The Wars of the Roses have been raging for twenty-five years,
decimating families, ruining the land and exhausting commoners and lords alike.
Now, the future of England balances on a sword blade. Two anointed
monarchs battle for the throne. Mad Henry VI’s
faction is presently in power, supported by the House of Lancaster. Exiled in
Flanders, Yorkist King Edward IV is amassing an army to reclaim England, while
his pregnant wife, Elizabeth Woodville, has fled to the safety of sanctuary in
Westminster Abbey with her young daughters.
Chapter
1
November
1470 | Westminster Abbey
A
secret has been conceived . . .
“Entry,
in the name of God and King Henry!” My guard clouts the iron-clad door of Cheyneygates, challenging the sanctuary of Westminster
Abbey. “The Lady Elysabeth Scrope demands entry!”
A
murther of crows startles from the gables, cawing and whirling around my head
and circling up into the clouded heavens. I join three fingers in the holy
trinity and cross myself; head, chest, sinister and dexter. These ancient
purveyors of death do not disturb me, for I have not survived this war to be hindered
by a superstition. If there were a crow for every dead soldier, England would
be a huge raucous rookery. But it never hurts to invoke God’s protection. The
crows swoop and squabble and alight singly among the gargoyles on the parapets
of the soot-stained Abbey. Like the granite tors of my Yorkshire home, these
walls are impenetrable and inaccessible. And just as hostile. God offers
protection to all who claim sanctuary. And men erect walls to keep them safe.
No
stirring from within. I sigh. Not unexpected. “Knock again,” I command the
guard. “Let them know their visitors will not leave.”
The
waning October afternoon trickles shadows into the well of the courtyard. I
pull my cloak closer, thankful I had chosen my finest weave to keep the warmth
in and the damp out. The sun had shone golden when we rode out from London, but
upon reaching Westminster we collided with the rain clouds streaming in from
the west.
Fallen
mulberry leaves clog the stone steps rising before me, rotting unswept in the
hollows. Someone isn’t taking care of the abbot’s house. It is clear that no
one has left nor entered for a while. The guard’s hammering is unanswered, and
yet to the right of the door a candle flame glimmers through a browed window
and a shadow flits elusively.
I push
back my hood, and a spatter of rain needles my face. Here, gatekeeper. Here's reassurance I bear your fugitive no threat. I
am of middling age, graceful, fair of face, my countenance pleasing, I’ve heard
say. Hardly a threat.
The
rain unfurls in sheets. I raise my voice. “I am not asking the queen to break
sanctuary.” God knows the wretched woman would make it easier on all of us if
she did. I motion the guard aside and edge up the slippery steps to the door.
“I am here to join her.” My voice competes with a dripping gutter and gets lost
under the pitter-patter.
At the
foot of the steps, my stepdaughter, Meg Zouche, hums with a redhead’s restless
energy; her curly hair springs wildly from her hood, laced with jeweled
droplets of Thames mist. “The queen thinks to defy fate with a barred door.”
Meg scowls at the blank and blackened oak.
“She
will admit us. Eventually. Even one such as she cannot birth her child alone,”
I reply. “I may not be her choice for an attendant, but a captive has no say in
their guard.” Temper’s blood warms my cheeks. I stand resolute at the door,
ignoring the invisible eyes taking my measure. If this time in sanctuary is to
be the battle of wills I anticipate, then I must win the first foray. I plant
my feet in the composting leaves, ignore the damp seeping from the stone into
the soles of my boots, and wait.
Bolts grate top and bottom, and the
door creaks open. I swallow a last breath of rain-washed air, hoarding the
fresh scent for the stifling weeks to come, for the queen’s confinement shapes
my own prison sentence. Reaching for Meg’s warm hand, I cross the threshold
into the abbot’s house. The splashing steps of our guard fades, his duty done,
mine just beginning. And if I fail and the child
dies, I will be shown no mercy from Henry, the king that rules, nor Edward, the
king in exile.
We are
herded like moorland sheep into the cramped entry corridor, and the steward
squints down his drip-tipped nose and sniffs. Meg glares back at him until he
drops his gaze. She may be only nineteen, but she has been mine since she was
two years of age, and I have trained her to run a great household. She will
brook no truck with an insolent servant. Let Meg practice her learnings on the
poor man; he is, after all, the enemy.
“Escort
my mother to the queen,” Meg commands, “and then show me our lodgings.”
He
grudgingly dips his head. “Wait here, Dame Zouche.”
So the
household expects our arrival. They just don’t choose to welcome us. Of course,
there is little that will escape the queen, for certainly she has her spies and
informers even as she invokes sanctuary to protect her unborn child.
“This
way, Lady Scrope.”
I kiss
Meg's warm cheek. “Make friends with him, Meg,” I whisper. “We’re going to need
all the help we can muster. I'll return shortly.”
She
grins and winks. “Bon chance, Belle-maman.”
The
steward sets off at a brisk trot through a passage that runs alongside the
entry courtyard. He does not look back to see if I keep up nor to extend me the
courtesy of a deferential bow nor even a head tilt that my rank demands. So.
This is how we will engage.
He
leaves me at the open door to a dim chamber, and I pause to let my eyes adjust
to the shadows and to reclaim my dignity. I am aware that whoever is in the
room sees me before I see them.
The
lofty wood panelling is underlit by half-burned candles struggling in the damp
air. At the end of the chamber is a diamond-paned window, beyond which the
Abbey lurks, blocking the waning light. Resting in a high-backed chair before
the hearth, her pure profile dark against the blue flames of a meagre fire, is
Queen Elizabeth—I still think of her as Elizabeth Woodville—her belly swollen
under a beaver-fur mantle. Three little girls huddle on red velvet prayer
cushions at her feet, the youngest child perhaps eighteen months.
So this
is the commoner queen and her brace of healthy children. Yet still no male heir
to claim the throne. What are the odds this next child is a boy? High, I
reckon. Especially given the wellspring of prayers God must be receiving daily
from the queen and her followers.
Elizabeth St.John spends her time between California, England, and the past. An acclaimed author, historian, and genealogist, she has tracked down family papers and residences from Lydiard Park and Nottingham Castle to Richmond Palace and the Tower of London to inspire her novels. Although the family sold a few country homes along the way (it's hard to keep a good castle going these days), Elizabeth's family still occupy them— in the form of portraits, memoirs, and gardens that carry their legacy. And the occasional ghost. But that's a different story.
Having spent a significant part of her life with her seventeenth-century family while writing The Lydiard Chronicles trilogy and Counterpoint series, Elizabeth St.John is now discovering new family stories with her fifteenth-century namesake Elysabeth St.John Scrope, and her half-sister, Margaret Beaufort.
