Revenge (44 page)

   Every Sunday, as was her custom, Mary visited the graveyard at All Saints church in Cromford, to pay her respects to her mother. The chaplain, Stephen Doe, had finally learned to gauge her sombre moods and left her alone as she stood before the grave.

   Though she had hated Dame Elizabeth at times, she missed the severe old woman’s domineering presence and iron will. Mary felt that these qualities were sorely lacking in her, and sorely needed.

   Her loneliness was alleviated somewhat by her daughter, but nothing save God’s grace could soothe her fear and uncertainty. Her sleep was disturbed by strange visions of Hell, interspersed with lurid images of stricken, mist-shrouded battlefields in which her brother Martin wandered alone among the corpses, bare-headed and spattered with blood, calling her name. Mary would try to respond, but he never heard her, and the mists swallowed him up.

   At times Mary wondered if she was losing her reason, and prayed all the harder for this not to be so. Of all the countless afflictions that God chose to test His creation with, she feared madness the worst. A physical disease might bring pain and disfigurement, but these were transient, and could be mastered by the triumph of the spirit over the corporeal. An illness that ate away at the mind, slowly stripping away layers of personality and memory until there was nothing left of the original person…this she lived in terror of, and begged Christ to spare her from.

   At last her misery was lifted. One baking afternoon in early August, as she sat in the orchard outside Heydon Court and watched Elizabeth play beside the stream, a serving-man came running to find her.

   “What is it, Matthew?” asked Mary, alarmed by his haste and the high colour in his sunken cheeks. Matthew Page was an old man, past sixty, and had spent over half his life in the service of the Boltons. Along with Hodson, who had ridden off to war with Martin, he had served with Mary’s father in the French wars.

   Age and rheumatism had prevented him from accompanying Edward’s youngest son to fight the Yorkists. He took some consolation from being the only man left at Heydon Court with military experience, and could often be seen standing guard on the parapet over the gate, peering sharply at the landscape in the hope of spotting an intruder he might take a pot at with his ancient crossbow.

   “My lady,” he puffed, creaking to a halt and snatching off his greasy old cap, “horsemen are approaching the gate. I counted thirteen, and right soldiers by the look of them.”

   Mary paled. This was another of her fears – that some avaricious neighbouring lord might attempt to snatch Heydon Court while the men were away. It had happened before, when the Huntleys sacked the house and briefly took her prisoner.

   Matthew was fighting for breath. “Wait, my lady,” he gasped, “that is not all. Your brother Martin rides with them. There is another man with him…I could swear it was Master Richard!”

   Mary was quite calm. She stood up, called Elizabeth and instructed her to go to her room and lock the door.

   “You are not to stir until I send for you,” she said firmly, taking her daughter’s hand. Elizabeth nodded solemnly and obediently trotted beside her as they hurried through the postern gate that led to a little courtyard at the rear of the house.

   Mary ushered her daughter towards the stairs that led to the upper floor, and then followed Matthew through the house to the outer courtyard and the steps to the parapet above the main gate.

    Two of the grooms were on the parapet, armed with bows and arrows and wearing a couple of oversized kettle hats they had liberated from the armoury. They looked like what they were, frightened boys trying to play soldiers. Mary smiled encouragingly at them.

   The horsemen had stopped just beyond bow-shot of the gate. There were thirteen of them, as Matthew had said. She recognised Martin immediately. He was a head taller than any of his fellows, and had grown a scrubby beard that made him look even more like his father.

   Her eye leaped to the man next to him. Even at a distance, and after the passage of eight years, she would have known Richard Bolton anywhere.

   Richard was the first to spur his horse forward. “I see you gawping, sister,” he called out in the sarcastic, mocking tone that was like a painful echo of her lost youth, “what happened to our family’s famous hospitality? Open the gate and let us in before we die of thirst.”

   Mary laid her hands flat on the rampart and stared down at them. “Open the gate,” she ordered in a voice that hardly trembled at all, and the grooms clattered down the steps to lift the bar.

   Richard was first into the courtyard, followed by Martin. The rest of the horsemen trotted inside at a leisurely pace. Mary recognised Hodson among them, and two of the three other men-at-arms that had accompanied Martin to war. Mary only had to glance at the riderless horse Hodson led to know what had happened to the fourth.

   She slowly descended the steps to meet them, her eyes fixed on Richard. He looked older, as might be expected; with a light dusting of grey in his close-cropped brown hair, but age was not the only change in him. He had the lean, hard look of a career soldier. His face was hard, too, marked by all weathers and with deep lines carved into his flesh by a relentlessly harsh life.

   He slid from his horse and stood facing her with arms outstretched. “Well, sweet sister?” he said with a gaunt smile that failed to reach his eyes, “do I not get a hug and a kiss from you, after eight years?”

   Mary stumbled into his crushing embrace. She was determined not to weep on his neck, but nonetheless a few salted drops fell.        

   “I have prayed long and hard for your safe return,” she whispered. “My knees have worn grooves in the chapel floor.”

   He laughed – it had a somewhat forced quality – and held her at arm’s length. “Well, it is grand to see you again,” he said, looking her up and down, “as thin as ever, I see. You never did eat enough. Just like our mother.”

   “You know she died?” Mary asked gently.

   Richard’s smile faded. “Yes. Martin told me when I found him at Middleham. I wish I could have spoken to her again, just once. Our last exchange was bitter.”

   From the corner of her eye she noticed Martin standing at a respectful distance. He looked uncomfortable, as though the long-delayed reunion of his siblings was none of his affair.

   “You look well,” she said, turning to smile at him, “and have returned safe and whole from the wars, which is all I wished for. Is it over? Has Lancaster won at last?”

   Martin coughed, and exchanged awkward glances with his brother. “The Earl of Warwick has won,” he replied, “we gained a battle at a place called Edgecote. Many Yorkist lords were killed there, or executed soon after.”

   He recited this in a weary monotone, without a hint of joy or triumph. Mary looked closer at him, and realised he was no longer a boy. The experience of battle had given him a certain gravitas.

   “A hollow victory,” Richard said hotly, “the usurper still lives, and still calls himself king, though Warwick is the real power in the land now. The earl disbanded his army, and sent those Lancastrians who had fought him back home. We were no longer useful to him.”

   “So it was all a game of chess,” said Elizabeth, “with the lesser men used as pawns. Warwick needed you to gain leverage over the king, and to destroy his rivals. Does King Henry still live?”

   Martin shrugged. “Still a prisoner in the Tower, as far as we know. The Queen and her son still languish in exile. Hundreds of men have died, and little has changed.”

   Mary invited them into the relative coolness of the hall, leaving the soldiers to rub down the horses and get comfortable in the outbuildings. She sent a maid to fetch Elizabeth, hoping that the sight of their niece would cheer her brothers.

   Escorted by the maid, the little girl crept warily down the stairs, staring at the two big, rough-looking men with her mother. She was always nervous in Martin’s presence, and had never set eyes on Richard in her short life.

   Richard over-compensated, and swept her up in his arms as soon as she had descended the stair.

   “Here’s a pretty child,” he cried, swinging her around, “she will be a rare beauty one day. A right heart-breaker.”

   “Greet your uncle Richard, my dear,” said Mary when Richard finally allowed the girl to stand on her own feet, “he has been away for many years, fighting for the King.”

   I assume
, she added silently. In truth, other than the fragments of ballad and verse that had reached Heydon Court over the years, she had no idea what Richard had been doing for so long. She intended to find out over supper.

   “Greetings, uncle,” Elizabeth said shyly, and gave a timid bob that might have been an attempt at a curtsey. Richard patted her on the cheek. His hand was swollen and callused, and looked capable of crushing Elizabeth’s delicate skull like an egg.

   “She has Henry’s eyes,” he said, “big and gentle, just like his were.”

   “Careful, brother,” said Martin. Richard frowned, not understanding, and then noticed the pain in his sister’s expression.

   “My God, I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step towards her, “I didn’t think. You have been alone, all these years.”

   “The last time I spoke with my husband,” she said hollowly, “he promised never to leave me again. Henry rode away to war, as all men love to do, and left me with child. I often wonder if that was the true meaning of his promise.”

   An awkward silence fell. Mary stood with her eyes closed and a hand over her mouth, trying not to give vent to her feelings. Her brothers said nothing. Their talents lay in swordplay and hunting with horse and hounds, not giving comfort to damaged women.

   Mary rescued them. “You must be tired from your journey,” she said, suddenly brisk and businesslike, “I will have your old chambers aired and clean linen laid out. You can rest for a few hours before supper.”

   While her brothers slept, she arranged a meal from the best of Heydon Court’s rather frugal stores. The soldiers had to be fed as well, and the cooks were obliged to dig deep into the store of salted meat to lay out enough food for the suddenly expanded household.

   “These are the survivors of the men who followed me to Edgecote,” said Richard over supper, indicating his men as they greedily devoured platefuls of rye bread and salt pork on the lower tables, “fifteen took the field against York, and eight walked away. The rest of my company still haunt the forests of Lancashire, under a new leader. They will never compromise or surrender until King Harry sits on his throne again.”

   Mary could not help but feel nervous at the presence of so many armed men in her hall. She trusted the old retainers, Hodson and his comrades, but Richard’s men had a wild, untamed look about them. These were the outlaws that the ballads of The White Hawk spoke of. They appeared less jovial in the flesh, and rather more like common thieves and poachers.

   She was full of questions for Richard, which he answered patiently and – as far as she could read him – truthfully. His sense of duty had prevented him from coming home before now. He had fought at Hedgley Moor and Hexham, where the last Lancastrian armies in the north were annihilated, and barely escaped both with his life.    

   “When I heard that my old lord, the Duke of Somerset, had been taken and murdered by the Yorkists,” he explained, “I swore a vow never to put down my sword until our foes were crushed.”

   He stared down at his plate. “I have not lived up to that vow. Edward still rules England, even if Warwick has him caged.”

   “The current peace cannot last,” said Martin, “Edward will not submit to being ruled by Warwick for any longer than necessary. They will be at daggers drawn within months.”

   “For God’s sake,” said Mary, trying to keep her voice calm, “how can you talk of fresh wars and slaughters? Have you both not had your fill? No-one could accuse either of you of neglecting your duty. It is time to hang up your swords. Make your peace with whoever is governing the kingdom, stay here and tend your estates. Marry, and beget children. Live normal lives!”

   Martin smiled, as though the prospect she offered was not unattractive, but Richard looked solemn.

   “The life of a country gentleman,” he murmured, “peace and comfort, wife and child, hearth and home. Not for me. I have lived on a knife’s edge for too long. Martin can inherit our lands. I have no use for them.”

   “What will you do, then?” she asked.

   “Wait a while, to see if England rejects the traitors that rule it,” he said lightly, “if not, I will take myself across the sea, and live as a mercenary in some distant land. Italy, perhaps. The city-states are always fighting each other.”

   Mary was distressed to hear this, but did her best not to show it. Richard had always been hard, and struggled to appreciate the feelings of others. A life of constant defeat and danger had made him harder still.

   “What of James?” asked Martin, abruptly changing the subject, “I have not heard anything of our brother for months. Is he still in the service of Bishop Hales?”

   “I have heard nothing from him for months,” Mary replied gloomily, “he is like a shadow. He flits back and forth as the mood takes him.”

   Richard was surprised. “I thought James would have drunk himself to death by now. Is he a reformed man, then?”