“Summon the household to the great hall, Ursula,” I said, my voice weak. Never did I know speech could demand such effort. “Everyone must be there. I shall address them in one hour. In the meanwhile, I am not to be disturbed.”
She nodded and withdrew. The door shut. I slumped in my chair and closed my weary eyes.
I LOOKED AT THE SERVANTS GATHERED BEFORE me. They were all present—Geoffrey, Agnes, the porters, the men-at-arms, the varlets, the grooms of the stable, the saddlers, the armorers and their boy helpers, the kitchen maids and cooks, the scullions, the butchers, the embroiderers and maids of the wardrobe, the nurses and the spinners, the weavers and the chaplet maker, even the reeve, the bailiff, the steward, the monks, and the friars. They stood watching me carefully, yet avoided my gaze by dropping their eyes when mine rested on them. All were wary and ready to dart away, like deer in a forest when the sound of human footsteps reaches their ears.
I braced myself and drew a deep breath.
“For the past month, there has been a change in your behavior that has not gone unnoticed. This change puzzled me, for I divined not its cause. Some of you have been with me for many years, and others are newly come, yet I believed you all knew how I cared for each of you. As your mistress, I have always striven to treat you well and fairly, arbitrating your quarrels in a just manner, and distributing your tasks between you equally so no one person would be taxed more than another. When you were sick, I did not permit you to work, and I tended you myself when you were in labor with child.”
I paused.
“Now I have learned the reason why many of you have been troubled in my employ. I wish you to understand that I had no part in my uncle’s decision to—to—to do as he did. Like you, I grieve with all my heart for those poor, unfortunate souls and for their families—may God in His infinite mercy take note of their suffering and forgive their sins! Men of the cloth tell us that in the eyes of God we are accountable only for our own actions, but in the eyes of man, I know we bear culpability for the actions of our blood kin. Anyone who wishes to leave my service may do so, and they shall receive an extra month’s pay, and if ever they have need of me, they will always be admitted to my favor.”
I waited, drained by my short speech, which had exerted me to the limits of my resolve. “That is all. You are dismissed.”
Only one of my servants, a new hire, left my employ. The next morning, as Agnes made the bed, she comforted me. “He’s too young to understand much o’ life yet, but he’ll soon learn. The rest o’ us, we were fool to hold you responsible, me dear lady. You have no more to do with these happenings than us.”
I touched her arm mutely in a gesture of gratitude. Then I left in search of Ursula. “I’m going to Bamburgh, Ursula,” I said, hardly able to lift my voice above a whisper. “Have Geoffrey pack up the horses.”
Ursula gave me a knowing, doleful look. She said nothing but merely nodded.
AT BAMBURGH CASTLE’S HIGH WALLS AND DRAWN gate, Geoffrey announced me to the porter. The portcullis was cranked open amid a great clattering of chains, and I entered. The soldiers we passed gave me formal and cool reception, but I scarcely noticed, my mind and will bent on what I would say to John. As it was bitterly cold, and I was in a hurry, I did not wait for John’s captain, Sir Marmaduke Constable, to come to me, but asked a man-at-arms to take me to him in the armory.
He gave me a curt obeisance. “My lord of Northumberland is not here, my lady. We can make you comfortable in the antechamber, if it pleases you.”
“Where has he gone?” I demanded. I had not come to sit and wait.
“He rode out alone on the beach about an hour ago. He did not say when he would be back.”
“In that case, kindly seat my entourage by the fire, and give them warm wine and food, for we have journeyed long and are chilled. As for me, bring me a blanket and direct me which way my lord has taken, and I shall find him myself.”
It was past Vespers. The sun was beginning to set, and the wild North Sea was a molten silver as the surf pounded the long, empty stretch of shore. Stumbling down the hard slope, across the long grasses and weeds that lined the edges of the sand, I wandered along the desolate beach, searching for John. Then on the wind I heard a dog’s bark and a horse’s whinny. Against the vast expanse of darkening sky, beneath the thunderous clouds racing across the earth, I saw Saladin and the outline of a tall, solitary figure standing on a high bluff, staring over the deserted sea with somber intensity, tawny hair whipping in the wind.
John.
I ran along the sand and climbed up to him in silence. Rufus, old and arthritic, struggled to rise and wag his tail, but there was no welcome from John. He didn’t even turn to look at me. Inside my breast, I felt a twist of pain. I wasted no words on useless greeting.
“John, surely, dear God, you don’t blame me?” I cried.
He didn’t reply; he didn’t even look at me. He just stood staring out to sea, at the churning expanse of water, as if he did not know I was there.
“John, if you still have a heart, answer me!”
He spoke then, but without looking at me. “Those men your uncle skewered, they had families who loved them. They were human beings.”
His voice was so cold, it chilled me more than the blustering wind whipping my blanket around me. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I care? I never, ever blamed you for what Warwick did! Why do you hold me responsible for my uncle’s misdeeds?”
He turned his eyes on me then, and I shrank back at the anger I saw in them. “You always knew how I felt about Warwick’s actions. ’Tis clear enough to the world how I stand. But never once have you said a word against your uncle, even now. For God’s own sake, Isobel, those men were sons and husbands and fathers. What is your blood made of that you can ignore this? Or forgive?”
I could not believe my ears. I stared at him, mute in my bewilderment. Then words found me.
“I have always hated my uncle’s cruelties! I thought you knew me, and so you knew how I felt! Loyalty kept me from voicing my condemnation, for we owe him our marriage. But if I could have dissuaded my uncle…if I could turn back the work of time and give my life so it never happened, I would do so in an instant! My heart breaks for them, for those men—those boys. What can I do to prove it to you? Oh, John, my love, how can you think I condone such brutality, such horror? I don’t condone it—I don’t forgive it, but he is my uncle, he is my blood. I cannot change what he did! I must find a way to abide it, but I’ll never understand it, or forgive! Oh, John, why do we live in this hell? Why must it be so—”
I broke off, unable to continue, and through my tears and the sobs that wracked me, I flung out the thought that had been with me for years. “If only Wakefield hadn’t happened, how different might all this be!”
“But Wakefield did happen,” John replied coldly. “All else followed, and it is as it is.”
“John, my beloved lord, you once said that I have been your comfort. Will you not be mine now?” I cried.
No response; his face hard, impassive, he did not look at me. To my horror, he turned to leave. He cannot bear the sight of me!
The ground rocked, beneath my feet, and the world I had known heaved itself over. Falling, I reached out for support and caught his hand as I sank to my knees on the thorny ground. For thirteen years, through all life’s storms and blows, my belief in love had sustained me. Now love was gone, dissolving in my grasp even as I thought to hold it firm. I let go of his hand. Swept with desolation and grief, I covered my face and choked back my sobs. The wind howled around me, and I felt raindrops wet my face and mingle with the salt spray of the sea and my own tears. I knelt there, cloaked in my blanket, my mind numb, struggling to comprehend this terrible new world that had suddenly become mine.
But John had not gone. I felt him kneel beside me. “Isobel…”
He removed my hands from my face. Cupping my chin in his hand, he made me look at him. In the dimness, his eyes were moist, and
his mouth worked with emotion. He wrapped his arms around me.
“Forgive me, Isobel…. Forgive me…. My dear love, the fault is not yours. ’Tis mine alone….” His voice held a tone I’d never heard before. He turned his face to the sea, a faraway look in his eyes.
I held my breath, startled.
“I have lived with a secret I can no longer bear to keep, but you must hear it now, for it may help you to understand….” He seemed to brace himself before he continued, and my mind reeled with dread. “I am a soldier, and killing is a soldier’s work, yet I have loathed it to my core. All these years, I did it because I had to. To survive, to earn glory…I always told myself it would end one day. But it never did. When your uncle butchered those men, it made me realize how much I hated the killing. How much I hated myself for the killing…” He gave me a look of agony. “Forgive me, Isobel. I have been thoughtless and selfish. All my concern has been for myself.”
I closed my eyes on an indrawn breath. All these years, and I never knew…. This—this is what I had sensed…what he kept from me. All these years.
“I thought I’d lost your love,” I whispered.
“You have my love, Isobel…. You have it to my dying day. There is cruelty, and there is wickedness, but there is also love. We have been blessed, haven’t we?”
“We have, my dearest lord.”
A gust of wind tore at me, lifting my wool blanket and loosening the braiding from my hair. I shivered.
“Aye, ’tis bitter cold even for a March night, Isobel.” He rearranged my blanket around me with a gentle touch. “Best we seek shelter. Let us hope tomorrow is a better day.”
Together we rode back to the fortress on the sea, and though the mighty wind blinded us with eddies of sand and blew us backward for much of the way, I felt safe and protected, for love encircled me as I rode behind my husband, my arms wrapped around his strong chest, my head cradled in the hollow of his back.
Whatever the future brings, I thought, I have had this.
Twenty-five
1470
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH, THE SOOTHSAYER had said.
The ides, on the fifteenth of March, had come and gone, but they were not done with us yet, I thought as I read John’s letter. Robin of Redesdale has mounted another rebellion, he wrote, and I must decide what to do. Yet I fear I have no choice but to give battle. John had dealt swiftly and firmly with Robin of Holderness, but Holderness had not been kin. The rebellion led by our cousin Robin of Redesdale was a different matter. John had struggled with his guilt over the loss of relatives and friends who’d died fighting against him, but hard as it had been for him with the first rebellion, this time was worse. Robin of Redesdale’s second uprising was far more serious and widespread, and more lives stood at risk.
The letter shook in my hand, so tightly did I clutch it as I read. Edward has no idea at what cost John delivers his victories! I sank into a chair by the window and looked up at the dreary sky. How could John kill his own kin? He had never been one to give voice to what lay in his heart, but reading between the lines of his missive, I felt his hesitation, his depth of misery at the predicament he found himself in. I felt his agony. He hated killing. Now—once again—he faced having to kill those he held dear.
I rose and left my chamber, desperate for the laughter of my children, who played in the nursery. I had just passed the great hall, with its rows of marvelous pillars, and stepped through the arched door when Agnes came rushing up to me from the tower stairs. She was half out of breath but smiling broadly. There was news! Good news! I drew her into a small, empty anteroom.
“There are fresh doings at York, me lady! My husband’s cousin rode in just before I left for the castle this morning. He was in York with my lord of Northumberland until last night. My lord persuaded Robin of Redesdale to turn himself in! He brought Lord Scrope of Bolton, Robin of Redesdale himself, and many others to King Edward at Pontefract to beg a royal pardon for them. And the king, generous as always, has granted it!”
Euphoria swept me! I broke out in a smile that didn’t leave me all day, and in the nursery, I danced with my children and played silly games, laughing as ridiculously loudly as three-year-old Lucy. I dined well and went to bed much happier than I had been in many weeks, and this night my heart did not keep me awake with its restless, uneven beat. In the end John had done what he had to do—and did it so well that further bloodshed had been avoided.
It was late that night, well past matins on the twenty-fifth day of March, and the castle lay sleeping, when a great noise came from the courtyard. I rose from bed and went to the window. Rubbing my bleary eyes, I saw John by torchlight. He had only Tom Gower and Rufus at his side. I watched as he handed Saladin’s reins over to Tom.
Grabbing a chamber robe and a candle, I slipped my feet into my slippers and ran down the tower steps, seized with foreboding. Why had he come home without warning? What could have possessed him to risk such a dangerous journey in the dead of night?
With his head bowed, he was mounting the steps toward the keep when I reached him. A drizzle fell and the night was fearsome cold, but it wasn’t the rain that chilled me: It was the way John carried himself, as if he had been mortally wounded in some terrible battle. I pulled up sharply before him and caught at the damp stone archway for support. He halted in his steps and looked at me. The candle I held in my hand sizzled in the rain and threw a flickering, uneven light around us, and what I saw in his eyes made me gasp: It was the same disoriented, disbelieving look I’d seen on that dread day when the news of Wakefield was brought to us. Dear God, what has happened? He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Silently I took his arm and, draping it around my shoulder, I helped him inside and up the tower stairs to our bedchamber. He fell into the chair by the window and dropped his head into both his hands. My heart broke to see him this way, but I did not speak. Instead I knelt at his feet and laid my cheek against his leg.
The candle burned out; the darkness thickened. Church bells tolled the hour, first twelve, then one, two…four. An owl hooted. On the mantelpiece, grains of sand hissed in the hourglass, marking the steady, inexorable passage of time. The moon crossed the dark sky and faded away; a cock crowed and was answered by another; bleak morning light strayed into the chamber. Still John sat. I wanted to cry out, but I did not. I waited. Waited as I’d waited all my life…waited, as if for death itself.
Finally I heard John inhale a deep breath and stir. I lifted my head. He dropped his hands and I saw his face again. I swallowed with difficulty and found my voice. “My beloved,” I managed, “what ails thee?”
His mouth worked with emotion. He rose from his chair, turned his back to me, and stood looking out the window at the wintry scene. When he spoke, the words fell from his lips like one long sigh. “The River Aln is beautiful….” he said. “I never rode past or crossed the three old bridges without thinking how beautiful it was, whether spring, summer, fall, or winter. How much it all meant to me…the meadows, the river, the castle…the earldom…”
I inhaled a sharp, burning breath. “The earldom?”
He turned to face me. He encircled my shoulders and drew me close. “I fear we have looked our last on this place that has been our home for six years, Isobel.”
“The earldom?” I whispered in disbelief, a faint thread of hysteria in my voice. I knew what his earldom meant to him. He had poured his blood into the winning and keeping of it, this earldom that had come with long and brutal service on the field of battle. He had fought on when few would have found the strength to keep going; he had stood erect through the wildest storms and against the cruelest winds Fortune can send a man in this life.
“The earldom is gone. Edward took it from me the day after I brought Conyers in for pardon. He gave it to Percy, whom he has released from the Tower.”
I covered my mouth with both my hands to stifle my sobs, but to no avail. Through my choking sounds, my mind thundered on: It isn’t possible! It’s not possible�
�.
Then I buried my head on his shoulder and gave vent to a fit of weeping. I wept not for myself, but for John, for all the hopes that had been snatched from him and for the future that had been taken away. Every step on his harsh journey of life had been trodden stalwartly, with loyalty and courage, by an honorable knight who had not counted the cost to him, who had remained singularly faithful, who had striven with his every breath to prove his loyalty to his king when the temptation to treachery had never been greater for any man.
All his life he’s endured for York, sacrificed for York, killed for York. Now, at the end of the long, hard, twisted road, this is what it comes to—Edward sacrifices him like a buck before a feast and flings him aside.
“John, oh, John!” I cried, weeping for him the tears he could not weep.
EDWARD HAD TOLD JOHN NOT ONCE BUT MANY times that he loved him entirely. God help those that Edward “loves entirely,” I thought with a loathing I had never known before. He’d stripped John of his earldom and elevated him in rank to Marquess of Montagu, but it was a hollow title, which came with the paltry sum of forty pounds a year from the county of Southampton. He had promised to wed our son, Georgie, to his firstborn daughter, Elizabeth, and had raised Georgie to the noble dukedom of Bedford, but again the title was barren, for it came with no estates. The settlement rang hollow; I don’t think either of us ever believed that Edward intended to go through with the marriage—or that Elizabeth Woodville would permit it.
In our reduced circumstances, we could no longer afford more than a handful of servants, and so we chose carefully from among them. Ursula would come with us, of course, and so would Geoffrey. John’s squire, Tom Gower, would also remain in attendance, as would Agnes. We bid the others a tearful farewell on a cold, foggy morning and moved out of Warkworth, taking the children and our few possessions back with us to Seaton Delaval in two carts. As we rumbled down the hill, I looked behind me. Mist swirled around the splendid castle, bestowing an unreal quality, as if it stood in a dream. And in the dream, aware of how well it had been loved, it magically waved its turrets, bidding me a sorrowful farewell of its own. A drift of fog floated across the main gate. It cleared the wall and the nearest tower, and I remembered how John, counting the cost of repair, had chosen to build the tower square instead of round like the others during that joyous first year of his earldom. Money had always been a problem, even with the earldom; the good years had not lasted long enough to make a difference in the end.
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