Read Online Queen of Trial and Sorrow by Susan Appleyard - Free Book Online

morning, my father and brother came to the chambers set aside for my use.  Anthony had come south in the king’s train and had known nothing of our marriage until snippets of conversation and speculation concerning the council meeting leaked through the abbey walls to be freely discussed and dissected by a gossip-loving court.  I felt thoroughly embarrassed that I had spent the previous day in bed while they were anxious to see me. 
    “You have risen high, Bess,” my father said.  “But now you must walk a very narrow and circumscribed path.”
    “At least I do not walk it alone.” I was thinking of Edward but my father mistook me.
    “You can always count on family, my dear child.” 
    “I never imagined… I never even dreamed…” Anthony seemed to have forgotten how to finish a sentence.  He was looking at me wonderingly, as if I’d grown two heads. 
    “I expect we’ll all get used to it in time.”
    “Are you happy, Bess?”
    Only Anthony would wonder about my happiness.  Only Anthony would think it mattered.  “I am content at the moment.” I wondered why I was so reluctant to admit that I was deliriously happy.  Perhaps even then I suspected my life would not be free of trial and sorrow.  Also perhaps, I didn’t aim for happiness, only stability for my sons and myself.
    “That is the best we can hope for.  Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow… Contentment is a more durable coin than happiness. And it is time the king was wed.  He is old enough to have sired a brace of heirs, instead of squandering his precious seed with low women.”
    I gave his hand a little squeeze, a gesture of consolation.  He was coming to realize that there was much to be admired about Edward, but he deplored his unwholesome lifestyle as much as I did. 
    Anthony was the last of the family to be won over by Edward.  He could see no virtue in switching allegiances under any circumstances, and virtue was the single guiding principle of Anthony’s life.  Choices were very simple for a man of his nature.  There was right and there was wrong; the division was usually very clear, and there was never, ever, a valid excuse to cross the line.  It was not an easy thing for him to repudiate Henry and accept Edward in his place.  But nowadays he was quoting his beloved Petrarch: It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one.  Fortune bestows one, merit obtains the other.
    Father was called away, so I took the opportunity to walk outside with Anthony.  Reading was a Cluniac foundation, very worldly and wealthy, and accustomed to housing royalty.  The eyes of everyone we passed, whether courtier, monk or layman, lingered on me; there was a flare of surprise before the gaze was lowered, the head bent in acknowledgement of my royal status. 
    “Did his Grace happen to mention the row with Warwick?” he asked as we walked in the cloisters.  In the center of a sward of neatly clipped grass was a fountain, an arrangement of fish with water spouting from their mouths.  Sparrows hopped about on the rim of the basin, pecking at the water, until a crow swooped down and they all fluttered away.
    I frowned, fully aware that my husband had glossed things over.  “No, he didn’t.” 
    He leaned nearer and lowered his voice.  “Lord Hastings’ brother is one of the king’s gentlemen and a friend of mine.  I heard all about it from him.  After the council meeting Warwick stormed into the king’s chamber without announcement and accused his Grace of making a fool of him.  His Grace replied that if fool he was he’d done it to himself.”
    “Why is Warwick so stubborn?  The king has never favored the French match.”
    “He wanted the king wed to the Lady Bona to ensure a lasting peace with France.  There is a feeling among some of the councilors that Louis is leading him by the nose. Anyway, Warwick accused the king of base ingratitude.  After all he’d done for him he