A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck (27 page)

The strange situation continues, all of us in limbo, each knowing that things cannot continue like this, something has to happen.

Christmas is approaching. Harry, Meg and Mary are expected from Eltham very soon and I begin planning New Year gifts for them. I am embroidering a fine new doublet for Harry and elaborate sleeves for Meg. After a few weeks, particularly once the children have arrived, I find I treasure the intimate evenings I spend in my apartments with those closest to my heart. Only Henry is missing; Henry who has come to mean so much. I try not to imagine where he might be.

It is dark outside, the sound of the revels in the hall echo through the palace, reaching me in my chambers. The children are in bed and I have supped well and am enjoying a little peace, going over the events of the day in my mind.

Harry has been naughty again, letting the king’s monkey into his grandmother’s chamber where the beast tore the drapes about her bed and set her servants screaming. I hide my amusement and look reproachfully at Harry but my mother-in-law, who sees the boy as the devil incarnate, scolds him harshly and sends him early to bed. I am made of less stern stuff and as soon as she departs I go to him and read him stories until he grows sleepy. I hold his hand until his eyelids droop, then I quietly extract myself and creep from the room. At the door I turn and he opens one sleepy eye and mumbles, ‘Goodnight, Mother.”

Apart from that one incident, it has been a long pleasant day, a companionable evening, and I am happily tired. I stretch my arms and legs and yawn, opening my mouth wide in a way I would never do in public.

“I think I will go to bed,” I say, putting my sewing down and rising from my chair. “It has been a long day.”

My ladies follow me to my sleeping chamber and the long preparation for bed begins. I am disrobed, sponged, my hair brushed, fresh nightclothes put on. Ann tucks me beneath the sheets and draws the curtains about the bed. I am cocooned, womb-like in the dark, the small sounds of my women tidying the chamber slowly fade and my eyes droop, my breathing slows.

“FIRE! FIRE!” People are screaming, my chamber a riot of half dressed women, dishevelled servants. The bed curtains are torn open. “Your Grace, wake up! There is a fire; the king’s chamber is alight.”

“The children!” I am out of bed in a moment, pulling on my robe, running barefoot toward the door. “Is the king safe?” I shout over my shoulder. Catherine Gordon is there, gorgeous even in her distress.

“I don’t know but the children are; Mistress Denton has taken them out. We must evacuate at once, Madam.”

I run from their voices, my plaited hair bouncing heavily on my back, my feet bare in the rushes, treading in God knows what as I hurtle along the corridor. Catherine follows. I can hear her breathing, fast and quick, just behind me.

The king’s outer chambers are alive with activity. No guards at the door. I rush in, spin around on my heel, absorbing the chaos, the destruction. Thick smoke belches from the inner chamber; from the room that houses Henry’s bed. Men are shouting, heavy footsteps, servants fruitlessly dousing the flames with ewers of water. The palace will be ashes in no time.

“Your Grace, we must leave. The king has already gone.” Catherine is behind me, beseeching me to move, but I ignore her. I peer through belching smoke, my eyes streaming with tears.

“Where is the king?” I scream. “Where is the king?”

A hand grabs my wrist, spins me round, and I crash into a broad bare torso; the torso of a man. Slowly, my eyes travel up his body, past the thick column of his neck, past his strong chin and generous mouth, until I meet a pair of well-remembered eyes.

He is dishevelled and grimy, a streak of soot mars his forehead, but I’d know him anywhere. Just as he did when he was ten years old, he pushes back a lock of fair hair that has flopped over his forehead

“Elizabeth,” he shouts. “You have to leave. You have to leave this moment. The king has already been taken to safety.”

“Richard?” I whisper. I forget about the danger, about the belching smoke, the roaring flames. I forget about the legion of spiteful eyes that may be watching. I am transfixed by his beloved face. “Oh my God, Richard; it
is
you.”

“Hush.” Catherine steps forward, ordering me to be silent. “It is not safe. Be quiet, or all our lives are forfeit. Come,” she says, jerking her head in farewell to her husband. “We must all get out. I will take the queen this way; Richard, you go by the back stairs. The king must not know you have met.”

I am led away in a daze, her hand clamped hard about my wrist. Waves of shock and stifling smoke make my head so thick and heavy I can barely think, but as my mind begins to clear, I wonder how Catherine knew about the back stairs that lead to and from my husband’s chamber.

*

Henry and I stand in the courtyard, a group of dishevelled courtiers ringed about us. A cluster of smudged sooty faces raise their eyes to the leaping flames that are consuming the palace. My hand slides beneath Henry’s elbow and he knows, without looking, that it is me.

“Thank God we are all safe,” he says but, still stunned by the fire and by my recent encounter with my brother, I remain silent, my head reeling.

My face and the front of my body are warmed by the raging fire but December frost bites at my bare feet, creeps up my nightgown to gnaw at my buttocks. I shiver, more from shock than cold, and huddle deeper to Henry’s side.

Close by, the king’s mother is bullying Elizabeth Denton to take the children into the old royal manor complex that lies just beyond the moat. “We must all assemble at the old manor. It will be safe there,” she is saying. “The fire cannot cross the water.”

As Mistress Denton hurries the children away followed by a fleet of sobbing nursery maids, I can hear Harry excitedly relating all he has witnessed.

“Did you see the flames, Meg? They were like dragons, great orange dragons. I liked it when all the windows smashed and the glass fell tinkling to the ground like …” His high pitched voice dies away and I am confident they will soon be warm and safe again. I shudder and move closer to Henry, rubbing my face against the warm fur of his cloak.

The king’s profile is outlined against the light of the flames; his face is set firm, his lips a tight angry line, his eyes narrowed. I squeeze his arm.

“It will be all right, Henry.”

He turns and looks at me, a quizzical frown on his brow. “Just think of what we have lost this night, Elizabeth; not just the building but the rich hangings, our royal apparel, even some of our crown jewels. Those things are irreplaceable. I can rebuild the palace, and I intend to do so, but the treasures lost this night cannot be remade.”

“But Henry,” I try to explain, groping for words that fail me. In the end I plump for the plain truth. “At least no one was hurt, no lives were lost. We must thank God for that.”

The boy has never been so cast down; even at his lowest ebb when he was far from home, there were people who named him ‘Prince.’ Now, as Henry Tudor’s captive, he has no friends, no status, and very little hope.

Ostensibly, the king is lenient. He could have left him in the Tower, shut him away from the eyes of the world, but instead he has allowed him the freedom of the court, the company of men. But Richard quickly realises he is Henry’s dupe, no better than his fools, the tumblers and leapers, the malformed idiots that noblemen love to mock. His companions are a bearded woman, a Scottish midget and a giant girl from Flanders. The former golden prince of York is reduced to mingling with the dregs of the court.

He sleeps in a closet within the king’s royal apartment, the door locked at night, his guards ever-vigilant at the door. He has no real freedom, he cannot stroll in the gardens, or visit his wife, or take his ease with the courtiers. No, he has to stay close to the king, ready to do his bidding, answer his questions, reiterate his false confession. “I am a pretender, born in Antwerp, not a son of York at all.”

Each time he speaks the words he hates himself a little more, almost wishing Tudor had left him in the confines of the Tower where at least he would be away from the eyes of men. Now, on top of the contempt and the mockery, he is suspect.

The gossips whisper that he set the fire in the royal apartments and tried to burn the king alive. Richard sneers at such a suggestion. Had he set out to murder Tudor he would have succeeded, he would have lit the fire directly beneath the royal bed.

The king, for all his leniency, does not trust him and constantly tests him. Ever watchful for a chance to punish him further, Henry leaves doors unlocked, windows unlatched. He watches, waits for his captive prince to run.

Richard is allowed to see Catherine but they are never alone; she is chaperoned. Two of the queen’s women wait at the door and his guards hover nearby watching them, eavesdropping on their conversation. Sometimes they smirk and make loud kissing noises should he so much as hold his wife’s hand.

“I hate this,” she whispers. “The strain is killing me. I miss you so much.”

He squeezes her hand. “You are sure the boy is safe and nobody knows? No one suspects?”

She shakes her head. “I am sure of it. He is safe in Wales. I sent him there with my trusted servant before we were taken from the Mount. I could not let Henry lay hands on him.”

“He is the one thing we have left. York’s last hope.”

Her head is bowed. “I am sorry I lost the other, Richard. Two princes would have served you so much better than one.”

“Hush,” he says. “The blame does not lie with you. I should have left you in Scotland. James would have kept you both safe.”

A tear drips from the tip of her nose and splashes on their joined fingers. She raises her head, mops her face.

“I swore I’d put on a brave face. You do not deserve my tears.”

“Does he treat you well?”

She knows he means King Henry, although he will not speak the name if he can help it. She nods her head.

“He is very good to me. I have fine apartments, clothes, and am accorded every courtesy due to my station. He desires that I play him at chess every evening and loses often …”

“In his apartments?” Richard speaks through tight lips, his face pale, and his eyes glistening with envy.

“Sometimes,” she confesses. “But we are always chaperoned.”

“He wants you, doesn’t he? He desires you as his mistress?”

“I don’t know, Richard. He hasn’t suggested it, or behaved improperly. He is attentive and kind, and that is all I know.”

She draws her hand away, injured by his lack of trust. She looks at the door, as if making ready to leave him.

“Don’t go.” He reaches out to restrain her. “It is hard for me, cooped up in here until he sees fit to show me off to the court. Come, let’s talk of something else. Tell me of Elizabeth; has she said anything? I thought she would try to see me …”

“She is not allowed,” Catherine hisses. “She is watched as carefully as you and I.”

“Does she speak of me? Has she questioned you?”

She shakes her head. “Sometimes I think she is about to but there is always an interruption. Her apartments are busy. She is the queen, you know.”

“She knew me at once. I know she did. She has scarcely altered at all; a little older, a little stouter but still Elizabeth, just as I am still Richard. Why won’t she support me?”

One of the guards at the door coughs and spits onto the floor, Catherine grimaces with distaste before turning back to her husband.

“You surely cannot expect her to. She is the queen; if she backed you she’d lose her position, her crown, and her son would be deposed. You have to try to see things from her perspective too, Richard. Just hope that she doesn’t reveal your identity to the king because I believe you are safe only for as long as he believes you to be Perkin.”

Richard snatches his hand away.

“He knows who I am,” he snarls. “That is why he mocks me, just as the Lancastrians mocked my grandfather when they decorated his severed head with a paper crown. He knows I have more right to his throne than he does himself and that is why he is terrified to have me killed. He labels me as Warbeck and pins the blame for the death of the princes on my Uncle Richard to make himself a better king. He is wily and sly, not to be trusted …”

“Time’s up.” The guard approaches to usher Catherine from the apartment. They both stand up, she falls into her husband’s arms; his lips are on her forehead, his hands about her waist.

“So soon, Richard?” she moans. “We spent too much time speaking of foolish things.”

“Next time, sweetheart. Next time will be better, I swear it.”

He smothers her face in kisses, tasting her tears until the guards grow impatient and take hold of her arm.

“I will come as soon as I can, my love. I will keep you in my dreams.”

Her voice fades, she slips through the door and he is left alone. He looks about the small empty chamber, the abandoned lute, the dying fire, and the untouched fruit on the table. He slumps onto a stool and buries his head in his hands, alone with his fears. He has time, too much time with the bitter knowledge that while he is imprisoned with the royal robes, the king seeks to make love with his wife.