Margaret of Anjou (5 page)

“Yes, sir, of course. I’ll take you to the queen. Her Highness was asking about you just a few days back.”

The rain fell harder, drumming against the miserable guard as they left him behind and went into the warm.

—

A
S TIRED
AND BEDRAGGLED
as he was, Derry couldn’t help but notice the aura of hush that increased as Hobbs brought him to the king’s apartments. Servants walked without any of the usual clatter, speaking in whispers if they spoke at all. By the time Hobbs had brought him to the right door and given another password to the two men guarding it, Derry was certain there had been no improvement in the king’s health. Some fourteen months had passed since King Henry had collapsed into a stupor so deep he could not be roused. The year 1454 had aged to the end of summer with no king on the throne in London, only the Duke of York to rule in his stead as “Protector and Defender of the Realm.” England had a long history of regents for royal children—Henry himself had needed good men to rule in his stead when he’d inherited the throne as a child. Yet there was no precedent for madness, inherited no doubt from Henry’s mother and the taint of her royal French line.

Derry endured a thorough search of his person. When the guards were satisfied he bore no weapon, or at least had found none, they announced him and opened the door to the inner chambers.

He swept through, taking in the sight of the queen at dinner with her husband. At first glance, King Henry looked as if he sat normally, nodding over a bowl of soup. Derry spotted the ropes binding him to his chair so he could not fall, as well as the servant who looked up as he entered, holding a soup spoon to feed his master. As Derry came closer, he saw Henry wore a bib that had collected as much soup as went inside him. Rich broth dribbled down the king’s slack lips and as Derry knelt and bowed his head, he could hear soft, choking sounds coming from him.

Captain Hobbs had not stepped beyond the threshold. The door closed at Derry’s back and he saw the young queen rise from her seat, an expression of horror on her face.

“Oh your
head
, Derry! What have you done to yourself?”

“Your Highness, I preferred to come to you without my movements being noted and reported at every step. Please, it is nothing. It will surely grow back, or so I am told.” He noticed in exasperation that the queen seemed to be struggling with laughter.

“It’s like an egg, Derry! They’ve left you hardly any hair at all.”

“Yes, Your Highness, the Franciscan who wielded the razor was unusually thorough.” As he rose from kneeling, he felt himself stagger slightly, the combination of the room’s warmth and hunger bringing a wave of weakness.

The queen saw his frailty and her smile vanished.

“Humphrey! Help Master Brewer to a seat before he falls down. Quickly now, he is close to fainting.”

Derry looked around dazedly for the man whom she addressed, feeling himself taken under the arms and dropped into a wide, wooden chair. He blinked, trying to summon his wits from where they had suddenly scattered. Such weakness was embarrassing, especially considering he knew Brother Peter was still out in the rain, heading for his barn and a place to sleep.

“I’ll be all right in a moment, Your Highness,” Derry said. “I’ve been on the road a long time.” He did not say that he’d been hunted, stretching his wits and his contacts to their limits just to stay ahead of the men searching for him. He’d been spotted and chased three times in the previous month, twice in the week before he’d joined the monks. He knew there would come a time when his legs failed or he couldn’t reach a safe spot to hide. The Duke of York’s men were closing a net all around him. He could almost feel the rough twine on his throat.

Derry looked up to thank the man who had helped him, his eyes widening as he recognized the Duke of Buckingham. Humphrey Stafford was red-faced and large, a man of enormous appetites. He’d handled Derry as easily as a child, and the spymaster could only wonder how much weight he’d lost on the road.

The duke leaned in to peer at him, the man’s swollen great nose wrinkling in distaste.

“Dead on his feet, almost,” Buckingham announced. To Derry’s discomfort, the man leaned even closer and sniffed at him. “His breath is sweet, Your Highness, like rot. Whatever he has to say, I’d get him to talk now, before he ups and dies on us.”

Derry squinted back at the face looming over him.

“I’ll survive, my lord. I usually do.”

At no time had any of the three looked directly at King Henry. He sat mute at the table, unseeing and unfeeling. Derry risked a glance from under lowered brows and wished he hadn’t. The king was thin and pale, but that was not so strange. The eyes were open and utterly empty. Derry might have believed him a corpse if he hadn’t breathed, his head bobbing slightly at every inhalation.

“Hot broth for Master Brewer,” Derry heard Queen Margaret say. “And bread, butter, more of the cold beef with garlic, anything you can find.” He closed his eyes in thanks, letting the aches and pains become distant as the room’s heat settled into his bones. He hadn’t been close to a good fire for a long time. Relief and exhaustion stole over him and he was almost asleep by the time plates were placed under his nose. The smell roused him and he fell to with a sudden surge of appetite that brought a sparkle of amusement back to Margaret’s eyes. He could feel the hot soup bringing him to life, as if its goodness reached right down his limbs and seeped along the marrow of his bones. Derry smacked his lips and tore at bread so fresh he did not even have to dip it in the soup to soften it.

“I think he’ll live,” Buckingham said wryly from across the table. “I’d watch the tablecloth, if I were you, Your Highness. He might eat it, the way he’s forcing food down his throat.”

Derry looked coldly at the man, biting his tongue rather than make another enemy. One duke seeking to bring him down was probably enough, at least for the moment.

He settled back in his chair, knowing the queen indulged him more than most of those who served her. He was grateful for it. Derry used the cloth to mop the corners of his mouth and smiled at Buckingham as he did so.

“Your Highness, thank you for your patience. I am revived enough to report what news I have.”

“You have been gone for two months, Derry! What kept you away from the king for such a time?”

Derry sat up straight, pushing aside his plate just in time for it to be whisked away by a servant.

“Your Highness, I have been strengthening the ranks of those reporting to me. I have men and women in every noble house, loyal to King Henry. Some of them have gone, either found and taken, or forced to run. Others have moved to positions of greater authority, which they seem to believe means higher pay from me. I took the time to explain how loyalty to the king cannot be measured in silver, though some would ask thirty pieces at a time.”

Queen Margaret was a beautiful young woman, still in her twenties, with clear skin and a slender neck. She narrowed her eyes as Derry spoke, flickering a glance at her husband as if he might respond after all the months of silence. Derry’s heart went out to her, wife to a man who knew her not at all.

“What of York, Derry? Tell me of him.”

Derry looked up at the ornate ceiling for the length of a breath, deciding how best to describe the Protectorate without dashing her hopes. The simple truth was that York had not botched the work of running the country. Of all the accusations Derry might have leveled at Richard Plantagenet, incompetence was not one. In his heart of hearts, he knew the duke was managing the vast and complex business of state with rather more skill and understanding than King Henry ever had. It was not the sort of thing he could say to the king’s young wife, desperate for good news.

“He makes no secret of his support for the Nevilles, Your Highness. Between York and Earl Salisbury, they are gaining estates and manors all over the country. I heard of a dozen cases brought to court, where a Neville seizure of land is at the heart.”

Lines appeared on the queen’s brow and she waved a hand in a gesture of impatience.

“Tell me of unrest, Derry! Of his failures! Tell me the people of England are withholding their support for this man.”

Derry hesitated for a beat, before going on.

“The garrison in Calais has refused orders, Your Highness. That is a thorn in York’s side he must overcome. They are the largest army available to the Crown and they claim not to have had any pay since the fall of Maine and Anjou. The last I heard was that they had seized the season’s wool and are threatening to sell it for their own coffers.”

“Better, Derry, much better. He could send Earl Somerset to treat with them, if he had not lost that good man’s support by his attacks on my husband. They would listen to Somerset, I am certain. You know York has reduced the king’s own household? His men came with their writs and seals, dismissing loyal staff without even a pension, taking horses from the stables here, to be distributed among their master’s supporters. Bloodlines that can never again be collected in one place. All in the name of his mean silver pennies, Derry!”

“I did hear that, Your Highness,” Derry said uncomfortably. He wondered when York slept, to have accomplished so many things in a single year. The problems with the Calais garrison were one of only half a dozen minor black marks against the York Protectorate. The country was running well enough and though some spoke out against the reductions in the royal household, York had been ruthless in his collection of state funds, then spent the income wisely to gather even more support. Derry could see a time coming when the country would prefer King Henry never to wake, if things went on as they were. He and Margaret needed York to suffer a disaster, or the king to recover his senses. They needed that, most of all, before it was too late. Derry looked again at the blank-faced monarch nodding in his chair, feeling a shudder race through him and goose pimples rise on his arms. For a living man to be reduced to such a state was an evil thing.

“Has there been no improvement in the king’s illness?” he said.

Margaret sat a little straighter, armoring herself against pain as she replied.

“There are two new doctors to tend him, now that fool Allworthy is gone. I have endured all manner of pious men come to prod and poke and pray over my husband. He has suffered much worse, such sickening practices as I will not describe to you. None of them have brought his spirit back to the flesh. Buckingham has been a great comfort to me, but even he despairs at times, don’t you, Humphrey?”

The duke made a noncommittal sound, choosing to sup from the bowl of broth set before him.

“Your son, though, Your Highness?” Derry asked, as gently as he could. “When you showed him to King Henry, was there no response at all?”

Margaret’s mouth tightened.

“You sound like that Abbot Whethamstede, with his probing questions. Henry looked up when I showed him the babe. He raised his eyes for a moment and I am
certain
he knew what he was being told.” Her eyes gleamed with tears, daring him to contradict her.

Derry cleared his throat, beginning to wish he had not come.

“The council of lords will meet next month, Your Highness, to name your son Edward as both royal heir and Prince of Wales. If York interferes with that, his ambition to rule will be revealed. Though it would be a cruel blow, I almost hope for it, that others may know the true face of his Protectorate and what he intends. Those noblemen who still bluster and refuse to see the truth will not be able to deny it then.”

Margaret looked to her husband, anguish written clearly on her face.

“I cannot hope for that, Derry. My son
is
the heir. For little Edward, I suffered the humiliation of York and Salisbury present at the birth, creeping around my bed and peeping under the covers to be sure the babe was my own! Lord Somerset almost came to blows to protect my honor then, Derry. There are times when I wish he
had
put a sword through the Plantagenet then and there, for his impudence and his insults. No, Master Brewer. No! I must not even think of those cowards denying my son his birthright.”

Derry flushed at what she had endured, though he had heard the tale before, more than once. A part of him could admire York’s twisted mind for even thinking the pregnancy could have been faked and another child brought in. At least that had been laid to rest, though there were still rumors of a different father. Somerset’s name was whispered there, dutifully reported back to Derry’s twitching ears. Knowing Somerset’s prickly honor, Derry doubted it was more than a scurrilous lie, if a clever one.

As he sat and thought, Derry found himself nodding almost in time with the king, exhaustion overwhelming him once again. He could have blessed Margaret when she saw he was flagging and sent him away to be tended and to rest. He knelt to her and bowed to the Duke of Buckingham as he left, looking back once more at the king in his stupor, blind and deaf to all that went on around him. Derry stumbled along behind a servant until he was shown to a room that smelled of damp and dust. Without even bothering to remove his wet robe, he fell full-length onto the bed and slept.

T
he mood was light as the wedding party awoke. Those with sore heads from the night before stood patiently in line for bowls of beef stew and dumplings, rich and greasy fare that would soak up strong ale and settle uneasy stomachs. As it wasn’t a Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday there was no reason not to eat meat, though few among them would usually have filled their stomachs so early in the morning. Yet a wedding was a time for excess, where guests and retainers alike would be able to say they had been feasted until their senses swam and their belts creaked.

As head of the Neville family, Richard, Earl of Salisbury, was in an expansive mood as he emptied his bladder into a bush, watching steam rise with something like contentment. The wedding had gone well, his son John cutting a fine figure and acquitting himself with dignity. Salisbury smiled as he tucked himself away and knotted a drawstring, yawning until his jaw cracked. He’d drunk more than was surely good for a man of his age, so that he sweated even in the dawn cool, but if a father couldn’t celebrate his son’s wedding, there was something wrong with the world. It didn’t hurt that Maud was a rare beauty, wide-hipped and strong, with round crinkled marks on her right cheek that showed she had survived that particular scourge and would not bring the smallpox into his family. The earl had enjoyed himself setting up a marriage tent on the mossy ground, hooting and calling out instructions with the rest as the new couple blushed crimson and the tent shook with amorous struggle and her fit of nervous giggles. His own wife, Alice, had dragged him away in the end, shooing the men clear to give the couple some shred of privacy.

The Neville retainers had gone on drinking after that, emptying skins of ale and white Sherris sack they’d brought on carts for the journey across country. Only a few were awake to cheer the following morning when young John hung out a cloth spotted with virgin’s blood. The young man himself had emerged some time later, to walk proudly among the crowd, clapped on the back as he went. His mother had spoiled it slightly by stopping him to wipe smudges from his face in front of them all.

It had been a good day and the weather was holding fine. A smaller party might have spent the night in an inn by the road, but Salisbury had more than two hundred soldiers and archers with him to travel north. Over the previous year, there had been too many men killed all over the country for him to risk his wife and children anywhere without his best guards close to hand.

His manservant had brought him a small wooden stool and shaving table, resting it on the grass with a white cloth, razor, oil bottle, and a bowl of steaming hot water. Salisbury rubbed the bristles on his chin idly, frowning as he considered all the work ahead. It was a joy to take a few days aside from the management of his estates and titles, not least among them lord chancellor to the Protector. For just a short time, he was no more than a proud father like any other, guiding a young couple safely home. The days on the road would be the only break from his duties that year, he was certain. Sheriff Hutton was one of his favorite houses, where he and his wife had spent part of their own honeymoon. He knew Alice would love seeing the old place again, despite not being able to stay long. His son and Maud would enjoy another week or so there, arranging to administer the dowry manors she had brought to the Neville name.

Salisbury smiled easily at that thought, settling himself on a stool and accepting the cloth around his shoulders as his servant brushed warm oil onto his face and stropped the razor. On the borders of Scotland, a place he always pictured frozen or battered by stinging rain, Salisbury knew his old colleague Earl Percy would be spitting mad with rage. The thought brought further balm to an already perfect summer’s morning.

His manservant raised the blade and Salisbury held up his hand.

“Let’s make it interesting, shall we, Rankin? A stripe on your back for every nick, a half noble if you manage the task without one. How does that appeal to your black gambler’s heart?”

“Very well indeed, my lord,” Rankin replied.

It was an old game between the two men. Though it was true the servant had been flogged half a dozen times over the years, he’d won enough to give a good dowry to his three daughters, a fact he was sure the earl knew very well. Rankin’s hand was steady as he shaved away the bristles from Salisbury’s throat. Around master and servant, Neville men-at-arms nudged each other and grinned, making their own quiet bets among themselves as they packed up their camp and made ready to march north.

Alice, Countess Salisbury, emerged from the tent without her shoes on, grasping the turf with bare feet and breathing deeply of the morning air. She saw her husband was being shaved and decided against calling out. She knew Rankin treasured the coins he won far more than his usual salary. For a long moment, Alice stood and watched her husband with visible affection, pleased that he remained so strong and hale despite his years. His fifty-fifth birthday was coming in just a few months, she reminded herself, already thinking of what gift she might have made for him.

Running footsteps made some of the men turn from the scene, though Rankin continued to smooth and scrape, concentrating on his task and its reward. Salisbury looked up slowly and carefully to see one of the young boys who’d accompanied the wedding party. He had a vague memory of the lad from the night before, sucking deeply on a wineskin before being violently sick, to the amusement of the men.

“My lord!” the boy called as he ran in and skidded to a stop. His eyes were wide at the sight of a man being shaved in a field.

“What is it?” Salisbury said calmly, stretching his chin out to give Rankin a clear line for his razor.

“Men coming, my lord. Soldiers and bowmen, all running along here.”

Salisbury jerked and then swore as the razor bit his cheek. He stood up abruptly, grabbing the cloth from his neck to wipe the oil and the smear of blood from his face.

“Mount up!” Salisbury roared at the startled men around him.

They darted away, sprinting for their horses and weapons.

“My horse, here! Rankin, you clumsy sod, you’ve cut me. Horse! Alice! God’s bones, will you put your shoes on!”

The drowsy tableau broke apart as men ran in all directions, stumbling and shouting for the captains who commanded them. By the time Salisbury had mounted, there were ranks of horsemen between their master and whoever approached. Those with the sharpest eyes called out “Archers!” over and over, so that shields were thrown up to the horsemen and the Neville bowmen ran forward, stringing their own weapons as they went.

“My lord, your armor!” Rankin said. The man had grabbed an armful of metal, one arm through a circular gorget, hanging half open on its hinge. He ran beside the stirrup as the earl trotted his horse forward. The stewards who would have dressed their lord were nowhere to be seen. Rankin handed up a long sword and almost vanished under the hooves as he stumbled.

“No time, Rankin. That gorget though, I’ll take that. And fetch me a shield, would you? There’s one hanging there, on that tree, can you see it?” He reached out as Rankin tossed the collar up to him, snatching it out of the air and snapping it shut around his throat. Ahead, a hundred and fifty foot soldiers and sixty archers waited patiently for him to join them. Salisbury looked behind him to see that his wife and son had been found horses. The new bride was there as well, her hands twisting whitely before her. An expression of worry came over the earl’s face at the sight of that vulnerable little group. He turned back and his son looked up at the sound of hooves.

“What is it, sir? Who’s coming?”

“I don’t know yet,” Salisbury said. “I’ll just have to leave a couple alive to ask them, won’t I? Your task is to get your mother and Maud to safety. This is not your concern, John, not today.” He did not say aloud that if the young couple were killed, there was a chance those valuable dowry manors could revert to Lord Cromwell or even fall into Percy hands once again, exactly the sort of dispute that kept the judges of the King’s Bench busy for months or years. It was not the sort of thing to say in front of a new bride, though Salisbury was pleased to see Maud leap into a saddle, as nimble as any farm girl of good stock. Her long skirts rode high up her legs and, in the presence of his wife, Salisbury looked away. His son blushed and dismounted to tug the layers down.

“Let it be, John. I’ve seen a girl’s legs before. Alice? Heed your son in this. I’ll want you safe. Stay well clear of any fighting, unless the day is lost. Then you’ll run south, back to Tattershall.”

“Sheriff Hutton is closer—and ours,” his wife said, wasting no words with her husband twitching to be away.

“We don’t know what lies ahead, Alice, just behind. Follow John. The south is clear and Cromwell will surely keep you safe until one of the family comes for vengeance. That’s if I fall. These are my best men, Alice. I’d risk my last coin on them.”

“You want us to ride now?” his wife said.

He loved her then, for the serious look and the complete lack of any fear in her. Salisbury could see Maud watching the older woman and learning just a little about being a Neville that day.

“Not until you hear I have fallen, or the day is lost. You’ll be safer here, with my men in reach, than riding out.” He stopped, realizing that an enemy could well have circled around in the night, ready to catch anyone escaping to the south.

“Carter! Come here, would you?” he called to a heavyset horseman passing them.

The man jerked in the saddle, craning around to see who spoke his name, then turning his horse in place with great skill.

“Good man, Carter,” the earl said as he came close. “I need some fellows to scout to the south, to check the line of retreat. Take four and report back here to the countess.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man replied, raising his visor and whistling sharply to catch the attention of a group of riders belting past.

“Good enough,” Salisbury said. He smiled at his wife and son. “I’m needed now. God’s blessing be on you all. Ladies, John. Good luck.”

Salisbury dropped his visor and dug in his heels, missing the spurred boots that would have had his horse leaping forward regardless of who or what lay in front. Yet he had a sword in his right hand, a shield in his left and good iron around his throat. It would have to do.

He cantered up to the ranks of mounted Neville men, then through them as they pulled aside to let him come to the front. Salisbury could see a large number of soldiers riding and marching without haste toward his position. He squinted into the distance, wishing he had the sharp eyes of the young lad who’d spotted them first. Whoever they were, they wore no colors, carried no banners ahead of them. He swallowed dryly at the numbers, more than three times the size of his own force.

“My wife said I’d not need so many of you, not for a wedding walk,” he said to the man next to him, making him grin. “If any of us live through this, be so kind as to tell her she was wrong, would you? She’d be grateful for the knowledge, I’m sure.”

Those around him chuckled and Salisbury was pleased at their confidence. Every man there had fought against hordes of savage Scots up on the borders when he’d last been warden for the king. They knew their trade and they were well armored in steel ring mail or plate, backed by sixty good archers who could take a bird in flight if there was a flagon of beer for the shot.

“Skirmishers! Seek ’em out!” Salisbury roared, sending his archers loping into the long grasses ahead. He could see the approaching force bleeding its front edge as they did the same, dark trails of bowmen trotting away from the main force to wreak havoc and destruction. They would meet each other in the sun-dried meadows between, slotting arrows down the throats of those they faced. Numbers would tell there and he strained his eyes to see how many came against him. His charger snorted, chafing at the bit and the delay, so that he reached down and patted its neck.

“Easy there, boy. Let the archers clear the way.”

Both sides had drawn to a halt by then, while loping bowmen darted through the trees and long grasses between them, raising dust and butterflies in their wake. It was a golden morning and, though he was outnumbered, Salisbury gripped his sword, hearing the leather saddle creak as he leaned forward. He had a dozen enemies, more, but only one who might have risked such a force and had the funds and men to send it against him.

“Percy,”
Salisbury muttered to himself. He only hoped the old man was there in person, so that he could see him cut down. It was too late to curse himself for not expecting the attack. Salisbury had brought a larger force to his son’s wedding than anyone had thought necessary, but still, there was a veritable army riding against them. He told himself he should have guessed the Percy lord would not sit quiet in Alnwick while he lost manors. Salisbury knew every detail of the Cromwell dowry estates. It was one reason he had been so happy to receive them, to spite the bitter old man who ruled the north.

He shook his head, clearing away regrets and doubt. His men were well trained and fanatically loyal. They would serve.