Sutton Place (Sutton Place Trilogy Book 1) Page 3

  ‘Out!’ was all he said.

  Edith curtsied; still dutiful, still obedient, still wanting love in the face of disaster.

  ‘What has happened, sire?’

  He gave a mirthless smile and she thought, ‘They are all dead; my father, my brother, everybody. Now I have nothing!’

  She managed to whisper, ‘My family?’ but he either didn’t hear or did not wish to. Still with that dreadful grin on his face he said, ‘Let us speak of you, Edith. You are to enter a nunnery.’

  She looked at him mutely.

  ‘ ... a nunnery. To spend the rest of your life praying and purifying your soul of lustful thoughts.’

  ‘May Odin forgive you, Edward.’

  It was a slip of the tongue but he pounced on it.

  ‘Odin! May the one true God forgive you. You are going to a Christian community and you shall remain there until your death. Every day, for the rest of your existence will be spent on your knees in prayer.’

  ‘You may as well condemn me to death now, it would be more merciful.’

  ‘You prefer death to prayer? There speaks a true Godwin.’

  He turned to go but she called after him, ‘Aye and proud to bear the name. At least they are men.’

  She had said the most cruel words of her blameless life and she watched him shudder. He spun round and she had never seen him so strained. The rage that had possessed him had, like a fever, gone beyond burning point leaving him cold and dangerous.

  ‘For that I will bring you even lower,’ he said. ‘You shall be stripped of your possessions, lands and title. You will own nothing but the clothes in which you stand.’

  He went to the door.

  ‘I hope that I never set eyes on you again,’ he said.

  Within minutes, servants had come and her jewels and clothes had been carried out in chests. She had only just been in time to hide two rings in her headdress — one a valuable gem and the other her ‘magic’ ring. It had been given to her at birth by a well-beloved aunt, Estrith, King Knut’s sister. It was a strange-looking object — bronze shafted with an oddly shaped green stone — and it still bore the marks of the teething bites Edith had given it as a baby. It was family legend that it had been given to their forebear, Svein Forkbeard, by the Elf King and that it contained powerful charms. Edith had worn it since childhood on a chain round her neck, for it had been too big for her finger. As she slipped it into concealment she thought, ‘Even now I am doing what Edward would hate. How he would abhor the thought of me keeping a talisman.’

  And now she was on her way to Sutton Forest in driving rain, to beg and plead. For herself she might not have bothered but she had learned from her serving women that there had been no battle between the King and her father; the Earls uninvolved in the argument had simply refused to fight other Englishmen. Nobody had wanted civil war and Edward and Godwin had been forced to climb down.

  ‘But what of my father and brothers?’

  ‘Banishment, Lady. They are to leave England in two days’ time — for ever!’

  So Edith’s gemstone had gone as a bribe. The first part of her journey had taken her up the Thames but now they had changed to horseback and the leader of the escort — richer for the Queen’s ruby ring — was taking his party out of its way; to the King’s hunting lodge in the Forest of Sutton in Surrey.

  The beautiful red deer abounded there and nothing pleased Edward better than to be in the thick of a pack of barking hounds, riding hard till his hapless quarry were all slain. Edith considered wryly that hunting had been the only thing to awaken any form of excitement in her husband; one glimpse of horse and hounds and he was transformed, almost animated; one glimpse of his wife in any state of undress and he was hastening to pray.

  ‘Pathetic, peculiar creature,’ she thought and then felt amazement that she could still have feelings of pity after all he had done. But that was the way it was — love and hate for ever intertwined — wheel gone full circle.

  The rain-heavy trees were thinning out now and in the distance Edith caught sight of the clearing where the lodge was built. She wondered if her husband was there or if he was sheltering in the forest somewhere, caught in the storm with his huntsmen and dogs. In either event she intended to wait until she had seen him face to face. She no longer had anything to lose. It was not in Edward’s nature to condemn to death — exiling was the ultimate form of punishment as far as he was concerned — so nothing could be made worse for herself, for Godwin or her brothers. Let darkness come and go, she cared nothing; she could wait for years.

  As they drew alongside the vaulted stone building the leader of the escort held up his hand and the party drew to a straggling halt. He dismounted and bowed to Edith, the rain running from his hat and down his nose as he did so. A ridiculous, hysterical urge to laugh rose in her throat but she fought it away.

  ‘Lady, let me see if the King is there,’ he said. ‘Take what shelter you can beneath those trees.’

  As he entered the lodge there was a further cloudburst and the party were glad to huddle together beneath three sturdy oaks. Looking down, Edith saw that they were beside a well which presumably gave the hunting lodge its water supply. The constant rainfall had filled it to overflowing and the ground around it was soggy and churned up by the horses’ hooves. She was just thinking how muddy and unpleasant the water looked when one of the soldiers dismounted and rubbed some of it into a wart on his hand.

  ‘What are you doing, fellow?’

  ‘Why, this is holy water, Lady. All water belonging to the King can cure ills. It’s because he’s so pure.’

  Edith thought, ‘I know enough about his accursed purity to choke me. If it were not for that none of us might be here now.’ But it was true that cures were claimed in Edward’s holy name and she had been both disgusted and furious to see the servants bottling his discarded bath water in order to sell it to the gullible. She had taken the matter up with him declaring it to be a filthy practice but he had said, ‘It would seem that the halt and the maim are sometimes healed, daughter. Is it right that we should put a stop to it? I will pray for guidance.’

  After searching his conscience he had decided that it would be wrong to deprive the benefit of his curative powers from those who sought them as God had been gracious enough to grant him this gift.

  The escort leader came out of the lodge and ran through the downpour towards them.

  ‘The King is at mass, Lady, and cannot be disturbed.’

  It was typical of Edward, Edith thought, to pray before he went off to kill; what a saintly slaughterer the man was. A mood of depression and dislike was settling on her. She supposed that all had been well — if that word could be used at all about a woman condemned for life to the nunnery — while she rode. Now that she was still, she seemed to be giving in to despair. She huddled close to the other riders, the flanks of the horses rubbing damply against one another. The air smelt of wet leather.

  Through her thick cloak and gown Edith could feel the rain running next to her skin. She was very near to tears again.

  After what seemed hours there was a sign of life. The King’s groom appeared leading a horse round to the door and a minute or two later the hounds, on leashes and baying for the chase, came clamouring into view. Then the lodge door swung open and there he was — bearded, hollow cheeked — an air of sadness about his whole bearing.

  ‘Edward,’ Edith called out, ‘Edward!’ But the beating of the rain made her cry inaudible. Disregarding her escort she broke free and her horse crossed the few yards that separated her from her husband. The King had mounted and his eyes were level with hers as she approached.

  ‘Edward,’ she said — and her voice was hard with the feelings that were beginning to rage inside her.

  The gaunt face turned to her.

  ‘You must forgive us. It is still in your power to revoke sentence on the Godwins. Edward, in the name of Christ, for once show your Christian charity. Remember I have committed no sin against you �
� all I asked was your love.’

  The cold eyes never flickered and the King’s face remained expressionless. Without a word he tugged his horse’s reins and spurred, with his huntsmen, into the forest, leaving her staring after him.

  Intolerable and final rejection. The hate and the love that constantly warred within Edith were both stilled. From the darkest part of her soul something transcending both was rising in a maelstrom of evil.

  The escort leader watching her tumble from her horse thought that she was having a fit. He felt vaguely responsible, more than usually so for a man of his mentality. He had fulfilled his obligation after all. The bargain had been her ring in return for taking her to see the King — and that had been done. It was hardly his fault if the coldhearted bastard had rejected her. But seeing her writhing on the ground like that was unnerving. Anyway, according to his wife, who worked in the palace kitchens, the poor thing had had no life to speak of. Year after year with that impotent old man and doing her best to keep cheerful. It was outside his line of duty to question events but it was hardly surprising to him that Earl Godwin had declared war. What man would tolerate that sort of treatment for his daughter?

  He knelt down beside the Queen and was horrified by her ghastly expression and the saliva flecking her lips.

  ‘She’s possessed,’ he thought and crossed himself.

  Deep in her throat she was growling and that frightened him even more. He felt unable to cope with the situation alone.

  ‘Will! Tom!’ he called. ‘The Queen is ill. Look to the Lady.’

  They came and crouched beside her, one trying to bathe her forehead with water from the well. What happened after that later became confused in their minds so that the three of them, in years to come, told different versions of the story and the legend of the curse grew distorted. What they did agree on was that from somewhere Queen Edith produced a Viking ring — so mighty that it must have been worn by a great warrior. Will said that the ring glowed as if it were on fire and Tom that the waters of the well boiled and hissing steam rose up, as she threw it in. The escort leader saw neither of these things but he had to admit that he was looking at Edith’s distorted face.

  They all heard her call to Odin to avenge her and Tom — a descendant of the raid that had brought Knut the crown of England — said she called out to the Norse Elf King as well. Everyone differed as to exactly what was said next, with one exception. All three heard her curse the Manor of Sutton for time immemorial, with the words ‘May it know death, madness and despair.’ Will thought that she cursed the Lord of the Manor too and this would have made sense for King Edward was lord at that time. But the frightened men all witnessed that when the malediction was done Queen Edith’s body went into violent convulsions and she lost consciousness.

  ‘The Devil has left her,’ said the leader. ‘Jesus protect us all.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘We must take her to the nuns with all speed. God grant that her soul be safe there.’

  They lifted her gently on to a horse and the leader got up behind her, holding her limp body in his arms. Looking down at the drawn face, the wisps of strawberry coloured hair escaping in wet strands from beneath her headdress, he shivered violently.

  ‘This is a dread place. Let us away.’

  After they had gone there was no sound except for the rain beating into the well. But in the depths of its swollen waters the Viking ring moved restlessly; by ancient ritual the powerful forces of pre-Christian magic had been invoked, the spell which would affect men and women for centuries to come had begun its relentless progress.

  2

  It was May 17, 1521, and all England lay beneath a lucent sky. The earth had grown hard and in the streets of London — stinking beyond the endurance of even the most hardened nostril — an astrologer had been stoned for saying it would never rain again.

  In Sutton Forest a family of red deer stood drinking at the ancient water hole which had once served the hunting lodge of King Edward, their velvet tongues glistening with drops of water, their ears moving constantly for the slightest sound of an approaching hunter. For that was all that would disturb them now. The lodge had long since fallen into ruin and the manor house, built by the great Bassett family in the Middle Ages had also crumbled into decay. To look at the scene it seemed that little had changed in the five hundred years since Queen Edith had been taken to a nunnery. Only the fact that the manor house had been abandoned bore silent testimony to the falseness of the picture. The beauty and peace were merely an illusion, the truth was that no human being had found it safe to dwell there. The place had been returned to the forest creatures to whom it had originally belonged.

  On Tower Hill the smell of the crowd who had turned out to see the execution of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, wafted towards the scaffold and Richard Weston — present in an official capacity — raised a sachet of lavender to his nose. He kept it there as the head — still pumping blood — fell on the straw; the heat and the stench of the mob far more offensive to him than the death he had just witnessed. All that Stafford’s flowing arteries meant as far as he was concerned, was that a fool had been disposed of; a fool who had not only menaced the throne but who had goaded Richard’s patron, the great Cardinal who sat in Hampton Court Palace.

  The axeman raised the head aloft and turned it round slowly so that everyone should have a good view. Looking at the rather surprised expression on the face, Richard thought, ‘Only you could be surprised, jester! Your head was lost the day you spilled water in Wolsey’s shoes. Nobody who wants to live touches — let alone slaps — the King’s right hand.’

  And this is how it was in England. Next to the King, Cardinal Wolsey was the most powerful man alive and those who wanted to advance stayed firmly in his faction. Naturally Weston, with his unerring gift for choosing the right pack, had become the Cardinal’s man, controlling his face admirably during the ceremony at which, with the entire Court present, Buckingham had managed to spill the contents of a basin he held for the King’s ablutions straight into Wolsey’s shoes. The smirks and guffaws that followed had marked the start of the campaign to see the Duke dead and though Richard had longed to shout with laughter also, he was too seasoned a campaigner to so much as twitch a lip.

  Richard thought back to a conversation he had held with Wolsey two months previously. ‘When I was only twenty, my Lord,’ he had said, ‘I took arms against Richard III at Bosworth. And my father, Edmund, provided ships and money for the father of the King’s Grace — Henry Tudor — at the same campaign. It is the tradition of the Westons to support the Tudors.’

  He picked his words carefully.

  ‘Is there any way, my Lord, in which I may continue to further the Tudor cause?’

  Wolsey’s bleak little eye had caught his and Richard had known he had spoken well. The Cardinal had risen and gone to look out of the window. With his back turned he said, ‘The man’s a traitor and plotter. He must be brought down, Richard. I say he must be brought down.’

  ‘Death to the King’s enemies, my Lord.’

  The Cardinal had turned from the window with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He said nothing but Richard was already bowing and leaving the room. The game was afoot and the plan which would bring Edward Stafford to the block was, even now, taking shape in his mind.

  And here the culmination on Tower Hill. Buckingham, the loud-mouthed descendant of Edward III was dead; Richard Weston was alive and already turning away to his horse. In that movement alone, outwardly so callous, was summed up the pattern of existence at the Court of Henry VIII.

  He swung into the saddle with ease. For all his fifty-six years he was as tough and strong as the leather on which he sat. He believed in preserving his health, eating sparingly and riding and exercising regularly. To be active in body and mind was his constant goal. Secretly he despised his royal master for his excesses. Too much food, too much everything — and quite unable to sire a boy in wedlock. A little less pleasure and a little
more attention to diet would have given England the prince it desired.

  As he set off for Hampton Court, Weston thought of his own son, Francis. Richard had brought his wife to bed with the child when he had been forty-seven, and he was still an active man, a virile man in every sense; provided he kept a cool head on his shoulders he saw no reason why this state of affairs should not continue for many years to come.

  It was a long ride in the heat to the Cardinal’s palace but Weston pushed himself and the horse hard. His excitement was concealed beneath his secretive face with the widely spaced, flint-blue eyes, hard jaw and thatch of thick, curly hair, grey streaked, but still mainly black. The Cardinal’s rewards for favours were generous, and this one in particular had been of the highest political importance. Richard knew that some prize lay in store for him but no hint at all had been given as to what it might be. He wanted above all else to be elevated to the peerage, but perhaps such a reward, at this stage, would be a little obvious. Yet he was sure that one day Henry Tudor and his Cardinal would recognize his value to them and satisfy the mighty ambition that was in him.

  Sir Richard smiled to himself as he clattered into the great yard at Hampton Court. He knew that he was one of the coming men. He also knew that he would be used and rewarded only as long as he wanted to do no more than accumulate personal wealth. One step out of line, one hint that he could be looking too high, and a monarch’s patronage could be withdrawn as fast as a hand from a glove. But he was nobody’s fool. He knew exactly how far he dare push.

  Aware that unseen eyes had already reported his arrival to Wolsey, he took his time before appearing, first visiting the jakes and washing the dust from his face and hands. He still smelt of the journey but there was little he could do about that without stripping, and that would have ruined the fine timing of his entrance — long enough to make Wolsey feel the prickle of anticipation, short enough not to arouse anger.