The Other Elizabeth

Chapter XII: Christmastide 1450

Chapter XII: Christmastide 1450 

Tylney, Norfolk, England 

Through the grimy latticed windows, I stare out onto the hills coated in layers of snow. The sky mirrors the ground; the world is white, the earth is still, quiet, unmoving. No wind shrieks, no rain patters, the cold just envelops about me. I do not even notice it- I am too numb from my pain to care. I stand, like a madwoman, in only my nightgown, my feet not even stockinged, curling in the dried-up rushes, my mane not even brushed. Tears fall down my cheeks and I let out a heavy sigh. When will the ache in my heart ever go away?

I turn back into the shadows; for all the brightness of the sky, the room is dim. No fire. No candles.

My Mother walks into the room. "Elizabeth, there you are! Whatever can you be doing in this damnably cold room?" I shrug my shoulders.

"You should not be in the cold, silly child. Come to the solar. It is the only room in this blasted manor that has any tapestries to keep warmth." Indeed, this is, as my Lady Mother accurately describes, a 'blasted' manor. The night I ran away from the Bourchiers, I came here, to one of my dower properties, drenched thoroughly, to find no steward, no maids, no such person to greet the lady of the manor. Too exhausted to go to my neighbouring manor of Rongeton, I tied Lucy to a tree and beat the door down, until a frowsy-looking maid did open it, where I promptly fainted.

I woke up in a bedchamber the next morning with a fever from riding through the rain, where I coughed out that I was the little Lady Scales, and they sent for my Mother not so few miles away at Middleton. Per chance, she was in residence presiding over the manor court after a hefty dispute between tenants. I could not protest, nor complain, for my throat was so sore, and the fever so sweltering. I did wonder if I were to die, and how it would relieve me from the strain in my chest.

I sunk into such deep melancholy that by the time I finally ceased weeping continually every day, it was winter, and snow blocked our path. My Mother has done nothing but moan about how dire this property is, and mayhap I should order in some new tapestries from Venice or Turkey. Now, what would look better, red, gold, or green? I care naught. I care naught for pleasantries when I have-

"The Lord your Father has greatly displeased me," my Mother interrupts my thoughts, as we walk down to the solar slowly.

"How so?" I say tiredly.

"He is quite forgetting where his loyalties lie."

"Indeed?" I push open the solar door, and place myself in one of the chairs, wrapping my arms about myself, admitting I do feel silly so scarcely clad.

"Here," she says, pulling off her mantle and draping it about me. With fumbling hands, I pull the cord and I am enveloped in black. She smiles a little, and I smile back gratefully. She sits down, sighing, pulls off her headdress, and runs her fingers through her greying hair.

"I do not know if it is Thomas himself, Richard, or York that is the influence." She pulls out the two buns of hair that she keeps on the sides of her head from their little gold-worked cauls, twisting thin coils of hair about her fingers.

"Richard or York?" I repeat, rather confused, as the Duke of York's first name is Richard; thus, she must be talking of another Richard.

"Yes, York, your uncle." She throws me a bitter look. "We are Lancastrians, and so is Sir Richard, who he nominated to be a Knight of the Garter earlier this year. Yet your Father and Richard accompanied York when he went to present a list of grievances to His Grace the King about how he has been so much wronged." Her lip curls. I am about to retort back, say the Duke of York has faced dreadful injustice, as the King did not pay him, but I cannot be so sure; mayhap everything Lady Bourchier said was lies and her magnificent brother was not so wronged at all, although I still do truly believe he has a better claim to the throne. I doubt she can have fabricated her lineage.