The Red Queen (16 page)

He pulls away from me and he goes, treading carefully up the stairs to his room. He is stiff from his long ride and he hobbles, bowlegged. I watch him go with hatred, my hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs. He is an old man, an old fool. I know the will of God better than him, and He is, as He has always been, for Lancaster.

I am right in this, and my husband, for all that he is my husband and set over me, is wrong, and this is proved at Christmastide when the Duke of York, who is supposed to be so clever, so brilliant in battle, is caught outside his own castle walls of Sandal, with a small guard, among them his son Edmund, the Earl of Rutland, and both York and his boy are brutally killed by our forces. So much for the man who would be king and would claim the royal line!

The queen’s army takes his hacked body and makes mock of him, and beheads the corpse and sticks his head above the gates of York with a paper crown on his head, so he can view his kingdom before the crows and buzzards peck out his dead eyes. This is a traitor’s death, and with it die the hopes of York, for who is left? His great ally the Earl of Warwick has only useless daughters, and the three remaining boys of York—Edward, George, and Richard—are too young to lead an army on their own account.

I do not exult over my husband, for we have settled to living quietly together and are celebrating Christmas with our tenants, retainers, and servants, as if the world were not trembling with uncertainty. We do not speak of the divided kingdom, and though he has letters from merchants and tradesmen in London he does not tell me their news, nor that his family are constantly urging him to revenge the death of his father. And though he knows that Jasper
writes to me from Wales, he does not ask of his newly won castle of Denbigh, and how Jasper so bravely reclaimed it.

I send my son Henry a little cart on wooden wheels, that he can pull along, for his Christmas present, and my husband gives me a shilling to send to him for fairings. In return I give him a silver sixpence to send to the little Duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford, and we do not speak of the war, or of the queen’s march south at the head of five thousand murderous, dangerous Scots, stained like eager huntsmen with the blood of the rebel York, or of my belief that our house has triumphed again and will come to victory next year, as it must since we are blessed by God.

I think, like everyone else of any sense, that with the death of the Duke of York the wars are over. His son Edward is only eighteen years old and all alone on the borders of Wales, where all the men follow Jasper and the House of Lancaster. His mother, the Duchess Cecily, knowing that this is her final defeat, wearing black in her widowhood, sends her two younger sons George and Richard into hiding in Flanders, with the Duke of Burgundy. Duchess Cecily must fear the arrival of the queen in London, at the head of her army of wild men, demanding vengeance for this second failed rebellion. Her oldest son she cannot save; Edward will most probably die in the borders of Wales, hopelessly outnumbered, fighting for his dead father’s lost cause.

My brother-in-law Jasper will be defending his own; his father Owen Tudor marches with him. They cannot fail against an army led by a boy, who has just lost his brother, his father and commander, as Jasper confirms:

“I think there may be another battle,” I say tentatively to my husband Henry when he comes to my bedroom. I am seated at the fireside. He drapes his gown on the end of the bed and slides between the sheets. “Your bed is always so comfortable,” he remarks. “Do you have better sheets than me?”

I giggle, distracted for a moment. “I shouldn’t think so. It is your steward of the household who orders everything. My sheets came with me from Wales, but I can tell him to put them on your bed, if you think them finer.”

“No, I like to enjoy them here, with you. Let’s not talk of the troubles of the country.”

“But I have had a letter from Jasper.”

“Tell me of it in the morning.”

“I think it is important.”

He sighs. “Oh, very well. What does he say?”

I hand him my note, and he glances at it. “Yes. I knew this. I heard that they were mustering in Wales. Your old enemy William Herbert has changed his coat again.”

“Never!”

“He will wear a white rose once more and fight alongside the York boy. He was not a friend to Lancaster for long. It must rile Jasper that Herbert rides out against him once more.”

“Herbert is quite without honor!” I exclaim. “And after the king himself pardoned him!”

My husband shrugs. “Who knows why a man chooses one side or another? I hear from my cousin, who is with the queen’s forces, that they will mop up the remnants of the York threat and then come to London in victory.”

“Can we go to court, when she gets to London?” I ask.

“A celebration feast?” he asks wryly. “Certainly there will be work for me in parliament. Half of England will be designated traitors and fined of their lands. The other half will be paid them as reward for their part in murder.”

“And we will be neither,” I say sullenly.

“I would rather not have the lands of a man accused of treason because he tried to give good advice to his king,” my older husband says quietly. “And you may be well assured that half of the lands will be returned to their owners when the king returns to his power and issues pardons. He will forgive all his enemies and return them to their homes. His allies will find their service to him is ill rewarded. There is neither profit nor true honor in following this king.”

I fold my lips together to stop my retort. He is my husband. What he says must be the rule in our household. He is my lord under God. There is no point in disagreeing with him aloud. But in my heart I name him a coward.

“Come to bed,” he says gently. “Why would you care either way as long as you and your son are safe? And I keep you safe, Margaret. I keep the war away from our lands, and I don’t widow you for a second time by riding off to glory. Come to bed and smile for me.”

I go to bed with him as it is my duty, but I don’t smile.

Then I get the worst news possible. The worst news, and it comes from Jasper. I had thought him invincible; but he is not, he is not. I had thought it impossible for Jasper to lose. But terribly, it turns out that he can.

My husband is away in London, and I have to wait days before he comes home and I can tell him that Jasper says the war is finished and we are lost. As I greet him in the stable yard he shakes his head at my babble of anxious news. “Hush, Margaret. It is worse than you know. Young Edward of York has claimed the throne, and they have lost their minds and made him king.”

This silences me completely. I glance around the yard as if I would keep it secret. “King?”

“They have offered him the throne and say that he is the true king and heir. He need not wait for the death of King Henry. He has claimed the throne and says he’ll drive our king and queen out of England and then have a coronation, take the crown, and be ordained. I have come home only to gather my men. I am going to have to fight for King Henry.”

“You?” I ask incredulously. “At last?”

“Yes. Me, at last.”

“Why would you ride out now?”

He sighs. “Because it is no longer a subject trying to bring his king to account, where I might find my mind divided, where a subject should advise his king against evil council. Now it is nothing but rebellion, open rebellion, and the posing of a false king against the true. This is a cause I must follow. It was not a cause that called me until now. York is fighting for treason now. I must fight against treason.”

I bite my tongue on the reproach that if he had gone before, we might not have got to this terrible pass.

“There has to be a Stafford in the field, fighting for his king. Our standard has to be there. Before it was my poor brother, then it was my honored father, who gave his life in this brew of wars. Now it is me who has to stand beneath the Stafford banner, perhaps halfhearted, perhaps uncertain, but I am the senior Stafford, and I have to go.”

I have little interest in his reasons. “But where is the king?”

“The queen has him safely with her. There was a battle at St. Albans, and she won and took him back into her keeping.”

“The York army was defeated?” I ask, bewildered. “But I thought they were winning?”

He shakes his head. “No, it was little more than a scrap in the town center of St. Albans between Warwick’s men and those fighting for the queen, while Edward of York marched in triumph on London. But Warwick had the king with him, and after the Yorks ran away, they found the king, sitting under an oak tree, where he had been watching the fighting.”