Loe raamatut: «Virgin Widow»

Chapter One

April 1469—on board ship, off the English port of Calais

ISABEL whimpered. With creaks and groans the ship listed and thumped against the force of water as if it would be torn apart by the next wave, casting us into the depths. Isabel clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes staring at the heaving wooden walls that hemmed us in, the sides of a coffin.

‘Now what’s wrong with you?’ It was not fear of a watery death. I knew what it was, even as I prayed that it was not. The ship rolled again in the heavy swell, wallowing queasily in the dips before lifting and lurching. Sweat prickled on my forehead. Nausea clutched my belly before fear rapidly drove it out again. ‘Isabel.’ I nudged her arm sharply to get her attention. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, the only available chair in the cabin and the property of the captain, her whole body rigid, braced. Eyes tight closed to shut out the desperate pitch and roll, one hand was closed claw-like on the arm. I shuffled forwards on my stool. ‘Is it the baby?’

‘Yes,’ she gasped, then, ‘No…no. Just a quick pain.’ On a deep breath her body relaxed fractionally, fingers uncurling from the carved end. ‘There, it’s gone. Perhaps I mistook it.’

And perhaps she didn’t. I watched her cautiously as she eased her body in the confined space. Her face was as livid and slick as milk, drawn with near-exhaustion. Wedged into the chair in that crowded, low-ceilinged cabin, her belly strained against the cloak she clutched to herself as if she were cold. It was so close and airless that I could feel the sweat work its way down my spine beneath the heavy cloth of my gown. Nine months pregnant, my sister Isabel was. And even I knew that this was no time to be at sea on a chancy expedition.

I got up to pour a mug of ale, staggering as the vessel lifted and sank. ‘Drink this.’

Isabel sniffed as if the familiar aroma of malted hops repelled her. As it had for much of her pregnancy. ‘I don’t want it. I would rather it were wine.’

But I pushed it into her hands. ‘It’s all we have. Drink it and don’t argue.’ I struggled against telling her that this was no time for ungrateful petulance. I was very close to gulping the small-beer myself and letting her go thirsty. ‘It will ease your muscles if nothing else.’

‘But not my bladder. The child presses heavily.’ Another grimace, another groan, as she sipped. ‘Pray God it will be born soon.’ Isabel had never tolerated discomfort well.

‘But not here!’The prospect stirred the fear in my gut again. It churned and clenched. ‘We should soon make land. We’ve been at sea an age. When we get to Calais, that’s the time to pray for God’s help.’

‘I don’t think I can wait that long…’ Her complaints dried on a gasp. Dropping the cup on the floor so that it rolled and returned, she hissed out a breath. Her hands clutched her mountainous belly.

‘When we get to Calais…’ Taking my stool beside her again, I tried to think of some mindless conversation. Anything to distract.

‘When we get to Calais I’ll never set foot on board ship again,’ Isabel snapped. ‘No matter how much—’ She bit off the words, her renewed moans rising to the approximation of a howl. ‘The baby…It must be. Where’s our mother? I want her here with me…Send Margery to fetch her…’

‘No. I’ll get Margery to sit with you. I’ll get the Countess.’

Relief to escape the squalid cabin. Relief to pass the burden of this child to more experienced hands than mine. At fourteen years, I was old enough to know what would happen, but too young to seek the responsibility. I think I was always a selfish child. I summoned Margery, the Countess’s serving woman, to remain at Isabel’s side. And fled.

I found my mother exactly where I knew she would be on the deck. Despite the cold wind and the frequent squalls, I knew she would be with my father. The Countess of Warwick, swathed from head to foot in a heavy cloak, hood shadowing her face, stood in the shelter of the high stern, my father, the Earl, similarly wrapped about, harassed, thwarted in his planning, his fist clenched and opened on the gunwale. The two figures stood together in close conversation, looking out towards where we would soon see land, if the clouds, thick and heavy, enveloping us all in an opaque blanket of grey-green, ever saw fit to lift. Taken up with their concerns, their backs remained turned to me. So I listened. Eavesdropping was a skill I had perfected through my early years when, as the younger daughter, it was customary for our household to overlook my presence as if I were an infant or witless. I was neither. I approached with careful steps.

‘What if he refuses us entry?’ I heard the Countess ask.

‘He will not. Lord Wenlock is as loyal a lieutenant as any man could ask.’

‘I wish I could be as sure as you.’

‘I have to hold to it,’ the Earl stated with more conviction in his voice than the circumstances merited in my opinion. I knew that in recent days there were new lines of strain on his face between nose and mouth, engraved deep. Even so he placed an arm round the Countess’s shoulders to enforce his certainty. ‘We shall be safe here in Calais. From here we can plan our return, at the head of a force strong enough to displace the King…’

I was destined to hear no more as the deck heaved with more vehemence. I stumbled, tottered to regain my balance. And they turned. My mother immediately came towards me to catch my arm as if sensing the bad news.

‘Anne. What are you doing out here? It’s not safe…Is it your sister?’ Isabel had been in the forefront of all our minds in recent days.

‘Yes. She says the baby’s coming.’ No point in embroidering bad news.

My mother’s teeth bit into her bottom lip, her fingers suddenly tight on my arm, but her words were for my father. ‘We should not have set off so late. I warned you of the dangers. We knew she was too near her time.’

Then she was already on her way to my sister’s side, dragging me with her, except that my father stopped her with a brusque movement of his hand.

‘Tell her this, to ease her mind. Within the hour we’ll see Calais. Sooner if this cloud lifts. And then we will get her ashore. It will not stop the process of nature, but it may give her strength.’ He tried a smile. I knew it to be false. I could see his eyes, the fear in them. ‘Are not all first babies late?’

‘No! They are not!’ My mother shrugged off my father’s attempts at reassurance. ‘She should never have been put through this ordeal.’

A tall figure, similarly cloaked, loomed beside us from the direction of one of the rear cabins, pushing back the hood.

‘What’s amiss? Have we made landfall at last?’

Tall, golden haired, striking of face. George, Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward and male heir apparent to the English throne. My sister’s husband of less than a year. His eyes shone brilliantly blue, his fair skin glowed in the murk. So beautiful, as Isabel frequently crowed her victory in becoming his wife, a maiden’s dream.

I loathed him.

‘No. It’s Isabel,’ I told him with barely a glance. The Countess would reprimand me for my ill manners, but nothing she could say would ever reconcile me to my brother by marriage. Not that it mattered to him. He rarely deigned to notice me.

‘Is she sick?’

The Countess interrupted my pert reply. ‘She is distressed. The child is imminent…’

Clarence scowled. ‘A pity we had not made landfall. Will the child be safe?’

I felt my lip curl and made no attempt to disguise it, even when my mother saw and stared warningly at me. She thought my hostility was a younger sister’s jealousy of Isabel’s good fortune, but I knew differently. Not, Will my wife suffer? Or, Can we do anything to ease her distress? Just, Will the child be safe? I hated him from the depths of my heart. How Richard, my own Richard, who was now separated from me and would remain so for ever as far as I could see, could be brother to this arrogant prince I could never fathom.

The Countess swept Clarence’s inopportune query aside, but found time and compassion to smile at me. ‘Don’t look so worried, Anne. She’s young and healthy. She’ll forget all her pain and discomfort when she holds her child in her arms.’

‘The child must be saved! At all costs.’ Clarence’s face was handsome no longer.

‘I shall bear your instructions in mind, your Grace. But my first concern is for my daughter.’ The Countess was already striding across the deck.

With relish at the curt reprimand, I also turned my back on the Duke of Clarence and scuttled after my mother. When I arrived in the cabin she had already taken charge. Her cloak dropped on to a stool, she had replaced Margery at Isabel’s side and was dispensing advice and soothing words in a forthright manner that would brook no refusal. In our northern home in Middleham where I had spent the years of my childhood, my mother, despite her high-born status, had a reputation for knowledge and skill in the affairs of childbirth. I feared that we would need all of it before the night was out.

My mother was right in one thing. With Isabel as far on as she was, we should never have put to sea when we did. Not that we had much choice in the matter, with the King and his army breathing down our traitorous necks and out for blood. A disastrous mix of ill luck, poor weather and royal Yorkist cunning—and we were reduced to this voyage on this mean little vessel in unreliable April weather. Here we were in this hot, dark, confined space, lurching on a sulky sea, with Isabel’s screams echoing off the rough walls to make me feel a need to cover my ears—except that my mother was watching—and reject any notion of motherhood for myself.

A fist hammered on the door.

‘Who is it?’ The Countess’s attention remained fixed on Isabel’s flushed face.

A disembodied voice. ‘My lord says to tell you, my lady, the heavy cloud has lifted and Calais is in sight. We are approaching the harbour, to disembark within the hour.’

‘Do you hear that, Isabel?’ The Countess gripped Isabel’s hand hard as Margery wiped the sweat from my sister’s forehead. ‘You’ll soon be in your own room, in the comfort of your own bed in Calais.’ Heart-warming words, but I did not think the Countess’s expression matched them as she helped Isabel to lie down on the narrow bed.

Isabel snatched her hand away. ‘How can I bear this pain, no matter where I am?’

At that exact moment, bringing a deathly silence to the cabin, there came the easily recognisable crack of distant cannon fire. One! Two! And then another. Shouts erupted on deck, the rush of running feet. The ship reeled and huffed against the wind as sails were hauled in and she swung round with head-spinning speed. The scrape of metal on wood rumbled as the anchor chain was dropped overboard.

We all froze, even Isabel’s attention dragged from her woes.

‘Heaven preserve us!’ Margery promptly fell to her knees, hands clasped on her ample bosom.

‘Cannon fire!’ I whispered.

‘Are they firing at us?’ Isabel croaked.

‘No.’ The Countess stood, voice strong with conviction. ‘Get up, Margery. Of course they are not firing at us. Lord Wenlock would never refuse us entry to Calais.’

But again the crash of cannon. We all tensed, expecting a broadside hit at any moment. Then Isabel groaned. Clutched the bed with talon-like fingers. Her once-flushed face was suddenly grey, her lips ashen. The groan became a scream.

Our mother approached the bed, barely turned her head towards me, but fired off her own instructions, as terse as any cannon. ‘Anne! Go and see what’s amiss. Tell your father we need to get to land immediately.’

I made it through the crash and bang of activity to my father’s side. There ahead, emerging from the cloudbank, was the familiar harbour of Calais. Temptingly close. But equally we were close enough that I could see the battery of cannon ranged against us, just make out their black mouths, and a pall of smoke hanging over them in the heavy air. They had been aimed at us, to prevent our landing if not to sink us outright. Now in the lull, across the water and making heavy weather of it, came a small boat rowed by four oarsmen with one man standing in the bows. His face, expressionless with distance, was raised to us.

‘Who is it?’ Clarence asked the Earl.

‘I don’t recognise him.’ But I recognised my father’s heavy mood of anger. ‘One of Wenlock’s men. What in God’s name is he about?’

The boat drew alongside and the visitor clambered on deck. Clothes brushed down, sword straightened, he marched across to where we stood and bowed smartly before the Earl. ‘A message from Lord Wenlock, my lord. To be delivered to your ears only. He would not write it.’

‘And you are?’

‘Captain Jessop, my lord. In my lord Wenlock’s confidence. ‘His expression was blandly impossible to read.

‘In his confidence, are you?’ Temper snapped in the Earl’s voice. ‘Then tell me—why in God’s name would you fire on me? I am Captain of Calais, man. Would you stop me putting into port?’

‘Too late for that, my lord.’ Captain Jessop might be apologetic, but gave no quarter. ‘Twelve hours ago we received our orders from the King. And most explicit they were too, on pain of death. With respect, my lord, we’re forbidden to allow the great rebel—yourself, my lord—to land on English soil in Calais.’

‘And LordWenlock would follow the orders to the letter?’ My father was frankly incredulous.

‘He must, my lord. He is sympathetic to your plight, but his loyalty and duty to the King must be paramount.’ A weighty pause. ‘You’ll not land here.’

The Earl’s crack of laughter startled me. ‘And I thought he was a loyal friend, a trustworthy ally.’ I could see the Earl struggle with his emotions at this blow to all his plans. Lord Wenlock, a man who had figured in Neville campaigns without number over as many years as my life. He had been a guest in our home and I knew there had never been any question over his allegiance.

‘He is both ally and friend,’ Captain Jessop assured, ‘but I must tell you as he instructed. There are many here within the fortress who are neither loyal nor trustworthy in the face of your—ah, estrangement from the Yorkist cause.’

‘Look, man.’ The Earl grasped the captain’s arm with a force that made the man wince. ‘I need to get my daughter ashore. She is with child. Her time has come.’

‘I regret, my lord. Lord Wenlock’s advice is that Calais has become in the way of a mousetrap. You must beware that you are not the mouse that comes to grief here with its neck snapped. He says to sail further along the coast and land in Normandy. If you can set up a base there, from where you can attract support, then he and most of the Calais garrison will back you in an invasion of England. But land in Calais you may not.’

‘Then I must be grateful for the counsel, mustn’t I?’ Releasing Captain Jessop’s arm, the Earl clasped his hand, but with little warmth and much bitterness. ‘Give my thanks to Wenlock. I see that I must do as he advises.’

I moved quickly aside as the captain made his farewells. So we were not to be welcomed into the familiar walls of Calais. A little trip of panic fluttered in my belly, even as I tried to reassure myself that I should not worry. My father would know what to do. He would not allow us to come to harm. A sharp wail of anguish rose above the sound of shipboard action. My instincts were to hide, but my sense of duty, well-honed at my mother’s knee, insisted otherwise. It took me back to the cabin with the bad news.

The activity in the small dark space brought me up short. My elegant mother, a great heiress in her own right who had experienced nothing but a life of high-born privilege and luxury, had folded back the wide cuffs of her over-sleeves and was engaged with Margery in pulling Isabel from the narrow bed. Ignoring Isabel’s fractious complaints, she ordered affairs to her liking, dragging the pallet to the floor and pushing my sister to lie down where there was marginally more space. Margery added her strength with a strange mix of proud competence at my mother’s side and sharp concern imprinting her broad face. But Margery had her own skills. She had been with my mother since well before the Countess’s marriage, tending her through her difficult pregnancies, as I had heard from her frequent telling of how Margery had caught both Isabel and myself when we slid into this world. So, as she informed us, what she didn’t know about such matters as bearing children, although having none of her own, was not worth the knowing.

‘Hush, child. Margery is with you. Sit there for Margery, now, and don’t weep so…’ As if Isabel were still a small girl to be cosseted for a grazed knee.

The Countess was made of sterner stuff. Seeing me hesitate in the doorway, she pounced with impressive speed and pulled me into the cabin. ‘No, you don’t. I shall have need of you.’

‘There’s no room—’

‘Anne. Be still. Your sister needs you.’

I feared that I would be the last person to soothe my pain-racked sister. Isabel merely tolerated me. We had always fought—I suspected we always would. But pity moved me at her wretched plight. ‘We cannot land.’ Adopting a martyred expression, I recounted to the Countess the gist of the conversation as I stepped over to replace Margery at Isabel’s side.

‘Ha! As I thought. Perhaps it’s too late anyway.’ We staggered and clutched as a rogue wave lifted the boat from prow to stern. I covered my mouth on another surge of nausea, the clammy sweat chilling me in the hot air.

‘Breathe deep, daughter. I can’t deal with two of you sick. Sit with Isabel, hold her hand, talk to her.’

‘What about?’ I looked to the Countess for guidance. There was a fear here in this cabin. Sharp and bright, it suddenly overwhelmed me.

‘Anything. Encourage her, distract her if you can. Now, Margery, let’s see if we can bring this child safe into the world.’

Three hours later we had made little progress.

‘We need the powers of the Blessed Virgin’s Girdle here, my lady,’ Margery whispered as Isabel’s whole body strained.

‘Well, we haven’t got it and so must do what we can without!’

Sniffing, Margery resorted to the age-old remedy of a knife slipped beneath the pallet to ease the pain and cut the birth pangs, adding a dull green stone for good measure. ‘Jasper,’ she whispered.’It gives strength and fortitude to ailing women.’

‘Then we could surely do with such powers this day. For all of us.’ The Countess did not stop her, but decided on a more practical approach.

‘Find the kitchen, or what passes for one, wherever it may be in this vessel, Anne. Tell the cook I need grease. Animal fat. Anything to coat my hands.’ The Countess leaned close, speaking to me as an equal in age and knowledge, with a foreboding that she no longer made any effort to hide. ‘The child is taking too long. Isabel grows weaker by the minute and the child’s not showing.’

I raced off, returning with a pot of noxious and rancid grease—from what source I could not possibly guess.

‘Don’t stand gawping, Anne. If nothing else, pray!’

My mother astounded me. Stripped of all her consequence along with her veils, skirts and under-robe tucked up, hair curling on to her neck in greasy strands, she was as rank as any common midwife, yet as awe inspiring as the most noble lady in the land.

‘Who shall I petition?’ I asked. Praying seemed to me a tedious affair when all around was fear and chaos.

‘Pray to the Virgin. And St Margaret—chaste and childless she may have remained, accepting death as the lesser of evils, although I cannot agree with her, but during torture she experienced all the pain of being swallowed up and spat out by a dragon. An unpleasant experience not given to many of us. Pray to her.’ She hesitated a moment, then held my eyes in a fierce stare. ‘But before you do, fetch the priest.’

I did not need to ask why.

The next hours were the most horrifying of my young life. Enclosed in that cabin it was difficult to tell when day passed into night, night into day. Candles were replaced as they guttered, food was sent in to us that we did not eat, until it was all over, except for the hot reek of blood and sweat and terror. There was little else to show for it. Isabel lay as pale and drained as whey cheese. The Countess knelt beside her, exhausted, whilst Margery fussed and fretted with pieces of soiled linen. The bones of my fingers were crushed as in a vice where Isabel had hung on in the worst of her pain. I had repeated every prayer of petition I knew, as well as a good many impromptu offerings, until my voice was hoarse and at the end I drooped with fatigue. But all we had was a poor dead baby. The grease to slick the Countess’s hands and ease the child into the world and the dire experience of St Margaret with the dragon saved my sister, but not the child. A poor weak creature smeared with blood and slime that managed to utter a cry little stronger than a kitten, then left this life almost as soon as it had entered it.

A girl. The priest, Father Gilbert, our own Neville priest who had come with us in our household, hustled in from where he had waited all this time within call, baptised her at the bedside to save her immortal soul and to free her from slavery to the Devil. I think we pretended that she was still alive when the water touched her forehead. It would have been too distressing to accept that her life had passed and so her soul was lost to God as well. Anne, she was called, because my mother’s eye fell on me as I would have shrunk from the room at the end to find some solitary space in which to shed the tears that now would not be restrained in my weakness. Her eye fixed me to the spot, where I stood frozen as the priest touched the unresponsive face with holy water from the little vial. Isabel watched glassy-eyed as her daughter was washed and wrapped and finally given into my reluctant care in my role as messenger.

‘Take the babe to the Earl,’ the Countess instructed, touching the waxen features with fingers that were unsteady. ‘He will know what to do.’

Such a small weight. The child lay in my arms as if she slept toil-worn from the excesses of the event, the skin on her eyelids translucent. Her fingernails were perfect too, but too weak to cling to life. How could I not weep as I carried the burden on to the deck? To my father, my mother had said. Not to the Duke of Clarence.

I stood before them where they waited for me, as if I were offering a precious gift.

‘Is it a boy?’ Clarence asked.

‘No. A girl. And she is dead. We called her Anne. She has been baptised.’ I knew my tone was blunt and unfeeling, but I dared do no other. Nor dared I look at him. Too many feelings crowded in, not least my hatred for this man who cared nothing for my sister other than the inheritance that came with her name. The power of her Neville family connections that would buy him support and, as was his ambition, the throne of England. If I had allowed it I would have sunk down to the rough decking and howled my hurt and disillusion, like one of my father’s hounds.

‘Perhaps next time it will be a boy.’ Clarence turned away, disappointed, uninterested. He did not ask about Isabel’s condition.

My father saw my distress. With a brusque gesture that held his own grief in check, he pulled me and the sad bundle close into his arms. ‘Isabel?’

‘She is tired and weak. I don’t think she understands.’

‘We must thank God for your mother’s skills. Without her we might have lost Isabel too.’ He lifted the child from me with great care. ‘Go back. Tell your mother. I will send the child’s body to Calais with Captain Jessop here.’ I became aware that the Captain had returned and was awaiting instructions. ‘I will ask that she be buried with all honour at the castle. She is very small and barely drew breath, but she is ours with Neville blood in her veins. Wenlock will see to it.’

I nodded, too weary to do or to think anything else.

‘Tell her…tell your mother…I was wrong. I should never have put to sea.’

‘I don’t think it mattered, sir.’ I rubbed my eyes and cheeks on my sleeve. ‘If any should take the blame it should be the Yorkists. King Edward who drove us on with fear of capture. King Edward is to blame.’

And Richard, my Richard, who has stayed loyal to his eldest brother and is now my enemy whether I wish it or not.

I gave the bundle into the Earl’s keeping, and left before I could see it carried over the side.

There began for us a long and distressing voyage west along the coast from Calais. The winds and tides did us no favours and there was an uneasy pall of death over the ship. Isabel regained her strength, enough to sit in her chair or walk a few steps on deck, but not her spirits. Clarence did not endear himself. He remained brashly insensitive, rarely asking about her, rarely seeking her company, too concerned with the instability of his own future now that he was branded traitor to his brother. The Earl and Countess held discussions deep into the night. I knew it was about our future plans, where we would go now that Calais was barred to us. We could not return to England unless we had an army at our back—that much I understood. All my father’s wealth was not sufficient to fund such an enterprise. If we returned to cast ourselves on King Edward’s mercy, we would all be locked up. Without doubt heads would roll. The line between my father’s brows grew deeper as his options narrowed. Not yet knowing what they were, still I realised that they were distasteful to the Earl and to the Countess. As for Clarence, he did not care, as long as there was a golden crown for him at the end.

I spent much time on deck, leaning on the side of the vessel to look back over the grey water that would separate me from all I had known, the security of my home at Middleham, my privileged life. And from Richard, who filled my thoughts even when I tried to banish him. Windblown and dishevelled, damp skirts clinging to my knees, I was as silent and sullen as the weather. Until the Countess took me to task and sent me off to keep my sister company.

‘Go and talk to Isabel. And if she wishes to talk to you about the child she has lost, do so. For her husband surely does not.’