Fortune's Wheel

by Rhoda Edwards

  An hour later, when it was completely dark, Sir John Langstrother’s Greek servant found her, while on his way to tell his master’s grooms to be ready to leave in the morning. He trod on the hem of her gown before he noticed her. He thought at first that he had found a servant girl, in the middle of an English monastery, and couldn’t believe his luck; then, in some alarm, recognized the Prince’s wife. What she was doing out here alone in the dark he had no idea, and the last thing he wanted to do was to be caught in her company. He was a very beautiful young Rhodian, and the English were very suspicious, aggressive people, who treated him as if he were a filthy, barbarian Turk. He realized at once what she was doing, for her sobs had not yet abated, and were beyond her control.

  ‘Madame Princess,’ he said in English, translating carefully in his head from his own language. ‘I am most sorry to disturb you. But, please, will you go into the house. It is not right that you are in the dark. What for do you weep?’

  He could not follow her reply. But he had remembered who she was. The Earl of Warwick who had been killed in a battle, which seemed to please some people — she was his daughter. The poor little thing had been left to cry, with no family near her, nobody to take any notice of her at all. He had lost his own father, taken as a slave by the Turks, so he understood.

  ‘Please,’ he said again, ‘will your Highness go indoors?’

  ‘Will you do something for me?’

  He stood like a nervous horse, wondering what she would say.

  ‘Ask the Grand Prior if he will tell me a little more of what happened, when he has heard himself. I don’t know — how my father died.’

  ‘But these lords, should they have told you this? No one has told you? It is worse not to know. Why do you not ask them?’

  ‘Ask them?’

  ‘Yes. Go to them. You are the Princess.’

  She found the Beaufort brothers, Devonshire, Wenlock and Langstrother deep in conference with the Prince. A meeting of men, the Queen excluded. The Prince’s face glowed like a lamp with excitement, though the hour was late and the others were haggard with long travelling. Yet they warmed to him, watching him closely, kindled by his enthusiasm.

  ‘Keep as far west as we can.’

  ‘To the Severn Valley. Then we can be certain of meeting Pembroke as soon as he comes out of Wales.’

  ‘Edward of March will have further to go to catch up with us. Is he in London?’

  Anne waited for them to stop talking and notice her. Then she said, ‘My lords, since you have neglected to tell me, I should like to know how my father died.’ She was surprised at herself, sounding so haughty.

  They all gaped at her, then Somerset rose to his feet. The Prince had the grace to go very red. Somerset bowed gravely and courteously to her.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘for an unforgivable omission. I did not know your Highness.’

  Anne did not see why Beaufort should apologize when he was the least to blame. Her own husband — meaningless title — had ignored her, and his mother had taunted her.

  ‘The man who brought me the news of Barnet field is not with us. I can only tell you what he told me.’

  They brought up a chair for her, and she sat opposite her husband, who would not look at her. She steeled herself to hear something horrible, heroic, dramatic. When Somerset had finished she found that she had been moved only to a dreary desolation. They had expected her to weep. She did not. Her father had died so prosaically. Somerset knew that this was often the way of battles. The Prince was disappointed.

  Warwick had been beaten and tried to save himself for another day. This was not cowardly, but sensible under the circumstances. No one expected generals to fall on their swords like Romans in these days. He had bad luck, and had been killed by men who did not even know which lord he was. The only heroic act had been Montagu’s, who could have escaped, but stayed to defend his brother, and died.

  ‘My father always did say his brother John was his right arm,’ Anne said, so coolly, that they looked at her strangely.

  The Prince sent for Lady Vaux and asked her to go with Anne and put her to bed. It was not until afterwards that Anne realized that he had not meant to hurt her deliberately, but had been so entranced by the thought of his coming life as a man and a soldier that he had thought of nothing else at all.

  In the morning, Anne asked if she might buy candles to light for her father and her uncle John. She was the only person in the Queen’s retinue to do so.

  After that night at Cerne, Anne scarcely saw her husband. Queen Margaret, for once overruled by the men of her party, had given up her determination to return to France, as if she knew that a battle to get her son to leave now would be lost. From this time, they were an army on the march, and the Prince was in his element. Katherine Vaux, Petronille and Marie said it would be tedious, and hard, and hardest of all on the women. Anne was bundled along like a piece of baggage, unpacked one night and done up again in the morning.

  From Cerne they went to Exeter, a city always loyal to Lancaster, and above all to Courtenay, the heir to the old Earldom of Devonshire, which had been given by King Edward to an upstart favourite. Heartening numbers of troops were coming in, though they were paid largely in promises and were expensive to the towns through which they passed.

  At Wells, the Bishop’s palace was ransacked and his prison smashed open and prisoners let out, while Queen Margaret and her son stood and watched. It was the first time Anne had seen deliberate destruction and looting as an act of revenge. Bishop Stillington, who was King Edward’s Chancellor, was absent. His plate was carried out of his house, spilling and clattering out of baskets, with whoops from the looters. A man came out with a chamber pot on his head for a mitre and carrying a crozier. The Prince was doubled over; Anne had never seen him so happy, so bursting with life. The Queen and her son laughed in harmony for the first time in weeks. The hinges on the doors and the latches from the windows were forced off, for the iron to be forged into weapons for the army. The soldiers even stole the daisies from the Bishop’s lawns, to wear on their jackets and hats as favours — marguerites — for the Queen.

  When they got to Bath, they heard that Edward of March was at Cirencester. He had re-mustered his men after Barnet and moved them towards the west with greater speed than had been expected. This meant that he was about thirty-five miles away from them, but only twenty from the first bridge over the Severn, at Gloucester.

  Somerset said, ‘Each day that we avoid him is to our advantage. Pembroke is determined to have his Welshmen at Monmouth by Saturday night. If we can cross the Severn at Gloucester on Friday, we can meet him less than a day’s march westward. Also, Lord Stanley has promised to bring in the men of Lancashire and Cheshire to us on the Welsh border. Then we will have an army which will outnumber Edward of March’s two to one. We’ll finish the House of York for ever.’

  ‘How can we prevent him from advancing too near us?’ asked the Prince eagerly. He seemed to think he could extract everything but the Sybilline prophecies from Somerset.

  ‘We can’t,’ Somerset said grimly. ‘We can only hope, pray to God and St George to preserve us, and march until we drop.’

  ‘We need guns,’ Queen Margaret said in her incisive way. She had to all appearances regained her authority over her commanders and her son. ‘We need every man, every groat we can pick up; each bowstave makes us stronger. I propose that we go from here to Bristol. It is the second city in the south, and the merchants are almost as rich as those in London. Yes, yes, I know, it may lose us half a day in time to get there, but the support we will gain will more than compensate us.’

  ‘Hmm. Edward has a reputation for getting more miles out of his men’s feet in less time than seems humanly possible. I don’t like the idea of even an hour’s delay in making for Gloucester. Bristol is not a loyal city in any special way, though I see no reason why it should be hostile. But as you say, madame, we need guns, men and money. Bristol it shall be.’


  Anne, trailing somewhere behind Queen Margaret and the Prince, saw them received at the High Cross in Bristol by a wary Mayor. He was a large man, solid with the wealth of his city, intent upon offering expedient aid, and bidding a quick farewell to the Lancastrian Queen. Her armies had an evil reputation, and he had heard of what had happened at Wells. The city was on holiday because it was May Day. People were dancing in the streets, just as they were in every other town in England.

  Every May Day, wherever he had been staying at the time, Warwick had feasted the whole district at his own expense and given all his people a holiday, including the children from their lessons. Now there was no one to order what went on in the castles of Middleham and Warwick, no one to pay for such festivities. King Edward would make an act of attainder against her father; all his possessions would be forfeit. New constables would be put in charge of the castles, and everything in them would belong to someone else.

  Anne realized that now she had nothing which she could call her own, except for her clothing, and the few things she had in her meagre baggage. Everything she really cared for, her dogs, her horses, her books, her favourite wall hangings, the picture of St Anne and the Holy Family with Warwick and his wife kneeling, very small, at the bottom — all these would be used or abused by strangers. She had by now heard that her mother had survived the stormy voyage from France and landed at Portsmouth. When the Countess had heard of her husband’s death, she had at once fled into sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey, where the Church would protect her from whatever revenge she imagined King Edward would inflict upon her. The Countess clearly did not wish to involve herself any further with Queen Margaret in case this should make things worse for her. Anne wished that she were safe at Beaulieu, too.

  The next morning, they heard for the first time just how near King Edward’s army was to them.

  ‘Katherine, prepare yourself for a long, long day,’ Anne heard Queen Margaret say to Lady Vaux. ‘We must follow the river Severn and we must reach Gloucester before the usurper Edward catches up with us. We must march night and day. I shall keep this army moving until it can go no further. We must delay Edward by making a feint in his direction. I have sent mounted men-at-arms east from here on to the Malmesbury road. He should come forward to meet them, thinking we are prepared to do battle. But I shall press on northwards so fast that I will leave him behind.’ I, she said, as if she were in sole command of the army. She was alive, alert; women, Anne thought, are capable of so much.

  ‘Who wins this race,’ the Queen said, ‘wins England, and with God’s help, it shall be I.’

  *

  The canvas walls of the tent bulged and slacked with each breath of the night wind. Up on the hill, where King Edward’s army was encamped, the wind was cold, though the previous day had been hot. The flap of the tent was open, drawn aside. Outside was dead of night, with clear stars and a moon. Inside was warm in comparison, and sheltered, and much darker, the seductive dark which makes sleep so irresistible. Sleep had long ago ceased to be seductive and become an iron-armed mistress, a necessity which had to be fought, as St Anthony of Egypt had fought his fleshly temptations in the desert. Every night for the last two months, as midnight approached, Richard had fought with sleep and won a short-lived victory, as long as he kept on his feet and ignored the loving arms of the nearest chair, the smiles of a cushioned seat. Worse was the effort to get up again after sleep’s attentions, when the dawn in the sky was still only a greenish leavening and there was still a full hour of torch gloom to go before even greylight. He had seen one season out and the next in like this. At least now they did not wake to the sound of sheeting rain, and go forth in rusty breastplate in seas of mud and perishing cold. His boots were now dry inside, though still on him as he fell asleep.

  A figure filled the tent doorway, bent almost double to enter; men with torches brought light behind it. King Edward, stooping and ducking slightly as he had to in most tents, walked across the matting on the floor, kicked a piece of armour against another with a loud clatter, and bent over his sleeping brother. He beckoned up a man carrying a torch. ‘Shine it in the Duke’s face,’ he said.

  The clattering noise of metal had made no impression; Richard was too far gone in sleep. He was lying fully clothed in the oddest position for a sleeper, sprawled on his front, his arms and legs untidily awry. He looked like a swimmer without water. He was lying on top of something angular and lumpy — a canvas bag with some articles of equipment inside it. In normal times no one could have slept for more than five minutes in such discomfort. Richard had been there the best part of three hours. The King shook his arm vigorously and obtained no response. Thinking as he did so — you cruel bastard of a brother — he lifted Richard bodily up into a sitting position and shook him hard. He came awake at once, and sat blinking in the light of the torches like an owl disturbed.

  King Edward said grimly, ‘We are sitting here on Sodbury Hill for no reason. We’ve chased after a shadow. We should have headed north for Gloucester immediately from Malmesbury. Those men over here are just a ploy to delay us. The main part of their army has reached Berkeley already.

  ‘Listen, Dick, we have got to move as we’ve never moved in our lives before. If we can go fast enough, then I think we will trap them before they gain an advantage. I’ve already sent a messenger riding to Gloucester. I want Beauchamp the governor to shut the gates on them, to keep them from the bridge. The bridge is their only hope. If they can’t use it, what alternative is there but Tewkesbury, where there is no bridge, only a ferry? By God, if Beauchamp is as loyal as I think he is, we shall have them like eels in a trap!

  ‘Richard, I gave you charge of the vanguard of my army at Barnet and was repaid a hundredfold. You have the van now, and in the battle, which I believe will be at Tewkesbury. You march first. I trust you to make the pace for the rest of us. You’ve a chance to learn how to move an army fast in difficult country. The hills here go up and down like a dog’s hind leg. The ones who can’t stand it will be left to take their chance. When the sun is up, if it’s as hot as yesterday, give them a ten-minute break every couple of hours, maybe a little longer at midday — though where their meal is coming from, I don’t know; we’ve next to no provisions left.

  ‘Don’t force the pace — it’s more important to keep going steadily all the time. The road north from here leading along the ridge of the hills should bring us to within five miles of Tewkesbury by evening. There will be no question of the French Queen trying to cross the Severn — the ferry would take too long — they know I would catch them at it.

  ‘The road we take will be hard and hilly, but we’ll be dryer underfoot than they will down in the valley.

  ‘Dick, I’ll see you during the day — I’ll be riding about, seeing how things are going — but much of it is in your hands. God go with you.’ With that the King kissed Richard’s sleepy, unwashed face and strode out of the tent.

  Richard looked at the hour-glass. It stood at three o’clock. He went through the multitude of tasks that had to be done when an army broke camp at double speed, his mind sharpened and his body tensed, as if sleep had never existed.

  Dawn came to the Cotswold Hills as they moved off. The smell of crushed downland grass and dung and soldiers was all around them. The mist was thin, like steam rising, so that they appeared to walk on clouds, like the heavenly host. Nothing heavenly about this host though; it had not shaved, or washed, since Malmesbury or before, and it grumbled and swore at the enforced haste. Sheep grazing across the track scattered in mindless alarm. A soldier who had laid an overnight snare had got a coney; he might as well have left it, he would have no time to make a stew before it was time to fight. He had Richard’s own boar badge sewn on his sleeve, clean and white, and there were the marks of darker cloth where some other badge had been unpicked for the sake of discretion. Richard knew that he was one of Warwick’s men, and had said nothing.

  The day stretched ahead of them, something between thirty and forty miles to
cover — how many hours? Maybe as many as fourteen. The terrain they covered was a rise and fall of hills, open country and sheep runs. The men marched now with a swing; it was early, and as fair a May morning as one might imagine, but by midday they would feel the heat of the sun.

  *

  The road from Berkeley to Gloucester was very dark, passing deep through beech woods, which shut out the moon. It was one o’clock in the morning. The carriage in which Anne travelled with the Queen and her other women had stuck in mud. The Queen put her head out through the curtains and shrieked for help. Around them an army on the march at night was a weird, frightening sight. The many pitch flares lit the gargoyle faces of tired soldiers, making of them a procession to Calvary, or to Hell. The march was only just beginning.

  When at last the city of Gloucester came in sight, it was mid-morning, and the army groaned as with one voice at what it saw. The south gate of the city was closed. Armed men lined the walls. They had mounted guns to cover the road which led round beside the Severn to the bridge.

  The Queen was struggling to control her hysteria as she sent messengers galloping with threats to Sir Richard Beauchamp, the governor. If the gates were not opened, the city would be fired on with guns, stormed, put to the sword and looted to the bare ground.

  The sense of panic was contagious. Anne, who had been numbed ever since leaving Cerne, felt real fear of war for the first time, of blows, blood and rape; women were so completely helpless. Before, she had not much cared who won this race to the Severn. God knew what would happen to her if Edward became King again, though anything seemed better than being the unwanted wife of King Henry’s heir. Now her feelings began to take colour from Queen Margaret’s, and she felt the desperate need to escape, to cross the bridge which was barred to them, to be saved from the wrath of Edward.

  It took less than five minutes to realize that Gloucester was a hopeless proposition. There was no possibility of storming a way through, it was too strong a garrison town. There was no time — a siege might take weeks, they had only hours. The Prince, so happy and confident that he would win the race to the west and meet his uncle Tudor, seemed unable to believe the hostility of the city.