And still the bird sings as if to say that delight is easy, for those who desire it.
He makes a gesture with his hand to the older man at his side, and the man barks out a command and the soldiers turn their horses off the road and go into the shade of the trees. But the king jumps down from his great horse, drops the reins, and walks towards me and my boys. I am a tall woman but he overtops me by a head; he must be far more than six feet tall. My boys crane their necks up to see him; he is a giant to them. He is blond haired, gray eyed, with a tanned, open, smiling face, rich with charm, easy with grace. This is a king as we have never seen before in England: this is a man whom the people will love on sight. And his eyes are fixed on my face as if I know a secret that he has to have, as if we have known each other forever, and I can feel my cheeks are burning but I cannot look away from him.
A modest woman looks down in this world, keeps her eyes on her slippers; a supplicant bows low and stretches out a pleading hand. But I stand tall, I am aghast at myself, staring like an ignorant peasant, and find I cannot take my eyes from his, from his smiling mouth, from his gaze, which is burning on my face.
“Who is this?” he asks, still looking at me.
“Your Grace, this is my mother, Lady Elizabeth Grey,” my son Thomas says politely, and he pulls off his cap and drops to his knee.
Richard on my other side kneels too and mutters, as if he cannot be heard, “Is this the king? Really? He is the tallest man I have ever seen in my life!”
I sink down into a curtsey but I cannot look away. Instead, I gaze up at him, as a woman might stare with hot eyes at a man she adores.
“Rise up,” he says. His voice is low, for only me to hear. “Have you come to see me?”
“I need your help,” I say. I can hardly form the words. I feel as if the love potion, which my mother soaked into the scarf billowing from my headdress, is drugging me, not him. “I cannot obtain my dowry lands, my jointure, now I am widowed.” I stumble in the face of his smiling interest. “I am a widow now. I have nothing to live on.”
“A widow?”
“My husband was Sir John Grey. He died at St. Albans,” I say. It is to confess his treason and the damnation of my sons. The king will recognize the name of the commander of his enemy’s cavalry. I nip my lip. “Their father did his duty as he conceived it to be, Your Grace; he was loyal to the man he thought was king. My boys are innocent of anything.”
“He left you these two sons?” He smiles down at my boys.
“The best part of my fortune,” I say. “This is Richard and this is Thomas Grey.”
He nods at my boys, who gaze up at him as if he were some kind of high-bred horse, too big for them to pet but a figure for awestruck admiration, and then he looks back to me. “I am thirsty,” he says. “Is your home near here?”
“We would be honored…” I glance at the guard who rides with him. There must be more than a hundred of them. He chuckles. “They can ride on,” he decides. “ Hastings!” The older man turns and waits. “You go on to Grafton. I will catch you up. Smollett can stay with me, and Forbes. I will come in an hour or so.”
Sir William Hastings looks me up and down as if I am a pretty piece of ribbon for sale. I show him a hard stare in reply, and he takes off his hat and bows to me, throws a salute to the king, shouts to the guard to mount up.
“Where are you going?” he asks the king.
The boy-king looks at me.
“We are going to the house of my father, Baron Rivers, Sir Richard Woodville,” I say proudly, though I know the king will recognize the name of a man who was high in the favor of the Lancaster court, fought for them, and once took hard words from him in person when York and Lancaster were daggers drawn. We all know of one another well enough, but it is a courtesy generally observed to forget that we were all loyal to Henry VI once, until these turned traitor.
Sir William raises his eyebrow at his king’s choice for a stopping place. “Then I doubt that you’ll want to stay very long,” he says unpleasantly, and rides on. The ground shakes as they go by, and they leave us in warm quietness as the dust settles.
“My father has been forgiven and his title restored,” I say defensively. “You forgave him yourself after Towton.”
“I remember your father and your mother,” the king says equably. “I have known them since I was a boy in good times and bad. I am only surprised that they never introduced me to you.”
I have to stifle a giggle. This is a king notorious for seduction. Nobody with any sense would let their daughter meet him. “Would you like to come this way?” I ask. “It is a little walk to my father’s house.”
“D’you want a ride, boys?” he asks them. Their heads bob up like imploring ducklings. “You can both go up,” he says, and lifts Richard and then Thomas into the saddle. “Now hold tight. You on to your brother and you-Thomas, is it?-you hold on to the pommel.”
He loops the rein over his arm and then offers me his other arm, and so we walk to my home, through the wood, under the shade of the trees. I can feel the warmth of his arm through the slashed fabric of his sleeve. I have to stop myself leaning towards him. I look ahead to the house and to my mother’s window and see, from the little movement behind the mullioned panes of glass, that she has been looking out, and willing this very thing to happen.
She is at the front door as we approach, the groom of the household at her side. She curtseys low. “Your Grace,” she says pleasantly, as if the king comes to visit every day. “You are very welcome to Grafton Manor.”
A groom comes running and takes the reins of the horse to lead it to the stable yard. My boys cling on for the last few yards, as my mother steps back and bows the king into the hall. “Will you take a glass of small ale?” she asks. “Or we have a very good wine from my cousins in Burgundy?”
“I’ll take the ale, if you please,” he says agreeably. “It is thirsty work riding. It is hot for spring. Good day to you, Lady Rivers.”
The high table in the great hall is laid with the best glasses and a jug of ale as well as the wine. “You are expecting company?” he asks.
She smiles at him. “There is no man in the world could ride past my daughter,” she says. “When she told me she wanted to put her own case to you, I had them draw the best of our ale. I guessed you would stop.”
He laughs at her pride, and turns to smile at me. “Indeed, it would be a blind man who could ride past you,” he says.
I am about to make some little comment, but again it happens. Our eyes meet, and I can think of nothing to say to him. We just stand, staring at each other for a long moment, until my mother passes him a glass and says quietly, “Good health, Your Grace.”
He shakes his head, as if awakened. “And is your father here?” he asks.
“Sir Richard has ridden over to see our neighbors,” I say. “We expect him back for his dinner.”
My mother takes a clean glass and holds it up to the light and tuts as if there is some flaw. “Excuse me,” she says, and leaves. The king and I are alone in the great hall, the sun pouring through the big window behind the long table, the house in silence, as if everyone is holding their breath and listening.
He goes behind the table and sits down in the master’s chair. “Please sit,” he says, and gestures to the chair beside him. I sit as if I am his queen, on his right hand, and I let him pour me a glass of small ale. “I will look into your claim for your lands,” he says. “Do you want your own house? Are you not happy living here with your mother and father?”