Warwick’s henchmen nudged the horses into a trot, and Henry bounced in his saddle like a wooden doll. Trumpeters sounded an untidy fanfare. The leading knight raised his hand to the assembled mob.
‘Way for Henry of Lancaster!’ he shouted. ‘Lancaster for ever!’
He cast a savage look around, and one or two people grudgingly echoed the challenge. They were instantly set upon by the partisans of York. The fighting raised clouds of dirt; a fishmonger, with a crude White Rose sewn on his apron, smacked his neighbour in the face with a great silvery mackerel. Gould hoisted his wife up to watch the fun.
‘Lancaster!’ bawled the herald again. A storm of jeering arose. Soapy Jack, a great lummox who swept out taverns and sometimes lay day-long crooning in the gutter, bored his way head-first through the crowd. His wide toothless mouth drooled spittle.
‘Where’s Ned?’ he roared, bursting through the ranks of horses and men. ‘Where’s our Ned, then? You ain’t our King!’ Heedless of the blows raining down on him from the escort’s staves, he forced his way to Henry. Doubling his fist he punched the frail dark-clad figure hard in the thigh.
Henry’s sleepwalker eyes swivelled. He looked down in a sad daze at Soapy Jack.
‘Forsooth and forsooth,’ he observed. ‘Ye do wrong to strike the Lord’s anointed.’
Gould’s wife giggled all the way upriver to Westminster, but the butcher was pensive. He stretched his legs in their fine woollen hose in the bottom of the boat, and mused on prosperity. His own affluence had been brought about by King Edward and none other. Trade was better than he and his fraternity ever remembered it. But if Edward’s day were done … gloomily he recalled the old times, when Henry and his hated French consort sat at Westminster. Then, foreigners would trade rather with the Devil than with England. He looked at the great cranes dipping on either side of the Thames, the galleys and carvels and trawlers, from Flanders and Italy and Iceland. Bringing their treasures in trade for English cloth. Cloth meant beef, and beef meant gold for merchants such as himself, good marriages for his daughters, fine garments. He chewed his thumbnail savagely, and promised he would light a candle to Edward’s safe return.
At Westminster Sanctuary they were admitted by a one-legged monk. He hopped nimbly on crutches to where the Queen had her apartments. Inside the gloomy building, Gould shivered. The walls were washed by river-mist, insidious and foul, and several high windows were cracked, inviting a killing draught. As if to darken an already heavy mood, a bell tolled and from the near-by Abbey came the ghostly plainsong of the brothers. Like a thin black rabbit, the lame guide skipped ahead; at the entrance to the Queen’s buttery four pages relieved the prentices of their burden.
‘Wait here,’ Gould instructed his boys. ‘Brother! is there a chance that we might see her Grace?’
‘She asks to see you,’ replied the monk, and led them down a short, fog-filmed cloister. Finally they reached a vast, lead-bound door behind which lay the Queen. They entered; they felt change, smelled perfume instead of incense, trod rushes instead of cold flags. There was a fair degree of warmth, and candles. Women, deployed meekly round the walls, were sewing, and four fair-haired small girls played at their nurse’s knee. Prone, Gould heard the Queen’s voice.
‘Come closer, butcher. I wish to thank you. We should, I vow, have starved without your aid.’
He rose, crimson with pride, and went forward to kiss the cool hand. Mistress Gould curtseyed and hung her head, then as the Queen spoke – words which to her disappointment she did not afterwards recall – looked up, and was bemused. She did not know whether to weep or worship. Mistress Gould had on her best gown and knew she looked well; Queen Elizabeth was not even gaily dressed, she wore plain black wool and no jewels. Her head was loosely bound in a netted coif. None the less, Mistress Gould, looking at that half-turned cheek like a crescent moon, felt herself plump and ruddy and gauche. The Queen was all silver; even her voice, each word high and exact like a lute’s song. Gould noticed something else: on his last visit, the Queen had been heavy with child, now she was as slender as a young maid. As if she read his thought, she said:
‘Master Gould, we have a most glorious advent to our royal house.’ She rose and crossed to the door of an antechamber; moving with a soft hushing of her long black gown. A sudden almost tangible air of joy filled the chamber. The monks’ distant devout song rose and fell. The Queen threw open the ante-chamber door.
‘Renée, bring in – our prince!’
Tears sprang to Gould’s eyes. He brushed them away as a week-old child was carried in. Swaddled like a chrysalis, it bawled loudly, drowning the distant anthem.
‘Oh, God,’ said the butcher, when he could speak.
‘A fair omen, Master Gould,’ said Elizabeth softly. You may salute the prince. Without your sides of beef I should not have had the strength to carry him.’
Gould, trembling, kissed the tiny hand unwrapped for this purpose. This he would tell his grandchildren …
‘His name is Edward, for his sire,’ said the Queen.
‘Whom Christ preserve,’ said Gould, choking. He had not realized how much York meant to him, and the merchants and goldsmiths and gildsmen all over Engand who loved Ned so much. Mistress Gould stole another peep at the Queen’s tranquil silvery face, as Elizabeth repeated: ‘A fair omen.’ Then the clear voice rose. ‘I have a message for all loyal subjects, Master Gould!’
They nodded, waited, scarcely breathing, while she spoke. Master Gould would have given half his estate to turn a somersault on the rushes; Ned was coming home! The Queen had had secret messages … Ned was safe, in Bruges, and already equipping a fleet to sail home and regain his kingdom.
‘Tell only your most trusted friends,’ said the Queen. ‘It will give them heart to resist – Warwick – to the last ditch.’
When they returned to the City, there was another crowd on Tower Hill. A hot-headed gathering, angry yet pleased to see the execution of one whom they had feared for his cruelty yet revered as Edward’s Constable. Butcher Tiptoft. The same herald who had bawled acknowledgment of Lancaster read the indictment. He stood at the foot of the scaffold; its planks were crusted with ancient blood.
‘In the name of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, representing all the greatness of Lancaster and the Crown, here is condemned to execution by beheading Sir John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester … as per the law of this land. For his treason and tyranny …’
He gave the signal quickly, hearing the uncertain growl of the crowd. Any execution these days was a hazardous affair. But Tiptoft, mounting steps that had run with the blood of many of his own victims, seemed in a leisurely humour. His bulging eyes surveyed the throng hungrily as if regretting the unsevered heads, the unripped bowels … it was almost, they whispered, as if he took some pleasure in his own execution, and this was too much to contemplate.
He knelt, saying loudly to the headsman: ‘I pray you, sever my head in three strokes. In honour of the Blessed Trinity.’
The watchers gasped, terrified by this holy heresy. Was the Butcher immune to pain? Seemingly he was, for he made no murmur as the obedient axe sliced a groove in his spine, then clove half-way so that the neck drooped from a yellow-sinewed stump. The final swing sent Tiptoft’s head gushing redly on to the straw. Sorcery, the crowd muttered.
Master Gould gave only cursory attention to this show. He was slipping from friend to friend, seeing smiles, hearing joyful incredulous oaths. Ned was coming home.
He stood before her, a weary Atlas, and her heart leaped upward to greet him. Leaped, as it had done years earlier, through love, for John’s return. Edward was greater or lesser than love; he was her salvation. He strode into Sanctuary where for five months she had waited with her needle and bright hessian saints. Ringed by little bursting cries from her women she rose slowly. In the instant before he took her in his arms she noted that his clothes were clean and fresh, and knew that he had been in London for some hours. He lived, and he was safe. Against his stron
g breast she exhaled her shuddering relief.
Shadows entered through the lead-bound door; courtiers, Abbot Milling and his monks, drawn like moths to the scene. Discreet, still pawns, they stood while Queen met King. She thought: we are all chessmen. And which way will the Hand move us next? And whose is the Hand? The choristers, heard through inches of stone, began their office. That sombre drone which had accompanied her labour. Plainsong and childbirth, combined in memory, oddly unpeaceful to her ears.
They were bringing in the prince. She felt Edward stiffen with excitement; his arm gripped her tightly. The prince. Edward’s great golden hand moved waveringly down to the mewling bundle. His fingers signed the tiny bald dome with the Cross. Then he wept. He moved to where the little princesses clung wide-eyed, around Lady Berners. The tiny Elizabeth raised her arms, was caught up and kissed. She was a beautiful blonde rosy child, sweet-temperedly smiling. Edward set her down, then in turn lifted Mary and Cicely. All the time he wept and smiled like a rainbow.
‘My lord,’ said Elizabeth, wanting his arm about her again, for the strength which had supported her over the past months seemed to have ebbed completely.
‘Soft, Bessy, I must greet all my little maids!’ He bent to the fourth child. To Elizabeth it seemed that his tenderness drew on another dimension, something mystically patterned, hateful.
‘Mistress Grace!’ He settled the child against his shoulder. She was also blonde, but her eyes were not blue like the others, but a clear vibrant green. Sad, adult eyes, that could have looked upon a time gone by. The time of Desmond’s death. The living token of past sin.
‘Are you a good maid, my Grace? Are you loyal to me?’
Delighted, the child buried her face in Edward’s fur collar. One eye peeped out at the assembly. She was loved. Loved, as she longed to be (the eye rolled, rested on the Queen) by the silver lady.
The women were sobbing with joy, watching the King’s demonstrations of tenderness, kneeling while he went among them with embraces; Lady Scrope, Lady Berners, Anne Haute. He kissed their mouths. Jacquetta of Bedford went to him blankly, unable to share joy or sorrow, immersed in senile memory. Lastly Edward returned to the baby prince, and stood, magnificent, his hand upon the cradle, ready to address the company. The shadows took on life, came softly forward; the gaunt Abbot Milling, the white-haired Prior John Esteney, their servants, offering round wine and ale. Anthony Woodville, a little worn from the vicissitudes of exile. At the sight of her brother warmth poured through Elizabeth. Then she saw Richard of Gloucester standing beside Anthony, and her smile died like sun under cloud. She had no reason to dislike him. He spoke seldom and now looked so weary that he might collapse. But Edward was speaking of him this moment, of Richard’s courage and integrity, extolling him above the skies. What now had he done to gain such reverence? She felt a scowl set like a mask upon her face. The child Grace was staring at her – this rankled too. Her hand moved in a quick impatient gesture of dismissal. The small face lost its happy light.
‘I come to reclaim my kingdom!’ declared the King. ‘Ah, thanks be to Jesu for the love of English folk, for the generosity of the Seigneur de la Gruythuyse, my mentor in Bruges. Good people, I am once more equipped to crush my foes!’
They had landed at Ravenspur, said the King, with their small army. York had opened to them. Laughing, he said: ‘I mounted the plumes of Henry of Lancaster and swore that I came only to regain my Duchy of York! Then southward … they flocked to my standard. We shall conquer.’
‘Amen,’ said Richard of Gloucester softly.
Edward, snatched up a cup of the Abbot’s flat brewing. He called for a toast – to Burgundy – to all Flemings who now formed part of his army. To his brother Richard who had upheld him, to his brother-in-law Anthony Woodville who had advised him – and to the blessed return to his side of George, his brother of Clarence.
She could scarcely believe it. Clarence, murderer of her father and young brother, again forgiven? Yes, there he was, the black-heart, the ill-omened knave. Having the wisdom to stand a little contritely apart. Armour bright, cheeks pink, helm beneath his arm. And Richard of Gloucester had been, once more, the peacemaker. The blood surged in her temples, throbbing, threatening. The King was relating how Richard had drawn his brother over from Lancaster; George would be welcome back at court. Her court! housing murder, treachery. In that moment she desired most fervently Clarence’s death.
Edward took them all from Sanctuary within the hour. She rested easily in the barge, the little prince’s cradle close to her feet. She smiled deliciously, her eyes upon Anthony; her beloved brother, whose charm offset the irritating presence of Gloucester, and the insult of Clarence’s nearness. The forbidding spires of the Abbey faded behind them. The river was excitable with March tides, the air fragrant with the promise of blown buds. To Baynard’s Castle on the Thames they rowed, past the cluttered wharves. Swans skimmed upwards before the craft, and on the banks the fishing-nets dropped jewels.
She lay one night with Edward before he left to gather more men. He was jubilant; the Archbishop of Canterbury had once again touched the crown to his King’s brow in Westminster. Yet there was a volatile nervousness about Edward, a creeping doubt. In her arms, he asked if she thought it were sin to do battle at Eastertide.
Have you forgotten Towton?’ she said gently. Eleven years ago, when I was enmeshed in sorrow. ‘It was Palm Sunday when you vanquished Lancaster.’ I remember that winter well; the snow covering Bradgate, the racking grief; the coming of the Fiend.
‘So it was.’ Edward sounded relieved. ‘A good augury. We put Margaret to flight, then.’
‘Now you give battle to … Warwick.’
‘Yes, who has joined with Margaret … for that boy whom he once called bastard … Edward, Prince of Wales!’ He laughed angrily. ‘Our own prince Edward is Prince of Wales, and none other!’ He was silent for a moment, then said uncertainly. ‘Yet I wonder … did Holy Harry breed that boy, or did he not?’
She said slowly: ‘Marguerite’s son is bastard. It is no lie.’
He raised himself in the bed to stare at her.
‘To fight a traitor,’ she continued urgently, ‘I would myself do battle on any day. Easter is no sin, if the day falls then. As for Marguerite …’
She told him. Of the days and nights, the tall figure passing ghostlike to Marguerite’s chamber. Her own silent vigilance.
‘What? You were there?’
‘Yes, Ned. Night after night the Queen took Beaufort of Somerset to her bed. She grieved outrageously when he was slain.’
‘So!’ Laughing with relief, with mocking triumph, he began to call Margaret whore with doubled venom. He seized and kissed Elizabeth, who, in the darkness lay and thought of Marguerite, who had called her Isabella and been kind. It was all a lost, gone, far-off thing. The vital issue was that Edward should win this battle, that the Fiend should be vanquished. Now that Edward of Lancaster’s bastardy was sure in the King’s mind, he would go into combat like a lion, certain of God and the right. She had given him this confidence. If only there were some way to ensure his victory! Her head throbbed painfully, her rushing blood made the sound of distant seas. If only the Duchess were still her prop and adviser, instead of the empty husk she had become. Edward was already asleep; she breathed this powerful warmth. Above the coverlet she brought her slender hands together, lay stiffly, entombed in thought.
Her mouth moved in a secret prayer; her ears strained for a silent voice. Within her mind, a swirling mist arose.
Warwick could see nothing. A giant white hand, ghostridden, clustered in blinding pockets about him. It clung to his armour, settled and dripped like tears. He was bleeding where a poignard had pierced his hand. Behind him somewhere in the treacherous whiteness lay the St. Albans road. To his left was the hollow called Dead Man’s Bottom, and all around him men fought and swore and struck wildly. He could hear the spectral clangour of their steel. He guessed that the King was in the heart of the affray, and ha
lf-knew that his own men and those of the Earl of Exeter were working across to the hollow on the lip of which Richard of Gloucester’s vanguard struggled. In the endless unnatural whiteness his own esquire appeared like a spirit wielding an axe, cried briefly on the saints and disappeared again in the chilling milk.
White as a woman’s body, white as a funeral candle, mist surged and eddied and closed upon him lovingly. Far behind as through a tunnel, he heard cries, screams, curses. The terrified neigh of horses, the long grunting anguish of a man spitted through the bowels. Easter Sunday. Half past five in the morning when He who died on Tree came again to his fellows. Eleven years ago, when that same Lord had passed through into Jerusalem, Warwick had fought – also in whiteness, the purity of snow. Shoulder to shoulder with Ned of England. As they should be fighting now, were it not for the Woodville – the witch. Fog filled his nose and eyes, fog imbued with silent mocking life, and he knew that his naming of her was correct. In his mind, her sinuousness, smooth forehead and red lips flitted ahead, wreathed by the smoke-like mist, beckoning him to death.
Somewhere, nearer now, fighting desperately against the assaults of Warwick’s reserve and Exeter’s men, was Richard of Gloucester. Dickon, with whom he had sat for so many hours before the great fire at Middleham; talking of everything under heaven; of love, war, Christ and philosophy, while the charitable flames fell smoothly on the faces of Earl and boy. Dickon, to whom he had, taught every nuance of battle, was holding out against the foe, and had asked for no reinforcements yet. Warwick knew this by the gasped messages from his own scouts. In all his dismay he felt a fierce and searing pride. The curling whiteness swooped to kiss his cheek, like the salute of a corpse. He thought briefly of Anne, his daughter, wedded in her heart to Gloucester, wedded on True Cross to the Frenchwoman’s son. His lips curled bitterly. Margaret had not even allowed that son to join the battle, and was keeping him safe at Cerne Abbey. She was only waiting to see whether Warwick kept his pledge. And here he was, staggering in mist, while his armies, selected from the hosts of Lancaster and the adherents of Neville, plunged about him, as lost as he. His esquire emerged again from the chilling blindness.
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