The Dragon and the Rose Page 30

  When she was able to invite Henry to her bed again, she was more passionate than ever, making sure that her husband would be too tired to lie awake and worry once he left her. She bit her tongue when she was fretful, and if she knew she could not keep her temper she closed her mouth altogether and played the music that Henry loved, which never failed to keep him silent, also.

  Fortunately, Elizabeth was not perfect. She did try to soothe her husband when he was irritable, but when he continued to snap at her sweet rejoinders, she was human enough to regress to normal and give him the satisfaction of a rousing fight. She found, too, that if she used language vulgar enough to make him blush she could usually reduce him to laughter.

  For her effort, Elizabeth received the reward generally accorded to wives who struggle to make themselves over to their husbands' satisfaction. Henry spent every minute he could spare from his demanding work with her, never noticed the effort she was making, and complained bitterly when the effort failed and she was not perfectly in accord with his mood.

  They moved from Winchester on October 25, and it took them seven days to cover the distance Henry had galloped in six hours. There was no need to hurry. They had four glorious, bright days out of the seven when Elizabeth insisted on mounting her horse and riding with her husband, although Henry then refused to move faster than a walk. They could not go much faster, anyway, because the great covered cart that carried Arthur and Charles Brandon moved very slowly over the rutted roads in spite of the six horses that drew it.

  Even the three rainy days were delightful. On two they did not travel at all but stayed in a bare old castle where Henry gave sudden vent to a burst of high spirits. He organized all sorts of wild games—to keep them warm, he said, for the old keep was damnably cold and damp. On the last day it only drizzled and Elizabeth rode in the cart with her son and little Charles, to whom she was growing as attached as Henry.

  It was delightful to cuddle Arthur, tell Charles simple stories, watch Henry dismount and swing in to join them, slapping Charles with his wet hat and making him shriek with joy. It was delightful until Charles fell asleep in the middle of a rough-and-tumble as happy, energetic babies do. Then Henry took Arthur from Elizabeth's arms, and suddenly he looked old and tired and very grim.

  Elizabeth was stricken cold and mute as she watched her husband's beautiful long fingers run over the fuzz of baby hair not covered by the cap and trace the delicate curve of a tiny ear. Then Arthur's aimless hand struck his father's, and his little fingers closed by instinct over Henry's thumb. The king turned his head aside, but neither of his hands was free to cover or wipe his face and Elizabeth saw the shining tracks of tears on his cheeks. She had destroyed his joy in his son and given him fear to live with.

  "Why does your mother refuse to come to London with us?" Elizabeth asked in a shrill, peevish voice. "I have begged her and prayed her, but she will not attend to me. Oh, Henry, give Arthur to me and wipe your hair. It is wet and dripping all over everything."

  "She said to me that she was tired and wished to rest." Henry's voice came muffled and husky from the cloth he was using.

  "And to me" Elizabeth sounded even more irritable and aggrieved "when I said it was not fair to leave me with the babies and all the state dinners, too, that she did not wish the world to say that the king took suck from his mother still."

  Henry had started to clear his throat and he choked on a laugh. "Bess, she said no such vulgar thing."

  "Well, it was very like. I wish you will speak to her, Harry, and make her change her mind."

  "If I can, it would be the first time. Would you have me give commands to my mother? And for all she pretends humility, it would not do the slightest good. You know she really pays me no mind. Besides, it would be very embarrassing if she refused my order outright. What would I do?"

  "I do not know, but you should be able to do something. And I wish you would do something about Devon, also. That odious countess of Northumberland was complaining that he is trifling with her daughter."

  "Devon and Northumberland's scrawny—"

  "Oh, so you have been looking her over, too! Perhaps I am grown too stout for your taste."

  "Elizabeth!"

  "And while we are on this subject, I must say I would have to be blind not to see how particularly you stared at Dorset's wife—"

  "My God, am I to look nowhere but at the floor or the ceiling? She spoke to me and I answered her. Where should I look?"

  "There are looks and looks."

  "You must have eyes in the back of your head if you saw the one I gave her. We were behind you."

  "I have eyes all round my head, and in my behind, too, where your looks are concerned."

  "Elizabeth, you have a filthy mind."

  "And what is yours like, since you always know what I am thinking?"

  Henry was half-laughing, half-furious, well aware that he was being managed, prodded away from useless and dangerous thoughts. He was almost grateful, but wary, too, of the growing self-possession in Elizabeth.

  Something had made her aware of him in a way that increased his difficulty in hiding his thoughts from her. In fact, he was no longer sure he could hide them at all. That would make her a dangerous opponent—one whom he grew less sure of defeating daily. Arthur gave the series of muffled squeaks that preceded the onset of a lusty wail, and Elizabeth bent her head toward him. Suddenly Henry was not sure he was willing to combat her even if she was an opponent. Certainly she belonged to Arthur body and soul, no matter how she felt about him.

  "Go away, Henry," she said. "Arthur wants his third breakfast or second dinner, and I would not like you to get any ideas from looking at what the nurse has to offer him."

  "How vulgar you are, Elizabeth." He laughed, and her eyes twinkled at him.

  The arrival at Greenwich solved the problem that too much idleness for Henry bred too much thought. It brought him, instead, concrete worries. No sooner did a courier or ambassador from Brittany arrive than one from France was hard on his heels. Obviously neither could say anything to the point while the other was listening, but to receive one while the other waited was a serious affront.

  To Henry's horror none of the envoys would willingly accept Morton or Foxe as a substitute for himself. They knew all too well that neither of these gentlemen could be influenced away from the king's position, and that neither would try to exert any influence upon him. If they could not have the king's own ear, they clamored for Bedford, Margaret, or Elizabeth.

  Henry could not permit Jasper to become involved. He was useless for diplomatic work. His likes and dislikes showed too plainly on his face; he was an unconvincing liar, and his sympathies were too easily worked upon so that he might, conceivably, make an awkward promise.

  Henry tore his hair and wrote to Margaret, who replied that she knew nothing about such matters, cared less, and wished to be left in peace. That left Elizabeth. She at least had sufficient training of court life never to make a definite promise, and if her sympathies were engaged, and she tried to influence him, Henry knew himself to be impervious.

  Setting Foxe at her elbow, Henry tried the experiment one afternoon when he really needed freedom to talk to the Breton envoy. Francis of Brittany was proposing that Maximillian, king of the Romans, and—far more important to Henry—regent of Burgundy and the Netherlands for his infant son Philip, should marry his heiress, Anne.

  Henry had to remain on good terms with Maximillian, since England's greatest trade was with the Low Countries, but he felt obliged by past favors to warn Francis that Maximillian could not even control his own dominions and would be a weak reed to lean on for help against France. He felt also that since there were two other suitors for poor Anne's hand, Francis's purposes would be best served by keeping them all dangling and offering the girl as a reward to the one who provided the most practical help instead of the most grandiose promises.

  If only, Henry said, Francis could keep out of an actual war for a year or two, he might be a
ble to provide a more palatable alternative as a suitor for ten-year-old Anne than Maximillian, a widower, or Gaston d'Orleans, who already had a wife, or Lord d'Albret, who was older than either of the others and widely known for his cruelty and his vices.

  England was building ships as fast as the old shipyards could turn them out and as new shipyards could be built. Soon there would be a fleet capable of making Henry's wish to help his benefactor a practical possibility. There were boys in England, like Buckingham—masters of great estates that could provide enormous wealth and many men. Private armies had been mustered from such estates in the past and could be so mustered again, especially with the king's permission. Let Francis delay until England's naval strength was greater, and much might be done to ensure Brittany's safety.

  And all the time that Henry talked, he wondered what Elizabeth was saying, for a page had whispered in his ear that the French ambassador, had arrived soon after Henry and the envoy from Brittany were closeted together. Foxe, of course, would keep her from making any drastic mistake, and Henry did not care whether the French envoy thought Elizabeth had power either as the king's wife or through her Yorkist influence. The more sure France was that Henry had domestic problems, the less closely the French would watch him and the less likely they would be to press him for active intervention against Brittany. Henry simply did not like Elizabeth to come into close contact with anyone who could awaken pretensions to majesty in her.

  He was somewhat surprised when Foxe arrived to give him a synopsis of the interview, as close to giggling as a dignified churchman and the principal secretary to the king could get. Henry said blightingly that he did not see anything in the situation that could provoke mirth, but Foxe refused to respond to his master's mood.

  "Sire, that is because you were not there. I had much ado to maintain my gravity, but fortunately I was not called upon to open my mouth even once. Her Grace has the finest ability to say nothing to the point that I have ever seen in my life in man or woman. Yet she never wandered from the subject nor gave the impression that she did not understand it."

  Henry's lips twitched. He had suffered not infrequently from this ability of Elizabeth's.

  "Take the question of Anne's betrothal," Foxe continued. "When the envoy complained that Duke Francis wished to use it as a weapon against France, Her Grace replied that she did not like Anne and hoped she would not be betrothed at all."

  "Why should she dislike Anne, whom she has never seen?" Henry wondered, distracted for the moment from the main point.

  "Oh, she made that clear enough. Do you not remember, Your Grace, that you were nearly betrothed to Anne?"

  "By God," Henry exploded, "that woman's mind travels the same rut—"

  "And a very useful rut it is. The envoy is convinced now of two things—that it is useless to talk of political matters to Her Grace, for she sees all in a personal light, and that she will use her womanly influence upon you against Brittany. The track of her mind made another point even more important—that it is utterly useless to think of her as a focal point for any conspiracy against Your Grace."

  But Henry ignored that and said, "Oh, she will use her influence against Brittany, will she?"

  Foxe looked at his master with concealed annoyance. It was ridiculous the way anything relating to Elizabeth upset him. It was no more than annoying, no cause for alarm; practically, the queen had no influence on Henry's decisions at all. He did not permit what he felt toward her, whether it was fondness or anger, to becloud the practical situation, but whenever she was involved he was testy and irritable.

  Still, Foxe knew that for a time, at least, until Henry became better known to the envoys Elizabeth could be endlessly useful. He was not inclined to forgo that usefulness because it induced bad temper in the king.

  "I think," he said, "you should try her on the Breton envoy next time. Francis must know your sympathies are with him. Aside from your personal attachment, any aggrandizement of France must be to your political disadvantage. If Her Grace is hostile to the envoy from Brittany, it may make Francis less sure of your ultimate support and more willing to listen to present advice."

  After some further argument and hearing an outline of the complete interview, which made him laugh in spite of himself, Henry agreed. When he went to Elizabeth that evening for an hour or two of music and conversation before going to bed, he thanked her somewhat ungraciously for her help and told her he would require it again. Elizabeth put down the cap she was embroidering for him with an ill-tempered thump.

  "Really, Henry, I do not know where you expect me to find time for this nonsense."

  It was the first time in any court that Henry had heard international affairs called nonsense, and he blinked.

  "If France swallows Brittany, it will make her that much more powerful and, perhaps, that much more dangerous to us."

  "If France swallows Brittany, she will find herself with a disturbance of the bowels that will keep her busy for some time—and I have that just being made to listen. Oh, yes, I know the matter is important, but it is not important to me. This is your work, not mine, Henry."

  "It is a wife's duty to obey and help her husband," Henry snapped, and then wondered if he had been maneuvered into pressing her to do something he did not want her to do.

  "Very well. Tell me what I am to say to the envoy and I will say it with as many simperings as I can manage. But I tell you plain, I would like to spit in his face, and I may not be able to hide it. Also, you should consider that if you keep pressing these unwomanly duties on me, your son and Charles will be raised by chambermaids. Is that what you desire?"

  As if she realized that her suspicious husband had doubts of her display of unwillingness, Elizabeth returned to the subject later when they were in bed. Henry was resting for a few moments before he left her, looking very peaceful and relaxed, flat on his back with his clasped hands behind his head.

  "Harry, why are you making me deal with state matters? I do not like it."

  "No?" He did not move, but his eyes slid sideways toward her.

  Elizabeth stretched out a hand to play with the sparse hair on his chest. "No. And that is the truth. I am fit for certain things and not for others. I am fit to raise your children, to make them love and fear God, to teach them simply of right and wrong. I am not very brave nor very wise. Harry, I have such a terror of saying the wrong thing …"

  "Make no certain promises and no certain denials, and you cannot do much amiss. Foxe will be there."

  "It also leads to things I do not like. The ambassador sent me a fine pair of jeweled gloves—for my help. Harry …"

  "You did not send them back!" Henry exclaimed, jerking upright.

  "Of course not. I am not a complete fool, although since you plainly think me one I cannot understand why you place me in these situations. What I do not like is that it was no official gift. He wants something, and I have nothing to give."

  "Give him—give them all—your sweet smile and your assurance you will speak well of them to me. And do so, if you like. It will make no difference." Henry's narrow eyes peered more sharply at those words, but if Elizabeth was offended she showed nothing. "The cards are thrown on the table," he added, softening what might seem contempt for her opinion, "and must be played to advantage, not for liking or disliking."

  So, will she nill she, Elizabeth was temporarily drawn into international intrigue. True, the envoys soon gave over trying to interest her in the actual affairs, but they plied her with personal attentions and Henry slyly made them dupes by smiling more particularly the next day upon those who had courted Elizabeth the day before. The rumor grew that Her Grace could not be relied upon to introduce any particular idea into her husband's mind, but that she could incline him to listen more favorably after pillow talk to this man or that who pleased her.

  Unfortunately this growing conviction among the ambassadors was no longer growing among the Yorkists. Henry had taken no revenge on them … yet. But every day he grew stron
ger, every day he drew more threads of government into his own hands, strand by strand stripping the local magnates of their powers. The king's writ was growing in force, the local magnate's strength decreasing. Soon a man would be unable to ignore the king's order to summon troops or come to court to be punished for what Henry decided was a misdeed. Then the snake would turn and strike them, when they were powerless.

  Little rumors from the court fed this. Before the queen had delivered, she had begged her husband in frantic terror not to be angry with her if she bore him a girl instead of a boy. The king had pretended to expect her to die in childbirth and had nearly frightened her into doing so. And when the queen was ill with an ague after her delivery and her husband had been called to her, she had begged her ladies not to call him again, no matter how sick she was. If Henry oppressed his wife, would he not oppress them when they were equally in his power? And the poor earl of Warwick, the rightful heir to Edward's crown, was he not shamefully mistreated?

  With the new year came new rumors. Lord Lovell had escaped and—marvel of marvels—had contrived the escape of Warwick. Here was proof that Henry was not all powerful and might still be challenged. If the mighty Tower could not keep so important a prisoner, there was wide disaffection toward the king close to the throne. Warwick was safe. Warwick was in Ireland and had been recognized by men who had seen him in childhood.

  Henry tried at first to keep the rumors from Elizabeth, but to control the tongues of the court was to try to restrain the buzzing of wasps by blocking the opening of their nest. Elizabeth struggled valiantly and she did not succumb to hysterical terrors, but she grew so pale and thin that Henry rode to Richmond himself to beg Margaret to come to her support.

  "I am taking her to Sheen where there will be less formality, but she needs someone, mother."

  "She needs only you, Henry."

  An almost overwhelming desire to throw himself down and weep in his mother's arms stopped Henry's tongue, and he rose and walked away. If only he could confess, speak out of the vision that stood before his eyes, perhaps it would leave him. He did not dare. Not because his mother would think him weak or betray him to others, but because he might transfer his fear to her.