by Sandra Worth
They neared Olney. He scanned the horizon. There was no movement on the hill, only the stir of poplars in the wind. Hastings and Edward had fallen silent and their expressions were guarded. What would happen in Olney? Regicide was a mortal sin. But, then, what would Warwick do with the captive king? He tried to focus his mind on the glorious scenery around him. Rolling hills of hedgerows and wild poppies bordered wheat fields beginning to golden for harvest. Birds soared across the azure sky and sang in the trees that dotted the meadows. Aye, life went on. The world was beautiful. But the wind was bitter cold, though it was August.
~ * * * ~
Chapter 23
“…now I see the true old times are dead.”
In the solar at Warwick Castle, Edward removed his jewelled gauntlets and casually peered out the window at the formidable castle. “So, here we are, cousin. Captor and captive.”
Red-faced, glowering, Warwick snapped, “You’ve only yourself to thank for that—and your love of the accursed Woodvilles.”
Archbishop Neville wrung his hands. “Brother… cousin, I pray you…”
Edward plucked a grape from a silver bowl and munched. “I suppose I should love Nevilles better?” he grinned, addressing Warwick.
Warwick’s colour deepened. “You’re half Neville yourself. We’re of the same blood—kinsmen, no less! For your cause, my father was executed, my lands seized, my wealth spent, all to place you on the throne. I risked everything and remained true to York in adversity. I gave you the Crown, and you gave me shame. For all your qualities, you’re nothing but a lewd lad with an eye for women!”
Edward’s turquoise eyes glinted. “Lewd I may be, but I’m no Holy Harry. No puppet king to be worn as your crown. No crowned calf or stuffed wool sack to be pushed around by you. I, too, risked all for the throne and lost a father—but I never lost a battle.” He paused long enough for the insult to sink in. “At Mortimer’s Cross my men would have fled, but I rallied them. I told them the three suns they saw in the sky were not a sign of God’s wrath for turning against Henry, but a sign of the Trinity, and His blessing.
“You, on the other hand, made an arse of yourself at St. Alban’s, cousin. All your fancy new guns, the stakes you drove into the ground, the traps you set expecting the enemy to charge straight into them, came to nothing by oversight—your flank lay open and the enemy took you by surprise at night! You failed to expect the unexpected, didn’t you, cousin? Yet you always attribute my victories to luck. Lucky for me the wind-driven snows of Towton blew my arrows straight into the face of my enemy; but I, not you, placed those archers there. It was my cool head and leadership that won the Crown, not yours. And I, only I, am king!”
“You’re king now, but will you keep your throne?” The veins in Warwick’s forehead bulged with fury and beads of moisture shone on his lip. “The Woodvilles have infested you like a disease. You’re rotting, my prince. Heed my words—sooner or later they’ll bring you down and destroy you. Your queen is a woman reviled throughout the land. No son of her blood will ever be permitted to mount the throne of England!”
“By Christ’s holy wounds, do you think they’ll accept George? He’s more despised than Holy Harry.”
Silence. Then Warwick gave a burst of laughter. Edward and the Archbishop looked at him.
“I’ve just come to realise,” Warwick said with a smirk, “that England has two kings, Lancaster and York, and both are my captives.”
As the King and Kingmaker glared at each other, Archbishop Neville advanced uncertainly. “But we are kin. Our father—your mother, Edward—were brother and sister. Surely, surely…” He looked at them helplessly.
“George is right, Dick,” Edward relented, dropping the titles, calling on remembered friendship and reverting to names he’d used in their youth when they’d laughed and cavorted together. “Blood binds us, and I can’t forget you were my father’s friend. But I am king. You owe me obedience, Dick, as God has willed. I’m prepared to forget many things, but not that I am king.”
Warwick stood rigid, his shoulders squared, his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t respond for a time, though his expression softened.
“Indeed, we are of the same blood, and you are my best friend’s son. I gave your father my solemn vow I’d look out for you, and I shall, Edward. You’ve made a mess of things, but I’ll set them right. In the meantime, you are indeed king, but a king who is my captive and will do as I say.”
For a long moment Edward appraised Warwick. Then he flashed a grin and draped himself comfortably in a chair. “You’re a strange man, cousin. It’s not my crown you crave, it’s my power… Very well, each to his own potion. What would you have me sign?”
“You can start with this right here.” Warwick nodded to a scrivener who brought him a document.
Edward glanced down. “Aah… so you wish to be made Chief Justice of Wales? I had no idea, cousin,” he said amiably, bending his head to sign.
~*~
The news that Edward was a prisoner ran like wildfire through the land and shocked the people. They loved Warwick, but Edward was their king. London teetered on the verge of mob violence and Meg’s husband, Charles of Burgundy, threatened the city with dire consequences if it deserted his brother-in-law.
Warwick and George captured Bess’s father and brother, Earl Rivers and John Woodville, and beheaded them outside the walls of Coventry. Almost in unison people all over England took advantage of the breakdown of order to settle old scores, and a renegade branch of the Neville family stirred up a Lancastrian uprising along the Scots border. John in Northumberland refused to lift a finger to help his brothers, and Warwick could raise no troops. The men of England would not answer his call while their king was captive. The Kingmaker had no choice. He released Edward. Only then was the rebellion on the border crushed.
While Edward returned to London in a splendid royal procession, Warwick and George retired to Middleham, and Archbishop Neville sped to his manor of the Moor in Hertfordshire, so named for the exotic influences it reflected, built as it was in Saracen fashion with slender pointed arches, filigreed stonework, and elaborate fountains and gardens. There he was met by his sister’s husband, John de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
“What now?” demanded Oxford, his back to the roaring fire. The misty September day held a chill and he was still cold from his rough sea voyage back from Calais. He poured a cup of hot spiced wine from a flagon on the table and downed a gulp.
The Archbishop regarded his Lancastrian ally. His brother by marriage was fit, dark-haired, rugged and likeable, but a bit too stubborn for his own good, and though he was family, he’d been an enemy for most of his life. Oxford’s father had fought for Lancaster at Towton, accepted Edward on his accession, but remained Lancastrian at heart. Eventually he was executed for treason, along with his eldest son. Many disbelieved the charge of treason, however, for the son was tortured until he implicated his father, and their judge was the brutal Tiptoft who denied them a public trial. There was no appeal from Tiptoft’s court, and father and son were executed on the same day; the father on the block wet with his son’s blood. The Earl’s wife was thrown into prison for three months, but his nineteen-year-old heir, John de Vere, was allowed to inherit his title and estates. Soon afterwards, young John, the new Earl of Oxford, got into a fight with another lord and he himself was brought before Tiptoft, who condemned him to have his right arm severed at the elbow. Fortunately for young Oxford, Edward commuted the sentence. Oxford had turned against York only recently, when he himself was arrested and thrust into the Tower.
Aye, Oxford had cause to hate Edward, and his imprisonment had further embittered him. After his release from the Tower, he’d come to Warwick to express his undying enmity for Edward and to declare that he would never again submit to the House of York. But the penalty for treason was death—a sobering consideration for any man. Taken to the gallows, a traitor was hanged, cut down while alive, then castrated and disembowelled while he still brea
thed.
Imprisonment was a lesser punishment, but many a prisoner had reason enough to wish he were dead. If a man were lucky enough to escape England, to be in exile was to be a pauper, and life was harsh, uncertain, dependent on the charity of strangers. It was said that the king’s Lancastrian brother-in-law, the Duke of Exeter, had been found barefoot and in rags, forced to beg his bread until he was recognised and taken to Louis of France. And Louis was not known for generosity. Those who had seen Exeter said his clothes were near threadbare and his room in Louis’s palace was a miserable, cramped, windowless chamber.
For the first time in his life, Archbishop Neville was glad to be a cleric. Clerics were not treated as harshly as the lay, and rarely was the death penalty invoked, even for treason. If he’d had his wish, he’d have been a scholar, married, had a family. But he was a younger son with no inheritance of his own, and scholars earned no bread. He’d have had to become a knight, like John, and seek glory in blood. That was hard enough for John. Sickened by the slaughter, John vomited after battle. It was why he always directed the fighting from a mounted position at the rear of his army, though he claimed he could better observe the battle this way. No one but John’s squire and he himself, John’s confessor, knew his shameful secret.
Aye, better to find glory in the church, where beds were warm, food was hot, and women were plentiful. He’d be glad enough for reconciliation when it came, as it was sure to do. Beneath the King and Kingmaker’s enmity ran bonds of affection, and shared memories, too deep to be severed. The prospect of death and exile seemed to hold little fear for Oxford, but no cause was worth such sacrifice, and no sensible man would willingly embrace such a fate. Rash as Oxford sometimes was, he was no fool.
Archbishop Neville tore his gaze from the beauty of the autumn day and looked back at Oxford. What now? he’d asked.
“We’ve lost this round,” the Archbishop replied, “but we’ve accomplished much. Two Woodvilles are dead, and Bella’s married George. We’ve taught Edward a lesson he’ll not soon forget…” he made the sign of the Cross, “and he’ll come to terms with us to avert the calamity of civil war.”
Oxford stared at him thunder-struck. “This round?” His rosy cheeks turned a shade of beet. He slammed down his goblet, splashing ruby wine over the table. “By Christ’s holy wounds, this is no game! In case you missed it, George, Towton was the calamity: forty thousand dead, the bloodiest battle on English soil—the result of York reaching for a throne that had belonged to Lancaster for fifty years! We came to terms with the Yorkists and it cost my father and brother their lives! I came to terms with Edward, and what did it avail me? I was arrested, taken to the Tower, put in irons…”
His knuckles whitened around the back of his chair. “I gained my freedom at the expense of a friend’s life. His only crime was to be heir to the earldom of Devon and to hate the queen and Tiptoft as much as the rest of us. He died because the man who judged him was Edward’s friend and wanted his earldom…” In a hoarse whisper, he added, “And there was no mercy. He died a traitor’s death.”
He took a moment to compose himself. Then he closed the space between them and snatched his gauntlets from the sideboard. “Edward owes me a blood debt for murdering my family. I’ll go to France now, but when I return it’ll be with an army at my back. I don’t play games like you Nevilles. Not until the House of York is ground to dust beneath the heel of my boot will I rest. And that, George, is a vow—something I hope even you understand.”
He was gone.
A gust of wind bore a drift of dead leaves past the window with a rustling cadence. For some inexplicable reason George Neville thought of the sighing of lost souls swept by the Fates to their doom. He gave a shudder. Clutching his golden crucifix, he went into his private chapel to pray.
~*~
Despite the queen’s vengeful urgings, Edward made an accommodation with George and Warwick for the peace of the realm. On Christmas Day, as a soft snow fell, they attended a feast of forgiveness at Westminster and agreed to forget their past differences. Edward ushered in the new year of 1470 with a general pardon for all those guilty of taking arms against him.
Though God had finally sent Richard the reconciliation for which he’d prayed, nothing changed. He had been unable to see either Anne or John. The usual border troubles kept John busy in the North, and Warwick kept Anne in Middleham, far from court, and far from him. Even her letters had stopped. Richard had written her almost daily for weeks, and she hadn’t answered. Either her father intercepted their mail or he’d commanded her to stop writing, and she had complied, as she must. Richard knew Warwick was punishing him. You’re either for me or against me, he had said. Richard feared he’d never be forgiven for choosing Edward, yet whenever he thought back to their confrontation, he remembered that Warwick’s sharp, accusing eyes had softened at the end, and that he had called him “son.” Hope would sweep his breast. Then, as crocuses broke through the March snows, everything changed.
In Wales, Richard read a letter from Edward. “Sweet Christ!” he exclaimed. Percival bolted upright and Rob Percy nearly dropped the hand of cards he was dealing to his friends, Tom Parr, Tom Harrington, and Richard’s squire, John Milewater. Richard waved the letter. “Warwick’s mounted another rebellion!”
The shock brought Rob and the others to their feet.
“There’s more… As Constable of England, Tiptoft has the power to try cases without a jury.” He hesitated, forced himself to go on. “Tiptoft once spoke of a custom he had observed in Rhodes where Turkish prisoners were impaled alive— He caught twenty-three of Warwick’s men in a sea battle and drove stakes through their buttocks and out their mouths. They’re calling him the Butcher of England.”
The two Toms blanched; Milewater’s mouth dropped open. Rob moved to the table, splashed himself a drink, and downed it with a trembling hand.
“What of George and Warwick?” Rob asked, his goblet shaking visibly.
“They fled to Calais. Edward has proclaimed them traitors.”
Richard took a moment to compose himself. “Edward is marching north in pursuit of Redesdale. We are to join him.”
A tense silence enveloped the room. Six months had passed since Warwick’s rebellion and much had been accomplished to settle the land—now this! Richard hurled his goblet against the wall, startling Rob and the servants. Percival leapt to his feet with a low growl. Richard turned his back, clutched the cold stone mantle of the empty fireplace, and dropped his head.
~ * * * ~
Chapter 24
“When now we rode upon this fatal quest
Of honour, where no honour can be gain’d.”
In his tent high on the Cleveland Hills of north Yorkshire, wrapped in a fur-lined mantle, John sat on a campstool and poured himself a tankard of hot ale. Around him were gathered Lord Cromwell and two trusted knights, Sir Marmaduke Constable and Sir Thomas Harrington. His faithful squire George Gower hovered nearby, while old Rufus watched him from a corner. Two days earlier, on Ash Wednesday, John had successfully persuaded Robin of Redesdale—his cousin Sir William Conyers, as it had indeed turned out to be—to put down his arms and seek the king’s pardon.
We should be celebrating, John thought, so why aren’t we? A strange dull ache lodged in his stomach and around his heart, and try as he might, he couldn’t rid himself of it. He knew the others felt the same; no one had made an effort at conversation. Nor did it help their mood that the March night was bitter cold and foggy. The fog seeped in, misting hands and feet, dimming the light from the lantern, and throwing an eeriness over the dark that, like a sorcerer’s spell, cast gloom and conjured foreboding.
How he hated fog!
Hated it, aye—and feared it, too, if the truth be known. Spawned by dread of dying in battle, his dreams took on all the appalling terrors his unconscious mind could devise and cloaked them in fog. Always he was alone in the fog; so terribly alone. The fog would swirl and thicken around his feet and rise to engulf hi
m till he could no longer see or move. Cold and damp, it clung to him until it froze his heart and became a shroud that stopped his breath and stifled his screams. Out of the mist a shadow would appear and dissolve into the hilt of a sword, and then—
He always awakened in a panicky sweat.
He heaved a sigh. He longed for spring when frost gave way to dew. Winter had lingered long enough this year. It was already the twenty-fourth day of March, with no sign of spring anywhere. No sign of peace…
He picked up his tankard.
John’s friends watched as he touched the tankard to his lips and set it back down on the rough plank table without drinking. They knew he was thinking of Lord Latimer’s young son, Henry Neville, and Sir John Conyer’s son, and Greystoke’s son, and many other sons of kinsmen and friends who had died fighting against him, and for whose deaths he held himself responsible.
Marmaduke Constable said gently, “Remember, John, it was their decision to go against the King.”
“Aye,” John replied, staring at the tankard in his hand. After a moment, he raised it in a toast. “To the memory of the brave we loved.”
A chorus of murmurs echoed his words.
He drank thoughtfully and rested his tankard on the table. “I fear I’m getting old. Lately every battle feels like a loss, though it be a victory.” Indeed, it seemed he could no longer distinguish between triumph and disaster, between friend and foe. He looked up with tired eyes and his glance fell on his sword, lying on his pallet. He reached over, picked it up, held it to the lantern. He turned it this way and that, watched its shadow shrink, enlarge, and move across the canvas of the tent.