Red Rose, White Rose (35 page)

I thought back to the emotional scene between Richard and me before he had embarked on his fruitless campaign against Somerset; I remembered the miserable depression I had suffered before the birth of Edward; there came to me the dreadful, secret guilt I had felt on my return from Aycliffe Tower: the impression Anne had acquired of me was a false one. Yet it was true that the image I tried to present to the world was that of a restrained, gracious noblewoman, in command, in control and never rattled.

Impulsively I edged my horse nearer to hers and lowered my voice to murmur discretely in her ear. ‘Shall I tell you a secret, little daughter? I am not really like that at all. I am really a wild, reckless, giddy girl who would like to tear off her coif and gallop across the stubble with the wind in her hair. I put on a show to convince people that I am responsible and careful, able to run a household, rear my children and behave like a duchess, and if I can learn to do that, so can you. Actually you already have a head start because you are more level-headed at fourteen than I was at twenty.’

Anne’s mouth dropped open, hearing this revelation from her normally reticent mother. Then she cocked her head on one side like a curious robin and smiled. ‘So did you laugh and gossip when you were a girl, just like I do with Alys? It seems so strange to think that you were young once too.’

‘Marie! Am I so old now?’ I cried with mock dismay. ‘I am thirty-eight. I suppose to you that seems like Methuselah’s mother?’

Anne was immediately contrite. ‘No, you will never be old – not even when you are a hundred. There is no grey in your hair and you are not fat and flabby like Lady Cromwell. I wish I was as trim as you.’

I nodded, knowing Anne did worry about her plumpness. ‘You are like your father. He visits the tiltyard every day to keep his body hard and muscular. It is not a natural thing for him.’

Anne giggled. ‘I can hardly start exercising with the squires, can I? I have never seen a duchess do that!’

‘No. I am afraid fasting and self-control are the only answer for a lady, Anne. I am sure you will learn that, just as you will learn the other disciplines you think are beyond you. It is not so hard.’ As I spoke my attention was suddenly caught by a flash of reflected sunlight and I looked up to see a large cloud of dust on the horizon to our left. ‘St Christopher! What is this?’

A dust-cloud of such dimensions could only be formed by a cavalcade of similar size to our own approaching at a considerable pace. The flat, treeless fens made ambush impossible for there was no cover but nonetheless there was something threatening about the swift advance of this second column of horses. The thunder of their hooves intruded on the oppressive heat like the rumbling of a rock-fall in a quiet valley.

Cuthbert cantered up beside me. ‘I do not like the look of this,’ he warned.

‘Who are they? Can you identify them?’ I asked.

‘Not yet. I have sent out scouts.’ Two horsemen could be seen galloping away across the stubble of a recently harvested beanfield.

‘Where are we?’ I glanced around. The landscape was deserted, a wide expanse of field and furrow on either side of the road. Only the occasional windmill relieved the flat line of the horizon, sails idle in the still air.

‘On Willoughby land,’ replied Cuthbert. ‘They call this county Kyme, I believe.’

I frowned at him. ‘Are the men ready for trouble, Cuddy?’

He grinned reassuringly at Anne who was looking scared. ‘Have no fear. This is why we travel with such a large force. We are ready.’

Pikemen had already formed protective flanks to either side of us and our archers had unslung their bows and drawn arrows from their quivers. White rose pennants hung limply from the lances of their captains and tense faces were turned to the south-west. The scouts galloped back and drew rein.

‘They fly the wheatear, my lady – the badge of Exeter – but I could not make out whether the duke is with them.’

Anne gave a small cry, swiftly stifled behind her hand. Cuthbert and I exchanged glances but no one spoke. As the cloud of dust grew closer we could see many fluttering pennants of Lancastrian blue and white but on the main standard carried behind the leading horseman was the wheatear, gold on green. The column did not skirt the field of rippling barley in its path but galloped straight across it, trampling the ripe crop. It was an act of wanton destruction which instantly confirmed to me the identity of the leader, his helmet crested with a fox’s tail. This was the man who had once been Richard’s ward and now liked to be called The Fox – Harry Holland, Duke of Exeter.

The cavalcade halted. ‘Greetings, mother-in-law!’ he shouted above the noise of stamping hooves and jingling harness. He was wearing half-armour; a padded gambeson, a burnished breastplate and greaves strapped to his mailed thighs. His booted feet were furnished with huge gilded spurs. A short blue and white mantle hung from his shoulders and his great warhorse was caparisoned in the same heraldic colours, blue and white plumes nodding from the steel chamfron which covered its face. The red rose featured on the badge of each of his retainers.

Cuthbert rode up beside us, signalling to several squires to follow him. ‘God give you good day, your grace,’ he called, bowing punctiliously and preserving a careful distance between him and the young duke. ‘Is there urgent news that you ride so fast and trample the crops?’

‘Crops?’ Harry glanced vaguely around him. ‘No news but my quest is urgent. I come to collect my wife.’

‘Your wife?’ echoed Cuthbert, astounded. ‘Here? Now? In the middle of a field?’

‘Why not? I heard she was at Tattershall and have ridden from Ampthill to carry her home.’

I heard Anne’s gasp of alarm behind me and I turned to speak to her. ‘Come forward, Anne, and greet your husband.’

Reluctantly she urged her palfrey a few steps forward and whispered words of greeting which Harry ignored.

‘This is a strange meeting place, my lord duke,’ I said. ‘We lodge in Lincoln tonight. I wonder you did not meet us there.’

Harry gestured impatiently. ‘Too far. I cannot be away from Ampthill for so long.’ For the first time his attention swivelled briefly to Anne and he grimaced. ‘She does not get any better looking, does she? Pity she does not favour you, duchess. Only in looks of course; I would not want a wife with a brain.’

I saw the blood rush to Anne’s cheeks and tears brim in her eyes. ‘Do not weep,’ I hissed fiercely. ‘That is what he wants!’ More loudly I called, ‘I am surprised you confess to preferring brainless company, my lord of Exeter. You know the maxim – birds of a feather flock together.’

Harry’s voice in reply was sharp with suppressed anger. ‘I do not call a wife company, Mother-in-law. Any more than I would call a brood mare company.’ He kicked his horse forward until it was alongside Anne’s. ‘She comes of good breeding stock and her dower is good so I will take her.’

He would have laid his hand on Anne’s rein but Cuthbert forestalled him, clamping his gauntleted fist around the young man’s wrist. ‘Her grace has not granted permission,’ he growled. His horse jostled Harry’s, which was mettlesome and nervous and rose in a half-rear, nearly unseating its rider.

With his free hand Harry jagged down on the bit, swearing at his mount and then at Cuthbert. ‘Saint Michael’s bones! Remove your hand, bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I do not need to ask permission for my wife to accompany me. She is mine and I will have her.’ He wrenched his arm from Cuthbert’s grip and waved it in a signal to his men who began to fan out, confronting the two flanks of the York force. Harry yanked on the reins to back his stallion off and it flicked its tail and tossed its head, trying to escape the cruel bite of the bit. ‘I will retire a few yards to give you time to consider.’ He sneered at Anne. ‘Say your farewells, madam, for make no mistake, you are coming with me.’

Cuthbert and I closed our horses protectively around Anne’s but I knew there was really little point. Harry’s methods may be violent and his manners uncouth but he was indisputably in the right. He had married Anne, she was of legal age and by law she was his property. Short of a miracle endowing her graceless husband with sudden compassion, she would have to go with him.

‘I do not want to go, Mother,’ she whispered in panic. ‘I am not ready. I will die of misery.’ Her eyes were wide with fear.

I gazed at her sorrowfully and shook my head. ‘I am sorry, Anne; there is no help for it. It is scandalous but it is not a situation we can dispute without putting these men’s lives at risk.’ I gestured towards the alert archers and pikemen in their murrey and blue livery with the white rose badges. They were all sweating profusely in the turgid heat but their weapons were at the ready, their muscles taut.

‘We can fight them off,’ Cuthbert said, surveying the opposition. ‘Exeter’s men may wear the red rose but they are mercenaries. They will not fight if it comes to a real battle. Our men are loyal retainers. We can trust them to make a strong stand.’

‘Please, Mother, you must protect me,’ Anne begged in a terrified moan. ‘I cannot go with him.’

I yearned to do as she asked but I would not risk the lives of men when I knew the law to be on Harry’s side. ‘Behave sensibly, Anne, as I know you can,’ I urged her. ‘You are Harry’s wife. You cannot allow these men to risk injury or worse protecting you from the very man to whom you legally belong. The circumstances may not be ideal and you may not be ready but it is your duty to obey your husband. He orders you to come. You have no choice.’

‘If my lord father were here he would prevent it,’ declared Anne in desperation. ‘He would not be dictated to by Harry of Exeter!’

I could have said that it was her father’s fault she was in this position in the first place but I did not. ‘Perhaps if your lord father were here Harry would not have dared to make his move,’ I said with all the patience I could muster. ‘But he is not and you must be brave.’

I instinctively felt that only my strong will was keeping Anne from breaking down. Any sympathy on my part would tip her into an exhibition of wailing weakness which I knew Harry would make her live to regret. Much though I hated this marriage, there was no denying it now. Whatever the future held for Anne it was inextricably bound up with that of her turbulent husband. Sooner or later she would have to accept that.

I handed her the kerchief from my sleeve and as I did so an idea occurred to me. ‘You will have to go, Anne, but perhaps you will not have to go alone.’ As she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose I beckoned to Alys, who sat her palfrey quietly nearby. ‘It is not an easy task I am about to ask of you, Alys,’ I said, ‘but I feel certain you are equal to it. If you go with Anne it will be easier for her. I will inform your father of your whereabouts and when Anne is more settled we will arrange for you to travel back to Fotheringhay. After all it is not so far from Ampthill.’

The light of adventure kindled in Alys’s eyes. She was a tall, spirited girl of sixteen with a sweet oval face and a strong sense of fun; yet she was not easily brow-beaten and would make a formidable ally for Anne. I knew Harry would not dare to mistreat Alys because if he did he would have to answer to her father, my redoubtable brother Will, who in these days of factions and affinities somehow managed to stay friendly both with Richard and the king. Widely liked and held in high esteem by friend and foe, Lord Fauconberg was not a man to cross and Harry of Exeter would know this.

‘Of course I will go with you, Anne,’ she said, kneeing her mount close to her friend’s. ‘If we are together we can pretend it is a game. Come – it will not be so bad.’

‘It may seem like a game to you,’ said Anne bitterly, ‘but you have only to go to his board, not to his bed. Oh but I do thank you, Alys. If I must go, your company might just make it bearable.’

I saw Anne’s expression change as she turned to me and it was immediately clear that any warmth that might have blossomed between us in the last half hour had now completely vanished. Her old wariness had deepened into open hostility and she almost spat her next words at me. ‘For a minute back there I stupidly thought that you cared for me, lady mother, but I see now that I was wrong. Like all the rest of your children I know only too well that you care only for Edward. Edmund, Elizabeth, Meg, George and now little Dickon too, I suppose – we all ask in vain for your affection but you think only of Edward. And the worst of it is that Edward does not care.’

Hearing this, my face must have twitched with pain for she drove her point mercilessly home. ‘You did not know that, did you? It is true though. He does not seek love because he knows he can charm whoever he wishes. The only person he will ever love is the one who denies him and that will never be you, for you can deny him nothing.’

Having spat her poison, Anne fell silent; only occasional gasps and hiccoughs escaped her as she fought for self-control. Sadly I leaned forward, took back the kerchief and wiped the traces of tears from her cheeks. Then I gently kissed where I had wiped. ‘There, keep hold of that anger, Anne, and let those be the last tears you shed, or you might find that Harry can be even more unkind to you than you have just been to me. I am sorry we do not part friends but at least for a time you will have Alys.’ I turned to the other girl and forced a smile. ‘I am very grateful to you, Niece, for agreeing to stand by Anne. I know you will be a great comfort to her. And now I think the time has come.’

I turned my horse and rode towards the Exeter lines; behind me I felt rather than saw Cuthbert trotting at my horse’s tail. Harry had removed his helmet and was refreshing himself with wine from a jewelled cup poured for him by a hovering squire. Having drained the cup he tossed it away, forcing the squire to grovel dangerously among the horses’ hooves to retrieve it.

‘I trust you recognize my right, Duchess,’ Harry called. His wiry red hair was sweat-soaked and clung to his head, giving him an imp-like appearance.

‘The lady Anne is preparing to accompany you, my lord,’ I responded coolly. ‘But it is not fitting that a lady of rank should travel unsupported by someone of her own sex, so my niece Lady Alys Fauconberg will bear her company until other arrangements can be made.’