The Rose of York: Love & War

by Sandra Worth

  Anne didn’t know what to say. She only knew there was evil lurking in the world. Lurking, and reaching out for them. Richard’s expression was one of mute wretchedness, and there was no comfort to offer, nothing she could do at all.

  ~*~

  From the window in the Keep, the Countess of Warwick watched Richard and Anne as they sat among the purple heather. She turned back to her visitor.

  “My heart twists so when I look at him. He seems so wounded.”

  While old Rufus kept careful watch, John Neville moved over to the window in time to see Richard gently place his arms around Anne’s shoulders. He reflected a moment before he spoke. “They are both wounded, my lady, but they have youth on their side and, pray God, time to heal each other.”

  The Countess’s eyes fixed on him in surprise. “Why, my fair brother of Northumberland, I didn’t know you were a scholar of men.”

  “Nay, lady, merely a simple soldier. I only know the battlefields of life.” Softly he added, “Sometimes ’tis on the ground we fight, and sometimes in the heart.”

  The Countess looked sharply at his face. Misery and despair lay naked in his dark blue eyes. Her heart squeezed in anguish and she reached out and touched his hand. “Aye, John,” she said on a breath.

  Together they turned their gaze from the young ones sitting among the heather, to the sky beyond where thunderous dark clouds hung on the horizon, immobile, waiting.

  ~ * * * ~

  Chapter 20

  “…My knights are sworn to vows

  Of utter faithfulness in love,

  And utter obedience to the King.”

  The year of 1469 began with sinister portents of disaster. A shower of blood stained grass in Bedfordshire, and elsewhere a horseman and men in arms were seen rushing through the air. In the county of Huntingdon, a certain woman who was with child and near the time of her delivery, to her horror felt the unborn in her womb weep and utter a sobbing noise. And in the early spring, England heard about the first trouble, a rising in Yorkshire led by someone calling himself Robin of Redesdale, citing as grievances heavy taxes, injustice in the courts and the rapacious Woodvilles whose greed and impudence, they said, outraged honest men. No sooner did John put this down than a second arose in East Riding, led by a Robin of Holderness who called for the restoration of Henry Percy as Earl of Northumberland. John crushed it promptly and executed its leaders.

  “I’ve earned my earldom, Isobel, and been a good lord to them,” he told his countess. “Why should they call for Percy— what have the Percys ever done for them?”

  From her window seat in her private solar at Alnwick, where she sat embroidering a green square of silk with John’s emblem of the gold griffin, Isobel regarded her husband. In a fur-edged velvet tunic of her favourite emerald, his faithful hound curled up at his feet, John sat at an oak-carved table, writing a private missive to the King, which he didn’t wish to dictate to a clerk. Her heart ached for him. She knew that the executions troubled him, that what he was really asking was whether he’d been justified.

  Aye, he didn’t deserve such ingratitude. Though he hadn’t the means of his brother Warwick, his kitchens never turned away a hungry mouth and his door was never closed to those in need of his help. He had in truth done many a noble deed. What Percy had ever sent firewood to the prisons or wine to the prisoners? What lord thought to do it in summer so men wouldn’t have to cart the heavy loads through the bitter chill of winter? Such kindness was a rare thing, but John cared so for everyone: his soldiers, his servants, his family. His King.

  She stretched out her hand and he came to her. She lifted her eyes to his handsome face. Dear God, so much change. His decision to support the King against his brothers came to him at fearsome cost. No longer did he sleep at night, or have heart for amusement. How different was this careworn face from the glorious countenance she had first fallen in love with! Grey dusted the tawny hair at the temples and deep furrows marred the once-smooth brow. From the nostrils of the fine straight nose, two lines ran down to the generous mouth, now grim-set and drooping at the corners, and a fresh scar cut through the left eyebrow over the deep blue eyes which had lost their twinkling light. She thought of the happy, dauntless youth he had been when she’d first met him, and her heart squeezed with anguish.

  “Do not fault yourself, my dear lord. Robin of Holderness had no right to call for Percy’s reinstatement… And Robin of Redesdale? Is he also against you?”

  John turned. With a gesture of the hand he dismissed the servants. The minstrel hushed his harp in the corner of the room and rose from his stool. Isobel’s tiring-woman, who had been moving quietly about her duties emptying chests and hanging clothes in the garderobe, set a hand basin of perfumed water down on a bedside table and withdrew.

  John’s eyes took on a pained expression as he met Isobel’s questioning gaze. “I fear Robin of Redesdale is none other than our cousin, William Conyers.”

  Isobel gave a sharp gasp. With a rustle of silk, she rose from her place at the window. “Oh, my dear lord…” So the nightmare had already begun. So soon! She took his sun-bronzed hand into her own. Such a strong, fine hand. She pressed kisses to the long fingers.

  John wrapped his arms around her and looked down at the full red mouth, straight little nose and honey-coloured eyes, luminous below their thick black lashes. In spite of his troubles, warmth flooded him. Thirteen years they’d been married and time had only ripened her beauty. She moved a little in his arms and he caught the flowery scent of her body. He pulled her tightly to him, marvelling that his passion for her was still unspent. Resting his cheek against her fragrant chestnut hair, he watched swans glide on the River Aln and sheep graze on the placid hills.

  “Sunshine is always brighter when I’m with you, and birdsong sweeter, Isobel. You make me forget what the world is really like.” It was the truth. At this moment, the stench of bloody battlefields and rotting human flesh, the shrieks of the wounded and the cawing of vultures, had surrendered their reality, along with the gales and the fogs, and the sighs of cold, weary men trudging over frozen earth.

  Isobel snuggled closer in the warmth of his embrace. “And I, my beloved lord, feel the same now as when I first fell in love with you… I still remember the frightful days when you were taken prisoner by the Percys at Blore Heath and I thought I might lose you… Never would I relive them for all the earldoms in England.” She pulled away and looked up at his face. “To think it was all so needless! You were taken prisoner after a battle you’d won only because you recklessly pursued the Cheshiremen into their own territory.” She smiled at the image of John that came into her mind: a dashing Neville chasing a hated Percy with all the wild abandon of youth. “What were you thinking, my love?”

  John grinned suddenly. “I wasn’t thinking. That was the problem.”

  How good it felt to see him smile again; how long it had been since she’d seen those dimples she so loved! Isobel watched John’s eyes go back to the window, the smile fixed on his lips. She turned in the circle of his arms and followed his gaze to the walled garden below, where their three-year-old son had suddenly appeared, romping and screeching with delight as his sisters made a game of chasing him around the hedges. After five daughters, God had granted them a son; George had been born on the feast of St. Peter’s Chair, the twenty-second of February, nine months after John had won his earldom. She blushed, remembering that night in York. John had galloped back to their Abbey lodgings after the ceremony and, wild with happiness, they’d made love in the fierce heat of passion, known an ecstasy that can come but once.

  “You’ve given me everything that’s beautiful,” Isobel whispered, her eyes returning to the children in the garden below. “Everything I cherish on this earth.”

  John tightened his hold around her waist. “One day our son will inherit my earldom. I’m thankful I have that to leave him.”

  Aye, Isobel thought, the earldom with its annual income of a thousand pounds would greatly ease Ge
orge’s path. Had his proposed marriage to the daughter of the Duchess of Exeter not been snatched away by the Woodville queen for her son, little George would one day have been one of the richest magnates in the land. She banished the thought. They still had many blessings. At least George would not have to take out debts in order to last the year, as they’d been obliged to do. And worse— far worse—carve his livelihood through bloody battlefields, like his father. John had sacrificed much for the earldom. He’d devoted his life to the King’s business. Whether it was fighting battles or negotiating truces, the earldom of Northumberland had been hard earned. No one had a right to take it away.

  “You are a good lord and the King’s truest subject. Edward knows that, John, how can he not? As for me, I am the most fortunate of women to call you husband.”

  “And I, my lady, am the most fortunate of men to have an angel as my lady wife.” A beautiful smile played on her lips, the same smile she’d worn the first time he’d seen her. How strange that he should remember it so vividly after all these years. He could still smell the air, feel the breeze on his cheek, see the Lincolnshire hills and sharp outlines of Lord Cromwell’s castle…

  The glow of sunset reflected off the western battlements as he clattered over the drawbridge into the inner court with his small party. Weary from the long, dusty journey from Raby, he’d dismounted and thrown the reins of his horse to one of the groomsmen, wondering as he did so why his brother Thomas hadn’t come out to greet him. Surely they’d made enough noise? At that instant he’d heard a laugh light as silvery bells, a sound that seemed to fall from the heavens, like the beating of angel wings. He glanced up.

  Framed by the violet sky, a face gazed down at him from a high window, the face of an angel, serene, beautiful, with a complexion white as lilies and hair dark as chestnuts. It was an oval face with a pointed chin, luminous smile, and extraordinary eyes. He stared, rooted to where he stood, unable to tear his gaze away from those two brilliant topaz orbs. He didn’t hear the jangle of steel, the shouts of men or the neighing of horses as Thomas rode into the castle with Lord Cromwell and a troop of men-at-arms. He heard only the lyre and the angel’s sudden laugh, sweet as chapel bells over the dales at morning time.

  “John!” Thomas cried cheerily, leaping off his horse and running to him. His thick crop of dark hair was dishevelled and there were two streaks of dirt on his cheeks, but his brilliant blue eyes were alight with joy to see him. “My fair brother!” He clasped John to his breast and held him out at arm’s length. “What a relief you’re safe! You were so late, we rode out to search for you. One never knows with those damned Percys.”

  “Aye,” Lord Cromwell boomed, “’tis good you’re safe! Worried, we did. Damned Percys out there, you know…”

  Isobel’s laugh interrupted his reverie.

  “All these years you’ve called me your angel,” she said, “and all these years I’ve been telling you angels don’t have chestnut hair. They have golden hair, as any painter or coloured-glass maker will tell you.”

  He grinned. “My angels have chestnut hair.”

  Isobel put her hands over his. “I love you, and have loved you from the first moment that I saw you.”

  John smiled into her hair. “That blessed twilight eve at Lord Cromwell’s castle.”

  She threw him a startled glance. “Nay, ’twas not at Lord Cromwell’s castle where I first saw you. I was twelve and riding past the River Ure with my cousins. We surprised you as you came out of the water after a swim.”

  John flushed, remembering the party of giggling young maidens that day long ago. “You mean you saw me…”’

  She laughed. “Aye, naked as Adam, standing on the river bank! Thomas had the sense to cover himself, but you blushed as red as a beet and covered the wrong part.”

  “My face.”

  “That was why we were all laughing, my sweet lord.”

  John grinned. He clasped her tightly around her waist and bent his head tenderly to hers. “My love,” he whispered softly, “you never told me.”

  ~ * * * ~

  Chapter 21

  “And in Arthur’s heart pain was lord.”

  Richard watched Edward standing at the window with the queen’s father, Earl Rivers. He was breaking the seal on a missive while Hastings, the Woodvilles, and their friend, a lord from Wales named Herbert, looked on from the council table. Richard hoped for good news. The past three months had been weighted down with troubles. The Thomas Cook affair kept recurring like a bad toothache, stirring fears throughout the land. Though the kindly merchant had been acquitted in his second trial, the furious queen had prevailed on Edward to dismiss the judge and retry him, after which poor Cook was assessed a ruinous fine. And Bess Woodville, by resurrecting the obsolete custom of “Queen’s Gold,” levied another.

  His gaze went to Hastings seated beside the queen’s son, Thomas Grey. These two, thought Richard, had turned Edward from Camelot and led him into Sodom and Gomorrah. At only fifteen, Thomas had already carved himself a reputation for wantonness and cowardice in arms, emerging to join Hastings as Edward’s boon companion. The three spent their nights revelling with drink and bawdy women. Newly elevated to Marquess of Dorset, and flushed with his own self-importance, Thomas had demanded Richard address him by his title, and Richard obliged happily. The formality put distance between them.

  Edward passed the letter to his father-in-law and took his seat at the head of the table. “From John Neville, my cousin of Northumberland. He’s put down the rebellions and executed Robin of Holderness.”

  “But he fails to mention Robin of Redesdale, whose uprising seems to be of a more serious nature,” said Earl Rivers. His rich gown of crimson velvet lined with green silk, loaded from shoulder to hem with jewels, flashed as he crossed the room to pass the missive to his friend.

  “If John says it’s under control, then it is, Sire,” said Will Hastings. “John’s a man of his word.” Hastings’s rivalry with Dorset sometimes ran bitter, and his wife, Katherine Neville, was John’s sister. But always the consummate statesman, Hastings betrayed none of his dislike for Woodvilles on his broad-carved face.

  Edward lounged in his chair, toying with his near-empty wine cup, which a wine-bearer quickly refilled. He fastened his gaze on Richard. “What say you, brother?”

  “I agree with Will. Our Cousin John is a man of his word and loyal unto death.”

  “He’s a Neville,” spat the queen’s father. “There’s talk his brother Warwick may be behind this trouble in the North, even that Robin of Redesdale is his kin.”

  Edward tapped John’s letter, which had been passed back. “He has assured me of his loyalty, in his own writing, no less. ’Tis sacred as an oath.”

  “Then, Sire, why did he not pursue the leaders of the Redesdale rebellion with the same zeal he showed Robin of Holderness?” demanded the Woodville’s friend, Lord Herbert.

  The queen’s father guffawed. “Because Redesdale didn’t call for the earldom of Northumberland to be given back to Percy!”

  Dorset gave a snicker. “Nine years in the Tower has chastened Percy, Sire. Restore the earldom of Northumberland to him. Better a Percy than a Neville.”

  Trembling with rage, Richard leapt to his feet. “Better a Lancastrian turncoat than a man loyal unto death, eh, Dorset? Why does it come as no surprise you’d favour a turncoat?”

  There was an uproar from the Woodvilles. Richard swung on them with murderous eyes. They recoiled and sputtered into silence at his expression. Without Bess they were not only outranked, but helpless against the King’s favourite brother, and they knew it. They also knew their time would come when Bess, alone with the King, presented their case. So did Richard.

  “Sire,” Richard pressed, “our gracious cousin is your truest subject. He’s a Yorkist, and of noble birth and noble intentions, unlike some others here in this room!”

  Dorset gave a cry and lunged at Richard, a hand on his heavily jewelled dagger-hilt. In a lightning stroke,
Richard had his own blade pointed at Dorset’s throat. Edward came to his stepson’s rescue, his long arms spreading between them like eagle wings. “Let it lie, both of you.”

  Reluctantly, Richard returned his dagger to its sheath.

  “May I offer a suggestion?” said a voice silent until now. “These are troubled times and it would avail us much to make a pilgrimage and pray for God’s help in our travail.”

  A hush descended over the group. Richard turned his eyes on the queen’s oldest brother. He didn’t know what to make of Anthony Woodville. The man was both like, and unlike, his kin. While sly of expression, as all Woodvilles were, he was dark, not fair, and his scholarly pursuits had won him notice and set him apart from his brothers, whose sole accomplishments were to marry well. He was also a chivalrous jouster, not chicken-livered like Dorset. On this day, in contrast to his gaudy nephew, he was sedately attired in a doublet of dark velvet edged with sable. Richard had heard that he had grown so pious that sometimes he wore a hair shirt beneath his silks and velvets. He wondered idly what had prompted such a change from his former flamboyant style. His manner, too, was sober, though he used to be as brash and boastful as his brothers. Indeed, he’d changed much since the Smithfield tournament two years earlier, and Richard almost liked the man. But it was impossible to forget he was a Woodville, and Woodvilles were not to be trusted.

  Richard returned his attention to Edward, who now stood at the window draining his wine. “’Tis a good time for prayer, I doubt not,” said Edward. “Therefore we shall make a pilgrimage to Walsingham, on our way north, to determine matters there.” With a wave of the hand he dismissed his council. The chamber emptied.