Richard gave an impatient shake of the head. ‘It is too early to include him in our secret strategies. You know as well as I do that youths of his age are prone to uncontrolled urges.’
‘So you do not trust your own son?’ I heard my voice squeak with indignation. ‘Do you really think that if your secret strategies, as you call them, lead to you being arraigned for treason, that Edward would not be considered a traitor as well?’
‘I was not held responsible for my father’s treason.’
‘You were four years old when your father was executed, Richard! Edward is seventeen! If you expect him to risk his neck for you, you have to trust him – and you have to knight him.’
‘You go too far, Cicely!’ he stormed. ‘You have always favoured Edward too highly, considering he can do no wrong. It does not sit well with a mother to value one of her children above the others.’
Then, in Richard’s eyes, I added insult to injury. ‘I do not favour him any more than others do,’ I said, trying to keep my tone even. ‘Both Sir Richard Croft and your blue-eyed boy Dick of Warwick think that if Edward is to support you in battle then he should be knighted, which means he should be trusted. He is more than worthy.’
‘By all the saints, will you hold your tongue, my lady?’ Richard’s volatile temper flared further and he banged the table, overturning cups and spilling ale. ‘I will not be told what I should and should not do by my wife, any more than I will suffer under the illegal rule of a French harlot queen. Go back to your prayers and your embroidery and I will get on with ridding England of a powerless king and his adulterous shrew of a wife.’
My own temper was roused now and I pushed back my chair furiously and stood up. ‘You should do some serious praying yourself, my lord, before you find yourself kneeling at the block! I am sorry if I have offended you.’ My curtsy was as meagre and insincere as my apology. ‘I will take up my sewing as you bid me but only to embroider a jupon for my son to wear at his knighting.’
‘Do not dare to speak of this to Edward, Madam!’ Richard called after my departing back. If I ever closed a door behind me I would have slammed it but I left it to the duty chamberlain who shut it quietly, poker-faced.
I had no intention of obeying this last order but wondered how I might manage some private conversation with Edward. Not only did he train long and hard with the other young henchmen but he also took great interest in the manors and castles along the Welsh border which formed a substantial part of his earldom of March, riding out to them frequently to preside at moot courts and inspect the financial rolls prepared by his comptroller. As a result he was well known in the area and it was noticeable that the revenues from his manors, after a serious dip a few years ago, were improving rapidly, more so than those of his father. Directly after our row Richard left Ludlow for Hereford so I made a point of accosting Edward after mass and ascertaining his plans for the day.
He was heading for Wigmore Castle, the Mortimer stronghold which was the focal point of his Welsh border fief and the fifteen mile ride there and back would give me some much-needed exercize. I asked Cuthbert if he would arrange an escort and suggested that he and Hilda might accompany me. They had recently arrived back from Coverdale, having visited their manor to commission some extensive building work there. I knew they could be relied on to keep a discreet distance from Edward and me on the way out and provide pleasant company for the ride home.
Once away from Ludlow I managed to extract Edward from among his boisterous companions and take him out of earshot of the rest of the cavalcade. Just the sight of my son on horseback gave me a warm maternal glow. Prudently, in view of the constant threat of ambush, he was wearing half armour over a chainmail hauberk but his helmet was slung from a saddle hook and his head was bare, the morning sun shining off his bright hair. With his long body, even longer legs, he sat his warhorse in the timeless, easy fashion of the warrior class, straight-backed and taut-flanked, with one hand on his reins and the other resting on his hip. He rode at the jog, his supple frame moving with the pace of his steed, head high, expression alert, lips lightly parted over perfect white teeth in the sheer, insouciant pleasure of being alive.
‘You look happy, Edward,’ I remarked, relaxing into the loping stride my own palfrey took to keep up with his courser. ‘Do I take that to mean you are content with your lot?’
‘Content, my lady mother?’ His brow creased in surprise. ‘How can anyone be content with England in its present state? But I am confident that it will soon be resolved, one way or the other. York will either be trounced or triumphant and for a man of action that is an enticing prospect.’
‘But you do not know your father’s plans so how can you be so sanguine?’
Edward threw back his head and laughed. ‘Of course I know my father’s plans. He may think to keep me ignorant but I have my own information network and my own couriers who bring me letters. Why do you think I go so often to Wigmore Castle? My cousin Warwick writes to me there two or three times a week and all my retainers report to me regularly.’
‘All your retainers?’ I echoed, astonished. ‘Who are they?’
‘The lands around us are full of fighting men, my lady mother, and they all count themselves Mortimer supporters. The Earls of March have held their loyalty for centuries. I have had plenty of time. It has not been difficult to refresh their allegiance.’
My astonishment grew. ‘Plenty of time? You only turned seventeen in April, Edward. You are hardly an experienced liege-lord.’
‘I have been riding these hills and valleys since I was eight. I know them like the psalms in my psalter and their people know me like they know their field-strips. Boys become men at fourteen in these parts and to them I was no different.’
I reacted to this with a pious sniff. ‘I hope you have not been littering the villages with your by-blows,’ I said primly. I knew I sounded like an ancient aunt but I could not bear the thought of him wasting his beauty on slatternly goose girls.
Edward gave a whoop of delight. ‘There speaks the Rose of Raby – the one my Uncle Hal calls Proud Cis!’
I started to protest but was dazzled by his cheeky smile and twinkling grey eyes and experienced a sharp recall of myself at seventeen, overwhelmed by passion at Aycliffe Tower. My pride dissolved and laughter jerked into life in my belly, gradually spluttering up through my chest and out through my throat in a burst of mirth to match his. I could not remember the last time I had enjoyed myself so much.
‘Oh Edward, you are incorrigible! So like my father. He could always conjure me out of the grumps.’
‘That must be where my cousin Dick gets it from then. He is an ice-breaker. He can turn sour milk sweet in an instant. I swear men follow him just for the joy of his quips.’
‘He does not have your charm though, Edward.’ The few times I had been in Dick of Warwick’s company had not made me one of his admirers. I thought him clever and charismatic but could find no kindness in him.
‘Charm is for kings, not generals. Dick is the man I want beside me on the battlefield.’ Edward reined in his horse to a walk. His tone had grown suddenly serious.
‘You want on the battlefield,’ I echoed, slowing my palfrey’s trot. ‘I do not see your father putting you in a position of command.’
‘No, that is why I have chosen the Earl of Warwick to sponsor my knighthood. He is going to dub me as soon as he gets here. He understands, if my father does not, that I must be knighted if I am to take my rightful place at the forefront of any conflict with the Lancastrians.’
This conversation had taken an unexpected turn. It was suddenly apparent that both Richard and I had underestimated the maturity of our eldest son. He was not the uncontrolled youth Richard considered him to be, nor the swashbuckling young rake I admit I had briefly suspected him of being. Perhaps Richard had been misled by his experience with Harry of Exeter into believing all youths to be wild and undisciplined and I had indulged my own fancy that Edward was the reincarnation of my
dashingly charismatic but undeniably selfish father, when he was actually shrewder and more tactical than either of us had realized.
I remained silent and reflective for a minute, carefully analysing my thoughts before responding to his remarkable announcement. ‘Well, you do not need me to tell you, Edward, that your lord father will not approve of that arrangement, or to remind you that you are still under age and therefore subject to his command,’ I said. ‘Besides which you must know that he will be hurt and angered by what he will consider unforgivable disloyalty.’
Edward hung his head, though I was to discover that it was not in shame but in cogitation. It was his turn to pause our conversation and when he spoke again it was with intense gravity. ‘My father must know that I hold him in the highest esteem but while he commands the present, I am the future of York. Just because the law deems me a minor does not mean I should play a minor role in our confrontation with Lancaster. Warwick understands this, and also the position we have reached. He thinks his uncle, my father, has not thought his strategy through to its logical conclusion. It is no longer possible to hold the king’s advisers to blame for the parlous state of England because the king now listens only to the queen. Therefore any confrontation with Lancaster is now a direct challenge on the king. To put it bluntly, it is treason. There is no dressing it in flowery language, claiming loyalty to the king whilst accusing his advisers. Warwick sees it clearly. If the Duke of York takes up arms against Lancaster, he takes up arms against the king. If he is defeated and lives, he loses his head. If he wins, he takes the throne. There is no alternative.’
By now Edward’s horse had halted, almost as if he understood the serious nature of his master’s words and my palfrey followed suit. I could hardly believe that the man before me was my son, the baby I had borne less than eighteen years before, the baby son I never believed I would have. Now he was telling me that his father was leading us all into a confrontation which would mean life and a crown, or death and damnation. And the worst of it was I could see that he was right.
I took a deep breath and looked around me. We were in a lush green basin surrounded by gently sloping hills. Ahead rose the grey stone cliffs of Wigmore Castle, hazy in the distance, while a row of alders marked the course of a narrow stream where it flowed down towards Ludlow. Behind us Cuthbert brought the cavalcade to a halt in a jangle of harness. It did not seem possible that in a matter of weeks this oasis of peace might be trampled by thousands of marching feet.
Edward leaned across the gap between our horses and took my hand from the reins. ‘Do not look so distressed, my lady mother. The path of life leads to a number of crossroads. Only God knows which one will mark the end. One thing is sure though; if you do become queen you will be a wise and beautiful queen and we shall all kneel at your feet.’
Then he smiled and kissed my hand and we rode on to Wigmore.
36
Coverdale, Yorkshire & Blore Heath, Shropshire,
June to September 1459
Cuthbert
In June Hilda and I returned once more to Coverdale. The masons had worked hard since our last visit and when we rode up the valley towards Coverham Abbey a fine sight greeted us at the edge of the Red Gill. Built of glittering newly cut limestone, an octagonal tower now rose at the south end of the old bastle, three stories high with glazed and shuttered windows and a pointed roof laid with stone tiles sturdy enough to withstand the fiercest winds the winter storms could hurl down the dale. I had not applied for permission to crenellate because it would have taken too long for the creaking wheels of government to grant it so although there was a parapet, from which missiles could be thrown in the event of an attack, it was not divided into merlons to make a battlement. Nevertheless the attic and upper floors of the tower would provide secure and comfortable accommodation for me and my family, leaving the ground floor cellars for storage and the old long chamber above the bastle byre for the use of my nephew Sam and his family, whom I now employed as my farm statesman or reeve. The ladder at the old main entrance had been replaced with a stone stair built against the wall and the door was now protected by an iron yett hung on a portcullis mechanism. An exterior stair-tower gave access to the new building, rising to a turret at roof-level for use as a watch-point. Its entrance was also protected by an iron yett. As I gazed proudly at what had once been a simple farm building, I decided it would not be pretentious to rename our new house a castle – Red Gill Castle.
To my everlasting joy a little sister had joined Aiden to complete our family. Dark-featured and bonny like her mother, she had been baptised Marie in gratitude to the Blessed Virgin and on our journey, despite her five-year-old protests that she was big enough to control her own mount, she rode behind me on a pillion seat. Aiden, now a lad of eight who showed unmistakable evidence of his Neville blood, being fair haired, long-boned and grey-eyed, sat easily on his sturdy fell pony for the long ride from Ludlow. In line with my new status as a landed knight, I had also acquired a burly squire called Joe Scrope, the teenage son of a Middleham horse-breeder, who was returning with us for extra protection on the road and to visit his family.
We arrived near sunset but the long summer twilight gave us time to inspect our new quarters, eat a meal and send Joe off on the three-mile ride to his home. When the two children were sleeping soundly in their new attic chamber, Hilda and I climbed up to the watch tower to view night fall over the dale. Directly below us the lichen-dappled walls of sheep folds made an irregular chequer-board pattern across the floor of the valley, while from our elevated position we could just make out the dark towers of Middleham castle dominating the rising ground on the far bank of the River Cover. The sky was inky blue, scattered with stars as bright as crystals winking in their celestial patterns. Other than the eternal sound of rushing water and the occasional bleat of a ewe calling to its lamb up on the fell pastures, the silence was all-enveloping, as if time had halted its inevitable progress.
‘It seems so peaceful up here,’ Hilda remarked. ‘It is hard to believe there will soon be war in the land.’
I was standing behind her, gently kneading her shoulders, guessing they would be stiff from the long ride north. ‘I fear it is inevitable,’ I said grimly. ‘But more immediately worrying for us is the fact that the Scots could swarm down over the border at any time, knowing that the fighting men of the March are mostly away, mustering south of the Humber. Tomorrow I will ride to Middleham Castle and speak to Hal. He may have information from his scouts.’
‘What shall we do it the news is bad? Can we withstand an attack?’ Hilda turned an anxious face up to me.
I shook my head. ‘I would not risk harm coming to the children but if we get due warning you could shelter with them in Middleham and from here Sam, Joe and I could easily see off a few reivers. It would be worse if it was an army but a mass of men would be more likely to cross over on the eastern march where the passes are easier.’
Hilda shivered and I knew it was not from cold. ‘Perhaps it would have been better to stay at Ludlow,’ she murmured, rubbing warmth into her upper arms with her hands. ‘But nowhere is really safe, is it?’
I did not respond immediately. She was right; the whole country was under the threat of violence, from French raiders on the Channel coast, from rebels in Wales, unrest in the West Country, riots in London and from the mobilised affinities of Lancaster and York tramping through the Midlands.
‘At least we have built ourselves a future here, if the Almighty permits,’ I said at length.
‘Does that mean you will stay?’ asked Hilda hopefully. ‘You are nearly fifty years old, Cuthbert. Surely you cannot serve Cicely forever. You deserve to make a life for yourself now and watch your children grow.’
She had left off her coif and I bent to kiss her throat, where the delicate shoulder bone formed a hollow beneath her chin. ‘A knight’s vow lasts for a lifetime, sweetheart. Until I cannot set one foot before the other, I am bound to offer my service to my sister, to honour th
e vow I made to her father.’
‘But are you honour-bound to die in her service if you have a wife and children who love you? We were not party to that vow.’
‘Who says I am going to die in Cicely’s service?’ I asked, affecting indignation at the thought. ‘I have no intention of doing so.’
‘Lancaster and York will do battle, you know they will, and you will be in the thick of it. What man-at-arms dares boast that he will die in his bed?’
‘A knight who is champion of the Northern March, that is who dares. Why do you doubt me?’
‘I do not doubt you against the bare-legged Scots but the battle between York and Lancaster will involve many armoured knights like yourself. It will be bloody and brutal and you cannot choose your opponent. How does a knight of fifty fare against one half his age?’
‘He uses his cunning and experience that is how. Have no fear, beautiful Hilda, I will come back here to you and my children.’
‘So you will leave us here at and go back to Ludlow alone?’ Her voice rose in alarm.
I put my arms around her and pulled her into my embrace. ‘I cannot take you. Supposing there is a battle at Ludlow and York loses? The castle and the town will be overrun. I cannot bear to think what would happen then to you and the children. Here my family will protect you. When a soldier flees a battlefield it is better to be a lone wolf; easier to hide, easier to ride, easier to find the way home without hindrance.’
She was silent for several minutes, her forehead resting on my shoulder. I feared for a moment that she might break into sobs but instead she lifted her chin and gazed into my eyes, challenging me. ‘You had better be right, Cuthbert of Middleham! Just remember when you are gone that if I hear news of a battle I will come up here every evening and look for you riding up the track, so do not let me down by coming back dead.’
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