The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III (6 page)

prisingly York and his supporters were less than thrilled by this Solomonlike solution. And as, under the
Act of Accord, Marguerite's seven-year-old son was summarily disinherited, an action of expediency many saw to be confirmation of the suspicions so prevalent as to the boy's paternity, there was never any possibility that Marguerite and her adherents would give consent except at sword-point. The only one professing satisfaction with the Accord was Harry himself, who in his beclouded eccentric way clung tenaciously to his crown, yet strangely evidenced little concern that his son was thus rudely uprooted from the line of succession.
After the July battle that had delivered the King into Warwick's power, Marguerite had retreated into
Wales and then into Yorkshire, long an enclave of Lancastrian loyalties. There she'd been reunited with the Duke of Somerset and Andrew Trollope, who'd spent several frustrating months attempting to dislodge Warwick and Edward from Calais.
These Lancastrian lords were now securely ensconced in the massive stronghold of Pontefract Castle, just eight miles from York's own Sandal Castle, and they'd recently been joined by two men who'd long nurtured a bitter hatred for the House of York, Lord Clifford and the Earl of Northumberland; their fathers had died with Somerset's at the battle of St Albans won by York and Warwick five years past and they'd neither forgotten nor forgiven. Marguerite herself had ventured up into Scotland in hopes of forging an alliance with the Scots; the bait she dangled was a proposed marriage between her small son and the daughter of the Queen of Scotland.
And so Edmund found himself spending the Christmas season in a region he little liked, finding Yorkshire stark and bleak and unfriendly to the House of York, with the grim prospect ahead of a battle soon to come in the new year, a battle that would decide whether England should be Yorkist or Lancastrian, at a cost of lives too high to contemplate.
It had been one of the bleakest Christmas seasons within his memory. His father and uncle were too preoccupied with the coming confrontation with Lancaster to have either the time or the inclination for holiday cheer. Edmund, acutely sensitive to the disadvantages of being a seventeen-year-old novice to warfare midst seasoned soldiers, had forced himself to shrug off the lack of holiday festivities with what he fancied to be adult indifference. But secretly he'd grieved for the Christmas celebrations of years past, thought with longing of the seasonal merrymaking he was missing in London.
His cousin Warwick had remained in the capital to safeguard custody of the Lancastrian King, and
Edmund knew Warwick would keep a princely Christmas at the Herber, his palatial London manor house. From Warwick Castle would come his Countess and Isabel and Anne, his

young daughters. Edmund knew his own mother would be sure to join them there, too, with his little brothers, George and Dickon, and Meg, who, at fourteen, was the only one of Edmund's sisters still unmarried. There'd be eggnog and evergreen and the minstrel gallery above the great hall would be echoing from dawn till dusk with music and mirth.
Edmund sighed, staring out at the drifting snow. For ten endless days now, they'd been sequestered at
Sandal Castle, with only one brief excursion into the little village of Wakefield two miles to the north to break the monotony. He sighed again, hearing Thomas call for still more bread. The traditional Christmas truce was drawing to an end; by the time it expired, Ned should have ridden up from the Welsh Marches with enough men to give the Yorkists unchallenged military supremacy. Edmund would be very glad to see his brother, for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that he could talk to Ned as he could not talk to Thomas. He decided he'd write to Ned tonight. He felt better at that, swung off the window seat.
"I've some dice in my chamber, Tom. If I have them fetched, will you forsake your capon for a game of
'hazard'?"
Thomas was predictably and pleasantly agreeable, and Edmund's spirits lifted. He turned, intending to send a servant for the dice, when the door was flung open and Sir Robert Apsall, the young knight who was both his friend and his tutor, entered the chamber. It was a large room, half the size of the great hall, was filled with bored young men, but it was to Edmund and Thomas that he hastened.
Stamping snow from his boots, he said without preamble, "I've been sent to summon you both to the great hall."
"What is it, Rob?" Edmund queried, suddenly tense and, as usual, anticipating disaster, while Thomas shoved his chair back from the trestle table, came unhurriedly to his feet.
"Trouble, I fear. That foraging party we sent out at dawn is long overdue. They should've reported back hours ago. His Grace the Duke fears Lancaster may have broken the truce, that they may have been ambushed."
"Why do we tarry, then?" Edmund demanded and had reached the door before the other two could respond.
"Wait, Edmund, get your cloak." Thomas was reaching for the garment crumpled on the window seat, saw that Edmund was already out the door, and with a shrug, followed his young cousin from the chamber.
the Duke of York's suspicions soon proved to have been justified. Ambushed at Wakefield Bridge by a large Lancastrian force, the foraging party had died almost to a man. A few survivors fought their way free,

however, and with the Lancastrians in close pursuit, raced for the refuge of Sandal Castle. Between the castle and the banks of the River Calder stretched a wide expanse of marshland, known locally as
Wakefield Green. This was the only open ground between Sandal Castle and the village of Wakefield, and the fleeing Yorkists knew their one chance of escape lay across this meadow, knew that to enter the thick wooded areas to their left and right would be to mire their mounts down in belly-deep snowdrifts, to flounder helplessly until caught and killed.
Across Wakefield Green they galloped, scant yards before their pursuers. Just when it seemed that capture was inevitable, arrows pierced the sky over their heads. The Lancastrians fell back under this aerial onslaught and the outer drawbridge was hastily lowered onto the stone platform that jutted out into the moat. As the drawbridge linked with the platform, the surviving soldiers raced across the moat, through the gatehouse, and on into the castle bailey. Behind them, the drawbridge was rapidly rising again, and even as they dismounted, they could hear the reassuring sounds of the iron-barred portcullis sliding into place across the gatehouse entranceway.
Sleet had been falling intermittently all day, but the clouds over the castle were, for the moment, no longer spilling ice into the sky. Visibility was such that the Yorkists on the castle battlements could see the enemy gathering in the meadow below. They seemed to be in a state of some confusion, even at a distance, as if uncertain whether to withdraw or to lay siege to the castle itself.
Within the great hall, a heated argument raged among the Yorkist lords. A sharp and irreconcilable split had developed, between those who favored engaging the Lancastrians in combat and those who considered it folly to leave the safety of the castle. The spokesman for the latter position was a friend of long standing of the Duke of York, Sir David Hall. He argued with force and conviction that common sense dictated but one course of action, to hold their men within the castle walls and await the coming of
His Grace's eldest son, Edward of March, with the men he was gathering along the Welsh Marches.
Others, however, scorned such restraint as if it reflected upon their courage and contended with equal passion that the only honorable action open to them was to accept the challenge thrown down by
Lancaster.
For a brief time, the decision seemed to hang in the balance, but two factors tipped it in favor of assault.
The Duke of York himself was most sympathetic to this argument, and the Lancastrians on Wakefield
Green had now swelled their ranks. With reinforcements, they were growing progressively bolder and had ventured within provocation distance of the castle, although prudently just beyond arrow range.
Edmund stood in the shadows, listening in silence. Unlike most of

his family, he had dark eyes, a striking shade of blue-grey that faithfully mirrored his mercurial shifts of mood. They showed only grey now, moving from face to face in the most searching of appraisals. Even at seventeen, he was not, had never been, a romantic. Common sense was what swayed him, not abstract concepts like "honor" and "gallantry." It seemed stupid to him to risk so much merely for the problematical satisfaction of avenging their foraging party. It was true the risk did not appear to be excessive; they commanded a clear numerical superiority over the Lancastrians. But it did appear to him to be unnecessary, to be a self-indulgent exercise in chivalry.
He wondered now if his father was motivated by a desire to seek vengeance for Ludlow. But then he found himself wondering if his own reluctance to engage the Lancastrians was really rooted in common sense. What if it were cowardice? He had, after all, never been in battle, could feel his stomach knotting up even now at the prospect. Ned had always insisted that fear was as common to men as fleas were to dogs and inns, but Edmund had his doubts. He felt sure his father and uncle Salisbury could not possibly know the lurch of a heart suddenly beating up in the vicinity of the throat, could not possibly share the icy sweat that traced a frozen path from armpit to knee. They were old, after all; his father was nigh on fifty, his uncle even older. Edmund could not imagine death holding the same fear for them as it did for him, any more than he could imagine that they were driven by the same sexual hungers, not at their ages.
No, he'd never been able to agree with Ned . . . Ned, who would speak quite candidly of having been scared pissless and yet seemed to thrive on danger, to deliberately seek out risks Edmund would much rather have bypassed. He'd grimly matched Ned, risk for risk, all during their boyhood, riding along the crumbling edge of cliffs and swimming their mounts through rain-swollen rivers spanned by perfectly adequate bridges. But he could never quite convince himself that Ned ever knew the fear he did, and when others praised him for his daring, he felt a secret shame, as if he'd somehow perpetrated a gigantic hoax upon the world, a hoax that would one day inevitably be unmasked.
Doubting his courage, he now doubted his judgment as well, could no longer be sure why he viewed the planned assault with such disfavor. Yet even had he been sure, it would have been impossible for him to have given any answer other than the one he gave when his father at last turned to him and said, "Well, Edmund, what say you? Shall we show Lancaster the price to be paid for breaking the truce?"
"I think we've no choice, sir," he said soberly.

WHERE the River Calder suddenly snaked into a horseshoe curve toward the west, the ground rose somewhat and afforded a clear view of Sandal Castle and the sloping expanse of Wakefield Green. A
small group of horsemen now waited within the trees of this snow-covered hillock. As they watched, the drawbridge of the castle began to lower, slowly settled over the moat. The favored banners of York, a
Falcon within a Fetterlock and a White Rose, took the wind, flared to full length through the swirl of falling snow.
Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, leaned forward intently, permitted himself a small tight smile.
"There they do come," he announced needlessly, for his companions were watching the castle with equal absorption. It was unlikely York had a more bitter trinity of enemies than these three men, Somerset, Lord Clifford, and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Only Marguerite herself nursed a greater grudge against the man now leading his army against the Lancastrians on Wakefield Green.
The Lancastrians were not standing their ground, were retreating before the Yorkist advance. It was clear to the three watching men that the Lancastrian forces seemed on the verge of catastrophe, on the verge of being trapped between the banks of the River Calder and the oncoming Yorkist army. Yet none of the three evidenced alarm; on the contrary, they watched with grim satisfaction as their own men gave way and the Yorkists bore down upon them in exultant sweep toward easy victory.
The Lancastrians at last seemed to be making a stand. Men came together with shuddering impact. Steel gleamed, blood spurted over the snow. Horses reared, lost their balance on the ice and plunged backward, crushing their riders beneath them.
Beside Somerset, Lord Clifford forced his breath through clenched teeth. "Now, God damn you, now!"
Almost as if his imprecation had been heard, from the woods on both sides of Wakefield Green came the hidden left and right wings of the Lancastrian army. Under the Earl of Wiltshire, the cavalry was sweeping around and behind the Yorkists, between them and the distant snow- shadowed walls of Sandal Castle.
The foot soldiers of the right wing continued to surge from the woods until all of Wakefield Green seemed to have been engulfed in a sea of struggling humanity. Even to an untrained eye, it was evident that the trapped Yorkists were hopelessly outnumbered. To the practiced eyes of Somerset and Clifford, the Yorkists numbered no more than five thousand. Facing an army of fifteen thousand.
Clifford had been searching in vain for York's personal standard. Now he abandoned the effort and spurred his stallion down the hill, into

what was no longer a battle, what was now a slaughter. Somerset and Northumberland also urged their mounts forward, followed after him.
Edmund swung his sword as the man grabbed for the reins of his horse. The blade crashed against the upraised shield, sent the soldier reeling to his knees. But Edmund did not follow through on his advantage; his sword thrust had been an instinctive gesture of defense, perfected through years of practice in the tiltyard at Ludlow Castle. Edmund was in shock; he'd just seen his cousin Thomas killed, dragged from his stallion into the bloody snow, held down as his armor was hacked through by a score of blades.
The snow was falling fast and thick now; through the slits of his visor Edmund saw only a blur of wind-whipped whiteness. All around him, men were running, screaming, dying. He'd long since lost sight of his father and uncle, now looked around desperately for Rob Apsall, saw only the soldiers of
Lancaster and the dead of York.
Someone was reaching again for his reins; there was someone else at his stirrup. He dug his rowels deep into his stallion's side. The animal reared, throwing off the hands at its head, and then plunged forward.
There was a startled cry; the stallion stumbled, hooves hitting flesh, and then Edmund had broken away from the encircling men, was free. He gave the horse its head, found himself caught up in the midst of fleeing soldiers floundering awkwardly through the snow, casting aside weapons and shields as they ran, panic-stricken prey for the pursuing Lancastrians.
His stallion shied suddenly to the right, veered off so abruptly that Edmund was nearly unseated. Only then did he see the river looming ahead, see the fate his stallion had spared him. Drowning men clutched with frozen fingers at the floating bodies of Yorkist comrades, while on the bank above them soldiers of
Lancaster probed with lance and pole axe, as Edmund had once seen a man at a faire spearing fish in a barrel.
The sight sent Edmund even deeper into shock. He tugged at the reins, an irrational resolve compelling him back toward the battlefield to find his father. As he did, a Lancastrian soldier blocked his way, wielding a chained mace in a wide arc toward Edmund's head. Edmund lashed out with his sword and the man fell back, sought easier quarry.
His attention thus distracted, Edmund did not see the second soldier. Not until the man thrust upward with a bloodied blade, gutting Edmund's horse. The stallion screamed, thrashed about wildly in the snow.
Edmund had time only to kick his feet free of the stirrups, to fling himself sideways as the animal went down. He hit the ground hard; pain seared up his spine, exploded in his head in a sunburst of feverish color.