18
Greenwich
July 1480
For the first time in twelve years, Margaret, dowager Duchess of Burgundy, was coming home to England. Edward sent one of the finest ships of his fleet to Calais for his sister, and upon her arrival at Gravesend, a royal barge was waiting to take her upriver to his palace at Greenwich.
Two years after George’s death in the Tower of London, Margaret still grieved for him. But it would never have occurred to her to sever the bonds binding her to Edward. To Margaret, the bond of blood was the strongest of all ties. She’d loved George, a thwarted maternal love for the high-strung boy he’d been and the troubled man he’d become. But Edward, too, was her brother, and her love for him was no less enduring. Moreover, her fierce family loyalty was veined with an innate sense of pragmatism. The brother she loved was also King of England, was the one man capable of keeping Burgundy from falling prey to the ambitions of the French King.
But she did not delude herself that her relationship with Edward could be as it had been. No affection could emerge unscathed from such a trial by fire; there’d be forever between them the scar tissue of an imperfectly healed wound. She was prepared, therefore, for a certain strain at first, prepared to have to exorcise a ghost, one with turquoise eyes and brittle bright smile.
What she was not prepared for, however, was the shocking change in Edward’s appearance. His big body was thickening, coarsening, the beauty of face blurring. His eyes were the same bright blue of memory, showed a shrewd penetrating intelligence undimmed by his excesses of the flesh, but they were bloodshot, deeply creased at the corners, spoke of too many sleepless nights and too many drunken dawns. Margaret was deeply shaken, unable to believe that a mere five years could have so tarnished a luster she’d once thought immune even to aging.
The public reception accorded her at Greenwich had been as lavish as any seen at the court of Burgundy, but at last she found herself alone with her family. As soon as the others withdrew, she was embraced warmly by her sister, by an Eliza grown plump and matronly with the passage of twelve years and the births of nearly as many children. Margaret hugged her back and then embraced Richard. He, at least, looked no different from when she’d seen him last, five years ago in Burgundy. She kissed him gratefully for that, for remaining the one constant link with her past, and then heard Edward say, “Have you no welcome for me, Meg?”
She turned slowly to face him. Blessed Lady, but he’s only thirty-eight! Yes, and looks forty-five. Ah, Ned…. Name of God, why? It be more than your youth you’re squandering; it be your health, too. Cannot you see that?
“I was but saving the best for last,” she joked lamely. And then she was in his arms, being squeezed breathless and laughing shakily to blink back tears.
“So many changes in these twelve years…. Do you find change unsettling, Anne? Lord help me, but I do! I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years….” Hearing herself, Margaret gave a wry little laugh, added, “Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!”
Anne smiled, then leaned forward. “I do get the feeling there be something on your mind, Meg, something you would fain discuss with me but keep shying away from. Am I right?”
Margaret looked relieved. “Yes, you are. Anne, I regret that Ned did see fit to take the duchy of Bedford from Johnny Neville’s son, truly I do. I did hear that you and Dickon then took the boy and his sisters into your household. Be that true?”
Anne nodded. “Yes. Richard paid Ned a thousand pounds for his wardship.”
“Well, what I would know is this…. Anne, why did you not do as much for George’s son? I do know, of course, that you did harbor much bitterness against George. And I wondered…I wondered if that be the reason. If you could not bring yourself to take George’s son….”
Anne was shaking her head vehemently. “No, that not be it at all. You’re speaking of a child, after all, and one, moreover, who is my sister’s son. I would have taken him and his sister like that”—she snapped her fingers—“had Ned only allowed it. He chose, instead, to give the boy’s wardship to Thomas Grey.”
“Thomas Grey! Holy Mary, whatever was Ned thinking of? I don’t mean to imply that Grey would abuse a child, but…but surely he’d be the least likely choice. Hating George as he did, what warmth could he ever have for George’s son?”
“Damned little.” Richard had come quietly into the chamber. “As to what Ned was thinking of, Meg, you can rest assured that it was not an idea to originate with him. The lands the boy will inherit from Bella are considerable, after all, and my sweet sister-in-law has a greed beyond satisfying.”
This was said with such venom that Margaret’s eyebrows arched. While she’d detested Elizabeth practically from the moment of meeting, and had been maliciously pleased to note that Elizabeth’s spectacular beauty was at last showing signs of aging, her own animosity paled into petty dislike when compared to the bitterness in Richard’s voice.
“Ned has changed, hasn’t he?” she said, and sighed. “I admit it did shock me in no small measure, to see what five years have wrought. But the changes be more than skin-deep. All his life, Ned has been the very soul of generosity, the most giving of men. And now…”
“You remember, Meg, two years ago when Ned did wed his second son to the little heiress of the Duke of Norfolk?” When Margaret nodded, Richard said, “She’s a sickly child, often ailing, and not like to live to womanhood. Should she die first, the duchy of Norfolk would have reverted back to her family, would pass to her nearest male kin. Well, Ned did enact a measure in parliament which provides that in the event of her death, the title and lands shall vest in his son, thus bypassing the rightful heirs.”
Margaret frowned. “That does make a mockery of the laws of inheritance,” she said, and Richard nodded.
“Worse than that. One of the men thus cheated is Lord Berkeley, and the other, the other is Jack Howard. Howard,” he repeated slowly. “As steadfast a friend as Ned could ever hope to have.”
He sat down on the arm of Anne’s chair and she reached up, rested her hand lightly on his thigh in a gesture of wordless comfort. She knew all too well how it bothered him to acknowledge the deterioration in his brother’s character, a deterioration he could only account for by attributing it to Woodville malevolence.
“Little wonder it is, though, that Ned is more quick to take, less quick to trust. This court of his…” He shook his head in disgust. “It be no better than a cesspool, be bound to infect any entrapped here for long!”
Margaret murmured agreement, then diplomatically changed the subject. “Tell me, Dickon, be it true that Ma Mère does mean to take vows?”
“So she’s given me to understand.”
“It shouldn’t surprise me, given her piety, but yet it does. Nothing does stay as it was, and more’s the pity. I gather from Ned that they’re still estranged.”
Richard smiled slightly. “Am I right in assuming you mean to remedy that?”
“Indeed, I do! Ned be planning to give a banquet in my honor, and what better opportunity than that? I shall have him invite Ma Mère and, at the least, give them the chance to talk.”
“Will she come, do you think?”
Margaret smiled. “Have you forgotten? This be my homecoming, after twelve years in foreign parts. She’ll come.”
At sight of Cecily, Margaret forgot that she was a grown woman of thirty-four, ran to throw herself into her mother’s arms.
“How glad I am that you came, Ma Mère!”
Cecily kissed her daughter lightly on both cheeks, but then she stiffened, for Margaret was not alone. She’d expected, of course, to see Edward, but she’d not expected it to be so soon, and she stood very still as he rose from the settle, moved toward her. As the light from the window fell across his face, she was startled into blurting out the truth.
“Edward, you do look dreadful! Have you been ill?”
H
is mouth twitched. “You mustn’t credit all those tales you hear about me wasting my substance in riotous living, Ma Mère,” he said lightly.
She gave him a long level look, one that stirred sudden discomfort, and for the first time in years, he flushed.
“At least it seems you do still read the Scriptures,” she said, unsmilingly, and there was a silence, broken at last by Margaret.
“Sit with us on the settle, Ma Mère,” she urged, gently propelling Cecily forward into the chamber.
Sitting down, they soon discovered, did little to dispel the strain. For a time, no one spoke. Shifting so that Cecily could not see, Margaret gestured impatiently to Edward, prompting him to begin, but he pretended not to see her signal, reached, instead, for his wine cup.
He drank so deeply that Cecily frowned, and before she could stop herself, she’d said tartly, “For pity’s sake, Edward, not so fast! There be no better way to stir up stomach disorders!”
He hastily tilted the cup to hide a grin. “I know,” he said contritely, and then set the cup down, leaned toward her.
“I’m not sure if you know, Ma Mère, but Lisbet is breeding again; the babe be due about Martinmas.”
He paused for a response, didn’t get it. “Lisbet is forty-three, so I think it unlikely she’ll conceive again. Ma Mère…. It would mean a great deal to me if you would stand as godmother to this babe….To be godmother to my lastborn as you were to my first, to Bess.”
Her lashes swept downward, effectively screening her thoughts. But the hand moving from her lap up to her throat froze in midair, and the other clenched suddenly against the folds of her skirt. He reached for it, covered it with his own.
“Are we to live our lives out as strangers, Ma Mère? Would you go to your grave denying the love I bear you, denying that I be of your flesh, of your blood? Is that truly the way you would have it?”
Rising abruptly to her feet, she moved to the window, stood staring down at the beckoning expanse of sun-silvered water. Edward and Margaret exchanged glances; she nodded vigorously, and he rose, crossed to his mother.
“Again and again George did deceive and disappoint you,” he said softly, “and again and again you did forgive him. Must I believe that you’ve no forgiveness at all in your heart for me?”
He was close enough to her to see the slight tremor that shook her body. When she spoke, however, her voice was surprisingly steady.
“Judge not lest ye be judged. That be the hardest task the Almighty does lay upon us, that we empty our minds and souls of wrath, that we not nurture grievances, nurse grudges. I don’t know if I’m capable of that, Edward. I have tried to purge my heart of bitterness, but I cannot forget that George did die at your command. I cannot forget.”
She turned away from the window as she spoke, looked him full in the face for the first time.
“But I will try to forgive,” she said quietly. “I must. I’ve lost four sons in infancy, and two in manhood. I do not think I could bear to lose another.”
19
Middleham
May 1482
The solar shutters were drawn back, the unglazed lower halves open to the fragrant quiet of a country night. Anne and Véronique were indifferent, however, to the warm spring dark, were hunched over a table littered with scratched-out sheets of paper.
There’d been a minor catastrophe of sorts that afternoon. A large sow had escaped her pen and led her piglets in a raid on the herb gardens; by the time they were discovered and routed, Middleham’s precious store of spices and medicinal plants had been decimated. A man would have to be sent at once into York and the two women were attempting to make up a list of the essentials he must bring back.
Véronique began to tick items off on her fingers. “Sage for fever, henbane for easing pain, horehound for lung sickness, betony for stomach cramps. Also bay, marjoram, mustard, and mandragora. What else, Anne?”
“That be all, I think.” Anne pushed her chair back tiredly, looked about the solar. In the window seat, Richard’s daughter Kathryn was showing two of John Neville’s daughters the jasper-and-crystal chess set he’d given her for her twelfth birthday. On the carpet, almost at Anne’s feet, Ned and Johnny were sprawled, heads bent over a crudely drawn map of the border region. Try as she might, Anne could not quite shut out their murmured conversation.
“No, Ned, Dumfries be to the northwest of Carlisle!”
“Are you sure, Johnny?” Ned traced an uncertain path with an ink-smudged finger, as Robin, Rob Percy’s young son, leaned over to query,
“Why did your father burn Dumfries, Ned?”
“It was a retala…retaler…” Ned gave up, looked to his mother for help.
“Retaliatory raid,” Anne said quietly. “As reprisal for the border attacks of the Scots, the sacking of the nunnery at Armathwaite, the burning of crops.” Her recital of grievances was given with reluctance; she hated even to think of the coming war with Scotland.
All during the previous year, the specter of war had loomed over the political landscape. It was in many respects the unhappiest time of Anne’s marriage. Edward had named Richard as Lieutenant-General in the North, and his additional responsibilities soon outran the available hours in the day.
He’d been gone from Middleham for weeks at a stretch. In the winter, he’d been at Carlisle, overseeing the fortification of the city walls. In the spring, he was in London to consult with Edward. The summer found him at Durham, recruiting men and repulsing Scots border incursions. In October, he’d ridden south to meet Edward at Nottingham, and soon after, had begun an energetic but unsuccessful siege of Berwick Castle. And now it was May, and ten days ago, he’d led a force into southwest Scotland, had taken and burned the river port of Dumfries. It was, Anne knew, the opening salvo of Edward’s summer campaign, what was to be no less than full-scale war.
The boys were still discussing Dumfries, with an excitement that rubbed raw against Anne’s overwrought nerves. She’d lost too many loved ones on battlefields to listen with equanimity as her nine-year-old son eagerly counted the years until, he, too, could lesson the Scots, and she suddenly decided it was well past his bedtime and told him so in no uncertain terms.
Johnny rose obediently, but Ned had long ago come to recognize his powers of persuasion where his mother was concerned, and he gave her a coaxing hug, entreating her for one bedtime tale first, just one, and then he’d go straight to bed, truly he would.
As always, Anne found herself relenting. “Just one,” she began, as John Kendall burst into the solar, with such energetic enthusiasm that he at once drew all eyes.
“A messenger has just ridden in, Madame…from our lord Duke.” Kendall was smiling broadly. “He be but an hour away from Middleham!”
By the time the men with Richard had been fed and the great hall turned into a barracks, it was close to midnight. It was only then that Anne was able to coax Richard into the solar and set before him a plate of cold venison, bread, and cheese. The children should have been in bed hours ago, but she hadn’t the heart to insist, not when she remembered how seldom they’d seen Richard in recent months.
They were watching him with wide, wondering eyes. A deep tan and a three-day growth of beard gave him a raffish appearance; he suddenly seemed unfamiliar to them, an exotic stranger who led men into battle and put towns to the torch. At first shyly, and then with increasing confidence, they began to bombard him with eager questions. Did the Scots fight? Did the people in Dumfries run away? Did he sleep out in the open around a campfire? And at last, Ned asked what Anne most wanted to know but dreaded to hear.
“How long can you stay, Papa?”
Richard was merely toying with the food on his plate. He was too tired to eat, too tired even to talk, although he’d been making a game effort to cope with his children’s curiosity. He glanced at Anne before answering his son.
“Just two days, Ned. I do have to leave the day after tomorrow for Fotheringhay, to there meet your uncle the King and the Duke of A
lbany.”
Anne turned away, bit her lip. The Duke of Albany was the ambitious and unprincipled younger brother of the Scots King. There was no love lost between the two men, and London wits had been quick to dub Albany a Clarence in kilt. Imprisoned by James three years ago, Albany had succeeded in making a spectacular escape and fled to France. This past spring, it had occurred to Edward that Albany was a ready-made weapon to wield against James, and he’d enticed the malcontent Duke to England, with the idea of deposing James and crowning Albany in his stead.
“Papa…. If the Duke of Albany be willing to betray his brother the Scots King, how can you be sure he won’t be willing to betray you?”
Richard gave Johnny a look of surprised approval. “We cannot be sure. It’s unfortunate but true that we have to take our allies as we find them, and all too often they do have feet of clay.”
Richard’s voice was slurring with fatigue. Overriding the protests of the boys, Anne sent them off to bed and moved to the sideboard to pour Richard a tankard of ale.
“Richard…I know Ned does insist he means to take command of the army himself. But his health has not been all that good lately, and I cannot help thinking that the burden of command will fall, of necessity, upon you. Do you think me wrong, love?”
He didn’t respond, and turning, she saw he’d shoved his plate aside and leaned forward on the table. Cradling his head on his arms, he’d fallen asleep within seconds of closing his eyes.
Anne’s foreboding was not long in becoming fact. The days were gone when Edward could be in the saddle from dawn till dusk, revive himself with a few hours’ rest, and rise ready for another day’s hard riding. A body too long abused had begun at last to rebel against the excesses inflicted upon it, and Edward was forced at Fotheringhay to admit that he was simply not up to the punishing exertions of a military campaign. What Anne had feared would happen, did. The command was given over to Richard. Edward returned to London, and in mid-July Richard crossed the border into Scotland with an army of twenty thousand men.
The Sunne in Splendour Page 86