot with anger.

  ‘Thomas,’ he said, brushing his palms. ‘Come with me!’

  The boy raised his eyes, his mouth a stubborn arc, defiant as a heretic before the bonfire. Elysabeth wanted to protest: He didn’t think. He didn’t mean this to happen.

  John’s face was adamantine. With a fierce hand, he seized Tom by the ear.

  ‘No! NO!’ Their child writhed and struggled within in his grasp like a hooked eel. ‘You said you would go fishing with me now. You promised! You promised!’

  ‘John!’

  ‘No, you will not interfere! It’s time he learned.’

  She shuddered, hearing Tom’s screams as his father hauled him up to his bedchamber.

  Lady Ferrers said nothing as she handed Elysabeth a cleansing cloth yet her upper lip twitched and her eyes gleamed with a triumphant I-told-you-so that presaged a scolding. Thank God, Tamsin knocked at that point to lead in the village healer.

  ‘Lady Ferrers, Lady Grey, I came as soon as I heard. How fares the poor lamb? Such a to-do, eh?’

  Sweaty-faced, with a basketful of herbs on her arm, she bobbed them each a curtsey before she went across to the bed and burrowed a clawed hand in to find Dickon’s wrist. ‘Oh, so cold but his pulse is strong enow.’ She scooped back his eyelids. ‘A pity he had to be moved but it be biting cold out there.’

  She held a tiny silver mirror in front of Dickon’s nose. ‘Breathing is good. He’ll come about, my lady, be sure of that, but…’ she swished her mouth sideways, ‘it could be his brain’s been jarred.’

  Elysabeth dragged her good hand across her forehead. ‘You mean that his wits may be injured?’

  The woman waggled her head. ‘I cannot say. If there be any damage, it will show itself soon enow.’

  ‘Time heals, too,’ pleaded Elysabeth, and she hoped that God and his saints were listening.

  ‘How’s the little lad now? On the mend, I trust.’ John sounded blithe but his expression as he strode into the solar later looked stern and strained as St Peter’s might have been denying the Blessed Christ.

  Elysabeth could not answer him. Another time she might have wished the comfort of his embrace but not now; Weston had set her arm, her shoulder felt like it had been kicked by a score of horses, and John had so misunderstood Tom’s behaviour.

  Sensing he was in disfavour, he stomped to the hearth and stood chafing his hands. ‘Thomas’s backside will be sore, but he will remember this lesson. Don’t look at me so, my duck. One day there will be men relying on his judgment in battle and if he thinks twice about leading them into danger, today shall have served its purpose.’ But he was looking at Dickon’s quiet face with a heavy frown.

  ‘Isn’t it the intent that’s important?’ Elysabeth almost screamed at him. ‘Tom didn’t realise.’

  ‘Grow up, Elysabeth! Of course he knew he was putting Dickon’s life at risk. Letting a child so young follow him up there.’ He toed the hearthstone moodily and Elysabeth knew she would dislike what he would say next. ‘Mother thinks it is high time Tom should be sent to another household. I think so too.’

  ‘No, please, a little longer.’

  ‘I’ve delayed a year or more to please you, fool that I am. No, my mind is made up. In fact, I shall speak with my lord of Somerset about it tomorrow. Mayhap he will take him as a page, make a man of him before you ruin him.’ He straightened. ‘Anyway, enough said. I have to make preparation before I ride away.’ A farewell bow, as though they were strangers.

  Elysabeth stepped into his way. ‘Back to the queen? You are still going to her? With Dickon still out of his wits! He may die. How can you—’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he stepped around her. ‘The way you talk anyone would think I’m Margaret’s lover. In God’s name, can’t you see—’

  She could have struck him, she was so furious. ‘Your little boy fell hard, John, and you…Pah, go, then! I care not whether you stay or no.’

  With male perversity, he did not head for the door, but folded his arms. ‘I suppose you blame me for this,’ he said with a sulky expression so like Tom’s. ‘It’s my bricks, my tower.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I do!’

  ‘Dear God, I had enough blows to the head as a child, let alone in battle. It is part of being a boy, being a man.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that,’ she acceded, letting the anger ebb from her face. ‘My father has taken enough falls in the tourney field but…’

  ‘Aye, and he is never short of an argument just like his daughter. So, let’s have an end to this!’ He started for the door. ‘I’ve plenty to do.’

  ‘Please John, please, stay until tomorrow.’ She flung herself against him but he unfastened her arms.

  ‘Enough! It is your womanish fears that have made a milksop of your children. By heaven, I’ll be glad to get back to the army.’

  Damn him and his temper! Elysabeth stood staring at the door in shock before she returned to Dickon’s bedside. If her own mother had not been in London or her father and brother with the queen’s army too, she would have loaded the child into a litter this instant and taken both children to her parents’ home except…Except Dickon was so ill and Tom? Lord help her, she would need to use her wits with Tom. Feeling as though God had bound her to a windmill blade, she sank to her knees to pray for her little son to recover.

  The disagreement with John set a dampener on their parting. Escorting him to the courtyard an hour later, Elysabeth bade him farewell with a chill countenance, and the rigidity of his body as they formally embraced before the household told her his resentment would simmer yet awhile. She wanted to ask him to carry greetings to her father and brother but the words stayed inside her.

  She called out: ‘God protect you!’ as he turned his horse’s head towards the gate but whether he heard, she did not know, for he kept his face forwards and never looked back.

  And after supper, as she and the chaplain knelt together in prayer beside Dickon’s bed in thanks that he had recovered his wits and was speaking coherently once more, she realised that it was not just St Valentine’s Eve, an eve turned sour, but also a Friday, Friday the thirteenth.

  Elysabeth

  19th February 1461

  The Feast of Theodulus, Patron Saint of Bellringers Groby Hall, Leicestershire

  The news of Queen Margaret’s victory at the abbey town of St Albans on 17th February was proc
laimed loudly through the streets of Leicester. Groby’s bailiff, who had been in the city on business for Lady Ferrers (as well as to enjoy the favours of a particular tapster wench), joyfully brought the news back to Groby Hall, where many a keg was opened and Sir John Grey’s health was drunk.

  Elysabeth, full of forgiveness and relieved that John must return again soon, perhaps laden with rewards for his loyalty (Knight of the Garter, for instance, like her father), rejoiced with the rest of the household, although she had some pity for the townsfolk of St Albans. This was the second battle in five years that had bloodied their doorsteps but at least this time John’s side had triumphed.

  From what she could piece together, it seemed that the rebel leader, Warwick, had miscalculated badly. Not just the strength of Queen Margaret’s army either. He had foolishly wagered all on the assumption that Edward of York would rush to help him hold the London Road. But young Edward’s force was protecting his father’s lands around Ludlow and had never arrived. And so, lacking the numbers and with his men spread too wide across the town and the surrounding fields, Warwick had stood as much chance of winning as a rooster facing a pack of foxes.

  Now the way was open for Queen Margaret to take London, just as John had hoped. What’s more, her grace now had King Henry for company again. The proclamations said that he had been found in the town under the guard of old Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyrell and they were now beheaded.

  ‘You are certain the Earl of Warwick wasn’t captured?’ Elysabeth asked the bailiff.

  ‘Nowt in the proc-hic-clamations, Lady Grey. Mind, he could be slain and they may still be a while to discover his-hic-body. For instance, if the queen’s soldiers have stripped it for armour an’ valuables, it could take a while to identify him, see.’

  ‘Probably discover the lily-livered cur drowned in a water butt,’ guffawed one of the local aldermen.

  ‘Aye, my lady,’ exclaimed the bailiff, wiping pie crumbs from his lips. ‘Mayhap he took to his heels the moment he smelled which way the wind was blowing.’ He leaned forwards and bestowed a grin on Dickon, who was standing beside her wide-eyed. ‘And whose Papa is coming home soon?’