The King's Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman Read Free Book Online Page A

Margaret was enraged. And was the King with her, ready to shriek fresh dreadful words? Trembling, she asked the page. He laughed raucously.
    ‘Nay, sweet dame. He’s in chapel and likely to be there all night. Saying a novena, he is.’
    She bound up her hair while Barnaby held the light steady before the mirror. She straightened her gown and followed the page through long passages with arched vaulting and faded gilt columns to where the guard stood drowsily to attention outside the Queen’s apartments. They passed through the outer chamber of reception and through another door into the Queen’s retiring room, where she chose to renew herself with entertainment, or conferred with her ministers. Beyond yet another door lay her bedchamber. Elizabeth entered uneasily. The Queen was seated on a carved chair of Spanish walnut and she had changed her gown to a pale azure robette. Ermine fringed her throat, her face was pale. Two men, of which one was the knight with the scar, stood behind her, studying a parchment loosely held on Margaret’s lap. Master Francis, the Queen’s physician, mixed a draught at a side table, and Margaret Chamberlain, the royal dressmaker, was folding the purple mantle into a coffer. On cushions near the Queen’s feet a maiden of about nine years sat alone with a chessboard.
    Elizabeth knelt. Barnaby, self-possessed and slightly truculent, prostrated himself before the Queen and said, with his face against the parti-coloured tiles:
    ‘My liege, here’s Dame Woodville. And I can’t find your dog.’
    The scarred man said quickly: ‘Her Grace’s dog is lost?’ Margaret smiled wistfully. ‘Yes, my lord. Dulcinea, the lovely bitch you gave me. She was frightened by the clarions and ran away.’ To the page: ‘Barnaby, go. Search further.’ Then she beckoned Elizabeth. There was the Queen’s hand under her lips, a smell of jasmine, kindness.
    ‘My poor Isabella!’
    The Queen was not wroth. She bade her rise. Ashamed no longer, she looked squarely about, at the men behind Margaret’s chair, and at the chess-playing child. Hers was a strange face; long and aware; the small, snapping black eyes were old in wisdom. The Queen said:
    ‘My lords, I would present my most affectionate kinswoman, Dame Isabella Woodville. His Grace, James Earl of Wiltshire’ (tall, swarthy, a saffron tunic – he kissed her in courtly fashion) ‘and my dear cousin–’ the Queen’s voice became heavy, as if her throat pained her – ‘Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset.’
    The scar added to his attractiveness. He, too, kissed Elizabeth, and drew back smiling.
    ‘Ma foi ! there’s naught so lovely as a blonde maiden! But even your Rhineland fairness, Dame Isabella, cannot quench the daisy-flower!’
    And his smile was turned on the Queen, as he fingered the gilt marguerites he wore about his neck. Elizabeth thought: so this is Beaufort, York’s chief enemy. Warwick, so men say, hates him too. I shall therefore love him as if he were my kin. The old-faced child got up and stood beside her.
    ‘This is my niece, the Lady Margaret Beaufort,’ said the Earl. Playfully he pinched the unsmiling little face. ‘The cleverest mortal alive. Lucretius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Sallust; all are her bedfellows. Dame Isabella, my gold collar for your neck if you can beat her at chess!’
    Solemnly the Lady Margaret set the ivory men in the initial position. Elizabeth hesitated. There was something to be said first, expiation to be made for her dress, her flight from the Hall.
    ‘Your Grace, permit …’
    The Queen read her troubled face. ‘Nay, Isabella, it was no fault of yours. The King…’ She paused. Suddenly she looked paler, and ill.
    ‘The King is holy,’ said Beaufort of Somerset. He turned to the physician. ‘Master Francis, is her Grace’s draught ready?’
    The doctor presented a small vial. Beaufort forestalled the Queen’s hand, and swilled a little of the potion round his mouth.
    ‘Camphor and poppy,