My daily work in the garden increased, so I spent less time with Anne. Another girl, one of gentle birth, Grace Poleyn, was introduced into the house as one more suitable to wait daily upon my Lady. I think it had been planned to put me aside entirely, but Anne, not known hitherto for ill temper, cried and stormed, demanding to keep me.
"I cannot sleep without her! She keeps me warm and company, she knows how to loosen the knot in my chest, and chases away the nightmare. She has ever been with me—and so she ever shall!"
"You will soon sleep with a husband, Lady Anne," Agnes countered. "You will have no need of Rosalba to keep you warm."
To this remark, Anne replied only with a cruel snort of derision, copied from Isabel.
“And what would you know of that, you old maid?”
In her parent's absence, my Lady was overruled, however, and I was banished to Mother Ash's cottage. This was no absolute hardship, for I had always loved it there, so clean and snug. The only problem was that my teacher snored so loudly that the rafters shook. It took me quite a while to learn to sleep despite it.
I did miss Anne, and had my own hard times away from her bed. I missed the scent and touch of her, the sweet warmth of her body in my arms at night, quite as much of her company. It was a kind of love, such as young girls often feel for each other, especially if they are kept from the company of men. Some call it unnatural, but it seems to be quite ordinary in nature. Observe the way heifers will leap upon each other, before they are strong enough to carry the bull on their backs. We were chaste, with just the need to hold and press a sweet kiss or two upon the cheek or neck, sufficient to send shivery pleasure into innocent flesh.
If Anne rode out, I would see her, run to her, and she would stop her pony, and extend one of those pretty long hands for me to kiss. Just to lean my forehead against her leg, to touch and be close, even if only for a moment, gave us both solace.
When the Countess and her husband returned from a long circuit of visiting their castles, Anne demanded to have me back again. After this, I was allowed to come to her bed whenever she didn't feel well. I was always summoned when she had trouble breathing. However, our old way of living like tender sisters had passed and gone, as do all things in this life.
A second lady-in-waiting was introduced at this same time, Lady Margaret Neville, a plump blonde with watchful gray eyes. She was actually Anne's half-sister, one of the Earl's bastards. She had been raised mostly at Warwick Castle, because her mother's family lived nearby.
Perhaps because she was the second interloper, I was always less jealous of Margaret. Perhaps it was simply because Margaret was so quiet and so wary. Her blood was bluer than Grace's, but from her demeanor you would never have guessed. A bastard, I suppose, stands always on a quaking bog.
It must have been her mother’s intent to wean Anne and me from each other completely, for I spent longer hours in the garden every day. Mistress Ash and I tended not only the castle folk, but the people of the village, too, and we were busy that year. Ash and Master Gray taught me about surgery: to cut boils and cysts, how to open and clean wounds that have pus, how to set bones, when to apply leaches and when to let blood, and demonstrated the horrible business of cauterizing flesh. More happily, I went with Mistress Ash to assist women in childbirth. To see the fat squalling baby come, to see the tears and shrieks of the mother turn to joy as she put the child to her breast, this was a miracle!
With my teacher overlooking, I assumed near all the work in her herb garden, pruning the rangy hyssops, the yarrow and mint, and those that invaded more than their space, harvesting, drying, and preparing all the standard cures. Washes of burdock for pimples, garlic for wounds and infections, hip syrup for winter tonics, borage for nursing mothers, sage, rosemary and thyme for seasoning and for purifying the blood, nettle and raspberry for woman's troubles, comfrey and myrrh for bad gums, the list went on and on. This summer my teacher rested beneath a tree and watched me work in her beautiful, scented garden. On rainy days, we sorted and dated all our stores. We threw out what was old, replacing it with the newly dried. My mistress quizzed me, as she always had, as we went along.
She set me to reciting the spells which went with certain cures, and refreshed me upon the saints’ names to exchange with some charms my mother had taught me. This, in case "priests come sniffing with their long snouts, thinking 'twill advance them to hang a wise woman."
* * *
The moon sent the blood curse to me when I was with Mistress Ash that summer. She presented me a dagger upon the occasion, small and bright, the hilt bound in leather, and in such a fine sheath of soft leather that it almost made recompense for this new trouble.
"It is what your mother would have given, and what every woman must carry, as we live so close to the Scots. I will show you how to wear it beneath your skirt and True Thomas has said he will show you some ways of using it that may save your honor, or, even more important," she added with a stern look, "your life."
"Is not death preferable?" I repeated what I had heard on the lips of Lady Agnes.
"It is better to live if you can, for how else will you get revenge?"
I considered this, and it sounded like something my mother would have said. That was still the way I tested the merit of things I was told.
"But," I went on after a pause to consider, "are not sins of the flesh—even insults—a result of woman's temptation?"
"Men, of course, say this." Ash spoke with the grave contempt usual when such a topic came up. “Sins of the flesh are commonly instigated by men, although you will never get one of those sodomite priests to admit it."
There was not much I hadn't seen, between village and castle. I did not stay, but ran from whatever coupling I'd stumbled upon, be it the soldier and kitchen maid grunting against a pantry wall, or robes like ghastly wings enfolding some hapless, weeping boy, or young squires on a hunt, who have caught a village girl in the glade instead of a hind. A woman, no matter what her age or station, was wise to keep a sharp look out.
"And while we are on the subject," my teacher continued, "you will hear that the man's seed alone makes generation. What do you think?"
"I think," I said, for this was another idea I'd begun to ponder, "that I look like my mother and not at all like my father."
"Well," Mistress Ash smiled slightly, "that is not a bad way to say that something is contributed by one's mother. Men, however, will laugh at you for that answer and say your father was a cuckold."
"An’ so he was," I replied stoutly. "I am proud to be my mother's daughter and would be proud to be hers alone, an’ it was possible."
Ash cackled and slapped her knee. "By the Black Lady! Her hand was in the business when you became my last pupil." The business about being the "last pupil" bothered me, for, old as the hills though she seemed, I didn’t like to think of her dying. Mistress Ash waggled a bumpy, crooked finger at me and pronounced, "Only between wise women, Mouse, such talk."
True Thomas did indeed show me how to use my knife, how to keep it where it could be drawn quickly through my skirt pocket. He also showed me where to strike openings in mail or through a stout brigantine, how to strike fast and avoid losing the knife to my attacker.
"Strike and run. Strike hard and deep enough and perhaps you can escape. Any man that wills has the strength to rape you, will—even wounded. He will break your jaw, break your back and have his way. Never be caught off guard—keep your eyes open. Use your teeth, bite off his ear, try for an eye. It may be all the revenge you will ever have."
His stories—terrible things he'd seen at war—frightened me, and for months I could hardly go anywhere without wishing for eyes in the back of my head.
* * *
"Oh, Holy Mother!" It was Anne, sobbing.
I had been summoned into the castle because "Lady Anne is sick at her stomach and calling for you." I found her crouching white-faced over the chamber pot, too embarrassed to move.
"Rosalba! Come quick!"
It had come to me but a short two months ago, and was, in fact, upon me now, for it was new moon, the time I ever had my courses. It didn't come every month, yet, thank the Blessed Mother, by now I knew the signals of onset: backache, nausea, cramps—the curse of our disobedient Mother Eve, which brought discomfort, inconvenience, shame—and, danger, in the form of a terrible vulnerability.
"Patience, My Lady. I’ll bring what you need."
"Oh, Rosalba! It's so horrible!"
After gathering a handful of clean rags from the cupboard in the anteroom that held a store of such things, I returned.
"Where is Grace?"
"I sent her off on an errand to the kitchen."
"Do you need me to help?" I crouched down beside her.
"No. It's too awful. But stand outside and don't let anyone know. Then, please, get me something for the pain. Oh, dear Blessed Mother! Why so soon? Why? Dear Saints and Angels in Heaven! I am lost!"
"It comes to all of us." Hunkering down beside her, I was having a pang of indecision. "I should tell the Countess."
"Don't! Oh, Rosalba! Please don't! That's why I called for you!"
"It can't be hidden, at least, not for long." I looked down at her, clothes wadded miserably around. A bloody smell rose from the pot. "Look." I pointed apologetically to her kirtle, peeking out from beneath her skirt. "There's some." Sure enough, a gout had stained it.
In the end, I stayed with her, helped her get comfortably cleaned and padded. I tried to offer what solace I could, but in the end we simply retired to bed together, hugged and sniffled. I cried for her, and for myself, as well.
Pain and blood! It was the end of our childish freedom, the beginning of the servitude to the body which is woman's peculiar office.
"Now my Lord Father will find me a husband," Anne whispered. "I will be married to someone I don't even know—and—and—then—all the rest—whether I will or no."
I knew she was thinking of her lost, sweet Dickon, and of the terrible breach between the King and her father, the great Kingmaker. I hugged and tried to cheer her, but I had fears of my own.
If she married, would I be allowed to stay with her? Would I want to? Or would the family keep me here to make medicine and tend the gardens at Middleham? Mother Ash had taken a bad turn during the past winter. Her mind and will were strong as ever, but her body had weakened, and she moved slowly as a snail. Of course, the worst end, as I then saw matters, was banishment to Aysgarth, where I would doubtless sleep for the rest of my life with a sheep for a bolster.
Anne finally crawled deep under the covers and I went to concoct the pain medicine she needed. As I slipped off the bed, I knew that as soon as I was gone she would break down and bawl like a baby.
On my way out, chamber pot in hand—for I aimed to give my dear lady as much help as possible—I encountered Lady Agnes, sneaking into the anteroom. She pretended to be busy with linen in the cupboard, so I ignored her and continued on my way.
I knew she'd been spying. News of Lady Anne's submission to the moon was all over Middleham before dark.
* * *
During the time Anne and I had been kept separate, she had found a new solace. Climbing into the musician's gallery one afternoon, hoping to relive her last encounter with Dickon of Gloucester, she made a new friend, Anthony, the lute player.
Nothing in the way of adventure here, for kind Anthony was weak-chinned, slumped, and thin as a broken reed, with eyes so bad he couldn't see the butts at Sunday archery practice. He could, however, coax beauty from every string instrument ever devised. Richard, in fact, had favored Anthony, for the duke was one of those whose heart was touched by music. Anne had a sweet, white voice, and Anthony often accompanied her. That Anne was able to sing without shortness of breath was a sign of her new strength. Her parents were as much delighted by this, I could tell, as by the innocent charm of her performances.
Anthony cheered his sorrowful little mistress with songs. One thing led to another, and now he came every day to give her lessons. Isabel, naturally, must have lessons too, though she was more interested in being the center of attention than learning anything. The sisters did master a few showpieces in beautiful close harmony, which they performed for their father like a pair of shining, golden angels. It was, however, Anne who stuck with practice, Anne's long fingers that mastered the art.
The songs My Lady worked hardest at were those her Dickon had loved most. Mild, chinless Anthony was a great help, remembering which ones had "found favor with the young Duke of Gloucester.” He taught Anne all the verses, too. At first, her stumbling hours of practice drove the servants near to madness, but we all respected her diligence. After a while, her graceful fingers proved to have the perfect touch. Her sweet, clear voice was pure as a boy's.
The sad songs she sang brought tears to my eyes—and, to the eyes of pale Anthony, who now fancied himself a Trouvere, romantically attached to an unattainable, chaste and lovely mistress. He was forever tapping on the door, bringing “My Lady Anne” another new song.
* * *
"I shall be married to George of Clarence, and then our father shall depose Cousin Edward, and George shall be King."
"And you shall be the Queen, Milady," prompted Elaine.
"So shall I be!" Isabel struck a pose before the window. "Then our father Warwick shall call the tune for England."
I, mending in the corner, gawped at treason so lightly spoken. Anne, however, managed a retort.
"You will need a dispensation. Cousin George is within forbidden degrees."
"Cousin George has gold enough to get whatever he wants from the Pope," Isabel said airily.
"You wish to marry with my Lord of Clarence?" It was not my place, but the words came tumbling out.
Isabel leveled her blue gaze. "Why shouldn't I, you silly fool? Did you not see the Duke of Clarence at my father's great feast? He is the king's equal in every part."
I stood and dropped a low curtsy, prudence taking belated hold. After all, these days it wasn’t often that I was allowed to sit with them. It was left to my Lady Anne to pursue the thought.
"For myself," Anne said coolly, "I only noted what a deal our Cousin George drank."
"Trust you to be jealous!" Isabel habitually attributed her own worst faults to those around her. "The Duke of Clarence is tall, handsome, and witty. Not a thing like drab, crooked Richard.”
“He may be crooked, but he rides and fights as well as….”
Isabel interrupted. “Our father says the Woodvilles daily spit upon Richard, but he is such a weakling, so in love with his brother, that he will not listen to any proposition our Father makes. Richard of Gloucester will not even change his course," Isabel added, smiling cruelly, "though Father secretly offers him your hand."
I watched Anne swallow hard. Down in the kitchens, or in my village, these sisters would have next flown at each other, shrieking and slapping. Without a word, Anne got up. Marching across the room, she grabbed me by the wrist, and cried, "Attend me!" Leaving Isabel, Elaine, Grace and Margaret behind, we marched away. As a servant snatched the door open, I could feel eyes following us.
We ended in the chapel, kneeling side by side. Among the candles and lingering incense of the place, with the cold, carved faces of saints inspecting us, My Lady prayed earnestly, whispering Latin, telling her beads.
For what did she pray? That Richard should, somehow, continue to love her? That her father and King Edward would be reconciled? Or, simply, for the strength to endure whatever fate awaited?
My thoughts were a jumble. Besides, to me the chapel was like death itself, the darkness, the silence, the unending chill, those ghostly statues. For me, religion happened in other places. I felt a thrill of holiness by Alkelda's green and mysterious well, or when I saw a hunting peregrine fall like a bolt from the sky. My heart stirred at golden sunrises and blood red sunsets, or at the sight of the great-bellied, rising moon. I loved and believed in Our Lady, the great preserver of my life. I prayed to her silently, several times a day, in the Latin my mistress had taught. At Mass, I knew when to cross and bless myself, but escaped the oppression of long, mostly unintelligible devotions with a series of catnaps. I had even, over the years, learned to doze while kneeling.
Here, beside my mistress, I wondered how the Duke of Gloucester could break with the brother to whom he had sworn allegiance, even for the sake of the great Earl of Warwick, even for the sake of his love? After all, loyaulte me lie—Loyalty Binds Me—was Richard's chosen motto.
Choices! At each fork in the road, hearts are broken, and eternal partings made. I did not know what anyone, divine or human, could do to soothe my mistress. The fight between her Lord Father and the King had already brought us unhappiness. How much more was to come—to the principals, to the hundreds of soldiers and the innocent commons who fell in their way—I'm glad I could not know. Foresight is no blessing!
The Earl refused to attend the King's Councils. He said he would never attend as long as his enemies, the Woodvilles, were present. King Edward shrugged. Then he destroyed the last of the goodwill Warwick had created with King Louis of France by giving his own sister, Princess Margaret, in marriage to Charles, Duke of Burgundy, a ruler who was a perennial thorn in the French side.
It was, certainly, a better marriage for the wool trade. This opinion I heard on a visit home, from the men of my village. King Edward remained popular enough with common folk. Burgundy was our natural market, our major trading partner. Better to make an alliance with there—to send them a princess—than to those “treacherous catamites,” the French. So, even here, in his own country, my Master the Earl found himself second-guessed.
To visit Aysgarth was queer. I had been back but one other time, and I'd become a stranger. Everyone regarded me with the same wary indifference they would any other traveler. I was the girl who had gone away to the castle, who returned in fine new clothes with clean, smooth, hands. I was unmarried, too, at the great age of seventeen. I might as well have arrived sporting two heads.
Since my last visit, Master Whitby had grown old. Falling sickness had begun in him. Barely able to walk and not always coherent, he sat in the sun in the square with other old men, all of them trailing beards and maundering on about some imaginary “good old days.” Mother ministered to his needs, but, more often, my unlucky sister Lily was the one left caring for the old brute.
Mother was free now. No longer a prisoner of our house, she trudged back and forth with her wares between dale villages, frequently disappearing for days. She did cures here and there, for which she was blessed and thanked, paid whatever folks could give. She hunted the rarest wild herbs, and, at certain seasons, mushrooms, which she found in the southern groves. These had good value at the kitchen doors of the gentry. She also made cheese and sewed for a womanless shepherd who had moved nearby, a local character and ex-soldier named Alban.
Whitby's remaining local son, Clifford, and his hatchet-faced wife, Aldgyth, ran the house and did the farming. They were busily raising another blonde brood. They treated my mother with respect, for she had never come between them and the old man. Besides, Mother was no burden to them.
They did not want my sister Lily to marry, for she had such a way with her cantankerous father. The old man, of course, was of like mind.
"I won't be among you long," Whitby declared with a self-pitying sigh, "but I must have my Lily to cheer me while yet I live."
Mother and I sat in the sun by a pool, nodding greetings to the local women dipping their buckets. We absently tossed crumbs to the ducks who swam by. When I said that "Poor Lily will never get free," Mother had simply patted my hand and smiled.
Her smile was not what it had been, for her front teeth were missing—the result of Whitby's violence, the last before his abrupt decline into senility. Explaining this, Mother had nudged me companionably and whispered, "When the signs are right, I have a nice draught for him."
I knew what she meant, for Mother Ash was even now teaching me something of this most dangerous and forbidden of all physician’s arts. Still, it was something of a shock to hear it so coolly said.
"By the Black Madonna! Be careful!"
Mother winked, long bronze lashes flashing over one hazel eye. "Aldgyth would kiss my ass if I'd do it. But where on this green earth did you learn such an oath?"
"It is the oath of my teacher, Mother Ash. She has such a Madonna, from her grandfather who made a pilgrimage to Montserrat in Spain. The Lady is all black, carved of ebony. She is strong to defend."
"Indeed! I think our plain English Lady has done well enough by us. Has she not, White Rose?" Mother's wrinkled, freckled hand touched my check. Though it was rough and hard, her caresses and smiles were so precious.
While I was visiting Aysgarth, Anne and her family were away on the continent. The Earl, pretending to mend fences with the king, had taken them to witness the royal progress of Princess Margaret, now on her way to marry the Duke of Burgundy. Anne had not wanted to leave me behind, but her mother had insisted.
The Countess had taken to continually disparaging my appearance. What would the Burgundians say if no fairer girl than this “freckled heifer” could be found in all of England to tend her daughter? I was dispatched to Aysgarth with one final kick, this from Agnes, who remarked that I should take "close note" of the village where I certainly would end my days.
Anne and I cried together, saddened at parting. She kissed me, hugged me, and promised that hereafter I should always be close. The family were to travel to Burgundy and then to our English port of Calais before returning home. Margaret Neville and Grace Poelyn would be the ones to tend her. For their journey, Mother Ash and I distilled drops, gathered dried mixtures and tonics by the score to be packed into a traveling chest for our noble family's benefit.
"Naught but piss and pestilence across the water," Mother Ash muttered as we worked. "The French are the dirtiest people in the world. And, although it pleases our master not, King Edward has done the right thing, trading his princess sister to the Duke of Burgundy. In that land, she may continue to enjoy a decent measure of good health."
There were strange doings that summer. A gentleman calling himself "Robin of Redesdale" was marching about the countryside with three hundred archers, all well clad and carrying long knives, calling men to arms against the "injustices" of King Edward, complaining of "misrule." Unlike most local rebellions, this one was said to be well-disciplined. It was well funded, too, for there was no plundering of villages which lay in Robin's path, and his soldiers paid for what they took.
Men who had plied the trade of war in the old days were back in brigantine again, sharpening their weapons and marching in bands. Some went with the army of this "Robin," others were for the banner of John Neville, the Earl's younger brother, who lay in York, loyal to the King.
When Robin of Redesdale reached the gates of York, he had 15,000 men at his back. Still, John Neville was ready for him, and he sallied out, captured the leaders and ‘headed the lot. The common soldiers, as was the rule in King Edward's time, were pardoned and told to go home.
Many, however, did not. Only a few months later there was another ‘Robin’ and another army, said to be twice as big as the first, this one on its way to present grievances to the King in London. I was happy to be safe at Middleham again, for armed men were everywhere, and small villages like Aysgarth stood in danger.
True Thomas said, "Looks to me like the bad old days have come ‘round again."