Seed of the Broom Read online

  “You must not look into the kitchens, lady,” Edgar announced. “I implored the lord to let me come and organize things here, but he would not hear of it. He would always have me by his side.”

  “It is not your fault Edgar,” Kate said, sensing the man was humiliated. “We will have a clean sweep. Please have the servants brought here. I will address them.” Edgar looked a little surprised by her firmness. Oh, she was very young, but because her mistress had been an invalid, she had run the castle at Middleham and the London apartments for some considerable time. She had long ago learned to treat with servants.

  They were an unwashed brigade, puffy from too much wine and too little work. For two years they had been left in charge of Lord Mellor’s fine castle but had betrayed his trust in them. It was not entirely their fault. They had always been overseen by the steward. The men of some authority like the Blacksmith and the Chief Groomsmen had not seen fit to interfere. Therefore, the cooks and scullions had been able to do as much, or as little, as they chose.

  Kate spoke firmly, berating them for their neglect of themselves and the castle. She, as Lady Mellor, would tolerate no slovenly behavior. If they were unable to accept her terms then they had better leave at once. If they stayed, then they must at once light fires throughout the castle, oil cauldrons of water, wash themselves and then commence to clean the castle from the highest turret to the lowest dungeon. Kate stirred her foot in the filthy crushed rushes. “The kitchen garden must be full of wild flowers and herbs that would sweeten the floor. I cannot understand why you have neglected even the grand hall!”

  There had been low murmurs of dissent at her commands. One or two had looked at her malevolently but several had bowed their heads in shame. The work she demanded would sort out the wheat from the chaff. Those who stayed would be loyal and true.

  Later she and Richard climbed the narrow spiral staircase on the first landing. There was a long narrow passageway that followed the square structure of the keep. Along the passageway were arched entrances to small rooms. The servants had not been up here so, although dusty, the rooms were not too bad. Each chamber had two arrow slits and she and Richard went to look out. On one side of the castle they could see the desolate countryside to the far off dales and on the other side of the castle was the tempestuous gray swell of the North Sea.

  “Let’s stay on this side, “ Richard enthused as he saw the sea, and they went in search of the main chamber. This they recognized instantly, for it was the only room that had the advantage of a large wooden barred door. They opened the door and stepped inside. It was a huge room with an enormous fire place. The other rooms had only fire baskets. There were fur rugs and a huge bed with crimson silk hangings and huge candlesticks of gold on an intricately carved table. Kate knew without Richard’s confirming it that this was the lord’s apartment.

  The day was warm, yet she shivered uncontrollably. Should she stay in this apartment, it would be as if she were awaiting his return in eager contemplation of his actually consummating their marriage vows. She said, “Richard, you must have these apartments.” He had crossed to an archway and raised the furs that acted as a barrier between the rooms. “These are the same apartments,” he announced. Kate followed him. The room was luxuriously furnished, but there was a miniature suit of arms a small sword, wooden toy soldiers carved with a loving care for detail.

  “Kate,” he hesitated and then he grinned. “I mean, Mother, do you suppose any of those dolts recognized that I was not Richard Mellor?”

  “Impossible. Richard left there when he was three years old. When the lord returned he always left Richard with his nursemaid in London. Your Uncle confirmed that it was so. He would not mislead us.”

  “I know that, but they looked at me strangely.”

  Because he was so handsome, Kate thought, with this fair, perfect complexion and that sovereign colored hair. He would turn anyone’s head. “Curiosity, that is all,” she said to him.

  “I should like this chamber, Mother. We will be close and snug. You like this room don’t you?” he asked, indicating the master chamber.

  “Well, yes.” She hesitated only briefly. Of course she did like the room, the thing she did not like was its implication. She sighed. Well she would meet that problem when it arrived and not mull on it now. The main thing was to protect Richard. Nothing else mattered.. Perhaps the king would arrange to have her marriage annulled. Surely it was possible? Richard would not expect her to actually stay married, would he? She shrugged all doubts aside. “I will see to these apartments myself,” she announced.. “A little dusting here and there and they will be perfect. I’ll collect come herbs to sprinkle on the floor. We shall be happy while we are here and comfortable too.”

  “I’ll help you,” Richard said happily. “We shall play a game of pretend. We shall be servants for an afternoon.”

  “How I wish that was all we were,” Kate mused to herself. “How I wish neither of us was involved in such a dangerous escapade.”

  Much later, as Kate lay in bed listening to the lazy swell of the sea, she brooded on her naiveté. She had thought that the King had called her to him for a different reason, that he wished to spend the night before his battle with her. Foolish girl! He was not a man to even contemplate such a thing. He grieved still for his wife and their son. He had never been lusty like his brothers. However, a woman in love experienced many foolish fancies. She had mistaken his inherent kindness for a deeper feeling. She rolled onto her side, burying her head beneath the linen sheet, shame making her blush. Her heart had always been his, from the moment she had first met him.

  Her father had died and then Richard had come for her. She was nothing really, merely the daughter of a steward on a minor estate. The Duke of Gloucester though had come and taken the child into his household as a ladies’ maid to his wife, and had seen to it that her education was completed.

  Now she could read and write quite well and her Latin was excellent. She had imagined that she would one day enter a convent, become a nun and never live on the ‘outside’. Grateful for his purchase of her freedom, she had always worked hard, always tried to please, biting her tongue against Anne’s constant complaints, soothing her by fetching infusions of herbs that she had learned were helpful against a nervous disorder, then making other warm drinks that soothed Anne’s hacking cough.

  These were happy days, too, before he became King and when he had been ostracized by his brother’s wife and her family. He had lived a contented life within the comfortable walls of Middleham Castle. Those had been the days of true joy for them all, Even Anne was content then, for Richard was often at her side and in truth that had been all the Duchess had asked for.

  Forced by her father into a marriage at fifteen with Edward, the son of Henry the Sixth she had been unhappy. Only after his death at Tewkesbury did she find the joy she had always dreamed of in Richard’s arms. Though her father had perished at the hands of the Yorkists after he had changed sides, it had never stopped her from loving Richard, her childhood sweetheart. “I came to hate my father,” Anne had once confessed to Kate. “Of course it was not really his fault. It was that Woodville woman and her evil family that drove my father away. They turned Edward of York against the man who had made him King. My father never forgave them. He was the worst kind of enemy to make and yet the best kind of friend. Though, in the end, even he became dominated by the lust for power. I cried…I begged…crawled on my hands and knees, yet still he insisted that I marry the prince of Wales. Men so cruelly use us Kate and all for their own ends!”

  * * * *

  As the fine summer days rolled by, the castle began to seem a less forbidding place. Edgar ensured the servants carried out their duties efficiently so that soon the great hall smelled sweet and the stairways gleamed.

  Edgar began to prepare for winter, ordering supplies, choosing which animals would be slaughtered for salting, sending out parties to gather enough fuel and setting the woman to dip tallow so there would
be enough light for those long, dark days.

  Soon Kate’s trunk arrived from Middleham and she and Richard went through it, unfolding the brown and gray gowns. Some were fur trimmed but essentially plain. No startling shades of sleeve lining for her, no scarlet or emerald but merely a variation of the color of the whole. Anne had not liked her ladies to dress too grandly or become objects of admiration.

  “Why you have no jewels!” Richard exclaimed.

  “Of course not Richard. I am a Steward’s daughter. I have this though.” She looked down at the gold and ruby ring.

  “When things are settled I will send you a jewel Kate. I swear that I shall.”

  Some days they went walking along the desolate shore. Here the high dunes offered shelter from the cool wind that rose and fell with the eternal movement of the tides. Other days they rode out through the flat countryside, where whatever trees survived were bent, even in leaf, into weird and fantastic shapes.

  Of one thing Kate was certain, the land beyond the high dunes, the seemingly endless plain that was all around them, was of a rich and fertile soil. Five miles inland was a large forest that belonged to the lord’s estate. Here he must have hunted for wild boar. After this dense forest flowed a river that teamed with fish. Lord Mellor, Richard remarked, had everything. He had to be very wealthy. His people, those who worked the soil, were loyal and true, for Lord Mellor was a fair and just lord, but Edgar declared, the lord also had mercantile interests in the city of London. He had flourished under Edward the Fourth, who had believed that trade was the way to great riches.

  The lord owned vessels that plied a profitable trade, returning with unimaginable riches, silks and sandalwood from the east, caskets of spices from the lands of strange dark people who came from beyond even Spain!

  “You will have jewels and crimson lining for your sleeves, a cloak of gold,” Richard promised. “You will have a fine house in London, whatever your heart desires.”

  My heart, Kate thought, desires only freedom. Things give you only a fleeting pleasure. That pleasure could quickly tarnish. If she told the truth then she would prefer to be a servant than the true wife of Lord Mellor of Mellorsdale!

  They came from one of their rides along the desolate shore to be met by an anxious and agitated Edgar. The dogs yapped and snarled, still unsure of the new occupants. Richard had however, made a tentative friendship with one, a huge wolfhound named Barley. Barley left the rest of the dogs and came and gave Richard a tentative sniff and, for a brief moment, allowed the boy to stroke his ears before returning to the pack.

  “Please come quickly, “ Edgar said. He was not a man to panic. Kate, realizing this, followed him up the spiral stone stairway into their living quarters. Instead of going into the hall, Edgar led them along a narrow passage and into the room where he worked on his accounts. It was dim within, but Edgar did not bother to light one of the torches. He turned once inside, wringing his hands together.

  “A messenger, lady, “ he whispered then, going to an alcove, he drew aside a velvet hanging. It was too dim to make out the features of the man as he merged, yet when he said, “Lady I have terrible news,” something, the intonation of his voice made her realize he was no stranger. Yet, she could not place him, not until he emerged from the dimness and her eyes became accustomed to the poor lighting Then she made out the fine, well drawn features of the King’s illegitimate son, John of Gloucester. Kate’s stomach did a somersault. What had Edgar said, terrible news?

  Richard came, his thin bony arms going about her waist, his head against her, both protecting her, offering a noble kind of support, and at the same time seeking comfort for himself.

  “My father…my father, the King, is dead. The Tudor is triumphant.”

  They said she had fainted, that she had fallen so suddenly that no one had caught her. Richard, at the words of his cousin, had moved forward, as if to challenge him. Kate’s face had hit the floor.

  When she came to she was lying on a small truckle bed, Edgar holding a pot of mixed herbs under her nose. The full realization of what she had heard-- “I am afraid that your husband is also dead.”-- made her suspect something that she would never dare admit or confess, that her faint had been caused by a heady combination of intense pain and great relief!

  The enormity of her shame made her silent, made her unable to comment or think. The only thing that she could do at that moment was to comfort Richard. She held him to her and promised, while not even knowing that she would be able to keep that promise, that everything would be all right.

  Later she walked the battlements taking deep breaths. The air salty and clear, blew the cobwebs from her mind. She had to plan and plot and scheme. She could not afford the luxury of self pity. The dead king had given her a charge. The only way to service his memory was to keep that charge out of harm’s way. And that she would do, but first…a moment. She undid her fair, felt a wave of relief as the wind caught it and tossed and blew and the dark waves about her head. She could never wear her hair undone again, only at night in the privacy of her chamber. It was ironic. Young maidens could wear their hair free. Married women may do so if they were young brides, but she was a widow, at least in the eyes of the public. The reality was, of course, that she was a maid still.

  “Lady.” She started at the call, seizing hold of her hair and twisting it in her hand, holding it at the nape of her neck. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. The tension left her body as she recognized Gloucester. Nevertheless she began rapidly to plait her hair. The task done she wound it around her head like a coronet. John watched her in silence.

  “You must forgive me. I have said so little,” she said at last.

  “Only because you cannot speak of it lady. I do understand because I hardly dare speak of it myself. Each mention is like needle points pricking every area of my flesh. It is unbelievable. I cannot just yet accept hat I shall never see my father again.”

  “Nor can I,” Kate felt tears smarting at the back of her eyes. She bit her lips to stop them.

  “However, I have to be on my way. There is much to be done. The Tudor shall not rest easily on the throne. May I take the boy to Lord Lovell?”

  Kate raised her head. “No, John, you may not.”

  They argued long into the night, but Kate was insistent. The King had given, through her marriage to Mellor, a new identity to Richard. Richard would keep that identity until they saw how things went. Of one thing Kate was certain, he would not become the talisman of rebellion. They would see the way of the Tudor before they did anything.

  “Lord Lovell was the King’s most loyal friend. You deny him the right.”

  Kate refused to answer, but held John’s gaze. “Then I demand that the boy make the decision.”

  Rebellion, plotting, undermining the Tudor’s position, causing unrest the length and breadth of England, all these things would certainly appeal to Richard. He was a spirited and brave lad. It would not be normal were he to refuse to go. Yet had she the right to take the decision for him? She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, asked her mind what the late King would have decided. She prayed that through a miracle or even magic, his thoughts would be hers. He had had enough of battles, enough of rebellion and unrest. Her had longed only for peace and prosperity for the country. He had a great love for art and music, for the new literature that was emerging. These he wished to develop to move from the dark period into the light towards a renaissance.

  “No,” Kate’s tongue tumbled out the word before her mind had realized. “He is too young. Come back next year.”

  “I might not be here next year, Madam,” John’s voice was icy cold.

  “John, I have to do what I believe your father intended me to do--to look after Richard and to help him survive as Richard’s son. You wish to avenge his brutal slaughter. That I understand and were I a man I would ride beside you. Please let us not be enemies.”

  She held out her hand. He hesitated, struggling with his pride, then touched her fingers very l
ightly. Then suddenly, he drew a deep breath. “That ring? Did my father give that to you?”

  “Yes, should he not have done so? Are you offended John?”

  “No it is just that…the ring is symbolic of loyalty. It has only ever been given by the House of York to those who are ever loyal. The Earl of Warwick , before he went to meet his maker returned it to my father. Warwick had never had any quarrel with Richard, nor Edward really. It was just those obnoxious Woodvilles and Greys that he objected to, that so called Queen and her family. Richard he saw as the most loyal man in England. That my father gave it to you is a great compliment, yet it wounds me too.”

  “I see,” Kate whispered, gazing at the bed of rubes. “But I am sure he did not wish to insult you, John.”

  “No,” he said, but doubtfully, “but perhaps there is something significant in the gesture. Something that I cannot yet see. Maybe even something neither of us will ever come to realize. I must leave now. Lovell will be angry. I will endeavor to explain the position.”

  “I have to do this, John. I have to rely on my instinct that this is the right way. We have to see how the Tudor plays his dice.”

  * * * *

  Later, when John had left, Kate took Richard for a walk along the shore before the last of the light had gone. He was nervous and agitated more than fearful. He could not seem to comprehend that his life was in danger should the Tudor decide to legitimize his sisters.

  The only advantage in doing this for Tudor would be if he wished to marry Elizabeth. He might, of course, not wish to. However, politically, it would be a sound move. By aligning himself with the House of York he would be able to bring together the two factions of York and Lancaster. There was a problem in this, by legitimizing Elizabeth, he would also be legitimizing the male heir of Edward the Fourth, Richard, who now walked at her side.

  Legitimizing young Richard, would invalidate the Tudor’s own claim to the throne. Kate knew little of politics, but she knew about the lust for power. Richard could not be allowed to survive. The only way for Richard to live his life would be by continuing the lie that he was Mellor’s son, that Prince Richard, along with his brother, Prince Edward had disappeared.