Bella Court, Greenwich, Spring 1437
Bella Court, Greenwich, Spring
IN JANUARY, AT the darkest time of the year, before the snow-drops come, Queen Catherine dies, her husband and sons at her bedside.
My spy at Bermondsey Abbey flings himself on his horse and rides in the freezing dark morning to bring me the news at Bella Court.
They wake me; I slip from my bed, pulling on my rich velvet robe.
‘What is it?’ I demand, a taper in my hand, my hair in a plait down my back.
The messenger recoils. I think he is struck by my beauty, unearthly in the shadowy hall.
‘For a moment, I thought I saw a terrible dog – a big black dog at your heels,’ he stammers.
‘There’s no dog.’ I turn and hold the candle high so he can see the clean new floorboards, the scatter of sweet strewing herbs, the lime-washed walls, with the hooks ready for Flanders tapestries. ‘What’s the news?’
‘The queen’s dead.’ He crosses himself. ‘She made a good end. You told me to come as soon as the priest was called and—’
‘Yes, yes,’ I say. ‘Wait there.’
I go back into Humphrey’s bedroom. He is sleeping in his great bed. I draw the heavy curtains aside; he sleeps naked, his dark hair rumpled on the pillow, his dreaming face looking young, like a poet. I gently touch his bare, warm shoulder.
He opens his dark eyes, recognises me, and smiles at once; he moves deeper into the bed and pulls back the covers. ‘Come.’
‘No,’ I say without regret. ‘Not now. There’s a messenger from Bermondsey.’
At once, he sits up. ‘What news?’
‘She’s dead. Tudor is certain to have been at her deathbed. If you get out the guard straight away, you’ll catch him either at the abbey or somewhere up Watling Street, riding back to Wales. This is your chance.’
He laughs and jumps from the bed, like a young man going hunting. ‘Call out my guard,’ he says. ‘I’ll go myself. I’ll bring him back to London in chains.’
I go to the door. My messenger is still waiting for me in the privy chamber.
‘Go to the guardroom,’ I tell him. ‘By the great gate. Ring the bell and call out the guard and my lord’s horse.
Tell them to send a man at once to ride ahead of them, with spare horses.
My lord will ride with his guard to Wales, changing horses as he goes, till he catches the man – a dangerous criminal.
Tell them to arm,’ I say. ‘He is a dangerous man. They may have to kill him on the road.’
THEY CATCH HIM at Daventry. He demands his freedom as an innocent man; he demands to know who ordered his arrest. When they tell him it is the king, he says that is a lie, demands to see the warrant, and when they cannot produce one, he claims sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.
‘Sanctuary?’ I am horrified. ‘Why did you even let him speak?’
‘How could I silence him?’ Humphrey demands in reply.
A mailed fist in the mouth, I think.
‘Anyway, the king’s given him permission to stay in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey,’ he says mulishly. ‘Says he’ll see him when the queen’s funeral is over. He says it will comfort Owen to be in the abbey when his wife is buried.’
‘If you’d just killed him on the road, this would never have happened.’
He draws himself up. ‘That would have been murder. I am the king’s justice, Eleanor. Everyone must see that my actions are just.’
I order the court into mourning for the dowager queen.
Now she is dead, I have first pick of the royal wardrobe.
I wear the most magnificent royal mourning gowns of dark blue, with sapphires to match.
Margery gives me a wheat flour powder to hide the lines that have come between my eyebrows from frowning.
I think of Catherine, dying in the flushed beauty that comes from the wasting sickness, even dead, she is the greater beauty. Even in her coffin, she bests me.
The king, red-eyed with crying, pale from sleepless nights in a vigil for his mother, takes my hand to lead the procession of mourners into Westminster Abbey, echoing with the hundred-strong choir, following the coffin of my rival.
The young king and I support each other through the long funeral mass.
He is burying her with the greatest of honour and will design a tomb to describe her virtues and her importance as a princess of France and a queen of England.
He will never get over the loss of her; he will never grow up to manhood but will be frozen in time, just as she will be frozen in marble: the beautiful young queen and her adored little son.