B0010SEN6I EBOK

by Worth, Sandra

  We tore our eyes from one another and answered in one cry, “We consent!” Oh, how we consent! I thought.

  George took the ring from Warwick’s flower-bedecked little daughter Bella, and blessed it. He gave it to John, who slipped it in turn on three fingers of my left hand with the words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” before fitting it on my third finger. Looking deep into my eyes, he paused, then said gravely, in a loud voice, “With this ring I thee wed.”

  Cheers exploded around me, and there came the flapping of a thousand wings as doves were released into the air. A bowl of gold coins was presented to us to scatter as alms to the poor. Laughing, we threw the coins into the air. They caught the sun’s rays and fell glittering over the crowds like golden rain, reminding me of the fiery flowers I had imagined on my beautiful, never-to-be-forgotten night of the dance at Tattershall Castle. Enfolded in blinding happiness, followed by the wedding party, I entered the chapel for my nuptial mass.

  THE EARL HAD SPARED NO EXPENSE ON OUR WEDDING feast. Decorated with boughs of greenery, garlands of flowers, and countless flickering candles, the great hall had been made resplendent with beauty and light. No longer did I feel my feet carry me, as John led me to the head table, where two carved chairs had been set for us in the center before a golden taffeta curtain sprinkled with silver stars; I floated there on a perfumed cloud.

  When the wedding guests had been seated and the wine poured, John pushed to his feet. Raising a golden goblet to me in salute, he gave me a gaze of heartrending tenderness. “Lady wife, God grant you health, honor, and joy.”

  “And a thousand sons!” yelled Thomas. The hall roared with laughter.

  I stood and lifted my goblet to John. “And God grant you pleasure, peace, and health, my lord husband.” It was the first time I had addressed him as “husband,” and the word left an unbearably sweet, honeyed taste in my mouth.

  A murmur of amen, accompanied by the rustle of fabric and the clink of silver cups, went around the room as guests joined their voices to ours. The earl gave the signal, and servers, carvers, and stewards sprang into action to present the wedding feast of beef, smoked mullet, veal, and all manner of venison, ducklings, capons, rabbits, boar pie with fennels, olives, and rich sauces. With great fanfare and torches blazing, they carried in whole succulent boars on their shoulders, and swans in their plumage. Beer, fragrant mead, and wine of many varieties, sweet, dark, and spiced, were poured from gargantuan barrels in endless streams. Between courses, tumblers performed handsprings, and mummers walked around on sticks like giants. Troubadours recounted the tales of Samson and Delilah, Priam, Helen, and Ulysses, and of Arthur and Guinevere, and accompanied themselves on pear-shaped lutes and stringed viols as they sang love songs. Before the course of sweets, John presented a troubadour to serenade me with words he had chosen:

  My lady looks so gentle and so pure,

  That the tongue trembles and has naught to say.

  She walks with humbleness in her array,

  Seeming a creature sent from Heaven.

  Hands clasped, we exchanged a long look of love with one another as the song drew to a close. Amid grand applause, John threw the troubadour a gold noble, and guests rose to perform their own feats for us, vying with one another for the loudest praise. Then everyone joined hands and danced, accompanied by lute, viol, and tabors as servants presented sweets of marchpane, rice pudding, gingerbread, apples, and candied rose petals. Never was a hall so merry, filled with so much laughter.

  As bells tolled for Vespers, John and I rose from the table to leave for our bridal abode, which had been set up in a cottage near a high waterfall on the castle grounds. Laughter resounded everywhere as our drink-laden guests struggled to their feet to accompany us. The drunkest of these was Thomas; the tallest, York’s son Edward; and the most sober, Bishop George. Swaying, Thomas threw a hand around his cousin Edward’s neck. “Where are you now, brave Percies?” he yelled, peering around the hall. “Here is a bridal party to ambush—’tis time to attack! Come, give us good sport—Edward and I stand ready to slay you like the hogs you are—” Grabbing a flask he had stuck in his girdle, he brandished it like a sword while he oinked merrily.

  Edward grabbed the flask away from him. “Too good for Percies,” he said, slurring his words, downing a sip. “Let us slay them with more sour stuff!” Roaring with laughter, the two cousins staggered out.

  More sweets, more wine, more music followed us into the courtyard, where we were joined by a throng of feasting peasants. Purple sunset was falling over the world, and birds rejoiced loudly. While some merrymakers grabbed torches, others made John and me sit in chairs with long wooden poles extending out front and back. Hoisting us high on their drunken shoulders, they formed a wedding cortege a league long and carried us through the glowing gardens, along the narrow, winding path over the dimming meadows humming with crickets, past the darkening woods of larch and pine to our bridal cottage, singing, dancing, and nearly tipping us out many a time. But we were so happy and plied with wine, we merely held on to the wooden arms of our chairs, screamed merrily, and laughed the harder.

  On our arrival at our bridal abode, Bishop George blessed the cottage from the thatched roof down to the wood floor, then the hearth and the nuptial bed, which had been prepared for us with silken sheets and down pillows and covers. With a last blessing, he left us standing at the open shutters of the bedroom, waving farewell to the departing revelers. Staking their torches into the ground as they retreated, the merrymakers receded into the darkness and their laughter died away into the distance, leaving only the roar of water and the glitter of the waterfall as it reflected the lights of the flames.

  We were alone.

  John reached out, gently lifted the slender golden band of my veil, and set it aside. My hair tumbled loose around my shoulders, shedding white rose petals around me. He wound a lock around his fingers, pressed it to his lips. I moved into the circle of his arms and lifted my mouth for his kiss, but all at once he crushed me to him and covered my lips hungrily with his own, sending a rush of desire through my body as fiery as the flames crackling in the hearth. Without releasing me, he fumbled with the gilt circlet that held my dress, found the clasp, and opened it. He tugged at my sleeves until the gown slipped from my body. Then he released me, removed his jacket and shirt, and threw them aside. I watched as he pulled off his boots and hose and cast them away.

  I dropped my linen shift to my feet. We stood at the foot of the bed, gazing at one another without shame, lit by fire and moonlight. His eyes were darker than I had ever seen them. His kisses swept my cheek, my neck, my shoulders, and I returned each with savage harmony, my heart hammering in my breast. I threw my arms around his neck, and he carried me weightless to the bed. I felt his uneven breath against my cheek and the sweet bliss of his hardness against me. It seemed to me then that there was naught in the world but fire and thunder as our bodies entwined, united in love, unto eternity.

  “My wife…” he murmured when passion had been spent.

  “Beloved husband…beloved, beloved…”

  “Nothing shall part us ever again, my angel Isobel,” he whispered thickly.

  “Nothing,” I echoed, engulfed in a fog of bliss. “Nothing…ever, John.”

  Eleven

  JULY 1457

  OBLIVIOUS TO EVENTS IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD, John and I passed three intoxicating months together before July shattered the blissful cocoon we had woven for ourselves.

  He had been gone more than a week with his father and brother Thomas to the seaside town of Whitby to meet Warwick, who had sailed in from Calais. I had expected him back before now, so when the Salisbury herald sounded his horn in the distance, I left the spinners I had been supervising and hurried up to the turrets to watch his arrival. Maude and the countess joined me there, along with many members of the household staff. We stood together, craning our necks as we scanned the green meadows rising to meet the rim of the sky, and
waited with happy hearts for our first sight of the returning retinue. But our smiles faded when the column drew closer.

  Maude spoke first. “Why is there so much dust? I can’t see—”

  I turned to the countess, and a cold knot formed in my stomach at the expression on her face. A sudden realization struck me with terrible force. She knows only too well the signs of trouble. “They’re galloping up too fast…. The column is long with wagons.” Her voice trembled. “They have wounded men with them—hurry! Get sheets and water, fetch the physicians and the priests—”

  The first riders thundered in through the castle gates and slid from their saddles in the courtyard, their faces streaked with dirt, their clothes torn and stained. From their midst came the bark of a hound. A cry of relief burst from my lips. “John!” I flung myself into his arms and clutched him tight, closing my lids to hide my tears of relief. The earl and Thomas galloped up next and drew rein. I heard the sharp intake of air from the countess as she let out a breath.

  “We gave battle at Castleton, we have wounded—” the earl began, dismounting from his horse as Maude ran to greet Thomas.

  The countess swept to her husband’s side. “We know, dear lord, and are ready for them….” She paused, then added hesitantly, “Any dead?”

  “Thanks be to God, no dead,” replied the earl, limping forward.

  The countess gasped. “You’re wounded!”

  “’Tis nothing.”

  She gave him her shoulder tenderly. “Here, lean on me. Does it hurt?”

  Behind her, Thomas laughed before the earl could reply. “Nay, lady mother! ’Tis a pain Father bears lightly, for look what gifts we brought you—” He turned to grin at two prisoners being hustled into the courtyard.

  The countess’s eyes widened with astonishment, and she froze in her steps. These were the Percy troublemakers, Thomas, Lord Egremont, and his brother Richard Percy. Egremont’s face held no leer this time, only anger and loathing. With his muddy hair and disheveled appearance, he cut an even uglier figure than I remembered.

  “Do we have suitable accommodations for these charming knights?” Thomas inquired, a smile tipping the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps a hog pen where they can help perfume the air, or mayhap someplace with goats?” He slapped Egremont heartily on the back “I know—how about a nice dungeon, eh, Tom? There you may sleep comfortably and not have far to go to plop your stool.”

  As he was led away, Egremont spat at Thomas, who wiped off the spittle, laughing.

  The castle buzzed with delight as details of the battle emerged and we learned how the Percies had been completely routed. “Fortunate for us they’re so stupid,” Thomas laughed. Many hours of the days that followed were spent offering prayers of thanks in the chapel, nursing the wounded, and celebrating yet another victory of Nevilles over Percies. Within the week, the Duke of York himself arrived to take counsel with the earl on what was to be done with the prisoners. Until then, Egremont and his brother were sent to the earl’s fortress of Middleham for safekeeping. After much deliberation, a decision was finally reached.

  “We’re going to let the courts decide their fate,” John told me one night as we lay in bed.

  “But wouldn’t it be better to just keep them imprisoned at Middleham? Then they couldn’t cause you so much trouble. The courts might free them.”

  “York stands for law and order, and our detainment of the Percy brothers has no legal sanction. We must deliver them up for judgment. All across the land, men are taking the law into their own hands. Maybe by our example, we can change that.”

  I nestled against him, my body in line with his, my cheek resting in the hollow of his back, my arm comfortably around him. “I hope so,” I murmured as I fell asleep, the ills of the world banished by his closeness.

  Little more than a month later, in early September, as I was giving Bella and Anne a counting lesson in the schoolroom, Ursula appeared at the chamber door. She had returned the previous week from her family manor at Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. She curtseyed breathlessly, an anxious look on her face. Leaving a nurse in charge of the children, I hurried out to her in the passageway.

  “Something bad has happened!” she whispered urgently.

  “John?” I demanded. He had left days earlier for his father’s castle of Sheriff Hutton to attend matters there, and was not yet returned.

  “No, no—it concerns the queen. York’s own messenger brought the tidings!”

  I shivered in apprehension. News carried by itinerant friars and peddlers could be dismissed if ill in nature, for it might well be mere rumor and have no basis in fact. This was different. A messenger had come from no less a personage than the Duke of York himself. The only remaining hope was that Ursula had mistaken its nature. I rushed to the countess’s apartments and found the earl standing with her by the oriel window, a missive in his hand. Whatever hope I had that the news had been good evaporated when I saw their expressions. I halted in my steps.

  The earl did not wait for me to question him but went directly to the point. “On August twenty-eighth Pierre de Brézé assaulted the port of Sandwich by land and sea, and ravaged, plundered, and burned the city, leaving a trail of dead in his wake.”

  I remembered Marguerite’s ardent admirer, the gallant French general who had kissed my hand and showered me with compliments at my audience with the queen. “I don’t understand—” I breathed in bewilderment. Could such a charming man do such a terrible thing?

  “The queen urged him to it. Kent is a hotbed of support for York. Exeter, our noble Keeper of the Seas, left Sandwich open—no doubt on the queen’s orders—and Brézé retired well-nigh untouched.”

  “Surely there’s some mistake? England is her country now. She couldn’t do such a thing to her own people….” My voice drifted off.

  “Her people are French, not English.”

  “But the king would never permit such a thing!” I cried in disbelief.

  “The king has no knowledge of it, I warrant, nor was he consulted in the matter.” The earl crumpled the missive in his fist. Turning his back, he gripped the stone windowsill and bowed his head.

  Feeling suddenly weak, I sank into a chair.

  Week after week, itinerants and guests brought us news, and for once, the reports did not deviate: All England bristled with fury and indignation over Brézé’s attack and Exeter’s shocking failure to act. At the end of September, the Duke of York journeyed to court with John’s father to confront Exeter. On the earl’s return to Raby in October we learned firsthand the results of that meeting.

  “Reminded that he was Lord Admiral, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, finally put to sea in search of Brézé last week!” the earl said in disgust, hands clasped behind his back as he paced to and fro before us in the solar. “He sailed as far as La Rochelle, but achieved nothing…. Still, there is also good news to report.” The earl paused, then turned to us. His tense features relaxed. “You are aware that we sued the Percies for damages at the York Summer Assizes? Well then, the verdict has just been delivered…. We have been awarded the sum of sixteen thousand and eight hundred marks!”

  I stared at him, jaw agape. The figure was staggering—a king’s ransom.

  “There is no way the Earl of Northumberland can ever pay such huge reparations, my lord,” the countess said.

  “And the Percy brothers shall be kept in prison until they do,” John grinned.

  So John wouldn’t have to face any more perils at the hands of that abominable Percy, Lord Egremont. Maude clapped her hands in joy and hugged Thomas.

  “Are such my paltry thanks, lady, after all I’ve done?” Thomas demanded. To her puzzled look, he laughed. “It was I who captured Egremont and his brother—single-handedly, I might add! Father and John here had naught to do with it, did you?”

  “Take all the credit you want, brother.” John grinned. “All I wish is peace, which I have from the knowledge that those two scoundrels shall be locked up till they gray, God willin
g.”

  “Nay, if the truth be known, ’tis John to whom Father and I and our men are indebted,” Thomas said, his tone turning grave. “Not just this once, but time and again. He’s the most brilliant commander alive. Don’t you agree, Father?”

  “He’ll do,” replied the earl, his eyes sparkling with pride.

  Thomas turned to his brother, his voice husky with emotion. “As long as you’re with me, I know I’m safe, John. Thank you, fair brother.” He clasped John’s shoulder tightly for a long moment.

  I had never doubted the love of the Neville family for one another, but this brought home to me the strength of the bonds between them.

  MORE JOY FOLLOWED, FOR AS THE LEAVES TURNED gold and crimson and September faded away, I discovered I was with child.

  Our babe was due to be born in April 1458. Many times during the night, and during those rare moments of the day when I found myself alone, I caressed the small bulge in my stomach and whispered sweet nothings to my forming child. For John’s sake, I hoped for a son, for men had need of sons, but for myself, I wished a little girl: a sweet darling like Warwick’s little Anne with the beautiful violet eyes, who had won our hearts with her charm and tenderness.

  In the long golden dusk of an early October evening at Middleham, an alarm was raised that Anne was nowhere to be found. No one had seen her for the past hour. Leaving the castle staff to hunt for her inside the walls, John and I were among those who went out to the mound in search of her. Rufus bounded ahead of us, first in one direction, then the other, until at last he stood by a pile of leaves beneath a spruce tree in the woods behind the castle, barking loudly. We found Anne curled up in them, hugging her pet rabbit and weeping copious tears. I took the rabbit from her, and John lifted the child up into his strong arms.

  “Why, little lassie, are you so sorrowful? Has it not been a beautiful day? Is it not a lovely twilight? Will the moon not be full tonight?”