A Dangerous Inheritance

Jane returns and attempts a little celebration. She has brought wine and pours it into three goblets. ‘A toast to your bridal!’ she says. ‘I have longed for this day, to see you both happily wed. May every happiness be yours!’

We clink goblets and drink, then Jane presses us to take some food.

‘I could not eat a thing,’ I confess, having other, more pressing, bodily needs on my mind. Ned stands silent beside me.

Jane smiles. ‘I perceive you are ready for bed. I will wait downstairs,’ she says, and leaves us alone.

Oh, the joy of lovers becoming one flesh! We consummate our marriage most heartily, and maybe more passionately than most, but first there is fumbling! I have brought no night-gear with me, my lord’s has not been laid out, and we have no attendants to help us take off our layers of winter clothing.

‘I will be your tirewoman, sweetheart,’ Ned chuckles, tugging at the laces of my gown as I pull off my hood and hastily don my wifely coverchief. Soon, it is all I am wearing, everything else having been cast on the floor – girdle, gown, kirtle, quilted petticoat, fine lawn smock – as my love and I, warmed by the wine singing in our veins, divest each other of all our clothes. Ned is undressed first, but I am not long after; he pulls me naked onto the bed where he has flung himself, and we fall into each other’s arms, and I know at last what it is to lie skin to skin with my beloved between cool, crisp sheets.

We ca

Never did two hours go so fast. Only once do we leave the bed, to get some wine, and then we hasten back, unwilling to waste time. Later, I look up, flushed and dewy with sweat, and see that the weak November sun is high in the sky.

‘Oh no, I must fly!’ I wail, devastated, for I had not dared to dwell on the inevitable parting.

‘Good God, the time!’ Ned cries, leaping from the bed. ‘Let me help you, sweet wife.’ I rise and run unashamed to him, clinging to his body for one last embrace, and then we force ourselves apart and drag on our clothes; and Ned makes a very creditable job of assisting me into mine.

‘There,’ he says, pulling on his doublet over his rumpled shirt and fiddling with the buttons. ‘You look very fine. No one would ever suspect what you have been doing!’

‘For shame!’ I chide, but despite my jesting I am dying inside and finding it hard to stem my tears. ‘When shall we meet again, my husband?’

‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ Ned assures me. ‘Jane will help us, you may depend on it. Kiss me, my love.’

We race downstairs, where, the tide being up, an anxious Jane has hailed a wherry. Ned kisses me one final time, then I tear myself away and climb into the boat. When I look around, Ned is at the top of the river stairs, waving farewell, his face wistful; then he turns and disappears back into the house. The boatman pulls out into the river and rows downstream to Whitehall. And at eleven o’clock precisely, neat and prim as a Lady of the Privy Chamber should be, I am seated at table with the Lord Comptroller.

Kate

1484. Raglan Castle.

Life, for Kate, settled into a routine. Early Mass; household tasks; learning to supervise the servants under the kindly guidance of the Countess A

Rarely, as she had anticipated, were there guests. Just the occasional traveller begging a night’s hospitality, and sometimes William’s bastard half-brother, Richard Herbert, come visiting from his home in Herefordshire. He was a bluff, hearty, feet-on-the-ground man with the dark Herbert looks, although his hair was greying because he was much older than William, having been the child of his father’s misspent youth. Kate always looked forward to his dining with them, because he was a witty raconteur, and much livelier company than her husband.

William, though, was more communicative these days. Here at Raglan he was among his own people, people he had known all his life. When he rode out, they came ru

Kate thought the church pretty enough, and she was intrigued to find inside it the tombs of some ancient lords of Raglan. Pembroke, who had enlarged and beautified it, was not among them: his broken body had been laid to rest at Abergave

The Countess proved herself a staunch friend. When Kate miscarried, in blood and fear, of her first child, early on in her pregnancy, it was A

It was A

‘We loved each other well, more than most.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘When he knew he was to be executed, he could not bear to think of me in the arms of another man, so in his will he exhorted me to take the order of widowhood – and so here I am, my dear, not particularly devout as a nun should be, but consecrated to the memory of my true love.’

‘Were you content to do it? Kate asked, thinking that it must be hard to give up all prospect of loving again, knowing that never more would you lie with a man’s arms about you and his seed in your belly.

‘Yes, I was content, and I am still,’ the Dowager said. ‘No one ever could match Pembroke. He was strong and brave and respected, and he loved me well.’ She paused, remembering. ‘William is not his father,’ she observed sadly, then held up a hand to still Kate’s ready, well-meant protest. ‘Nay, I am his mother, and I may speak the truth about him. He was very young when he had to take on his father’s responsibilities and offices; too young. King Edward had a fondness for him and was ready to treat him as well as he had Pembroke, as long as he served him staunchly. But William wasn’t up to it – he himself knew it, and he wasn’t interested anyway. As a young man, he cared only for hunting and hawking. The family fortunes and influence began to decline; Henry Tudor was snatched from Raglan; better men were brought in to shoulder the burdens. King Edward gave William the odd commission, and took him to France when he went to war, but he knew he couldn’t depend on him. Then the blow fell.’