I was flabbergasted, suddenly seeing a side of her I had not known existed. ‘But – but my children! You brought us here – miles from anyone we know. I have no money. You cannot in all Christian decency throw us out into unknown territory without transport, money or protection!’ There was no question of avoiding her gaze now; my eyes were drilling into hers and she met them without flinching.
‘Do not speak to me of decency! You came to us in the guise of a decent widow, who had been entrusted with the care of a wealthy nobleman’s heir. Now I discover you are neither decent nor widowed. Worse than that, you are the leman of my husband’s enemy and have probably been his spy all the time you have been under my roof. If you were a man you would be under arrest and clapped in irons. Think yourself lucky I do not bring charges against you. The servant who showed you here has orders to stay with you while you gather your belongings and your children and ensure that you leave my brother’s castle. Now go.’
The anger raging inside me sustained me through the difficult task of rounding up the girls and Davy and encouraging them to wrap their most precious and necessary possessions in a blanket and knot the corners so that they could each carry their own. I had no compunction in taking the blankets, considering it a challenge to the woman I had until so recently thought of as compassionate.
‘But where are we going and why can I not say goodbye to Harri?’ Davy asked fretfully. ‘He will come out of his Latin lesson and look for me. We always go to dinner together.’
‘We would all like to say goodbye to Harri, Davy, but the armed man outside the chamber door will not let us near him,’ I replied. ‘He and several others are ready this moment to escort us out of the castle.’
‘I do not understand,’ wailed Elin, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘What have we done?’
‘None of us has done anything. Everything has changed as a result of Lord Herbert’s death and we have to leave. That is all.’
‘But why is Harri not coming with us?’ Even Sian had found her voice to protest. ‘He is one of us – our family!’
‘You all know that Harri was Lord Herbert’s ward. The king is in charge of him now. Perhaps he will go to his mother. He would like that.’ I wanted at all costs to avoid telling them the bitter truth, that with King Edward a captive and the Earl of Warwick playing his own despotic game, Harri’s future was possibly even more uncertain than ours.
I thought of packing paper, pens and ink so that I could write to Lady Margaret but how would I get a letter to her now? She could never have dreamed that Harri’s guardian would take her precious son to a battle, only to lose it along with his head. I had never imagined that my small deception at the start of our life with the Herberts would result in being cast out into enemy territory, miles away from friends or family. As we hauled our bundles down the steps from Weobley Castle it felt as if we were walking into a nightmare.
36
Jane
The Welsh March
FROM RAGLAN IT HAD taken us two days to ride to Weobley but I had no idea how long it would take to walk to safety, if such a thing existed for a woman and three children alone in a hostile world. In the village outside the castle we were already unwelcome strangers. Fists were shaken at us, insults shouted and doors slammed on every side as the street emptied of people. It was as if we had F for felon stamped on our foreheads and it made me suspect that during the short time it had taken to pack our bundles Lady Herbert had had a cryer declare us outcasts.
‘What is the matter?’ Elin shouted furiously at a ranting gossip, who was hurling refuse at us from the doorway of her house. ‘Why do you hate us? We have done nothing to you.’
Davy pulled her away. ‘Leave it, Elin. We should go now.’ Apparently sure of which direction to take, he marched her purposefully along the rutted road that led downhill out of the village, heading into a forested wilderness. Above us a blazing sun shone down from an azure sky. In any other circumstances it would have been a beautiful day.
Sian and I had to run to catch them up. ‘When we clear the village I think we should aim southwest,’ I told Davy. ‘Following the sun. I remember Lord Jasper saying that the lordship of Hay belongs to the Duke of Buckingham; he is a ward of Harri’s mother. We must try to reach it before nightfall.’
It was a stab in the dark, something to say. I did not even know how far it was. Our chosen path took us along forest trails, which climbed uphill and down, the valleys cut by fast-running streams. In a clearing by one of them, as the sun set, we sank down exhausted, ate apples, drank water from our cupped hands and rolled ourselves in the blankets in which we had wrapped our belongings. Fearful, I lay long awake, my ears straining for any sound but finally I slept and when I woke at first light it was to find that some unknown thief had crept up on us and made off with whatever he or she could carry, including Sian’s favourite doll and the few groats I had managed to squirrel away. Davy and Elin had taken the precaution of tucking all their belongings under their blankets and from them nothing had been taken, for which they earned my praise. Davy revealed the knife he had kept safe. ‘I think we might need it soon,’ he said seriously, comforting no one. Seeing our faces he added, ‘For cutting up any game we catch,’ which only prompted Elin to ask scornfully, ‘And how would we cook when we have no fire?’
‘We will not starve before we get to Hay,’ I said as cheerfully as I could.
After an hour or so we came to a major river, much too wide and deep to cross and we followed it upstream, looking for a bridge or a ford. I guessed this was the Wye. We followed it against the flow to take us deeper into the Welsh hills and, I hoped, into friendly territory. We hid from some soldiers as they tramped past our concealing thicket and something caught my eye when I peered through the bushes. The badge on their jackets was a white rose. If these were men from the garrison at Hay Castle it meant that Hay was no longer Lancastrian; it was in the hands of York. It was only then I remembered, with a jolt, that the Duke of Buckingham’s custody had been taken from Lady Margaret and granted to Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville. It was no place for us.
And yet we needed food and we needed directions. Now I had to hope we could find a priory or a monastery, which might take pity on us and give us a meal at least. Davy took on the role of advance scout and eventually came running back from a bend in the river to tell me that a woman was kneeling beside the stream doing her washing. St Christopher must have been watching over us because the washerwoman was kindness itself; she directed us to cross a nearby ford and told us how to find the closest priory. ‘If it is charity you are looking for,’ as she put it, eyeing our makeshift bundles. Meanwhile she gave the children the loaf she had presumably planned to eat herself. And she restored some of my faith in humankind.
The monks at Clifford Priory, when we found them, were few and mostly elderly but true to their calling they served us a simple meal and accommodated us in a small guest dorter. The prior advised me against travelling alone with the children in these troubled times but I explained that I had no choice and asked directions to Carmarthen.
After two nights and a day of the monks’ warmly given charity we left. However, I had overheard talk of a travelling bard and was inspired to ask the prior if Lewys Glyn Cothi was known to him. When told he was in the vicinity I asked for a message to be given to him should he appear; my name and the direction I had taken with the three children.
Davvy had begged a fishing-net from one of the monks and learned how to make a cord snare-trap to catch hares. He also discovered how to make fire with two sticks and some dry grass and for several days I thought we were doing well as travellers. Then, while sitting by our fire after dusk, two men carrying sickles suddenly emerged from the shadows to challenge us as vagrants. Before long we were being marched to the nearby castle, which loomed over us, dark and menacing against the night sky; all the more so when we were told this was the lordship of Sir Roger Vaughan.
I had barely time to recall that this was the man who
had led Owen Tudor to his execution before we were pushed through the gatehouse and then through an iron-hinged oak door straight into the castle’s hall, where a dozen men and women sat at their supper. We were lined up before a large grey-haired man who tore the last shred of meat from a mutton bone before hurling it to the two hounds waiting expectantly at his back. Had my own teeth not been chattering with fear I might have been impressed at the strength of his, considering his years. His voice was also apparently unaffected by age.
‘What have we here, Meurig?’ he bellowed. ‘Some entertainment for us?’
‘Vagrants, sir,’ began the chief of our captors. ‘Lit a fire in the hayfield. Danger to your second crop.’
‘It was not!’ cried Davy. ‘It was on the packed mud near the stream. I made sure it was safe.’
‘Silence!’ shouted the lord. ‘I will not be shouted at by a filthy vagrant in my own hall. Shut his gob, Sim.’
I swung round to see the second guard clamp his spare hand over Davy’s mouth. The boy’s eyes rolled in anger, which turned to alarm as the sickle blade flashed before them.
‘I do not wish to deal with this now, Meurig.’ The grey-haired man waved his hand dismissively. ‘Take them away and lock them in the cellar. I will come down there when I have finished my supper.’
My arm was grabbed and I was being pulled away when a familiar voice spoke up from the far end of the trestle. ‘Sir Roger, I know these people. They are not vagrants.’ It was Lewys Glyn Cothi.
I did not know whether to rejoice at seeing a friend or tremble at the possibility that he might expose me as Jasper’s mistress. I could not bear to think what Sir Roger Vaughan would choose to do with me if he discovered that.
The knight raised his eyebrows at Lewys and grinned. ‘Great Heaven! Not another of your doxys, Lewys?’
The bard bridled. ‘You flatter me, Sir Roger. No, this is my cousin Sian and her three children. I do not know why they were camping in your field but I guarantee it would not be with the intention of burning your hay crop.’
I took courage and wrenched my arm from my captor, deciding it was time to drop a curtsy. ‘No indeed, Sir Roger,’ I said. ‘We were merely intending to rest in your byre for the night on our way home. I apologize for causing you distress.’
Sir Roger cleared his throat loudly. ‘Harrumph. You should have made yourself known at the gate, Mistress. Where is your home?’
He waved back the men with sickles and I felt a surge of relief but at the same time I also scrabbled mentally for a reply to his question. The wrong answer could land us in even hotter water than we had been hitherto. ‘Like Lewys, my family is from the west, sir, but my husband is a mason and we have been in Hereford. He has travelled on to find new work and will send for us again when he has found it.’
Sir Roger glared at his man with the sickle. ‘So not a vagrant, Meurig?’
‘She said she had no money, sir.’ The man scowled fiercely at me.
‘It is hard to explain at the point of a blade,’ I retorted. ‘We were set upon by thieves the other night and all our money was stolen.’
‘Well, Mistress Sian, when the trestles are cleared you are welcome to sleep here in the hall but meanwhile you can go to the kitchen for some supper. Now let me get on with my meal!’
Lewys came out to greet us while we ate and his cheeks grew pink as he received our grateful thanks. When I told him of our eviction from Weobley and our travels so far he was indignant. Then I revealed that Tenby was our destination, which I had not told the children, in case they let it slip.
‘You cannot go that far alone, Mistress Jane,’ he said.‘You will become lost or worse. I will guide you to Tenby and see you safely to your house,’ adding in a whisper. ‘Lord Jasper would expect no less.’
‘I cannot let you do that, Lewys,’ I protested … but Davy was thrilled, especially at the prospect of learning how to lift a trout from a pool with his bare hands, which Lewys had once boasted he knew how to do.
I laughed and gave him a hug. ‘Oh, Davy, we could not have got this far without you. I look forward to your first trout!’
We all had cause to thank Davy and his net and snare over the next ten days as, weary and footsore but rarely hungry, we followed the bard over mountain, river and moor. And I blessed the boy and his sharp knife for another reason, because he slept beside the girls. Lewys was a good guide and friend but I knew his reputation and I did not like the way he looked at Elin.
37
Jasper
Chateau Chinon, Touraine, France
CALLED ‘THE PRUDENT KING’ by his courtiers, Louis XI of France was known among his detractors as ‘The Universal Spider’, because he ruled through a complex web of spies and diplomats rather than maintaining order, as sovereigns were wont to do, by the power of edict and sword. Chateau Chinon was the hub of his web, located on the River Vienne in Touraine, which had been his personal dukedom as Dauphin and to which he had frequently withdrawn in anger when his father, my mother’s brother, had been alive. On the family tree we were first cousins, but we were hardly the kissing kind. Louis had been crowned King of France around the time my brother was usurped but not until recently had he shown any interest in assisting King Henry’s restoration, despite my consistent efforts to gain his support. He had granted me a meagre pension but one that he considered gave him carte blanche to harness my diplomatic services around the courts of Europe; and since becoming stateless I had been forced to accept that beggars could not be choosers.
At least I had been allotted a small but private chamber at Chinon and a letter from Lady Margaret had been waiting there for several weeks when I arrived back at the start of November. I was surprised to receive it at all, considering the political upheaval in England and the disruption it must have caused to our courier network. Some of what she wrote I already knew through other sources but the terse and cryptic nature of the letter vividly conveyed her anxiety about Harri, whom she referred to as R – for Richmond I presumed.
To my very good friend.
You have no doubt heard that Herbert’s hubris led him to believe he could not lose the battle at Banbury and Warwick’s hubris sent his defeated rival to the scaffold. Both events put R in the greatest possible danger. I lived in fear that he had been killed or captured, then at last I learned that he lived and had been taken to a place in Shropshire, where Herbert’s widow and children had taken refuge. I have received assurances of R’s safety and good health but since his appointed guardian is dead, I wish to petition the crown for his legal custody. However, I am told Warwick has the king under house arrest in Middleham and, not content with Herbert’s head, has ordered the execution of the queen’s captured father and brother. The queen herself has fled to sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. England is in the invidious position of having two living, consecrated kings who are both confined, Henry in the Tower and Edward at Middleham, while uncrowned Warwick is ruling despotically and without authority. I fear Fortune’s Wheel may have turned against us entirely. The future is in God’s hands, to Whom I pray hourly for mercy and guidance. MR
Written on the twenty-ninth day of August, 1469
I folded Margaret’s letter and added it to what I called the Conspiracy Casket, which I kept double-locked among my belongings. But of Jane and the children I had no news. Thinking of her practicality and praying hard, I told myself that no news was good news and tried not to speculate whether they, too, had gone to Shropshire. Or if not, where were they and how did they fare?
A royal summons came. Once arrayed in the, admittedly somewhat crumpled, fur-trimmed doublet and gold Lancastrian collar that I kept for court appearances, I passed swiftly through King Louis’ crowded Audience Chamber, exchanging brief pleasantries with those of his courtiers I knew, many of whom were obliged to wait hours gossiping and conspiring while awaiting admittance to The Presence. I had often had to do so myself and heaved a sigh of relief when, without any delay, the duty chamberlain threw open the door to th
e inner sanctum.
‘The most noble and puissant Lord Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, your grace.’
It was pleasant to hear my title used, having been officially but illegally stripped of it eight years ago. Louis advanced with his hand out to greet me; I kissed it with a low bow.
‘Jasper!’ He said my name in French, sounding as if he was desperately hoping for something – J’espère! ‘I have been expecting you. The news from England is more promising I think.’
‘Indeed, your grace?’ I could not help the question in my voice, for it seemed less than promising to me.
‘Yes, yes.’ Louis rubbed his hands. ‘Edward is back on the throne, he has generously forgiven his brother Clarence and the Earl of Warwick for rebelling against him and now he has made his other brother Gloucester, Constable of England. The situation is ripening nicely, ready for us to pounce!’
This was news indeed but his was not the way I would have looked at it. ‘If you say so, sire. I cannot see it myself.’
He wagged a majestic finger at me. ‘Ah, but you see only the obvious and do not detect the undercurrents. Warwick tried and failed to depose Edward and put Clarence on the throne, yes? He held Edward prisoner and executed his favourites, the Woodvilles, father and brother, yes? And yet Edward does not cut off Warwick’s head in retaliation, as you might expect, but instead makes Gloucester, his youngest brother, Constable of England, in charge of defending his kingdom, though a mere boy of seventeen. What does that say to the world?’ Louis lowered his voice and spoke into my ear. ‘It says that Warwick and Clarence are finished. Edward fears them about as much as two drunks at a Midsummer revel. That he considers them not worth his trust and not even worth executing.’
Louis patted my cheek and moved away, face aglow, magnificent rings flashing in the blaze of a twenty-candle chandelier as he made his next pronouncement. ‘The Earl of Warwick is a man with an overblown opinion of himself.’
First of the Tudors Page 31