Eltham Palace, Winter 1425
Eltham Palace, Winter
THE SQUABBLE OVER whether Beaufort’s men or Humphrey’s men should escort the king was the first of a dozen little rubs which turn the City of London more and more against Bishop Beaufort.
Londoners whisper in the streets that the bishop intends to make himself protector and throw down their favourite, Duke Humphrey.
The apprentice boys say they will fight to the death for the good duke; the merchants and City fathers say that he is one of their own and must be defended.
The queen hears these rumbles of anger in her own capital and declares that London is too dangerous for her and her precious boy, even when Edmund Beaufort sits beside her after dinner and swears on his honour that it is Duke Humphrey who is to blame, constantly encroaching on kingly power, and she should trust the Beauforts to defend her and her son.
‘I must warn the duke that Edmund Beaufort has become a strong favourite, and that he speaks all the time for his kinsman,’ I say to Owen ap Maredudd. ‘He only comes to court to praise his uncle and turn the queen against Duke Humphrey.’
‘That’s old news. You don’t have to be Margery Jourdemayne to foresee that Edmund works for his family,’ Owen tells me lazily.
‘And what d’you know of Margery Jourdemayne’s foreseeing?’ I ask.
‘Almost nothing. I must be the only man at court who’s never consulted her.’
‘She knows all about you! She says you’ll rise. She says you’ll marry well!’
‘No magic in that – I was a boy squire at Agincourt, and now I’m master of the royal wardrobe: a pretty good rise for a Welshman. And all poor men must marry well. D’you consult her?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Did you buy a love potion?’ he asks, smiling.
‘No,’ I say. ‘The first time I ever met her, she said that I didn’t need one.’
‘She’s clever enough to know that!’ he says. ‘But I could have told you that for free. You work on me without any herbs.’
I laugh and touch my glass against his. ‘To your success,’ I tell him. ‘Become a rich lord and I really will work on you! When’s that going to happen exactly?’
‘Wait and see,’ he replies. ‘I manage thousands of pounds, even if I own nothing myself. Come and see my treasures – just the things we’ve brought here in the travelling wardrobe are worth a fortune.’
I hesitate.
‘You can try on the royal furs,’ he whispers.
‘I couldn’t . . .’ I say, but I am so tempted that I follow him through the double doors, through the presence chamber, to his own set of rooms. He opens the door to his offices with a huge iron key, and inside is a clean-swept wooden floor and a great chair set behind a wide table covered with great ledgers and a dozen lists of jewels and cloaks and robes, each one weighted down with a stone, each pile in order.
He is responsible for all the queen’s household – not just her clothes but all her costs and all her income.
I turn the pages of his great ledger and see the letters from suppliers and his commissions, and the bills signed off when he has paid them.
‘D’you want to try an ermine cloak?’ he offers temptingly. ‘Since you’re heading for greatness in Hainault?’
I laugh, and he lifts the lid of one of the chests, releasing the scent of lavender and fleabane.
He shakes out the magnificent cape and drapes it around my shoulders.
‘My God, you are truly beautiful,’ he says softly, stepping back to admire me.
‘What a queen you would make. Ermine suits you as if you were a princess. D’you want to try a crown? ’
‘What if someone came in? Lock the door!’ I exclaim.
He turns the key and leaves it in the keyhole so that no one can spy on us. He unlocks one of the treasure chests and puts bracelets on my arms and a thick girdle of gold around my waist.
‘What a tiny waist you have – I could span it with my hands,’ he says.
I stand still as he puts his hand on either side of my waist. I can feel the warmth of his palms through my thin woollen robe. I stand as still as a deer. I can feel my breath coming quickly and my face warming.
‘Eleanor, truly you will never need a love potion to draw me to you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you,’ he whispers.
I am so quiet that I can hear my heart beating.
‘I’d give a fortune to lie with you for just one night,’ he says. ‘Just one night.’
‘D’you have a fortune?’ I ask, and he laughs softly.
‘Nothing to match my desire. If I had wealth to match my desire, I’d give you everything here.’
His hands are still on my waist; his head bends towards me. Fired by the wine and by the treasure that surrounds us – surely we will be wealthy ourselves one day? – I raise my face to him and, gently, he lowers his head and kisses me on the mouth.
I had no idea it would be so delicious. I have rubbed my mouth against my arm to imagine what a kiss might feel like, but I never realised it would start so slow and gentle, almost like a feather, and then slowly, luxuriously, become deeper and sweeter.
I feel a pleasurable ache spread through me, as if I want to faint like a lady in a Romance and lie like a lady in a poem, and be taken like a dream.
I lean back against his supporting arm as the kiss deepens and lengthens.
I melt into him. My arms come around him and hold him close to me.
I feel his hand move from my waist to cup my breast, and I have such a desire to be naked with him, to have him touch me all over, that I make a little moan and catch a breath and kiss him again.
He picks me up, sweeps me off my feet, as if he knows that my knees are giving way beneath me, pushes open the inner door, and we are in his bedchamber, with a big four-post bed hung with thick curtains.
He shoulders them aside and lays me down on the soft-feather bed and lies beside me.
He strips off the jewels and the ermine cape and tosses them aside as if they were valueless.
His hands are quick on the laces of my gown, and in a moment, he has pulled it off me.
Without a moment of shame, I slither my shift up to my hips, and he lifts it over my head.
He sits back on his heels for a moment to look at me, his eyes dark with desire, his face intent, and suddenly shy, I take the pins out of my hair, so it tumbles down over my shoulders and veils my nakedness.
He says a little choked word as he watches my blonde hair fall over my bare shoulders, and then he dives towards me so that we are entwined, dreamy with desire, my warm eager skin against his buckskin breeches, his linen shirt.
I pull at the ties of his shirt, and he strips it over his head so that I can rub my face against the warm skin and soft hair of his chest.
‘You know I can’t marry you,’ he says, lifting me up so we are face to face, his kisses like falling petals across my neck, to my ears, and he buries his face in my hair. ‘Even if I had a fortune.You know I’m Welsh forbidden from marrying any English woman.’
‘I don’t care,’ I say. It is true. I don’t care. I don’t want anything but his touch now, tonight. I feel such urgency, that I can think of nothing but this moment, this now. I would give him anything I have – my whole dowry – if he would promise not to stop.
He gives a low laugh. ‘Ah, Eleanor,’ he says.
‘For love then; but not marriage.’ And then I feel him caress the tenderest part of me, and I cannot speak even if I wanted to, for I arch my back and give myself up to the pleasure that is pouring through me.
I feel no pain when he enters me, only an answer to my longing: and then I feel possessed.
I WAKE EARLY in my own room in Eltham Palace in the morning, sticky and sore and buzzing with renewed desire.
Last night I slipped to my bedroom in darkness, but now I think I will dare to find my way back to his room, through the quiet palace, past the early-morning servants sweeping the floors and carrying wood for the fires.
I will open his door without knocking and slide into the curtained bed beside him and wake him.
I throw a cloak over my night robe and pull the hood over my tumbled hair.
I walk briskly towards the chapel, as if for early prayers, take a quick look around and there is nobody but a scullion with a bucket of ashes from the fireplaces.
I slip through the presence chamber, too early for any petitioners, and through the door to the wardrobe office, cross the hall, and hesitate at the side door to his bedroom.
I check for only one moment to revel in my right as his lover to enter without knocking, knowing that he will stir and open the covers and pull me into his bed.
I open the door and pause on the threshold.
The room is not as I left it last night.
It is as tidy as a sea captain’s cabin: the bed made, the lid of the clothes chest open and his clothes gone.
His riding whip and spurs and hat and gloves are gone.
For a moment, I stand shocked on the threshold.
Then I close the door behind me and go slowly deeper into the room.
I can feel a wail of distress building inside me; I am terribly bereft – I was expecting early-morning lovemaking and laughter in warm sheets with an eager man, not an empty bed and a cold room.
I stand lost, as if I am in a bad dream, and then I gather my robe tightly around myself, draw the hood over my hair, and go quietly back to my own rooms.
He has gone without a word to me, as he was free to do.
I said ‘I don’t care’ and gave him permission to go.
I did not entrap him with lovemaking, as I should have done last night: I set him free; I agreed that we were together for love and not for marriage.
There were no passionate foolish promises and no bonds.
But I am not free. My desire for him binds me: and here I am, in an empty room, looking around and wondering where he has gone and how could he bear to go without a word to me, and when will he come back?