‘And your girls,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Your three daughters.’
‘Of course, love! Have them brought out to me. I will squeeze them pink and tell them how much I have missed them all.’ Edward had noticed his wife’s growing irritation. He tried not to let it annoy him in turn, but she managed it even so, with her stiff face and wide eyes that he knew would mean an argument. He glanced at his brother Richard on the floor below, watching the happy reunion with a dark expression. Neither of them could remember when they had last slept. Dawn was close and Richard had seen enough of violence and striving, at least for a time. He wanted to sleep.
‘You’ll come back with me, across the road,’ Edward said to his wife. ‘I had Henry put out of his rooms there.’
‘You went to him first? With me still a prisoner in this cold place?’ Elizabeth demanded. Edward’s temper snapped suddenly, too tired to wheedle and flatter his wife. His eyes grew cold and he passed his son back to the nurse hovering at his elbow.
‘I did as I saw fit, Elizabeth! By God, why must you … ? No. I am too weary to argue with you. Have the girls brought out to me and then my men will walk you all across to the palace. You’ll sleep in a better bed tonight.’
He made no mention of joining her and Elizabeth only nodded, coldly furious for reasons she did not have words to explain. She had longed to see him for an age. There he was, looking slim and younger again, but caring only to see his son, as if he had not missed his wife at all. She had not thought he could hurt her so deeply.
Their three daughters came rushing out to cling to their father’s legs and look adoringly up at him. The sight of their delighted tears went some way to cheer Edward up. Still he yawned and felt sick with tiredness, as if he could just lie down and pass out.
‘Yes, I am pleased as well, to see you. Yes, all of you, of course! How pretty you have grown! Now girls, yes, I must go ahead for a little while.’
The two youngest began to snivel at the merest suggestion their father would not remain with them. Edward gestured sharply to the nurse who had followed them out and still stood, beaming toothlessly at her young charges. Catching his eye, the woman dropped her beatific smile and gathered his children into her skirts.
‘Come along, dears,’ she said, making a clucking sound in her throat. The wet nurse, Jenny, dropped into a curtsey, then she too went to pack, the Prince of Wales in her arms.
Edward stood uncomfortably then with his wife, all the bustle and noise that had centred around his arrival dying away. At the door below, Brother Paul began to stir, a livid bruise showing where he had been knocked cold. Edward looked down without apology as the monk rose to his feet.
‘You have my thanks,’ he said, flipping a gold coin down the flight of stairs. Brother Paul’s eyes never left his as it arced through the air and fell to the stones with a dull sound.
Edward snorted in exasperation, almost too tired to stand.
‘I’ll leave a dozen guards here. Come over when you have the children ready.’
‘Yes, Edward. I will,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘I’ll find you in your rooms.’
Edward went more heavily down the stairs than he had come up them. He had to duck his head to pass beneath the lintel of the Sanctuary fortress. Perhaps because of that action, he paused on the threshold and stepped back inside alone. Edward came up the flight of steps again to embrace his wife, holding her tight enough to choke against his shoulder. To her surprise, she began to weep and he was smiling as he pulled back and kissed her. He removed his gauntlet, revealing a hand dark with oil and grime, a hand more suited to a killing blow than anything more gentle. Yet she did not flinch as he eased away a tear from her cheek.
‘There, love,’ he said. ‘I am home and all is well, isn’t it?’
‘Not if you have to fight again, Edward,’ she said. He looked away then.
‘I do. I need to be a burning brand now, just for a time. There’ll be peace afterwards, I promise.’
She looked into Edward’s eyes and saw the determination there. Despite herself, despite knowing his enmity was not aimed at her, she shivered still.
Edward woke from dark dreams, finding himself slippery with sleep-sweat, as if he had fought or run for an hour. He knew he lay sprawled across the very bed where he had spoken to Henry the night before. He had no memory of collapsing into it, with his armour half off and the rest digging into him. The sun was either still rising or falling, he did not know. It would not have surprised him to have slept the entire day, the way he’d been feeling, but he was still tired. He scratched himself then and winced. He also stank so powerfully he began to consider having a bath filled.
He looked up at the sound of shuffling feet, catching a glimpse of a servant ducking back out of sight. Edward groaned and lay back. Was he sickening with some illness? His head was clear, his stomach empty. He had not touched grapes, hops or grain since taking his oath in exile, just as he had promised his brother. Like Samson and his long hair, the oath had become a talisman to him and he would not break it at that moment, not with Warwick and Montagu and Oxford and Exeter still to face, all with blood in their eyes. He sat up at the thought that he had Parliament under his thumb then. He could send orders to have the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk freed. Every day would secure his position and lessen that of Warwick – except for one weakness.
Margaret of Anjou would land, with her son. The whole country seemed to know it was coming, though not one of them could say when or where she would touch her dainty foot to English soil. Edward knew he could not ignore the mother or her son. Margaret had rescued her husband before. With Warwick’s army, her landing could become a mighty rebellion of the south, great enough even to break London’s walls.
He raised his head at the steps of a steward. The man went down on one knee at the far end of the room, his head bowed.
‘Your Highness,’ he said. ‘Lords Gloucester and Clarence await your pleasure in the audience room.’
‘Or were too impatient to wait,’ Richard said behind him as they entered, ‘one or the other, surely.’ The steward rose to his feet in confusion, but Edward waved him off.
‘Is it morning, or evening – or the next morning?’ he said blearily.
‘It is Good Friday morning, Brother, a few hours after I saw you last. Were you dreaming then? I hope you found a little rest to restore your humours, because I have news.’
‘I am sharp set, I know that much,’ Edward said, yawning. ‘There are kitchens here. Have something sent to me before I am worn down to a shadow.’
He smiled at his brothers as he spoke, then stood and stretched like a mastiff, pulling off the shoulder plate he had not managed the night before.
‘That damned thing was digging into me. I did dream – of a spear shoved in right there.’
Richard shook his head.
‘Do not say such things, Brother. Not today, when Christ suffered the same wound. Shall I wait then, for you to dress and eat?’
Edward sighed.
‘No. Very well, tell me. Did King Henry die in the night?’
Richard raised his eyebrows and Edward chuckled.
‘What else would bring you rushing over to wake me?’ He looked from one brother to another. ‘Well?’
‘Warwick’s army has been sighted, Edward, coming south. They will reach London late tomorrow evening.’
Edward looked down for a moment, thinking.
‘That is a little slow. I wonder if he delayed to gather siege cannon. That must be it. My old friend loves the long guns, do you remember? He always put too much faith in them, instead of the men he commanded. He expects me to hide behind the walls of this fair city.’
He raised his head then, his eyes clear and a smile spreading. Richard grinned at the man his brother had become, so much more a threat than the great pale pudding he had been before.
‘And you won’t,’ Richard said.
‘No, Brother. I won’t. I will go out to meet him. You will command my right wing,
my vanguard. I will hold the centre and you, George …’ There he leaned to one side to observe his brother. ‘If you wish it, you will command my left wing. It is an honour, George. Are you up to it?’
‘You have what, ten thousand?’ George of Clarence said faintly. Edward could see a line of bright perspiration had appeared along his hairline. He wanted to take pity on the man, but he had not yet recovered his patience with his weak-spittle brother. That particular betrayal had hurt him, sharp and worse and more deeply than Warwick’s own.
‘I’ll find a few brave lads in London before I go, George, don’t worry! I’ll have myself crowned once more in St Paul’s, where the crowds can see. You’ll get some fine fellows then to stand with you.’
George of Clarence swallowed, raising his hand as if to give a blessing, though it trembled. He could see a mad, wild mood in his brothers, and in that moment he was certain it would lead to the destruction of them all.
‘Edward, I told you, Warwick has two or three times as many. No one knows the true number beyond his paymaster and Warwick himself. Is it …’ A horrible thought struck him and his voice became strained. ‘Is it that you don’t believe the numbers I have told you? I have apologized for breaking my word. I will redeem it in time, as I have promised. Yet I did begin by joining you at Coventry. I brought three thousand men raised from my villages and towns – equipped and fed by my funds. Will you deny me even so?’
Edward looked stonily at him and George could not bear that cool appraisal.
‘If you can’t trust me, trust what I told you! It was no exaggeration! I swear by the Rood of Christ that Warwick has as many as I have said. A host, Edward, a host, well armed and hardened. He …’
‘Brother, I believe you,’ Edward said. ‘I never thought you would lie over such a thing – how could you, even, when a falsehood would be revealed the moment our enemies took the field against us? No, I accept that Warwick and his allies have an army greater than ours.’ He looked aside at Richard then and Gloucester nodded. Clarence felt his eyes snap back and forth, once again with the sense of having missed some previous communication.
‘What?’ George demanded. Edward shrugged.
‘I do not deny Warwick’s numbers, George. But I have decided to attack him anyway. I will throw myself at his throat – and I will win … or I will lose.’
‘Against so many?’ George retorted. ‘You cannot win!’
‘We’ll see, Brother,’ Edward said darkly, growing angry. ‘Either way, I will take our people out to them. I will stand in Warwick’s way.’
He rolled his shoulders and called for servants to feed and bathe him, clapping his hands to bring them running. He looked at his two brothers standing there, George still in shock, Richard enjoying some dark satisfaction Edward could not trouble himself to read.
‘I will give the left to Lord Hastings, George. It would be better to have you standing with me in the centre. Does that please you?’ George nodded like a schoolboy. All three knew there was yet another alternative – that the Duke of Clarence might remain behind in London. Edward did not offer it and George could not ask. At last, Edward smiled, his good humour reasserting itself.
‘I think I will sleep for a little longer, or perhaps the rest of the day. Meet me on the steps of St Paul’s at noon tomorrow, to see me crowned. Fetch me … the Bishop of London, Kempe – not that Neville who crowned me before. Much good did that do me. No, I’ll have a different set of omens today. Fetch me good Bishop Kempe and a simple crown from the Tower, a band of gold all unadorned. Ready my army and send out the call to good men who would rather fight today than depend for their freedom on those who will.’
Edward looked through the leaded windows then, over the city. The light had grown brighter as he’d spoken to his brothers. He could feel the ache in his joints still, from too little sleep. Yet he smiled as servants brought in a great copper bath and began to fill it before the fire in the grate. Perhaps he would doze for a while in the hot water, before he rose to challenge for his realm once more, with the life and death of all he loved as the stake.
Weymouth had been a great port once, before the Black Death had ripped through it a century before. Half the population had gone into lime pits then and the town was not yet as prosperous as it had been. It was one of the reasons Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, had chosen it for Margaret to land. There were no spies so far from London, or if there were, he had men on the only road east to intercept them, men with crossbows and black scarves. He had no qualms about telling such men to use whatever means were required. Somerset knew well the importance of his task. He stood on the docks of Weymouth and stared out over the dark sea, looking for any sign of a ship coming in, as he had done for a week straight. Each day had ended in disappointment and he was growing desperate.
News was scarce in that part of the world, so far from the cities in the north. Somerset had only twelve hundred men with him, enough to keep Margaret of Anjou safe, with her son. Yet a single rider had come from London days before, telling him that York had landed. He’d recognized the hand of Derry Brewer in the ridiculous requirement of exchanging words and counter-words with the courier. Yet the news had made him forget his irritation. Edward of York and Richard of Gloucester, returned to England, as if God himself had snatched them out of reach and relented, bringing them home one last time.
Somerset’s father had been hacked down in St Albans, by the Castle Inn, fighting to his last breath for King Henry and Lancaster. The title had passed to his older brother then – a good man who had tried to continue that loyalty. He had been executed by the house of York, by a man Somerset had been told to avoid if he could not call him an ally: John Neville, Lord Montagu, brother to Warwick. The idea that Edmund Beaufort could ever have found himself on the same side as those two cutpurse whoresons was an abomination, impossible. Yet there it was – and he was duke because his brother and his father had been murdered for a lost cause. He felt a silken touch of regret that he had ever come home from France. He would be there in peace if he hadn’t been seduced by the news of York driven out at last, made to run with his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Somerset had wept as he had reached England once again, believing that a terrible, grim period of his life had come to an end. Instead, there he was, waiting for a ship and his last hopes.
He looked out over a darkening sea, with the sun setting gold on his left shoulder, turning his head back and forth as he tried to sense anything out of place on the deep. When it came, he noticed it immediately, a flicker of metal catching the last of the sun’s light. A piece of rail or a blown-glass lamp, he did not know. Edmund Beaufort crossed himself and raised a coin to his lips from where it lay on a chain around his neck. It had been his father’s and his brother’s and in that touch he carried them with him.
‘Light it,’ he called to his men. They had raised an iron cradle on a beam of oak, filled with packed straw and oil. A burning rag was carried up and the torch burst into flame, streaming six feet out into the breeze. All those who had been fool enough to stare at it were made blind for a while, but Somerset had kept his gaze on the sea. With a smile, he saw a warship tack round in the direction of the shore. They had seen the signal and been ready for it. It must have been a great relief to them as they ran so close to a coast that had been the death of so many.
Somerset called his captains to him and had them assemble their men in perfect ranks along the docks. He had a company of forty archers ready with their bows, standing to attention, while the rest were well-trained soldiers, not farm boys and ploughmen given a bit of sharp metal to hold. They were the honour guard that would bring Queen Margaret and Prince Edward of Wales back to London. Their task was to protect those two lives at the cost of their own if need be.
Somerset felt his fist tighten at that thought. His family had paid enough, if such things could ever be measured. He had no son of his own, which was an itch he could not reach to scratch. If he fell, they would have broken his father’s line f
or good. He hated the men of York, who had destroyed and despoiled for their ambition, at a cost so great, and themselves so small they could not peer over the edge of all they had ruined. It burned in Edmund Beaufort and he could hardly stand to live.
As he watched, the French warship showed colours of Lancaster, but then dropped sail and drifted, not half a mile from shore. The sun had set and darkness had come in upon them. Beaufort craned to see, blowing a sigh when he spotted a boat lowered down and the white flecks of sweeps moving.
The waves were rising, blown to spume in a wind becoming a gale. He could imagine the coast was black as a coal pit by then, beyond the torch he had lit – and that a mere spark in the darkness. Somerset guessed a French captain would rather have his ship safely anchored than risk her closer in. Perhaps that was wise, given those he carried. Somerset waited until he was sure the boat was carrying an anchor and not those he had come to escort away. He listened for the great splash as they dropped it in, but the sound was lost in the howl of the air.
‘Rest easy, gentlemen,’ he called to his captains. ‘Leave a couple of lads here, but I will return to the inn. I don’t think they’ll land a boat in this chop. Return before dawn, if you would. They’ll step ashore tomorrow.’
He shivered and crossed himself as he turned away. The sea could turn in an instant, from gentle breezes and light waves to a terrifying sheet of buckling iron, so full of rage and spite as to shock a man’s breath right out of him.
Edward was crowned for the second time that Easter Saturday, in a service notable for its brevity, though the pews were packed in St Paul’s Cathedral. He accepted a gold circlet pressed down on to his brow from Bishop Kempe, the man of the cloth still looking flustered, yet respectful enough. The Church had supported York before; it could hardly refuse to do so again, just months after Edward had reigned in peace and been driven out by traitors.
King Edward came out to be seen by the people of London and was gratified to find so many there on the roads all around. Some of them were his own men, of course, but Richard seemed pleased and there were some new faces asking for a blade and a place to stand.
Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Page 23