Leicester Castle, Spring 1426
Leicester Castle, Spring
I FIND HER almost faint with fear in Leicester Castle, in terror that either the bishop or Duke Humphrey will push the other into exile and seize the king as his puppet.
‘The duke warned me that Bishop Beaufort wants my boy,’ she cries to me. Owen is holding her trembling hand, trying to calm her; she rubs at her eyes with the other. He does not even glance towards me.
‘Isn’t it true that whoever holds the king holds his power? What’s to stop either of them trying to take him from me?’
‘I would stop them,’ Owen assures her, capturing her other hand and holding her still.
‘And the captain of your guard and every loyal man in England would stop them. His own guardian and his guards would stop them. I swear, your boy – the king – is in no danger from his own people. I will be at your side; I will be with him, night and day. Eleanor’ – he glances at me and then remembers we should not be on first name terms like lovers – ‘Mistress Cobham will tell you that her lord, Duke Humphrey, would never seize his nephew. He loves him, and he honours you.’
‘But would the bishop take my boy?’ she demands, trembling with distress. ‘His nephew Edmund says he never would – but can I trust a Beaufort?’
‘He can’t take him now, before everyone, even if he wanted to,’ I point out.
‘And Duke Humphrey will defend you before the privy council. And Duke John would never let his nephew become a mascot of rival powers. He’s come from France to bring peace.
He’ll control the bishop and support his own brother; you can be confident. ’
Owen throws me a quick, warm look to thank me for reassuring the queen. But she is beyond comfort. ‘If anything happens, save the king,’ she tells Owen. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight. Stay with him; it doesn’t matter about me. Guard my son, Owen, whatever happens.’
AS I PREDICT, Duke John cobbles together a fragile peace.
This is the first time he has come home since his marriage, and it proves how uneasy he is – that he left his wife Anne behind in France.
Marriage has not made him merry; his attitude towards his uncle the bishop and his brother Duke Humphrey is one of strained courtesy.
Clearly, he thinks that with England on the very brink of losing our lands in France, this is no time for the two of them to be squabbling over control of the baby.
Under his dour supervision – never allowing a raised voice or an insult – the lords of the privy council listen to both sides of the argument and agree that Bishop Beaufort has been encroaching on royal power.
It is a triumph for Duke Humphrey. The bishop resigns his many offices and returns the seal of the Lord Chancellor.
All the Beauforts are disgraced by his defeat, handsome Edmund among them.
Duke Humphrey – they are now calling him Duke Humphrey the Good – dominates parliament and is the undisputed Protector of the King and the favourite of Leicester as he is of London.
There is a great feast to celebrate the agreement of the guardians, and the king attends, sitting on a fat bolster so that his little head peeps above the high table and hundreds of men in the hall can see him as he closes his eyes and mouths the Latin words of Grace.
Duke Humphrey sits one side of him, and his other uncle, Duke John, sits the other.
The queen sits beside her older brother-in-law, John; they look like a family at peace.
From now on, her son will have to sit on his own, not a baby on his mother’s lap, not a puppet lifted up by his uncles.
He will be five years old this December; but they knight the little boy in the church of St Mary de Castro, as if he were a man who had won his spurs.
He looks completely overwhelmed, whispering over his rosary beads.
They would have done better to put John Duke of Bedford on the throne in the first place, than fatten this little veal calf as a living sacrifice.
The English throne needs a man in these times – not a baby.
I may not like Duke John, but he is the only Plantagenet brother who has managed not to get himself killed, betrayed, or sick.
The ladies sit on our own table in order of precedence, which puts me near the bottom, below the salt once more.
I see Edmund Beaufort glance around the room, and I am irritated that he should see me in such a lowly position; but he smiles as if he sympathises.
He has just seen his uncle disgraced; he knows that we are all on fortune’s wheel, hoping to rise, fearing a fall.
There is dancing after dinner, and Duke Humphrey leads out the queen, and everyone lines up after them.
They dance well together; her fair head is matched with his dark curls.
His dance is like a show of courtship; he keeps his eyes on her face, and her colour rises as he takes her by the hand and then by the waist.
I cannot dance until all the more important ladies have their partners and go through their paces.
But as the evening goes on, more and more choose to sit and play cards or gossip; many leave early, Edmund Beaufort leads me out, and then finally – at the very end of the evening – Owen ap Maredudd is at my side.
We take the floor for the basse dance, moving together, our steps matching, our heads turning together, his hand on my waist, my hand on his arm, and when we turn together and join hands, I look up at him, and he whispers: ‘Don’t look at me like that, Eleanor – the whole room will know we are lovers!
’ and I lose my footing and giggle, and he holds me up and whispers in my ear: ‘D’you sleep alone? I’ll come to your room.’
I SEND MY maid to sleep with the other girls in the maids’ dormitory, and I put a candle at the arrow-slit window. I hear his whistle from the courtyard below, and I look out and whisper, ‘Come.’
He runs silently up the stone stair, and I open my door, and in a moment, he is inside and he has snatched me up and kissed me till I am breathless.
‘Wait! Wait! I must lock the door!’
‘Quick then,’ he replies, ‘for I have waited for you all evening – I have waited for weeks.’
He stays with me all night, until the birds start to sing in the first light, and then he stirs, and sleepily, as if he would consume me, he makes love to me as the sun rises over the sill of the narrow window, our moving bodies are beautiful in golden light.
‘I have to go – I’m helping the master of horse,’ he says. ‘Will you ride?’
‘I’ll have to sit with the queen,’ I reply, throwing a cloak around my shoulders as we get out of bed together. ‘Will you come to her privy chamber?’
‘Yes, if you smile at me and not at Edmund Beaufort.’
I am delighted at this sign of jealousy. ‘You can hardly complain of Edmund Beaufort to me when you’re holding the queen’s hands at the least excuse.’
‘She’s the queen,’ he says. ‘It’s my duty. But Edmund Beaufort respects neither you nor her.’
‘He talks sweet nonsense to me,’ I say. ‘I don’t regard it.’
‘He talks sweet nonsense to everyone,’ Owen says grimly. ‘That’s how he thinks. He means only what his uncle tells him. He’s aiming higher than you, my beauty.’
‘How high?’ I ask, watching him pull on his soft leather boots and tie the laces on the flap of his breeches. I am so fascinated by him that even the most ordinary things make me desire him more.
‘God knows how far his ambition goes. Would he dare hope for a royal marriage?’
‘No!’ I say, quite scandalised. ‘He can’t. By law, she cannot marry any man without the permission of the privy council, and not even his uncle can get that for him now that he’s in disgrace.’
He draws me to him; he kisses my neck, my face, my closed eyelids, my smiling lips. ‘And what do we care?’ he whispers.