The Uncrowned Queen (46 page)

Anne made up her mind. She had coin money hoarded from Brugge and some of her store, quickly spent in Taunton, bought wheat and twenty-five meat sheep, some with precious lambs afoot. There were also two cows, alarmingly shaggy, with wide horns. They were in milk and heavily pregnant. Anne bought a saddle horse for herself in Taunton also. A real horse, a big, strong, spirited mare with a deep chest and straight legs, not a lady's palfrey. She called her Morganne.

Wat, the last of the men who'd accompanied Anne from Blessing House, delayed going back to his master in London and it was he who drove the sheep to the village and delivered the sacks of wheat as well. The cows would be walked there the next morning by their previous owner. “Your lady says to kill what sheep you need now and keep the rest to breed from. The cows, when they come, are for you all, and for the children especially. And if someone will show me where the mill is, we can get this corn ground. I'm to take some back to the Hall, but again the rest is for you.”

There was utter silence. Then the cottars, Meggan included, danced and shouted and screamed. Tonight there would be another feast—the first in the village itself for many, many years. Eat? They would eat until the fat ran down their chins and their bellies hurt from overstuffing. And that was what they did.

Anne smiled. The wind brought her the smell of roasting meat. And, standing on the battlements of the Hall, she saw the smoke from the fires rising up from among the huddle of buildings in the valley below. If she strained to listen, she could hear them shouting too. Her people. Happiness, ecstasy, and terror all found the same voice in extremis. Anne furled her cloak about her body as she turned away. She was glad to feed her people, it was her duty. She was happy for their happiness too. In the end, it took little enough to change the life of a man or a woman. Or a child.

She shivered. The joy on the valley floor below was poignant and she was surprised how deeply she was affected by it. When had she herself last felt such joy? She closed her eyes and tried to block the knowledge, the truth, but there was no point in lying to herself. Edward Plantagenet: for all the suffering he had brought into her life, he was her joy. Would she ever see him again? And, if she had the choice, what would she do?

Darkness had settled on the valley and she could no longer see the shapes of the village houses. The shadows crept up around Herrard Great Hall. Soon she would go down to her lighted kitchen and sit companionably with her child, her mother, and Wat. Perhaps she would embroider by the fire, or spin.

Deborah, with Wat's help, had set up a weaving frame and both women were determined that by the time the next winter came, the walls of the Hall would be brightened by hangings and the beds would have new covers and blankets. Work was good, it kept her from thinking too much, but, sometimes, Anne despaired. Was this how her days and nights would play out, now and into the future?

Perhaps it was, and perhaps, in the end, that was for the best. A quiet life, lived among her own people, bringing up the boy in her mother's house and away, far away, from the dangerous, noisy world. The world of courts and intrigue and war. And kings…

For Edward Plantagenet, Easter Sunday began with silent prayers in a freezing fog and ended with armor turned black from dried blood.

Only three days ago, the streets of London had seethed with those welcoming him home. They'd brought him into his city with a blizzard of flowers and sweet herbs—jonquils, snowdrops, rosemary, and sage falling beneath his horse's feet, tender petals and leaves crushed to pulp in the mire of the roadway—and the sap-green smell had almost overcome the stench of streets starting to stink in the spring thaw.

Three days since the gates had been thrown open for him and he'd entered London with his men streaming out behind him, screaming like eagles for revenge. That fearsome, citywide roar, echoed by the people of the capital, had sent George Neville and his supporters at a run from the city, abandoning the old king in the Tower as they fled. And on that wild day, the people of London had recrowned their summer king, reconsecrated Edward Plantagenet at the high altar of the abbey, Edward still in mailed half-armor, his father's sword at his hip, the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury shaking as he brought the crown down so carefully, so firmly, on Edward's waiting head.

Three days since he'd met his wife once more, and his new son, in sanctuary in the abbey. Yes, three days after six months gone. He'd forgotten how beautiful Elizabeth Wydeville was. She looked
imperial that day, too, in her purple robes. She'd curtsied to him, tears in her eyes, and he'd taken the sleeping baby from her hands and kissed him, holding him high for all his men to see, and claimed him as his own acknowledged, legitimate son, the heir to his kingdom. And the bells of the abbey had pealed and boomed out across London, waking the child, who'd screamed with fright. But the king, his father, held him against his armor and soothed him, smiled at him, until the baby ceased to cry. He'd always been good with children.

And now, on the fourth day, he'd come to Barnet. It was only a little place, but it was here that he would truly earn his kingdom back, paying the price in the bodies of his men and Warwick's men as well. All English, all his subjects. Around him, he could hear the cheering and the screams; the screams of battle.

The fog did not lift on that long fourth day. In the chaos of the battle, Edward fought on, a machine equipped with an axe and a sword, surrounded by men he knew, men who had come to him at last and who, among the screams, would kill or die with him, united at last.
Wump!
He felt the impact in his shoulder as the axe in his hand sliced the helmet, and the head, of an attacker. Blood and brains. He wiped the muck off his face, out of his eyes, pushed the corpse away as the man fell toward him; and again, again the axe bit down, this time a horse caught the blow and it screamed like a man…

He heard himself bellow, knew it was his own voice joining those of his men as they gathered and pushed hard into the blood-flying chaos of the melee, seeking the earl of Oxford's men and the earl himself in the middle of a plump of spears.

But then the miracle. When he had no breath, no strength, left, his axe the weight of an anvil in his hand, Edward heard it and saw it for himself. Warwick's troops were firing upon their own men, Oxford's men, before the earl's soldiers could stop them. The badge! They'd mistaken Oxford's badge for Edward's. Killing their own?

The king threw down his blunted axe and drew his father's sword. Gathering his weary horse, he charged over corpses and writhing, half-dead men. “To me, Saint George! To me!” he
screamed. Cries of “A Warwick! A Warwick!” answered, but he had them now…

Thrust, and parry and thrust. And scream and kill and thrust again. And again. The terrible rhythm of battle, the music of death played on and on in that mist-plagued day.

And then, suddenly, a party of mounted men peeled away to chase a knight flying from the carnage. Edward saw them, saw who they chased—the shield with the ragged staff! Warwick! Spurring his horse, Edward wheeled after his men, but they reached the earl before him.

Warwick was alone, surrounded: one sword against too many.
“No!”
Edward roared, but before the word left his mouth it was too late. The king spurred his horse, faster, faster, screaming orders, “Leave him.
Leave him!
” But he saw the swords flash, heard Warwick bellow as he sold his life as dearly as he could.

Blood spurted through the earl's armor as an axe took his shoulder and sword arm from his body; then he fell as if he'd never been, making a hole in the air. Like hounds at a hunt, his pursuers howled victory, stabbing as they dropped from their horses, hacking, screaming…

“STOP!
”

That roar cut through and the pack ceased its bloody work; confused faces spotted with blood slewed in the king's direction as the battle passion ebbed. The king jumped down from his saddle and the men who had killed the earl of Warwick stumbled back. Already they had half despoiled the body of its costly armor and one man held the earl's sword in his hand, distinguishable by Warwick's badge worked into the pommel. Edward Plantagenet twitched the sword from the man's fingers, glaring at him, then looked down on the broken body of the enemy who'd tried to take his throne. Slowly, stiffly, he knelt beside what was left of Warwick's head and, lifting it up, raised the visor and kissed the clean, white brow. He'd known this man all his life and, once, he'd been a second father after his own was killed.

From that day to the end of their lives, those men who had only thought they were carrying out the king's commands did not understand Edward Plantagenet's terrible anger at the slaughter of his
enemy. They did not understand why he wept as he knelt there in the red mud beside the mutilated corpse of the man who had driven him from his kingdom. Then dark closed in on the fourth day.

Louis, the king of all
the French, was woken from his sleep by terrible news. Less than five days had passed from the end of Holy Week and now they dared to tell him, in the black middle of the night.

“Barnet? Where is this place? Is it certain?”

Le Dain stood, trembling from equal parts cold and fear, at the foot of the king's bed. “Alas, Your Majesty, the reports are true. The earl of Warwick has gone to our own good Lord. He was murdered in battle on Easter Sunday by the usurper, the earl of March.”

“Personally murdered? Do you mean Edward killed him?” Louis sat up, shocked.

Le Dain shook his head. “No, Lord King. His men killed the earl and despoiled the body also. Disgusting pigs, these English, to treat one of their own in this fashion. They say that the king—ah, the earl of March, has had Warwick's body and, sadly, that of Lord Montague”—le Dain coughed nervously; it was well known that Montague was the lover of Margaret of Anjou—“displayed at Saint Paul's Cathedral in the city of London. Barbarians! The cathedral is hard by London Bridge, Your Majesty, and—”

“Idiot! What do I care for geography? Where is my cousin, the queen of the English, now?” Louis growled.

Le Dain dropped his eyes. He swallowed. There was more bad news to tell.

“Well?” The king's voice cut like a boner's knife.

Laboriously, the barber knelt and shuffled forward on his knees. He bent his head humbly on reaching the side of the king's bed. “Queen Margaret has now landed in her kingdom, Your Majesty. She is in the southwest of the country, raising support. Those counties have always been loyal to the cause of Lancaster. There are still many who flock to her cause, even now that…” Le Dain coughed. He would not willingly say the words that must be said.

“Now that the earl is dead, you mean? But will they hold to her, le Dain, will they hold?” The king leaped from his bed with unaccustomed energy, the flaccid bag of his belly shaking like a custard as he hobbled toward his working table, snatching le Dain's candle in passing. Naked, Louis was an unheroic sight, especially since the livid pockmarks on his legs appeared leprous in the uncertain light.

“Get me a pen. And a dispatch rider. And a robe.
Now!
”

Le Dain rushed to find a covering, any covering, for the king and then, having draped an ermine-lined dressing-robe over Louis's narrow shoulders, hurried to do the rest of the king's bidding. But as he rushed through the palace, shouting for “Light! Heat! Guards!” he thought it was too late to be sending counsel of any kind to Margaret of Anjou.

The game was too deeply in play since the death of Earl Warwick.

The former queen of England would need a miracle if she was to take back her kingdom without her warlord.

May Day was passed with much celebration in the village. The days were getting longer at last and there was a flush of warmth in the air. Branches of flowering hawthorn were twined around the gate and porch of the small Norman church, and bees droned noisily as they plunged into the wilting blossoms, emerging with legs burdened with pollen. Perhaps this year, after all, would be fruitful?