The Dragon and the Rose Page 4

  When Henry was eighteen, another group of envoys arrived from the English king. Henry's strongest supporter, the duchess, had died a few months previously, and Edward was now offering something more attractive than money to Francis. The king of England proposed war against France as Henry's price, coupled with the promise that the young Tudor would be treated honorably. Had the decision rested with Francis alone, there would have been little question of Henry's safety; but the duke had displayed his affection for Henry too openly, and now many among his nobles wished to be rid of a rival. Francis could not afford to alienate his nobles with Edward amassing an army across the Channel. Should the English king invade Brittany instead of France, claiming that he had done so because of Henry, the disaffected nobles might well refuse to support their duke.

  Francis accepted Edward's offer, but he insisted that he bring Henry to Edward personally—as soon as the war against France was launched. Fortunately for the Tudor, Edward was sinking deeper and deeper into a slough of dissipation, which was wrecking his constitution. Only a tiny part of the army he promised assembled, and Francis was able to ignore the agreement. Meanwhile, Henry worked hard to better his position at the Breton court. He used all his persuasive powers to urge Francis to take another wife. The move was a shrewd one, and when the new duchess bore a healthy child in 1477, the Bretons were appeased. Their fears about Henry began to fade, for, though the child was but a girl, the next might be a healthy son.

  Henry absented himself from court a good deal in the next two years. He did not wish to incur the hatred of the new duchess by vying with her and her daughter for Francis's affections. Out with Jasper, he learned military science in the field, and Jasper learned that his nephew had an uncanny ability to judge men. Surely that was good; yet what had happened to Henry? Even the most casual conversation became significant. If a man commented on the weather before a skirmish, Henry could judge him by the comment. He urged his men to drink with him, while he himself drank little, but only sat by watching, watching. To Jasper he might say, "This man is trustworthy," but Henry Tudor trusted no one.

  The years had been bitterly hard, more so for Henry than for Jasper. Jasper had long been accustomed to the life of a soldier and enjoyed it. He need not walk a tightrope between the duke's affection and the jealousy of the nobles, nor maintain appearances at court without an income.

  No agent of Edward's ever tried to slip a knife between Jasper's ribs. Jasper's soldiers saw his worth and loved him, while Henry's court companions regarded him with emotions ranging from mild distaste to violent, jealous hatred. Henry was being driven in upon himself. He was not less genial—he loved a joke, a stirring tale, music, or a lively dance as well as ever—but a watcher stood behind his eyes, and that watcher did not join in the merrymaking.

  Because he saw clearly, Henry could not ignore how even those men who loved him also feared him. Jasper himself, who treasured the boy as his own child, feared when the watcher gazed out from behind the love in Henry's eyes, for that watcher in Henry which saw into the naked soul, once called into being, could not be dismissed.

  Henry grew in upon himself, but he also came to understand his power over men. If Jasper's men fought because they loved him, Henry's would die for him because they feared him more than death. Yet he was gentle and did not like to fight. Indeed, he showed a most unmanly distaste for bloodshed.

  At the birth of Francis's second child, Henry and Jasper traveled to court to celebrate the event. The feasting was lavish, the ceremonies magnificent, but enthusiasm was lacking. The second child, too, was a girl, and the duchess was unlikely to bear another. Henry noticed the cold glances when he approached to kiss his protector's hand.

  Francis embraced him with the warmth of a father, and the duchess offered her hand and then her cheek. She was no enemy, but she did not look as if she would live to help him long.

  "You will not leave Francis again, Henry, will you?" Her voice was faint.

  "Not if he desires me to stay, madam, but I am of little use."

  "You give him comfort," the duchess sighed, "and he may have need of comfort soon."

  Her prediction came too close to Henry's own fears, and he steered the conversation into merrier channels, soon bringing a smile to her wan lips.

  "You see," she said as he bowed in parting, "you do us both good."

  Little good he did himself by endearing himself to Francis, Henry thought, shunning the black looks of the Breton nobles.

  When envoys came again from England, Francis agreed to permit them to take Henry back with them. Perhaps he would have resisted had Edward's offer been less fair. The king of England said the realm was quiet and content and that he no longer feared rebellion. It was time to seal the breach between York and Lancaster. He would give his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, to Henry as his bride.

  Only chance brought Francis news of negotiations for the betrothal of Elizabeth to the dauphin of France. Fearing treachery and an alliance fatal to Brittany, he sent men thundering after the envoys to bring Henry back.

  Francis's men found Henry still in Brittany. He had taken to the tricks of his childhood and made himself sick. The English envoys dared not cross Henry while still in Francis's duchy and had agreed to let him seek a physician. It was all the leeway he needed to escape into a church and claim sanctuary. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Henry's quick wit saved him from death.

  When they were reunited, Francis told Henry what had caused his change of heart. "Of course, Edward has two other daughters, but I will wager that neither of them was meant for you."

  Henry shrugged. "Even if one were, my every word and move would have been watched. I would have been a prisoner in a gilded cell. You must know he would never trust me in arms, nor in government."

  "No, I suppose not. Henry, do you seek such duty?"

  "I am no idle popinjay."

  "True. My son, do you long for England?"

  "My lord, do you never look back on your childhood and it seems an enchanted time of joy with no pain? Yet you know the happiest child suffers much. When I look back, it seems that England was a land of milk and honey, and I dream. But my waking mind knows better. I love my dream as a dream. I do not believe it to be a real thing. In truth, I can say to you that I do not long for England." God forgive me for the lie, thought Henry.

  "It is well, for I believe there is no place for you there nor ever will be. That will be England's loss and my great gain, for you were born to rule, Henry."

  Henry stepped back nervously. If Francis should suspect him of unhealthy ambition, his state would be desperate.

  "Yes. My first wife, may the good Lord protect her soul, saw it when you were but a child, and I have seen it grow in you. Did you know my first duchess urged me to find a means to make you my heir?"

  "My lord!" Henry's even manner never betrayed surprise, but so wild a plan shocked him out of his cultivated sangfroid.

  Francis chuckled. "Well, she was a good woman and followed her heart. I knew it was impossible then to force you, who had no slightest kinship with me, upon the barons. Now, however, there is a means to bring us into the closest kinship. What say you to being my son by marriage, Henry?"

  For a moment Henry stood stunned, then dropped heavily to his knees. "Whatever I could say would be an insult by expressing too little gratitude. That you should give even a single thought to such a union gives me greater joy than—"

  "Save your fine speeches, my son. You will need that golden tongue of yours to move others than me. Mind, I love you, but I did not think of this plan to benefit you alone." Francis allowed Henry to kiss his hand and then raised him. "Any other man of high enough birth would scarcely wish to leave his own land, and, even were he willing, Brittany would not be first in his heart."

  Henry was bold. "My lord, I do not hate England, but you may be sure I will never further Edward's interests over Brittany's."

  "That had passed through my mind," Francis said with a l
augh. "You love me, Henry, and, living here, you might win Anne's love and make her happy while you cared for the land."

  "I would try—but I am twenty-two, my lord, and she is but a baby. Also, I understand men—women are another matter."

  "You should apply yourself more to their study," Francis gibed, for he had heard that Henry was a pious prude with regard to women.

  "I will certainly set myself to study Anne." He flushed faintly. "If anything that I can give her will make her happy, she will have it."

  Francis shook his head and smiled. "I believe she will be content with my choice, but now it is more to the point to seek a way to make my vassals content with it. Fortunately, there will be time. Anne is only two years old and need not be affianced for a while. This plan must remain our secret until we can teach my lords that it is better to have a noble ruler who loves Brittany than one who, a Breton himself, would raise his kin higher than is meet and rule his country ill."

  While Henry studied one child with interest, Margaret studied another. During her first few years at court, she had hoped the struggle between the queen's kin and the king's would disrupt the country again and give Henry a chance. That had not happened, although Gloucester, Clarence, and the Woodvilles seemed to live in a constant state of enmity. Margaret now believed the balance would hold and that Henry's chances for a return to England and his release from penniless obscurity rested in the offer of one of the king's daughters as a wife.

  Edward was growing more and more secure as he realized there was no diminution of the people's love for him. They forgave him his dissipation, his drunkenness and lechery, the greed of his courtiers, everything, for the sake of his kindliness to the commons and his interest in the monetary prosperity of the land.

  In fact, Margaret was not sure that Edward had been insincere in his proposals to Henry. She knew of the negotiations with France, but there had been little hope of agreement there at the beginning, and another princess, only a year younger than Elizabeth, was available.

  Of course, Elizabeth would be best. Margaret looked across the queen's reception chamber to where the fourteen-year old princess was playing the virginal and singing softly. If the marriage could be achieved, it would be no bad thing. The girl bid fair to be as beautiful as the mother—more beautiful, in fact, because she lacked the sharpness of feature that betrayed the queen's meanness. Perhaps the oval of the face was not so perfect and the nose a trifle too short, but the mouth was far lovelier, full and generous with a tilt to the lips that betrayed the princess's readiness to laugh. The eyes, too, were a softer blue and held a twinkle of mirth in their depths.

  The queen, who did not care for music and cared even less for a daughter who was beginning to rival her attractions, made an impatient exclamation, rose and withdrew. The room waited in perfect stillness, Elizabeth's hands frozen on the keyboard. Five minutes passed, ten. A page scurried across the room, one ear bright red where it had been cruelly tweaked.

  Another ten minutes and the door opened to admit the queen's brothers, Rivers and Grey. A soft sigh ran through the chamber. Elizabeth's uncles kissed her hand and passed on into the queen's inner chamber. The tableau of ladies waiting stiffly against the walls hung with fine cloth of Arras broke up as soon as Rivers and Grey disappeared. The queen would be busy with them for some time. There was a trifle of uneasiness, of wondering whom they were planning to destroy now, but the queen's absence generated a feeling of relief.

  Margaret trod across the red carpet, aware of the contrast it made with the brocade skirt of the princess's blue gown. "Your playing is wonderfully improved, my lady," she remarked.

  Elizabeth smiled. She liked Lady Margaret in spite of the fact that many of the other ladies made fun of her piety and prim ways. At least Lady Margaret did not mouth proprieties and then sleep with Elizabeth's father like half the other ladies at court. It was interesting that in spite of her beauty, which seemed to the princess completely unchanged from the first time she had seen her, the king never looked at Lady Margaret with other than respect.

  "Thank you," Elizabeth replied. "I dearly love music." Then a shadow darkened her eyes. "But it is wrong of me to forget that others do not care for it so well."

  That was not a remark to which Margaret could reply, since the person who disliked music—or at least disliked the attention paid her daughter when she played—was the queen. Margaret made a soothing remark about books also being a great comfort. The sooner Elizabeth was married and out from under her mother's thumb, the better off the girl would be, Margaret thought.

  Margaret did not like that shadow of fear in Elizabeth's eyes. Yet Elizabeth was no coward. Margaret had seen her whipped for some misdemeanor—more shame to her mother for so humiliating the child in public—and she neither cried out nor pleaded. This was a different kind of fear, of disapproval more than of pain. There was a sensitivity in Elizabeth that did not come from her father or her mother. Perhaps from the old duke or duchess of York—yes, it could come from there, for Richard of Gloucester also had it.

  "My son loves music, too," Margaret said. "He writes to me that it is his chiefest pleasure."

  Something flickered in Elizabeth's eyes. Margaret suddenly wondered whether the girl was aware that her name had been used to tempt Henry back to England. If so, did she approve? Could she be induced to press her father to marry her to Henry? Edward was very fond of his eldest daughter, very fond of her—fond enough, perhaps, to marry her to a man who would not take her away. But if Elizabeth knew anything, she also knew enough not to betray herself.

  "You must miss him," the princess said softly. "It is sad that he will not come home."

  "He will not come without his uncle." Margaret gave the excuse she had been using recently to explain Henry's refusal of even the most flattering offers. "I have written that he would be safe, and I think he believes this, but Henry loves very hard when he loves. He does not change his love for his advantage."

  Elizabeth looked aside, her fair complexion stained faintly with rose. "That is most admirable," she murmured.

  "I suppose so," Margaret agreed with a light laugh, "but at this time, so that I might see him again, I almost wish it were otherwise." To say more would be dangerous and obvious. Though Elizabeth was young, she was no fool. Margaret had said enough to give the girl something pleasant to think about.

  CHAPTER 4

  The elaborate game of convincing the Breton nobles that Henry was a suitable husband for Anne stretched out through weary years. Henry's part was to use his golden tongue with effect, drawing upon what the watcher behind his eyes sensed to flatter and cajole. Francis's part was to ram Henry's virtues down his barons' throats, and one way to do so was to raise up a more offensive favorite. Pierre Landois, an upstart rascal with a clever mind, insinuating manners, and a rapacity startling even in a rapacious age, was advanced to power. In comparison to Landois, Henry was a paragon.

  A few weeks before Henry's twenty-fifth birthday, news came from England disturbing enough to distract him from his purpose. Margaret's husband was dead. The messenger who brought the news was sent back at once offering asylum in Brittany if Margaret thought herself to be in any danger. Before that messenger could have returned to his source, another scholar with a parcel of books for Henry appeared.

  Edward IV did not want to see the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt lonely and uncomforted. He thought it would be well for her to marry again. Lord Thomas Stanley, steward of Edward's household and closer to the king than all but a few others, had been proposed. Henry sent another frantic invitation, daring, in his fear for his mother, to outline his high hopes in Brittany.

  Margaret read Henry's urgent missive with a tender smile. She was now nearly forty years old, but the beauty that came from the fine bones under the flesh was unchanged. True, there were dark hollows beneath her eyes, her cheeks were thinner, and her translucent skin showed tiny wrinkles where laughter and tears had stretched and washed it. The changes only enhanced the
quality of fragile purity that drew men's eyes and yet held them back from grossness.

  Dear Henry, how constant he was and how foolish to worry about her as if, after all these long years, she could not take care of herself. She rose as gracefully as a girl and moved toward her writing desk. A scratch at the door made her quicken her step, thrust Henry's letter inside and step away as she called, "Enter."

  The page announced Lord Stanley, and he trod in virtually on the heels of the child.

  "You will think me quite mad for returning so soon, Lady Margaret," he said.

  Margaret's lips quirked; she struggled for composure, then gave in and chuckled softly. "My dear Lord Stanley, no woman has ever thought a man who flattered her was mad. Since the only business between us is that of our proposed union and since you are urging it, I can only assume you have discovered more or more cogent arguments to that purpose. That is most flattering and not, to my mind, at all mad."

  Lord Stanley had stopped abruptly and started to draw himself up, when Margaret laughed, but there was only kindness in her eyes. He came forward again, his thin face intent. He was not a large man, rather of middle size but well made, and he carried himself with the easy grace of the courtier-soldier that he was. The high, broad forehead betokened intelligence, which was also apparent in his dark eyes; the full, well-shaped lips told of passion, but the chin— Lord Stanley would be a frail reed to lean upon. That was all to the good, Margaret thought. She had strength enough for both.

  "Then, I must depend upon that little feminine weakness," Thomas Stanley said, "although I do not flatter. My regard for you is—is most sincere, most sincere indeed. Lady Margaret, I have returned not with cogent reasons but—but to make a confession. You have protested at the unseemly haste with which the king is pressing you into a new marriage. It—that is my fault."

  "Yours, my lord?"

  Lord Stanley drew a deep breath and looked away. "I have long loved you, Lady Margaret, longer, in truth, than is honest, for my heart had turned to you before my wife's death. You shine like a pure wax light among the stinking, smoking torches that most of the court ladies have become."