Chapter 13
Marris sat in the tiny antechamber at Bletchingley Manor, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands.
She had no notion of the time; the candle had burned down hours ago and darkness enveloped the house.
She wondered if this frustration and sense of helplessness was how some men felt as they awaited the birth of their child.
It was no wonder that they took refuge in the alehouse, if so.
Anything would serve as a distraction. Yet she was alert to every small sound, every creak of the house, every footstep, for it could be the difference between secrecy and disaster.
She could not allow herself to sleep though her eyelids drooped with tiredness.
The former Queen Anna, now the King’s beloved ‘sister’, had retired to her Surrey manor of Bletchingley a month before, complaining of poor health that required the country air to cure.
She had taken only a small retinue of favourite servants with her.
For a few months the Queen had been gaining weight, ordering up and eating tremendous amounts of sweetmeats and cakes.
She had always had a sweet tooth which the new Queen Catherine had encouraged with gifts of marchpane, comfits and gingerbread.
Guilt gifts, Anna had called them darkly, but they had served her purpose perfectly, completely concealing the fact that she was getting bigger because she was pregnant.
In addition, she flaunted her new wealth with huge golden chains and necklaces, elaborate coifs for her hair and flowing gowns until all anyone could speak of was how rich the former Queen looked, rather than how fat.
A faint, thin wail, swiftly cut short, caught Marris’s attention and her eyes snapped open. She sat bolt upright as the door opened and Lady Bray came in looking as tired as Marris felt.
‘It is a boy,’ Lady Bray said in answer to Marris’s questioning look. ‘A healthy child.’
There was a short silence whilst the two women looked at each other and Marris knew they were both thinking how glad King Henry would have been for a healthy son as a spare to his only surviving sickly male heir.
Had matters been different, had Henry been more patient, more prepared to try to salvage his marriage to Anna, less enamoured of a pretty face…
But none of those things had happened. And now Anna had no choice but to break her own heart and give up her child to ensure its safety.
‘We have all seen what happens when there is another claimant to the kingdom,’ Anna had said, white-faced and grimly determined, in the last weeks of her pregnancy.
‘Wicked men will try to use my child for their own ends, to gain power. Or they will kill the baby as King Herod did the innocents.’ Her tears had flowed, her anguish palpable.
‘I wish with all my heart for her to be a girl, for then she would be less of a threat.’
And now, of course, the baby was a boy and Marris wondered, a little guiltily, whether this was for the best. Had she been the girl that Anna had desired, the former Queen might have been tempted to keep the child, go to the King and try to explain. Now there was no such possibility.
The door opened once again, this time to admit the wet nurse. She was the daughter of Anna’s coachman, a sturdy girl, unflappable, with plenty of common sense. She carried a small bundle wrapped in swaddling cloth. ‘The little angel,’ she whispered. ‘He is a strong one. He is hungry already.’
For a brief moment Marris studied the tiny, creased face of the second son of King Henry VIII. She imagined she could see some likeness there, if only in the demand that the baby was making to be fed.
‘Has Her Grace chosen a name for him?’ she asked.
The girl shook her head, her gaze flickering to Dorothea Bray. ‘Her Grace has not spoken at all,’ she said.
Lady Bray touched Marris’s arm. ‘You must go to her,’ she said. ‘The Queen is distraught. I am not certain if she can survive this.’
‘She must,’ Marris said. ‘She will. She has been so brave…’
Lady Bray was crying. ‘There is only so much one can bear,’ she said, between noisy sobs.
Marris knew. She went into the bedchamber, where one of the maids was silently tidying the room whilst another hovered by the bed, clearly distressed but uncertain what to do. When she saw Marris, she looked relieved.
‘Her Grace neither moves nor speaks,’ she whispered. ‘We have washed her and made her comfortable but…’ She made a little helpless gesture with her hands.
Anna was not crying; she lay facing the wall, her eyes open, still as a corpse. Marris took Anna’s cold hands in her own.
‘Majesty,’ Marris said, and heard her voice break. ‘We will care for him and keep him safe and see that he wants for nothing. I swear it. Do you have a name for him?’
She thought she saw the faintest smile flicker on Anna’s lips. ‘His name is Richard,’ she said. ‘His father, I am certain, would hate that, but I like it.’
Marris was torn between admiration and misery. Even in the most wretched circumstances, Anna had not lost her sense of humour in naming her son after the King whom the Tudors had usurped.
‘It is a good name,’ she said.
‘He is to be known as Richard Swan,’ Anna said, ‘in honour of my family, the House of Cleves.’
‘It will be so, madam,’ Marris said. ‘And now you must rest, knowing that he is loved and cherished. I will take him to safety.’
Anna’s face was almost translucent with exhaustion. Her eyelids flickered closed. ‘My own dear Lady Sharington,’ she said. ‘What would I do without you? I have trusted you with my life and now I entrust you with my son.’
* * *
Never had Winterhill lived up to its name more than on the night that Marris returned home.
The cart stopped at the top of the steep road down into the village and she heard the driver suck in his breath through his teeth as he contemplated the descent.
Darkness was falling and a waxing moon rising, the cold moon, which cast the snowy valley in silver.
The smoke of a hundred fireplaces rose into the hazy air, cut through by the sturdy tower of the parish church.
That, at least, still stood as a beacon to guide her back.
‘You’d best walk down the hill, ma’am,’ the carter said. ‘You and the girl and the babe. The cart will not be able to carry you safely down.’
It was cold in the ankle-deep snow but Marris had stout boots and the baby was swaddled tight in his blankets.
He had slept a good part of the journey from Surrey, waking only to grizzle for the wet nurse’s milk.
He was, as Marris had had the opportunity to observe over the past month, an exceptionally placid child.
That quality, she suspected, he had inherited from his mother, for there seemed to be little of his father in him, other than in his appearance.
No one seeing his fair, round cheeks, button nose, blue eyes, and shock of red-gold hair would think him anything other than King Henry’s son.
The wet nurse was shivering so Marris handed her another fur-lined cloak. ‘I will carry baby Richard,’ she said. ‘You take care of yourself. Mind where you step – the path is treacherous.’
The nurse, a stolid country girl, shot Marris a doubtful look but handed her the baby and, the hem of her cloak held high like a lady, started to pick her way down the hillside, following the arduous creaking descent of the cart.
For a moment, Marris waited, feeling the warm weight of Richard in her arms and inhaling the scent of sleeping baby.
Then she took a deep breath and started to walk.
Winterhill. Home. What would she find here?
She had not returned since her marriage and had little idea of the progress of William’s new manor.
Was it even inhabitable? She did not know, for there had been no word from him since July, when he had returned to Berkshire to oversee the work.
She had not even sent ahead to tell him that she was coming.
That had been cowardice on her part, but she had not dared risk that he would turn them away.
She dropped a kiss on the baby’s cool cheek.
She had kept faith with Queen Anna, but at what cost?
Until she reached Winterhill Hall and saw William, she had no notion.
When he had first left London, she had written to him regularly.
There had been no word of a reply and after three months, sick in heart, Marris had stopped the letters.
William’s pride and her sense of duty had proved a disastrous combination, she thought.
Now there was Richard to care for too. She could only hope that Will would help her but perhaps she asked too much of him.
Once already he had kept her secret – kept Queen Anna’s secret – but Marris knew she had pushed his love for her to the limit.
She did not know how she dared to ask for more from him. She could only hope.
She was so close to Will now, so close to home, and her heart was racing, and the fears she had kept at bay for the whole uncomfortable journey were roaring through her mind like wolves.
Supposing he was absent and the house no more than a shell?
Where would she find shelter then? What if he simply turned them away?
What if he had moved another woman into his house and she found them together?
Marris felt sick at the prospect. She forced herself to turn her mind away from it, concentrating only on placing her feet in the horse’s solid hoofprints.
In her arms, baby Richard wriggled a little in his sleep before settling once again.
She felt a huge rush of love for him and wondered if this was natural for a child who was not even her own.
She had no notion, only that he was her charge, and she would guard him with her life.