Queen of Trial and Sorrow (20 page)

“They must have had a lot in common.  Anthony is translating the proverbs of Christine de Pisa into English.”

“And as if that wasn’t enough to induce in your brother paroxysms of joy, Caxton’s travels had taken him to Cologne some years back, where he had the privilege of observing at first hand a thriving printing industry and meeting Johannes Gutenberg, the man who is credited with the invention of movable type printing.  Caxton was so smitten by the wonderful machine and its potential that he resolved to build one himself and is already at work on a model.  I invited him to England and Anthony swore to become his first patron.”  He heaved another sigh and the enthusiasm drained from his voice.  “There is so much I want to do, Bess, as soon as this damned business is over.”   

“When must you leave?”

“Tomorrow.  I have no time to waste.” 

Joined by his brother John Neville, by Exeter, Oxford and Beaumont, Warwick was already marching on London.  While the king lay at Baynard’s Castle with me, he rested in St. Albans. 

I swallowed down my fear.  Everyone said Edward was lucky, but luck was a fickle creature and had deserted him too often lately.  Even with luck, even with his undoubted prowess in battle, would he be able to overcome such formidable opposition?  He had nine thousand men camped in St. John’s Field.  He estimated Warwick to have about fifteen thousand. 

“Not good odds,” I remarked.

“Don’t write me off yet.  History has many examples of a small army overcoming a larger one: Alexander at the Granicus, Caesar at Alesia, Henry V at Agincourt and, of course, us at Towton.”  His big hand stroked my flank, heavy and familiar.  He said softly: “You know, Bess, I never dreamed I’d ever march against Warwick.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t gone to join with Margaret when she comes.  And with Jasper Tudor,” I said, surprising myself how calm, how very detached I sounded.  “Together they would be a formidable force.  As it is they’re giving you the opportunity to destroy them one at a time.”

A chuckle rumbled out of his chest.  “Have you been studying military lore?  You’ve assessed the situation well, but you haven’t taken account of the human element.  In other words, Warwick’s pride.  He won’t do that because he needs to collect all the laurels himself.  He wants to be able to hand her my head on a platter and say: ‘I have done this for you.  Now will you forgive me my past transgressions?’  She won’t, of course.  She won’t ever.  It’s not in her nature.”

Lying there in his arms, I felt as if the world had righted itself and was on the correct course.  Tomorrow it would tilt again.  A shudder went through me.

He tipped back my head with his forefinger until I met his eyes.  “Do you begin to doubt me?”

“No.  I know you’ll return in triumph.” I had to believe that.  He was the foundation upon which my life was built.  It was strong, but in the last couple of years I had seen cracks appear.

“We have tonight, sweetheart,” he said, stroking my hair.

I rose over him, straddling his body with my legs and began to move with small gyrations until I felt him stir beneath me.  It usually required little effort to stimulate him even when he thought himself sated.  He put his hands on my hips and watched me through half closed eyes, a heart-stopping smile on his lips.  With candlelight glowing silvery on my smooth planes and shadowing my declivities, I lifted my arms to swirl my hair about my head and let it tumble through my fingers, veiling my breasts, pooling in a shimmering mass around my thighs.  I knew I was an erotic sight.   

“Up,” he said, after a few moments of this, and when I lifted myself his penis sprang up, dark and engorged with the blood pulsing through it.  I sank back down, impaling myself deliciously.

When we had both shuddered to a climax, I lay down again along the length of him, feeling his penis shrink and soften again until it nestled comfortably against my moist pubis, and his heartbeat slowed beneath my cheek.  I wanted no space between us.  I wanted to melt into him.

“I love you,” I whispered.  I wish I could keep you with me always.  But I knew better than to say that out loud.

I awoke the following morning to a sense of joy; it had been such a long time since I had awoken to his warmth beside me.  I turned my head to look at him, sleeping peacefully even though he must face battle today or tomorrow.  I had once asked him what a man thinks about on the eve of battle.  He replied: If he’s wise he doesn’t think about anything at all but allows his mind the rest it needs to be fully alert on the morrow.

He stirred, enjoyed a magnificent stretch and threw the covers back.  I wanted to grasp him before he escaped, to hold him, to beg from him some assurance that he would return.  Wisely, he gave me no time.  Throwing on a furred bedrobe, he leaned down to kiss me goodbye.  “I’ll be back to celebrate Easter with you,” he said.

“God be with you, my love,” I said, as the crimson drapes fell into place behind his tall figure. 

A moment later, he reappeared and bent over to kiss me again.  “Your courage humbles me,” he murmured against my mouth, and then he was gone.

The Tower surrendered that day and we were once again installed within its secure walls.  He could not, he said, bring himself to send us back into sanctuary.  After a council of war and a quick dinner, he left the city to rejoin his army, already on the march.

They halted for the night on Gladmore Heath just northwest of the town of Barnet; and deployed for battle on an east-west line.  There was a brief skirmish with Warwick’s scouts on the road.  They were chased back to Barnet where an advance guard was also put to flight.

By the time Edward arrived in the vicinity it was already dark.  Aided by a moonless night and commanding strict silence, he moved his men to within a quarter mile of the enemy, and deployed them in the formations in which they would fight.  Fully armed, everyone took up battle positions, and in accordance with their king’s command, showed no light and made no noise.  Food was eaten cold before they lay down on the damp ground to get what sleep they were able. 

It was a risky maneuver.  Warwick’s lines were so close they could hear the neighing of horses, the calls of sentries and rattle of gear.  But it was a risk that paid off immediately.  Warwick’s guns spat flames into the night, rending sleep, but their missiles went harmlessly overhead, proving that he thought the royal army was actually further away than it was.  The royal guns made no reply.

The ground favored neither host; it was mostly flat heathland with Wrotham Wood behind Warwick’s lines and a marshy area to the east where Richard of Gloucester faced the Duke of Exeter.  Edward commanded the center opposite Warwick and his brother Montagu, and he had Clarence with him, to ensure there would be no turning of coats if the battle should go against York.  Lord Hastings commanded the left opposite the Earl of Oxford, and Anthony had command of the reserves.

That was Good Friday.  The following day was one of high tension.  I did my best to keep our little household occupied and distracted.  My girls knew nothing but my eldest sons had once more been deprived of the opportunity to fight for their stepfather and let me know that they were most displeased.  Their bottom lips were thrust out so far I could have stood tankards of ale on them.  Mother was with me and on one occasion she was vexed enough to give Thomas a clout on the ear.  I supposed next time I would have to let them go.  But would there be a next time?  If the king triumphed today, there was still Margaret…

I pricked myself with the needle and wanted to cry – not from the pain of the needle, but the agony of waiting… of wondering… I was not so brave as he supposed: composed on the outside, quaking on the inside.  I went to the window to stand looking down on the comings and going in the inner ward, willing a messenger to come galloping through the gate, shouting with triumph.      

In the end it wasn’t a human messenger that brought the news.  It was the bells…

……….

Barnet was a strange battle, owing more to luck than any strategy.  I marveled how often the weather had contributed to the victories of the house of York.  At Northampton, for example, where heavy rains had dampened the enemy’s gunpowder rendering their cannon useless.  At Towton, where snow driven by a helpful wind into the Lancastrians’ faces had enabled Yorkist archers to decimate them even before battle proper began.  At Barnet the marshes produced a thick fog that rolled over the entire battle site so that, as close as they were, neither side could see anything of the other, and it was undoubtedly a decisive factor.

Shortly after daybreak the trumpeters signaled ‘Advance banners’.  The White Rose was hoisted aloft, the Sun-in-Splendor and Clarence’s Black Bull alongside it, drooping in the windless air.  The troops crept forward into the murk looking for the enemy, only to discover, too late, that in the darkness of the previous night, the three divisions of the royal army had not aligned themselves perfectly with the three corresponding divisions of Warwick’s army, with the result that on the Yorkist left, Lord Hastings’ wing was overlapped by Oxford’s.  Once the earl realized what had happened and what a favorable position he was in, he enveloped Hastings’ flank, smashed it and put his men to flight.  Hastings, with an arrow embedded in his upper arm, tried desperately to rally his wing until felled by a blow to the head, when his squires carried him from the field.  Some of his men didn’t stop running until they had reached London, where they spread rumors that the king had lost the battle and the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester were slain.  Oxford’s men chased after them like hounds on the trail of a fleeing deer, leaving the sounds of the battlefield behind, muffled in fog.  

On the other side of the Yorkist center the reverse was true. Gloucester’s wing overlapped Exeter’s, but Gloucester was unable to make the most of this stroke of luck because before he realized what was happening he had led his men into the marsh, which negated any advantage, not only preventing him from maneuvering as effectively as Oxford had on the left but trapping his men in a low-lying morass where they were easy prey for Exeter’s men.  The fighting there was terrible.  Gloucester was informed by runner of the break up of Hastings’ wing and ordered to hold on at all costs.  He saw his standard-bearer and two squires killed before a lucky shot found a gap between his pauldron and vambrace.  Ordering one of his knights to break off the shaft, he went on fighting, holding on grimly, because he knew if his wing disintegrated too Edward would be lost, and Edward had faith in him. 

Fully aware that Hastings’ wing was demolished and Gloucester was hanging on for all he was worth, even though he had taken an arrow in the shoulder, Edward fought on desperately, an inspiration to all who saw him.  Men shied away from his towering figure, or they fell to his sword, and he would move forward into another knot of the enemy, with Clarence shivering behind him, stumbling over a litter of human detritus.

. The two sides continued the bloody struggle, slogging it out with weary, trembling limbs, exhausted almost to the point of collapse, with neither making much headway for all the lives that were lost.  As fearsome a figure as the king was in battle, Warwick’s men were not giving ground.  They knew that the Yorkist left was demolished and that once Oxford had regrouped his men he would lead them in a flanking attack on the Yorkist center.  They had every reason to believe that if they held on long enough the battle would be theirs. 

Which is exactly what Oxford, a capable commander, intended.  Having no idea what was happening on the rest of the field, his men assumed victory was theirs and had gone in pursuit of Hastings’ men.  Some had stopped to plunder in Barnet and the surrounding area and some were already halfway to London.  Oxford and his officers mounted their horses and managed to round up about half of the original force, which they led back to the battlefield.  It was at this point that luck intervened.  Had it not, the royal army would undoubtedly have been annihilated.  The fog was still heavy, obscuring the fact that while Oxford had been gone, the two sides had changed position, wheeling from an east-west to a more north-south axis.  Instead of coming up behind the Yorkist center, as he intended, Oxford came up on the flank of his own lines.  

Hearing a commotion of shouts, Warwick’s men turned to see dark figures coming at them out of the fog.  In the gray gloom, Oxford’s banner of the Star-with-Streamers was mistaken for Edward’s Sun-in-Splendor.  Believing them to be Hastings’ lot returning to the fray, or a troop held in reserve, Warwick’s men turned and began shooting at them.  What could be more natural in the circumstances than that Oxford’s men should cry ‘Treason!’ and start fighting back?  All too often in the past men had changed sides in the midst of battle.  With such unnatural allies, treason was what they all feared and by the time Oxford’s banner was recognized it was far too late.

It was the beginning of the end.  No soldier can be expected to fight well when he cannot trust the man behind not to stab him in the back.

In every battle, Edward had said, there comes a key moment when one final concerted effort can make the difference between defeat and victory, and that time had come.  He called up the reserve under my brother and urged his men on.  The whole center surged forward, breaking the Lancastrian center division into little fragments of resistance, which fought on for a while before at last they broke and ran. Warwick’s center disintegrated under the dual onslaughts of the king in the front and Oxford in the rear.  The leaders screamed themselves hoarse, but the men turned and fled for the trees, pursued by the triumphant Yorkists.

I was told that as soon as he knew the battle was won, Edward gave orders that Warwick and Montagu were to be found and, if alive, kept alive.  I thought I knew him, but I couldn’t have said what his intentions were at that point – perhaps he wanted a public execution? – but it wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if he had offered them their lives.  Fortunately, he was spared the decision.

Staring defeat in the face, Warwick had fled toward the horse park, lumbering along with his panicked men.  Not that he would have been panicked.  He would not have thought of death, only of escape, of living to fight another day.  All he had to do was reach the horses, and he came close – a hundred yards, no more.  Still fully encased in armor, he would not have seen or heard them coming up behind him, swifter men in padded tunics or brigandines, and perhaps they had not known who their prey was, until they grappled him to the ground and rolled him over onto his back.  The visor was lifted, a dagger driven through an eye into the brain.  Had he screamed when he saw the point of that dagger coming toward his eye?  Had he known terror at the last?  Death had come swiftly at least.  His gauntlets were gone and his hands despoiled of their rings.  One finger had been broken during the removal.

Word had come that on the fourth of April the King of France had signed a truce with Duke Charles. More than anything else, it was Louis’ determination to force a war with Burgundy that had all but ruined Warwick’s chances of succeeding in England.  I took savage delight in this news.  At the last the great earl was abandoned and betrayed in his turn; betrayed by the perfidious Clarence and then the wily Louis.  He had risked everything in a terrible gamble and he had lost.  And perhaps, in what must have been his bitterest hour, he finally acknowledged that Margaret would have discarded him too when she had no further use for him.  Just as Louis had. 

He had blazed across our times like a brilliant comet, only to crash and burn at Barnet.  Nothing was left of him but a shell of ruined flesh and a once-bright reputation reduced to ashes.   

……….

The bells were pealing out a carillon of triumph.  With my mother and sons I hurried up to the roof of the Garden Tower to watch as the cavalcade entered the city through Aldersgate.  Actually we could see nothing of it because buildings blocked our view and dusk was already shrouding the city.  But we could mark its progress from the increasing cheers of the crowds that lined the route: a pause at St. Paul’s and then it turned east, along Watling Street and Eastchepe.  Only on Tower Street did it emerge into view and then my eyes sought him, saw that he was hale and Anthony was close behind him.  My mother and I embraced each other.

I was waiting by the door when he dismounted.  He was dressed in the padded suit he wore under his harness; it was sufficiently bloodstained to inform me how gore-spattered his armor must have been.  I curtsied to him; he kissed my hand.  I said: “Thanks be to God you have triumphed, Sire.”  We went inside to a measure of privacy.  He took me in his arms, stooping to bury his face in the curve of my neck.  He reeked of the battlefield.  I didn’t care.  We held each other tightly and wordlessly.

That night we celebrated the service of Tenebrae together in St. John’s Chapel.

……….

“What would you have done with him if he had been brought to you alive?”  I asked him.  It was Easter Sunday, a day of great solemnity, yet among us at the Tower was a mood of quiet celebration.

“I offered him his life outside the walls of Coventry.  He sent back a refusal, but said he would come over to me if he could be assured of a high office in the government.”

“What!” I said angrily.  “Did he think things could go back as they were so he could have yet a
third
chance to tumble you from your throne?”

“Peace, Bess.  The man is dead.  He will trouble us no more.”   

There was a thread of genuine grief in his voice and it was to remain there for many years whenever he spoke of Warwick.  I still wonder if he would ever have found the resolve to put his cousins to death. 

John Neville was found in the midst of a pile of bodies, dead of multiple wounds. 

“At least John got his wish,” Edward said.  “He once told me he wanted to die in battle with his sword in his hand, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies.  The odd thing is that was a little over a year ago, and neither one of us had the faintest idea that he’d get his wish so soon and in battle against me.”  Summoning a servant to replenish his wine, he said: “Christ is my witness, Bess, I hate the business.  I hate the waste of war.”

Another three thousand went into the grave pits at Barnet.  Exeter and Oxford had apparently escaped.  Although several men of Gloucester’s wing swore they saw Exeter go down, his body was not found.   On the king’s side, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, the only son of my dear Lord Berners, and Lord Cromwell, another Bourchier, were killed on the field.  While these godly men died, Satan shielded George of Clarence.