Lady of the Roses (24 page)

He laid his hand on the blue cushion.

I gasped. Without realizing it, I rose to my feet, as did everyone present. Below, in the hall, there was only a horrible silence. My eyes flew to John, Warwick, and the earl. They, like the rest of the lords, shrank back, repelled and dismayed, standing as still as the painted figures that looked down on them from around the walls. No one appeared more astounded than John’s father, whose mouth hung agape. The Duke of York’s motion to claim what he considered his rightful seat had met with appalled disbelief from every quarter, even his allies.

York withdrew his hand angrily, turned to face the lords, and stood awkwardly beneath the canopy of state as if still expecting welcome. After a tense silence, the archbishop of Canterbury ventured forward. “Does the Duke of York wish to see the king?” he asked gently.

“’Tis not I who should go to Henry. ’Tis Henry who should come to me,” replied York.

The archbishop stood looking around at the lords, wringing his hands. Then he turned and quit the room. After a moment, York, rebuffed, descended from the dais and stalked out.

From outside the gallery, in the passageway that led to the royal apartments, there sounded a commotion. We abandoned our seats and ran out to see the duke emerge from the stairwell. I saw him from the back as he made his way behind the archbishop to the king’s chamber, followed by his retainers.

“Out of the way!” York called to the archbishop. The cleric halted and moved aside in fear. The duke stood before the king’s door. “Open it!” he commanded.

His men turned the latch and pushed, but the strong oak door remained shut. “It’s barred from within,” someone said.

“Then break it down,” the duke commanded.

No one moved.

“Break it down!” the duke said through clenched teeth, eyes flashing.

His men didn’t need to be told again. A few hard kicks and shoulder thrusts, and it flew open. Henry rose from the chair where he had been seated, a book in his hands, a monk at his side. “You are to vacate these chambers!” the duke said. “They belong to the king, not to you.”

“Where shall I go?” Henry asked meekly.

“To your wife’s apartments. They will do for now.”

By this time the earl, John, Warwick, and the duke’s eldest son, Edward of March, had caught up with the duke.

“My God! What are you doing, Richard?” Salisbury said, looking from Henry to the duke.

“What I should have done five years ago! I’m claiming the throne that is rightfully mine! This man and his foreign woman have no right to rule us, and it’s time to be rid of them. We’ve suffered enough misery at their hands.”

From the distance I saw John turn pale. “Gracious Uncle,” Warwick said, “this is unwise. The people love Henry. You will divide the realm, cause civil strife. Always you have stood against bloodshed!”

“Where have you been? Where have you all been?” the duke demanded, looking around in fury. “What do we have now but civil strife and bloodshed? Because of him—” The duke pointed a wrathful finger at Henry. “Because of this usurper!”

A loud gasp resounded all around.

John’s father said, “You can’t take the throne, Richard! The people won’t stand for it.”

“I tell you they’ve had enough rapine, murder, and injustice—as I have—and they will back us! You saw how they hailed me in the streets!”

“You misjudge the people! They will not accept you. They hailed you with joy—not to depose Henry, but to rid themselves of Marguerite and the Earl of Wiltshire, and her rapacious favorites,” Salisbury said. “The people still love their mad, mild, pious king in spite of the humiliations they’ve suffered under him.”

“Don’t you understand?” the duke said, glaring at each man in turn. “We can’t get rid of the bitch without getting rid of this idiot! Only the sword can settle matters now—Marguerite knew this from the very first, and for that she is smarter than all of us. How many times did she try to murder me? How many ambushes did she set for us—she and her favorites? It was always only about the sword—but we were too fool to see it!”

“Aye, the people loathe Marguerite and her unscrupulous favorites,” the earl replied. “But they love their poor, frail king. ’Tis not Henry they hold responsible.”

“Yet he is responsible! This pathetic man and the foreign woman who wears him like a crown have made us bleed. And the bleeding won’t stop until he’s deposed.
God’s Blood, his is the head that enables the Hydra’s snake-arms!
Only when he’s gone shall we be done with the bitch of Anjou, who’s plundered our nation to its bare walls, invited the French and the Scots to rape our women, murdered and looted with impunity all these years—thanks to this pathetic creature you call a king!”

Silence.

The duke spoke the truth. But the truth was treason, and treason was the most heinous crime a man could commit against God. Henry was an anointed king; he was God’s chosen. We had all taken oaths to him. To go against our oaths was not only to dishonor ourselves, but to put our immortal souls at risk. I had been watching Henry through all this, wondering what he thought. He stood half-hidden at the threshold of his chamber, behind the throng of men, and his eyes had followed the conversation; yet he bore a calm expression, and on his lips hovered a kindly smile. Had he not understood what had just happened?

York’s son broke the silence that held us in thrall. Elbowing his way out from behind Warwick, he said gently, “Father, better government is sorely needed, but ’tis the willful Marguerite and her favorites, not poor, dull-witted Henry here, whom the people hold responsible. We have all found Henry blameless. You saw what happened down there—they will not back us. But I believe they merely need time to get used to the idea. Let us present our claim to the Lords and have them debate it. In due course they will see its merits.”

“Indeed,” Warwick said, “let us present your claim to the throne and have Henry proven a usurper. Then we can set him aside without tearing the land asunder.”

The Duke of York pondered this for a long moment. At last he gave a nod.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATED THE DYNASTIC
question for a month. All agreed that the crown was York’s by right of lineage, but since Henry occupied the throne as an anointed king, they reached a compromise to save the king’s honor and appease the duke. Henry would rule for life, and after his death York and his heirs would succeed to the throne.

“But the Duke of York is ten years older than Henry. Does it not trouble him that he may never be king?” I asked John one night as we climbed into bed.

John heaved a sigh. “Despite what happened at Westminster, York is a reasonable man. When the House of Lords brought him the compromise, he said, ‘I need not the title of king, only to know that my hand will guide the ship of state, for the good of all.’ It was seeing Roger’s head impaled on that pike that unsettled him and made him decide on the spur of the moment that there was no other way except to depose Henry. But he is prudent by nature, not rash, and so he accepted the offer.”

The archbishop of Canterbury took the compromise to King Henry for his assent. “I have no wish to shed Christian blood,” Henry told the bishop, “and shall agree to this accord.” Henry then sent Marguerite a missive bidding her to return to London. Her furious, scathing reply arrived soon afterward. “Unlike you, dear king, I am not made of butter to be molded into shape by such knaves as those who seek to steal what rightfully belongs to us. Hell shall boil over with ice ere I consent to such abomination and sign my son’s birthright over to York. These devils shall be made to swallow their words, seal and all, and with God’s grace, I shall soon send them to the bowels of Hell, where they rightly belong.”

Nonetheless, on the ninth day of November, 1460, York was proclaimed heir apparent to the throne. The substance of power was now York’s, the shadow Henry’s. We didn’t know how or when Marguerite would return, but that she would move Heaven and Hell to raise an army and be back for another fight, we knew all too well.

Nor did it take Marguerite long to invade. She raised a large army of Frenchmen, Welshmen, and Scotsmen. By threatening loss of life or limb to every man between the age of sixteen and sixty, she recruited soldiers from the north region of England, where York had few adherents, and placed them under the command of Andrew Trollope, the traitor of Ludlow. In return for the help of the Scots, she agreed to give them the great castle of Berwick, which for centuries had protected England from their invasions. Then, leaving Clifford, the Earl of Northumberland, and Somerset at Pontefract Castle to ravage the estates of the Yorkists and murder their tenants, she moved south on her invasion of England, a vindictive foreign queen at the head of a wild and savage horde.

“My lord Warwick has told me this leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is the enemy of England. No reasonable man can truly see her as our rightful queen now that she’s given away England’s chief bulwark against invasion from the north,” Nan said with a sigh.

Indeed, as this motley and unruly force crossed the Trent, it swept away by its excesses King Henry’s last hold on the nation. Reports came that unrestricted pillage of England south of the River Trent had been agreed to by Marguerite as part of her payment to the Scottish and Northern men. Nothing was spared from this plunder, not even the books or the vessels of the altars.

“Henry’s government has long been recognized as a failure, but Marguerite’s outrages have divided England into North and South for all time,” Countess Alice said heavily. “Where was God on the day Suffolk and Somerset sold us out to the French in return for the hand of that penniless she-devil Marguerite d’Anjou…?”

Her voice faded away so that I knew not whether she expected an answer of me or of God.

While Marguerite plundered the land south of the Trent, her favorites ruthlessly carried out her orders to burn the estates of the Yorkists in the North. Pleas for help came to the Duke of York at Baynard’s Castle, each more desperate than the last. As a result, York, armed with legal authority to put down rebellion, dissolved parliament on the ninth day of December and set out for Wakefield and his northern castle of Sandal, taking with him his son Rutland, the Earl of Salisbury, and Thomas. Warwick and John stayed in town, and Edward of March was sent to raise men on the Welsh marches. In the meanwhile, an armistice was reached with the Lancastrians so the holy week could be observed. For the Yule of 1460 was almost upon us.

We took our leave of the earl and Thomas at the Erber, beneath a cloudless winter-blue sky. It was a beautiful day. Freshly fallen snow wreathed the world in bridal white, and icicles glittered from the branches like diamonds. Birds chirped loudly, celebrating the glory of the season. Maude took a long moment to embrace Thomas. As I stood watching their farewell, my heart filled with pity that they should be parted over Yuletide, and I gave a silent prayer of thanks to the Holy Mother that John remained at my side. I knew this scene was repeated across the way at another house, where Duchess Cecily took her leave of her husband, the duke, and her seventeen-year-old-son, Rutland. No doubt she and her family waved them farewell as calmly we did, unaware of what Fortune held in store for us—what appalling evil, what unspeakable horror awaited….

FOR ME, YULETIDE OF
1460
WAS A HAPPY ONE, AT
the Erber. John was at his most attentive, his most loving. For three weeks, surrounded by those I loved, I knew poignant joy, and so I celebrated the Christmas festivities gaily, reveling in games of Hoodman Blind and hide-and-seek with the children, munching sweetmeats and the dried figs I loved, strumming my lyre and singing and dancing merrily, content in my belief that all was well with the world despite the reports of ill omens that kept coming to us. As in Norfolk, where a strange two-edged sword in the heavens, pointing toward Earth, was seen as a portent that God was about to wield the sword of vengeance for the actions taken against King Henry; or in Bedfordshire, where a bloody rain fell—a sign for some that blood would soon flow like water. But in my happiness, I chose to ignore the omens.

On the morning their truth was proven, the first day of the New Year of 1461, the wind howled outside, driving everyone indoors so that no song or joyful noise came from street revelers. Engaged in a game of Hot Cockles with the children in a corner of the chamber, I did not immediately see the wounded when they first rode into the Erber. But I heard the screaming and shrieks of the servants, the shouts and curses of the men in the courtyard; I heard the medley of loud clangs and bangs as trestle tables dropped out of the hands that carried them and buckets fell to the paving stones from the shoulders that bore them, all this against the harsh, strident cawing of ravens perched on the rooftops and the wild barking of hounds. Glancing out the window, I saw a wounded man drop from his saddle into the snow. Others ran to his assistance, and from the shadow of the arched gate, more wounded trailed into the court behind them. A few of these disappeared into the stairwell that led up to the great hall, and others scattered into the direction of the kitchens and the stables, leaving a trail of bright red blood behind in the snow. Maude and the countess came running out into the passageway from their chambers, their faces deathly white. We all hurried to meet the messengers in the hall.

If I live a thousand years, I shall never forget a detail of what happened next.

Surrounded by the entire Salisbury household and the wounded still able to stand, a man with bloodstained white hair knelt before the countess, an arm hanging limp at his side. She gestured him to rise, which he did, and the expression in his eyes tore my heart. Panic rioted within me as I waited, holding my breath.

“I am the bearer of the most grievous tidings a man can bring a mother, a sister, a wife, a daughter, a son, a father, or a brother. My lady—” His voice caught. He coughed, cleared his throat. “Our much-loved and most gracious lord, your husband, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and your son Sir Thomas Neville…are dead. Dead, too, are two thousand of our Yorkist army…. May God in His mercy assoil their souls.”

My breath froze in my throat as screams, wailing, and the most raw and visceral sounds that human pain can summon rent the hall. Arms reached out to the countess reeling where she stood, and held Maude, white as ash, who was drooping into a faint. When the screams quieted, the man resumed, slowly, haltingly. “The earl’s kinsman Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, died with them, as did his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and many others whom we knew and hold dear, and whose loss we shall mourn evermore—” His voice broke. More screams pierced the air and gave way to a burst of moaning, terrible and unearthly. The man’s voice came again. “The duke, the earls, and Sir Thomas Neville dedicated their lives…to justice and honor, and to the care of the common man…and they died with their men in the cause of that justice and honor….”

With great effort, I raised my eyes to the faces that pressed around me, stained with tears, loss, and agony. The moaning ceased, and there fell a silence that howled like an empty wind as it blew through us, changing everything, binding us together in a massive chain without shape or substance. Forged of grief eternal, this chain was more powerful than any steel, for it secured us in its black claws for all time and was never to be broken.

The painful, terrible details emerged over the next days, some so horrible, they were kept from the countess and Maude.

Violating the Christmas truce they had agreed to observe, the Lancastrians on the thirtieth day of December attacked the duke’s men as they foraged in the woods between Wakefield Bridge and Sandal Castle. York saw the fighting from the castle and immediately called for his armor. His advisors urged him not to go forth, but to wait until he was at full force, since his men had scattered to their homes in celebration of Yuletide. But York dismissed this counsel. “To sacrifice these men I cannot do,” he said. “Death is preferable to such dishonor.” Ordering the drawbridge lowered, he led his men over the moat and galloped into the woods. Outnumbered three to one, he fought valiantly and fell at the head of his troops. York’s son seventeen-year-old Edmund, Earl of Rutland, escaped the melee and tried to reach sanctuary. He was almost there, only a few yards away on Wakefield Bridge, when Lord Clifford caught up with him. Rutland, unarmed, begged for his life, but Clifford cried, “By God’s blood, thy father slew mine, and so I will do thee and all thy kin!” and thrust his sword into the boy’s heart. The Earl of Salisbury died the next day, but how, no one was sure.

“My father escaped the slaughter but was captured during the night by one of Trollope’s men. He was taken to Pontefract Castle. All we know is that he pleaded hard for his life, offering a huge ransom, but he died there. Whether he was beheaded or”—John swallowed hard—“or murdered, we cannot say.”

I took a long, unsteady breath as I watched him sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. After a while, he lifted stricken eyes to me. “There is more.”

I looked at him, stunned. How could there be more? Deceit, treachery, fighting during the sacred season, death by ambush, the murder of an unarmed boy…

“Dear God,” I whispered, “what more can there be?”

John leapt to his feet in a sudden motion, turned eyes on me that blazed with fury. Startled, I took a step back. “Clifford cut off their heads and took them to Marguerite, who had them nailed to the gates of York. Marguerite demanded, laughing, that a paper crown be placed upon the duke’s head, since he would be king.”

I shrank back in horror, a hand to my mouth. To dishonor the fallen—men who had died valiantly in battle—I couldn’t comprehend a thing so vile! By her actions, Marguerite had broken all the rules of engagement. Never, ever, even in my darkest nightmare, had I envisioned her capable of such sacrilege, such incredible cruelty. Now it was war
à outrance—
war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. I felt suddenly weak. I reached out for the bedpost and let myself down to the bed. Raising bewildered eyes to John’s haggard face, I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. Overnight the world had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Dimly I heard John turn on his heel and leave the room. He did not return for many hours that day, and I learned that he had been riding across the moors, which were as bleak and desolate as his spirit. To my torment, words Thomas had spoken echoed in my mind:
As long as you’re with me, I know I’m safe, John.
I closed my eyes on a breath. John had not been with Thomas, and Thomas had died. I feared his brother’s words would haunt John for as long as he lived.

Eventually I shook off my terrible lethargy and dragged myself to check on John’s mother. As I moved along, wrapped in my thoughts, soft voices floated to me. I halted and, retracing my steps and approaching on tiptoe, I followed the drifting voices into a small chamber behind me. They were all gathered together in a tight group on the floor near a charcoal brazier, Warwick’s little Anne and Bella, now six and eight, and our twins, Annie and Izzie, who were nearly three. Nurse was nowhere in sight, though I knew she had not left them for long. They talked so quietly, I had to strain to hear them.

“They’ve gone to Heaven,” Bella said.

“What’s ‘Heaven’?” our little Annie demanded.

I flattened myself against the stone wall as I listened, tears forming in my eyes, a terrible heaviness weighing down my heart.

“It’s a place in the sky,” Warwick’s Anne answered, her voice reflecting a measure of pride that she knew the answer.

“What they do?” our Izzie demanded, curious.

Clearly Bella had never considered this, and the question took her by surprise. After a long moment, she said, “They just sit there.”

“On chairs?” our Annie asked.

Bella frowned in thought. “I guess so. Or maybe thrones.”

“Will Uncle Tom come back and make me laugh?” asked Warwick’s Anne. She had loved Thomas best, and into my mind came an image of him twirling her around in a room glittering with filtered sun as she screeched with delight.

The soft patter of footsteps drew my attention down the passageway. Nurse was hurrying toward me, mumbling in distress, and I heard the word “privy.” I placed my finger on my lips to hush the flow of her apology, and touched her arm in reassurance when she drew alongside.

“We forgot about the children,” I whispered, blinking away my tears. Then, swallowing my anguish, I forced a smile on my lips and entered the chamber with Nurse.

“Uncle Thomas is waiting for you in Heaven, little Anne,” I said, gathering the child to me. “One day he’ll make you laugh again. When you go to Heaven yourself, he’ll make you laugh as much as you wish, and all will be joyful and merriment…. I promise.”

THE QUEEN WAS MARCHING SOUTH FOR BATTLE,
her troops looting, ravishing, and murdering along the way. Reports flooded us of Northerners breaking open the pixes and throwing out the Holy Sacrament, carrying off books, chalices, vestments, and church ornaments of every kind, and murdering priests who dared object. For Marguerite had promised her soldiers that whatever they could seize south of the River Trent was theirs.

Desperate, terrified people in her path fled their homes and flocked to London for refuge, making a pitiful sight as they overflowed the churches and huddled together in the wintry streets, cradling their babes, begging alms and bemoaning their loss of hearth and home to any Londoner who had heart to listen. Everywhere I went, I was surrounded by the sound of tears and wailing from all directions, so that it seemed the very walls of the city wept with grief. My heart broke for the poor, some of whom had lost sons forced to fight for Lancaster against their will. Like us, they mourned the loss of those they had loved, but even worse, they were reduced to beggarhood, for their homes were gone as well as their breadwinners. Their plight tortured me day and night until I devised a way to help them.

Nan and I met with the priests of St. Mary’s and arranged for food to be served to the destitute sheltering in the streets of Dowgate. Our efforts proved so successful that we met with many more priests from churches throughout the city over the next few days. When we put out calls for straw pallets, Londoners brought them to us by the cartload. We delivered these to the churches and then asked for donations of coarse dark bread of barley and rye. Again people rallied to our cry, delivering them to us at the Erber by foot, horse, and cart. Since we had little ready gold, we placed orders for weak ale at all the London inns and taverns, and hired cooks of the London houses to prepare barrels of potage with the promise of future payment. The establishments readily gave us credit.

I was deeply moved by the gratitude of the people we helped. Men and women, young and old, in rags, missing teeth or limbs, smothered our hands and the hems of our skirts with kisses and sent a litany of blessings after us: “God bless the Nevilles!” they cried, and, “May the Lord keep the Earl of Warwick, the savior of England, and all his kin!” and, “God bless the House of York, for without York, we are lost, lost!”

Except for the children and John, of whom I saw little in these days, the Erber was devoid of solace for me. Memories swirled through its halls and passageways, of the earl, whom I had loved as a father, and of Thomas, the brother I’d never had. The work I did for the poor gladdened me, for it occupied my mind and gave me release from the Erber, returning me exhausted at the end of the day, so that I did not dwell on the countess and Maude, who no longer slept but sat staring listlessly out the windows with unseeing eyes, as if expecting their husbands to return home from the grave. Of them both, it was Countess Alice whom I pitied most, for Maude had youth and a future, while the countess had only memories.

It pained me how sorrow had aged John’s mother beyond recognition. Her once-rosy cheeks hung gaunt and pale, and weight poured off her limbs so that her clothes hung loose on her frame, and her hands resembled those of a skeleton.

Though I was weary, sleep did not often find me in these days. Each night I lay beside John, tracing the lines of his handsome face with my finger, lightly so as not to awaken him. Laying my palm lightly on his heart, I felt its rhythmic beat. That he was able to rest comforted me, for he would need his strength if it came to battle. When this black thought descended upon me, I’d take a candle and light my way to the chapel. Sometimes I found comfort there, but sometimes the tiny chapel seemed too confining for the breadth of my appeal to God, and as morning broke, I left the Erber and made my way to the more spacious church of St. Mary’s to light more candles and offer more prayers.

On one of these sleepless nights that followed Wakefield, craving fresh night air, I arose from bed and stole down the tower steps to go to the river. Sometimes merely gazing at the brilliant starry vastness where God resided in His Heavens helped ease my soul. But I was startled to find the countess hovering at the foot of the staircase that led out of the keep. “I came…for something…I lost,” she said in a strange voice, with an odd, vacant smile. “But I…I can’t remember what it is…. I only know I can’t live without it…. ’Tis something precious…but…but I don’t know what it is….”

I realized that she walked in her sleep, and what she sought could never be found. A line from Aeschylus came to me:
Even in our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart.
Hot tears rolled down my cheeks and splashed my hands as I led her back to her bedchamber and gave her over into the care of her dozing servant.