James has never known hunger or cold, or been so saddle weary that death promised the only relief. Compared to Richard, James has led a life of ease. To him war is a game, a relief from the tedium of security.
They pass the bare Lammermuir Hills and follow the course of the river Tweed toward the border. With only a watercourse between him and his birthright, Richard’s courage shrinks. He looks at the mercenaries who make up his army; rough men from many countries, with hardly an Englishman among them. Their banter is coarse, often threatening to overspill into civil violence. It does nothing to alleviate his foreboding, his sense that the stars may not be aligned in his favour after all.
The Tweed lies before them, a wide serpent of deathly cold water between him and his goal. The men straggle across in dribs and drabs; groaning at the aching temperature of the churning water. The horses throw up their heads, reluctant to tread an unseen path, but the men curse and kick them forward. One of the baggage carts founders, the draft horses plunging, throwing up great shafts of water, drenching those nearby. The carter raises his whip, brings it down hard.
Richard’s face becomes a mask of unconcern, a bland mindless smile as he fights not to let his followers see his lack of courage. As his mount scrambles up the far bank, his legs are mired, his freezing toes screaming with pain. Murky water streams from his horse’s flanks, and Richard’s boots are brimming over. His once spotless banner hangs limp over his weary army, spattered by mud and marred by rain.
I am in England, he thinks. Northumberland. He looks around at the empty landscape where straggly sheep graze unconcerned at the elite company. There is not a homestead or a building in sight; just a vast, rain-lashed landscape that bears no resemblance to the England that Richard remembers. The lush green of Kent does not reach this far north.
“We will make camp here,” the boy announces. “Our supporters will reach us in the morning, no doubt. I am assured they are just delayed.”
The servants set to erecting the campaign tents; his muddy banner is hoisted above the royal marquee and a brazier lit beside his bed. He settles in a chair with a cushion at his back, glad to be free of the saddle. He feasts upon bread and cheese; the burgundy in his cup dwindling as fast as it bolsters his courage. He thinks of Catherine, safe at Stirling, full of his unborn child, waiting for the news of his victory, of his son’s secured future.
He is washed by his manservant, his emerging beard is trimmed, his hair brushed to a sheen, and he slips between his silken sheets like a new man; a man sustained with good food and given hope with rich wine. As he closes his eyes he suffers a brief longing for his wife and the comfort she offers, but he is exhausted from the ride and sleep claims him, closing the door on all his worries.
Morning blows in to dampen his spirits with cold drizzle. His companions shake raindrops from their cloaks as they enter his pavilion to join him for breakfast. He wraps a fur about his shoulders and accepts a cup of wine, passes the jug to Richard Harliston.
“I could wish God had sent us better weather,” says Keating as he holds out his hands to warm them at the brazier. “It is colder than a witch’s tit out there.”
“Where are our English supporters? I thought there’d be word by now, or at least a messenger sent on ahead.”
Harliston grunts noncommittally and empties his cup. “They will come, Your Grace.”
Richard moves closer to his friends.
“It is these mercenaries. I am uneasy about them and they are growing restive. They have no love of England or its people … or me, come to that. I am afraid that if they see no action soon and no promise of spoils, they will create some activity of their own.”
He orders a proclamation to be read promising benevolence, promising peace, but after two days when his supporters have still failed to turn up, Richard’s fears are realised. The mercenaries, fed up with inaction, begin to defy orders.
On the brow of a hill a stronghold, or bastle as they are locally known, waits immovably, the people from within working in a nearby field. When the cavalcade rides past, the people pause in their toil to stand silent in the rain.
“This is your king. Good King Richard of York has come to free you from Tudor oppression.”
Richard raises his hand, smiles his most winning smile, but the grim expressions remain unchanged. He rides on, his smile fixed, his hands frozen to the reins, relieved to be past so swiftly.
As he moves into open countryside, he hears a scream behind him and the clash of steel on stone. Fearing the worst, he wrenches his horse round and gallops back the way he came.
His men, his so called ‘soldiers,’ their cloaks blackened by relentless rain, have fired the thatch of an outbuilding. As a grim trail of smoke belches forth the people try to fight the flames, coughing and choking, their eyes streaming. Richard’s head turns right and left, taking in the scene, identifying the perpetrators. A group of soldiers have drawn their swords, laid hostage to a group of elders who huddle around a bleeding corpse sprawled in the mud. Men are fighting all around, a woman screams and Richard’s head rips round to see a mercenary soldier and hear the sound of ripping cloth. A few ill-clad men rush forward in feeble defence of their daughter; a dagger flies across the clearing, bringing a man to his knees. It is probably her husband. Richard stands up in his stirrups.
“Stop this!” he hollers. “Stop this!”
But they do not heed him. From the corner of his eye he senses movement and instinctively draws his sword. A big bearded fellow has the woman by the hair and is hauling up her skirts, revealing her skinny red knees, her bare-arsed poverty.
“Stop this now!” He is shaking with fury but the fellow pays no heed. Kicking his mount forward, Richard rides fast, his arm raised to strike his first battle blow …against one of his own.
The soldier falls swiftly but Richard feels no joy. There are tears on his face. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. With the back of his hand he dashes the tears away and cries out again as his rabble army runs amok.
“These people are not the enemy; they are weak, defenceless. I come here in peace …”
He looks down at the blood puddling around the slaughtered man; the grizzling woman has blood on her thigh. She is pulling down her skirts, crawling away toward the blazing shed. As she struggles past she casts a look of contempt at Richard and he notices a great, scarlet gash upon her cheek, her face open to the bone.
Chaos ensues. The Scots, used to border raids, and accustomed to murdering the English, now join the mercenaries to massacre in Richard’s name.
Men are fighting; women roll in the mud, wrestling with their abusers while their naked children flee from the belching ruin of their innocence. He sees an infant cut down, an old man, his breast sliced open, slides to the ground beside the well, his eyes staring in horror at the scudding clouds. Richard lets his sword drop; his head sinks to his chest.
It was never supposed to be like this. Where is the glory? Where is the great welcome I was promised?
He does not wait for an end. Like a coward he pulls on the reins and gallops in search of James. Perhaps he can control the men or order his household troop to open fire on them. The carnage has to stop. He does not slacken his pace but rides his horse right up to the Scottish king’s tent. He leaps from the saddle and barging past the guard, enters unannounced.
James has taken off his hat and boots and is enjoying a cup of wine, his stockinged feet stretched toward the flames.
“James, you have to help me stop this. It is mindless slaughter and will gain us no advantage.”
“Oh, I doubt they can be stopped. We have held them back too long. A few peasants will not be missed; once the men have assuaged their blood lust they will become biddable again.”
“They are slaughtering my countrymen, raping the women. This isn’t why I’ve come. I came in peace to free them … this — this is just …” His voice cracks, his head drops forward. He is close to tears.
“You’d do well to take my
advice and leave them to it. Once darkness falls the violence will stop and we can regain control in the morning.”
“In the morning? James! Your Grace, I humbly beg you to stop this savagery of my country and my people. They will never put trust in me now.”
“That is none of my concern, Sir.”
“I promised you many things, James. I promised you Berwick, I promised to repay every penny of the 50,000 marks I owe you. But never once, never once did I say I would stand for your troops inflicting carnage on my countrymen.”
“It is what happens in war. Blood is spilled, lives are lost, virtue is stolen but life goes on. It is the way of things. If you are going to be a king you need to get used to it.”
Sickness washes over Richard. Suddenly he sees James with new eyes. He is a royal wastrel, he thinks, an adventure-seeking dissolute who has used me for his own amusement. He cares nothing for my cause, and God curse me if I continue to call him family.
Richard rubs the palm of his hand over his face; it comes away grimy. He shakes his head, the wet strands of his hair flicking drips around the royal tent. White-faced, he stares at his former ally.
“Well, I won’t do it.”
He cannot stay here. He will no longer be a part of it. He will ride back to Stirling, alone if he has to, and carry his wife as far away from James as he can get.
As the boy rides closer to Stirling, he begins to forget the colourful horror of the raids. His messenger keeps him informed of James’s doings and he knows that the violence continues. The Scottish king, making the most of the chance to strike at England, lays siege to Herton Castle, bombarding it with his big guns until the threat of English troops approaching from Newcastle send him scurrying for the hills.
But Richard will be in Stirling before the king. I will pack up my things, he thinks, take Catherine and the child, if he is born, somewhere far away. I cannot associate myself with the sacking of England. No one will follow a cruel and violent king.
But when he arrives, reality forces him to rethink. His wife is in confinement, awaiting the birth that is only days away. His friends find excuses to leave the court and he finds himself, more or less, alone. His possessions and what little wealth he has are provided by James, the very man he wishes to disassociate himself from.
During his wild ride Richard thinks only of Catherine, the reassurance of her love the only thing to keep him going. He tries to see her but horrified women turn him away, tell him he must wait. He sends her letters, pouring words onto a page, praising her hair, her face, her skin, her fine bosom. The knowledge of her, and their son, and the jug of wine at his elbow are his only defence against despair.
In the royal corridors they whisper of his cowardice. A king should fight, not run away. Instead of his pity being judged as noble, he is seen as a coward, craven and weak.
Where inside of me does this weakness lodge? he asks himself. His father was strong. Edward IV was a soldier who loved to fight. He never lost a battle and gained only honour by hand to hand fighting, on the field, at the head of his men. Richard is shamed to acknowledge that he is most unlike his father. He tries to remember his uncles who were soldiers, too. Not one of them was ever named a coward. Richard of Gloucester had been called many things but never that, and even unfaithful George of Clarence had seen his share of battle. His mother’s brothers, Anthony, John and Edward, had fought bravely, dying for this king or that. Why then, why can I not tolerate violence?
By the time James returns, bursting with news of his short campaign, Richard is the father of a fine son. He breaks etiquette and demands to be allowed entrance into Catherine’s chamber. Her women look on askance, making outraged Scottish noises at his audacity, but Catherine, looking pale and shadowed beneath the eyes, opens her arms in welcome.
To the continuing scandal of the women, he climbs onto the bed and wraps his arms around her. “Was it very bad?” he asks.
Catherine strokes his hair back from his brow, as his mother used to do.
“Oh, no. Not so bad,” she says. “I am sure you had a worse time of it than I.”
He sits up, his blue eyes troubled.
“It was bad for me, sweetheart. I learned things about myself. Things a man would rather not know.”
“What things?” Her voice is gentle, like a song, and he finds himself confessing to feelings he’s sworn never to utter.
“I am not a fighting man, Catherine. I find I cannot tolerate bloodshed. I saw men killed and women violated and I did little about it. There was one man, one of the mercenaries I hired, I struck him down. I killed him, Catherine, when I saw him dishonour an innocent girl. After that I had to get away. I couldn’t bear to look on him. I still see him, almost every time I sleep, the blood seeping slowly from his skull, his eyes wide and sightless staring at me … staring right through me, into my soul and seeing me for the coward that I am …”
“Stop it!”
Catherine’s eyes are wide, her face white, tears trickling down her cheeks. He looks down at his hand that clutches tightly on her wrist. He lets go, almost weeps at the red weal his grip has left behind. She rubs it, and cuffs away her tears.
“You have not even asked to see your son,” she reproaches, her voice full of sorrow.
“Oh God, my love, I am sorry.” He takes her wrist, smothers it in healing kisses as the child is brought to them.
“He is like you,” she says, as the infant is laid in his arms. “I’d like to call him Richard.”
He smiles. “Some would say it is an ill-fated name. It has certainly not helped me, or my uncle.”
“I don’t believe in that sort of thing. Your fate and that of your uncle and brother has more to do with your status than your names. How silly men can be sometimes. Do you have a better name for him?”
Richard takes his child’s hand, unfurls his tiny fingers to examine his miniscule nails.
“No,” he says quietly. “Richard it shall be. By happy chance, he may be the one to alter fate and come peacefully to his throne.”
“Amen.”
Their eyes meet above the child’s head; Catherine’s are tearful, Richard’s are full of doubt. “Amen,” they say together as his hand closes over hers.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elizabeth
The Coldharbour – Spring 1497
My mother-in-law sits erect, her hands clasped in her lap, the cup of wine beside her untouched. I am sewing quietly, waiting for her to speak. I know she has called by to impart some news, or perhaps complain of some indiscretion on little Harry’s behalf. From time to time I look up from my needle to smile and offer her further refreshment, which she rejects with a brief shake of her head. At length she clears her throat. “Henry is not himself.”
I put down my work and give her my full attention, mirroring her position by linking my fingers in my lap.
“Is he not? I know he is concerned about the unrest in the West but he seems well enough.”
She sniffs, her lips twitching, her eye not quite meeting mine.
“He is hiding his concern from you. Yesterday, when I questioned him, he suggested you may be with child again.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks, irritation that he should see fit to discuss such a thing with his mother before enquiring of me if it is so.
“Well, I am sorry to disappoint but my husband is mistaken.”
She sniffs again in dissatisfaction. I try to prevent my fingers from plucking at my skirt but they won’t keep still, not until I clamp them together hard. Mary is not yet a year old, surely I am due some respite. To the king’s mother, and so it seems the king also, I am nothing but a brood mare; good blood to boost their bastard stock.
“Well,” she says, for all the world as if I haven’t already supplied England with two heirs, “there is still time for another prince.”
“What is wrong with the two we have?”
“Nothing at all,” she says, finally picking up her cup and sipping her wine. “But a king can never
have too many sons, you should know that.”
Whenever I begin to think my mother-in-law may not be so bad, she shatters that belief with small annoyances. Small reminders of the disdain she has for my family; insinuations that little Harry is too naughty, Mary is undernourished, or Margaret too pert. She has been kind to me on occasion and there have been times when I have almost warmed to her. But her sense of superiority and her jealousy of my relationship with her son are always between us. She is eternally present and I try so hard to like her for Henry’s sake, but she is cold and unyielding; a yoke that I find increasingly hard to bear.
“What do you make of this unrest in Cornwall? It is not just peasants, is it? Their leaders are prominent men.”
After the Pretender invaded with the Scottish king and slaughtered so many Englishmen, Henry declared war on James. To fund it he has levied taxes, harsh levies in which the Cornish, living so far from Scotland, can see no justice. They are protesting loudly and violently against the king, against the crown, and the band of disaffected rebels draws ever closer to London.
The Lady Margaret’s eyes are hooded, her hawklike features disdainful. “It will be contained; I have no doubt of that.”
“I hope so. I am so tired of conflict. It seems to me that all my life …”
“All your life? It is not just you, Elizabeth. My life too has been fraught with conflict. Imagine being forced to live apart from your son, not knowing if he was properly cared for, if he wanted for anything? Imagine then having to serve the monarch who slaughtered your kin and issued those orders, and then complain to me of your hardships.”
“I didn’t mean …”
“I am sure you didn’t. You speak of things you cannot know.”
The conversation is closed. The words she didn’t speak ring loud in my ears, far louder than those she uttered. Your father. That is what she meant. Your father did those things and forced me to live apart from my son. She will never forgive me. I don’t know why I try.
I turn my head from her to look from the window to the gardens where the Lenten Lilies nod their gay heads as if war and suffering do not exist. I have a sudden longing to be outside but I do not suggest it. She will say the wind is too chill, or the ground too damp. Later, when she has gone, I may ride to Eltham and spend a day or so with the children. We can ride in the woods and picnic in the grounds. That will cheer me. For now, I must bite my tongue and bear my penance.
A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck Page 22