The Sunne in Splendour

  “I didn’t say we should snub her,” he whispered back irritably. “But I see not why we must seek her out. It would be damnably uncomfortable and I see no need for it. What am I to say to her…that I hope her son does rot in Burgundy? Moreover, her daughter is with her, and you know I like that lady not at all.”

  Alison’s gaze shifted from the slim figure of the Duchess of York to that of her more amply proportioned daughter Eliza, Duchess of Suffolk.

  “ ’Tis common courtesy, John. She’s surely entitled to that much.”

  Having concluded his sermon, Dr Goddard was descending the stone stairs, and Alison’s attention was momentarily distracted. When she turned back to the Duchess of York, she saw a stockily built man had shouldered his way through the crowd to halt before Edward of York’s mother and sister.

  “See,” she hissed, nudging her husband. “Jack Howard does not hesitate to approach Her Grace.”

  “It’s easy enough for him,” he responded sourly. “He’s always been a Yorkist. He can commiserate with her over her son’s broken fortunes and mean it. But I’m no hypocrite, Alison, and I—”

  “John, something is amiss,” she interrupted, and one glance was enough to show him she was right.

  The Duchesses of York and Suffolk had drawn close to Lord Howard, were staring at him with an intensity of attention that bespoke more than casual conversation. Even young Jack, the Duchess of Suffolk’s eight-year-old son, had ceased his attempts to entice one of the stray churchyard dogs within romping range, and was tugging at his mother’s sleeve, made uneasy by her sudden immobility.

  But even as Alison watched, the frieze shattered. Howard was nodding vigorously as if in confirmation, with more animation than Alison had ever seen in that dark saturnine face. The Duchess of Suffolk turned to her mother and then, laughing, dropped to her knees and gathered her squirming son into an exultant embrace. As she did, Alison had her first clear glimpse of Cecily Neville. The Duchess of York was smiling at John Howard, a smile so radiant, so heartbreakingly lovely, that Alison knew at once what she had been told.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped, and turned to stare at her husband. She saw that he, too, had guessed Howard’s message. As their eyes met, he nodded grimly.

  “The Devil fights for York, ’tis claimed,” he said somberly. “I only do hope that Almighty God will be with Warwick.”

  Jacquetta Woodville glanced over her shoulder, beckoning impatiently to her trailing servant. The basket that swung from his arm contained a newly weaned kitten, meant for Jacquetta’s granddaughters. Elizabeth’s nerves were being rubbed raw after six months in close confinement with an infant, two mischievous boys, and three active little girls, and Jacquetta hoped the kitten might be a welcome diversion.

  She was not expecting the scene that greeted her upon her entry into Abbot Millyng’s lodging. Mistress Stidolf, nurse to Elizabeth’s youngest daughter Cecily, and now tending to the other children as well, was nowhere to be found. Two-year-old Cecily was huddled on her trestle bed, sobbing. At sight of her grandmother, she scrambled down and ran to Jacquetta, holding up a dirty little hand darkening with a spreading bruise. In the corner cradle, the baby was wailing fretfully. The other children, Jacquetta’s two grandsons and Cecily’s sisters, five-year-old Bess and three-year-old Mary, were all gathered at the door of the Abbot’s refectory, so absorbed in their vigil that they had not yet become aware of Jacquetta’s presence.

  “Thomas!”

  He turned at once, a handsome fair-haired boy of sixteen; he was her favorite grandchild and knew it.

  “Grand-mère!”

  “Whatever is happening here? Where is Mistress Stidolf? Or Nurse Cobb?”

  Not at all abashed by her frown, he came quickly to her side and kissed her dutifully on the cheek.

  Nurse Cobb chose that moment to make her appearance, lugging a heavy wooden bucket, which she gratefully surrendered to Jacquetta’s servant.

  “See to the babe!” Jacquetta snapped before the woman could speak, and then, to her own servant, “For Our Lord’s sake, have a care! That bucket is slopping all over the rushes!”

  “I did have to fetch water for the little Prince’s bath, Madame! What would you have me do, with none to lend me a hand and…”

  Jacquetta ignored the midwife, and grabbed for the basket just as the kitten made a bid for freedom. Trying without success to pry loose Cecily’s grip on her skirt, she glared at Thomas.

  “Is this how you look after the little ones, Thomas?”

  He grinned, jerked his head toward the closed door. “The Lord Abbot is with Madame our mother. He has brought her a message from…you’ll never guess…the Duchess of York!”

  Jacquetta shared his amazement; communications from Cecily Neville were the rarest of occurrences.

  The other children were clustered around her by now, and by the time she’d silenced them all and restored a semblance of order, the Abbot was emerging from the refectory. Bess and Mary were quarreling over the kitten, but Thomas darted for the door, with his brother on his heels, and only a sharply-worded reprimand from Jacquetta kept him from colliding with the Abbot.

  Ignoring his reproachful look, she brushed past Thomas and shut the door firmly in his face.

  The room was large and open to light; in the eastern end was a small private chapel, for the convenience of the Lord Abbot. It was there that Elizabeth stood, before the velvet-draped altar.

  “Dearest, what is it? What has happened?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. She didn’t move. Behind her a jewel-colored stained-glass window spilled sun into the room, and it seemed to Jacquetta that her daughter had drawn all the light from the window into her eyes; never had they shone so green, so luminous.

  “I never doubted,” Elizabeth said, and laughed. “Not when they said he was dead, not when they said he’d never see England again. I knew he’d not fail me!”

  Something white caught Jacquetta’s eye; a piece of paper had fallen to the floor at her daughter’s feet. Stooping, Jacquetta picked it up, unfolded it. There was no date, no salutation, no signature; only five words written in a bold hand across the center of the page:

  Edward has landed in Yorkshire.

  Seventy-five miles northwest of London lay Warwick Castle, rising up from the banks of the River Avon as it had since the time of the Norman Conquest. It had come to Richard Neville by right of his wife, Nan Beauchamp. Although his personal preference was for Middleham, midst the Yorkshire moors, Warwick Castle had remained his chief residence during his years of power, and it was at Warwick Castle that he was now awaiting word from the North.

  The Earl of Warwick was alone in his solar, seated at a cluttered writing desk. He was signing his name with a flourish to the last of the letters as his brother the Archbishop of York entered.

  He dispensed with greetings, saying only, “I expected you ere this, George,” as the Archbishop dismissed his escort and brushed aside the welcoming alaunts.

  George Neville sank down in the nearest chair, pushing away the most persistent of the dogs.

  “Jesú, Dick, can you go nowhere without these damned dogs?”

  Warwick shrugged and held up a sealed letter. “Well, this goes tonight to France.”

  “You’ve told Louis that York’s gamble failed, that Ned was forced to seek sanctuary soon after landing?”

  Warwick nodded. “And he’ll be much relieved to hear it, you may be sure.” He tossed the letter back on the pile. “I only do wish I could believe it.”

  The Archbishop frowned. “The news from the North was that Ned encountered stiff resistance, had to retreat. It rings true; he could expect no friendly welcome in Yorkshire. Why he chose to land there, I’ll never know…. But he did, and has trapped himself. I believe it…. Why don’t you, Dick?”

  “I’m not sure,” Warwick confessed. “Perhaps because it’s too good to be true. Perhaps because rumor has had him dead fully a score of times these six months past. I think at times that
he has more lives than any six cats…. He escaped Johnny at Doncaster, escaped drowning, escaped the Easterlings, and then escaped our fleet on his return to England. We’ve had the Channel virtually blocked since February, yet he somehow slipped through the net.”

  “He sailed in one of the worst gales in years, when no sane man would’ve ventured from port,” the Archbishop said sourly, and Warwick gave him a faintly amused look.

  “Very unsporting, I agree,” he said dryly. “The fact is, George, he gambled on the storm and won…and I’d be a fool to accept these rumors of his fall as true until I do have proof. Our cousin be no man to underestimate.” He fingered the letter again. “Meanwhile, I see no reason not to ease the mind of our French ally. But don’t rely upon it, George. I don’t.”

  “Even if the sanctuary story be false,” the Archbishop argued, “he’s in trouble. With Johnny at Pontefract and Henry Percy at Topcliffe, he’s caught between the two, and Exeter and Oxford are well on the way toward Newark. He can have fifteen hundred men at most, and he’s facing three armies. It’s only a matter of time before he’s brought to bay, if it hasn’t happened already.”

  “It does sound that way,” Warwick agreed. But there was no real conviction in his voice, and George Neville, subjecting him to closer scrutiny, found little to like in what he saw.

  “You look as if you’d not slept for a week,” he said critically, and Warwick shrugged again.

  “I am tired,” he conceded.

  “Have you had any word from Nan?”

  Warwick nodded. “A letter came just two days past.”

  “How does she?”

  “As eager to reach England as Marguerite d’Anjou is to delay departure from France. It’s been seven months since Nan and I have seen each other; the wait has been hard on her, as you’d expect.”

  “I well understand Nan’s impatience. For months now, we’ve been waiting on Marguerite and still she finds reason to tarry in France. What ails the woman?”

  “She’s shortsighted, I agree. She should be looking to her interests here. I can only surmise that she fears for the boy, doesn’t want to risk his safety till Ned no longer poses a threat.”

  “That boy is going to be a problem, Dick,” the Archbishop predicted gloomily. “He’s his mother’s son for true…whosoever his father may be!”

  Warwick smiled grimly. “I’ve not had the best of luck with sons-in-law, have I?”

  “Have you had word from George?”

  Warwick shook his head. “I was writing to him just as you entered.”

  He picked up a pen, put it down again. “It’s passing strange,” he said at last. “There was a time, and not too long past, when I’d have laughed had I been told I’d one day be facing Ned and Dickon across a battlefield.”

  “That sounds more like Johnny than you, Dick,” the Archbishop observed trenchantly, and Warwick gave a short staccato laugh.

  “You needn’t fear,” he said coolly. “I’m not giving way to sentiment. In any event, it’ll not come to that. If Johnny and Percy don’t run them to earth, Exeter and Oxford will. They’ve nowhere to run, not in Yorkshire.”

  “Why do you think he chose to put ashore there? They’ve no love for York in the North and Ned well knows it. It’s not like him….”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “We fortified the entire east coast, where he was most likely to land…and had he disembarked there, he’d have been trapped for certes. But we didn’t fortify the North, and I suspect he gambled on that. Ned has ever had gamblers’ instincts, ever been willing to risk all on a single throw of the dice.”

  “Dick, what word have you had from Johnny?”

  “None.”

  They looked at each other, neither wanting to say what was in both their minds. The Archbishop was the one to breach the wall first.

  “I’ve seen little of Johnny these months past. I’d wager he’s not been in London twice since Martinmas. Dick…be you sure his loyalties are to Lancaster? He did have a fondness for Ned and Dickon….”

  Warwick was shaking his head. “Johnny’s loyalties were never to Lancaster, George,” he said softly. “Johnny’s loyalties are to me…and to you.”

  The Archbishop’s face had taken on a self-conscious shade of red, but he otherwise accepted the rebuke with good grace. “I know,” he admitted readily. “I know the debt we owe Johnny for Doncaster. I know, too, what it did cost him. If he has to be the one to make an end to this reckless venture of Ned’s…Well, I don’t envy him that. For his sake, I hope it be Percy.”

  Warwick said nothing. He’d reached for a pen again, was staring down at the blank paper before him.

  “And now I suppose I should write to my son-in-law of Clarence and give him the tidings that his brothers are home.”

  He laughed suddenly, and at the other’s questioning look, said, “I was just thinking…When Richard Coeur de Lion was freed from a Frankish prison, the French King sent a warning to Richard’s brother John, who liked Richard no more than George does Ned. Do you know what he wrote?”

  “How would I be likely to know that?” the Archbishop said impatiently, and Warwick gave him a tight, tired smile, said,

  “ ‘The Devil is loose.’ ”

  As he spoke, he was sketching circles on the page, in diminishing size.

  “It seems rather a waste of time to write to George, doesn’t it? I suspect he knows as much about Ned’s whereabouts as any man in England.”

  23

  York

  March 1471

  “I say we vote on it…. Who favors opening the city gates to him? I thought as much. ’Tis settled then. We deny him entry.”

  “The Hell we do!”

  “The Hell we don’t!”

  “Hear him out, Will; ’tis only fair. Go on, Tom, speak your mind.”

  “I only think we should not be hasty in this. Not when it’s a decision likely to come back to haunt us. Before we do decide, you’d best be sure you’re willing to make an enemy of the man who might well be King again within the month.”

  “The truth of it, Wrangwysh, is that you’ve always held for York. Admit it, you’d be well pleased to see a Yorkist victory!”

  “What if I do? That doesn’t change the facts, Holbeck. If we deny Edward of York entry, we antagonize him to no purpose.”

  “But if we admit him, Tom, we do for a certainty anger Warwick.”

  “They did turn him away from Kingston upon Hull—”

  “Aye, and gave him entry into Beverley. As I say we should do in York!”

  “What says His Grace of Northumberland?”

  “We’ve had nary a word.”

  “Well, does that not give you pause, gentlemen? As long as Henry Percy keeps to Topcliffe, I’d not be so quick to bury York. If Percy will not fight for Warwick, that does change the odds somewhat, don’t you agree? We should think on that ere we decide.”

  “Jesú but you lawyers are never happy unless you’re muddying the waters. Even if you be right, Aske, and the Earl of Northumberland chooses not to move against York, what matters that to us? I say we dare not risk the Earl of Warwick’s wrath by opening the city gates to his sworn enemy!”

  “Ah, but he’s not!”

  All heads turned toward the doorway of the council chamber. That morning, Richard Burghe and Thomas Conyers had volunteered to ride out to warn the Yorkists away from the city. Now they found themselves assailed on all sides.

  “You did see him, Conyers? What says he?”

  “How does His Grace, Tom?”

  “What meant you when you said he was no sworn enemy to Warwick?”

  Conyers was grinning. “I do mean your problem has been solved, gentlemen,” he said, somewhat smugly. “Suppose I were to tell you there is a way by which we can accommodate York and yet still pacify Warwick?”

  “I’d say you were suffering from sun sickness!”

  “Not even Merlin could perform such a feat, Conyers
.”

  “Well, we lose nothing if we do hear him out…. Tom?”

  “ ’Tis very simple, in truth. Edward of York did assure us that he has no intent to seize the English crown.”

  He raised his hand to still their outbursts. “He says that he means only to lay claim to those estates which are his by right as the Duke of York…. No more than that. Moreover, he swears he’d be willing to take oath of allegiance to Lancaster should we admit him into the city…to show his good faith!”

  In the stunned silence that followed, Burghe nodded confirmation of this story none could yet believe. Conyers claimed a seat, and nudging Tom Wrangwysh in jovial complicity, he observed to the room at large, “As for me, I thought it a right fair offer—one which will gladden the heart of King Harry, I daresay!”

  They were all staring at him, with expressions that ran the gamut from outrage to amusement.

  “Christ, man, who’d believe such a tale as that? Does he think us fools?”

  “I never said you need believe it, Will. I’m only saying that when the Earl of Warwick does demand to know why we opened the city to York, we can say that he was but seeking what was his by right…the duchy of his late lord father.”

  Holbeck snorted. “Do you want to be the one to tell His Grace of Warwick that, Conyers? I say no, and let’s have an end to it!”

  Tom Wrangwysh leaned across the table to say pleasantly, “Will, I trust you’ll not take this amiss, but I think you do need reminding that you are no longer Lord Mayor.”

  In the sudden expectant hush, Holbeck’s indrawn breath was audible to all. But before he could retaliate, the City Recorder had turned to one who’d so far taken no part in the debate, said hastily, “What think you, Chris? What with the city lacking a Mayor till the dispute over the elections be settled, we’d be most interested in your views on this matter. You are, after all, Esquire of the Mayor, and if troops need be raised, yours is the responsibility.”

  “I see no such need,” the man thus appealed to said quietly, as his colleagues settled back to give him the respect due both his office and his person.