Why had God deprived him of this ultimate blessing? Was there a purpose to it? Warwick’s faith was typical of a man of his times, which is to say it served him rather than the other way round. He observed feast days, attended Mass at least once a week, confessed as needed, did whatever penances a confessor chosen for his leniency imposed on him. But he did not allow his devotion to intrude upon his daily life the way Henry did, and he certainly spent little of his time thinking about religious matters, which were the domain of priests. But sometimes, observing the careless drift of the world, he wondered: Was God on watch? Why wasn’t He more diligent in his duty? And now he couldn’t help asking: Why wouldn’t God give him a son? Was there a purpose to it?
There was York with four sons. Did he appreciate his good fortune? Probably not. Most people took their good fortune for granted as if it was their due; it was only ill fortune made them stop and question the will of God. I would have been a good father. I wouldn’t have carped and criticised the way York does with Edward. My son would have known he was loved. Although he had never held that precious infant in his arms, nor watched him astride his first mount, nor had his heart gladdened by a filial embrace, he felt bereft, anguished, as if he had just put that beloved son beneath the stones in the family crypt.
The worst of it was that he could confide in no one. What, proud Warwick admit that he had failed at something most fellows could do without even trying, that he longed for something he couldn’t have, that he was sick with envy of those who had what he did not? No, never. He must put a brave face on it; show the world it did not matter.
Least of all could he share his feelings with Anne. She would know that she had failed him and that, to her, was a thing not to be borne. The trouble was, she loved him too much, adored him really; to deny or disappoint him was cause for bitter self-reproach. It was impossible not to return some measure of that kind of love, but sometimes – he could admit it to himself – the word suffocating came to mind, and he had to escape. She had made her home at Warwick castle, his most prized possession, but he had estates in far-flung corners of the kingdom, so there was always an excuse to get away. Her love was in the same class as Henry’s piety: extreme, all-pervading and rather annoying.
No, he couldn’t let her know how grieved he was. He would just have to put a good face on it for her too. So, heavy-hearted as he was, he was smiling as he entered his wife’s chamber as if nothing but good news had greeted him. He strode to her bedside and stood looking down. Poor little kitten! After Isabel, she had been keen to get pregnant again, to provide him with that longed-for heir. But how she had suffered for it. Her face was so pale that he could clearly see the blue veins on her eyelids. Her hands, resting on the covers seemed so impossibly frail and as white as the bleached linen of her nightgown.
He didn’t speak, but she must have sensed his presence, for her eyes fluttered open. They were dull and lustreless in pockets of mauve shadows. He brushed the light brown hair from her brow and bent to kiss her tenderly, taking one of the frail hands between his. Her eyes flooded with tears but before she could speak, he said, “I’ve heard the good news.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending. “Good news?”
“That you’re going to get well.”
His words brought the tears spilling down her pallid cheeks. “Oh, Richard, have they given you the bad news? I c-can’t have any more children. It’s the worst thing that c-can happen to a woman. I wish I could die. I’m going to be a useless b-burden to you for the rest of my l-life.”
“Nonsense,” he said through the constriction in his throat. “You are my treasure. The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his beloved wife in childbirth. That will never happen now. So you see, this is a blessing in disguise.”
She turned her face away on the pillow. “I know you mean well, but I don’t believe you. I’ve heard you speak too often of the sons you will have to believe it doesn’t matter.” She swallowed with difficulty and added with a sob, “I want you to divorce me.”
Yes, he had spoken of his future sons. And it hurt that they would never be. He couldn’t deny it. But that was the will of God; if it wasn’t, He would have taken Anne and Warwick would be free to get his sons on another. It was the will of God, and there had to be some purpose to it. He had to believe that.
“Don’t be foolish,” he said with gentle indignation. “You know I’ll never do that.”
“I have failed you in a wife’s primary function. You must divorce me.”
“You might as well ask me to cut off my right hand. Look at me, Anne.” When she didn’t comply, he took her chin in his fingers and turned her head to face him. Then he leant closer and forced her to look at him, hard brown eyes and drenched hazel ones meeting. “We are fortunate, you and I, are we not? We have each other, we have our two little maids, and we have enough wealth to want for nothing. So we can admit our disappointment that we shall never have a son, but let us not allow the lack to obscure our many blessings or to blight our lives. I can live happily without a son. But I cannot live happily without my kitten.”
“Do you mean that?” she asked tremulously, searching his face because she wanted to believe.
“Of course I do.” He tapped his index finger on the tip of her nose, an affectionate little gesture that always made her smile, as it did now. “That’s better. Now, I forbid any more talk of divorce or wanting to die.”
“Oh, I do love you, my wonderful, wonderful husband.”
The trouble with that kind of all-encompassing love was that it was damned hard not to reciprocate. Which was why he could spend a couple of hours propped up on the bed with Anne cradled in his arms, coaxing a smile from her now and then, and assuring her repeatedly that they had no need of sons to make their life together complete. He even tickled the chin of the pale, listless little scrap of female flesh they decided to call Anne, without fretting too much about the postponement of his departure for Calais.
Once the baby had been taken away again, Anne fell asleep in his arms. He decided to give her a few minutes before trying to slip away, and the next thing he knew the chamber was shrouded in shadows and a servant was tiptoeing about lighting candles. Anne awoke at the same time.
“Oh, that was wonderful,” she murmured. “To fall asleep in your arms was sheer bliss. That was the best rest I’ve had since my travail began.”
“I must leave in the morning, sweetheart,” he said sliding out from behind her. “Rest and get well. I’m off to Calais as soon as I can so you won’t see me for some time. In the meantime I expect to get daily reports that you are making great progress.”
She looked crestfallen, but she knew better than to try to delay him. He leant over to kiss her brow and quickly strode from the room. His escort had arrived and stammered their excuses. He crammed some food into his mouth, washed it down with two cupfuls of wine and then strode off to his bedchamber. His thoughts now were all of Calais.
Chapter 24
June 1456 – Calais
When he stepped ashore into the hub of a small but significant commercial market, Warwick filled his lungs with sea air and felt an immense satisfaction. Calais! Calais was all that remained of the vast territories brought to the English crown by Henry II, lost by succeeding generations, reclaimed by Henry V at Agincourt and lost again in such a short time by the ministers of Henry VI. It was the home of the Staple, crucial to the wool trade; and gave England a foothold in Europe for future invasions; provided a haven for fugitives fleeing English justice – or injustice – as long as it remained in the right hands.
Since the death of Somerset, it had been in the wrong hands. Lord Rivers, as the lieutenant, had been administering the post and managed to put so many impediments in his way that it wasn’t until a year after his appointment that Warwick was able to eject Rivers and take up his new post.
Now it was his – his first command, his first opportunity to show what he could do. He relished the challenge.
Many ships from many different countries were tied up at the wharves or rocking gently out in the harbour. He would have to get to know their flags. None, so far as he could see, were displaying the golden leopards of England. Piles of merchandise in crates and bales stood on the docks. The noise was the sound of industry, of commerce. Gulls screaming overhead added their voices to those of mariners and stevedores, bearers and merchants.
A delegation of merchants waited to greet him, as well as some slovenly-looking soldiers. “Are they my escort?” he asked one of the Staplers, who glanced at the soldiers and looked quickly away.
“I fear they have grown lax because they've received no wages for some months. Some of the worst elements cause trouble in the town: drinking, abusing women, fights, that sort of thing. You’ll have a hard row to hoe with them, my lord. Lord Rivers couldn’t handle them, but now they say they’re loyal to him. And to the memory of the dead Somerset.”
“Can’t have that, can we?”
He was about to move on when the merchant said, “And, my Lord, if you could do something to help us… the trade… ”
“And about the pirates… ” another added.
Warwick looked at them in turn. There were serious problems here. Pirates! Oh, indeed, he relished a challenge! “Let me get settled in and these churls beaten into shape, and then we’ll have a nice long chat.”
His horse had been led from the ship, already saddled. He mounted up and his ‘escort’ assembled around him, his own men following. As he was entering the castle courtyard, a group of unkempt soldiers shouted at him that they did not recognise his appointment and still considered themselves bound in loyalty to Lord Rivers. Although his anger was growing, Warwick said nothing. First, he wanted to see how far the disaffection had spread. While his servants were still carrying in his baggage, before he’d had a drop of wine or morsel of bread, he went among them, questioning and observing, and discovered that it had in fact affected the bulk of the soldiers to some degree. Somerset, it seemed, haughty fellow that he had been, had the knack of winning the loyalty of his soldiers; or perhaps it was that he gave them free rein to do as they liked, for, as Warwick discovered to his mounting fury, discipline among them was wretched. They spoke to him rudely, even with contempt. A situation he felt constrained to remedy at once. He sent for the commander of the garrison and his second with the intent of solving the problem in his own inimitable fashion.
“Name and service?” he snapped, his brown eyes seeming to shoot sparks, his thin mouth set in a line of contempt, his nostrils pinched in the beaked nose as if he smelled a bad odour.
The commander was tall and thin as a post with bandy legs, a bush of wiry dark hair on his head and sprouting from his ears and nostrils. “Andrew Trollope, two years commander of the garrison. Before that, I fought in France in the Free Companies under my Lord Talbot.”
“You?” Warwick demanded of the second-in-command, who was shorter, thicker and less hirsute than his superior, with a bulbous nose and cheeks sliding into heavy jowls, both lurid with a network of exposed blood vessels, a sure sign of a habitual imbiber.
“John Blount, two years lieutenant, four years in the ranks. I also fought in France. I was with your lord father at Pontoise.”
Warwick didn’t allow that information to distract him, although Pontoise had been an interesting campaign, and in different circumstances, he would have enjoyed hearing about it from the perspective of a common soldier. Just now discipline, not camaraderie, was what he was after and he believed in starting at the top.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked in chilling tones.
The two men glanced at each other as if suspecting a trap in this simple question, yet uncertain how it would be sprung.
“The Earl of Warwick?” Trollope mumbled uncertainly.
“And how do low-born sacks of excrement like you address men like me who are their superior in rank, in birth, in intellect, and in every other conceivable way?”
“My lord,” the two muttered in unison.
“That’s right, and if you forget the correct form of address again, I’ll have the words carved on your back with a whip as a gentle reminder.”
He began to pace up and down before them with his hands knotted behind his back. The two men exchanged another quick glance but had he seen it Warwick would have observed that it contained not a spark of malice, or anger, or even resentment at his brutal words. In fact, it was a rather odd mixture of astonishment and admiration. It wasn’t the first time in their lives they had been berated by a superior and this man did it in language they could respect. ‘Low-bred sacks of excrement!’ That was a good one! They could use that on their own subordinates.
“I am now the Captain of Calais, duly appointed by the English government, my appointment duly ratified by the English parliament. And while it is true that my Lord of Somerset was also duly appointed by the English government and had his appointment duly ratified by the English parliament, he is no longer in a position to discharge his office competently.”
Appreciating the blatant irony of this remark, the two men snickered. Warwick quelled them with a sour look. “Lord Rivers, on the other hand, has been removed from his post and has absolutely no authority. You two are professional soldiers and understand the concepts of loyalty, discipline and duty, do you not? So I have a question to ask you.” He came to a halt before them, standing so close that he could look into their eyes and they could not avoid looking into his. “To whom will you give your loyalty? To the Earl of Warwick or Lord Rivers?”
He let his eyes speak for him. They promised an ugly retribution on anyone who provided the wrong answer. Trollope stared into those eyes for such a long time that Warwick thought he wasn’t going to answer, until he realised that it was just a childish attempt to stare him down, a sort of test, which, if he failed, would no doubt be interpreted by Trollope as a sign of weakness. Silly, puerile, but Warwick held his gaze until the broad, ugly face split into a grin. “The Earl of Warwick, upon my soul!”
“Aye, the Earl of Warwick!” Blount concurred.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” said Warwick, but he did not return the smile. “Very well, you may keep your present ranks at least until I see how well you perform. Your first task will be to see that every soldier of the garrison who is not on essential duty assembles in the courtyard here tomorrow morning at Prime. Do your men know at what time of day Prime occurs?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. That will be all.”
Now he could eat; he could have a cup of wine; he could call his servants in to clean his chambers and begin the unpacking.
In the first light of dawn, with torches still flaring around the perimeter seeming to make the light murkier, the garrison assembled in the courtyard. Warwick was not long before joining them and what he saw disgusted him: unkempt, unshaved, slovenly, slouched, weapons rusted, bent or broken, uniforms stained and torn, grumbling and spitting and farting. They had not even formed into ranks but stood about in casual little groups, bleary-eyed and indifferent except when they roused themselves to cast defiant glances in his direction. His grim face just got grimmer as he walked among them, his lips thinned into a white-rimmed line. Some of his own men were in the courtyard, impeccably dressed in their scarlet livery, not professional soldiers but making a better show than this bunch of scurvy varlets. A study in contrasts.
Returning to the elevation of the steps leading into the great hall, he roared, “Master Trollope!”
That worthy came running out of the crowd, looking justifiably nervous. “My lord?”
“Trollope, I distinctly ordered you to have the soldiers of the garrison assembled here this morning. I did not ask to see this disgusting detritus from the stinking sewers of the vilest cities in Christendom! Where are the soldiers?”
Trollope muttered something in reply, but an ominous rumble from the men drowned his words. “Be silent!” Warwick roared, and they were silent – mutinous, sullen, but s
ilent. He turned his attention back to the commander. “Trollope, I like not what I see. I want these men formed into ranks. I want them standing at attention. If that simple task is not beyond your abilities, once you have accomplished it, I want you to bring them to me one at a time. Understood?”
A chair materialised, and Warwick took his seat on it, watching with apparent passivity as the officers tried to organise the truculent men. A table appeared beside him, and a clerk took his place behind it, laying out writing materials. As the men were brought before him one by one, Warwick asked only two questions: his name, which the clerk inscribed on a piece of parchment, and whether his loyalty was to the duly appointed captain, or to Lord Rivers. If the soldier answered in favour of himself, Warwick sent him to stand over on the right; if not, he was ordered to the left.
When it was over – and it wasn’t over until Warwick had dined on a three-course meal sitting out in the courtyard where everyone could see him – and each of the nearly five hundred men had presented themselves, he nodded at the group on his left – the smaller group. “Hang them immediately," he said to Trollope. "I want the rest to watch, and then they can return to their duties. I’ll see them here again tomorrow, I hope in better order. And I’ll continue to see them every day until they look like what they are: England’s most important and prestigious garrison.” This wasn’t saying much as England had only one other permanent garrison, at Berwick on the Scots border.
Warwick strode briskly back into the hall without waiting to see if his orders were carried out, leaving Trollope looking as if he’d taken a blow to the head and hadn’t yet fallen over.
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