Chapter 13
Life changes with such swift brutality, thought Elizabeth walking towards the grand solar where her brothers and her mother’s women waited.
Her mother had died two weeks earlier and Elizabeth wondered if she would ever feel whole again.
Never would she hear the vivacious laugh of the countess fill a room, nor would Elizabeth feel the warmth of her mother’s embrace or bask in the brightness of her smile.
In order to help her father, Elizabeth had slipped into her mother’s role, running the household, a task which the countess had trained her for since she was a child.
Elizabeth glanced out of the window as she passed, the River Thames was a grey scar in the distance, despite being the middle of the day, the sky was as dark as night, weighed down with swollen rain clouds.
‘It makes us sound very grand,’ he had said when Elizabeth had asked whether the name might be bad luck, a shadow version of the vast White Tower, the ancient fortress where so much death had occurred.
‘You’re superstitious, Lizzie,’ he had said with a delighted laugh. ‘It is merely an amusing name, nothing more. No doubt, one day, it will be rechristened and our tenure here, with the peculiar name, will be forgotten.’
In recent years, the family had divided its time between the fortress of Sheriff Hutton and the glamorous court in London.
As her father’s status had improved, her mother was welcomed into the inner circle of elite women and was offered a position as a lady-in-waiting to the queen, Elizabeth of York.
The countess had been honoured to return, especially as she had served the new queen’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, as her Lady of the Bedchamber.
Elizabeth pushed open the door to the grand solar.
Once, the room had rung with laughter, now a low hum of tear-strewn conversation buzzed like discontented wasps in the gloomy light.
Her younger siblings, John, Charles, Henry and Richard, were in the nursery, but those closest in age to her – Thomas, Edward, Edmund and Muriel – sat white-faced and grieving.
Agnes Tilney, her mother’s cousin and a lady-in-waiting to the countess, remained with the household, but Elizabeth’s half-sisters, Anne and Margaret, had left, returning to their own homes.
Her half-brother John had done the same, promising to return should Elizabeth or his half-siblings need his assistance.
The extended household of gentlemen and ladies remained separate from the family – a mark of respect which allowed the Howards time to grieve.
‘Lizzie, my sweet child,’ her father greeted her as she joined him at the fireside. ‘Thank you for taking such good care of us, dealing with the stewards and the household.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Papa,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Mama would expect nothing less.’
‘We shall be poorer for our loss,’ her father said.
‘Poorer?’ queried her elder brother, Thomas.
‘Emotionally,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Papa means our lives are duller, darker, less glamorous since Mama’s death.’
‘She wouldn’t want us to be sad,’ said Agnes, glancing sympathetically at the earl, who gave her a wan smile. ‘The countess was full of life and fun, this is how she would want to be remembered…’
‘Who are you to tell us how we should remember our mother?’ choked Edmund, his voice filled with tears and fury. ‘You were her cousin, not her child. We knew her best.’
Agnes blushed and opened her mouth to defend herself, but Elizabeth stepped in. She put a soothing hand on her younger brother’s arm.
‘Agnes was offering comfort,’ she said to Edmund, who had turned away and was wiping his eyes with rough swipes. ‘She loved Mama too. We all did.’
Elizabeth gazed at her father, imploring him with her eyes to offer solace, but he was incapable. The Howard marriage had been a love match and the earl was bereft.
‘Perhaps we should retire,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Find peace in our own ways.’
‘A good idea, daughter,’ said the earl. ‘I shall be in the mews with the falcons. Would any of you care to join me?’
Elizabeth’s two eldest brothers, Thomas and Edward, nodded and gave murmurs of agreement, rising to join their father. Edmund shook his head.
‘I shall be in my room,’ he said and left, his leather boots echoing on the stone floors as he marched along the corridor towards the quirky tower room that had given the Howards’ London residence its name.
Her father had once told Elizabeth and Edward, ‘When your grandfather, John, was alive during the reign of King Richard, there were many who spread rumours about our sudden rise to the dukedom of Norfolk. There was gossip aplenty about the young boys, the nephews of the king, who had vanished one night, never to be seen again.’
‘Do you refer to King Edward V and Richard of Salisbury, Duke of York?’ Edward had asked.
‘Yes, I do,’ their father had replied. ‘For a while, your grandfather and I were the prime suspects in their disappearance.’
‘It was a mistake, though?’ Elizabeth had said, unnerved by this confession.
‘Of course,’ the earl had said. ‘Back then, my father was briefly constable of the Tower of London. He passed the position to Robert Brackenbury, but a scribe working for us began to whisper about the large order of lime my father had requested. The scribe said this particular lime was known for dissolving bodies.’
Elizabeth’s heart had raced in fear.
‘But it was also useful for plastering walls,’ her brother had interjected, his eyes brimming with laughter.
‘Exactly, and we were renovating this house, The Tower,’ said the earl.
‘I don’t understand…’
‘Can’t you see, Lizzie,’ Edward had said.
‘The fool of a scribe who was working on the accounts books for Grandpapa put two and two together and made seven when he saw the entry “five sacks of lime for The Tower” shortly after the two boys had disappeared. He thought the order referred to the Tower of London and the lime was for nefarious purposes.’
Elizabeth had turned to her father, not entirely convinced, ‘But it was for work being done here?’
‘Yes, my love, the tower room that Edmund has adopted was in a terrible state and we had to completely replaster it. Next time you’re in there, look to the right of the window and you’ll see the date “May 1483” carved into the lime plasterwork, which was the day the work began.’
Her father and brother had laughed heartily at the long-forgotten scandal, but Elizabeth had been unable to shake her unease.
From other tales she had heard, she knew her grandfather had been considered a ruthless man when crossed: had he really been involved in the disappearance and alleged murder of King Edward V and Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York?
The young Richard had also carried the additional title of Duke of Norfolk.
A title, returned to her grandfather a few weeks into the reign of Richard III.
The conversation had stayed with Elizabeth for many weeks, and when she had stolen into her brother’s room and traced her finger around the date carved into the wall, she had shivered with a strange sense of unease.
A white light had flashed before her eyes and she saw the glint of a sword blade, the gasp of a crowd and the small intake of breath of a woman before the vision cleared.
‘Blood on their hands,’ she had whispered and fled from the room with its views towards the imposing fortress of the Tower of London.
Now, Elizabeth watched as her brother and father strode from the room.
She understood their need to be outside.
The house of mourning was oppressive and cheerless.
Outside, the clouds were lifting and the threatened storm was retreating, into the distance, Elizabeth could see glimpses of blue in the sky, tiny sapphires on black velvet. A sign of hope.
Like her brothers and father, Elizabeth was overwhelmed by the desire to feel fresh air on her face, to breathe freely, away from the cloying incense Agnes had obtained from a friar and insisted on burning in honour of the countess.
‘Cousin Agnes, I, too, must retire,’ she said. ‘Would you please take my sister Muriel and the other ladies to Mama’s small solar for relaxation.’
‘Of course,’ Agnes said and belatedly bobbed an awkward curtsy.
Elizabeth, as the eldest daughter, was the highest-ranking woman in the household and deserved such deference, but many of the extended staff forgot, leaving Elizabeth with a quandary as to whether to remind them, as her mother would have done, or allow the disrespect to pass.
‘I shall send the maid to fetch them,’ said Agnes. ‘Will you be joining us, Lizzie?’
‘Alas, no,’ she said, desperate to join her father and brothers in the mews, where a new merlin, the final gift from her mother, awaited. ‘I shall walk in the garden and perhaps join my father and brothers in the mews.’
‘Would your mother have approved?’ asked Agnes, frowning, her voice hinting at disapproval.
‘My mother gave me a merlin to fly, she didn’t mean for it to remain cooped up in its stall,’ replied Elizabeth.
‘Of course,’ said Agnes, but her tone was flat, sour with irritation.
Elizabeth sent Agnes a scorching look of contempt before gathering her skirts in her hand and turning, her anger with Agnes rising fast in her breast. Who was Agnes to question her movements? She was no one. How could she understand? thought Elizabeth.
My mother’s absence is one I can hardly bear. There are moments, such as now, when the pain is so intense, I feel it will crush my heart, leaving me gasping for breath on the floor as I die of despair.
Her mother’s voice murmured in her mind, ‘Straight back, Lizzie, imagine a stout stick keeping you upright.’
And, despite her terrible grief, Elizabeth’s angry footsteps slowed and a tearful smile played on her lips. Her mother would never have been caught weeping and wailing.
‘We carry the blood of kings,’ she had once told the young Elizabeth.
‘Do we?’ Elizabeth had asked in awe.