Earl Rivers was standing stiffly, his mottled cheeks taking on an even more colourful hue while his son said angrily, ‘I see Warwick's hand in this! Well, William, is there more of this – this –’
‘Oh, aye.’ Hastings' consulted the paper. ‘We intend to bring them to swift justice and make an end . . .’
‘Enough!’ Edward was on his feet. ‘You are in great danger, Anthony, and you, my lord Rivers. Seek your own safety. I'll not have you both exposed to the vengeance of such men if things should go amiss with us. Leave me to deal with them.’
Anthony protested and both Earl Rivers and his youngest son John hesitated, murmuring their desire to stay with the King, albeit less whole-heartedly.
Edward waved a hand towards the room above. ‘And would your daughter, my lord, forgive me if I let them take you, or her brothers? No, I am King and they must face me. When they have tasted my justice you shall return.’
‘I don't understand,’ Bess said later to Humphrey. ‘It is cowardly to go when the King needs every man. And where have they gone?’
‘It was Edward's command,’ Humphrey pointed out. ‘What else could they do? It seems our enemies are after their heads and Edward is no fool. As to where they've gone, Anthony told me he is headed for his Norfolk estates and I believe the Earl and Sir John are making for the Welsh border.’ They went to their own chamber and Bess tried to keep cheerful, dismissing Humphrey's page and buckling on his sword with her own hands that they might have a few minutes alone.
He smiled down at her fumbling fingers. ‘You are not used to that task, my dear. And don't be afraid. Edward is a great soldier and we'll soon lay the rebels low – in the ground, please God. As for Warwick, I wish his soul might burn in hell.’
Bess shivered. ‘I can't believe he has so turned against his own blood.’
‘He will never forgive Edward for marrying the Queen. Nor that he is losing his power over the King. Yet I think he'll find Clarence a broken reed before too long.’
‘But – but if he did turn his soldiers against Edward –’
‘There's no proof he means that,’ Humphrey said. ‘No doubt he would rather Redesdale did his work for him. But if it should turn out that we must fight a great battle with him you must go home to Ashwellthorpe, my heart, and stay quiet. When God wills I'll come to you there. I hope though it won't come to that. Pray for us, and keep the Queen in good heart.’
Bess went willingly into his arms. She would never cease to love Edward, she thought, but this man who shared her life, who had never as far as she knew lain with another woman since their wedding, had become very dear to her. Casual he might be, and careless at times, but of his love for her and for their children there was no doubt.
With Elizabeth and Lady Hastings she watched the small army ride out, Edward at the head in full armour, his helmet bearing his crest, a purple plume fluttering from it and above his head, the banner he had chosen showing a great noonday sun embroidered in yellow and gold. How, she wondered, could anyone wish to see either the lonely deposed King shut in the Tower, half-witted and a figure of mockery to most people, or the selfish, vain Clarence, despite all his charm, in the place of Edward?
After they had gone a deadly quiet fell on the place. The Queen and her ladies embroidered, sang, played on the lute, walked in the sunshine or rode out with their merlins on their wrists, but these occupations were mechanical. The waiting was hard and no news came in, five days passing with leaden slowness. Then, on the sixth, as dusk was falling, Bess was on her way to sup with the Queen when she heard the smaller gate within the great one opened. There were hasty voices and she ran back down the stair.
In the hall stood Humphrey, swaying on his feet and supported by his man Rob Fitchett. He was drenched, for there had been a sharp summer storm, one sleeve was bloodied, his arm hanging loose, and his face was streaked with dirt.
‘Dear God!’ Bess cried out and ran to him. An usher pulled forward a stool and Fitchett guided him down on to it. ‘Oh, what has happened?’
‘Pembroke's army has been cut to pieces. He and Stafford quarrelled, some stupid business over billets in Banbury, and Stafford drew his men back. Redesdale and his ruffians slew every Welshman in the town, I think, and then Warwick came up – but not to aid us, God damn him. Pembroke's executed, and Stafford, and they caught the Earl of Devon and beheaded him too.’
‘Sweet Jesu!’ Bess was shaking with fear and shock. ‘And you're hurt. Let me see. Oh my love, your poor arm.’
‘It's broken, I think,’ Humphrey said and she saw that under the dirt his face was grey with pain.
‘And the King?’ She still knelt there, staring, uncertain what to do.
‘He's safe – or was when I left him. He dismissed us all.’
‘Dismissed you? But why? He's never needed you so much.’
Humphrey gave her a tired smile. ‘I know, but there was nothing more we could do. Archbishop Neville came to us at Olney, in full armour too, and bland as you please suggested Edward ride with him to meet the Earl of Warwick. I got into a scrap with some of Neville's men – he's not fit to be called an archbishop! – and that's how my arm was broken, but Fitchett got me away in the dark. Then my only thought was to get to the Queen and to you. Bess – Bess – it could not be worse and God knows what they will do to Edward. He is their prisoner, call it what they will.’ And then between pain and weariness and desperate anxiety he broke into a fit of dry sobbing.
In tears herself, Bess took him into her arms, forgetful that his own was broken. He cried out with the hurt of it and the next moment had collapsed unconscious against her. As she and Fitchett laid him down she realized she must go and break the news to the unsuspecting Queen.
Elizabeth, white-faced but with a control Bess could not but admire, removed to the greater distance of Framlingham, and Bess took Humphrey home to Ashwellthorpe by slow stages. The familiar peaceful manor, the tall trees, seemed so great a contrast to the suffering, the shock and horror of Warwick's triumph, that Bess wandered about, lost and restless, half frantic with fear over Edward's safety. Even the reunion with her children, the feel of little John in her arms, could not still the incessant beat of prayer for Edward, alone in his enemy's hands.
Humphrey fretted at his incapacity, was unusually snappish and once had angry words with Sir Frederick over nothing more important than the quality of a wine. Even the tale of how the Duke of Norfolk, too ill to accompany his King, had promptly laid siege to Caister Castle and forced young Paston to yield it, faded into unimportance compared to the greater catastrophe.
Two weeks later came further shattering news. The mayor of Norwich, an old friend of the Tilneys, rode over to tell them that the Earl of Warwick had taken Earl Rivers and his youngest son, Sir John Woodville. ‘They are dead, my lady,’ he said. ‘No trial and swift work for the hangman.’
‘Jesu,’ Bess whispered. ‘What treason had they done?’
‘Naught but be kin to the Queen.’ Humphrey said through stiffened lips. ‘At least Edward is still alive. Warwick would not dare –’
‘He would dare anything,’ Bess cried out. ‘Oh God, is there no end to his vengeance?’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘You had him! You had him and you let him go!’ Margaret of Anjou, sometime Queen of England, niece to the King of France, to many the Bitch of Anjou, was in the grip of a storm of emotion. Anger, bitterness, frustration, all seized her as she looked down at the kneeling man. He was the author of all her troubles and yet came now to offer her his help and partnership against the king he had set up in place of her husband, the truly anointed sovereign of England. It had been weeks before she had been able to bring herself even to see him and now she had already kept him kneeling for fifteen minutes. Young George of Clarence too, a spiteful silly youth who saw more substance in his mirror than existed in reality. ‘Well?’ She tapped her foot. ‘I do not see how you could have done it.’
The Earl of Warwick was tired. The journey from En
gland had been long and wearing, the ship buffeted by winds and high seas. The people of Calais, the town of which he was officially captain, refused to allow him to land – he, the Earl of Warwick! As a result his daughter gave birth on board ship in appalling circumstances to a still-born child while Clarence sulked and raged against fate. He was a fool, Warwick thought, and worse, a dangerous fool, and his mind made a neat half-turn, a wholly new plan in his busy brain. For this cause he now knelt before the proud Queen.
Behind her chair stood the foppish exiled Duke of Exeter, with the Earl of Oxford and other Englishmen whom he and Edward had driven out of England together. He saw Jasper Tudor whom he particularly disliked, and who cared for nothing but his tiresome nephew Henry, looking down with a superior smile that sickened him. Well, he might have lost control of Edward, but he had not yet lost his dignity nor his power to manipulate them all.
‘Your grace,’ he said, ‘I held Edward, yes, and I took all his closest advisers from him, one by one, but I could not take his life. Edward is popular and the London mob would have torn me apart if I had harmed him. And men were rallying to his cause, more than I expected. When he called they came. But if Lord Stanley had not deserted me, if my brother Montagu had upheld me –’
‘There are too many ifs, it seems to me, my lord. What cause have I to think you would do any better next time?’
‘With the help of King Louis,’ he protested, ‘with your banner raised, I may take a great army to England and defeat Edward. To slay him on the field of battle is my one ambition now.’
‘The only one?’
His colour deepened. ‘And to restore my gracious lord King Henry.’
‘So you come to me? To do what you cannot do yourself?’
‘My hands have been tied,’ he protested. ‘I could not keep Edward at Middleham forever, nor am I the man to have him murdered. I'd not stoop to a red-hot poker.’
Margaret looked at him pityingly. She would, he realized bitterly, but he went on. ‘You do not understand the situation. Edward turned the tables on me. He was still King. He called others in place of those I'd executed. Sir John Howard is now Lord Howard and in the place of Earl Rivers, and the Duke of Gloucester gathers men from the north of England – men once loyal to me.’
‘Gloucester? He's a boy.’
‘He's not much older than me,’ Prince Edward exclaimed, pushing himself forward. ‘And when we go to England I'll fight. By Our Lady, I will send so many heads rolling that not one man will dare to set a Yorkist rose in his cap again, else he'll part with cap and head and all.’
Warwick looked at the boy in dislike: a pompous brat puffed up with arrogance. He was so like in character to the Duke of Somerset whose name had once been linked with the Queen's that it would not have surprised the Earl if the boy were really Somerset's son, but no one would ever know. He thought of his gentle daughter Anne that he must give to this youth, but his face hardened. If she must be sacrificed, so be it.
Margaret laughed. ‘You see? We have a son who will not be soft with our enemies.’
‘Nor am I soft,’ Warwick retorted. ‘But the rebellion I set afoot in Lincolnshire came to nothing. I hoped it would be the flame to set my cause alight but Edward was too swift for us. And even my brother Montagu clings to him.’
‘He is a traitor!’
‘Will you see him executed too when we conquer?’ young Edward asked spitefully. He was enjoying this interview.
‘I will see him brought to a knowledge of true loyalty,’ Warwick answered coldly. ‘You must learn, sir; that it is not always wise to destroy, nor to waste good men who may be won to service of the crown.’ He turned back to the Queen. ‘I had not sufficient men to bring the business to a conclusion,’ he went on. ‘Do you not see, madame, I had to come to France for aid?’
‘And do you think my uncle will give it?’
‘Have I not always been France's friend?’
‘Always?’ Again she countered with a question. ‘Yet you let Edward marry that scheming nobody.’
‘Let him?’ Warwick was indignant. ‘You know full well, your grace, that he not only wed her behind my back, but his whole Council were in ignorance of it. You know how much I wanted him to wed in France.’
‘Well . . .’ She dangled a chain that hung about her neck, playing with it. Her great beauty was spoiled now by a crease between her brows, by the vengeful light in the brown eyes, the petulance changing the shape of her lips. ‘That is past history, I suppose. You have been a traitor to your anointed King, my husband, you made another in his place – do you regret that, sir? Do you kneel in true sorrow? Do you submit your will to mine?’
Behind Warwick his wife and daughters were also on their knees. They saw only his back but the Countess at least guessed at his feelings, that he was writhing internally, his pride lacerated.
‘I do,’ he said and kept his voice steady, his overmastering will commanding it. ‘I do, your grace. I ask most humbly that you should give pardon for my past offences.’
‘And the breaking of your solemn oath? Your word that became worthless?’
‘That too.’ Not satisfied, he thought, with driving in the sword she was turning it in the wound for sheer malicious pleasure.
‘And you will renew your homage to King Henry for as long as you shall live?’
‘I swear it.’ He thought of Henry, kind, foolish, utterly unkinglike, and for one instant saw the tall and wholly regal figure of his cousin Edward, set up in comparison. But he thrust that picture aside. He hated Edward now! And bending forward until his forehead touched the ground, heard Margaret's breath hiss in slow satisfaction.
‘Get up, my lord,’ she said at last. ‘We must plan our strategy.’
An hour later in his private apartment the Earl told his younger daughter that she was to wed Prince Edward. Anne burst into a storm of weeping. ‘That hateful, bloodthirsty boy? I loathe him. Oh, Father, no, no! Don't make me do it.’
Isabel, sitting on the bed, pale still and sucking a sweetmeat, said, ‘If you look for joy in marriage, my poor sister, you will be sadly disappointed. I've had little.’
‘Be quiet,’ her mother broke in. ‘Your father knows what will best forward his plans and that is what we are all here to do. And you will learn, Anne, to love your husband. Your father and I were not happy at first, but now we are all things to each other, are we not, my dear?’
‘Of course,’ Warwick said. ‘And if you wed Edward you will one day be Queen of England.’
Isabel's face was hot. ‘My lord! I thought it was George you wanted to see on the throne, and a crown on my head. You said this was a feint, an alliance merely to serve your secret purpose.’
Her father turned to look at her. ‘I pity you, my girl. George is not all we had hoped. He would make a poor king, I doubt not, but one way or another one of my daughters shall wear the crown of England. What more could you want, eh, Anne?’
‘To be wife to Gloucester,’ she sobbed, and ran from the room.
Some weeks later on a hot July day Anne and Prince Edward were betrothed in Tours Cathedral amid high ceremony with much singing, burning of candles and lengthy prayers. The Earl and Queen Margaret swore fidelity on a fragment of the True Cross and King Louis beamed with pleasure and was charming to everyone. Margaret was elated with her subjugation of the English Earl, but it was noticed that she was cool to the pale, unhappy bride.
The Prince pinched her hand, digging his nails in until it hurt. ‘Now you will have to obey me,’ he whispered, ‘and if you don't I'll make you sorry. As for Richard of Gloucester, I'll hang him from his own castle walls in Yorkshire, that you prattle of so much.’
Anne could scarcely stifle her sobs and sat through the ensuing feast sick and frightened. George of Clarence was also far from happy. ‘What is there for me in all this?’ he had demanded from his father-in-law and had received a wearied look. ‘If Anne and Edward do not produce an heir you will succeed to the throne,’ was all the answer he got
, and his muttered, ‘A sugar plum to fob me off!’ was ignored. He saw himself discarded, the barely tolerated son-in-law, though wed to the elder daughter. He drank too much wine, beat his sleepy page viciously when he returned to his chamber, and then sat down to write a letter to his eldest brother.
Elizabeth was pregnant again and Edward escorted her to the Tower. ‘You will be safe here,’ he said. ‘There are enough guns and ammunition to see to that, my love. I cannot have our babe at risk. After three daughters, if God smiles on us with a son, who is the Earl of Warwick to prevail against us?’
Elizabeth sat stiffly in her chair. She liked this place least of all the royal residences. ‘And I dislike even more that Henry is here,’ she pointed out, ‘shut in that tower over there.’
‘He is in the safest place I can find for him. Don't let it trouble you, my dear. You will not see him. And he can do no harm here.’
‘No harm? If he were not here there would be no rising in his favour. How men can think of him as King rather than you is utterly beyond me.’
There was a touch of impatience in Edward's voice as he answered, ‘It is not only between him and me but between York and Lancaster, and my cousin Warwick is now more my enemy than poor Henry. Warwick cannot bear it that I have out-stretched him, and if Henry were dead he would set up that boy they call the Prince of Wales in my place. Or even that foolish brother of mine.’
‘You are sure Warwick will come?''
‘Of course. Now that he has allied himself to the Bitch of Anjou he will come – damned traitor that he is. This rising in Yorkshire is but the start of it, as it was once before.’
‘Won't Percy put it down? You did not take the earldom of Northumberland from Montagu to give it to Percy for nothing.’
The Sun in Splendour (The Plantagenets Book 6) Page 8