“You’re leaving us to Lancaster?” George demanded incredulously, sounding so horrified that Edward was at once upon the defensive.
“You needn’t make it sound as if you’re being given over to infidels for ritual slaughter, George!” he said, rather more sharply than he intended. He caught himself, marveling how George had so unerring an instinct for irritating him, and then said, more gently, “You needn’t fear, George. Lancaster does not take vengeance upon children. You’ll be safe enough; far safer, I warrant, than if we tried to take you with us.”
Edmund had been shifting impatiently, too tense not to begrudge this time being squandered upon children when time was their only lifeline.
“Ned, our cousin Warwick beckons to us.”
Edward nodded, but continued to linger, reaching out to ruffle first George’s fair head and then Richard’s dark one. Never had they looked so young to him, so utterly defenseless as now, when they were to be left to face an enemy army. Forcing a smile, he gave George a playful blow on the arm.
“Don’t look so woebegone,” he said lightly. “In truth, there’s no need to fear. You’ll not be ill-treated by Lancaster.”
“I’m not afraid,” George said quickly, and when Edward said nothing in response, he fancied he could read skepticism in Edward’s silence and repeated insistently, “I’m not afraid, not at all!”
Edward straightened up, said dryly, “I’m gratified to hear it, George.”
He started to follow after Edmund and then, on impulse, turned back to Richard. Kneeling by the boy, he looked intently into his face, said softly, “What of you, Dickon? Be you afraid?”
Richard opened his mouth to deny it and then slowly nodded his head. “Yes,” he confessed, almost inaudibly, flushing as if he’d made the most shameful of admissions.
“I’ll share a secret with you, Dickon…. So am I,” Edward said, and then laughed outright at the astonished look on the boy’s face.
“Truly?” he said dubiously, and Edward nodded.
“Truly. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t know fear, Dickon. The brave man is the one who has learned to hide it, that’s all. You remember that tomorrow, lad.”
Edmund was back. “Name of God, Ned, are you going to tarry all night?”
Edward came to his feet. Looking down at Richard, he grinned.
“And think of the tales you’ll have to tell me when next I do see you! After all, you’ll have been the one to witness the surrender of Ludlow, not I!”
And then he was gone, hastening to join Edmund, leaving the two boys alone behind the screen, trying to come to terms with the incredible reality that, with the coming of dawn, would come, too, the Lancastrian army into the village of Ludlow.
Edmund read his brother without difficulty, had been able to do so since they were small boys, and now he wasn’t surprised to find that Edward was no longer following him. Retracing his steps, he located his brother by the dais, deep in discussion with their mother. He hastened toward them, arrived in time to hear the Duchess of York say, “Edward, I do believe you’re mad! To even consider so reckless a scheme…. It is out of the question.”
“Wait, Ma Mère, hear me out. I admit it does sound risky at first hearing, but it has merit. It would work; I know it would.”
Edmund didn’t much like the sound of that; it had been his experience that what Edward was apt to consider feasible others would consider the height of imprudence. “What would work, Ned?”
“I want to take Ma Mère and the boys from here tonight.”
Edmund so forgot himself as to swear in front of his mother. “I hope to Christ you’re not serious.”
“But I am. I know we did agree that it were best for them to remain in Ludlow, and I know Ma Mère is convinced no harm will come to them. But I’m not so sure, Edmund. I’m just not that sure.”
“None of us be happy with it, Ned,” Edmund said reasonably. “But we cannot take them with us. A woman and two small boys…The way we must ride? It’d be safer by far for them in Ludlow. Women and children are not abused. It’s not done, even by Lancaster. They’ll be taken to the King, and most likely, a steep fine will be levied upon Ludlow. There may be some looting, too, I grant you. But Jesú, Ned, this is no French village for the plundering. Ludlow is still English.”
“Yes, but—”
“Besides,” Edmund demanded, “where could you hope to take them?” Saw that he’d blundered, for Edward grinned.
“Wigmore,” he said triumphantly. “The Augustine abbey close by the castle. I know I could get them safely there in a few hours; it wouldn’t be that difficult. No, don’t talk, just listen. We could leave now, take back roads. There’s not a path in Shropshire I don’t know. You’d not deny that, surely?” he challenged, and Edmund shook his head.
“No, I’d not deny that. But once you get them to Wigmore…assuming you do…what then? Doesn’t that leave you stranded alone out in the Shropshire countryside? In the midst of the Lancastrian army?”
Edward shrugged impatiently. “Have you forgotten I grew up here in Ludlow? I know this area; I’d not be taken. Once I got them safe to Wigmore, I’d catch up to you and our lord father without difficulty.” He grinned again, said persuasively, “You do see it could work, don’t you? Admit it, Edmund, the plan is a sound one.”
“I think it be suicidal. On your own, while the Lancastrians cast a net over the entire countryside? You’d not have a chance, Ned. Not a chance.” Edmund paused, saw the stubborn set of Edward’s mouth, and concluded grimly,
“But I see you are bound and determined to follow through with this madness. So we might as well get the horses saddled, fetch the boys. We haven’t much time.”
Edward laughed softly, showed no surprise. “I knew I could count on you,” he said approvingly, and then shook his head. “But this be one time when I’ll have to forego your company. I think it best I take them myself.”
“Very noble,” Edmund said caustically, “but not very bright. Don’t be stupid, Ned. You know you need me to—”
The Duchess of York had been listening to her sons in disbelief, now said sharply, “I cannot credit what I’m hearing! Did you not hear me say I had no intention of leaving Ludlow? What, pray, had you in mind, Edward? Throwing me across your stallion as if I were a saddle blanket?”
They turned startled faces toward her, dismayed and flustered by her fury when they’d have taken their father’s more familiar wrath in stride. At that moment, suddenly looking so young to her that her anger ebbed and a surge of protective pride caught at her heart, threaded through with fear for them. She hesitated, searching for the right words, for that patience peculiar to the mothers of teen-age sons. Reminding herself that they were citizens now of two countries, passing back and forth across the unmarked borders between manhood and boyhood with such frequency that she never knew with certainty where they’d be found at any given time.
“Your concern does you credit, Edward, does you both credit. Do you think I’m not proud that you’re willing to risk your lives for my sake, for your little brothers? But the risk would be taken for no good cause. To spare us discomfort, you might well bring about your own deaths. Do you think I could permit that?”
“The risk wouldn’t be that great, Ma Mère,” Edward began, and she shook her head, reaching up and touching him lightly on the cheek in what was, for her, a surprisingly public gesture of affection.
“I do not agree. I think the risk would be of the greatest magnitude imaginable. And for nothing, Edward, for nothing! We’re in no danger here. Do you truly think I’d ever keep George and Richard in Ludlow if I thought any harm might come to them?”
She saw she’d scored a telling point, saw Edward concede it with a grimace.
“No, Ma Mère, of course you would not. But—”
“And if I were truly to face danger from Lancaster, Edward, it would be no less at Wigmore. The castle there belongs to York; it would not be hard to guess our whereabouts. No, I do mean
to stay in Ludlow. I have no fears for myself or your brothers, but I will confess to you that I do fear for the villagers. They are our people; I should be here to speak for them.”
“As you will, Ma Mère,” Edward said at last. “I daresay you are right.” But he was still young enough to add, in a troubled undertone, “I do hope to God that you are.”
Deserted streets, shops tightly shuttered, market stalls empty: even Ludlow’s dogs were strangely silent. Only the lowing of cattle penned in the market bullring broke the eerie unnatural stillness that enclosed the village as the advance guard of the Lancastrian army rode across Ludford Bridge and into Ludlow.
They’d encountered no resistance; the Yorkist earthworks that had blocked the road to Leominster were unmanned. Advancing up Broad Street, they passed through Broad Gate unchallenged. In unnerving silence, they moved north, toward High Street. There they drew rein abruptly, for a woman and two small boys were awaiting them upon the steps of the high market cross.
The Lancastrian army was surging into Ludlow. The narrow streets were jammed with jubilant soldiers. The Swan and Rose banners of Lancaster caught the wind, fluttered aloft over the heads of the Duchess of York and her two youngest sons.
When the mounted knight first came into view, sunlight striking with blinding brilliance upon polished plate armor, Richard wondered if he might be King Harry. But the face half-shadowed by the upraised visor was far too young; this man was not all that much older than his brother Ned. Richard risked a whispered query to George, and was much impressed by the latter’s boldness when George whispered back, “You’re not likely to see Harry here, Dickon. They say he’s daft, not able to tell a goose from a gander in the dark.”
Richard had, from time to time, overheard puzzling and cryptic references to the King’s health, said with such sardonic significance that he comprehended, however imperfectly, that there was something “not quite right” with the King. But the hints were so clearly not meant for his hearing, were given so guardedly and grudgingly that he instinctively shrank back from the subject, even with Edward. He had never heard the truth put so baldly as now, in the midst of the soldiers of that self-same King, and he looked at George with mingled apprehension and admiration.
George was staring at the young knight, by now approaching the steps of the market cross. Tugging at his mother’s sleeve, he murmured, “Ma Mère? Who is he? The man who betrayed us…Trollope?”
“No…my lord Somerset,” she said quietly, and none could have guessed from the even matter-of-fact tones that she had just named a man who had more reason than most to hate the House of York, a man whose father had died the loser on a battlefield her husband had won. And with that, she moved down the steps to meet him.
Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was just twenty-three years of age, but to him had been entrusted the command of the King’s army. Marguerite d’Anjou, Lancaster’s French-born Queen, might defy convention by riding with her troops, but there were certain constraints even she was forced to recognize, not the least of which was that there was no Joan of Arc in English folklore.
Somerset had not dismounted. Curbing his restive stallion with a practiced hand, he listened impatiently as the Duchess of York made an impassioned and persuasive appeal on behalf of the villagers of Ludlow.
Cecily Neville was, at forty-four, still a strikingly handsome woman, with the lithe slimness of early youth and direct dark grey eyes. Somerset was not altogether indifferent to the attractive image she presented, standing alone on the market cross, flanked by her young sons. He suspected, however, that her posture was one carefully calculated to appeal to chivalric susceptibilities. He had no liking for this proud woman who was wife to his sworn enemy, and he noted, with gratifying if rather grim amusement, that the role of supplicant did not come easily to her.
While he felt compelled to accord her the courtesy due her rank and sex, to let her speak for Ludlow, he had no intention of heeding her plea. Ludlow had long been a Yorkist stronghold; a day of reckoning would have a salutary effect upon other towns wavering in their loyalty to Lancaster.
He interrupted to demand what he already knew. York’s Duchess answered readily enough. Her husband? He was gone from Ludlow, as was her brother, the Earl of Salisbury and her nephew, the Earl of Warwick. Her sons, Edward, Earl of March, and Edmund, Earl of Rutland? Gone, too, she said coolly.
Somerset rose in his stirrups, gazing down High Street, toward the rising stone walls of the outer castle bailey. He knew she spoke the truth; her very presence here was all the proof he needed that the Yorkists had fled. He was remembering, moreover, that there was a bridge behind the castle, spanning the River Teme and linking with the road leading west into Wales.
He gestured abruptly and soldiers moved onto the steps of the cross. The children shrank back and he had the satisfaction of seeing sudden fear upon Cecily Neville’s haughty handsome face. She gathered her sons to her and demanded to know if my lord Somerset meant to take vengeance upon innocent children.
“My men are here to see to your safety, Madame.” Her defiance had rankled; she was, after all, only a woman, and York’s woman at that. He saw no reason not to remind her of the realities of their respective positions, said bluntly that he’d wager she’d be thankful for the presence of an armed guard before the day was done.
She whitened, hearing in his words the death knell of Ludlow; knowing now that there was only one man who could avert the coming carnage, that strange gentle soul who yearned only for peace of spirit and was wed to the woman the Yorkists saw as Messalina.
“I wish to see His Grace the King,” she said steadily. “He has no subjects more loyal than the people of Ludlow.”
Her request was impossible, but it could not be acknowledged as such. He swallowed a bitter retort, said tersely, “It suited the King’s Grace to remain at Leominster.”
Cecily, however, was no longer watching Somerset. Richard, who was standing so close to her that he was treading upon the hem of her gown, now felt her body stiffen, in a small indecisive movement, quickly stilled. And then she was sinking down upon the steps in a curtsy, a very precise and controlled gesture that was totally lacking in her customary grace. Richard hastily followed her example, and it was kneeling upon the steps of the market cross that he had his first glimpse of the Lancastrian Queen.
His first impression, quite simply, was one of awe. Marguerite d’Anjou was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, as beautiful as the Queens of Joan’s bedtime tales. All in gold and black, like the swallowtail butterflies he’d chased all summer in such futile fascination. Her eyes were huge and black, blacker even than the rosaries of Whitby jet so favored by his mother. Her mouth was scarlet, her skin like snow, her dark hair covered by a headdress of golden gauze, her face framed in floating folds of a glittery shimmering material that seemed to be made from sunlight; he’d never seen anything like it, couldn’t keep his eyes from it, or from her.
“Where is your husband, Madame? Surely he’d not abandon you to pay the price for his treason?”
Richard loved the sound of his mother’s voice, clear and low-pitched, as musical to him as chapel chimes. The Queen’s voice was a disappointment, shrill and sharply edged with mockery, so strongly flavored with the accent of her native Anjou that he distinguished her words with some difficulty.
“My husband swore oath of allegiance to His Grace the King and has held true to that oath.”
The Queen laughed. Richard didn’t like the sound of it any more than he had her voice. He unobtrusively edged closer to his mother’s side, slipped his hand into the sleeve of her gown.
With a sudden shock, he realized those glittering black eyes had come to rest upon him. Frozen under her gaze, he stared up at the Lancastrian Queen, unable to free his eyes from hers. He was accustomed to having adults look at him without seeing, accepted that as a peculiarity of adult vision, that children were so little visible to them. He saw now that this was not true of the Queen, that she
saw him very clearly. There was something very cold and queerly measuring in her look; he was frightened by it without exactly knowing why.
The Queen was now looking at his mother. “Since your husband and your sons March and Rutland have so courageously fled the consequences of their treachery, it remains for you, Madame, to stand witness in their stead. Mark you well what price we exact from those disloyal to the crown.”
Cecily’s response was both immediate and unexpected. She stepped in front of Marguerite’s glossy ebony mare.
“These people are good people, God-fearing people, loyal to their King. They owe Your Grace no debt of disloyalty, I do assure you.”
“Madame, you bar my path,” Marguerite said softly.
Richard saw her leather riding crop cut the air above his head. The mare lunged forward, and for a moment of heartstopping horror, he thought his mother would fall beneath the animal’s hooves. She’d seen enough of Marguerite’s face to be forewarned, however, and sprang clear in time, kept on her feet by the most alert of Somerset’s soldiers.
Richard brushed past the soldier, pressed against his mother; George had already reached her. She was trembling and for a moment leaned against George as if he were a man grown.
“Send my sons from the village,” she said huskily. “I do implore Your Grace…. You, too, are a mother.”
Marguerite had turned in the saddle. Now she jerked at the reins, guiding the mare back toward the cross. “Yes, I am a mother. My son was born six years ago today…and almost from the day of his birth, there have been those who would deny his birthright, those who dared say that my Édouard is not the true son of my husband, the King. And you do know as well as I, Madame, the man most responsible for such vile slanders…Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Warwick…your nephew, Madame! Your nephew!”
This last came out in a hiss, in a surge of scalding fury, followed by a burst of French, too fast and furious to be decipherable. Pausing for breath, she looked down in silence at the ashen woman and fear-frozen children. Very slowly and deliberately, she removed one of her riding gloves, finely stitched Spanish leather furred with sable. She saw Cecily Neville raise her chin, saw Somerset grin, knew they both expected her to strike Cecily across the face with it. She flung it, instead, in the dust at Cecily’s feet.