The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III (42 page)

Pontefract. Johnny had let him pass. They'd have been butchered for sure had Johnny chosen to fall upon them; as outnumbered as they were, they'd have died to a man. But Johnny had stayed his hand, let them go by.
There were those of Warwick's advisers who'd claimed his brother the Marquess of Montagu must have feared to provoke Henry Percy into choosing sides. Others, more credulous, even suggested that
Montagu had accepted Edward's claim that he sought only his duchy of York. Warwick knew better.
Knew Johnny had never forgiven himself for betraying Ned at Doncaster, and in his moment of truth when all was at stake, he'd not been able to act against the cousin he'd loved like a brother, acknowledged as his King.
As for the others, his Lancastrian allies, they'd proven worthless to a man. Many remained on their estates, so unwilling to fight for a Neville that they'd rather see Edward of York advancing unchecked through the very heartland of England. That hell-spawn Somerset had ridden into London at the head of a well-armed force, and then insolently sent Warwick word that he was heading for the southern coast, there to await the arrival of his Queen and Prince from France.
Exeter and Oxford had, at least, made a show of resistance. When word had come of Ned's landing in
Yorkshire, they'd assembled several thousand men and marched north along the Fosse Road to run him to earth.
And for a brief while, Warwick did dare think that Ned had trapped himself. Ned had halted at
Nottingham, there to welcome Sir William Parr and six hundred new converts to his cause. Suddenly it seemed that the reckoning had come. Three armies were reported converging upon him. Johnny was shadowing his rear; Oxford and Exeter had by then reached Newark and were threatening his east flank;
and Warwick himself was only two days' march from Nottingham.
But even as Warwick moved north, word reached him that Ned had suddenly swung around and launched an unexpected assault upon Exeter and Oxford. Awakened at 2:00 A.M. with the news that the
Yorkists were on the outskirts of Newark, those two Lancastrian lords had bolted in panic. Warwick had been wild with rage upon hearing of their flight, knowing their forces had far outnumbered those under Ned's command. And worse was to come. It soon became apparent that Ned's attack had, in fact, been a feint with an advance scouting party. He'd scattered the Lancastrians with what was no more than a daring bluff.
Cut off from contact with Oxford and Exeter, hearing nothing from his brother, Warwick had withdrawn into Coventry. And suddenly on the morning of the twenty-ninth, Ned had appeared before the city walls,

daring him to do battle as he waited for word from the men who had so far proven to be such useless allies.
That night, Warwick examined the flimsy substance of the world he himself had constructed at such terrible cost. He now knew himself to be alone, walled in by unhealed hatreds, facing a future shadowed with foreboding. After six months of striving somehow to hold together this alliance of irreconcilable loyalties, he felt drained, emotionally exhausted. And Marguerite d'Anjou had yet to set foot in England.
Marguerite, his ally of expedience. Marguerite, the implacable, the unforgiving. He thought of lords like
Somerset and Tudor, who would not fight for him, who despised him all the more for his newfound allegiance to Lancaster. He thought of Johnny, who grieved for the cousins whose lives he was now sworn to take. And he thought of Ludlow, Calais, and Towton; in his weariness, called to mind memories long buried under the bitterness and grievances stored up over the past six years.
It was in those predawn hours, when he was most vulnerable to the past, most pessimistic for the future, that he at last yielded to despair and before he could repent of it, dispatched a herald to his cousin's camp with an offer to enter into negotiations. Back came Ned's reply, cool and uncompromising. He was, indeed, willing to negotiate. But he was prepared to offer Warwick no more than a pardon and his life, that and that alone.
It was not an offer that Warwick was prepared to accept. Nor, were he to be honest with himself, was it one he'd been expecting. He needed no time to consider; a prideful message of rejection was on its way to Warwick Castle within the hour. For it was at Warwick's own castle that Ned had chosen to encamp his army, a gesture that, for pure provocation, could hardly have been improved upon.
And so he waited for Johnny, for Exeter and Oxford. Waited, too, for the arrival of his son-in-law, who was even now advancing from the southwest, sending messages of reassurance and support. He had no choice but to believe them, to wait. But he could not help wondering if Ned, too, were not waiting for
George of Clarence.
april 3 dawned unseasonably warm, so much so as to cause discomfort for the four thousand men under command of the Duke of Clarence. Heading north, they'd halted in Burford for the night and this morning resumed their march toward Banbury, some three miles from Warwick Castle, where Edward was reported to be quartered.
George had never tolerated heat well, and he felt as if he would swelter under the weight of armor and glare of the sun. Impatiently fumbling

with the visor of his helmet, he was finding it virtually impossible to wipe the sweat from his brow with a gauntleted hand. He swore and could see heads turn in his direction, could feel the eyes boring into his back.
His lieutenants had been giving him irritatingly covert glances all morning, trying to guess what was in his mind, wondering if he'd take the field against his brothers. Well, they could damned well wonder.
Now, with word from his scouts that the Yorkist army was moving south to meet him, the tension of his battle captains had grown intolerable. Twice within the past quarter-hour, Thomas Burdett had approached him to make anxious query and twice George had, with rare patience, repeated his order, that they were to wait, to do nothing until he gave the command.
Burdett was back again. "My lord . . . they come," he said unnecessarily, gesturing down the road.
"I've eyes to see, Tom," George said curtly. The sight of his brother's banner had affected him more than he'd anticipated. He swallowed; there was a tightness in his throat, which had nothing to do with the heat or the dust of the road. He knew he could trust Dickon. But what of Ned? He glanced back over his shoulder, at the men deployed in battle formation, men so desperately needed by his father-in-law, awaiting him at Coventry.
"Your Grace!"
Burdett was pointing again, and George saw that something seemed to be happening in the Yorkist ranks. There was movement, dust swirled, and then they were parting to let a lone rider pass through. As all watched, he wheeled his mount and then galloped toward them.
Once away from the Yorkist army, the rider eased his mount somewhat, held the stallion to an easy, unhurried canter. He was unhelmeted and the sun burnished his armor in a blaze of light, beat down on hair as black as purest jet. Behind him George heard the first murmurings of recognition, heard the name
Gloucester rustling through the ranks, with mounting excitement.
Still he did nothing, sat motionless as his brother came on. The noise to his rear intensified. Discipline was flagging; his men were openly speculating as to his intentions . . . and still he waited. Not until Richard was less than a hundred yards distant did he turn to Burdett, giving the order to hold their positions, and then spurred his horse forward.
Richard had reined in, was waiting as George drew up beside him.
"You did take your time for true, George. What was in your mind-to give Ned concern that you'd decided to stand with Warwick, after all?"
George frowned, again caught up in a tangle of uncertain suspicions,

but Richard's dark face was unrevealing. He couldn't be sure if this were banter, accusation, or a shot too close to home.
"If you must know, Dickon, I hadn't the heart to intrude upon so spectacular an approach. . . . You did look as if you were rather enjoying yourself!"
Richard looked at him and then grinned. "I was!" He moved in closer, laughing, holding out his hand, and as George clasped it, he laughed, too, sure now that all would be well, even with Ned, and hearing behind him a vast roar of approval as his army understood that they were not to fight and die after all, at least not this April noon on the Banbury Road.
2 5
LONDON
April 1471
ON the same day that John Neville and the Lancastrian lords of Exeter and Oxford reached Coventry, the Earl of Warwick learned that his son-in-law had gone over to his brothers of York. Once more, Edward appeared before the walls of Coventry to challenge the men who waited within. Once more, they refused to do battle, and on Friday, April 5, Edward suddenly broke camp and took the road south, toward London.
Warwick set out in grim pursuit, but Edward was two days before him and the Earl knew he had little hope of heading Edward off before he reached the capital. Urgent messages were sent on ahead, instructing the Lord Mayor and city council to deny Edward entry.
The Archbishop of York dutifully paraded Harry of Lancaster through the city streets; it proved to be a mistake. The watching spectators jeered at the limp foxtails that hung from Lancaster's standard, and they wondered aloud why the poor old man wore the same blue gown as when he'd last appeared in public in
October. Edward of York had always

been popular in London, and he still owed the city merchants considerable sums of money. Moreover, he was now at St Albans, just a day's march away, with an army at his back.
Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry.
Marguerite d'Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent word that Harry of Lancaster was to be considered a prisoner of state. At that, John Stockton, the
Mayor of London, contracted a diplomatic virus and took to his bed. The Deputy Mayor, Thomas
Cook, argued for closing the city gates to the Yorkists. But even as he did, the Archbishop of York was sending a secret capitulation to his cousin at St Albans. And the common council, meeting in urgent session, resolved that, "As Edward, late King of England, is hastening toward the City with a powerful army, and as the inhabitants are not sufficiently versed in the use of arms to withstand so large a force, no attempt should be made to resist him."
At noon on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, Edward rode through Aldersgate and into the city of
London, exactly one month to the day since he had sailed from Burgundy. Just as six months before, the
Earl of Warwick had ridden to St Paul's to give thanks to the Almighty for His favor, Edward now did likewise, and here at last he encountered the enthusiasm that had been so conspicuously lacking during his progress southward, a progress that had demonstrated just how very much these continuing quarrels over the crown had cheapened what was once a sovereign's brightest coinage, the blind devotion of his people.
From St Paul's, Edward was to go to Westminster, where the Archbishop of Canterbury awaited him, there to symbolically place the crown once more upon his head. At Westminster, too, waited his Queen and children. But there was one task still to be performed, and shortly past one o'clock, he strode into the Palace of the Bishop of London to accept the formal surrender of the man who commanded the
Tower of London-his cousin, George Neville.
The Archbishop of York was ill at ease. Unlike his brothers, he'd not shared a friendship with Edward and he was well aware that he could rely on no memories of bygone affection to temper Edward's vengeance, were he so inclined.
Edward listened impassively as the Archbishop stammered apologies for six months of treason, until he grew bored and said coolly, "You needn't fear, Cousin. I'd not send a priest to the block, even such a priest as you. I will send you to the Tower, however, and you may be thankful that I do, at times, show mercy; else I'd have you sharing the same cell with your unlamented lord of Lancaster."
The Archbishop knelt, pledging his loyalties, present and future, to

York, and at Edward's impatient gesture, retreated to fetch Harry of Lancaster.
Edward grimaced at that, and turning toward Richard, said grimly, "This is a pleasure, Dickon, I can damned well do without."
Richard alone had never seen the Lancastrian King, although all his life he'd heard tales of this unstable man who was called a saint by some and simpleminded by most. He knew Harry had always been somewhat odd, apt to wander in his wits, what in Yorkshire would be called "moonstruck." He'd found no peace in marriage to the imperious French Princess from Anjou; and in the summer of his thirty-second year, when Marguerite was six months pregnant with the boy now wed to Anne Neville, Harry had slipped into a darkness of the mind from which he'd never fully emerged.
Richard knew all this by heart; from childhood, Lancaster's madness had been a litany of his House. But even these oft-told tales had not prepared him for the reality of the man his brother contemptuously called
"Daft Harry."
He was not yet fifty, but he walked with a pronounced stoop, hunched forward like one searching the ground for lost valuables. He had thin grey hair, which once had been flaxen, blank pale eyes that might have been blue, and he was the color of unchurned milk; he looked, to Richard, as if he'd never spent a day in the sun, not in his entire life. Richard experienced a surge of pity and, at the same time, an aversion that was physical.
The Archbishop was leading him like a child, now said, speaking in the overly loud voice one would use with the hard of hearing, 'Tis His Grace of York." When Harry did not respond at once, the Archbishop repeated, louder still and rather impatiently, "York . . . Edward of York."
Harry nodded. "I know," he said mildly and smiled at Edward.
Edward, looking resigned, held out his hand.
"Cousin," he said politely, a title more of courtesy than kinship, for the blood they shared had been much diluted over a period of some seventy years.
Harry disregarded the outstretched hand, stepped forward and embraced the younger man as if they were comrades of long standing.
Edward recoiled violently, drawing back as if struck; it was the only time that Richard could ever recall seeing his brother thoroughly flustered. For a moment, his consternation showed clearly in his face, and then he was once more in control, and he reached out, grasped the other man's hand, in that way responding to the greeting and yet keeping him at arm's length.