I confess to cursing my poor husband while I labored. Even though I had gained skill in delivery during the past year, it is another matter when you are the one who must perform the trick, must rend yourself to make safe passage. Birth is blood, sweat, flooding waters and dire pain, that ends in a baby—the eternal mystery, emerging, in the Christian father's malediction, "between shit and piss."
"You have a fine daughter, Rosalba." Mother Ash held up my baby, wet and gluey, the cord just tied off, then laid her on my belly while she finished below.
Hesitantly, I put a hand upon her, this naked wet worm. She squirmed and squalled. Mine—she was mine? The notion was excessively strange.
"What a pair of lungs!" Hugh’s appeared at the top of the loft ladder. He must have started up at the first cry.
"Come, Master Fletcher, if you don't mind a mess," Ash said. "There's nothing here you haven't seen before."
Lying back, swamped in the peace that follows the storm, I'd tensed, imagining Hugh would not be pleased. Master Whitby had scorned his daughters. My husband, however, surprised me. He took up the cloth that was laid to ready, swaddled our child in it, just as nice as you please, his big hard hands gentle and deft. Prophetic, the way she quieted in his arms, and settled in to gaze at him.
We named her Alkelda, after the saint in whose church we now received sacrament and at whose well I sought comfort. We gave thanks to God for her, though, in my opinion, the God inside those four stone walls didn't have much to do with the lust, blood, seed, or pain that had gone into her creation. Alkelda was sturdy, fat and surprisingly fair, every inch of her plain Yorkshire.
* * *
Two years passed. Hugh and I worked, quarreled and made up, as couples do. I continued my work under Ash's tutelage and began to gain a reputation as the local healer and acceptance as her heir.
During the spring of 1475, Duke Richard and his Anne at last made return to Middleham Castle, finally a couple, the long ago promise fulfilled. I thought it was the end of the interrupted fairytale—from now on it would be ‘happily ever after.’ At the time, we who had been of Warwick's household imagined so, and the idea gladdened our hearts.
Middleham Village greeted the lord and lady, blazing with banners. Men in armor, men in brigantine and mail, carrying swords and bows, jostled in the bailey. Castle and town spilled over with folk of every quality. Servants made the best shift they could, sleeping in haylofts.
The duke’s visit, however, was all business. Richard, hardly glancing to right or left, rode into the yard seated upon a tall bay warhorse, reins in one gloved hand. This castle where he had once served as a sickly princeling was now his spoil.
They dismounted and went directly into the hall. Here waited an impatient, hard-eyed crowd of northerners. They had brought their quarrels before him. Numerous parties had arrived from all around the district in the last few days, accompanied by trains of servants.
The gentry came to seek justice, or, perhaps, to persuade my Lord of Gloucester to enforce their view. Those with deep pockets arrived for politics, to ingratiate themselves with this new power. Marriage to Lady Anne had brought the northern portion of the Neville-Beauchamp inheritance, and now Richard must administer it and cultivate the old family affinities.
There were the usual feuds and commotions between rival lords and their men-at-arms to discuss, as well as trespasses and arguments over property. Quarrels over the marriages of heiresses and rights of wardships would also be brought before him, for wealthy widows and orphans were ever pawns, played for advantage.
On the duke's side, there was much to be considered: justice and the law, of course, but also the delicate business of balancing the wants of his friends against the rights of his foes. I now understood far more about the great game my Lord of Gloucester played, understood far better the stakes. Not only by report, but with my own eyes had I seen the heads of once powerful men set upon city gates, food for ravens.
Nothing was certain. Nothing was forever. We bowed low before Richard of Gloucester, but he had been born as naked as the least of his subjects. In an eye blink, fortune’s wheel could spin, and he might be cast down, as low as he now rode high.
* * *
Anne had time for her lesser subjects and began with a walk about her old home. The castle had her first, naturally. I was in the herb garden, directing the spring digging and clearing when at last I saw her, coming along the path.
I had not imagined her out-of-doors so soon. It had been two years since we'd kissed each other's cheeks at the door of St. Martin. Today, in a dirty old dress, I was spading around the feathery green of the perennials. There were cottagers to help me, but Mother Ash cautioned they could not always be trusted among the rarer herbs.
Yesterday I had gone to watch while she and the duke arrived along with the rest, all in our Sunday best, lining the road and the inner wall of the bailey, to greet them. Stubbornness, I suppose, sent me to stand at the back.
Today Alkelda was with me, sitting in the grass playing with a pile of pebbles and a cracked wooden cup. She was tethered to an apple tree and pleasant spells of quiet were followed by ear-splitting shrieks of temper when she abruptly remembered the end of the cord I'd tied to the leading strings at the back of her dress.
My workmates punctuated their digging with visits and chat that distracted her, and older children came and went. It was not so difficult to run back and forth, but it was annoying. I kept having to rethink what I was doing, but at home, Bet and Little Jack had runny noses. I’d wanted to keep Alkelda away from their wretched sniffling and coughing, out in the healthful sunshine.
There was a great commotion at the bottom of garden, and there she was, among cries from the children.
"Our Lady is come! Our Lady Anne!"
Gazing across the spring green at this cheerful mob, all those humble folk in dusty clothes running to greet her, I felt the old thrill of delight.
"Our Lady!
In that blue she favored, the kirtle covered by a matching blue hoppelande with white fur trim, she approached. Her head was covered by a simple veil and coif. It was old-fashioned, but just right for us. I watched, wanting to go curtsy with the others, to put myself in her sight, but somehow I could not.
I put my head down and started to dig again. This task needed doing, but I'd been so distracted today by Alkelda—and now she was wailing again because everyone had left her.
With a groan, I stuck the spade into the dark, damp earth and went across to her. At once, grubby little paws lifted.
"Miserable brat! What now?” I bent to pick her up, for she cried louder and louder as I’d approached. "Here." I settled her on my hip. "What's the matter? Eh? What's the matter, my mouse-meat?"
My daughter dropped her fluffy head and pressed her face against my bosom. She was tired, peckish and wanting the comfort of a breast. I sat down on a rock that served for our seat in this place and opened my dress. She knew what to do, so I could quickly slip my cloak around to cover us. Peeping into the gloom, facing out of the wind, I could see my freckled, bare breast, Alkelda attached. She paused to roll up her eyes and smirk, so I knew it was for attention she cried rather than for hunger.
"Got your way as usual, brat."
Although this was said with a jounce that drew another smile from her, it amazed me how little patience I possessed. I'm certain I must have been just as selfish and cunning as a child, but, as I remembered things, my mother had always been most forbearing. Hugh said I was too quick to smack her fat little hands when she did wrong, but I retorted that she was always a perfect angel when he was around. Of course, he didn't help matters, doting on her as he did.
Alkelda could do no wrong! It was a love story between them, right from the start.
"Is this you, my Rose?"
There stood Anne, even lovelier than I remembered. She was winter pale, with just a copper crescent of hair visible above her high forehead. Lady Grace, looking uncomfortable as she always did out of doors, stood behind her. There was also a half-grown beautifully dressed child, doubtless one of the Duke’s wards. Three sweet-faced boy pages grappled with Anne's spreading train, attempting to keep it from the damp ground.
"I am most sorry, Lady Anne," I said, "that you should have to walk here, but this one," I added, indicating Alkelda's fat legs, "thought she was hungry."
"I wished to stroll beneath these blooming apple trees, Rose, so never you mind."
An old woman among the crowd, one who remembered us in the old days, spoke up. "Rosie has got a new mistress, Milady."
This drew laughter. Despite the uproar in my heart, there was a glowing sense of the past, of all of us being where we were supposed to be at last—at Middleham, together.
Hearing the fuss, Alkelda, sat up, leaving me uncovered. The red, stretched nipple, so suddenly abandoned, was embarrassing. I covered myself quickly.
"Oh! What a pretty little girl!" Anne said the same as every other well-wisher. "What an angel!"
"Thank-you, Milady." I got to my feet, with Alkelda hugged close. It would have been improper to go on sitting while my mistress stood.
My daughter was adorable that year, with a goodly amount of white blonde hair and her round rosy cheeks. She clung to my hip, staring, jaw dropped, at this new admirer who'd apparently come on purpose to meet her. A marvelous lady was this, radiant, and as beautifully and cleanly dressed as the Madonna!
Anne smiled. I'd forgotten how lovely she was, how perfect, her eyes, her brows, her tender mouth, her glorious hair….
"Oh, Rose!" She gazed at my child with longing. "What is her name?"
"Alkelda, Milady."
"A fitting choice."
"Thank you, Milady."
"Will you say hello?" Anne spoke to her, leaning close.
First, as was her way, Alkelda played coy, closing her eyes and shrinking against me. Then she turned and said in her piping little voice, "Hello, mi’lady."
Everyone chuckled and said “how clever Rose's baby is to talk so well to our duchess.” Against my bosom, Alkelda swelled and preened.
"How old?"
"Near 17 moons, your ladyship."
"So big!" Anne studied her.
"I am very glad that you have come home to us again, Milady."
"And I am very glad to be here, Rose. It has been far, far too long I've been away." Her eyes turned toward the castle, and then, with an expression of delight, took in the rolling green which lay beyond.
"It does us all good to see you so well, My Lady, and to have you here with us at last." I offered a little speech which would include the other happy faces which had gathered round.
"I cannot say how much I have longed to be here, and to see all of you." Anne opened her arms to the adoring crowd. Everyone beamed and blushed, shuffled their feet and looked mightily pleased.
"A kiss, Rose!" Anne said, so I came close and touched my lips to her fair cheek. She smelled wonderful, of lavender and angelica, of her own fair flesh. The scent of her swept me straight into a vat of pain. I had put aside how much I'd missed her, but seeing her now, being so close, brought all my loss and longing back.
"Come to me tomorrow, after Mass. We will talk."
I bobbed a curtsy with Alkelda, that warm, damp, living millstone, firmly in place. Milady walked away beneath the blossom-drifting trees, her pages and ladies like petals around the heart of a flower. Spring, a brief pink, gold and white, dotted the ground beneath the trees.
Alkelda, for once, stayed quiet, gripping the front of my dress and watching Anne depart. Her fat lower lip quivered, and I could hear her breathing hard, as if she'd had a vision.
Meanwhile, around us, whispering went on.
"And what do you suppose Milady wants with Rose?"
"To talk about babies, of course."
"What else can young wives talk about, eh?”