Red Rose, White Rose

by Joanna Hickson

  ‘Where are we?’ I glanced around. The landscape was deserted, a wide expanse of field and furrow on either side of the road. Only the occasional windmill relieved the flat line of the horizon, sails idle in the still air.

  ‘On Willoughby land,’ replied Cuthbert. ‘They call this county Kyme, I believe.’

  I frowned at him. ‘Are the men ready for trouble, Cuddy?’

  He grinned reassuringly at Anne who was looking scared. ‘Have no fear. This is why we travel with such a large force. We are ready.’

  Pikemen had already formed protective flanks to either side of us and our archers had unslung their bows and drawn arrows from their quivers. White rose pennants hung limply from the lances of their captains and tense faces were turned to the south-west. The scouts galloped back and drew rein.

  ‘They fly the wheatear, my lady – the badge of Exeter – but I could not make out whether the duke is with them.’

  Anne gave a small cry, swiftly stifled behind her hand. Cuthbert and I exchanged glances but no one spoke. As the cloud of dust grew closer we could see many fluttering pennants of Lancastrian blue and white but on the main standard carried behind the leading horseman was the wheatear, gold on green. The column did not skirt the field of rippling barley in its path but galloped straight across it, trampling the ripe crop. It was an act of wanton destruction which instantly confirmed to me the identity of the leader, his helmet crested with a fox’s tail. This was the man who had once been Richard’s ward and now liked to be called The Fox – Harry Holland, Duke of Exeter.

  The cavalcade halted. ‘Greetings, mother-in-law!’ he shouted above the noise of stamping hooves and jingling harness. He was wearing half-armour; a padded gambeson, a burnished breastplate and greaves strapped to his mailed thighs. His booted feet were furnished with huge gilded spurs. A short blue and white mantle hung from his shoulders and his great warhorse was caparisoned in the same heraldic colours, blue and white plumes nodding from the steel chamfron which covered its face. The red rose featured on the badge of each of his retainers.

  Cuthbert rode up beside us, signalling to several squires to follow him. ‘God give you good day, your grace,’ he called, bowing punctiliously and preserving a careful distance between him and the young duke. ‘Is there urgent news that you ride so fast and trample the crops?’

  ‘Crops?’ Harry glanced vaguely around him. ‘No news but my quest is urgent. I come to collect my wife.’

  ‘Your wife?’ echoed Cuthbert, astounded. ‘Here? Now? In the middle of a field?’

  ‘Why not? I heard she was at Tattershall and have ridden from Ampthill to carry her home.’

  I heard Anne’s gasp of alarm behind me and I turned to speak to her. ‘Come forward, Anne, and greet your husband.’

  Reluctantly she urged her palfrey a few steps forward and whispered words of greeting which Harry ignored.

  ‘This is a strange meeting place, my lord duke,’ I said. ‘We lodge in Lincoln tonight. I wonder you did not meet us there.’

  Harry gestured impatiently. ‘Too far. I cannot be away from Ampthill for so long.’ For the first time his attention swivelled briefly to Anne and he grimaced. ‘She does not get any better looking, does she? Pity she does not favour you, duchess. Only in looks of course; I would not want a wife with a brain.’

  I saw the blood rush to Anne’s cheeks and tears brim in her eyes. ‘Do not weep,’ I hissed fiercely. ‘That is what he wants!’ More loudly I called, ‘I am surprised you confess to preferring brainless company, my lord of Exeter. You know the maxim – birds of a feather flock together.’

  Harry’s voice in reply was sharp with suppressed anger. ‘I do not call a wife company, Mother-in-law. Any more than I would call a brood mare company.’ He kicked his horse forward until it was alongside Anne’s. ‘She comes of good breeding stock and her dower is good so I will take her.’

  He would have laid his hand on Anne’s rein but Cuthbert forestalled him, clamping his gauntleted fist around the young man’s wrist. ‘Her grace has not granted permission,’ he growled. His horse jostled Harry’s, which was mettlesome and nervous and rose in a half-rear, nearly unseating its rider.

  With his free hand Harry jagged down on the bit, swearing at his mount and then at Cuthbert. ‘Saint Michael’s bones! Remove your hand, bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I do not need to ask permission for my wife to accompany me. She is mine and I will have her.’ He wrenched his arm from Cuthbert’s grip and waved it in a signal to his men who began to fan out, confronting the two flanks of the York force. Harry yanked on the reins to back his stallion off and it flicked its tail and tossed its head, trying to escape the cruel bite of the bit. ‘I will retire a few yards to give you time to consider.’ He sneered at Anne. ‘Say your farewells, madam, for make no mistake, you are coming with me.’

  Cuthbert and I closed our horses protectively around Anne’s but I knew there was really little point. Harry’s methods may be violent and his manners uncouth but he was indisputably in the right. He had married Anne, she was of legal age and by law she was his property. Short of a miracle endowing her graceless husband with sudden compassion, she would have to go with him.

  ‘I do not want to go, Mother,’ she whispered in panic. ‘I am not ready. I will die of misery.’ Her eyes were wide with fear.

  I gazed at her sorrowfully and shook my head. ‘I am sorry, Anne; there is no help for it. It is scandalous but it is not a situation we can dispute without putting these men’s lives at risk.’ I gestured towards the alert archers and pikemen in their murrey and blue livery with the white rose badges. They were all sweating profusely in the turgid heat but their weapons were at the ready, their muscles taut.

  ‘We can fight them off,’ Cuthbert said, surveying the opposition. ‘Exeter’s men may wear the red rose but they are mercenaries. They will not fight if it comes to a real battle. Our men are loyal retainers. We can trust them to make a strong stand.’

  ‘Please, Mother, you must protect me,’ Anne begged in a terrified moan. ‘I cannot go with him.’

  I yearned to do as she asked but I would not risk the lives of men when I knew the law to be on Harry’s side. ‘Behave sensibly, Anne, as I know you can,’ I urged her. ‘You are Harry’s wife. You cannot allow these men to risk injury or worse protecting you from the very man to whom you legally belong. The circumstances may not be ideal and you may not be ready but it is your duty to obey your husband. He orders you to come. You have no choice.’

  ‘If my lord father were here he would prevent it,’ declared Anne in desperation. ‘He would not be dictated to by Harry of Exeter!’

  I could have said that it was her father’s fault she was in this position in the first place but I did not. ‘Perhaps if your lord father were here Harry would not have dared to make his move,’ I said with all the patience I could muster. ‘But he is not and you must be brave.’

  I instinctively felt that only my strong will was keeping Anne from breaking down. Any sympathy on my part would tip her into an exhibition of wailing weakness which I knew Harry would make her live to regret. Much though I hated this marriage, there was no denying it now. Whatever the future held for Anne it was inextricably bound up with that of her turbulent husband. Sooner or later she would have to accept that.

  I handed her the kerchief from my sleeve and as I did so an idea occurred to me. ‘You will have to go, Anne, but perhaps you will not have to go alone.’ As she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose I beckoned to Alys, who sat her palfrey quietly nearby. ‘It is not an easy task I am about to ask of you, Alys,’ I said, ‘but I feel certain you are equal to it. If you go with Anne it will be easier for her. I will inform your father of your whereabouts and when Anne is more settled we will arrange for you to travel back to Fotheringhay. After all it is not so far from Ampthill.’

  The light of adventure kindled in Alys’s eyes. She was a tall, spirited girl of sixteen with a sweet oval face and a strong sense of fun; yet she was not easily brow-beaten and
would make a formidable ally for Anne. I knew Harry would not dare to mistreat Alys because if he did he would have to answer to her father, my redoubtable brother Will, who in these days of factions and affinities somehow managed to stay friendly both with Richard and the king. Widely liked and held in high esteem by friend and foe, Lord Fauconberg was not a man to cross and Harry of Exeter would know this.

  ‘Of course I will go with you, Anne,’ she said, kneeing her mount close to her friend’s. ‘If we are together we can pretend it is a game. Come – it will not be so bad.’

  ‘It may seem like a game to you,’ said Anne bitterly, ‘but you have only to go to his board, not to his bed. Oh but I do thank you, Alys. If I must go, your company might just make it bearable.’

  I saw Anne’s expression change as she turned to me and it was immediately clear that any warmth that might have blossomed between us in the last half hour had now completely vanished. Her old wariness had deepened into open hostility and she almost spat her next words at me. ‘For a minute back there I stupidly thought that you cared for me, lady mother, but I see now that I was wrong. Like all the rest of your children I know only too well that you care only for Edward. Edmund, Elizabeth, Meg, George and now little Dickon too, I suppose – we all ask in vain for your affection but you think only of Edward. And the worst of it is that Edward does not care.’

  Hearing this, my face must have twitched with pain for she drove her point mercilessly home. ‘You did not know that, did you? It is true though. He does not seek love because he knows he can charm whoever he wishes. The only person he will ever love is the one who denies him and that will never be you, for you can deny him nothing.’

  Having spat her poison, Anne fell silent; only occasional gasps and hiccoughs escaped her as she fought for self-control. Sadly I leaned forward, took back the kerchief and wiped the traces of tears from her cheeks. Then I gently kissed where I had wiped. ‘There, keep hold of that anger, Anne, and let those be the last tears you shed, or you might find that Harry can be even more unkind to you than you have just been to me. I am sorry we do not part friends but at least for a time you will have Alys.’ I turned to the other girl and forced a smile. ‘I am very grateful to you, Niece, for agreeing to stand by Anne. I know you will be a great comfort to her. And now I think the time has come.’

  I turned my horse and rode towards the Exeter lines; behind me I felt rather than saw Cuthbert trotting at my horse’s tail. Harry had removed his helmet and was refreshing himself with wine from a jewelled cup poured for him by a hovering squire. Having drained the cup he tossed it away, forcing the squire to grovel dangerously among the horses’ hooves to retrieve it.

  ‘I trust you recognize my right, Duchess,’ Harry called. His wiry red hair was sweat-soaked and clung to his head, giving him an imp-like appearance.

  ‘The lady Anne is preparing to accompany you, my lord,’ I responded coolly. ‘But it is not fitting that a lady of rank should travel unsupported by someone of her own sex, so my niece Lady Alys Fauconberg will bear her company until other arrangements can be made.’

  I could see that Harry was giving careful thought to the implications of this. He glowered and chewed his lip for a while but eventually nodded. ‘So be it. I hope both ladies are prepared to ride hard. We have much ground to cover today.’

  ‘They are not mercenaries,’ I reminded him icily. ‘The qualities you might prize in a wife surely do not include an aptitude for marathons in the saddle.’

  Harry gave a loud shout of laughter. ‘Duchess, I prize nothing about my wife save her dowry and her fertility. For the sake of the latter, I will not push her until she drops.’

  ‘Good,’ I said tersely. ‘You will have to negotiate with the duke over the dowry. I will have the ladies’ baggage sent to Ampthill, if that is where you will be?’

  He shrugged. ‘I will remain at Ampthill until I am satisfied that it is secure. After that you will have to look for your daughter where you can find her. I have not yet decided which of my castles to make my main home.’

  ‘Perhaps Anne might help you with that,’ I suggested in a last-minute effort on her behalf. ‘Talk to her, ask her opinion. You will find her a sweet and pliant wife if you are kind to her.’

  Harry made a juvenile face and a rude noise. ‘Pah! She can do what she likes as long as she breeds me a son. Otherwise she is merely a nuisance and will be treated as such.’ At this he drove his spurs into his stallion’s sides, making it snort and leap forward, bearing down on the two girls, rounding them up like a pair of heifers. ‘Come! We leave now. Captain, we have what we came for. Let us march!’

  Anne rode past me without a word. Her round face looked like a squashed cushion and she sat her palfrey like a sack of meal, her head drooping and her hands gripping the reins as if they were her last hold on reality. ‘God be with you, Anne,’ I whispered, tears stinging my eyelids. I felt as if I had failed my daughter, failed my husband and, if what Anne had told me was true, failed to inspire love in my eldest son. The wheatear standard began to stream out as the Exeter cavalcade wheeled past our stationary column and back across the field, trampling the remainder of the crop.

  28

  Conisbrough Castle & Nostell Priory, August

  Cicely

  As soon as we arrived I wished I had not agreed to host my brother and his newly married son and daughter-in-law at Conisbrough. The castle represented a bitter legacy for Richard as the place where he had been born and where his mother had died shortly afterwards of childbed fever and I had disliked the musty old pile the first time I visited it shortly after our wedding. The more comfortable and splendidly sited York stronghold of Sandal Magna, only twenty miles away near Wakefield, was greatly to be preferred.

  My wretched parting from Anne haunted me and my heart still ached from watching her ride away surrounded by Harry’s mercenaries. I brooded over whether I could have stopped him, whether I had let her go too easily and if I should have agreed to an attack on his men as Cuthbert had suggested. I longed for some word from her or from Alys but nothing came and instead I tried to distract myself arranging feasting and entertainments for the imminent wedding party. I was busy discussing menus with the steward and cook who had ridden over from Sandal Magna to oversee the ill-trained and inadequate staff available at Conisbrough when a servant hurried in with a letter. It was addressed to me in handwriting I recognized immediately, despite the passage of twenty years since I had last seen it on the note which had accompanied the unexpected gift of a palfrey during my wedding at Raby. It was from Sir John Neville.

  ‘Where is the courier who brought this?’ I asked the bearer, my heart suddenly hammering at my ribs.

  ‘Gone, your grace,’ the man responded, wringing his hands at the sharp tone of my enquiry. ‘I happened to be near the gatehouse and he threw the letter at me, said it was for you and galloped back under the portcullis as if he thought it might come hurtling down and prevent him leaving.’

  Noting the Brancepeth horned-bull impression on the wax seal, I thought it no wonder the man had fled. With a wave of dismissal to the servant and a muttered excuse to the steward and cook, I hurried to the privacy of the solar to read the letter.

  Your grace, it began without any pretence of further courtesy.

  Since you are in the vicinity I write to request a meeting with you as soon as possible. Forces are ranged against us so it will not be easy but there is a matter I must confide to you face to face concerning your nephew Sir Thomas Neville and his new wife. Come with your brother, Sir Cuthbert, to Nostell Priory as soon and as discretely as possible. I will await you there.

  It was signed as tersely as it had begun, John, Baron Neville.

  Receiving the letter at all was surprising but the signature intrigued me. Baron Neville was the title associated with the heir to the Westmorland earldom, which could only mean that young Jack, whom I remembered as a sturdy, over-mothered little boy and who should by now have been all of twenty-five, must have die
d before his time. Why had I not heard of this?

  It meant it was John and not Jack who had recently sworn an alliance with the Percy heir and was mustering a thousand-strong force with him at Spofforth Castle, only twenty miles from York. What could have disturbed John so much that he contemplated betraying that alliance by seeking a meeting with me, of all people? I read and re-read the letter but it revealed nothing of the man behind the words. What was he like now, I wondered? I remembered him vividly – could see his lean, sunburned face clearly in my mind. He must be over forty by now. Had that chiselled jaw blurred into soft jowls and broken veins and had those steely grey eyes sunk into wrinkled pouches? Could his long, lithe figure have become paunched and padded with advancing years? Did any spark remain of the passion that had ignited so wildly and irresistibly while the grebes danced and the myrtle cast it fragrant spell. There was only one way to find out. I sent a page to bring Cuthbert to my chamber.

  He scanned the letter swiftly and silently then stared at me solemnly for a few moments before suddenly grinning broadly. ‘When do we go?’ he asked.

  ‘You think I should, Cuddy?’ I was surprised, expecting him to offer some opposition.

  He laughed. ‘No, I do not, but I cannot think you will refuse. It is more likely that snow will fall tomorrow, when it is August.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I was half offended and half amused.

  ‘Dear Cis, as far as I know you have never revealed to anyone how you managed to escape from Aycliffe Tower but one thing I am sure of, you did not fight your way out with a sword. No, sharp wits and womanly charms are your weapons and I do not believe you will resist the temptation to find out if they still work on Sir John.’

  His analysis of the long-kept secret of my escape from Aycliffe was too close to the truth for comfort so I decided to ignore it. ‘Did you know he was now Baron Neville Cuddy? I wonder what happened to the heir they called Jack.’