Virginia Henley

by The Raven

  He grinned delightedly. “I would love it more than anything!”

  She smiled quietly when she heard him singing in his dressing room. She realized that she had never fully committed herself to him. She had given him her gratitude but not her love.

  Part of Edward’s fleet which Richard was commanding stood off the coast of Norfolk for days before they discovered that the Duke of Norfolk was in custody. They learned of Oxford’s patrols along the southeast coast and finally decided to sail up past Yorkshire to Northumberland, where the strong Percys would aid them.

  Three of the ships were grounded in a storm off Lincolnshire. One of them capsized and sank, and it took all night to get everyone ashore. They were wet and cold in the March night, but Richard headed the men south toward The Wash to a predestined meeting place with Edward and the rest of the Hanse fleet.

  James Burke couldn’t believe his eyes when Roger Montford strode into the hall at Ravenspur. Putting a silencing finger to his lips, he said, “Hush, man. I want to surprise Roseanna.”

  Mr. Burke crossed himself and muttered, “Mary and Joseph, you’ll do more than surprise her!”

  “We are back! Did you ever doubt it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, James.”

  “My lord, we thought you dead! Lady Roseanna near went mad with grief when two of the men who almost drowned crawled back and gave us the news. She sent me into The Fens to find your body, and I thought I had found it—beneath the body of the white Arabian stallion. I buried the remains,” argued Mr. Burke.

  “That was Kelly,” said Roger grimly. “The storm had inflamed our tempers, and I accused him of Janet’s murder. He knifed me and tried to flee on Mecca, but they went down together and were drowned.”

  “God’s balls!” exclaimed Mr. Burke at the appalling mess in which everyone’s lives were now tangled.

  “Where is Roseanna? Fetch her, man, so that she can see with her own eyes that I am alive!”

  “She is not here, my lord,” said Mr. Burke cautiously.

  “Damn, don’t tell me she’s at Castlemaine! I’ve not much time. Edward has landed with an army to retake England. We are heading into Nottingham to raise more men.”

  Kate Kendall had heard Ravenspur’s unmistakable voice and came into the hall on quaking limbs.

  “Kate, I’m returned from the dead!” He laughed. “When is Roseanna expected back from Castlemaine?”

  Kate Kendall and James Burke exchanged significant glances; each dreaded the task of revealing to their lord what had to be told.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “My God, she’s not ill, is she? Is my son all right?”

  Kate took a deep breath. “You’d better come and sit down, my lord. James, get him a drink—something stronger than wine.”

  White-lipped with apprehension, Roger seated himself beside the warmth of the fire. James Burke handed him a potent goblet and took himself off so that Kate and Roger could have privacy.

  “Try to be patient, my lord, while I tell you my incredible tale. George, Duke of Clarence, rode in here hot after Edward’s fleeing army. It would have been useless to deny to him that the army had been encamped here, for the evidence lay everywhere. When that swine Clarence saw Roseanna, thoughts of pursuing you and the King went out of his head. He had only one goal from the minute he laid eyes on her. He made no bones about it but told her baldly he meant to have her.”

  Roger swallowed the contents of the goblet and shuddered slightly.

  “Well, you know Roseanna, sir. She bade him begone in very salty terms. The day after that, news of your drowning came, and Roseanna didn’t care if she lived or died. She fell into a trancelike stupor. Even the baby knew something was wrong with his mother, and he cried all day. Then, God help her, something happened to snap her out of it in a hurry.”

  “Thank God,” whispered Ravenspur.

  “Nay, my lord. It was not God’s work, it was the devil’s. The Duke of Clarence returned. His men were drunk. They stripped Alice and raped Rebecca. He threatened Roseanna with the only weapon that would make her submit to him: He threatened to take your son’s lands and titles. He even threatened to take the child away from her.”

  Ravenspur was on his feet, cursing the soul of the man who had abused his wife. “He’s dead meat! I’ll search him out on the battlefield and disembowel the swine!”

  “My lord, there’s more to my tale,” said Kate quietly.

  “More?” he roared. “I’ve heard enough, woman! What more could there possibly be?”

  “Lord Ravenspur, I warned you that you would have to be patient, but you have to get a grip on your temper, aye, and on your sanity for what I have to tell you.”

  Cold fingers clutched his heart. He feared his beloved was dead.

  Kate’s voice quivered as she continued. “She was vulnerable, easy prey without a strong man’s protection. So she sought out the Earl of Lincoln, who is your son’s overlord.”

  “Did he help her?” Roger demanded.

  “He did more. He fell in love with her and married her.”

  “What?” The word exploded from him as if he spat fire. “The faithless bitch! I’ll kill her!”

  “She refused to marry him, but that degenerate pig Clarence returned and forced his abominations on her. Her mother and I urged her to accept Lincoln. My lord, she had no alternative!”

  Roger sank down and buried his head in his hands. His precious Roseanna! He felt as if his heart were bleeding. Kate left him alone.

  After a while James Burke got up enough courage to go in to him and offer him another drink. Roger threw off his inertia and strode from the hall. Edward’s battles would have to wait. He had one of his own to win first!

  Lincoln received a message from Warwick that Edward had landed and was approaching Nottingham. Warwick asked that Lincoln join him in Coventry. He had also sent urgent messages to George, Duke of Clarence, to bring the four thousand soldiers he had recruited.

  When Ravenspur strode into the hall at Lincoln Castle, Line thought he was another messenger. Roseanna turned from her husband to the messenger and gave a joyous cry from her heart: “Roger!” Her hands flew out to steady herself, but her legs and head swam with unreality, and she fell into a dead faint.

  Ravenspur strode up to Lincoln and dared him with his eyes to touch Roseanna. He bent swiftly and lifted her into his arms. “This lady is my wife,” he said implacably. “Show me to a couch where she may recover.”

  “You’re not dead?” asked Line with deep dismay.

  “Not yet!” replied Roger shortly.

  Although Line was devastated by Ravenspur’s arrival, he led the way to Roseanna’s chamber and with great effort allowed Ravenspur to go in alone with her.

  Roger laid her down and shook her gently. “Roseanna! Open your eyes and look at me!” As her eyelashes fluttered open, what he needed to know was written there pure and clear. There was no fear or dismay, only love for him. Her mouth was like a pink velvet rose, and he was starving for the taste of her. Their lips touched, then clung fiercely. He caressed her lovingly and held her to his heart. He loved this woman beyond his wildest dreams, and he was about to prove it by providing safety for her future. “Rest for a few minutes. I have to talk to Lincoln.”

  “Roger!” she cried, alarmed at what he might do.

  He gave her a reassuring smile and said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Trust me.”

  Ravenspur approached the Earl of Lincoln calmly. “We have things to settle.”

  “We do.” Line nodded stiffly. The two men were such a contrast to each other. Lincoln’s silver-gilt hair made him seem younger than his years, while Ravenspur’s darkness made him seem years older.

  “The law is on your side, Ravenspur. Technically, Roseanna is still your wife,” Line conceded. “But I think she should be allowed to choose between us.”

  Roger said, “Let us approach the matter with our heads rather than our hearts. We are at war. We will fight a battle, perhaps many batt
les, before it is done. If I die, I would like your oath that you will be a good husband to Roseanna and work for my son’s best interests.”

  Lincoln’s eyes widened. “You have my oath.”

  Roger continued, “If you die, I will give you the same pledge. If I live, Roseanna remains my wife unless she chooses otherwise. Is it agreed?”

  “Agreed,” nodded Lincoln, feeling admiration for Ravenspur in spite of himself.

  Roger hesitated. “Roseanna is too much woman to be long without a man. I am not unmindful of the service you have done me by protecting my family. I’ll just say my farewell to Roseanna.”

  He went back to her chamber and found her with his son. “Look, he can take a few steps, and he can even say words,” she said with great pride. She pointed to Roger; “Dada,” she coached.

  “Mama,” said the baby. He had the darkest eyes and the blackest curls Roger had ever seen, and they evoked the strangest emotions in Roger. Suddenly he wanted to cry.

  “I’ll pack and go home immediately,” said Roseanna, looking sorry for all the trouble she had caused.

  “Roseanna, do nothing,” he cautioned. “There will be terrible fighting when Edward and Warwick meet. Your husbands are pledged to opposite sides in this conflict. If one of us dies, you will still have the other.”

  “You won’t die!” she cried.

  “No, I won’t die,” he promised. “Sorry, little one, but you may have to wait awhile before you become the Baron of Ravenspur.”

  He kissed the child good-bye but did not trust himself to touch Roseanna. He turned so swiftly, his cloak swept a vase of early snowdrops to the carpet. As Roseanna knelt to pick up the fragile white flowers, tears stole down her cheeks. She cried for joy that Roger lived; she wept for sadness that she had caused Line pain; she sobbed with fear for them both in the bloody battles that were inevitable.

  When Roger joined Edward and Richard in Nottingham, he was relieved that Percy’s men from Northumberland had arrived. They all realized that by reaching Nottingham without being challenged, both Lord Stanley and the Earl of Shrewsbury had held their hands and had done nothing to stop them. Edward’s mood was high, and he grinned and repeated one of his favorite axioms: “He who is not against me, is with me!”

  Warwick’s brother John had an army at Pontefract fifty miles north, yet he hadn’t challenged Edward yet. So Edward cautiously moved his army southward from Nottingham to Leicester, which was only twenty miles from Warwick’s army at Coventry. Edward’s spies told him that Warwick’s brother was not at Pontefract but had joined Warwick at Coventry. Exeter and Oxford were also with Warwick.

  Then an amazing thing happened. Edward received a message from his brother George, Duke of Clarence. He offered to join Edward instead of taking his four thousand men to aid Warwick. Richard mistrusted his brother and reminded Edward of their brother’s past treachery. Ravenspur was also against it. He desperately wanted Clarence on the enemy’s side so he could kill him with impunity. Edward, however, saw the wisdom of accepting George’s offer; it immediately doubled the size of his army.

  After accepting George’s offer, Edward moved his new combined army of eight thousand men outside Coventry, ready for the fight. Suddenly George suggested that Edward send a conciliatory message to Warwick to settle everything peacefully. Ravenspur wanted to run his sword between his eyes, but he could not, for Edward needed him. Roger felt a great relief when Edward refused to parley. “If Warwick comes out of Coventry and surrenders, I will give him his life.”

  When it became clear that Warwick would not surrender yet would not come out of Coventry to fight, Edward headed to London to seize mad King Henry. The mayor threw open the gates, and suddenly everyone in London was Edward’s friend. He marched straight to the bishop’s palace and put Warwick’s brother, the Archbishop of York, in the Tower. Mad King Henry followed him there. Edward’s next stop was Westminster Sanctuary, where he brought out his Queen and the princesses and prince she had borne him. Now that he had secured London, he was ready to march upon Warwick and settle things once and for all. Warwick had now marched his army to St. Albans, only twenty miles away. This time one of them would be finished forever!

  Edward selected three thousand men as a vanguard to lead the attack. He placed Richard in charge of them; Ravenspur was his second-in-command. It was a colossal responsibility but a coveted honor. It went without saying that Edward would ride in the front row of the vanguard.

  Roger bade his men make camp; in the darkness they could hear the noises of the enemy encamped nearby. His mood swung from desolation to elation as he sat beside his campfire. He realized the irony of the situation: Edward, Richard, and himself had all been trained by Warwick, and he remembered his lessons to the letter.

  He got up and moved among the men, urging them not to get drunk the night before the battle. He cursed the noisy, restless stallions and thought, By God, Roseanna is right Geldings would be better-behaved mounts for the knights. Suddenly his senses were filled with Roseanna. He longed for her so much that he vowed no power on earth would keep him from her.

  The night turned damp and cold, and though he was freezing, he sweated inside his armor. He moved among the men and warned them against having doubts. They must be convinced that they would win the day; to think otherwise was to invite death. He advised them to conserve their strength and energy when the battle was joined. It would be a long day, in which endurance and persistence would count for more than wild acts of bravado. “Stand solid, and parry everything that comes at you,” he repeated over and over. He thanked God for the experienced faces he picked out of the crowd, for a lot of these young men would go into battle for the first time. The horror they would experience would be beyond belief.

  He avoided telling them about the red mud of battlefields—mud made from the blood of men fallen and crushed underfoot. He did not tell them of the numbing exhaustion that came after a battle yet banished sleep for days because of its horrors.

  When dawn arrived, a thick fog blanketed the whole area so he could not see his hand before his face. It changed nothing! They would still attack first, going by sound and feel rather than sight.

  Roger came up against his first enemy with such force, their breastplates crashed, and it knocked the wind from him. His sword dripped blood; he kept his sword arm high, and soon his leather gauntlets were soggy with sweat and blood. His arm ached, his lungs were afire, and his eyes stung from his own salty sweat. His brain dimly told him that if his feet encountered something hard, it was armor; if something soft, it was flesh.

  His strength was ebbing. Then miraculously a trumpet rally told him the enemy had faltered. He was filled with a second wind and renewed vigor. Gradually, inch by inch, yard by yard, he gained ground until the enemy was on the run, and then he saw the enemy’s retreat with his own eyes as the fog lifted. He saw Edward’s yellow hair when he removed his helmet and ran over to him. He stood above Warwick’s body, and he was weeping. Roger stripped off his own helmet. His face was wet from blood and sweat and tears. It was over! Praise God, it was over once and for all!

  The King looked at him and said, “You are wounded, Roger. Get you to a surgeon.” Until that moment he had been unaware that his left arm hung useless and bloody, but now he began to feel the burning agony of a deep sword thrust through his shoulder. Common sense told him to obey Edward, for he knew from experience that a wound tended immediately healed quicker; yet a stronger force within him compelled him to go to Roseanna.

  He mounted his horse and headed away from the army. He was driven by a madness to reach home. Ravenspur lay eighty miles to the north. The pain came and went, washing over him in waves. Sometimes he was barely conscious, yet relentlessly he pressed on. He was within sight of home before he allowed himself to fall unconscious from his horse.

  Roseanna was at Ravenspur. She had been scanning the horizon hourly for signs of her husband. She saw the black stallion and saw Roger pitch from the saddle, and she was out o
f the hall, running immediately, crying for the stablemen to aid her.

  Roger was filthy and stank to high heaven. He was covered with dried sweat and caked blood. His black hair was encrusted with filth and was plastered to his head. They carried him in unconscious, and with the help of Kate Kendall and James Burke she stripped and bathed him. He gained consciousness fast enough when she began to tend his wounded shoulder but he lay without flinching as she trimmed the gangrene with her sharp knife. She signed to Kate to pass her the goblet of wine; she held it to his lips and dared him to protest against the sleeping draught.

  He took only one mouthful, then his hand came up to push it away. His fingers brushed her hand and suddenly she couldn’t bear to share him with anyone else. She lifted her eyes to the others in the room and said, “Thank you for your help; I would like to be alone with my husband now.”

  Reluctantly they left their newly returned lord and Roseanna began to sponge his good shoulder and wide chest.

  “You called me your husband.”

  “Yes, of course, that’s who you are,” she said, as if she were stating the most obvious truth to a simpleton.

  “But what about Lincoln?” he asked, gritting the words through his teeth.

  “Oh, my God!” She stopped sponging his chest. “I didn’t even think of him! Is he all right?”

  “I can’t be certain, but I thought I saw him retreating from the battle with Warwick’s men.” He watched her face closely. When he saw relief there and nothing more, his heart began to lighten.