Margaret of Anjou (26 page)

York stared, his mouth slightly open. He looked as if he wrestled with betrayal, and Salisbury’s son added his voice to the argument.

“We cannot win here,” Warwick said softly. “You know that is the truth. We could
die
here, in all certainty, but I would rather we give them their small triumph—and then come back and fall on them when they are drowsing and drunk on their success. The final victory is what matters, my lord York, not how it comes about.”

The anger seeped out of York and he let his head droop, leaning back on the stone battlements. Ignoring Warwick, his eyes beseeched Salisbury.

“You think we can return, after such a loss?” he said, his voice hoarse with pain.

“They have surprised us here. We will surprise them in turn. There is no dishonor in such a course, Richard. If there were, I would blow the horns with you and settle it today, one way or the other. Would you have me throw my life away in this place?” Salisbury raised his chin. “If you give the order, we will fight to the last man. We will strike hard at the king’s—”

The tramp and jingle of men in mail interrupted him and all four looked over the battlements to the gathered armies far below. Warwick exclaimed as he saw the colors of the marching soldiers.

“What are they doing?” he said in shock. “That is Captain Trollope leading my men away! What is he . . . ?”

He fell silent as the ranks of six hundred Calais veterans raised a white banner and approached the king’s forces. They were met with a hostile bristling of pikes as well as knights and lords riding out to meet them. As Warwick watched in disgust, the ranks parted to allow the marching column to pass through.

“God’s wounds, that’s the end of it,” Salisbury said. “We needed those men.” He turned to York. “It is no small thing to stand against the king, my friend. If you’ll depart this place, we can prepare our captains for our return. I will not be idle, I swear it. I’ll send each one a letter swearing my loyalty to the king and asking only that he defends Henry from evil men.”

“I cannot walk away!” York shouted, silencing him. “Do you not understand? If we leave tonight, we will be attainted, every one of us! York and Salisbury, gone! Warwick, gone! March, gone! My life’s work, my house, my name, blackened by their writs, destroyed and broken! Damn you. Damn King Henry and his French bitch. I would rather die here, with these walls at my back.”

“I would rather live,” Warwick said, speaking firmly across York’s grief. “I would live so that I can overturn any law they make. I would live so that I can hold Parliament in my hand and make them tear up these Writs of Attainder. And I would live so that I can take my vengeance against my enemies, with men who understand that York too is a royal line. That is what I would do, my lord. Yet my father spoke the truth. If you wish, I will stand with you as the soldiers despoil your home and those you love. I will remain at your side as they are let loose to rape and torture, to burn and shatter everything you hold dear. That is my oath and the strength of my word. My fate lies with you.”

York looked around at the three men waiting on his decision. He was trapped, caught between two paths, each so appalling that he could only stare and shake. After a long time, he nodded.

“I have friends in Ireland, still. Men who care nothing for Attainder and who would protect me in my estates. Will you come with me?”

“Not I,” Salisbury said. “Calais will keep me out of the clutches of the king’s officers, but it is close to Kent. Close enough to leap over on a dark night next year.”

“Warwick?” York asked.

“Calais,” Warwick said firmly.

“Edward?” York said, turning and looking up at his son, standing there like a tree above them all. The young man squirmed, caught between conflicting loyalties.

“If you will allow it, father, I would rather return to France. There’s nowhere better placed to gather an army and cross back.”

If his son’s choice was another blow, York did not show any sign of it. He nodded, clapping Edward on the shoulder.

“There is a path and a bridge across to meadows, to the west of Ludlow. It’s a quiet route and it will take us far away. I must speak to my wife before I leave, as well as my captains. They must be told what to expect. What say you to April, six months from now, for our return?”

“Give me nine months, my lord,” Warwick replied. “Nine months and I will gather enough men to win back everything we have lost.”

York nodded, feigning confidence against a chilling desolation that numbed his limbs.

“Very well. I will expect to hear you have landed on the first day of July, on your souls, all of you. Give me your oaths that you will set foot on English soil in July next year, or be ever known as faithless men, oathbreakers. With God’s blessing, we will pay them in full for this disgrace.”

All three earls gave a private vow, gripping Richard of York by the arm and kneeling on the battlements. In somber mood, they left the heights then, to arrange for their escape.

—

A
S
EVENING
CAME
, torches were lit across Ludlow Castle and all through the village of Ludford to the south. The great gates of the fortress were thrown open and the first ranks of armored knights rode in, carrying the banners of the noble houses they represented. Duchess Cecily of York stood to meet them in the open courtyard beyond the gates, stiff and still as armed horsemen swept by her, seeking out some sign of her husband, or the first breath of a trap. They tramped and rushed all over the castle, kicking in doors and reducing the servants to terror as they quivered with their heads down, expecting a blade to land at any moment.

Two hours passed before Queen Margaret entered Ludlow, riding ahead of a hundred of her Gallants. She sat side-saddle on her horse and it was Thomas, Lord Egremont, who helped her to dismount. Her face was icy with disdain as she reached York’s wife and regarded the older woman with cold fascination.

“Your brave husband has run, then,” Margaret said. “A coward at the last.”

“And yours is nowhere to be seen. Is he sleeping, or at prayer?” Cecily replied sweetly. Margaret’s eyes narrowed as Cecily went on. “You have won tonight, my dear, but my husband
will
claim what he is owed. You must never doubt that.”

“He will not have this place,” Margaret said, gesturing to the stone walls all around and smiling at the older woman who had once intimidated her. “Ludlow will be sold now York is made common, with every other stone and scrap of land he once owned. Where will you rest your head then, Cecily? With no servants to tend you, or any name beyond wife to a traitor? I have seen the writs, with my husband’s Seal proudly on them. You will not find shelter with Salisbury, or with Warwick after this month. They are all subject to Attainder and that foul trinity is cracked apart.”

Cecily of York shuddered as if the words were blows. Not far off, they could both hear yells and screams as the king’s soldiers tore through the village of Ludford, unrestrained as they followed orders to search for York.

“I married a man, dear,” Cecily said, “rather than a child. Perhaps if you had done the same, you might understand why I am not afraid.”

“I married a
king
,” Margaret snapped, driven to fury by the woman’s calm superiority.

“Yes, you did. And he lost France in return. I do not think it was the best bargain, dear, do you?”

Margaret was tempted to strike Cecily of York in her anger. She might have done so if the woman’s young children had not been herded out around her. The eldest, Edmund, had one arm around two younger sisters. At sixteen, he had most of a man’s growth, though he wore only a belted tunic and hose and bore no weapon. Edmund carried the smallest lad on his hip. Richard was awkward there, clinging to his brother like a frightened cat and staring around with wide eyes.

Cecily turned to them and held out her arms for the lad.

“Come here to me, Richard,” she said, smiling as he almost leaped from his brother to her arms so that she staggered under his weight.

The little boy winced as he clambered to a safe position, making a low, animal groan until Cecily kissed him on the forehead. She turned back to Margaret then, raising her eyebrows in silent question.

“I must take my children away now, unless you have more to say to me?”

One of the little girls began to sob and wail at the sight of so many strange soldiers in their home. Cecily shushed her, waiting for the queen to allow her to go. Margaret bit her lip, but she took no joy in dismissing York’s wife. She was left staring after them as they walked out through the gates, confused by her own envy and sadness.

M
argaret breathed deeply, enjoying the smells filling the Palace of Westminster. Christmas was just three days gone and though December the twenty-eighth was Herod’s day, where the old tyrant had ordered the death of children, it was also the day the royal kitchens would bake all the remnants of venison into pies and send them out. They took the “umbles”: the liver and the heart, the brains and feet and ears, simmering them all into a rich gravy before sealing them in pastry. The royal kitchen staff then carried them out to a shout of triumph from those gathered outside the palace. The umble pies would be cut into thick slices and born off still steaming for families to enjoy. Margaret had tasted a slice of one and found the thick juice took a while to work from her mouth and teeth.

She looked down on the crowd from a high window, content to observe them as the line of cooks came out, each bearing a tray and a heavy pie, with knives on their hips to cut the shares. There were no children in the crowd, she noticed. On Herod’s day, they were often beaten in memory of that king’s cruelty and the boys and girls of London made themselves scarce as best they could, keeping their heads down and getting on with work in silence, rather than remind their masters of the tradition. Men and women were there, smiling and lighthearted as they clustered around the line of cooks. Many had brought their own cloths and baskets to carry a piece away.

Margaret ran a hand over her stomach, feeling the heaviness there from all she had eaten over the previous few days. She had sat through a Christmas service in Westminster Abbey with her husband nodding beside her. Carollers had gathered outside to dance and sing for the birth of Christ, banned from entering the churches for how they disrupted the congregation. They had begun a scuffle, she recalled, fighting in the street until her guards had gone out with cudgels and sent them roughly on their way with kicks and blows.

Derry Brewer cleared his throat behind her and Margaret turned, smiling at the sight of him in his best, brushed garments. It was hard to reconcile the image of the man who had just entered with the thin and shivering monk who had come to her in Windsor, five years before. Derry had put on weight in the intervening time, his waist and shoulders growing heavy. Yet he looked strong still, like a boar who had not lost its cunning with age. She touched her own stomach lightly at the thought. Grief and worry had helped her to avoid the same fate, perhaps because her womb had remained unfilled, after Edward. That thought was a pang of sorrow, and she forced a smile to greet her spymaster.

“What news, Derry? My steward told me there would be children beaten through London this afternoon. I think he was playing with me, knowing I spent my childhood in France. Is it true?”

“It has happened, my lady, if the apprentices have grown rowdy and their masters have lost patience. There have been riots before, on this day. Not every year, though. If your wish is to see such a thing, I can certainly arrange it for you.”

Margaret laughed and shook her head.

“Would that all my desires could be met in such a way, Derry. That is how I imagined being a queen, when I was a girl, crossing the Channel for the first time.” Her words brought back a memory of the man who had brought her to England, William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Sadness came to her eyes then, in his memory.

“How goes your work, Derry? Is the fleet ready?”

“I have every shipwright on the south coast working night and day. New vessels or the old repaired, the fleet will be finished, my lady, by the spring. We’ll have ships to take an army such as France has not seen since ’46. It will be enough to scorch Salisbury and Warwick and March out of Calais, I am certain. If they have gone further into France, it will be alone. The French king would never allow English soldiers to march or camp on his land. We’ll secure Calais for the Crown, my lady, never doubt it. We’ll deny that stepping-stone to the king’s enemies, whatever they intend.”

“And after that, York, in Ireland,” Margaret said.

It was spoken as a half question, and Derry answered it as he had a dozen times before.

“My lady, you know I have said Ireland is a wild place—and York is well loved there, from his time as King’s Lieutenant.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “He has friends in Ireland who believe the house of York . . . well, that it should be the royal line. They will resist, their men with them. My lady, taking a fleet across twenty miles of sea to Calais is no great step. We can blockade that port and land an army, cannon, anything we need, though I hope they will surrender before we are forced to breach the walls. I do not want the French king to feel he has another opportunity born from our strife! Ireland . . . is somewhat different, my lady. To land an army on that wild east coast would be a proper campaign, a year or more away from England when those men might find some better use at home. The Irish are sullen folk. Their lords will resent the challenge to their authority and just one spark could set off a rebellion. I have said I cannot recommend such a course, at least this year. Please, let me consider York once again when we have Calais in our grasp. God loves those who plan too far, my lady. He loves to show them the cost of their ambitions.”

Margaret pursed her lips, making a moue in her frustration.

“I cannot let that bird rest,” she said. “He escaped when we had him at bay, scorning all my Gallants. Can you understand, Derry? I saw Salisbury slaughter good men who had come to the field with my badge, for love of me. Where is the punishment for that foul day? Where is the justice, with Salisbury and his son safe in France, York in Ireland? I want them brought home in chains, Derry! For all they have cost me, for all they have threatened.”

“Your Highness, I know. It would be Christmas once again, if I could see York and Salisbury brought back for trial. I was at St. Albans, my lady. I know the debts they have run up—which remain. They will be paid, I swear it. With sixty ships, packed full of men and cannons, we’ll dig them out like foxes. I ask only for your patience.”

Margaret nodded stiffly, waving a hand to dismiss him. Derry bowed, feeling his back twinge. God, he was getting old! He considered all the things he had to do that day and whether he could fit in an hour of sword practice with one of the king’s guards. He had learned to ride like a knight, after all. He had decided to learn to fight like one, though it hurt his pride to be knocked about like an unruly child. He made a decision, determined to work up a sweat, no matter what it cost him.

Margaret had turned away to the window as he left, smiling once again at the sight of London crowds. The new year was just days away and she had high hopes for it, more than any of those gone before. First Calais, then York, wherever he had hidden himself. Her husband’s enemies would be hunted down and Henry could live out his years in peace. England would be stronger for all the suffering, Margaret was certain, just as she had grown strong in the forge-heat. She could still recall the innocent she had been, a slip of a girl who spoke in broken English, a mere whisper of the woman she had become.

—

F
OR
A
DARK
J
ANUARY NIGHT
, the sea was calm. It had to be, for what Warwick had in mind. He and his chosen men had fretted through three days of a terrible blow raging across the Channel, taking comfort only in the fact that the royal fleet would never be able to come out of port in such rough seas.

The year 1460 was still young, with just three months having passed since their flight from Ludlow. While York sailed for Ireland, Salisbury, Warwick, and Edward of March had slipped over to France in a herring boat. That had been the lowest point for all of them, though the three earls had thrown themselves into plans for their return almost as they set foot in the Calais fortress. Salisbury’s brother William, Lord Fauconberg, had visited them later, bringing a hundred men with him and two sturdy caravelles to be tied up in the sheltered docks. As one who had been favored among Henry’s supporters, Fauconberg had also brought news of a Lancastrian fleet being assembled in Kent, ships to land ten thousand or more in the spring. If there had been any doubt in their minds about the future path, his words had dispelled them. The Writs of Attainder had been issued, and they would not be left alone in their exile.

The port of Sandwich was quiet and still in the small hours of a frozen winter morning. Warwick and Salisbury walked together along the deserted quayside, with Edward of March just a step behind. Some forty men followed in staggered groups of six or a dozen at a time. In all, two hundred veteran soldiers had crossed to England that night, wearing simple, rough clothes of wool and leather. Armor or mail would only have been a hindrance for the sort of quiet work they planned. In the darkness, they had a chance to pass for king’s crews or Kent fishermen. Yet Sandwich had been raided by the French many times over the centuries. Enemy ships had slipped across that channel before, and Warwick was only surprised the church bells had not already begun to toll a warning across the town.

Their luck held for an age. They had tied up four small ships among the shadowy royal fleet, some forty at anchor, with no more than a few lamps swinging between them all. The town itself was black against the night sky, with so many of its inhabitants used to rising before dawn. Warwick and his father had timed their crossing to arrive when the fishing crews were asleep, and the king’s sailors would still be sleeping off their ale.

Warwick turned sharply at a strangled yell from one of the merchant cogs, all creaking in their berths. He could not tell the source. The ships tied up along the dockside were so close together, his men had been able to clamber onto one and then step across to the next. For those anchored further out, small boats carried Warwick’s men to ladders set in the wooden walls, creeping aboard as silently as they could manage. At that moment, they were sprinting across dark decks in bare feet, clubbing or knifing the poor souls left to guard them as quietly as they could. The king’s crews were all ashore and each ship held just a few young men given the task of tending a lamp and keeping watch against the French.

Warwick was looking out to sea and he jumped as his father gripped his arm. Lamplight was approaching along a side road leading toward the waterfront. Perhaps because of the presence of so many of the king’s soldiers in town, the local watchmen were less alert than they might have been. As Warwick and March darted forward, they could hear snatches of laughter and conversation, some story of the Christmas just past. Warwick could sense the huge shadow that was Edward of March at his right shoulder. Dressing the young giant in fisherman’s wool had been a lost cause. No one could look at him and not know he was a soldier.

There were six men in the small group that rounded the corner and came to a shocked halt. Warwick could see one of them carried a large handbell to rouse the town. He swallowed. The two groups stood frozen, staring at each other.

“The French!” one of the watchmen hissed, raising the bell.

“Shut up, you fool,” Warwick said sharply. “Do we
look
French?”

The man hesitated, up on his toes as if he’d sprint away at any moment. The one leading them pulled back the shutters on his lamp, the gleam revealing some of the shadowy men trotting up behind Warwick. The watchman cleared his throat carefully, knowing that the wrong word would surely get him killed.

“We don’t want any trouble, whoever you are,” he said, trying to put some authority into a voice that was strained and shaking. The man’s eyes flickered to Edward, sensing his readiness for violence.

“Earls Warwick, Salisbury, and March,” Warwick answered. He didn’t care who heard they’d been there. All he wanted was to get the ships away and be gone by the time the sun came up. It wasn’t as if the royal crews could chase them in fishing boats.

The watchman leaned closer, staring. To Warwick’s surprise, he smiled. Without turning around he muttered a command to those with him not to run.

“You’ll need to tie us up, then,” he said. “Or the king’s men will see us hanged in the morning.”

“Sod that, Jim!” the bell-carrier hissed at him. “They’ll flog us anyway.”

“You’ll survive,” the watchman snapped. “If you sound that bell, Pete, I’ll batter you meself.”

Warwick had been frowning as he followed the exchange. He’d expected a quick, brutal scuffle with the watchmen, then perhaps a race to the last ships in the dock as the town came alive to repel invaders. As the furious whispered argument went on, Warwick glanced around at Salisbury and March. York’s son shrugged at him.

In frustration, the one with the lamp suddenly rounded on his companion, reaching for the clapper of his bell and snatching it out of his hand with a dull clunk.

“There you are, my lord. We won’t give you any trouble.”

“Do I know you?” Warwick asked.

“Jim Wainwright, my lord. We’ve not met, though I do remember you chasing me along an alleyway a few years back.” Wainwright grinned oddly, showing missing teeth. “I was walking with Jack Cade then.”