Inevitably this proved impossible and within minutes a smug-faced Sir Gerald had accosted me, though thankfully he was no longer in the company of the York merchant. ‘Hilda has given her consent to the marriage, you know,’ he told me in a voice full of suppressed glee. ‘It is time she was married and it will be a comfortable billet. Exeley is the richest merchant in York and his house is one of the largest and most luxurious in the city. She will not miss the plush furnishings of the York palaces at all.’
‘I do not believe she has given her consent to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather,’ I responded, gritting my teeth to prevent my knuckles connecting with his jaw.
Gerald laughed. ‘Perhaps you do not know her as well as you think, Cuthbert. There is a mercenary streak in my little sister – and a touch of pride. She wishes to preserve the family honour. She would rather marry money than allow our lands to be sold and she would rather marry a true-born older man than the bastard son of a peasant.’
I had noticed that under his short black cutaway doublet Sir Gerald was wearing hose of the new style, with a codpiece flap at the fork. I moved in close, as if to embrace him warmly and instead grabbed at the flap and connected hard, squeezing the soft flesh of his private parts. ‘Now I know you are lying!’ I growled in his ear. ‘And I will prove it.’ Then I stepped back, mild-mannered, as if nothing untoward had happened.
Gerald’s face slowly returned from puce back to its usual pink. He was not smiling now. ‘You filthy, misbegotten prick-feeler – you will find no proof, if you even live long enough to try.’
When I leaned in close again I was gratified to see him back off hastily. People around us were beginning to notice trouble brewing and I once more resisted the urge to punch him on the nose. ‘I believe that constitutes a threat to my life,’ I hissed through smiling lips. ‘Your liege lord of Westmorland might be interested to hear of that, but I owe a debt of gratitude to the woman we are gathered here to honour so I will refrain from throwing down the gauntlet. I will ask Hilda myself, and if she confirms her consent to marry Master Exeley then I will have to accept her word but if she does not I give you notice that I will match the merchant’s bride price and marry her myself.’
‘Ha! You will never be able to match Exeley’s bride price and Hilda will never marry a baseborn nobody – not while I live.’
So confident did he sound of this that I began to question my own belief in Hilda’s opinions about my birth. The subject of marriage had never been broached between us. I did not even know whether she had ever given any thought to the possibility, although it had been my unspoken aim ever since I had taught her to shoot an arrow as a girl of thirteen. If the truth were known, I had never considered marriage to any other woman and the thought of her marrying anyone else, let alone an old greybeard however rich, was anathema.
Yet when Lady Joan’s funeral was over and we set out on the first leg of our journey to Fotheringhay, Cicely was without Hilda and so, to my everlasting distress, was I. I had asked her directly if she was willing to marry Master Exeley: she had locked her deep-brown eyes with mine and said yes.
‘He may be an older man than I expected to have, Cuddy, but he is not a bad man,’ she insisted. ‘Our ancestors have been lords of Copley for three hundred years and before he died, my father told me that he relied on me to marry well enough to protect the manor from Gerald’s spendthrift ways. Master Exeley will keep my wastrel brother under control. I am only doing what my father bade me do.’
I longed to tell her that her brother was more than just a wastrel – he was also a scoundrel who maltreated women and did not fight fair – but I suspected she probably knew her brother as well as I did and so there would have been no point. Bonny, practical Hilda had always been a woman of her word and once she had given it there would be no changing her mind. I could not believe that she would have considered the stain of bastardy a bar to her marriage but I did not dare to ask her that question. As I marshalled Cicely’s escort for departure, I was forced to watch Hilda ride north beside her cruel and lecherous brother to what I considered an unbearable future. I felt the loss of hope for my own happiness like a missing limb. It was a pain which I feared would endure for the rest of my life.
14
Rouen, early April 1442
Cicely
Richard always insisted on formality and show at his official banquets. He firmly believed that authority was vested in those who demonstrated their worthiness in wealth and power and this was best done through feasts and largesse. Guests were expected to wear their richest finery and were placed strictly in order of rank, lesser knights and their ladies at the lower trestles, senior magnates and captains at the high tables, centered on the garlanded ducal board, where the great York silver salt cellar was prominently placed. Etiquette was rigid and there was little opportunity for casual conversation during the elaborate rituals of parading, carving, tasting and serving the scores of dishes placed during each course. The pantlers cut the trenchers of bread, the ewerers held the bowls for hand-washing and the naperers offered the napkin for drying them; each pair of high-table guests had a cup-bearer who held the shared hanap throughout the meal, retrieving it after his lord or lady had drunk and taking it to the butler for refilling. Between each course, consisting of up to a score of dishes, subtleties were paraded and there were entertainments in the centre of the hall; minstrelsy and mumming, tumbling and fooling, sometimes even a masque or dance in glorious costumes. Everyone was encouraged to eat and drink as much as they wished but it was to be orderly excess; any argument or rowdiness was fiercely controlled by the stewards and culprits were made well aware of Richard’s grave displeasure.
On the day Anne arrived from Calais, the flambeaux in their high wall sconces had been replaced three times before I was able to bear her away from the feast to my solar to enjoy some relaxed female gossip and exchange of news, and even then I was obliged to invite several other wives of senior barons and captains to join us. Unfortunately one of them was Lady Talbot, wife of the veteran Royal Marshall, Lord Talbot, upon whom Richard relied heavily for military advice.
‘You must be tired, your grace,’ this lady said, giving me a pungent whiff of her wine-sour breath as she bent to place an extra cushion at my back. ‘It is only a week until your lying-in is it not?’
Lady Talbot had been born Margaret Beauchamp, the eldest daughter of King Henry V’s famous general the late Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Her much younger half-brother Henry, the present Earl of Warwick, had been educated beside his namesake King Henry VI and was one of his closest friends, consequently all the Beauchamps had to be carefully handled.
I smiled my thanks and eased the unnecessary cushion away as soon as her back was turned. ‘Thank you, Lady Talbot. Yes, I will take to my lying-in chamber in a week’s time, which is why my sister has kindly come to be with me.’ In accordance with Richard’s strict instructions I tended to restrict my remarks to the banal and casual in this lady’s presence, knowing her to be an inveterate gossip.
‘And on my journey I collected an expert nurse to care for Cicely’s baby when it comes,’ said Anne cheerfully. ‘She is a wonderful Frenchwoman with a great reputation for bringing children successfully through their vulnerable early months.’ By talking babies my sister thought she was avoiding contentious subjects but found she was wrong.
Lady Talbot was astounded. ‘A Frenchwoman! Is that wise?’
The other ladies had taken up their embroidery but I felt too weary to thread a needle and wondered how soon I could suggest retiring. However, I could not resist challenging the Talbot woman’s implied criticism.
‘What could be considered unwise about it?’ I asked. ‘We have to live alongside the French and so surely it is sensible to expose our children to the language at an early age. Besides, this woman is a skilled maternity nurse who has proved her worth.’
Lady Talbot sniffed, rather offensively I thought. ‘I see little evidence of the French livin
g harmoniously alongside the English. We are their masters and conquerors but few of them show any sign of accepting that situation. How many of them take the trouble to learn English, for example? In my opinion we would all sleep easier in our beds if we kept the French outside the castle walls.’
Anne took up the cudgel for me. ‘This nurse came highly recommended by our sister-in-law Lady Isabel, the Duke of York’s sister.’
As well as being Richard’s elder sister, Isabel was also married to Anne’s husband’s half-brother Henry Bourchier, Comte de Eu, presently proving a very effective Captain in Picardy, the most volatile of Normandy’s borders. He was also half-French, a fact which seemed to have escaped Lady Talbot’s attention.
‘Isabel’s five healthy sons must surely be held to demonstrate the woman’s nursery skills,’ I suggested.
‘And, of course, your grace is naturally hoping for an heir yourself this time,’ gushed Lady Talbot, pursuing her theme regardless. ‘But I am sure any English nurse could rear him just as well. I have a pensioner in my own household whom I would have been delighted to recommend.’
‘Thank you, Lady Talbot, I will bear that in mind,’ I said, adding firmly, ‘but meanwhile Isabel’s French nurse is already settling in.’
The conversation turned to other topics and I forced myself to take up my needle in order to stay alert. The diplomatic world was so small and gossip travelled surprisingly quickly between Rouen and London. Margaret Talbot’s sister Eleanor was married to Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Mortain, another close confidant of the king, and I knew that any incautious remark of mine would be relayed back to the royal court as fast as a courier could cross the Channel. Although Richard relished his lieutenancy in France, especially the military success he had achieved with Lord Talbot’s skilful generalship, he worried constantly about what was going on during his absence from the English court, where the king was now twenty years of age but showing little sign of exerting his authority in the council. The Beaufort faction irritated Richard most because it encouraged the king’s peace-loving attitude towards both the war and his uncle Charles de Valois, who also called himself King of France. On occasions like this I found myself treading a hazardous path, trying to demonstrate loyalty to my husband whilst attempting to keep the door open for reconciliation between Richard and the my mother’s Beaufort relatives. It did not help that the head of that family, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, was at present busy squandering vast amounts of Treasury funds on a futile campaign to oust the French from Aquitaine while Richard had received no royal finance to defend Normandy.
I succeeded in steering away from that topic for the next half hour, after which I ostentatiously stifled a yawn and gratefully accepted Anne’s speedy suggestion that I should be encouraged to seek my bed. The captains’ wives dutifully packed away their needlework and took their leave. Anne then unceremoniously shooed my young lady companions out of the room and told them to wait until I called them to help me to bed.
‘Now, Cicely,’ she said, putting on a mother-hen face and bringing a cushioned stool up to my chair, ‘I have been waiting to talk to you about this ever since the subject was raised earlier in the day. You cannot really believe that God will not grant you a son because you have sinned in some way that He has not revealed to you. I think that either you have another reason or else your sin is so heinous that you do not dare to tell us, and of the two alternatives I favour the first.’
When Anne decided to tackle a subject she went straight to the point and took me completely by surprise. For an incautious instant I considered taking her into my confidence about John Neville, but the years of carefully guarded discretion had become ingrained habit and I took a deep breath before responding. ‘My belief that God will not grant me a son is based on more than wild surmise, Anne,’ I said.
‘Well I know that you lost the last one but …’
‘He was not the first son I lost, Anne. There was another, years ago, at the beginning …’ I found my voice catching and tears sprang unbidden to my eyes so that I had to stop. ‘Richard knows – he was there – I do not know how he still has faith in me.’
‘He has faith in God, which you clearly do not,’ Anne said gently. ‘Tell me what happened?’
Once I had started, the whole sad story came pouring out and Anne, God bless her, just listened without interrupting.
‘After our marriage Richard wanted to show me all his estates and introduce me to his people so we travelled the length and breadth of England and into the Welsh marches. And then there were the Irish lordships in Ulster. The crossing to Ireland was rough and I was pregnant, six months or more into my time. I was sick, so sick. Have you ever suffered from mal de mer, Anne? It is like plunging into Purgatory. My stomach heaved so much I thought I would bring the child up through my throat.’
I could feel big, slow tears begin to slide down my face as the memory of that dreadful voyage surfaced in my mind.
‘The retching came in spasms, violent paroxysms which held me in a deadly grip, they were unrelenting and gradually dislodged the baby in my womb. We prayed so hard, Anne, while the ship tossed and creaked like a living thing. Well, Richard prayed while I vomited but it was all to no avail. My retching gave way to violent cramps and you can imagine the rest. It was a boy. The baby gasped a few breaths but there was no priest to baptize him and he never had a name. They buried him at sea – a little lost son of York. And last year, poor Henry – my beautiful, fated Henry. When he arrived he was perfect, even though he had been rattled and bumped all the way up to Raby for my mother’s funeral and all the way back. I thanked God. Richard was ecstatic, the bells rang for days at Fotheringhay. Within a week though, the bells had changed to a death knell. I do not know why he died. Why does a baby fail to suckle, go all limp and simply stop breathing? That was when I recognized the wrath of God.’
Seeing that I was becoming very distressed, Anne took my hands in hers. ‘But you had little Annie between those two lost boys, Cicely, the healthy, bonny child I saw in the nursery this afternoon. And look at you now!’ She gestured at my very round belly. ‘You can hardly consider yourself barren!’
‘I know, I know. I was so happy when I discovered I was with child. I did not expect it because Richard only came back from campaigning on a flying visit last August. It was baking hot in the castle and he could see I was wilting so he ordered tents to be erected in the river meadow at the Abbey of Saint Catherine. We dined in the open air, the two of us on the bank of the river, and when it got dark the sky was full of falling stars. We lay on cushions gazing up at it. I had never seen this miracle before but Richard said it happened every year and called them celestial embers. It was beautiful. This baby was conceived under a shower of Heavenly brilliance and so at first I was full of optimism, but as the birth draws nearer I have become terrified again. Perhaps it was not celestial embers but God’s wrath descending.’ I stumbled to a halt and gazed at Anne, blinking away the tears that continued to brim in my eyes.
‘You think I cannot I understand your fear, Cicely, but you are wrong. You were just a baby when I was betrothed to Humphrey at the age of nine and went to live at Stafford, and the years since have set us apart. Listen: I was fourteen and Humphrey was sixteen when we were bedded and told that our duty was to get children, but no one told us how they were conceived. For two years we thought that kissing was enough and when we discovered the truth we were too embarrassed to actually perform what was required of us. Two more years passed before we stopped being just friends, which we had been from the start. After that, like you, I had a slipped pregnancy, then a beautiful little boy that died and then another. But we did not despair. Finally, after nine years of marriage we produced little Humphrey and then Henry and John – three healthy boys in quick succession, followed by Annette, as we call her. Then our troubles started again – Margaret only lived a few months and George and William barely breathed at all, one after another. I thought I would have to be content with four healthy
children until, as you know, Joan arrived two years ago and then Catherine last year. So now we have three boys and three girls who, God willing, will all grow and prosper. We can never be sure, of course. But you are not alone, Cicely! God works his wonders for some of us and for others there are no miracles of birth at all. You already have a healthy child and you must believe that the one you are carrying now will be another – perhaps the son you crave, perhaps not, but you should remember that we Nevilles are prolific breeders. Look at our mother – fifteen children in twenty years and only two of them did not live to adulthood. You may think now that you have failed but, in truth, you have probably hardly begun.’
She reached out and gave me a clumsy hug, laughing as she did so. ‘See, you are so near your time that I can hardly reach around you! This will be a healthy baby, whether male or female, and you will go on to have many more, I am certain. Until one day you will be only too glad to say “No more! I have done my share of producing sons and daughters for the dynasty of York.” Mark my words and have faith.’
I felt my spirits rise as they had not done in months, comforted by her laughter and positivity. ‘Oh, Anne! I am so glad you have come. You will stay to see me through this, won’t you?’
‘I am not going anywhere, little sister. After the midwife, I want to be the first to set eyes on the next Duke of York!’
15
Rouen Castle, 28th April 1442
Cuthbert
When he was not campaigning, Richard practiced his arms skills daily. These fights and jousts were nominally friendly, but they were always ruthlessly competitive. Sometimes he challenged one of his retainers, a young knight or squire whose mettle he wished to test, but most frequently he chose me to cross swords with or ride against in the lists, I think because we were well matched. On occasion these practice bouts between us had lasted up to two hours, even in full armour. Then, at the St George’s Day tournament, I had been hailed the champion and I was fiercely proud of this recognition of my knightly prowess and, importantly, much boosted financially by the prize purse that went with it. However, I was not surprised when, only five days later, Richard chose to challenge me at the practice ground.
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