Somerset almost smiled. “I’d take the word of Gloucester,” he said evenly, and then he did smile with what, in another life, might have been amusement, for Richard’s mental conflict showed clearly on his face, the struggle to be fair warring with his natural dislike, his distrust.
“You have it,” he said at last, almost snapping the words.
“Thank you, my lord of Gloucester.” The relief Somerset felt surprised him. He’d not truly thought Edward of York would take vengeance against Marguerite. Richard’s boast had truth in it as well as pride; he did not think York was a man to shed a woman’s blood. And yet…and yet, he knew the hate York did have for Marguerite and he found reassurance now in this grudging pledge given by York’s favorite brother.
Richard seemed to think the conversation was at an end. He was turning away as Somerset gave voice to his other concern, knowing the risk he took, but not caring in the least if he gave offense. There was, he thought with grim irony, a pleasurable freedom in having nothing left to lose.
“What is to be done with my Prince?”
He’d struck a nerve, saw that at once.
“His Grace the King has given orders that he be accorded Christian burial at the abbey of St Mary the Virgin.” Richard’s eyes were grey, totally without warmth. “York does not dishonor the dead,” he said, staring at Somerset in bitter challenge.
Somerset had thought all feeling benumbed within him; he now found he could still be discomfited.
“I was not at Sandal Castle, my lord.” And was then angry with himself for having felt the need to make the denial. But, in truth, he’d not approved of what had been done to the bodies of the Yorkist dead, the mocking indignities performed upon the corpses, the beheading of men who’d died honorably in battle. He’d always thought it to be a bloody, needless piece of work, and one that had cost Lancaster dear. Something of this must have shown in his face, for Richard forbore to make the obvious rejoinder, to remind him that even if he had not been at Sandal Castle, his brother Harry had.
For a moment, they looked at one another.
Somerset roused himself then, called upon the echoes of remembered courtesy to say, “I thank you for sparing these minutes, Your Grace.”
“De rien,” Richard said softly, and if there was irony in his voice, there was something, too, that hadn’t been there at the start of the conversation.
Richard was already moving away. It was then that Somerset remembered.
“Wait, my lord…. There is one thing more. I would ask a favor of you.”
“I can promise you nothing, my lord of Somerset,” Richard said at once, said in a voice that was suddenly ice.
Somerset was shaking his head. “You mistake me, my lord,” he said, sounding at once mocking, proud, and very, very weary. “I do not ask for myself.”
Some suspicion faded from Richard’s eyes, but not all. “I still can make you no promises,” he said. But he was listening.
“You said York does not maltreat women. Well, there is a lass who much merits your kindness…the younger daughter of Warwick, she who was wed to my Prince. She had no say in her father’s intrigues, and I would hope your brother of York shall find it in his heart to be merciful to her.”
He thought at first that he’d blundered, done Anne Neville no kindness. Richard was startled, that was unmistakable; but in the fleeting instant that his defenses were down, Somerset had seen something else in his face, an undefinable emotion of surprising intensity. He wondered briefly if he’d have done better not to mention the girl, not to speak for her, for he’d gotten a response he’d not expected. Whatever Gloucester’s feelings for Warwick’s daughter, indifference was not one of them.
“I did think you and she were companions of childhood. Surely I need not plead her cause with you!” he challenged. But even as he spoke, he was remembering the sudden tension in Anne Neville’s voice as she sought reassurance that Richard had not been badly hurt at Barnet. The suspicion that struck him was such that he forgot completely the arguments he was marshaling on Anne Neville’s behalf and just stared at Richard. The boy had recovered his poise, now said guardedly,
“No, you need not plead her cause with me, my lord.”
That was all, yet it was enough. Somerset saw that his extraordinary suspicion was grounded in truth.
“I’ll be damned,” he said softly, not at all sure how he felt about this revelation.
Richard was watching him intently. “His Grace King Edward has no wish to dishonor brave men,” he said slowly, measuring his words with the exacting care of one building a conversational bridge so fragile that the imprudent placement of even one word would doom the entire structure. “He does not seek vengeance.”
Somerset expelled his breath in an audible escape of tension. He understood. Richard was telling him that he and his comrades would not face the horrors of a traitor’s death. He knew his relief must have blazed forth onto his face; at that moment, he no longer cared.
“Well, then,” he said, in a voice that was as level as he could make it, said with what he hoped would pass as ironic detachment, “shall we proceed with the trial?” His mouth stretched in a tight mirthless smile as he added, “Fiat justitia, ruat caelum; let justice be done though the heavens should fall.”
He saw something flicker in Richard’s eyes. It defied analysis, and was gone so quickly that he couldn’t be sure it had been there at all.
Somerset was becoming aware of the unnatural silence in the hall, aware that all eyes were on them, speculating avidly as to what was being said between them, the mightiest lord of Lancaster and the youngster who was to sit in judgment upon him. He was glad suddenly that Richard was so soft-spoken, that he’d instinctively pitched his own voice to Richard’s level, glad their curiosity was not to be satisfied. He looked about the hall with hard, contemptuous eyes, thinking they were like ravens drawn by the stench of carrion. His gaze came to rest on George’s bright head, and then he was saying, in a carrying voice that swept the hall, “I be thankful for this much at least, that it is Gloucester who passes judgment and not Clarence.”
The curiosity was at fever pitch, but only George and Will Hastings dared approach Richard, question him about the encounter that would give rise to conjecture for days to come.
“What the Devil did he want?” George demanded. His fair skin was still mottled with the angry blood set pulsing by Somerset’s scorn. “Did he ask you to spare his life?”
“Of course not,” Richard said impatiently. “You cannot deny his courage, George, whatever you may think of his loyalties. All he does hope for now is to die well. And I’ve no doubt that he will.”
“Ah, yes, an honorable death above all else! You sound a veritable echo of our cousin Johnny, who so fervently sought such an honor at Barnet! And speaking of dishonor and the like, what said Somerset when you told him he wronged Wenlock?”
Richard was frowning. “What d’you mean?”
“You know damned well what I mean. Any chance Lancaster might have had for victory died with Wenlock, when their men saw their captains turning upon each other rather than York. Surely you disabused him of his suspicion that Wenlock was in the pay of York. No…I can see by your face that you did not.” George shook his head, said derisively, “Most magnanimous of you, Little Brother. I do hope you made sure to compliment him upon his prowess on the field, too!”
Richard stared at him, looking as if he didn’t have much liking for George at that moment; and at that moment, he didn’t. Will saw and interceded smoothly, “What did he want, in truth, Dickon?”
Richard pulled his gaze away from George, gave Will a bemused look, a twisted half-smile.
“As strange as it does sound, Will, he wanted to ask me to extend mercy to Anne Neville.”
The Duke of Norfolk was now entering the hall; he was to preside with Richard over the trial of the Lancastrians. Richard turned away, moved to meet him. Once again, he thus missed the effect that Anne Neville’s name had upon
his brother.
Will didn’t, though. He admittedly hadn’t at first comprehended the tensions that had surfaced at Windsor, but since then, his own astuteness and a few discreet queries to Edward had gone far toward resolving the puzzle for him. He smiled at George, said pleasantly, “Could I interest you in a wager, my lord?”
George, who knew Hastings well enough, was instantly suspicious. “A wager of what sort?”
“I’ll wager that Warwick’s daughter is still as smitten with your brother Gloucester today as she was two years ago. What do you say?…Shall we name the stakes?”
George bit off a blistering oath, burned Will with a look that promised nothing less than open if undeclared war.
“Have a care, my lord Hastings. It’s a right dangerous habit to talk without thinking, as you seem so fond of doing. There are few ways more certain of gaining yourself enemies, enemies you’d rather not have…. That I can promise you.”
Will looked amused; his eyes had taken on a golden glow. “Ah, but what could one more enemy matter to you, my lord,” he murmured, “when you do have so many?”
George was provoked beyond endurance, even forgot for the moment that they had an eagerly attentive audience. But those spectators hoping for the excitement of a confrontation were to be disappointed, for it was then that the King entered the hall and they knew even George of Clarence would not be so reckless as to make a scene now, not when the trial was about to begin.
The Lancastrians were found guilty of treason; the verdict, delivered in dispassionate tones by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, demanded death. That afternoon a scaffold was set up in the market square, where Church and High Streets came together. At ten the following morning, a priest was summoned to shrive the condemned men and they were then beheaded in the shadow of the high stone cross. Edward waived the right of disembowelment, allowed the dead honorable burial.
That same Tuesday, the Yorkist army departed Tewkesbury. Even this, the “sweetest of victories,” did not quench all rebellion within Edward’s kingdom. The Bastard of Fauconberg, kin to Warwick and long a thorn in Edward’s side, had sailed from Calais, was in Kent where he was having some success in stirring up opposition to York. There were reports, as well, of risings in the North of England by diehard Lancastrians who did not yet know of the death of the youth who’d been Lancaster’s bright hope.
Edward decided that London, which had been left under the protection of his brother-in-law Anthony Woodville, could be relied upon to stave off Fauconberg should he threaten the capital. He chose to take his army North, to himself quell the rebellion in that unstable region long so unfriendly to the House of York. But as he neared Coventry, he was met by the Earl of Northumberland, who had at last bestirred himself to leave his northern estates upon hearing of Edward’s devastating triumph at Tewkesbury. Northumberland brought welcome news, that the rising in the North was over, over almost before it began, quenched once word had spread that all that remained of the royal blood of Lancaster now ran in the veins of the frail bewildered man within the Tower of London.
Edward halted at Coventry, there to await fresh troops before swinging back toward London to deal with the last lingering threat posed to his sovereignty, in the person of the Bastard of Fauconberg. And it was at Coventry that he awaited, too, the arrival of Marguerite d’Anjou, taken captive by Sir William Stanley two days after the battle of Tewkesbury.
Book Two
Anne
1
Coventry
May 1471
Anne Neville held a daisy in her hand. As she sat there in the sunlit window seat on this, the first day of their Coventry captivity, she was plucking the petals, one by one, and collecting them neatly in her lap. She’d found the flower upon the window seat soon after William Stanley’s men had escorted them into the priory parlor, where they were to be kept while he hastened to his sovereign to announce that the Frenchwoman was at last caged.
Anne had no doubt that the daisy was meant to be a message, to convey condolences that dared not be put into words. It was not happen-chance, this daisy, but a token left by one with Lancastrian sympathies. She was sure of that, for the English daisy—called “marguerite” in French—had long been both a personal emblem and the favorite flower of Marguerite d’Anjou. Anne had said nothing of her discovery, and as she awaited the arrival of her cousin Edward, she occupied herself in methodically shredding the snowy petals into scattered oblivion. Five…six…She counted each petal with care. Seven petals torn from the buttery-yellow heart. One for each of the seven days of her widowhood.
She looked up from her lap, across the chamber at her mother-in-law, saw the ravages of the past week upon that once beautiful face, saw without pity. Anne had not been schooled in hate. Until she’d followed her father into French exile, she’d not known what it was to hate another human being, had never been given reason for hatred.
After Amboise, though, she’d learned quickly. She’d come to hate Édouard of Lancaster even more than she feared him, hated the scorn in his voice when he spoke of her father, hated his boastings of the bloody reprisals he meant to take against the House of York, hated the way he saw her fear and laughed at it. Above all, she’d hated those nights when boredom or the lack of other bedmates brought him to her bed, and she’d had to submit to his physical demands, submit in silence because he was her husband, because he had the right to make use of her body as he chose, because she was his. Far more than the physical pain and humiliating forced intimacy, it was that which scoured Anne’s spirit, the loss of self. She was no longer Anne Neville at such times; she had no identity, no purpose in being other than to serve his need, a need that any soft female body could fill.
It was not that she’d not expected to be submissive to her husband. She knew obedience to be a wife’s duty, a husband’s right. Holy Church said so, said wives must submit themselves unto their husbands, and for the first fourteen years of her life she’d accepted it without question or qualm. But with Édouard of Lancaster, it went beyond submission. Intuitively she sensed that, understood that she was less than a wife, was a possession, to be used when it pleased him, to be ignored when it did not…and she came to hate him with the passion she did not bring to his bed.
During those two nightmarish days that followed the battle, Anne spent much of her time in prayer, thanking Almighty God for giving the victory to York, for seeing to the safety of her Yorkist cousins. She was sure Marguerite knew her son was dead, must be dead. Since arriving at Little Malvern Priory, Marguerite had spoken scarcely a dozen words, not so much as a crust of bread passed her lips, and candles burned in her bedchamber each night till dawn. Marguerite must know. It only remained for Sir William Stanley to stand before her on the stone steps leading into the Prior’s lodging, to say with considerable relish, “Madame, you may consider yourself a prisoner of His Most Sovereign Grace, King Edward Plantagenet, fourth of that name since the Conquest.” He’d grinned widely then, savoring the moment so obviously that the women were forewarned as to what was coming.
“We are to proceed at once to Coventry, upon the King’s command. Although if I did have my way, I’d dispatch you, instead, to join that whoreson Somerset and your bastard-born whelp in Hell everlasting!”
No sound escaped Marguerite’s lips; she scarcely seemed to be breathing. Disappointed by her lack of response, Stanley sought to remedy it by providing the details of her son’s death: “Skewered through as he cried unto my lord of Clarence for succor, like any common craven.”
Still she looked at him, saying nothing. Anne thought at first that Marguerite, proudest of the proud, was not willing to lose face before a blackguard like Stanley, but she soon saw it was not that at all, saw that the Lancastrian Queen was staring at Stanley with unseeing eyes. So she hadn’t known! Anne gazed wonderingly at Marguerite, marveling at the capacity of women to cling to hope until the last possible moment, until confronted by a William Stanley. She shivered, even though she was standing in the sun, an
d only then did she begin to think what Lancaster’s death would mean to her.
Stanley at last had ceased his unproductive baiting and agreed to the request put forward by the enraged Countess of Vaux, to allow the women to gather needed belongings from Marguerite’s bedchamber.
It was only then, behind closed doors, that Marguerite broke. She shed no tears, merely sank to her knees upon the floor, like a sawdust doll suddenly bereft of support. She doubled over in the way Anne remembered her own mother doing when, many years ago, she had been stricken during a Christmas Midnight Mass, miscarrying of yet another daughter even before she could be borne from Middleham’s chapel. Marguerite clutched herself as Anne’s mother had done, rocking back and forth, oblivious of her ladies, oblivious of all except this stark savage anguish that seemed indistinguishable, to those watching, from physical pain.
Anne alone did not go to Marguerite; she leaned against the door and watched. She’d been appalled by Stanley’s needless brutality, all the more so because he took such evident delight in it. Now she wondered that she could look on, unmoved by a grief so intense, a suffering so severe. She must be sorely lacking in Christian charity, she decided, with that queer cool detachment she’d begun to develop with her December marriage.
Well, so be it then. What pity had they ever shown her? What sympathy had she been given for her father’s death? Marguerite had even begrudged her the few pence she’d had to borrow so she could buy dye in Exeter to transform two of her gowns into mourning garb.
No, she did not grieve for Lancaster, either that he had died so young or so violently. She was glad he was dead. And as she looked upon the woman writhing upon the rush-strewn floor, racked by the dry sobs of a grief forever beyond the balm of tears, Anne thought this was but one more reason to hate them, that they’d made her so much like them, able to take pleasure in the death of another being, to be an uncaring witness to this rending of a woman’s soul.
The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III Page 51