Queen by Right (72 page)

Sending the boys off to scout out good hiding places, she sat on a daisy-covered exedra to read her letter.

I know not when you will receive this, Cis, but I should make you aware that I am not idle here and nor have your brother, nephew, and our son been idle in Calais. You may or may not be aware that Warwick has been with me these last three weeks
—she broke off reading to look at the date on the letter: the feast of St. Philip in early May—
and we are near to resolving a plan. We have learned of the discontent with which the people view the king’s government and soon our time will be ripe to return. When your nephew sails for Calais again, he will take his mother with him. I know not if you were informed that she came with me to Ireland.

Alice was in Ireland? Certes, she was doing more than raising children at Middleham, Cecily thought with grim amusement, remembering that Alice had been helping recruit men for Salisbury. And to have fled like that, she must have known she would be implicated with the rest and attainted. She is braver than I, Cecily admitted to herself.

I long to see you and our three youngest. Rest assured Edmund is thriving, away from his elder brother’s caustic tongue. He has become a man, and he sends you loving greetings. As for your husband, he begs you to know that you are in his heart every waking moment and he prays daily for the time when you shall be reunited. Your devoted servant, Richard.

A flock of noisy starlings darkened the branches of a beech tree, bringing her back to the garden. She got up from her seat and went to look for George and Dickon, tucking the precious letter into her bodice. She would need to destroy it, she knew, but for a brief time she might hold it close to her heart.

Cecily could not hear her sons’ usual boisterous play and frowned. As she wound her way through bushes and shrubs, calling their names, she heard shouting in the street on the other side of the high garden wall. She had been
vaguely aware that city noises were reaching her in the peaceful garden, but now she could hear the voices plainly, and there were many of them, coming closer to Bow Lane. Finding a sturdy wooden door slightly ajar at the end of the garden, she tensed, guessing that her sons had slipped through to see what the fuss was about in the street. The stench of dead fish and sewage from the nearby river was overpowering, and she crushed a few rose petals from the blooms over the door’s stone arch and held them to her nose.

She discovered her two boys pressed into the archway, watching in fascination as a large group of men surged up from the wharves. Curious herself, Cecily pulled both boys close to her and stood just inside the door, trying to determine the tenor of the crowd. Soon there were other interested men and women hanging from their windows across from Buckingham’s house, and Cecily sensed the mood was one of excitement, not anger.

“Sandwich be taken!” a man yelled from within the throng up to those in the windows. “Fauconberg has taken Sandwich. Warwick will follow. It be sure as there be tits on a cow.”

George giggled as an adolescent might, and Dickon mimicked him, though Cecily was sure he had no idea what George had found amusing. A cheer went up. “Warwick! Warwick!” And then someone shouted, “Let us get ready to give the good earl a welcome, lads. The ale is on me!” And cheerfully singing a bawdy song, the group swung into Royal Street on its way to the nearest tavern.

Closing the door, Cecily leaned against it to steady herself. Her palms were sweating and her pulse was on fire. Warwick is coming, she repeated to herself in disbelief, and then she recalled what the first man had shouted: Fauconberg had taken Sandwich. William! Her brother, Lord Fauconberg, had obviously distinguished himself, and how proud she felt that yet another Neville had come to Richard’s aid.

“Can we play now, Mother?” George said, his ready smile turned full on her. “You promised.”

Cecily beamed back. “Aye, I did. Shall I hide first?” As the boys closed their eyes and counted, she ran back to the exedra and ducked behind it. She put her hand on the hidden letter by her heart. Richard would be here soon. She could feel it.

T
HE LORDS OF
Calais, as they styled themselves, were back on English soil soon after, and Gresilde, with a torn parchment in her hand, came hurrying
into the children’s wing, where she knew Cecily was wont to spend her mornings.

“’Tis said my lord Edward of March is landed with his uncle and cousin, your grace,” the out-of-breath attendant told Cecily. “And they came in the company of a papal envoy. Does this mean they have the blessing of the Holy Father? I think so.” Her face was pink with excitement. “It must be that my lord of York will follow from Ireland very soon, do you not think?”

She handed the parchment to Cecily, her eyes shining. “I found this nailed on the door of St. Michael Paternoster, my lady.”

Cecily read the neatly written poem aloud:

Send home, most gracious Lord Jesu benign,
Send home thy true blood unto his proper vein
Richard duke of York, Job thy servant insigne,
Edward earl of March, whose fame the earth shall spread.
Richard earl of Salisbury named prudence
With that noble knight and flower of manhood
Richard, earl of Warwick shield of our defense
Also little Fauconberg, a knight of great reverence.

She thrilled to the words. When she had finished, she looked at Meggie, who had drawn close and was as enthralled as Gresilde and Beatrice.

“That is our family,” Cecily told her daughter. “You should be proud of them—your father, your uncles, your brother, and your cousin. Come, let us pray for them and ask God to let us all go home soon.”

C
ECILY MOVED ASIDE
the concealing sheet to allow Beatrice to pour more hot water into the large copper bathtub set in the middle of her bedchamber at Maxstoke in early July. When the bath had been replenished, the attendant retired behind the curtain, and Cecily lay in solitude. She relaxed her body into the delicious warmth, her graying hair floating on top of the water, and eyed her belly. She was always critical of its telltale stretch marks. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. It had been a dismal summer thus far, and this July day was no different. As the rain beat a tattoo upon the diamond window panes, Cecily had decided a warm bath would help to dispel the gloomy weather outside. She knew Anne would grumble when the request was sent, as it meant that several of Anne’s busy servants would be needed to haul pails
of hot water up the three flights of stairs, and then empty the tub in the same tedious fashion. Cecily didn’t care; she needed the tonic.

She cast her mind back to June and the landing of the lords of Calais. The Buckinghams’ sojourn in London had been as brief as Warwick’s progress toward London had been swift. She had gleaned from gossip brought into the Royal Street residence by the local servants that the populace was tired of the bad governance of the saintly king and his greedy council and prayed the Yorkists would bring about reform. It was King Henry’s grasping councillors Londoners loathed and not the king himself. In fact, she had been astonished to discover that people believed he was touched by God not only because of the sacred anointing oil but even more for his holy ways. They wished no harm to Henry, just an end to the lawlessness that the squabbling, unscrupulous men about him had caused.

As one of those men, Buckingham had sent his household back to the safety of Warwickshire. Then he had marched his troops to join the king at Coventry. So Cecily was not in London to witness the triumphant arrival of Edward with his uncle and cousin, but her heart sang when she heard the citizens chanting those lords’ names as she had left the city. Immediately upon his landing at Sandwich, Warwick had proclaimed that he had only come to speak with the king and to affirm his loyalty to the crown. Where had she heard that before? Cecily thought, irritated. It was time for a new regime, she had heard a groom say when she had wandered into the stable to see that her horse had been shod, and she agreed.

Aye, Richard, she mused, sponging her body and inhaling the sweet smell of the dried lavender flowers sprinkled on the bathwater, perhaps now it is time to assert your Mortimer claim to Edward the Third’s throne—Sweet Jesu, what is that ghastly noise?

It sounded like the hound from hell. She stood up abruptly, convinced that it had come from one of the many children in the nursery. She called out to Beatrice to investigate and grabbed a drying sheet off the stool. Before the attendant could put aside the mending of Cecily’s gown, the door burst open and she saw that the dreadful noise issued from the throat of Anne of Buckingham.

“He is slain! Humphrey is slain!” Nan wailed, her thick brown hair tumbling from her coif and her face as white as ewe’s milk. She pointed at her sister, wrapped only in the sheet, wet hair straggling down her back. “Your husband has killed my Humphrey! ’Tis all your fault,” she screamed. Cecily
looked aghast but stepped out of the tub and reached out for Nan, who collapsed into her sister’s arms. “Cecily, oh Cis, what shall I do?”

“Come, come, Nan,” Cecily soothed, gentling her onto the bed and stroking her face. “Calm yourself, my dear sister, you must calm yourself.” Then she whispered, “Remember the servants. I beg of you, pull yourself together.”

Anne turned away to bury her face in the pillow, her shoulders heaving, but the noise diminished. Cecily’s thoughts were racing. There must have been a battle, she thought, shivering now from cold and fear. And Humphrey’s death was the result of men’s ambitions—her own husband’s included. She clutched the sheet suddenly. Dear God, Ned must have been there. Was it Edward who had killed Humphrey? She prayed with all her might that it had not been her son. And then she thought, is he slain, too?

She had just thrown her shift over her head when two of Anne’s attendants hurried in, dropping curtseys to the duchess of York and awaiting orders. Cecily beckoned one to stand close, told the other to fetch some poppy juice, and then allowed Gresilde to help her on with her underdress. Anne still lay facedown on the coverlet, weeping.

“What has happened, mistress?” Cecily asked the first of Anne’s ladies, as she sat beside her distraught sister and allowed Beatrice to tie up her wet hair in a towel.

“There has been a battle, your grace,” the trembling young woman said, confirming Cecily’s fear. “The messenger arrived not half an hour ago with the terrible news.” She told them that Salisbury, Warwick, and Edward of March, with upward of twenty thousand men, had gone north and met the king at Northampton. In only an hour they had routed Henry’s army and killed the lords Buckingham, Egremont, Beaumont, and Wiltshire.

Cecily could hardly believe her ears: the hated Wiltshire, Egremont, and Beaumont all dead? That was good news, she wanted to shout, and ’twould be even better if Exeter and Somerset were named. She waited for the frightened woman to finish. “Who was slain that was with Warwick?” she demanded and held her breath. Please, God . . .

The attendant shrugged nervously. “It seems no one titled, your grace, but the king was captured in his tent. He knew not what was happening, so the messenger said, and went quietly with my lord of Warwick, God help him.”

At that moment another attendant arrived with a corked vial of poppy juice, and Cecily put out her hand for it. Needing to ponder what this news would mean, she thanked the women and dismissed them.

“I shall attend my sister,” she assured them, sitting down on the bed. Part of her was reeling with excitement that the Yorkists had been victorious and Henry captured. It might mean Richard and Edmund were on their way from Ireland. But her cautious side was calculating the consequences of such a victory. Aye, Henry had been taken before, at St. Albans, but it had availed Richard nothing. This time, however, Queen Margaret was all-powerful, and Cecily knew the queen would not sit idly by while her husband was in Yorkist hands.

Gentling Anne into a sitting position, she encouraged her sister to swallow a few drops of the sedative, glad to see that Nan had ceased sobbing.

“What shall I do now, Cis?” Nan asked pathetically, as if she had relied on her younger sister to tell her what to do all her life. “You always seem to know.”

Cecily gave a rueful smile. If only Nan knew how helpless and rudderless she had felt all these months, but now was not the time to remind her sister of her singular lack of compassion. Nor would she gloat as Nan had, now that the tables were turned. She had seen too many reversals of her own fortune and knew how short-lived they could be.

“I will protect you for as long as you want, dear Nan,” she said, noting the poppy juice was having its desired effect. “But for now I shall leave you to sleep while I go and tend to your grandson. He will be frightened.” If his grandam’s screaming had not terrified the five-year-old Henry Stafford enough, the fact that he would now, by virtue of his father’s death at St. Albans, be duke of Buckingham might well accomplish it.

Deep in thought, Cecily closed the curtains about her sister and left the room. Outside, waiting for her, Meg cast anxious eyes at Cecily. “Is Aunt Anne going to be all right, Mother? They told me of the battle. What does it all mean?”

“It means it will not be long now, Meggie,” she murmured, squeezing the girl’s hand. “Your father will be here soon.” She saw her daughter’s joy in the lift of her head and spring in her step and, for the first time in a year, Cecily felt optimistic too.

E
NGLAND WAS A
soggy, mud-mired mess as the summer turned to autumn. The English people struggled through a disastrous harvest, grumbling at the quagmire that the weather and King Henry’s government had made of the country.

But for Cecily the sun had come out from behind the clouds of the past
nine months and she felt alive again. Edward had come with Warwick. He had sent her word to come to London with Meg to be reunited with George and Dickon and had arranged for her to stay at the late Sir John Falstoff’s house in Southwark. Cecily hardly noticed the sodden landscape, for her heart was filled with hope. Anne, still grieving for Humphrey, clung to her sister on the castle steps.